Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Headscratchers/Season 2

Headscratchers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Spoilers abound.

The Master's Skeleton

 * A Buffy/Angel combination: when the Master, aged about 600-800 according to Word of God, died in season 1 of Buffy, it took him at least 15 seconds to go poof in a long process of shrieking and vaporizing (as opposed to the usual 2-second drill). And even then, a skeleton remained which had to be crushed later. In season 5 of Angel, however, a freakishly ancient vampire called The Prince of Lies, who was a play on Nosferatu and was reportedly as old as darkness itself, got dusted by Angel and turned to ashes just as easily as any other vamp. Not even a skeleton or anything. Canon Discontinuity, anyone?
 * It's never been directly stated that a vampire's durability is affected by his age. While it's almost certainly a factor, there are probably many other elements. The Master, for example, was steeped in magic, and had spent the best part of a century testing the magic of the Hellmouth. Besides that, who knows the truth of the Prince of Lies' reputation? I rather like the interpretation of (the similarly Nosferatu-inspired) Shadow of the Vampire, in which the vampire himself can no longer remember his origins or age.
 * Even if a vampire's durability is affected by his age (it probably is), how he ages and "evolves" seems to be different for each vampire. The oldest ones that we know are the Master, the Prince of Lies, Kakhistos and Dracula (and then Darla and Drusilla, I guess... leaving the soul boys aside): they're all pretty different from each other. So, if there's not a recurring standard for their elderly non-life, there's no reason to assume there is a common standard for the way they get dusted. Heh... look at how Darla got dusted: I doubt the Master would be able to do that.
 * It didn't bug me with the Prince of Lies. I assumed he was ya know, lying. What rightly pissed me off was Kakistos a vampire so old he had lost his human features.
 * Kakistos hadn't spent the last 60 years living directly on top of the Hellmouth, and hadn't just immediately come off of draining a Slayer. There's every reason for the Master to have been particularly juiced up that night.

Xander's Behaviour
"Buffy: You guys were doing just fine without me. Willow: We were doing the best we could! It's not like we had a lot of choice in the matter."
 * Why was Xander still considered one of the good guys after his behavior in the season 2 finale? And two episodes into season three?
 * Because he wasn't trying to kill/maim/destroy anyone?
 * Because he's not a Mary Sue. Even good guys screw up, and let's face it, Angelus was a menace and nearly killed them all, hell he almost destroyed the entire world. Telling Buffy just to kick his ass and not hold was, in his eyes, the best plan, since even if Angel got his soul back, there'd be no guarantee he'd get it again.
 * I agree that non-Mary Sue good guys screw up. However, they should expect to face some consequences when they do. Xander effectively decided that he knew better than not just Buffy, but Willow, Giles and even Jenny. So he proceeded to break a promise to Willow, and in the process make Buffy think that Willow wasn't in any more mood to help her than he was. Yeah, good guys do make rash decisions like that, but shouldn't he have at least gotten reprimanded for it? He suffered no consequences whatsoever.
 * People don't automatically suffer consequences in reality - why should they in fiction, whether he was wrong or not? Personally this troper feels Xander was the only one with any sense of perspective about Angel. I spent half of Season 2 and 3 going "Just bloody stake him already!" OK, there wouldn't have been the spin-off but in other terms, it's amazing that the characters so soon forget that Angel is dangerous.
 * Part of the reason we enjoy fiction is because people suffer consequences that they might escape in real life. In any case, the Scooby Gang as a whole is pretty bad at dealing with demons wearing loved ones' faces - see the whole group in Dopplegangland and Xander himself in Selfless.
 * Because nobody knew but him. In Season 7 during one of the many arguments between Buffy and the rest, she calls Xander on his phrase "kick his ass", to which Willow responds "I never said that". Willow had no reason to believe Xander didn't pass the message on, and Buffy had no reason to believe Willow said anything but that unless Xander raised the topic himself, which is...unlikely.
 * Okay, then, why didn't they reprimand him when that argument was finished? I hoped that they would, and I know that I'm not the only one.
 * It's been 5 years and everything turned out OK. What would be the point?
 * I didn't mean the in-universe explanation for why he didn't have to face up to what he'd done, I was asking why the writers never had him face up to what he'd done, and we the viewers aren't supposed to mind?
 * Look at it from the point of view of watching it since it was airing. That was almost 5 years ago. Would you care about a minor lie someone told you 5 years ago?
 * Minor? Whether you think it was the right thing to do or not, it was a very large, very important lie.
 * I was of the impression that the Season 7 reference was: a. a shout out to season 2 and b. a kind of "hey, look how bad things are that the gang didn't pick up on this" thing.
 * I was of the impression that it was a Trolling Creator saying "Ha, ha, this very important issue that has divided the fandom for years will never, ever be dealt with and there's nothing you can do about it!"
 * Also, who's to say it was the wrong thing to do? At that point, Xander had no confidence that the spell would work, and also knew that even if it did, that the gateway to Hell could still be open, and that telling Buffy to "hold it back" could (and probably would) get her killed. Saying "kick his ass" instead of "hold it back" probably saved her life. And even if it didn't, it was his prerogative to decide what Buffy needed to hear at that moment. If you knew that someone had to do something hard that they had no confidence in doing, would you tell them to only do it until they could give up, or would you have them push through it all despite the hardship? Granted, Angel DID get his soul back, but that was AFTER the gate was open, and killing him and using his body to close the gate was still necessary. Selfish on Xander's part? Yes. But not irredeemably evil. And certainly not the ONLY time he's ever done something stupid. Remember that love potion? If they can keep him around after that, then slipping in a few words of encouragement can be forgiven, especially if it was really needed by Buffy (she still wasn't sure she could do the deed herself, remember. She needed it more than blind hope.)
 * None of that explains why Xander thought he had any right to talk to Buffy the way he did in the second episode of season three...
 * He's upset with her. From his point of view, she bailed on them and left them to manage the fort without (from what I recall) even letting them know she's alive. Granted, he bears some responsibility for why she did so, but people's feelings can be complex.
 * While we saw the note Buffy left for her mother, it stands to reason that Joyce may've just lied to them by saying Buffy went to see her father if asked. Also remember that at the time of Buffy's departure, Willow is in a wheelchair and the whole gang has just dealt with the world almost ending. Buffy's suddenly gone and it's pretty much left to an injured inexperienced witch Willow, a Watcher in Giles, an inexperienced Xander, an inexperienced Cordelia, and a three days of the month werewolf Oz to protect Sunnydale. While they probably just fought off vampires, something bigger could have occurred too and Buffy was nowhere to be found and none of them had any idea where she was or if she was even alive. Willow makes mention of the fact that they dusted just six out of ten vampires (she says 9 of 10 but Oz corrects her) and who knows how many they did not even encounter. Willow points out how they had to pick up the slack to Buffy.


 * Buffy took her friends for granted. She ran off, came back three months later and expected to be treated just as before as if nothing had happened. I don't blame her, she was in a world of pain that summer but I don't blame Willow and Xander for feeling hurt by such a behavior either. Also notice that the scandal in Dead Man's Party only starts after Buffy tries to skip town once more which led Willow amd Xander to believe that Buffy didn't care about them or their friendship. Selfish? Yes. Human? Totally.
 * But that only happened after Willow repeatedly avoided Buffy when Buffy needed her the most (blew her off and the party), and her mother said having her back was in some ways worse. You can say Buffy was selfish, but her friends were just as bad, if not worse for trying to call her on it while ignoring their own faults. Granted they wouldn't have known how hard it is on Buffy, since they didn't know at this point that Buffy was forced to kill Angel while he had his soul - which undoubtedly must have made this whole thing much, much worse for her - but Willow thought she had succeeded, so the clues were there had she bothered to look.
 * Xander is considered one of the good guys because he is in fact a good guy. Yes, there's a lot of shades of gray involved but not more so than Buffy herself.
 * If Xander changed the outcome of Season 2 at all, though, he basically did it for the better. Telling Buffy that Willow was trying to restore Angel's soul would have most likely made her more hesitant in fighting him in the first place. Once it happened, I doubt there was any confusion as to what had happened (Buffy already knew Willow had tried once and been attacked). Buffy being forced to stab him would have happened regardless, since Angel succeeding in removing the sword happened regardless. Not to mention, Xander saved Giles. As for his behavior in Season 3, he's pissed at Buffy for abandoning them all, and arguably he's justified in it. Willow, Joyce, and Giles are all pissed at her, Xander just is the most outward about it.
 * So, remind me why so many people think Xander's the reason that Buffy had to send Angel to the hell dimension. Season 3 startup scrappiness aside, had he told her "Oh, Willow's trying to give him back his soul, keep him away from the statue but try not to kill him," the only way it could possibly have changed (due to Buffy going all-out in the timeline that did happen) is that Angelus might have killed Buffy and/or gotten to Acathla slightly earlier. Since he did tell her "kick his ass" (more specifically, that that's what Willow had wanted to say), it would have risked Buffy dusting Angel before he got his soul back, or before she noticed that he had been re-ensouled (which didn't happen), but it also stopped her from holding back and increasing the risk of Angelus killing her or completing the ritual (the latter of which, unfortunately, happened anyway). Is the problem that if Buffy had held back and Angelus had completed the ritual and (assuming Buffy could even overpower him in the same, useful way she had Angel) gotten sent to the hell dimension, that he wouldn't have had a soul at the time and wouldn't have been miserable? That he wouldn't have had a soul at the time and Buffy wouldn't have felt so guilty? A combination of the two (what I think is the case)? Or something else?
 * Giving Angel his soul back was only a back-up plan in case Buffy failed to kill him anyway... And given it's a curse, it's not as though Willow would have been doing him, and therefore Buffy, much of a favor, which she'd have realized if she'd thought it through. Any guilt surely belongs to Willow not Xander. As the troper above said, Buffy would have needed to kill Angel anyway.
 * So Xander is blamed for putting a higher priority on saving the world than saving Angel or being honest with Buffy? Can I just revel in certain fans' fabulous lack of priorities? Not to mention that Angel pulled the sword from Acathla before Buffy had a chance to engage him in a fight an stall for time waiting for the spell to work so the whole thing is monumentally moot.
 * Don't kid yourself about Xander's motives. When confronted with a demon wearing his best friend's face in Dopplegangland, and his lover's in Selfless, he was just as reluctant to kill as Buffy.
 * Neither of those cases involved an imminent threat of the end of the world. The Acathla incident did. It is entirely logical to take more drastic actions than you normally would when the situation is more desperate. While I agree with you that Xander was jealous of Angel, that isn't the reason he's lying to Buffy. That would be the reason he'd be much less broken up than Buffy (or anyone save maybe Giles) at the thought of Angel dying, but there's still a distinction between 'I don't like this guy and won't cry at his funeral' and 'I am willing to murder this dude in cold blood just to get myself a girlfriend.'
 * And the other case with Xander that did involve the imminent end of the world, the takedown of Darth Rosenberg in "Grave", had the compassionate approach as Xander's only possible course of action because at that point Willow was beyond any physical force he could possibly bring. Even the rocket launcher.
 * I think I can answer this. Xander wanted to Murder The Hypnotuse, thus didn't reveal the plan to resoul Angel. As for Dead Man's Party? Word of God was the events of the episode were to be dragged out a lot longer, but the writers wanted to get to the Mayor plot, thus they cobbled together a hack that looked like it belonged in season seven.
 * Oh please. If Xander actually wanted Angel dead, all he'd have to do is catch the guy asleep and set him on fire. Dawn figured that one out, so its not like Xander's going to miss it.
 * And yet he never did so all the while he was lecturing the rest of the Scoobies on their dereliction of duty. It's almost like he didn't quite dare to do it himself.
 * Angel lives alone, with no special security precautions. Angelus is forted up with Drusilla, Spike, and God only knows how many minion vamps. (Remember, even Giles only gets as far as he does because Spike deliberately holds Drusilla back from coming to Angelus' aid.) Xander doesn't go to his house and light him up because he has no hope of catching him alone, and since they're not total idiots they likely don't all sleep at the same time. Also, Drusilla is psychic.
 * Leaving Anya at the altar for an absolutely BS reason, no one, AT ALL, calling him out on this, and then Xander having the unmitigated gall to judge Anya for having sex with Spike in the immediate aftermath? W.T.F? This was the exact moment when I got turned well and truly off BVTS.
 * Xander'd been uncomfortable with the impending marriage all season. The unfortunate fact is, he's just too young; the big Apocalypse proposal was a grand and powerful gesture, but after they all lived through it, he started to have cold feet. He NEEDED to talk to Anya about maybe putting it off all season; Once More With Feeling even gave him them a song about this problem, I'll Never Tell, the title of which is precisely why it all went to hell. That he broke off the wedding was inevitable; the demon itself only gave his season-long fears and doubts solid form and forced him to face up to them. It's the timing that was just terrible.
 * What pisses me off is that that makes Xander's assurance about his apocalypse marriage proposal complete BS, and that Anya was completely on the money when she accused him of that.
 * He probably genuinely believed he meant it at the time. Anya saw through it initially because she's actually pretty decent at the same "See it for what it is, with all the social and ethical bs stripped from it" shtick that Spike is, but I have no doubt Xander honestly believed he was ready for it in the heat of the moment, and only started to freak out afterwards. But yeah, Anya was totally right.
 * I prefer to believe that he really did mean it, and that was just backpedaling by the writers.
 * Everyone seems to miss this point, but in "Hell's Bells", it's implied that Xander leaves Anya because his father was abusive toward his mother and as a result he's irrationally terrified he'll one day hurt or even kill Anya if they get married. This isn't so much a BS excuse as it is an indication that Xander needs lots and lots of therapy.
 * Not lots of therapy, just one sentence from Anya: Xander, just how much abuse do you suppose a former vengeance demon would take? Xander never gave her the chance.
 * Well, Xander just spent the episode living his worst nightmare. Asking him to put it aside in the span of ten minutes and get married in front of the very people he's terrified of turning into might be asking a bit much.
 * Forget all the small stuff: what about the mass Criminally Negligent Homicide he committed in the Once More With Feeling?
 * Given that the only two members of the Scooby Gang who are not guilty of at least one count of manslaughter, if not murder, are Dawn and Tara, its not like they have much of a moral high ground to judge him from.

The Judge

 * In "Innocence", Spike and Dru realise that Angel's curse has been broken when the Judge fails to burn him, declaring that there is no humanity in him. But why was he able to burn the (presumably equally soulless) vampire Dalton in the previous episode?
 * Dalton loved to read for the joy of reading and to acquire knowledge, which were "good" traits.
 * It's not just a soul, it's how "human" they are. Dalton had a very human love for love and study, hence he got burned. The Judge also mentions that Drusilla and Spike could be burned because of their love for each other. Angelus couldn't be burned because he's just that sadistic.
 * I've always though that Dalton was one of those "Not so bad" villains that could've easily become a good guy. Though we didn't saw him that much, he seemed to be rather nice for a vampire. He may not had a soul, but he definitely had human emotions (a bit like Spike, or even Dracula) I even writed an unpublished oneshot fanfic about what would happened if he wasn't burn by the Judge... Yeah... Don't ask, Dalton was one of my favorites characters along with a few others "monsters of the week" like M. Trick, Kulak of the Miquot Clan and Sweet.

I'd like to Order one slayer, extra-dead.
"Demon 1: Hey I just killed the Slayer! Demon 2: How'd you manage that? Demon 1: I hired the "Order of Taraka to kill her! Demon 2: ...wuss!"
 * Since the Order of Taraka turned out to be so scarily effective against a slayer, you have to wonder why they haven't been called on by other big bads throughout history. Spike's lackey questions whether hiring them is "overkill", but when Spike says it's "just enough kill", he has a point - who, from evil's point of view, is a bigger target than the slayer? It's possible that whatever price they demand for their services is far more than most would be willing to pay (and maybe that's what the minion meant by "overkill"), but it's interesting that a team of assassins capable of taking out a slayer has existed for centuries, but apparently hadn't been used in that way (if Giles' shocked reaction is any indication) until Spike hired them.
 * One possible explanation is that, since a new slayer's immediately called by the death of the last one, most villains would consider killing the slayer to be nothing but buying a little bit of extra time. And if the Order of Taraka charges per individual Slayer, they could run up a huge bill very quickly...
 * Killing a slayer is a big thing for a demon or vampire. Its a pride thing. Can you imagine some demon walking up to his demon buddies and bragging about hiring the Order of Taraka to kill the Slayer?


 * Also, where did you get that the Order of Taraka was effective at killing the Slayer? XANDER and CORDELIA were able to kill one of their assassins. They sent three assassins to Sunnydale and all three turned up dead, with the Slayer alive and kicking. This, coupled with the above note about the Slayer line, means that fighting the Slayer ONCE might be good for a paycheck, but sustained conflict would be terrible for business. Slayers will continue to be called indefinitely. No matter how many assassins they have to throw at her when she's found, it's a losing battle. The Order of Taraka will run out of men long before the Slayer line spontaneously decides not to exist anymore.
 * Most of the villians throughout the series aren't much concerned with Buffy. The Mayor specifically told Angel NOT to kill Buffy because he didn't want a new Slayer being called, one that could potentially sneak up on him at least he knew who this slayer was. Adam wanted her alive. Glory needed her alive or thought she did and if she wanted here dead she'd have done it. The Trio didn't want her dead. The First wasn't impressed. At all.
 * And as to other demons doing it throughout history, there's no way of knowing if it's ever been done before. As was mentioned above, killing the Slayer is a badge of pride among demons. Any demon who wound up paying the Order of Taraka to remove a particularly dangerous Slayer from their activities would never actually fess up to doing so. There could be any number of instances we will never know about because the hiring party lied about it and the Order of Taraka don't talk much.

Angel's Invitation to Giles' Home

 * Maybe I missed an earlier episode where Giles invited him in, but how did Angel get into his house to leave Jenny's corpse?
 * Maybe Angelus threw the corpse and all the romantic stuff through the windows.
 * I thought it was Jenny's house, so that he could come in once she was dead.
 * It was established in a throw-away line earlier that Angel has an invitation to Giles', but we never learn why. I'm not normally one to call Ho Yay, but there's also the fact that, after it's established that Angelus is most driven to hurt those who Angel was close to, he did way more nasty stuff to Giles than to Buffy.
 * Until Jenny joined, Angel was the only other adult in the Scooby Gang. Its hardly suspicious that Giles would want a private place to confer with him. As for the 'way more nasty stuff', Angel killed Jenny Calendar because she was a threat to him, not just to get at Giles: leaving her corpse for Giles to find was merely a bonus.
 * Was the invitation magically revoked? The Christmas episode showed that Giles had to invite Angel in.
 * A few episodes after that (I don't remember exactly when, it might even have been before), Giles figures out how to revoke the invitation, which we see Buffy and Willow use in their houses (and in a throwaway comment, Cordelia's car). I would assume that they did the same to Giles' house.
 * "Passion" was the episode where they learned the de - invite spell; Giles was on his way home to perform it when he stumbled on "Jenny's" surprise.
 * Angel has been in Giles' apartment before, I think it was at the end of season 1 when he was helping Giles get the Codex.
 * Indeed, Angel is one of the best source of info the gang has had up to that point (the Harvest, the Master, the Judge, Drusilla, Spike, the Anointed One, etc.); it would have been normal for Giles to invite him in to discuss some of this, especially info they might not want the gang to hear. Remember, Buffy had walked in on them discussing her prophetized death when they did so in the School's library; they might not have wanted it to happen again.

Why Contain Daryl?

 * In the Season 2 episode "Some Assembly Required", I don't understand why they'd have to keep Daryl locked up like that. Is it because of the government? I think they'd be very happy and rewarding to people who know how to bring people back from the dead. Give mom a heart attack? Solve this problem by not letting her see him until they think it's the right time. Or, avoid all of the above issues by getting him a fake identity. All the scars on his face? Yeah, they're freaky as hell. But I've seen people who faces scarred even worse than that still living their lives, and the worst I've seen is people staring at them, never anything like getting screamed at for daring to show their faces in public. Makeup could also at least make the scars a bit less creepy. And his insanity seemed to have come from desperation and loneliness, so... yeah.
 * Daryl was the one who wouldn't come out in public. At one point his brother tried to convince him to come out, he said no. At a guess I'd say it was because he'd been the guy every girl wanted and was now all scarred and green.

Why Would a Moment of Pure Happiness Remove Angel's Soul?

 * Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get why the gypsies would make it so if Angel was happy, then he'd revert to being a complete monster. How would the pure happiness thing benefit them? Wouldn't it be easier to permanently bond the soul to him?
 * Angel was cursed with a soul so that he'd have the emotion to feel and live with all the evil things he's done - leaving him without a soul or killing him wouldn't really have and effect but having a soul he'd have to live everyday in misery and guilt over everything. If he reached perfect happiness then the point of his soul (to punish him by having him miserable) is gone. Reverting him back to Angelus when he reached happiness would make sure that he could NEVER be happy.
 * It may or may not have been easier to permanently bond his soul. Magic is clearly established as being weird like that early on. The reality is that the gypsies were established to be dicks and maybe they thought that if he was enjoying being a vampire that they'd failed so epically they might as well let him go back to being free range evil. Honestly it makes LESS sense that his moment of perfect happiness happened when it did. I just barely survived a fight and an invincible demon has been resurrected, it's gonna take more than me getting in a girls pants to produce perfect happiness. Maybe it's just me who thinks the end of the world would be depressing enough to keep me from getting there. Though I probably would have gone evil when Buffy came back from the dead but that would have been REAL inconvenient.
 * It's stated in the spin off that his moment of pure happiness wasn't just because he got in a girl's pants, but because it was Buffy specifically, who Angel's completely in love with.
 * No matter how in love you are a moment of perfect (remember in the same episode it's pointed out that most people have to deal with acceptable happiness and perfect happiness is an incredibly rare thing) happiness should not have came immediately on the heels of a near death experience, the ressurection of an unkillable demon who was going to kill both of them in short order. When she came back from the dead would have made sense, first kiss would have made sense, when she touched him in his vampiric form would have made sense. The only reason the curse didn't activate at any of those times is it likely didn't exist yet.
 * The heels of a neart-death experience is actually an excellent time for a moment of perfect happiness. Surviving a near-death experience makes everything more meaningful for people. We tend to take what we have for granted; when we come very close to losing everything, the world becomes a lot more flavorful for a while. Angel was still in that period of "Embrace and savor everything that happens" that comes after a near-death experience, shutting out all the bad to bury himself in the good (in this case, the sex). That was his moment of Perfect Happiness with Buffy.
 * It's a unbelievably stupid and myopic curse anyway since all it does is make him feel bad when he's not committing horrible atrocities, with the contingency that he'll immediately go back to being a threat to all humanity should he ever be happy. When presented with the opportunity to permanently rid the world of a dangerous evil, these idiots choose instead to put a timer on it.
 * Of course they did. They weren't trying to rid the world of evil. They were trying to make Angelus suffer a horrible torment. As Jenny's uncle put it, it was not justice they were after, it was vengeance.
 * Honestly, the worst part is the fact that if he's truly in love with Buffy, almost every moment near her should be a moment of perfect happiness. If nothing else, the moment after the curse was put back on him, and he saw her for the first as if he'd gone months without seeing her, then that should have been a moment of perfect happiness. That moment when you wake up, and the person you love is there, and you touch them and feel them, and it feels like all the bad times are behind you, that should be a moment of perfect happiness. And thus the curse should have lifted immediately after it was replaced.

Vampire Healing

 * Why did marginal exposure to indirect sunlight in What's My Line seem to weaken Angel to the point that he needed a relatively substantial amount of time to recover? Angel's wandered around in the sun before with just a coat over his head without any ill effects.
 * Narrative convenience, even the writers admit that. After that he was recovering from the ritual were Drusilla sucked the 'life' out of him, it was supposed to kill him.
 * Also, in a somewhat related question, why was Spike in a wheelchair in any case- wouldn't vampire healing have taken care of his injuries relatively quickly?
 * Even with advanced healing some injuries just take longer and still may be permenent. They may have thought Spike was permenently paralysed.
 * Yeah, it's possible that vampire healing is just a sped up version of normal, human healing, not an altogether different thing. So an injury that could be healed if thenot for death (like a sword through the belly) can heal up, but a permanent spinal injury wouldn't because it's not something that the human body can heal.
 * Human beings generally don't heal back their severed spinal chords ever, but Spike does in just a couple months. It doesn't seem to be 'impossible injuries never heal' but instead 'impossible injuries heal much more slowly'. That having been said, we do see that if you cut something off of a vampire entirely, it won't grow back.

Angelus the ineffective
Heck, imagine this, Giles goes into the library, and is shocked and horrified to find hanging from the shelves several high school students, lifeless and drained of blood. It doesn't cost us anyone we know, it establishes better warfare than dead fish, and shows that Angel is attacking their home turf much more effectively than drawings of Buffy's mom. Another possibility is the death of one of the Scooby gang's parents. Cordy's, Xander's, whoever, leading to Angel forcing division in Buffy's ranks as well as dividing her forces to multiple points to protect them. The only way she can combat this is to reveal of the Masquerade to their parents as more people get involved and/or slaughtered. The reason I made this rather gruesome rant? In season 2, we get a lot of hype on how EVIL and scary Angelus is, and for most of the season, it is unjustified. But the watershed moment for Angelus is when he's possessed by the teacher's ghost, and is forced to feel love again. He clearly views this as an utter violation, and its after this that he pretty much decides that he's through with the games and just wants to send everything to hell.
 * Okay, so Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, the terror of the 18th and 19th century, gets unleashed by the curse being lifted due to a Roma loophole. That's fine, and brings out the chance of a really good villain. Problem, Angelus is not an effective villain. What did he do during his terrible spree in Sunnydale? He grilled some fish and broke Jenny Calendar's neck. Psychological torture is fine and all, but grilling fish, really? You could have gotten more conflict if Willow came home and found, instead of her fish had been barbecued, that her parents were limbless, or that her mom had been raped, or that the house was on fire with them inside. All of these are better than dead fish because they mean business, and up until he actually killed Jenny, I thought Angelus was nothing but hype. You might argue that its Contractual Immortality, but that's bogus, because at that point, we had never seen Xander's or Willow's parents, and they are hardly ever shown throughout the rest of the series.
 * Even when we're shown how he was during his prime Angelus was really just a hooligan with vampire powers. He just has really good PR and believes his own hype. Really what we're shown really has him as just kinda petty in both Buffy and Angel.
 * My guess is that as vicious as he may be, he's not stupid enough to pick a fight with the Slayer, especially when he knows just how strong she it. If I remember correctly, she never really tried her best to stake him, since he didn't really do anything that bad up until killing Jenny, which he only did because he knew that she was trying to ensoul him again (though I'm sure he didn't complain about the chance to kill her and then psychologically torture Giles and the rest of the gang with her death). Buffy still loved him and wasn't trying her hardest to kill him, and if he had committed any major atrocities, her anger would have outweighed her reluctance. He was more effective with small jabs of psychological torture; nothing bad enough to have Buffy going after him guns blazing, but disturbing enough to throw everyone off balance and never know what to expect next. That's my theory anyway.
 * My theory is that the first time Angelus is released he gets the impression he's free for good. So, he starts playing it very slowly. If he had his way, he would have killed off every member of the Scooby Gang, individually and in the most sadistic way possible, and left their bodies for the survivors to find. Possibly over the course of a few years. The discovery of Acathla shifted his priorities, however, so he satisfied himself with sending the planet to hell. At any rate, when he re-emerges several years later, he knows he can be re-ensouled again if he's not careful, so his former teammates are prime murder targets. This would explain his much more dangerous behavior in that arc.
 * Well, actually, Angelus in season four of Angel didn't go after his former teammates as prime murder targets because he knows he can be re-ensouled by them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he just decide to go back and go after his friends (former friends) after he found that there were no more people left around too kill due to the blackout?
 * I agree that he was planning to take things slowly - he starts with pets, but also threatening Willow and Buffy that he can kill them while they sleep at any time. He also threatens Buffy with the possibility of killing Joyce. By Valentine's Day, he was planning to kill Xander, but was prevented by the bespelled Drusilla.
 * Not to be cranky, but the version of season two that is described at the top of this thread sounds like a total drag. Yes, of course we could have had a season full of horrible graphic rape and murder and people mourning their parents, but that would have been a different show that I'd probably consider tacky and dull. Instead, terrible things are alluded to while Angel bides his time, kills fish, and oh yeah, eventually murders Giles's girlfriend and romantically arranges her body for him to find in his bed. Which happens in the same episode as the fish killing, incidentally, because the show is toying with you in exactly the same way that Angel is toying with Buffy and friends. Your expectations are supposed to be dialed down before Jenny's death, and apparently they were. Not sure what the problem is other than wanting a different genre of show.
 * OP here. I'm not saying I wanted a season of graphic television that the standards office would faint at. I'm saying I wanted Angelus to be an effective villain. If he was a vampire who just bought into his own hype, that would be one thing, but to have the entire cast soiling their respective pants because Angelus is in town, shows that we're meant to take him as a genuine threat, and most of what he does is just heckle them like a demonic Statler and Waldorf,. It's Informed Ability, and it's grating.
 * It's not an informed ability. Angel likes to emotionally torture people. He can get into their houses, he can murder their friends and family. He's fucking terrifying. The lack of sleep alone would have been torture enough.
 * It's entirely an informed ability. Angelus's power is clearly great PR. Look at his displayed history. He killed Jenny and I assume dozens of unnamed citizens. Big whoop, every vampire racks up an off screen kill or ten. The only truly impressive things he does is attempt to awaken Akathla, which is admitedly we need bigger scales on the one to ten scale of evil. He does all of nothing aside from try to eliminate direct threats when he comes back in Angel. Throughout the flash backs we find out that he wasn' even that terrible a vampire. Holts was hunting him, he eventually killed Holt' family. After that he doesn't do anything evil enough to warrent documentation. If the Gypsies weren't complete morons Darla would have ended up with a soul not Angel. Darla captured the girl, Darla delivered her to Angel. All he did was feed. It's not that Angel is blameless, he's about as blameless as a man sitting down to a steak dinner is of killing a cow.
 * Close. Angelus' power is psychological warfare. He's talented at killing, yes -- even by vampire standards he's still an extremely skilled fighter, just like Spike is. But he's nowhere near as invincible as people think he is, and that is the point. Angelus is good enough at the mind games that by this point he has an entirely deliberate and self-created legend built up around him as the hideous Scourge of Europe, the monster that even monsters fear, and he lets that reputation do most of the work for him. When he finally runs into somebody who simply has stopped giving a fuck about that reputation, he loses. So, in essence, you're correct -- his power is public relations. I'm just pointing out that 'being good enough at PR you win most fights before they even start on sheer psyche-out' is still a legitimate talent.
 * Also, as is referred to many, many times throughout the season by Spike himself, Angelus is a Complete Monster, but he's not a master strategist. He didn't even consider the possibility of Giles coming after him for killing Jenny and was caught completely off-guard. In fact, if Giles hadn't been too caught up in his Berserk Button, given the weapons he had and how off-guard he caught Angelus (and how unwilling Spike was to lend a hand), odds are if he'd gone for a few arrows and a stake instead of a flaming baseball bat, that would have been the end for Angelus.

Council Communications.
The Watcher's Council has some of the worst communication skills in known history. It's bafflingly bad. First Buffy's death and revival caused Kendra to be called up which is explained fairly well except for a few things. It's clear that the Council knows about Buffy and that she's ALIVE. While it's possible Giles didn't directly report the situation to the Council (which would be bafflingly stupid but possble) when Kendra was called up there was apparently no confusion within the Council itself which is why nobody called Giles to offer condolences or anything of the sort. Worse when Kendra is sent to Sunnydale she immediately goes on the hunt. Why wasn't she sent TO GILES. She's clearly a take orders Slayer and the only reason she wouldn't immediately seek out an authority figure is because she wasn't aware that there was a local authority figure to check into and her Watcher knew there was trouble in a place he should have known had a Slayer and he didn't pick up the phone?!

The Soul Ritual

 * Something that really bugged me was the group's decision to do the ritual to bring back Angel's soul in the library, considering that they had been attacked there before. Why not go to someone's house for easy protection from vampires? I know they wanted to get the ritual done ASAP to stop Angel from reviving Acathla, but since the ritual itself seemed to be a pretty short affair when done later on, it just seems like it would be worth using Oz's van to go to a house/apartment/etc while also preparing whatever else was needed. Hell, even just using Oz's van by itself would've made more sense, if it was true that cars are resistant to vampire entry (though Cordelia's whining about needing to get her car re-proofed against Angel earlier in the season could have just been Cordelia being stupid and the others finding it easier to humor her than to argue).

Kendra, Dru, Angelus and the Judge.
Kendra is sent to Sunnydale because her Watcher senses a dark presense rising in Sunnydale. Which turns out to be Drusilla. Let's for the moment forgive the fact that Kendra is the one who captures Angel for Spike because that wasn't her plan. What's so impressive about Drusilla that it qualifies as something to send the Slayer after? Of all our major vampires she's by far the most "tame" and the only major threat is her seeing which seems balanced by her crazy most of the time. Angelus however didn't qualify as a big threat until he found Acathla? I'll be the first to admit Angelus' reputation far and wide outstrips his actions but he's still clearly worse than Dru and the Judge was supposed to be invincible and might well have been a global threat had Xander not had a stroke of genius.
 * It's implied (if not outright stated, I can't remember for sure) that, if Drusilla does not go through the healing ritual, she would soon die. If she dies, Spike presumably lacks a reason to begin assembling The Judge. Notice how Spike only reached an apocalyptic level of evil as a show of affection for Drusilla, and how quick he was to backstab Angelus on the Acathla plot when Drusilla was not mooning over him anymore. So, basically, Kendra's watcher thought to send Kendra to eliminate Drusilla because she is a vampire both crazy enough to do world-ending stuff and able to influence others into doing so as well. As for why Kendra wasn't recalled sooner, it was a combination of (a) the apparent deaths of Spike and Drusilla after the healing ritual lulling Kendra's watcher into a false sense of security, (b) the time between learning that Spike and Drusilla are assembling The Judge and Team Scooby blowing him up was too short for Kendra to be sent back again, and (c) the lack of a major apocalyptic threat after The Judge's demise until people recovered Acathla's big rock, at which point Kendra was sent to Sunnydale again. I guess that Kendra's watcher noticed that Angelus and Spike both focus their evil on relatively petty and personal affairs when they are not motivated to look at the bigger picture by Drusilla, so either one individually simply being around does not pose a major threat in itself if Drusilla is out of the picture.
 * It wasn't about Dru, specifically. Kendra was sent because a dark power was aboot to rise in Sunnydale. Classic Slayer/Watcher "something bad is going to happen, go stop it" at its finest, and it was completely, 100% true, Kendra just wasn't around for most of it. Drusilla's rise led to the present of the Judge, which in turn led to Angelus losing his soul, which ultimately snowballed into Acathla. The dark power wasn't Drusilla, specifically, it was this entire chain of events; Kendra was only recalled because they mistakenly assumed the dark power had been stopped, and was sent back to Sunnydale when the mistake was realized.