Act Three
7GG) "You're not welcome here." (00:28:40) INVITATION REVOKED?: Although Buffy does not know it yet, Angel here is proving himself to be a good vampire. When Buffy tells him that he is not welcome, it is, assumably, meant to revoke the invitation she gave him earlier in the episode. And he follows her order, and leaves the house immediately. However, in truth, her declaration here did not actually take away his ability to be in the house. The only way to properly do that is with a specific ritual (see 7E), which will be performed in the second season's Passion (see 29HHH). Angel leaves in order to respect her wishes, which shows what kind of vamp he is.
7HH) "1630 Revello Drive." (00:28:58) FIRST TIME: This is the first time that we hear Buffy's address, and this scene, as a matter of fact, is the first time we see Joyce put in direct physical danger.
7II) "Mom, this is Mr. Giles." (00:29:40) FIRST TIME: And thus we see the historic first meeting of Joyce and Giles, who will continue to have a very interesting and unusual relationship throughout the course of the show.
7JJ) "If you care about somebody you care about them. You can't change that by..." (00:30:38) SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE: As usual, the character continuity on Buffy is impeccable. We see Buffy here trying to repress her feelings for Angel, in order to kill him. We will see her try to deny her true feelings and keep secrets many times in the future when complications arise (see 4Q). And Willow, more of a romantic even than Buffy at times, as usual, does the emotion thing even better than Buffy. Willow does not see everything as black-and-white. She sees that in some cases, exceptions have to be made. Yes, he's a vampire...but you can't just shut off feelings so quickly as Buffy tries to do here. Willow's belief in this is what keeps her together with Oz in the second, third, and first quarter of the fourth season. Even though he is a werewolf, Willow can see beyond that and love him.--Sophist, Tues, 07/09/02 at 09:58:54, paraphrased and expanded upon by Rob See 8T.
7KK) "Did you think she would understand? That she would look at...your true face and give you a kiss?" (00:31:23) TALE AS OLD AS TIME: This line clearly underlines the fact that the Angel and Buffy story is a modern update of Beauty and the Beast, a classic fairy tale written down by Madame Le Prince de Beaumont in 1756, which is about a young prince who is turned into an ugly beast by an enchantress. In order for the spell to be lifted, he must be kissed by a young woman who truly loves him. He despairs, however, that this will never come to pass due to his hideous face. Interestingly, although Darla here is trying to bring doubt into Angel's mind that Buffy could ever truly love him, Buffy does indeed kiss Angel, as he has his vamp face on, in the second season's What's My Line?--Rob, with some paraphrasing of a post by Sophist, Tues, 07/09/02 at 09:58:54
7LL) "...is she not applying herself?" (00:32:48) MOTHER'S WORRIES: This brief scene between Joyce and Giles is especially touching, since we see Joyce here desperately trying to "figure out" Buffy, something with which we know that she has a great deal of trouble (see 3WW), due in no small part to Buffy's refusal to talk to her about personal issues. Here we see her attempting to learn more about her daughter by talking to this man, who she feels may know her daughter even better than she does.
7*4) "She lives very much in the 'now', um, and, uh, history, of course, is, is very much about the, uh... the 'then'." BUFFY AND HISTORY: See 42MM.
Act Four
7MM) "Come on. Don't go soft on me now." (00:34:40) DEATH WISH?: One interesting question in this scene is whether Angel would have really attempted to kill Buffy in order to save his own life in this episode. Angel's remark here implies that he wanted to make sure Buffy gave her all in the fight, because if one of them had to die, he would rather it be him. He doesn't want Buffy to go soft on him, because he has never forgiven himself for the deeds his unsouled self had done, and in many ways believes that Buffy has the right to kill him. Notice how he doesn't even try to explain to Buffy that he did not attack Joyce--just the fact that he was tempted to drink from Joyce was just reason enough for him to believe himself deserving of punishment. This is obviously not what Darla was expecting.
7*2)"Fed on a girl about your age... beautiful... dumb as a post... but a favorite among her clan." CONTINUITY CHECK: More detail will be given about this girl's death and Angelus' subsequent ensouling in Becoming (see 33UUU) and Five by Five.
7*3) "Romany. Gypsies." GYPSIES, TRAMPS & THIEVES: "A travelling people and a distinct ethnic minority, Romanies can be found all across the world, although the largest number, unsurprisingly, live in Romania. There are four main 'nations' of the Romany people, the Machavaya, the Lovari, the Churari and the Kalderash, plus many smaller 'tribes'. Romanies originally came from India, and have their own language which includes words of Indian origin."--submitted by aliera, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/indetail/ surprise/trivia.shtml
7NN) "When you become a vampire, the demon takes your body. But it doesn't get the soul. That's gone." (00:35:48) WHAT IS A SOUL?: "The Buffyverse lexicon has been a bit ambiguous about what is meant by "the soul." The term has been used to refer to (1) the moral conscience of a person...[his or her] (2) consciousness, intelligence, memory, and personality , and...[his or her] (3) life-force, the energy that keeps a person alive. The most persistent use on...[Buffy and Angel] is the soul as the (1) moral conscience. Everything else within a person (i.e., their consciousness, intelligence, memory, and personality) is something else, what I will refer to as...[his or her] 'spirit.' Both humans and demons have spirits...Buffyverse demons do have 'spirits,' although the dialogue implies that they don't have souls (e.g., Buffy's 'someone with a soul did this?' meaning a human committed the murder, or 'Angel lost his soul' during Angelus' liberation in Season 2). These comments refer to the fact that most demons lack a human moral sense (conscience). But demons do have a unique, contained intelligent conscious awareness that can sometimes travel into other bodies (e.g., when Eyghon possessed Jenny while her human soul was present)...There are exceptions to the all-demons-are-evil generalization, however..."--Masquerade, "The Metaphysics of BtVS" at http://www.atpobtvs.com
FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "...Essentially, souls are by their nature amorphous but to me it's really about what star you are guided by. Most people, we hope, are guided by, 'you should be good, you're good, you feel good.' And most demons are guided simply by the opposite star. They believe in evil, they believe in causing it, they like it. They believe it in the way that people believe in good. ...I believe it's kind of like a spectrum, but they are setting their course by opposite directions. But they're all sort of somewhere in the middle."--Joss Whedon, 3/30/01, The 18th Annual William S. Paley Television Festival; Information taken from Masquerade's "Metaphysics of BtVS" at http://www.atpobtvs.com See 33UUU.
7OO) "You have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done, and to care." (00:35:60) WHAT IS ANGEL?: Angel's dilemma is both compelling and perplexing. In one respect, his situation is not so hard to understand. He has a conscience and human emotions, but a demon physiology drives him, and he must fight it. In another respect, Angel's situation raises confounding questions about guilt and responsibility. The show has been fairly clear that upon siring, Angel's human soul was banished to the Ether. Nevertheless, in...[the second season's] Lie to Me, Angel 'confesses' to Buffy the truth about 'his' siring of Drusilla. Does this mean he thinks the human soul is responsible for this horrible act? But how could that be so, since the human soul wasn't even present at the time? In Amends, Angel distanced himself from the acts of the demon when he told the First Evil that 'It wasn't me.' And there lies the rub: 'It wasn't me' 'It was me'--who is the 'me' doing the talking? The 'Angel' we know is both the demon who did the bad deeds and the human soul that didn't. So what is their relationship to each other?
Are we talking about
1. two consciousnesses in one body taking turns being in control, like some sort of multiple-personality guy?, or
2. a single, combined consciousness at once both demon and human? or
3. a split consciousness, two consciousness both aware simultaneously, just not of each other, or
4. one consciousness--the human's--spurred on by the mindless drives of a vampire physiology?
Angel has 'memories' of his mortal life (as Liam of Galway), of Angelus' deeds, and of his days as a souled vampire. This would seem to indicate the second of these choices. But it's not quite that simple. Option number four is also close to the truth, and fits well with Joss' 'drug addict' analogy for Angel's condition: Whedon said that the character of Angel (by the time he got his own series) was intended as a metaphor for an alcoholic in recovery. Angel, like many recovering addicts, is making amends for what he did 'under the influence' (Hercules, Aint' It Cool News, March 4, 2001).
5. A fifth possibility was suggested when Angel was transformed into a 'pure vampire' in Pylea. On this model, the intelligence, memories, consciousness, and personality of the original human remain in a body that has been (1) transformed by a primitive mindless demon physiology and is (2) devoid of a human soul (conscience)...
I always thought of Angel's 'soul' as the conscience and goodness of a person or put another way his 'control' over doing the evil within all of us, so to speak. The 'demon' that comes with being a vampire is what he is controlling and denying the light of day (pardon the pun). So, Angel is always there, regardless of the 'demon' aspect pushing towards the commitment of horrible things (i.e. killing Ms. Calendar) ...but when he gets his soul back, he realizes how horrible the things he did are and thus feels all the guilt. I don't think the soul ever goes away, it just gets locked up inside, out of a controlling position (W. R. Terrell 4:17pm Oct 19, 1999).
The 'soul' that left Liam of Galway's body upon death/vamping (and Angel's when the Gypsy curse was reversed) was just one part of his personality--namely, his conscience. Everything else that made up the human Liam's personality remained behind. Which means that 'Angelus' is merely Liam of Galway with a demon physiology and without a conscience (and the same would be true for all other vampires). This is supported by the fact that Angelus was sadistic and sociopathic, in other words, he lacked empathy.
As for memories being what's left of the person controlled by the demon, aren't memories what make up who we are? Someone i forget who said that we are the sum of our memories. ...(16:53:24 ) I think [Angel's memories] had an affect on the 'person' Angelus was. ...The person Angel was had, through the parts left when the demon took over the first time, an influence on how the demon acted. The 'person' Angel was when he lost his soul in Surprise had an influence on the demon Angelus and his acts (Lady Bathory, Dec 20 16:14 1998).
If this is the proper view of the Buffyverse soul, then the received story about vampires being 'a human body possessed by a demon 'soul'" in The Harvest would have to be dismissed as Watcher mythology (see 2LL and 2MM), and everything we've learned about vampires would have to be explained according to such a view, including Spike's apparent sensitivity and what Kathy was stealing in...[the fourth season's Living Conditions.] This theory does have the merit of being a simpler, more elegant understanding of complex metaphysical situations like Liam-Angelus-Angel and the whole who-the-heck-is-Darla-this time quandary...[from Angel's second season.]
Angel's dilemma, then, is the literal sort of 'fighting one's demon,' where the demon is a part of you and that take control of your actions. This is the description borderline psychotics and alcoholics commonly make of that impulse that drives them to kill or to reach for another drink. Angel can divorce himself from past deeds done when his soul (conscience) was absent, but he chooses not to. His personality and memories--his psyche--were present at the time the deeds were done and so he refers to the actions performed when the human soul was absent as things "I did." This has become his compelling reason to give up living day to day as a tortured vampire and actively join the fight against evil."--Masquerade's "Deconstructing Angel: The Relationship of Angel and Angelus," at http://www.atpobtvs.com
7PP) "I haven't fed on a living human being since that day." (00:36:05) ANGEL LIAR?: "According to dates in various flashbacks we learn that he got his soul in 1898. According to Fool For Love/Darla, in 1900 he's in China with Darla, Dru and Spike. He's trying to ignore his soul and be the vampire he used to be. Which included feeding on people. Darla got suspicious because he only ate evil people (and rats). Perhaps he's counting from the moment he refused to eat the orphaned baby, but it is inaccurate of him to say he never ate a living person since he got his soul..."--Isabel, 07/10/02 at 20:30:22
MORE ON THAT: "He had the vampire slayer who loved him pointing a cross-bow at his chest. Better to have her think his soul prevented him from ever killing humans, even it didn't stop him in the beginning when he was still struggling with his personal and moral identity...[than to have Buffy not trust him, and shoot him.]"--Masquerade's analysis of "Darla" from http://www.atpobtvs.com
7QQ) "I can walk like a man, but I'm not one." (00:36:14) THE MEASURE OF A MAN: This statement of Angel's "immediately leaves us with the question, which lasts as long as Angel keeps appearing on Buffy and even afterward: 'What constitutes a man?' His presence is profoundly destabilizing." This was an issue also grappled with in the modern classic Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, The Measure of a Man, in which a trial was held in order to determine whether Data the android was the property of Starfleet, and therefore, for all intents and purposes, a slave, or whether he was a sentient being. Does the fact that he is a machine make him any less deserving of human rights?--Rahael, Tues, 07/09/02 at 09:37:22, with additions by Rob
THE MEASURE OF A MAN II: THE SEQUEL: "The character...[of Angel] becomes a particularly interesting vehicle to embody this theme, one that allows it to be explored in complex and specific ways. Because the revelations in this...[episode] occur within the context of heterosexual desire, the thematic question becomes both gender-specific, i.e., 'what constitutes a man in relation to a woman?' as well as its corollaries, 'what constitutes a [modern?] woman, both in and out of relation to men?' But it also has a non-gender-specific meaning: 'what constitutes a human?' The question, through Angel's presence, thus simultaneously resists any simplistic essentialism while embracing a search for commonality within diversity."--Redcat, Tues, 07/09/02 at 11:15:56
THE MEASURE OF A MAN III: THE NEXT SEQUEL: Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this topic is that these questions of what constitute a human are "real life issues. 100 years ago, a black man was not considered a 'man' in the USA...in fact, he was not even considered human (a)...And 300 years ago men debated if women had souls (b)."--(a) Shygirl, Wed, 07/10/02 at 07:17:44; (b) Arethusa, Wed, 07/10/02 at 07:56:23
7RR) "I made him." (00:37:28) ANGEL & DARLA: Like most of his relationships, "Angel(us') relationship with Darla was one of obsession rather than love. The only difference was that Darla was a mother to him, as much, if not more, than a lover. He needed her. Angelus never needed Drusilla, nor the gypsy girl, nor Buffy, nor any of the other women he was obsessed with, unless you count his obsessed need to control them. He not only killed his mom, he did it TWICE...[the first one being his mortal mother, the second being Darla, his sire, in this episode]! And had sex with the second one! For hundreds of years! And Darla is Mother as Lust as Death which just doesn't get any more archetypal and twisted (Anya G., 10:36 am Nov 15, 2000). That's a big fucking romance is what that is. A hundred-and-fifty years of being with somebody, that's what I call having a history. But at no time was I trying to play this as being Angel's true love. It's more like the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe; this troubled, old married couple with secrets...here's a guy who's been around for a couple of hundred years before he ever met Buffy and certainly he was shaped in some way...[by his relationship with Darla] (BtVS/AtS writer Tim Minear, 11/13/00)."--Masquerade's "Darla" Analysis at http://www.atpobtvs.com See 33D.
7SS) "Scarier." (00:38:05) GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, VAMPIRES WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE: Buffy has a very anti-gun stance, something which is brought into the forefront in the third season's Earshot and the sixth season's Seeing Red and Villains. For the most part, demons don't use guns, even though they would be an advantage against the Slayer. Although the exact reason has never been specified, one can assume that it's due to the fact that a vamp or demon who kills the Slayer would like it to be in a mighty struggle, so that he or she can brag about what he or she has done, to show off his or her great strength. Any demon who can actually beat the Slayer has to be a very strong one. But using a gun would be an easy way out with little honor in it. When Warren brags that he has killed the Slayer with a gun in Villains, for example, the demons are not impressed. And of course they're even less impressed when it turns out that he has failed to kill her. Darla here uses a gun so that her weapon will not be one that can hurt Angel (see 7TT), and because she does not care about her reputation in killing Buffy--she wants her dead, perhaps because she knows Angel loves Buffy now, and not her.
7TT) "Don't worry, bullets can't kill vampires. Can hurt them like hell, but..." (00:38:12) GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, VAMPIRES WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE II: It is important to note here that Darla does not want to kill Angel, which is why it is all the more a shock to her when he kills her a few moments later. See 1ZZ.
7UU) "Angel..." (00:39:39) VAMPIRE MYTHOLOGY: "Angel's killing of Darla breaks a cardinal rule of vampire society. While we see Spike and Drusilla...[in the second season] often threatening to kill Angel, they've never followed through. This is our only example of a vampire killing his sire. Angel has killed his sire and lover, and he can never hope to return to the vampire world." In Anne Rice's vampire books, the punishment to a vampire for killing another is death, or, at the very least, exile.--Scroll, Tues, 07/09/02 at 07:37:04, with some additions by Rob See 15M, 15UUU, 19V, 19SS, 31WW, and 33Cx5.
VAMPIRE IN LOVE?: When Buffy attempted to shoot Darla in the heart with the crossbow, she misses. "Angel doesn't...[Perhaps this is a symbolic revelation that] Angel...[is the only one, up to this point in the story, who] can get to Darla's heart...He's the only...[one] (other than the Master) that we ever see Darla care about..."--Scroll, Wed, 07/10/02 at 22:52:27
7VV) "She was my favorite! For 400 years!" (00:40:30) DARLA & THE MASTER: Here's a little backstory on Darla and the Master's relationship, gotten from flashbacks in the Angel episode, Darla: "When the Master came to the New World (perhaps seeking the Hellmouth...[in 1609] he set his sights on a young woman...[in the Virginia Colony] he would come to call "Darla". HumanDarla was a prostitute who had some material wealth and a disdain for religion that probably grew out of religion's disdain for the life she lead." Eventually, she contracted syphillis, and, on her death bed, the Master, masquerading as a priest, entered her room and turned her. From that time on, she was his favorite and remained by his side until the headstrong Angelus convinced her to leave, around 200 years later. After Angel lost his soul, Darla eventually returned to the Master and didn't leave until her dusting in this episode.--Masquerade's analysis of "Darla" from http://www.atpobtvs.com, partly paraphrased by Rob
7WW) "But to lose her to Angel!" (00:40:38) DEJA VU: In the Angel episode, Darla, we see a flashback of "Darla bringing Angelus to meet the Master. Angelus, arrogant and irreverent, entices Darla away from the Master. So...[this first season episode was not the first time the] Master...['lost] Darla to Angel'...[S]he leaves with...[Angelus] to wander the world."--Scroll, Wed, 07/10/02 at 22:52:57, with additons by Rob
7XX) "He was to have sat at my right hand..." (00:48:42) DEGRADATION MOST HOLY: Here is yet another example of the Christian myth being inverted in vampire mythology. Just as the Master woefully says that Angel would have sat at his right hand, in the New Testament, Jesus was told, after his death, resurrection, and ascendance to heaven, he would sit at God's right hand. "It's rather fitting that Angel, is then, shown as being tempted by Darla, with blood, to revert to who he was..." like Christ was tempted by the Devil. And like Jesus, Angel was able to overcome the temptation."--Rahael, Tues, 07/09/02 at 09:58:24, partly paraphrased by Rob See 1AA, 1BBB, 2B, 2C, 2Z, 2NN, 7V, 15L, and 25BBB.
7YY) "Much heartier cockroaches." (00:41:14) BUG BE NIMBLE: "There is a constant reference to ancientness...[and] longevity...[in this episode. When] Angel is helping Buffy with her history...[h]e says he is 'older'...[H]e's been around for 240 years, as Giles discovers. Darla mentions that her family go back to the War of Independence. Buffy taunts her that 'you've been around since Columbus, you are bound to pile up a few ex's.'...[They] are as hardy, and as long living as cockroaches...They'll survive no matter what--Slayers and humans can come and go...[but] these parasites will go on living. They are as hard to kill as well--Buffy is vulnerable to bullets, but they aren't." Xander's "much heartier cockroaches" line is a reminder that "Darla may be dead, but the Master lives on."--Rahael, Tues, 07/09/02 at 09:11:36 See 7B.
7ZZ) "Painful, I know. See you around?" (00:43:38) OUCH!: Buffy's obviously left her mark on Angel, in the form of the burn scar where the cross touched his flesh. "And the irony of that burn is that it is from the cross that Angel had given her...[in Welcome to the Hellmouth--see 1KK]."--Brian, Thu, 07/11/02 at 04:27:29