Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S1/E07 Angel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"I've killed a lot of vampires. I've never hated one before."

The Master is displeased that Buffy is killing his vampires, the latest victim being on of his lieutenants. Deeming Darla's request to deal with Buffy too personally motivated, the Master decides instead to send "The Three," a cadre of vampire assassins, to take the Slayer out.

The Three ambush Buffy on her way home from pre-fumigation night at the Bronze. Angel shows up at a critical moment, but is wounded helping the Slayer break out of a dicey triple hold. Buffy abandons the fight and helps Angel run to her house, where she yells at him to get inside. With The Three safely on the other side of the door, Angel exposits that a vampire can't enter someone's home unless it's invited in. Remember that, kids.

As Buffy bandages Angel's wound, and they flirt a bit. Joyce suddenly drops in, and Buffy, anxious that the vampires might be lurking nearby, hurriedly slams the door. With her mother safe inside, she realize the danger is far from over. She has a boy in the house! Buffy quickly improvises that Angel is a college student tutoring her in history, but Joyce sternly suggests that it's a bit late for 'tutoring.' Buffy pretends to pack Angel off, but instead sneaks him up to her bedroom to wait out the vamps. There is a moment of awkwardness about sleeping arrangements before they settle in for the evening.

The next day at school, Xander is aghast to hear that Angel slept over, but Willow wants to hear all the juicy details. As usual, Giles tries to divert the "riveting conversation" back to the vampires who attacked Buffy. He identifies the armored trio and reassures everyone that The Three are no longer a threat, since they must offer their lives to the Master in penance for failing their mission. He tells her that they were not just any vampires, but warrior vampires. Having failed to kill the Slayer, they must now offer their lives to The Master, in penance.

Returning home, Buffy brings some supper for Angel, who has waited out the day in her room. As they talk, Buffy notices her diary is askew; she automatically assumes that Angel has read her innermost thoughts about him, and goes into a tirade about privacy. Unobtrusively setting aside the food, Angel mentions that Joyce moved the diary while straightening up; Angel swears he didn't read it. As Buffy takes a moment to soak up the embarrassment, Angel confesses that he returns her feelings, but doesn't think he should be around her. Buffy looks at Angel with speculation and hope. She barely listens as Angel continues to mutter miserably that he's older than she is and that he should go. They take that last half-step toward each other. At first hesitant and sweet, their kiss quickly grows heated and passionate. Suddenly, Angel pulls back with a snarl and Buffy lets out a terrified scream; Angel's face is twisted into the guise of the vampire. With Joyce alerted, Angel haphazardly escapes out the window, then disappears into the night.

The next morning, Buffy wistfully asks Giles if it's possible for a vampire to also be a good person. Giles confidently tells her that it's impossible because a vampire is not a person at all but a demon by nature. Xander, delighted by the news, reminds Buffy that it's her duty to slay Angel. Thanks.

Elsewhere, Angel returns to his dank apartment. He senses an intruder, but is a little surprised see Darla sashaying from the shadows. They talk and we learn that the two have a long history together. She taunts him, telling him humans will never accept him for who he is, and Angel clarifies that he's not accepted by vamps either. Darla tells him he can only sustain his hunger for so long. As a parting shot, she challenges him to tell Buffy about "the curse," and if it blows up in his face, he always has a home with The Master -- and her. Angel stands there looking Real Troubled.

In the library, Giles scans over the Watcher Diaries for any mention of Angel and pulls up Angelus, "the one with the angelic face", who wreaked havoc all over Ireland and Europe. Abruptly, he came to America, where he shunned vampire life. After that, the records run dry. Willow is hopeful that this means Angel may not be bad after all, but Giles is quick to point out that vampires require the hunt and the kill ("Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly," Xander says pointedly). Buffy argues that Angel has had ample opportunity to feed off people but resisted.

Meanwhile, in the Master's lair, Darla takes another stab at volunteering to kill Buffy. She cooks up a diabolical plan to have Angel kill Buffy, thereby returning to the Master's fold. The Master waxes nostalgic about what a "vicious creature" Angel was.

That evening, Darla drops in on the Summers Home where she cons Joyce into inviting her in by claiming to be yet a "study buddy" of Buffy's. Prowling around Buffy's house himself, Angel hears Joyce's cry and rushes in just as Darla begins to drink from her. Daring Angel to drink too, Darla thrusts Joyce's limp body into his arms and flees out the back door. Tempted by Joyce's warm blood, Angel momentarily vamps out, but resists the impulse to drink long enough to be discovered -- in flagranté, so to speak -- by a just-arrived Buffy. Horrified, Buffy literally throws him out of the house, then calls for an ambulance.

At the hospital, Buffy, Giles, Willow and Xander try to help "anemic" Joyce reconstruct events, and she says her last memory is of inviting Buffy's "friend" inside. Buffy misunderstands, thinking Joyce means Angel rather than Darla. Finally convinced of her duty, Buffy sets out to kill Angel. Leaving her mother in the care of friends and doctors, Buffy races to the library, takes the crossbow from the weapons locker, and storms out into the night.

At Angel's apartment, Darla works him into a fury, telling him how easy it was to poison Buffy against him, exhorting him to kill or be killed.

At the hospital, Joyce tells Giles about Darla's visit. He puts two and two together and excuses himself to find Buffy, before she kills the wrong vampire. He rushes from the hospital room, with Willow and Xander hot on his heels.

Buffy tracks Angel to the deserted Bronze. After some impersonal and witty banter, Angel is ready to rumble. Eventually Buffy gets Angel in her crossbow sights; he morphs back to his human face and tells her to kill him. To Angel's surprise, the Slayer intentionally shoots wide and her bolt thunks into the wall beside his head. When Buffy demands to know why Angel toyed with her affections, Angel sneeringly recounts highlights from his Angelus days. When Buffy asks what changed, Angel laments that he was cursed by the Romani, a gypsy tribe, for eating one of their daughters. The Gypsies restored his soul as a means to wrack him with guilt, eternally tormenting him. Angel denies biting Joyce, yet confesses wanting to, as well as wanting to kill Buffy herself. At this, Buffy lays aside her crossbow and offers her throat to Angel; he doesn't stir. Suddenly, Darla jumps out from the shadows, game face on. She hisses that she and Angel were lovers for two centuries and that she is Angel's sire. Having now written Angel off as a lost cause, Darla pulls her hands out from behind her back to reveal two guns, one in each hand. She starts firing and hits Angel, who falls to the floor. She keeps firing at Buffy, who dives behind a pool table to regroup. Darla advances at her, guns blazing.

Outside, Giles, Willow and Xander are walking by when they hear the gun shots. They sneak inside, formulating a plan to tell Buffy the truth about Angel. Willow throws caution to the wind and shouts out the information. Darla whirls around and starts shooting in the direction of their voices. The wounded Angel suddenly lunges toward the wall and yanks out the crossbow bolt that missed his head earlier. Looming up from behind, Angel stakes Darla through the heart with Buffy's bolt, dusting his maker.

Underground, the Master is in a hilarious rage, screaming and smashing things. Distraught over the loss of both Darla and Angel, he is inconsolable even as Colin, the Anointed One, tells him that Darla was expendable. "Soon you shall rise," Colin says, "And when you do, we'll kill them all." This cheers up the Master, and two stroll off hand-in-hand together.

At the Bronze's Post-Fumigation Party, Willow asks Buffy if she's heard from Angel. Buffy tells her she hasn't, but that she does feel he is still watching over her. Willow agrees, pointing to Angel, who is staring at them from the doorway. Soft music plays as Buffy approaches him slowly; the cross he gave her fastened firm around her neck. They convince each other that their romance can never happen. With a final goodbye, they kiss. Angel's open shirt reveals his chest is branded by the impression of Buffy's cross.

Tropes

  • Seventh-Episode Twist: We learn that Angel is a refugee from The Master's order. What's more, he and Darla used to be an item.
  • After-Action Patchup: Buffy tending to Angel's shoulder. This is where we get our first look at his trademark tattoo.
  • Ahem: The Watcher's Diaries mention a two-hundred-forty-year-old vampire named Angelus, "the one with the angelic face," which causes Xander to cough stagily.
  • All Men Are Perverts: Xander tries to tell Buffy that Angel is using the "oldest trick in the book" to seduce her.

Buffy: What, saving my life? Getting slashed in the ribs?
Xander: Duh!

  • Annoying Arrows: Buffy fires the crossbow squarely at, Darla but misses her heart. Buffy watches as Darla grabs the bolt, pulls it out, and tosses it aside. "Close, but no heart."
    • Tempting Fate: Cue Angel, lunging from behind and jamming a leftover bolt in Darla's back.
  • Assassin Outclassin': The Three return to the Master's lair and offer their lives in penance for their failure, as is dictated by their code.
  • Badass Long Hair: Each of The Three.
  • Bait and Switch Comment: The Master taking Colin aside for another lesson in leadership. "With power comes responsibility. True, they did fail, but also true, we who walk at night share a common bond." Colin asks if the Master is going to spare them, and one of the Three looks up hopefully. The Master considers it as he rises and says, " I am weary, and their deaths will bring me little joy." He starts to walk off with Colin, and behind them Darla raises her spear and stakes the first of the Three. The Master turns to Colin and finishes, "Of course, sometimes a little is enough." Oh, that wacky Master!
  • Beard of Evil: One of The Three.
  • Beautiful Dreamer

Angel: You even look pretty when you go to sleep.
Buffy: Well, when I wake up it's an entirely different story.

  • Being Personal Isn't Professional: The Master rightly thinks Darla's jealousy toward Buffy makes her a loose cannon. He later acquiesces anyway, to his regret.
  • The Big Damn Kiss: The camera circles Buffy and Angel as they exchange one more kiss in The Bronze, with the background band playing slow dance music.
  • Bigger Stick: Buffy with crossbows, Darla with Guns Akimbo handguns.

Buffy: Cool! Crossbow! (lifts it out, sees the bolts) Huh. Check out these babies. Goodbye stakes, hello flying fatality.

  • Blade on a Stick: Darla plays joyous executioner to The Three, staking them one-by-one, with a spear. That'll teach them for gunning for her job.
  • Blatant Lies: As Xander weakly insists he's not threatened, Angel and Buffy approach each other on the dance floor and stand close together. And just to show he's not threatened, Xander's gonna turn in the opposite direction. Ha! ...Psst. "What's going on?," he asks Willow over his shoulder. Willow beams as she sees the pair kissing.

Willow: Nuthin'.
Xander: Well, as long as they're not kissing.

  • Book Ends: The Master complains about Buffy killing all of his best henchmen, and how it's "wearing thin." Alas, he's going to loses yet another one before this ep's over.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Darla fires at Buffy her again and again and again with her special made-for-TV guns that never require reloading.
  • Brainless Beauty: Angel laments his mistake of feeding on a young gypsy girl -- beautiful; a favorite among her clan. ...Also, "dumb as a post."
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: Buffy's crossbow bolt.
  • Circling Monologue: Darla circles Angel, mocking him for thinking Buffy could see past what he is.
  • Closeup on Head / Description Cut: Darla wants to take a crack at Buffy, but The Master has ruled that he will send "the Three" to get the job done. Cut to an alley, where three toughs with shaved heads are lighting their cigarettes. Suddenly, three vamps wearing plate armor turn the corner and head in the skinheads' direction, causing them to freak out and scatter.
  • Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: Buffy coldly scans the interior of the Bronze and taunts Angel to show himself.
  • Continuity Drift: Angel tells Buffy that he has not fed on another living human since his soul was restored, but this is contradicted by a flashback in Angel that showed in 1943 he sired a mortally-wounded engineer to save a submarine. As the kid would have died anyway Angel may not have thought it a big deal to omit this case. About 1975, he fed on an unnamed gunshot victim in a café, though that person was already dead when Angel fed.
    • Actually, he fed on many humans after his soul was restored, when he was still trying to be with Darla. They were just all evil humans. This is more of a Retcon.
  • Cool Guns: The pistol in Darla's right hand is a Glock 17. The one in her left hand is a Sig Sauer 226. Might also serve as a Shout-Out, as Dana Scully was using these guns at the time.
  • The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Buffy hurriedly calling 911, telling the operator that her mother "cut herself." Later, at the hospital, a bewildered Joyce reports that she must have cut herself on a barbecue fork. Which is unusual, since they don't own one.
    • Outside her room, Giles confides that a thwarted vamp attack presents itself as "mild anemia".
  • Coy Girlish Flirt Pose: Darla does this as part of her Creepy Sexy image; Subverted Trope in that she's actually hiding two pistols behind her back.
  • Crash Into Hello: On the dance floor, Xander boogies right into Cordelia, who demands that he get his "extreme oafishness off [her] $200 shoes."
  • Creepy Cockroach: It's the night of the pre-fumigation party at the Bronze (squash a roach, get a drink).
  • Crusading Widower: Angel makes guarded allusions to having lost his family to vampires, and Buffy quickly deduces that it's a "vengeance gig" for him.
  • Damned By Faint Praise: Giles reports that Angel came to our fair shores about eighty years ago, and since then there are no reports of him hunting. Willow is excited, thinking it's proof that Angel is a good vampire. "I mean, on a scale of one to ten, 10 being someone who's killing and maiming every night, and 1 being someone who's... not."
  • Destination Defenestration: I'd get used to it, Angel.
  • Don't Sneak Up On Me Like That: Giles startling Xander by rushing over to show off his research findings.
  • Dresses the Same: Cordelia spots a girl wearing a dress identical to her own, and accuses her of wearing a cheap knockoff of her designer original. The girl scurries off with Cordelia in hot pursuit, haranguing her. "This is exactly what happens when you sign these free trade agreements!"
  • Dynamic Entry: Things aren't going so well between Buffy and her fan club. As the leader of the Three is coming in close, Angel suddenly yanks his hair from behind and punches him in the face.
  • Elite Mooks: As Giles puts it, Buffy is really starting to irritate the Master. "He wouldn't send the Three for just anyone."
  • Equal Opportunity Evil: One of the Three is a black guy.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Master is weary that the Slayer is eliminating his "family", and openly mourns Darla's death.
  • Exact Eavesdropping: Darla lurks behind the library stacks while Buffy tells Willow how great it was to kiss Angel (cue evil scowl) and that she'll be going home in half an hour (cue evil smile from Darla as she leaves to get there first).
  • Face Revealing Turn: Angel breaks off the kiss and backs away, hiding his face. Buffy wonders what's wrong, and Angel turns towards her with his game face on and growls. Buffy screams and Angel takes off through the window.
  • Famous Last Words: Darla is surprised when Angel plunges the bolt into her back. "Angel?" breathes Darla, right before she poofs into a pile of dust.
  • Feet First Introduction: Buffy, clad in black leather pants, descending the stairs into the darkened Bronze.
  • First Kiss: Played for Drama with Angel's last-minute freak out.
  • Forced to Watch: Darla sneers that Angel will have to live while remembering watching Buffy die.
  • Foreshadowing: Darla volunteers to be the next target in Buffy's turkey shoot, but The Master thinks she has too much of a "personal interest" in the matter.
    • Angel says he's slept in "worse" places than on a floor.
    • Darla pulls the rug (and window blinds) out from Angel, nearly roasting him with sunlight. She derisively observes that he's tying to live like a one of 'them' -- a human.

Angel: I'm not exactly one of you, either.

  • Forgotten Fallen Friend: He tells the Annoying One that Darla was his favorite "for 400 years," but the Anointed One counsels that Darla was "weak." The Master is sad that he lost Darla to Angel, whom he'd planned to have right beside him come the day he took over the Earth. The Anointed One reassures the Master than when he rises, they'll kill 'em all. This cheers the Master up immediately. Aw.
  • Frame-Up: Darla leaving a big red hickey on Joyce, then tossing her into Angel's arms.
  • Freudian Slip: Angel takes a tumble out the window just as Joyce barges in to see what all the noise is about. "Nothing," Buffy composes herself. "I saw a shadow."
  • From the Mouths of Babes: Lampooned by The Master, who asks Colin what he would do about the Slayer situation. "Annihilate her."
  • Fully-Embraced Fiend: When Angel protests that he no longer rolls with the Master's groupies, Darla walks to the fridge and opens it to reveal bags of blood hanging from the shelves. "You're not exactly living off of quiche." She exhorts him to return to The Dark Side etc.
  • Game Face: Good for snarking at.

Buffy: Just between us girls, you are looking a little worn around the eyes.

  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: One of the vampire assassins has a scar over his eye.
  • Guns Akimbo: Darla produces these from... well, somewhere in her Catholic schoolgirl skirt, I guess.
  • Half Truth: While alone in her room with Angel, Buffy asks him him why he's in the vampire hunting business, and he struggles to avoid telling the whole truth. Luckily for him, Buffy asks him if his family was killed by vampires, to which he replies that they were.
    • Angel's "older" than Buffy.
    • Darla claims to be a friend of Buffy's who has arrived for a study date. This is news to Joyce, who thought Buffy was studying with Willow at the library. Darla recovers by claiming that Willow's weak on the subject of The American Revolution, which is Darla's forte. "My family kinda goes back to those days."
  • Hey, Wait!: Cordelia appears to have overheard Xander talking about vampires when she screams, "What?!" Her comment was apparently directed at another girl who is wearing the same dress as she.
  • History Repeats: The Master says "out of the mouths of babes" after a comment made by the Anointed One and in the season 6 episode "Two to go", Xander repeats the line after a comment by Dawn, both of which relate to murder.
    • Season 7's "Beneath You" parallels this one. In this episode after Buffy finds out Angel is a vampire with a soul, they kiss and we see the cross Angel gave her searing his chest. In "Beneath You" after Buffy realizes Spike has a soul, he drapes his body on a large cross as it burns him.
      • Angel tells her: "I wanted to kill you" and Spike uses the words "I dreamt of killing you".
    • In a deliberate Call Back to this scene, when Darla is resurrected in the spin-off series, Angel she burns Angel with a cross while shouting, "God doesn't want you, but I do!"
    • Angel kills his sire and former paramour for the love of Buffy; in "Crush" Spike offers to kill Drusilla (also his sire and former paramour) to prove his love for Buffy. Unfortunately he lacks Angel's finesse.
  • Hypocritical Humor: Right off the heels of lambasting Buffy for letting Angel sleep over, Xander offers to her crash at his house while those "samurai guys" are after her.
    • The Master does not take the deaths of fellow vampires lightly. Oh wait, he does.
    • Willow, exasperated with Buffy's lack of focus, wonders if they're going to discuss boys or help Buffy to pass history class. Willow then shuts her book smartly and shares a fantasy about Xander.
  • I Hate You Vampire Mom: Angel has a minor case of this towards Darla. Understandable because he has a soul.
    • Even more understandable once we see their backstory in the spin-off Angel, and discover Darla drove Angel out after he got his soul.
  • I'll Kill You!: After he's discovered with Joyce, we cut to Angel being tossed out through a large window and landing on the lawn. Buffy stands in the broken window and tells him he's no longer welcome; if he comes near them again, she'll kill him.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Darla plugs Angel, who staggers to the wall, but has difficulty hitting Buffy who does a diving roll behind a pool table.
  • Improvised Weapon: While Buffy struggles with the other two, the leader of the Three breaks off an iron bar from a nearby window and swings it at Angel.
    • Darla fires at Buffy inside the club, then smugly walks the length of the pool table. Buffy pops up and pulls the table forward, knocking Darla down.
  • Insistent Terminology: Xander's aghast at Angel spending the night in Buffy's room. In her bed. ""BY my bed," Buffy clarifies.
  • Insult to Rocks: In the abandoned Bronze, Buffy calls out that she knows Angel's there, and she knows what he is. From the balcony, Angel, in game face, sneers, "I'm just an animal, right?"

Buffy: You're not an animal. Animals I like.

  • It's All My Fault: Buffy castigates herself for inviting Angel into the house and allowing herself to care about him.
  • It's Probably Nothing / Scare Chord: At home, Joyce s drinking coffee when she hears a noise outside. She peers out a window to check, but finds nothing. As she walks away from the kitchen door, we see Darla's vamped face outside.
  • Kill Me Now or Forever Stay Your Hand: Angel gives Buffy a chance to shoot him with her crossbow; Buffy lays down the crossbow and bares her neck for him.
  • Killed Off for Real: Darla, least for the rest of this series. It won't be until much later she'll turn up in Angel
  • Kneecapping

Darla: So many body parts, so few bullets. Let's begin with the kneecaps. No fun dancing without them.

  • Last-Second Word Swap: Outside SHS, Buffy just sits on the steps morosely as Xander says, "I know you have feelings for this guy, but it's not like you're in love with him, right?" When Buffy doesn't answer and instead just looks away, Xander exclaims, "You're IN LOVE with a VAMPIRE? What are you, outta your mind?!" Suddenly spotting Cordelia, Xander quickly amends this to, "How could you love an umpire? Everyone hates 'em!"
  • Let's Wait a While: Willow asks in her shy way if Angel got fresh with Buffy, but Buffy smiles and says that he was a "perfect gentleman."
  • Let's You and Him Fight: Darla wants force Angel to "come back to the fold" by arranging to have him kill Buffy.
  • Lock and Load Montage: Giles tries to discourage Buffy from going on a rampage, stressing that Angel is dangerous and will "take more than a simple stake." Buffy agrees, because we see her loading the crossbow from Giles's weapons stash.
  • Mandatory Line: Cordelia's spat with Xander at the Bronze ("I don't know what eveyone's talking about. That outfit doesn't make you look like a hooker!"). She turns up later in the quad, haranguing some girl for wearing an identical outfit.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Xander is eager for Buffy to kill Angel, while Darla is trying to get Angel to kill Buffy. As it turns out, it's Darla who gets offed.
  • Necessary Weasel: Joss Whedon hadn't originally intended for Angel to be a vampire because he thought the idea was too cliche.
  • Noodle Incident: Xander declaring that guys will do anything to impress a girl. In fact, he, Xander, once drank a gallon of Gatorade without stopping to take a breath.
    • Angel and Darla's fling in Budapest.
  • Not Herself: Buffy yanks Joyce inside the house, then tries to hustle her upstairs into her room as quickly as possible with the promise of hot tea. Joyce is suspicious at the gesture. "That's sweet. What'd you do?"
  • Not Listening to Me, Are You?: At the Bronze, Willow and Buffy are sitting at a table, and Buffy is lost in her thoughts. Willow guess that she's dreamily thinking of Angel, but Buffy nixes that idea. "I can just see him in a relationship. 'Hi, honey, you're in grave danger. See you next month."
    • And later when Willow struggles with getting Buffy to focus on studying.
  • Not What It Looks Like: Angel bursts into the kitchen to find Darla with her fangs poised over the swooning Joyce's neck. Darla tries to taunt him into feeding on Joyce and tosses him her limp body. Angel cradles Joyce and, tempted by the smell of blood, vamps out. Seconds later Buffy enters, horrified to see the Angel seemingly in the process of drinking her mother's blood.
  • One Steve Limit: Subverted in the one-shot Lorne comic written as a send-off to Angel's Andy Hallet. In it, a malevolent trio of deities known as The Three seek to shatter the Music of the Spheres.
  • Parents Walk in At the Worst Time: Type 1 with Joyce.
  • Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Angel gives the leader of The Three a lesson in manners.

Angel: Good dogs don't... [punches vampire] bite!

    • When Darla announces her intention to kill Buffy in front of her old beau, Buffy kicks her crossbow up off the ground and claims she didn't come alone. "Hm. Scary," Darla remarks. But again, Darla has a better hand and pulls two big pistols. "Scary. Scarier."
  • Professional Killer: The Three.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: As Buffy prepares for war, Darla taunts Angel elsewhere, sneering that Buffy is coming to kill him. Angel, looking like he's wound tight, snarls, "Leave...me...alone."
  • Relationship Upgrade: At the end of the episode Buffy and Angel agree that any relationship between them just wouldn't work. Moments later they're kissing passionately.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Angel proves unwilling to off the Slayer, Darla taunts him and sayas he's sick for loving someone who hates vampires.
  • Rescue Sex: Averted, which wins Angel some points.
  • The Reveal: Darla emerging from the shadows in Angel's apartment. Turns out they used to be an item.
  • Rule of Symbolism: After the kiss, Buffy says she'll see him around, and leaves. The camera pans down from Angel's face and reveals the crucifix that he gave her earlier in the season has burned an impression into his chest.
  • Rule of Three: The Three.
  • Secret Diary: Buffy notices that hers is out of place, and has a minor conniption fit.
  • Shaped Like Itself: To Willow's question about when the Reconstruction began, Buffy tries to focus and replies, " Um, Reconstruction...uh, Reconstruction began after the...construction, which was shoddy so they had to reconstruct."
    • At the hospital, Giles sits at Joyce's bedside and chats about Buffy. Giles confesses that Buffy is having trouble in history class because she "lives very much in the now. And, um... history, of course, is very much about the, uh... the then."
  • Sheathe Your Sword: Buffy setting down her crossbow and offering her neck to Angel.
  • Shooting Gallery: As preparation for Angel, In the library, Buffy shoots a crossbow bolt straight into the heart of a guy on a "No Smoking" poster.
  • Simple Staff: Buffy checks out Giles' cache of weapons, and seems particular enamored with the crossbow. A heavily-padded Giles insists on training Buffy on the quarterstaff before moving on to crossbows, and warns her that it will "require countless hours of vigorous training." They face off and Buffy makes short work of Giles, knocking him flat on the ground.

Giles: [croaks] Good. Let's move on to the crossbow.

  • Sinister Silhouettes: Angel stepping out into the open inside The Bronze.
  • Smash Cut: Buffy curls up on her bed after handing Angel a spare blanket, and they both go to sleep. Cut to the next day in the library, where Xander is grilling Buffy.
    • Giles reckons Buffy isn't in any immediate danger; since the Three have failed already, they will "offer their own lives in penance" to the Master. Cut to the Master's Lair where the Three are kneeling in a row.
  • Spell My Name with a "The": The Three.
  • Staking the Loved One: Inverted with Angel, who is revealed to have been undead all along.
  • Suicide by Cop: Contrary to Darla's plan, it seems Angel wants Buffy to kill him because he's miserable living as a vampire.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Buffy thinks Angel has read her diary.

"'Hunk' can mean a lot of things, bad things. And-- and when it says that your eyes are 'penetrating,' I meant to write 'bulging'. And 'A' doesn't even stand for 'Angel', for that matter, it stands for... 'Achmet', a charming foreign exchange student, so that whole fantasy part has nothing to even do with you at all..."

  • Sword Over Head: Angel implores Buffy not to "go soft" on him now, and readies himself to be shot with the crossbow. Buffy fires, but her shot goes astray.

Angel: Little wide.

  • Tantrum Throwing: The Master throws a few candelabra around his prison after Darla bites it.
  • There Is Only One Bed: An injured Angel gallantly takes the floor.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: Angel loses his temper at Darla and slams her against the wall. She purrs, "You're hurting me. I like it."
  • Trouble Entendre: Like a good mom, Joyce ushers Darla into the kitchen, asking if she would like something to eat. Behind her, Darla is now wearing her Game Face and replies that she's pretty peckish.
  • Villainous Breakdown: The Master, upon hearing news of Darla's death.
  • Walk in Chime In: Angel confesses that he did want to feed on Joyce, and wanted to kill Buffy herself earlier. Buffy drops her crossbow and approaches Angel, daring him to kill her, but he can't. "Not as easy as it looks," observes Buffy, but Darla steps from the shadows and replies, "Sure it is."
  • We Can Rule Together: Darla growls that Angel had a chance to "rule with [her] in the Master's court for a thousand years."
  • Wham! Episode
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Buffy is agitated at the thought of killing Angel, who has never done her any harm. She hopefully asks Giles if a vampire is capable of being a good person. Giles shatters her hopes by saying that a vampire "isn't a person at all. It may have the movements, the the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over, but it's still a demon at the core, there is no halfway."

Willow: So that'd be a no, huh?

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