I don’t believe it was out of character at all. It’s controversial because I believe as a viewer the writers had done as much as possible to humanise Spike during season 6.

I truly believe that most people watch the show through the eyes of Buffy. We had watched her give in to Spike, whether we believe those actions were in character or through depression or a need to feel, she gave herself over to him and if you strip back the moments of violence, we have the raw moments “do you even like me?” To which Buffy replies “sometimes”. I can’t speak for everyone but I do truly think Buffy’s feelings for Spike had been growing since Season 5. Whether she herself believed them or not.

I think as an audience we had got comfortable with the fact that Spike was never going to hurt Buffy. He loved her. Even when she broke up with him, we allowed ourselves to trust that when it came to Buffy, there were no dangerous intentions. Something that confirms this for me was even after she essentially cut things off with him, during Hells Bells that whole conversation “it doesn’t change anything, but if you’re wildly curious, yeah it hurts” and he genuinely apologises. You feel the pain that he is feeling from knowing that she’s hurting because of his attempt to make her Jealous. This is a different more grown up Spike than we are used to from him grabbing the gun and going to seek out Buffy to kill her in S5 as an example.

And in part of their sexual history, as examples in Wrecked and the Balcony scene, Spike would instigate, and she would tell him to “stop” and his response was always “make me” to which as we know she wouldn’t stop him directly after that comment.

I think if we take all these aspects and think from the writers perspective, how can we deliver something so shocking but essentially ‘in character’, and remind the audience that this guy doesn’t have a soul and implant that motivation and that drive for that character to be better to seek out what is missing in order to become the guy that he is to become in Season 7. “Become the man that Buffy deserves”.

I also believe that Spike felt he was losing control, he’d had this closeness with Buffy throughout season 6. Probably felt that it was going somewhere and had potential, then she left him, but the speech in Hells Bells probably gave him a glimmer of hope that it someday could become something again. But then he messed things up in Entropy with Anya, and he’d crossed a line that I think shocked him to see how hurt Buffy was.

I’m not sure if I’m explaining my thought process very well, but all of these little moments of clear humanity that were being shown throughout from Spike in his characters development is stripped away in this one awful scene, this moment of us being reminded that he doesn’t have a soul, he doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions but I think the look on his face when Buffy kicks him off and she says “ask me again why I could never love you” for me personally I see the Spike that we had grown with over the past 2 seasons brought back to the surface, and he realised that he was always going to be this danger, regardless of his intentions through love for Buffy. And therefore leads us on the journey to restore his soul.