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Recap / Buffy the Vampire Slayer S1E7 "Angel"

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"So he is a good vampire? I mean, on a scale of one to ten. Ten being someone who's killing and maiming every night, one being someone who's...not."
Willow Rosenberg

Directed by Scott Brazil

Written by David Greenwalt, Matt Kiene, Joe Reinkemeyer, Rob Des Hotel, & Dean Batali

A trio of vampire assassins ambush Buffy on her way home from a Pre-Fumigation Party at the Bronze. Angel shows up at a critical moment, but is wounded. Buffy abandons the fight and helps Angel run to her house, where Angel exposits that a vampire can't enter someone's home unless it's invited in. Remember that, kids.

Buffy bandages Angel's wound, and they flirt a bit. Joyce suddenly drops in, and Buffy quickly improvises that the visibly-older Angel is her "tutor". 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's some awkwardness about sleeping arrangements before they settle in for the evening.

The next day, Angel camps out until nightfall while Buffy heads to school. Returning home, Buffy brings some supper for Angel, who mutters miserably that he's older than she is and that he should go. They take that last half-step toward each other and start kissing. Suddenly, Angel pulls back, and Buffy lets out a terrified scream...because Angel is a vampire. With Joyce alerted, Angel haphazardly escapes out the window and returns to his dank apartment. He's a little surprised to see Darla sashaying from the shadows. They talk, and we learn that the two used to be an item. 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. He later migrated to America, where he shunned vampire life; after that, the record runs dry. Buffy argues that Angel has had ample opportunity to feed off people in Sunnydale but resisted. Xander, delighted by this news, reminds Buffy that it's her duty to slay Angel. Thanks.

Meanwhile in the Master's lair, Darla takes another stab at volunteering to kill Buffy. She cooks up a plan to have Angel kill Buffy, thereby returning to the Master's fold. Darla drops in on the Summers Home, where she cons Joyce into inviting her in by claiming to be Buffy's "study buddy". Prowling around Buffy's house, Angel hears Joyce's cry and rushes in just as Darla begins to bite. 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 is discovered — in flagranté, so to speak — by a newly-arrived Buffy. Horrified, Buffy throws him out of the house (literally), then phones 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. Leaving her mother in the care of friends, she sets out to kill Angel. 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.

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. Buffy 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 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. Suddenly, Darla jumps out from the shadows, packing two pistols. 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 advances on the duo, guns blazing. Angel yanks the crossbow bolt out of the wall and stakes Darla through the heart, dusting his maker.

At the Bronze's Post-Fumigation Party, Buffy and Angel 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

  • Accidental Public Confession: Buffy accidentally reveals what she's been writing in her diary when she thinks Angel has read it.
  • After Action Patch Up: 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. Darla nonchalantly grabs the bolt, pulls it out, and tosses it aside.
    "Close, but no heart."
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Being Personal Isn't Professional: The Master rightly thinks Darla's jealousy toward Buffy makes her a loose cannon. He later acquiesces, 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.
    Darla: You don't think I came alone, do you?
    Buffy: I know I didn't. (She kicks the crossbow up into her hands)
    Darla: Hmm, scary. (produces two pistols from behind her back) Scarier!
  • 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.
    • 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."
  • Book Ends:
    Buffy: So what's the difference between this and the pre-fumigation party?
    Xander: Much hardier cockroaches.
    • The Master complains about Buffy killing all of his best henchmen, and how it's "wearing thin."
  • 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."
  • Carnival of Killers: Subverted. The Master hires the Three, three apparently badass vampires to take down Buffy. In their first encounter with her, she manages to barely escape with Angel's help (who kills one of them)...and the Master, incensed that they failed, has Darla kill all of the Three, making their scenes a total of two. They weren't the real threat of the episode; that happened to be Darla herself.
  • Characterisation Click Moment: It was this episode where Buffy, Angel and Darla settled into the personalities they are better known for. Until this point, Buffy was a perky wannabe cheerleader, Angel was mysterious and kind of chipper (especially his first appearance) and Darla was petulant, cowardly, not particularly smart or capable, and seemingly not even all that important in the Master's hierarchy (Luke, for one, clearly outranked her). Here, Buffy is a kind of grim optimist, Angel is Byronically brooding, and Darla has a distant, haunting persona (since she died in this episode, this is better seen when she returns from the dead in Angel).
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: Buffy's crossbow bolt. It comes up in the fight with Angel and then with Darla and then Angel uses a bolt that missed to finish Darla off.
  • Chekhov's Gag: Buffy's rapid improvisation that Angel is a local college boy who's been "tutoring" her. This sets up Darla claiming to be Buffy's study buddy, disarming Joyce. Whoops.
    • Also comes back in season 2, after Angel has reverted to Angelus.
  • Circling Monologue: Darla circles Angel, mocking him for thinking Buffy could see past what he is.
  • Closeup on Head: Darla wants to take a crack at Buffy, but The Master has ruled that he will send "the Three" to get the job done. Description 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.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Darla displays a scary level of this when she decides to just try and shoot Buffy. Buffy might be super strong, but she's still a mortal woman.
  • Continuity Drift: Angel tells Buffy that he has not fed on another living human since his soul was restored, but this is contradicted by the Angel episode "Why We Fight" that showed in 1943 he sired a mortally wounded engineer to save a submarine. As Angel wasn't doing it for food, he probably didn't count this case. "Orpheus" reveals that in about 1975, he fed on an unnamed gunshot victim in a café, though that person was already dead when Angel fed. He fed on many humans after his soul was restored, when he was still trying to be with Darla but they were all evil humans.
  • Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: 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.
  • 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 look (she's in Game Face). She's 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 Widow: Angel makes guarded allusions to having lost his family to vampires, so Buffy assumes 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: Angel getting the boot from Casa Summers. Ow.
  • Doesn't Like Guns: Darla takes out two pistols to hunt down Buffy and Angel. Of course, as she acknowledges, Angel will not die from being shot, but it will still hurt like hell.
  • 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 going for the kill, Angel suddenly yanks his hair from behind and punches him in the face.
    Angel: Good dogs don't... [socks vampire] bite!
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: When a pack of vamps chase Buffy and Angel into the Summers house, one of the pursuers gets his hand through the door before Buffy slams the door on his wrist. It is later established that, barring an invitation, an invisible force field fills the doorway – like a membrane – keeping vampires out. The henchvamp shouldn't have been able to get his arm through like that.
  • Eating the Eye Candy: Buffy bandages a shirtless Angel and notices his tattoo.
  • 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.
  • Evil Plan: Darla pitches one to The Master; frame Angel for biting Joyce and then break him by talking him into killing Buffy. Then he will return to the fold. The Master approves.
  • 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.
  • False Reassurance: The Three return to the Master after failing their assignment to kill Buffy. He tells them that killing them for their failure would bring him little joy, and they react with relief. Then Darla kills them gleefully, and he notes that sometimes a little is enough.
  • 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 vamp-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 unobtrusively setting aside the food Buffy brought him.
    • Angel says he's slept in "worse" places than on a floor. Like rat-infested alleyways?
    • Darla derisively observes that Angel's trying to live like one of 'them' — a human. Angel notes that he doesn't fit in with vampires, either.
  • Forgotten Fallen Friend: The Master 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 up the Master, and two stroll off hand-in-hand together. Aw.
  • Frame-Up: Darla leaving a big red hickey on Joyce, then tossing her into Angel's arms.
  • 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: The Leader of the Three has a scar over his eye.
  • Guns Akimbo: Darla produces these from behind her back.
  • Gypsy Curse: They cursed him with a soul.
  • 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.....By 224 years.
    • 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."
  • Hero Killer: The Three almost take Buffy out when they first appear; it's only thanks to Angel's Big Damn Heroes moment that she escapes.
  • 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.
  • Honor Before Reason: When the Three fail, they allow themselves to be killed in penance.
  • 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. Then 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.
  • Immortal Life Is Cheap: Darla shoots Angel so he won't interfere with her killing Buffy. "Don't worry, guns can't kill vampires. Hurts like hell, though."
  • 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: At home, Joyce is 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.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Xander is jealous over the Buffy-Angel situation, and cruelly remarks that since Buffy is a vampire slayer, and Angel is a vampire, therefore she should just kill him. Giles only musters an annoyed sigh before commenting that Xander has a point.
  • Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand: Angel gives Buffy a chance to shoot him with her crossbow. Instead Buffy lays down the crossbow and bares her neck for him.
  • Knee Capping
    Darla: So many body parts, so few bullets. Let's begin with the kneecaps. No fun dancing without them.
  • Last-Second Word Swap: Outside the school, 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!"
  • Lets Wait Awhile: 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 everyone'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.
  • Martial Arts 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.
  • Mid-Season Twist: Angel is a vampire. Not only that, he's a refugee from The Master's order. What's more, he and Darla have a long history together. Oh, and he was cursed to have a soul.
  • 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.
  • Must Be Invited: Buffy shouts to Angel to get inside while they're being chased by the Three, inadvertently providing this. Though it doesn't matter, as he was already invited in the series premiere.
  • 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.
  • "No Peeking!" Request: Buffy asks Angel to keep his back turned while she changes with him inside her room, and he complies, looking out the widow without attempting to peek and they keep talking while they change.
  • Not a Morning Person: Angel sees Buffy in her pyjamas.
    Angel: You even look pretty when you go to sleep.
    Buffy: Well, when I wake up it's an entirely different story.
  • 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."
    • 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.
  • Pre-Asskicking 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 are the Master's personal assassins.
  • 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."
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Angel proves unwilling to off the Slayer, Darla taunts him and says he's sick for loving someone who hates vampires.
  • Relationship Upgrade: At the end of the episode Buffy and Angel agree that any relationship between them wouldn't work. Moments later they're kissing passionately.
  • Rescue Sex: Averted, which wins Angel some points with Buffy.
  • The Reveal:
    • Angel is a vampire.
    • Darla emerging from the shadows in Angel's apartment. Turns out they used to be an item.
  • Rewatch Bonus: While talking her way into the Summers home, Darla claims she's been helping Buffy study up The American Revolution. "My family kinda goes back to those days." She speaks the truth: The Angel episode "Darla" reveals that she was sired in colonial Virgina.
    • The same episode flashes back to Angelus and Darla in China during the Boxer Rebellion. Hence, Angel's crack about the schoolgirl outfit. "Last time I saw you, it was kimonos." note 
  • 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.
  • 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: 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 neck to Angel. He doesn't stir.
  • Shooting Gallery: In the library as preparation for Angel, Buffy shoots a quarrel straight into the heart of a guy on a "No Smoking" poster.
  • 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: Xander is aghast to hear that Angel slept over, but Willow wants to hear all the juicy details.
    • Giles 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. 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.
  • Stupid Evil: Master killing The Three for a single failure while they were pretty much among the strongest units he was shown to possess by that point.
  • 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: 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. Angel then mentions that Joyce moved the diary while straightening up.
    "'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.
  • Terrible Trio: The Three, a group of fierce vampire warriors set on Buffy by the Master. They wear armour and nearly kill Buffy and Angel. When they fail to do this they offer their lives to the Master as penance, and he gets Darla to stake them.
  • There Is Only One Bed: Buffy and Angel face this problem when Angel spends a night in Buffy's room. Buffy offers Angel her bed (because he's wounded) but he declines. Their first kiss occurs about 24 hours later.
  • 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."
  • Trespassing to Talk: Darla visiting Angel.
  • 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 peckish.
  • Villain Ball: The Three return to The Master and offer their lives as penance for their failure. Rather than keep the only vampires in the show thus far to make Buffy abandon a fight and run for her life around for his next plan to kill her, he has Darla kill them, eliminating three potential Slayer-killers in the process.
  • Villainous Breakdown: The Master, upon hearing news of Darla's death roars and breaks things and slouches.
  • Walk-In Chime-In: 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: Angel is a vampire and he hooks up with Buffy after killing Darla.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In-Universe. After the Three attack Buffy and Giles identifies them as a serious threat, none of the good guys ever see or have to deal with them again. Though Giles does mention that they'll have to offer their lives to the Master in penance, their fate is never confirmed. Only the audience sees that the Master had them executed for their failure.
  • 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 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?
  • With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: A rare villainous example when the Master tells the Anointed One that with power comes responsibility.
  • You Have Failed Me: When the Three offer their lives to the Master in penance for having failed, he lets Darla kill them despite admitting to not gaining much joy from the act. Of course, he notes that sometimes a little is enough.

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