Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S2/E17 Passion

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Angel is still stalking the Scoobies from afar. He watches his former friends leave the Bronze, and later comes into Buffy's bedroom while she sleeps. When she wakes, she finds a drawing of herself, sleeping, on her pillow, so she'd know he's been there.

At school, she asks Giles if there's any way to reverse the standing invitation Angel has to her home ("No shoes, No pulse, No service"), and Giles promises to look into it. Ms. Calendar asks Willow to cover her computer class for her when she's late, and Willow agrees as Buffy and Giles show up, exhibiting the same coldness to Ms. Calendar that they have for several weeks. Buffy leaves with Willow, but Jenny gives Giles a book she says will help to make things right. That's what she wants, she says, to make things right, and she admits that she's in love with Giles.

The strain is getting to Buffy — she wonders if her mother should be told, because Angel is likely to come after her family. At dinner that night, Buffy gives her mother a sanitized version of her problem with Angel as a warning. And later, while on the phone with Buffy, Willow finds an envelope just like the one Buffy found, containing all her aquarium fish, dead. Terrified, Willow spends the night at Buffy's.

Factory. Dru has brought a puppy to tempt Spike's appetite. Spike wheels off angrily, refusing to be wet-nursed like a child. Angelus struts in and needles Spike about his lack of independence. Bicker bicker. They're interrupted by Dru being crazy some more. She wails that somebody's trying to wreck their happy family. That someone is Ms. Calendar, who visits a local shop and acquires an Orb of Thesulah.

The next day, Buffy is still cold to Ms. Calendar but nevertheless tells her that Giles misses her.

That night at Willow's house, they find another envelope, this one for Buffy — it's a picture of Buffy's mother, asleep. At the Summers residence, Joyce pulls into the driveway to find Angelus waiting for her in the front yard, impersonating a distinctly deranged Angel. Over her threats to call the police, Angelus drops the bomb about him and Buffy making love. Rattled, Joyce runs inside the house, just as Willow and Buffy read an incantation revoking Angel's invitation.

"Sorry, Angel. Changed the locks." SLAM.

Drusilla shows up at the shop Ms. Calendar visited, asking the shop owner what the teacher wanted. At school, Ms. Calendar is working late when Giles shows up and invites her over when she's done. He leaves, and she finishes her work — she's found out how to restore Angel's soul! Saving the solution to a floppy disk, she prints it out, and suddenly she realizes she's not alone. Angelus has been lounging in the back row for a while. He breaks the Orb of Thesulah and destroys her computer, burning the printout, and then attacks Ms. Calendar. She runs for her life, but to no avail — Angel catches her and breaks her neck.

Joyce talks to Buffy about her dalliances with the "too old," "obviously not very stable" Angel. The talk seems to bring the Summers women closer together.

Giles returns home to find a rose on his door, champagne in ice, Puccini on the stereo, and a note saying "Upstairs." Climbing the candlelit stairs, his smile freezes on his face as he sees the dead body of Ms. Calendar in his bed. As the police wheel the body away, he calls Buffy and Willow, who break into tears as Angel watches through the window, smiling. Worried about what Giles might do, Buffy has Cordelia drive the gang to Giles' house. He's not home, and his weapons are gone, and they realize that he's gone to the factory to take on Angel by himself.

At the factory, Spike is up in arms over the "incredibly brassed off" Slayer who is due to hunt them down. Angelus shrugs of this threat, when suddenly a Molotov cocktail lands on the floor, setting the factory on fire. It's Giles, coming at Angel with a full arsenal, but he loses the upper hand and is at the vampire's mercy. At that moment, Buffy enters the fray. Dru and Spike make a strategic exit. Buffy arrives in the nick of time, beating Angel back and almost into submission, but then Angel points at Giles, lying unconscious before the approaching flames. The vampire escapes as Buffy saves her Watcher. He protests that it wasn't her fight, and Buffy's response is to slug him — then hug him tight.

"You can't leave me," she sobs. "I can't do this alone."

Giles and Buffy visit Ms. Calendar's grave, and Buffy apologizes with all her heart for not killing Angelus when she had the chance. "I wasn't ready. But now I think I finally am."

Willow sadly accepts the task of filling in for the computer teacher until a replacement is hired. As she takes her place at the desk, a floppy disk falls unnoticed to the floor...

Tropes

  • Anyone Can Die: According to Word of Joss, Jenny's death serves notice to fans, first, that no one is safe, and second, that Angel is not "just a little evil," he's not "grouchy," he's truly evil and needs to be dusted right away. The showrunner also joked that the episode is a message to the actors: "Be very good, or I'll kill you."
  • Backhanded Apology / Bait and Switch Comment: Buffy jogging up to Jenny and, after a brief hello, saying, "Look. I know you feel badly about what happened and I just wanted to say... Good. Keep it up."
  • Batter Up: Giles marching toward Angelus with a baseball bat. As he passes a kerosene-soaked table, he casually lights the bat aflame.
  • Battle Amongst the Flames: Buffy fighting Angelus in the burning factory.
  • Beautiful Dreamer: Deconstructed Trope with Angelus' charcoal sketches.
  • Big No: Behind a window, a shocked Buffy mechanically hands the phone over to Willow, who can be seen to sob, "What? No! No!"
  • Break-In Threat: Made worse by the fact that Giles, Willow, and Buffy have all invited Angel at one point or another.
  • Brief Accent Imitation: The shopkeeper greeting Jenny with thick Rumanian accent, only to drop it a moment later. "Oh, you're in the trade!"
  • Broken Heel: Joyce dropping her groceries, which she and Angelus frantically try to grab. Then there's the requisite fumbling of the house keys.
  • Broken Record: A subtle one: When Giles is gearing for war, the vinyl record is played out and still spinning.
  • Call Back: The Teaser echoes the scene in "When She Was Bad" where Buffy performed a sensual dance for Xander as a jealous Angel looked on. Here the Scoobies are back on friendly terms, but Angelus' glower is no less intense.
    • Cordelia whining that she invited Angel into her car once. That probably happened when they left the library after Cordelia found the arm in the dumpster in "Some Assembly Required."
    • The owner of the occult shop pays his condolences to Jenny, remarking that her uncle Enyos was a good customer.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Jenny saves the translated ritual on the computer, on a floppy disc, and a printout. Angel destroys the computer and the printout; the disc falls behind the desk.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Angel can come into Cordy's car whenever he wants!

Xander: Yep. You're doomed to having to give him and his vamp pals a lift whenever they feel like it, and those guys never pitch in for gas.

    • Jonathan coming into the library to get a book on Stalin. The gang just stares at him (Buffy tilts her head and looks confused).

Xander: Does this look like a Barnes & Noble?!

Giles: This is a school library, Xander.

  • Computer Equals Monitor: Angelus is satisfied that Jenny's electronic translation of the incantation that would restore Angel's soul is gone when he shoves her computer off her desk. The problem is, while the monitor was wrecked, the actual PC received minimal damage... Justified—not like a 200 year-old vampire would really know how a computer works. His monologue before destroying the computer even makes it explicit. Later episodes imply that her hard drive was indeed undamaged.
  • Cooldown Hug: After Buffy hits Giles, the two end up holding each other and crying.
  • Corner of Woe: Giles calling with bad news. Buffy leans against the wall for support, then slides down against it into a crouch.
  • Criminal Mind Games: "Since Angel lost his soul, he's regained his sense of whimsy."
  • Department of Redundancy Department: Buffy hoping that Giles gets cracking on rescinding Angel's invite soon. "I know I'll sleep easier when I can... sleep easier."
  • Demoted to Dragon: Spike, to his chagrin.
  • Didn't See That Coming: Jenny assuming that Vampire Invitations extend to halls of learning. Angel later retcons this rule by exempting public accommodations, though that wouldn't have helped poor Jenny.
  • Dies Wide Shut: Jenny's corpse laid out on Giles' bed, her open eyes staring at nothing.
  • The Dog Bites Back: When Giles starts to beat Angelus about the head, Dru wants to join in, but Spike holds her back. "Ah-ah. No fair going into the ring unless he tags you first."
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Spike balking at being spoon-fed "like a child." Angelus helpfully points out that Dru already bathes him, carries him around and changes him like a child.
  • Dramatic Irony: Joyce expressing her disappointment in her daughter's taste in men. This topic start to get to Buffy, and the tears well up as she admits, "I made a mistake." And her mother can't even guess at the proportions of that mistake.
  • Dramatic Shattering: Angelus flinging the Orb at the chalkboard right next to Jenny's head as she ducks. "Must be that shoddy gypsy craftsmanship."
  • Drop What You Are Doing: The phone drops from Willow's shoulder with a thump as she pulls out a long string—threaded with all her tropical fish. Later when Giles discovers Jenny's body he drops the champagne bottle he was carrying.
  • Due to the Dead: The evil version.
  • Dynamic Entry: While Angelus is busy with her Watcher, Buffy swoops out of nowhere and kicks him in the back.

Angelus: (to Giles) All right, you've had your fun, but you know what it's time for now?
Buffy: My fun.

  • Emergency Stash: The gang noticing Giles' empty weapon chest. Cordy's confused, thinking he kept all his weapons back at the library, but Xander corrects her. " No, those are his, uh, everyday weapons. These are his good weapons."
  • Environmental Symbolism: As Giles leaves to find Angelus, we see the trampled roses on the stairs.
    • The class notes left on Jenny's chalkboard are on Data Recovery.
  • Evil Gloating: Angel staring through the Summers' window and admiring the results of his handiwork.
  • Fake-Out Make-Out: The Scoobies exit the Bronze without taking notice of a couple necking in a doorway. Once they're past the woman drops dead to the ground, revealing that it was actually Angelus feeding on her.
  • Faux Horrific: The shopkeeper is surrounded by skulls, a pig fetus in formaldehyde, and other occult items, and yet he complains computers give him "the willies."
  • Fauxlosophic Narration: All of Angelus' evil monologues are painful to listen to.
  • Feet First Introduction: As Joyce turns into her driveway, Angelus is waiting on the front lawn.
  • Foreshadowing / Dramatic Irony: Giles cautioning Buffy on not letting Angelus provoke her into rash action.

Buffy: That's easy for you to say; you don't have Angel lurking in your bedroom at night.

    • Jenny asking Willow to her to cover for her in class tomorrow, as she might be "a little late".
  • Forgot Flanders Could Do That: Giles behind the counter of the library, doing (gasp) some of the actual tasks of a librarian.
  • Formally-Named Pet: Miss Sunshine. Really Drusilla, why didn't you just call it "Stake Through the Heart"?
  • Gag Echo: Joyce demands to know re Angel, "Was he your first?" Later when things have cooled down a bit Buffy lampshades that just had The Talk and asks how it went. Joyce quips, "I don't know. It was my first."
  • Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: When Buffy and Willow tell Xander they had a Slumber Party, Xander asks if they took pictures.
  • Grand Romantic Gesture: Giles returning home to a red rose propped against it.Horribly subverted by Angelus.
  • Grave Marking Scene: Giles laying flowers on Jenny's grave.
  • He Knows Too Much: Angelus and Dru are very thorough in erasing all knowledge of the Ritual of Restoration.
  • His Name Is--: Jenny making plans to tell Giles about her "special project" in private at his place.
  • Hope Spot: Jenny managing to elude Angelus for a good distance, even tripping him up with a cleaning cart.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: Angelus stroking a lock of hair back from Buffy's face. As Buffy is obliviously sleeping, this is an Inverted Trope.
  • I Warned You: Xander can't help but crow, "Y'know, I think there may be a valuable lesson for you gals here about inviting strange men into your bedrooms."
    • Later, Xander finally gets to say this with justifiable and believable anger.

""I'm sorry, but let's not forget that I hated Angel long before you guys jumped on the bandwagon, so I think I deserve a little something for not saying 'I told you so' long before now. And if Giles wants to go after the, uh, fiend that murdered his girlfriend, I say, 'Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!'""

  • Implausible Deniability: Buffy offering her mom a lame explanation that the chanting and herbs were because her ex-boyfriend is "real superstitious."
  • Improvised Weapon: Jenny shoving a janitor's cart in Angelus' path as he barrels into it full-speed. Buffy pulled the same maneuver on Spike's gang in "School Hard."
    • Buffy manages to trip him up by jabbing a long pipe through the staircase he's climbing. She also loops a robe around his neck and starts slamming him into the metal sides of the catwalk.
  • It Never Gets Any Easier

Giles: In my years as Watcher, I've buried... too many people. But Jenny was the first I've loved.

Angelus: (spits blood) Jeez, whatever happened to wooden stakes?

  • Kirk Summation: Jenny tries telling Angelus about her "good news", but he tears the incantation printout in half ("Been there, done that") and lights it on fire for good measure.
  • Layman's Terms: Giles snarks at Xander for summing up his exposition.

Giles: Look, it's classic battle strategy to throw ones opponent off his game. He's trying to provoke you. To taunt you. To goad you into some mishap of some sort.
Xander: The nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah approach to battle?
Giles: Yes, Xander, once again you've managed to boil a complex thought down to its simplest possible form.

    • Later when Buffy does the same...

Xander: Hey, how come Buffy doesn't get a snotty 'once again you boil it down to the simplest form' thing? Watcher's Pet!

  • Leitmotif: Jenny Calendar picks up a semi-mournful theme underscoring her derailed romance with Giles.
  • Lock and Load Montage: Giles piling weapons into his large duffel.
  • Lost in Translation: Angelus says that the sign in front of the school, in latin, is Formatia trans sicere educatorum, which means Enter all ye who seek knowledge. That line is wrong. However, in the Italian edition is used the correct line: Ingredit vos qui scienses querites.
  • Love Confession: Jenny blurts out that she loves Giles.
  • The Matchmaker: Giles makes it clear that Buffy too must forgive Jenny before he'd consider getting back with her. Buffy doesn't, but tells Jenny she knows Giles is lonely and doesn't want him to be unhappy as well.
  • Mercy Lead: Jenny scrambling out of the classroom as Angelus mocks, "Oh, good. I need to work up an appetite first."
  • Must Let Them Get Away: During the catwalk battle, Buffy is winning, but is forced to unhand Angelus to save Giles from the fire.
  • Neck Lift: Angelus grabbing the Giles' bat in mid-swing and then taking him by the throat, lifting him off his feet.
  • Neck Snap: Chortling, Angelus softly holds her head in his hands and tells her, "Sorry, Jenny. This is where you get off," then snaps her neck with a flourish.
  • New Age Retro Hippie: The magic store owner had to diversify, so he's been selling Thesulan Orbs as paperweights. " I just love those new-agers, boy. They helped to send my youngest to college."
  • Not Important to This Episode Camp: Oz. See "What Could Have Been", below.
  • Oh Crap: The expression on magic shop owner's face when Drusilla turns up -- it's clear he knows exactly who she is. Jenny when she realises Angelus is in the classroom with her.
  • Of Corpse He's Alive: Xander remarking that it looks like Giles had a nice evening planned. Buffy knows better, though; this was gift wrapping.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: Jenny ramming Angelus him with a cleaning cart and runs up the stairs -- only to run straight into his grasp when he circles around.
  • Peek-a-Boo Corpse: The Scoobies walking arm-in-arm with each other out of The Bronze. They pass a man and a woman who appear to be necking, but we all know that means something terrible in the Buffyverse. The man lifts his head to reveal Angelus, who drops the drained woman to the ground and and watches the gang walk off.
  • Percussive Prevention: Buffy's smacking Giles out of his grief, desperate not to lose the other man in her life.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Jenny nearly spilling the Ritual of Restoration to Buffy, who cuts her off with, "We're good here... Let's just leave it."
  • Power Glows: The Orb of Thesulah, holding Angel's soul.
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Sorry, Jenny. This is where you get off."
  • Protect This House: Buffy rescinding Angel's invitation from her house, as well as fortifying her bedroom with garlic.
    • Willow nailing crucifixes to her bedroom wall, which is sure to delight her orthodox dad.

"I have to go over to Xander's house just to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas every year."

  • Ready for Lovemaking: Jenny is posed like a store mannequin in this manner.
  • Red Shirt: Drusilla polishing off the magic store proprietor.
  • Reveal Shot: In the magic store, we pan across a display table with skulls and preserved specimens in jars. A pricing gun waves into view and puts stickers on the jars.
  • Right-Hand-Cat: The storekeeper's nonplussed at the arrival of a female customer holding a puppy.

Drusilla: Miss Sunshine here tells me you had a visit today...

  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Giles, now in killer determination mode, gathering up his best weapons and taking off to end Angelus. Xander applauds this plan, though Buffy sees a flaw in it: "It's gonna get him killed."
  • Rule of Three: Angelus sketching three images of women in repose: Buffy, her mother, and Jenny Calender (who will never 'wake' again).
    • Angelus bragging over killing two birds with one stone. "The computer, the incantations... (vamps out) And teacher makes three."
  • Running Gag: Even after the un-invite is performed on Cordelia's car, she still had it strung with garlic and crosses.
  • Serious Business: Willow meekly apologizing to Buffy for talking to Ms. Calender.

"Sorry! I have to talk to her. She's a teacher, and teachers are to be respected even if they're only filling in until the real teacher shows up because otherwise chaos could ensue..."

Jenny: I know you feel betrayed.
Giles: Yes, well, that's one of the unpleasant side effects of betrayal.

  • Sinister Silhouettes: Angelus shushing Ms. Calender in front of an arched window, then snapping her neck with a flourish.
  • Smash Cut: Willow is spooked by the murder of her fish. Cut to her spending the remainder of the night clutching a very sharp stake at Buffy's, with garlic ropes adorning the bedframe.

"We had kind of a 'pajama party sleepover with weapons' thing."

    • Giles looking at Jenny's body. Police lights flash across his face as we cut to the coroners taking the body away.
  • So Happy Together: Sniff...
  • Stuffed Into the Fridge: Word of Joss says the way Angel kills her is very "insulting" to Jenny herself, because he does not consider her worth feeding on.
  • The Talk:

Joyce: (inhales) Oh, well I guess that was the Talk.

Buffy: So how'd it go?

Joyce: I don't know, it was my first.

  • Tempting Fate: Spike railing on Angelus for (yet again) passing up a chance to kill the Slayer. Angelus declares he's got "everything under control," at which point a Molotov cocktail swooshes in and a crossbow bolt hits Angelus' shoulder.
  • Thicker Than Water: Giles makes it clear to Jenny that he's not the person she has to make things right with. Basically, when Buffy decides to forgive Jenny, so will Giles. This symbolizes Giles' loyalty and pure devotion to Buffy, both as a Watcher and as a father figure.
  • This Is the Part Where: Joyce telling her daughter that she'll never stop caring about her, then resignedly sitting next to Buffy on the bed. "That would be your cue to, uh, roll your eyes and tell me I'm grossing you out."

Buffy: You're not.

  • This and That: Willow reporting that the de-invitation went fine until "Angel showed up and told Buffy's mom that he and Buffy had -- well, you know, that they had -- you know. You do know, right?" Giles catches her drift, and Willow is pleased because, "being a librarian and all," she was afraid he didn't.
  • Thousand-Yard Stare: Giles' anticipatory smile vanishes as he focuses in on Jenny's lifeless face. Later, as the authorities wheel Jenny's body out of his room, Giles is still wearing the same horrified blank expression.
    • Upon receiving the news, Buffy looks off into space, then finally lowers her head onto her knees.
  • Title Drop: Angelus reciting verses from his ode to "passion."
    • Giles urging Buffy not to be goaded by any of Angelus' taunts because, as The Slayer, she doesn't have "the luxury of being a slave to her passions."
  • Trash the Set: Spike pays the price for his hospitality by getting driven out of his home. Though the factory is reduced to charred ruins, Spike returns here to reminiscence in "Lover's Walk."
  • Twist Ending: Angelus smashes the computer and burns the print-out, but misses the crucial floppy disk on which Jenny just saved the incantation.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: You know what they say about fish and house guests. After three days, they start banging your girlfriend.
  • Unwanted Rescue: Outside the factor, Giles shoves Buffy away and snarls, "Why did you come here? This wasn't your fight!"
  • What Could Have Been: Oz was originally supposed to be killed by Angel, but his character had a lot of potential, so the decision was made to bump off Jenny instead.
    • Jenny Calendar was supposed to have died in an earlier episode, "Innocence", presumably in place of Uncle Enyos.
  • Your Door Was Open: "Formatia trans sicere educatorum."
  • You're Insane!: Spike preferring the "Buffy-whipped" Angelus more than the "new and improved one."
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