Franklin is basically all of William the Bloody's bad parts on crack. He's basically a diehard Bangel fangirl's badfic approximation of Spike, character bashing and all. The good news is the actor is taking this and running with it

OMG, this is such a perfect description! Franklin has reminded me of WrungOut!Spike from AtS since day one, and you've described the characterization perfectly.

It also occurs to me that this Bangel!Crackfic!Spike characterization may actually be deliberate, as I'm also really starting to suspect that Alan Ball is writing Sucky/Beel's "epic love at the core of this series" (making a total hash of it BTW) as a way to work out his Bangel issues.

God, I hate Joss Whedon and his lousy acolytes.