Angel (Buffy episode)
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| “Angel” | |
|---|---|
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode | |
 |
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 7 |
| Guest stars | David Boreanaz (Angel) Andrew J. Ferchland (The Anointed One) Mark Metcalf (The Master) Kristine Sutherland (Joyce Summers) Julie Benz (Darla) |
| Written by | David Greenwalt |
| Directed by | Scott Brazil |
| Production no. | 4V07 |
| Original airdate | April 14, 1997 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "The Pack" | "I, Robot... You, Jane" |
"Angel" is episode 7 in season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. See also List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes.
Contents |
[edit] Plot synopsis
The Master is displeased that Buffy is dusting his vampires. Despite Darla's request to deal with Buffy personally, The Master decides to send "The Three," a trio of warrior vampires, to take the Slayer out. The Three ambush Buffy on her way home from pre-fumigation night at the Bronze. Angel, whom Buffy at first suspects is the one stalking her, 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 door safely shut, Angel explains that The Three, being vampires, cannot enter someone's home uninvited. Buffy recalls hearing that bit of lore, but tells Angel she's never had to use it before. As Angel removes his shirt so Buffy can dress his wound, the griffin tattoo on his back is revealed, and Buffy is visibly affected by both his beauty and his proximity. When Buffy's mother arrives, Buffy claims that Angel (shirt redonned) is helping her study history, and pretends to send him off, but instead sneaks him upstairs. Angel spends the night in Buffy's room, sleeping on the floor.
When the gang hears about events the next morning, Xander rather illogically protests that Angel is trying to seduce Buffy by saving her life and getting stabbed. Giles interrupts, identifying the armored vampire trio, but also reassuring everyone that The Three are no longer a threat, since they must offer their lives to the Master in penance for failing their mission. Back at the Hellmouth, the Master allows Darla to execute The Three, as an object lesson in the use of power for Collin, The Anointed One. Returning to the library later that day, Buffy begins weapons training. She is disappointed when Giles requires her to start with the quarterstaff rather than the "cool" cross-bow, but easily defeats her Watcher staff-to-staff and progresses to cross-bow training much sooner than he wishes or anticipates. Returning home, Buffy brings some supper for Angel, who has waited out the day in her room. They awkwardly attempt small-talk, with Buffy asking how Angel passed the time. Unobtrusively setting aside the food, Angel replies that he did a little reading, a little thinking. Buffy notices her diary askew and, suddenly very agitated, begins to explain away entries that reveal her crush on Angel. Clearly amused, but also somewhat at a loss, Angel stops her and explains in turn that Buffy's mother moved the diary while straightening up, and that he would never, ever read it, besides. The arm-waving draws them slowly closer, until finally Angel and Buffy kiss. At first hesitant and sweet, their embrace quickly grows heated and passionate. Suddenly, Angel pulls back with a snarl of distress and Buffy sees his vampiric visage for the first time. She screams in shock and Angel dives out the window, escaping into the darkness without another word. At Buffy's shriek, her mother rushes in and asks what happened, but Buffy glances out the window and says only that she "saw a shadow." Bringing her friends up to speed before school the next morning, Buffy wistfully wonders why Angel seems good to her. Emphatically, Giles insists there are no good vampires, and that a vampire, lacking a soul, is not even a person. Xander urges Buffy to slay Angel.
Returning to his apartment, Angel becomes aware of an intruder, but seems unsurprised to see Darla. She taunts him, telling him humans will never accept him for who he is, but he replies that he is no longer accepted by vampires, either. Meanwhile, Giles researches Angel's history and notices the peculiarity that even though this vampire was previously well-known as the vicious killer Angelus, Angel apparently has shunned the company of other vampires since coming to America and, stranger yet, has completely stopped preying on humans. Meanwhile, deep in the Master's lair, Darla insists that she be allowed to kill Buffy. The Master concedes upon hearing Darla's diabolical plan to use Angel as her weapon. Later that evening in the library, Willow is having a hard time tutoring Buffy in the history of the Civil War, since they are both distracted by gloom over boys -- Buffy because she doesn't want to slay Angel and Willow because she wants to attract Xander. Lurking in the stacks, Darla eavesdrops before going to Buffy's house, where she cons Joyce into inviting her in by claiming to be yet another study buddy of Buffy's. Prowling around Buffy's house himself, Angel hears Joyce's cries and rushes in just as Darla begins to drink from her. Daring him to drink too, Darla shoves the now unconscious Joyce into Angel's arms and escapes out the back door. Clearly tempted by Joyce's warm blood, Angel helplessly vamps, but resists the impulse to drink long enough to be discovered, in flagrante, by the returning Buffy. Horrified, frightened and furious to find Angel apparently feeding from her mother, 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 "study friend" inside. Buffy misunderstands, thinking Joyce means Angel rather than Darla. Leaving her mother in the care of friends and doctors, Buffy races to the library, takes the cross-bow 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.
Meanwhile, Giles talks further with Joyce and learns enough to realize that it was Darla, not Angel, who bit Buffy's mom. With Xander and Willow in tow, he rushes to find Buffy to warn her of the trap. Alone in the dark, Buffy tracks Angel to the deserted Bronze and engages him in combat. Angel soon tackles and disarms Buffy, but she retrieves her weapon and fires before he can recover his balance. To Angel's surprise, the Slayer intentionally shoots wide and her bolt thunks into the wall beside his head. When she demands an explanation for his actions, particularly why he spared her but not her mom, Angel mockingly recounts highlights from his Angelus days. When the Slayer asks what changed, Angel more quietly tells her the story of the beautiful Gypsy girl he once ate, whose family cursed him in retribution. The Gypsies gave him a soul that would wrack him with guilt, eternally tormenting him for the evil he had wreaked during a century of unbridled vampirism. Angel doesn't try to justify himself, but The Slayer begins to understand that he is unique among vampires, and that this is what she had sensed from the beginning. When he denies biting Joyce, yet confesses wanting earlier to kill Buffy herself, the Slayer lays aside her cross-bow and slowly offers her throat to a motionless Angel. Suddenly, Darla emerges from the shadows and starts to taunt them, boasting to Buffy that she, Darla, was the vampire who turned Angel all those decades ago. When Buffy levels her cross-bow, Darla pulls out a pair of handguns and fires. Hit, Angel crumples to the floor. Buffy dives for cover behind the bar and looses a bolt that hits Darla's chest but misses her heart. Hearing gunfire, Giles, Willow and Xander rush in and distract Darla, shouting to Buffy that it was Darla who bit Joyce, not Angel. As Darla gleefully blazes away, keeping the Slayer and her friends pinned down, the wounded Angel suddenly lunges toward the wall and yanks out the cross-bow bolt that missed his head earlier. Looming up from behind, Angel stakes Darla through the heart with Buffy's bolt, dusting his maker in the witness of all.
In their Hellmouth lair, Collin comforts the Master for his loss of Darla. Once again at the Bronze, now post-fumigation, Willow, Xander and Buffy comment on how much, and how little, has changed since their last outing. Spying Angel across the crowded room, Buffy goes to thank him, and to tell him goodbye. Helpless in the heat of their burgeoning passion for one another, their banter trails to silence and they deeply kiss one last time. As she reluctantly pulls away, Buffy doesn't notice that the cross she's wearing -- the one Angel gave her weeks ago at their very first meeting in the alley right out back ("Welcome to the Hellmouth") -- was severely scorching him, branding the skin of his chest all during their embrace. Angel, who neither vamped nor flinched as he slowly kissed the Slayer, faintly winces but never says a word.
[edit] Acting
[edit] Main cast
- Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
- Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
- Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
- Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
- Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
[edit] Guest stars
- Mark Metcalf as The Master
- David Boreanaz as Angel
- Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers
- Julie Benz as Darla
- Andrew J. Ferchland as The Anointed One
[edit] Also starring
- Charles Wesley as Meanest Vamp
[edit] Filming
During production of the episode, it took the makeup department 60 to 90 minutes to apply the vampire prosthetic on David Boreanaz. Buffy and Angel’s kiss at The Bronze was filmed before the scene of their first kiss. Finally, Buffy’s scream when Angel reveals his vampire figure is also used as Joyce’s scream when Darla bites her.
[edit] Music
Sophie Zelmani’s “I’ll Remember You” from her self-titled 1995 album plays in the background in the final scene at the Bronze.
[edit] Translations
- French title: "Alias Angelus"
- Italian title: "L'Angelo Custode" ("The Guardian Angel")
- German title: "Angel - Blutige Küsse" ("Angel - Bloody Kisses")
- Japanese title: "エンジェル" ("Enjeru" - "Angel")
[edit] Timing
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
| Location, time (if known) |
Buffyverse chronology: Spring 1996 - Spring 1997 (non-canon = italic) |
|---|---|
| Los Angeles, summer 1996 | Film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer |
| Los Angeles, summer 1996 | Buffy graphic novel: The Origin |
| Los Angeles, summer 1996 | Buffy graphic novel: Viva Las Buffy |
| Los Angeles, summer 1996 | Buffy graphic novel: Slayer Interrupted |
| Los Angeles, summer 1996 | Buffy graphic novel: A Stake to the Heart |
| Sunnydale, fall 1996 | B1.00 Unaired Buffy pilot |
| Sunnydale, fall 1996 | B1.01 Welcome to the Hellmouth |
| Sunnydale, fall 1996 | B1.02 The Harvest |
| Sunnydale, fall 1996 | WB Buffy promo: History of the Slayer |
| Sunnydale, fall 1996 | B1.03 Witch |
| Sunnydale, fall 1996 | B1.04 Teacher's Pet |
| Sunnydale, Halloween 1996 | Buffy book: Halloween Rain |
| Sunnydale, 1996/7 | Buffy book: Night of the Living Rerun |
| Sunnydale, 1996/7 | B1.05 Never Kill a Boy on the First Date |
| Sunnydale, 1996/7 | B1.06 The Pack |
| Sunnydale, 1996/7 | B1.07 Angel |
| Sunnydale, 1996/7 | Buffy the Animated Series unaired four-minute pilot |
| Sunnydale, 1996/7 | B1.08 I, Robot... You, Jane |
| Sunnydale, 1996/7 | B1.09 The Puppet Show |
| Sunnydale, 1996/7 | B1.10 Nightmares |
| Sunnydale, 1996/7 | B1.11 Out of Mind, Out of Sight |
| Sunnydale, spring 1997 | B1.12 Prophecy Girl |
| Sunnydale, summer 1997 | Buffy book: Coyote Moon |
| Sunnydale, & L.A., summer 1997 | Buffy anthology book: How I Survived My Summer Vacation |
[edit] External links
- Angel at the Internet Movie Database
- BuffyGuide.com
- Buffyworld Summary
- Buffyworld statistics
- TV Tome
- Buffy Trivia Guide
- All Things Philosophical -- Metaphysics in "Angel"
- Music in "Angel"
- Buffy vs. Angel Episode Guide
- Buffy Body Count guide for this episode
- Quotes from wikiquote
