Act
Three
26HH)
"Giles, shut up." FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY
JOSS: "I love the fact that Willow is the one who realized exactly
what happened and is the only one. Her bond with Buffy is something that I find
kind of transcendent, even when they don’t get along at all."--Joss
Whedon, DVD Commentary
26II) "...but I think I may have a way to deal with this Judge guy." XANDER SMART: Significantly, in such an important episode for Buffy as a character, Xander is given a moment to shine--the first plan to eliminate a villain which he himself formulates and orchestrates. Seeing that the hero is in no condition to lead, Xander takes over, using his own knowledge and expertise to save the day. Although Buffy takes out the Judge in the end, it is Xander's plan, again reaffirming how important Buffy's friends are to her. Arguably, without them, she never would have survived the tumultuous events of the second season (see 15Px4). Xander's devotion to Buffy inspires his inner-hero to emerge from his outer-Zeppo. See 10HHH and 26RR.
26JJ) "Just like you hurt me." THE MADNESS OF PRINCESS DRU: This line again reaffirms that Dru, post-siring, does not hate Angel for the torment he inflicted upon her when she was human. In fact, it seems to tickle her pink. See 22HHH.
26KK) "To kill this girl...you have to love her." ANGELUS PERCEPTIVE: This line encapsulates just why Angelus is such a dangerous villain to Buffy. He is not an impersonal creature, like the Master, battling against the mythic symbol of the Slayer. He knows Buffy deeply, has, in a manner of speaking, seen into her soul, and knows exactly how to get her and what psychological pain to inflict. See 26O.
FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "Angel (Angelus) definitely has feeling for Buffy, but he is so stinking evil and twisted that no matter what, those feelings can only manifest themselves in hateful, destructive DEMONIC ways. ...Demons are immortal monsters that thrive on darkness and chaos. And Angelus is the badassiest of them all."--Joss Whedon, Jan 31, 1998 on the Bronze messageboard, reprinted by Masquerade on http://www.atpobtvs.com
26LL) She and Angel are in bed caressing each other. FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "This scene, also a new thing for me, extremely artsy. Kind of a Lynchian…darkness to it. And very sexy, I think. I wanted to get into the sexuality of this girl, and her memory of what had happened with just being blatant, exploitive, obvious or boring…[so I shot the scene with] tiny, abstract [close-ups]…When we finally got around to recording sound for it, I was too embarrassed to ask them to vocalize it all, which is why the heavy breathing in that scene was me and Cindy Rebato, the sound editor."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
26MM) Cut to a funeral in bright daylight. SIX FEET UNDER: "Buffy's dream, of the funeral. Who has died? Angel? their relationship? Her innocence? In some form or another, the dream makes clear that Buffy will never lose the 'real' Angel. He appears and points her toward the truth. And, it foreshadows his eventual reappearance and Buffy's second loss of him. And Joss affirms that Buffy has not lost her real innocence (see 26LLL). Not in any significant way. He challenges the stereotype that the title, and society sets up - that a woman who is no longer a virgin has lost her 'purity', her 'innocence'. Buffy is no Eve, tempting Adam with forbidden fruit, and causing mankind to leave Eden. Sex/knowledge is not evil. In this instance, the Buffyverse appears to be governed by capricious forces.
'As
flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.'--Gloucester,
in Shakespeare's King Lear.
Star-crossed lovers indeed - Angel's tragedy happens because of a crime that
Angelus committed, and an ancient curse. Ironically, if the gypsies hadn't cursed
Angelus, Buffy would never have fallen in love with Angel. They are doomed from
the start."--Rahael, Mon, 03/10/03 at 04:14:20
26NN) ...puts her hand around her throat and shoves her back onto her desk. FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "I love the brutality of that move. Again, a big sea change in everybody’s relationships, using this sort of pivotal moment in Buffy’s life to upset everybody else’s. We’ve seen the Xander/Willow problem, and now of course…the Giles/Jenny romance gets squashed..."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: "Jenny is wide eyed - Buffy is choking
her, a murderer's calm in her eyes."--"Innocence" by Joss
Whedon, available through Pocketbooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
The Script Book, Season Two, Volume 3
26OO)
"W-w-w-h-h-how do you know you were responsible f-for..." FROM
THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "The clueless father figure of
Giles. Again, a sea change, as he realizes his charge is perhaps growing up
a little, and becomes very British."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
26PP) He hears the door open. HOW WAS ANGEL ABLE TO ENTER ENYOS' ROOM?: See 7E.
26QQ) "But thanks for the offer." FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: In the original script, this scene ran longer:
GYPSY MAN: You! Evil one...
ANGEL: Evil one? Oh, man, now I've got hurty feelings.
GYPSY MAN: (backing away) What do you want?
ANGEL: A whole lot. Got a lot of lost time to make up for. Say, I guess that's kind of your fault, isn't it?
The Gypsy holds up a cross, which Angel knocks out of his hand, grabbing his neck.
ANGEL: You gypsy types, you go and curse people, you really don't care who gets hurt. Of course, you did give me an escape clause, so I gotta thank you for that.He pushes the old man back so he's sitting on the bed.
GYPSY MAN: You are an abomination. The day you stop suffering for your crimes, you are no longer worthy of a human soul.ANGEL: Well, that pesky critter's all gone. So we can get down to business.
He kneels in front of the old man.
ANGEL: Don't worry, it won't hurt a bit...after the first hour.
26RR) "I just want to give her the tour. Uh, you know what I'm saying." FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "This is a really pivotal moment in the evolution of...Xander being cool, even while he’s being a complete dork..."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary See 10HHH and 26II.
26SS) "Remember Halloween, I got turned into a soldier?" CONTINUITY CHECK: Xander is referring to the events of Halloween, when Ethan Rayne's chaos spell turned each person into the costume he or she was wearing. Xander, wearing an army outfit, became an actual soldier (see 18EEE). The fact that Xander still has all of the military knowledge fits in well with the hyena-possession in The Pack, after which Xander remembered everything he had done as a wild animal (see 6RR). Symbolically, the fact that Xander has a soldier hidden within him is a wonderful metaphor for Xander's inner brave heroics which emerge at the most unexpected times. See 10HHH.
26TT) "It's okay. I can wait." FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "It’s the scene that makes Willow [and, by extension, the audience,] love Oz."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
FORESHADOWY GOODNESS: "Anticipates Oz's subsequent decision not to have sex with her in Amends when he thinks she's just trying to apologize to him."--KdS, Mon, 03/10/03 at 05:53:36
Oz's decision to not kiss Willow is even more meaningful when parallelled with another teenage guy, Xander, who just a moment ago told Cordy, in response to whether looking at guns makes him want to have sex, that "I'm seventeen. Looking at linoleum makes me wanna have sex." Knowing that Oz just turned down the offer of a willing girl shows just what a great guy he is.
26UU) WAS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO? FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "So intimate and so gross. It definitely takes Buffy to the place she needs to be, which is ready to kill the boy."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
Act Four
26VV) "Too bad you can't come with, huh? I'll be thinkin' of you." FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: This and the earlier scene where Angelus first returned to Spike and Dru, "give...us a taste of how this triangle is going to work, that Angel in fact is going to take Drusilla away from Spike a little bit, and that’s gonna drive him [Spike] crazy."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
26WW) "She just said get out." DID JENNY BETRAY GILES AND BUFFY?: "The upshot: Jenny was sent on a mission without sufficient information. The only thing she is guilty of was not telling Giles and Buffy why she was there and who she was. Although she was part of the causal chain that lead to Angel losing his soul, she was not responsible for Angel losing his soul."--Masquerade, "Surprise/Innocence" Analysis from http://www.atpobtvs.com
WAS IT RIGHT FOR JENNY TO KEEP HER REAL IDENTITY AND MISSION FROM GILES AND BUFFY?: See 29II.
FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: "She looks pleadingly at Giles. There's no joy, nor anger in his reply. Just a decision."--"Innocence" by Joss Whedon, available through Pocketbooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season Two, Volume 3
TWISTAGE: The tables have turned. "In the episodes after The Dark Age it was Jenny turning her back on Giles (see 23DD)."--Cactus Watcher, Sun, 03/09/03 at 16:00:25
Also very significant is how Giles backs Buffy on excluding Jenny from the group, arguably to his own detriment, since he is giving up a romantic relationship because of an argument Buffy had with her. This goes to show just how deeply protective Giles is of Buffy. Although he rebels against being a father, he also, unwillingly, embraces it. He sees Jenny's betrayal of Buffy as a betrayal of him as well. Another issue is whether either of them were right to ostracize Jenny. Arguably, their exclusion of her from the group is part of the chain of events which leads to Jenny's death at Angelus' hand. Yet another case of yummy moral ambiguity in the Buffyverse.
26XX) "We haven't a bead on where they would go?" TERRIBLY BRITISH: "'Drawing a bead'...is a...gun reference...An aiming system consisting of a notch and a brass bead spaced along the top of a gun barrel. To aim the gun accurately the bead is lined up with the notch."--Msgiles, 07:23:50 03/10/03 Mon
26YY) The man freezes, a look of surprise on his face, and he quickly begins to combust. FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "Killing extras. Funny every time."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
26ZZ) "I'll handle the Smurf." POP CULTURE TIME: The "Smurf[s are] jolly cartoon character[s], blue in colour. Reminiscent of a gnome [or] goblin...Originated in Belguim in 1958, drawn by Peyo, [they were brought to America in the 1980s in the form of a Saturday morning cartoon]. Smurfs were social creatures, came in a variety of cultural roles, lived on the island of the Smurfs, and were inclined to sing." Except for their color, these free-thinking little creatures have very little in common with the Judge.--MsGiles, Mon,03/10/03 at 07:23:50, with additions by Rob
26AAA) "Think I got his attention." UNINVITED: "I do think the Judge is pretty interesting symbolically (even if smurf blue is not the most fearsome of colours). Especially since the end result of Innocence is Giles and Joyce refusing to judge Buffy. I also keep thinking of the scene in mall in Innocence where Angelus and Dru stand on the raised platform with the Judge between them. Kind of like a dark marriage, with Buffy as the uninvited guest who disrupts the wedding."--ponygirl, Sat, 03/08/03 at 15:07:05
26BBB) "No weapon forged can stop me." NOW AND THEN: "...it looks as if this was less a mystical rule, more a simple empirical assumption because of the limited weapons technology of the Middle Ages - which sort of sums up the Buffyverse's healthy suspicion of 'ancient wisdom.'"--KdS, Sat, 03/08/03 at 04:31:17
26CCC) ...and she raises the anti-tank rocket launcher to her shoulder. FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "Again, the epic, the Western...the showdown, the shoot-out. It’s part of what makes her [Buffy] cool. And when she picks up that rocket-launcher, I have never loved her more...The rocket launcher. Truly a fine thing...My big man-toy..."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
PLAYING WITH FIREARMS: "It's interesting that while in Season 4 the technology of the Initiative is pretty clearly bad, and there is a general anti-technology bias in the Buffyverse (see 7SS and 18FFF), with Buffy on several occasions saying 'guns - not useful' (e.g. in the bank raid in Flooded, when she fails to hit anything at all except Spike's furniture with Riley's gun in As You Were). Here the gun is good for once."--MsGiles, Sun, 03/09/03 at 03:37:23
26DDD) "You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" ANGEL VS. ANGELUS: See 26CC.
26EEE) "Arm." OZ & THE ARM: See 25ZZ.
26FFF) ...and she kicks him extremely hard in the crotch. WET AND WILD: "Buffy and Angel made love for the first time when they were soaking wet. During their first serious battle they are wet again. The connection is reinforced when Buffy ends the fight by kicking Angel in the crotch."--Cactus Watcher, Sun, 03/09/03 at 16:00:25
FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "All the stuff that Angel says to her is just mean boyfriend, mean sexual stuff, it’s all relationship stuff. The fight, epic, again. But the pain, completely intimate. And of course, Buffy’s response, more intimate still. This show is designed to be a feminist show, not a polemic, but a very straight-on feminist show, and for her to be so abused by him, and for her response to be to kick him in what Spike would refer to as ‘the goolies,’ it’s very primal. It’s very important. It’s kind of empowering, and I love it."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: "She kicks him between the legs, just about as hard as a person can. He drops to his knees, mouth open in an extreme of agony that cannot even scream."--"Innocence" by Joss Whedon, available through Pocketbooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season Two, Volume 3
26GGG) "But this is all my fault." IS BUFFY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANGEL TURNING?: "Buffy tells Giles, 'this is all my fault'. She's feeling guilty because when Angel said, 'maybe we shouldn't [make love]', she insisted. While Buffy's sleeping with Angel was the direct cause of his change, responsibility is a matter of intent and negligence, and Buffy neither intended to turn Angel, nor was she negligent because she did not seek out the possible mystic consequences of sleeping with him. Giles insists that what happened isn't Buffy's fault, and in I Only Have Eyes for You, Willow echoes this view. In Dead Man's Party, Cordy claims, rather thoughtlessly, that it was Buffy's fault."--Masquerade, "Surprise/Innocence" Analysis from http://www.atpobtvs.com
26HHH) "All you will get from me is, is my support. And my respect." FORGIVING GILES: See 13DDD and 17WWW.
FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: "[David] Greenwalt watched this and said, ‘Oh my God, she has the best father in the world,’ and then watched the next scene, and said, ‘Oh my God, she has the best mother.’ The idea that she can come back to this family for strength, after her sort of baptism of adolescent fire, the romance gone wrong, was very beautiful to me."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
26III) "Stowaway", an old black-and-white movie with Alice Faye and Robert Young, is playing on TV. POP CULTURE TIME: Description of this 1936 Shirley Temple film: "'Fleeing from bandit-ridden China, a cute & incredibly precocious little orphan accidentally becomes a STOWAWAY on a luxury liner. Once aboard, she proceeds to charm (nearly) everyone in sight, while working to bring about the marriage of two lonely Americans (from http://www.imdb.com).' Shirley Temple films are notoriously syrupy. The theme of an orphan re-establishing a family is perhaps subsidiary to the clear identification of Shirley Temple with an ideal of pre-pubertal girlhood: a cutesy, befrocked, singing and dancing charmer, who actually looks very like the girl Buffy we see in Buffy's memories in The Weight of the World. Buffy left any hope of conforming with this ideal behind when she became a slayer; now more than ever she is aware of this, as she moves into an increasingly dangerous adulthood."--Msgiles, 07:23:50 03/10/03 Mon
26JJJ) "Good night, my love..." MUSICALLY SPEAKING: This song is "a bit of a lament. 'Goodnight, My love/ Until we meet again...' I think their meeting again was not a guarantee."--Isabel, Mon, 03/10/03 at 02:59:06
COME SAIL AWAY WITH ME: This film clip takes place "on a boat [which is] a nice echo of the dock yard where Angel was supposed to sail away (see 25III). If he had done, Angelus would never have reappeared."--Rahael, Mon, 03/10/03 at 03:49:36
26LLL) "You look the same to me." FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: The old movie is "so comforting and so sweet...The sort of poignant loss of, that’s right, innocence, yes, the title did actually mean something. It meant not just the loss of innocence, but the fact that the innocence isn’t lost, that Buffy is, in this sense, an innocent, that she hasn’t lost anything of herself, even though she’s gone through a painful maturing process, and that’s why her mom says, ‘You don’t look any different to me’ here, as a way of stating that, that she’s still the same good person that she was."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
26MMM) Buffy leans over and rests her head on her mother. Joyce continues gently stroking Buffy's hair. FROM THE MOUTH OF THE ALMIGHTY JOSS: Buffy and Joyce "leave me with exactly the feeling I wanted to have at the end of this. Of regret, of loss, of love."--Joss Whedon, DVD Commentary
FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: "They sit, Joyce playing gently with her daughter's hair. Buffy letting her eyes drift shut. The candle flickering bravely in the dark."--"Innocence" by Joss Whedon, available through Pocketbooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season Two, Volume 3