season two   >   innocence

We open this episode of light-hearted joy with Spike whining about needing to vacate the evil bat cave as Buffy knows where they are, thus proving that while Evil!Spike is sexy as hell, there’s not much going on up top. Anyone worth their salt in evil knows that Buffy never goes after you if she knows where you are. There’s no suspense if it’s that easy. Drusilla, who does seem to be worth her salt in evil, makes no move to vacate and instead swoons and is all oooooh, aaaaah. One presumes that she has just had a vision of Angel in his leather pants. We cut from Dru to…

…aw, innocence. Or, actually, the soon-to-be-smashed remains of innocence (aka Buffy) as she awakens alone in Angel’s bed, unaware that he’s killing a hooker in the alley outside. [actually, he was smoking a hooker. Although also killing her, I suppose. -SP] Unbeknownst to our heroine, her decision to stay in and get “deflowered” rather than go out and beat up the bad guy has now turned her boy toy evil. Just in time for the post-first-time-sex neurotic breakdown! Excellent! Who says having sex is bad?

Oh, yeah. Joss. Don’t believe us? Let’s recap, shall we? Buffy has sex. Angel dons leather pants, turns evil and starts killing people. Giles considers having sex and his intended ends up dead in his bed. Buffy has sex again, this time with Parker, and ends up being compared to a toilet seat. Xander has sex and ends up dating a vengeance demon for 3 years. Buffy has a day of continual sex and almost kills an entire frat house. Cordy has sex on the show Angel and ends up impregnated with a demon’s spawn. Angel has sex and gets Darla pregnant. (And fans around the world moan in pain.) Need I continue?

So Buffy makes her way home and her mother doesn’t seem to think it’s odd that Buffy wants to shower after getting dressed. Joyce presumably drives her daughter to school, where Buffy heads straight to the library to mope and fret. Yes, the glamorous life of the morning after--straight to the library, where it’s possible her friends have been all night. And she’s just in time because Xander and Willow were actually about to go challenge the judge and end up crispy critters. Giles and Jenny were about to hang around and see what happened, god bless ‘em. Buffy lies to her closest compadres for what will prove to be nowhere near the last time, and tells them that she and Angel split up after escaping the judge, rather than being all “aw yeah, I got some. When’s the last time you got some Giles, huh huh huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

My God, you people are all...well, I'm upset and I can't think of a mean word right now, but that's what you are and we're going to the factory!

Anyway, she’s a little moody and distant and worried that Angel hasn’t checked in. Where oh where could he be? Giles is more worried that the Judge is assembled and will soon be able to kill people just by looking at them. So concerned, in fact, that after having them spend the night with him in the library and hanging out at bus stops getting hit on by men who want to wash their hair, he sends them all to classes. Cuz Armageddon can wait until after that Math quiz, ya hear?

Buffy takes off, Willow follows to be all comforty and, to keep up with the whole evil gypsy theme, Jenny skulks around the corner, watching. Running with the theory that Jenny’s an evil gypsy sent to watch Angel, shouldn’t she be skulking around the factory, where her query actually is, rather than the school halls? I guess since she hasn’t been an evil gypsy that long, she’s still sort of fuzzy on the details. It takes more than just wearing earth tones, honey. It’s too bad, too, because if she was where she was supposed to be she could help Drusilla name all the stars. This might just have prevented them from all being named the same name, but we’ll never know now, will we?

Spike, having no patience for his little fruit loop [because deep down he's thinking of his true love Buffy, of course], wants to know what happens to Angel. Luckily for him, Angel shows up to tell him, since Drusilla is in no condition to be helpful. Pretending to be all virtuous and shit, an actually interesting Angel begins his taunting of Spike’s manhood and gets molested by the Judge for his efforts. [This is when I actually started to like Angel. When he became all evil and interesting.] Surprise, surprise, the Judge can’t hurt him. Seems there’s no humanity left to burn out of him. He’s Angelus again, and Dru and Spike rejoice. On a sidenote, if Angelus is really the wuss they’ve portrayed him to be in the flashbacks on Angel, I’ve gotta say that I’ve lost some respect for Spike and Dru. They’re obviously way too easily amused. But back in the land of season two bad-ass Angelus, there’s some “yay, you’re back” banter and Angel asks for more time to fuck with Buffy’s mind. Because he cares. And because a Hallmark card just won’t do. [Although ours might...]

Well, he moves to New York and tries to fulfill that Broadway dream. Tough sledding, but one day, he's working in the chorus when the big star twists her ankle.

We leave the Leather Pants of Evil and return to the Land of Hideous Sweaters and Ill-Advised Pants, the library. The gang is still there while Buffy searches for Angel. You’ve really got to wonder why CPS never got on the Scooby Gang’s parents. 48 hours in a library and nary a peep of concern? It’s nice to know they care.

The only reason this scene is worthy of being spelled out is because Xander and Cordelia kiss and make up in the stacks, just in time to be caught by Willow. Now scarred-for-life Willow. Willow takes it poorly, even though she’s gay [or maybe this trauma is what really turned her gay!], and runs from the library. Xander runs after her, because he always says the right things in tense situations like these. Willow stops running long enough to be all “I knew it…you’d rather be with someone you hate than with me” and then leaves. Xander’s right, she’s overreacting. For someone who’s gay.

You've got a lot to learn about men, kiddo, although I guess you proved that last night.

We leave this place of bitterness and cut to the wandering Buffy. She ends up at Angel’s apartment, thankfully just as he is putting on a shirt. Here we have a post-sex talk of the “wasn’t I good” variety that no recent virgin should ever get into. Really, just don’t. But Buffy does dare to ask this question and is rewarded with snark of the cruelest variety. Angel promises to call. Buffy cries. Get used to it folks, the sound of Buffy sniffling is pretty much the motif for the rest of the season.

As painful as that scene was to watch, I’d rather watch an entire episode of that one scene over and over again than pay another visit to Uncle Enyos and his little Janna. I suppose I should be grateful that he’s not wearing his hat again, but I’m not. I’m bitter. Oh so bitter. And it’s not like they say anything of value. Vengeance is not justice, blah blah blah, Angel must pay, it’s better he’s evil than happy, blah blah blah, we’re all fools, blah blah blah.

Thankfully we return to Willow returning to the library. Xander just happens to be in the student lounge waiting for her. They do not kiss and make up. Willow ostensibly returned because she’s a team player who doesn’t like the Apocalypse, but actually it’s because she realized she’s gay. They lightly banter about how nothing forged can kill the Judge and then the lights go off and Angelus shows up. Except they don’t know he’s Angelus, see, they think he’s Angel. They haven’t been around evil long enough to recognize the Leather Pants of Psychotic Behavior. Angelus says he’s got something real cool to show them, and because they’re in 3rd grade they fall for it. He sends Xander off to get the others, cuz they’re not going to want to miss the really cool thing he has to show them in the dark (is anyone else hoping for a replay of a certain John Ritter 80’s movie? No. Me either.). Xander gets suspicious, but not until after Willow’s been grabbed by the throat, and Miss Calendar shows up brandishing a cross. Hey, I remember the days when crosses mattered. I believe it was right around this time! Xander returns and hilariously yells “don’t do that!”. Angelus amazingly drops Willow, stakes himself in penance and thereby prevents the existence of Connor! The world rejoices!

Oh, sorry. That was a dream of mine. No basis in reality in the Buffyverse at all, sad to say. He’s got a message for Buffy, it’s not the kind you say but the kind you send in the form of your friends’ dead bodies and somewhere in all of this Buffy shows up. Xander takes Miss Calendar’s cross and repels Angelus with it. This is probably when Angel develops his immunity to crosses, kind of like penicillin and germs. Clearly we need a bigger cross. Though even that might not help us now, if Spike’s little embracing of a big ass cross is to be taken to heart.

Angelus drops Willow and grabs Buffy. A kiss and a “things are about to get very interesting” are the icing on the “your boyfriend’s dead” cake, and he’s off like a prom dress. The gang returns all traumatized to the library, where Giles is dense, Calendar gets suspicious and Willow is amazingly the only one who gets it. And she probably still finds it all really romantic, the weirdo.

Buffy runs out distressed, leaving the gang to figure out how to clean up her mess, and curls up crying in her room. While she has one of her moodily-lit, prophetic-type dreams, Xander develops a thought which sort of turns into a plan. But Buffy’s not dreaming of Xander’s plan, she’s too busy reliving that night of cold, frigid passion from the other night. Tired of the sex, she dreams about Miss Calendar. Fingering Calendar as the perp in her dream, she immediately goes to school the next morning and slams her down on the desk in front of witnesses and Giles. Really, it’s amazing she never got suspended before she was falsely accused of killing Kendra. Giles is all “woah, that’s my job” and Buffy’s all “did you do it?” or something accusatory like that and Giles is crushed to find out that Buffy is right and Calendar’s an evil gypsy. Poor Giles, his Slayer sleeps with vampires, his girlfriend’s an evil gypsy spy, he has 16 year olds researching for him…he must just be the laughing stock of the Watcher’s Council, huh?

Buffy’s pissed that Calendar can’t recurse Angel, Giles stoically trys to back Buffy even though he really, really wants in Miss Calendar’s pants and he’s probably thinking how bloody stupid of Buffy to get into Angel’s pants, thereby preventing him from getting into Miss Calendar’s evil gypsy pants, and Miss Calendar just wants to be loved. She takes Buffy to see her Uncle Enyos. Unfortunately, he is now very dead. Angelus beat them to the punch, literally. Probably because they spent so damn much time talking about things.

There’s a weird thing with time in the Buffyverse. I’m really not sure what standard time they run on. For instance, Xander had a plan. It involved Cordelia, Willow and Oz with his van. This was to take place a half hour after Xander hatched the brilliant plan. Xander hatched this plan immediately following Buffy’s run from the library. Now, Buffy went home. Slept. Dreamt. Then made it to the school to physically assault a teacher in public. In what appears to be day, judging by the lighting and the students in the room. Okay, so, like, what time zone is their school in? I’m going to assume it’s the next day, since Angel came to the school at night, or else there would have been no reason for the lunchroom to be so dark or so empty when he attacked Willow. He also ran through a door that has tended to lead to the outside in the past. I know they’ve been liberal with that UV Ray law in the past, but I’m leaning towards nighttime here. So. Angel attacked Willow at night. Xander had a plan, and they were to all meet in half an hour. But Buffy was back at school in the day before they made it to their plan?

Eh. Whatever. The continuity people and editors on Buffy really suck at times. We all know this. I don’t know why I even bother to try and recap linearly.

Sometimes when I'm sitting in class -- you know, I'm not thinking about class, 'cause that would never happen -- I think about kissing you, and it's like everything stops. It's like, it's like freeze frame. Willow kissage.

So it’s been a half hour. Even though it’s the next day. Cordy and Xander sneak onto a military base. [And judging by the darkness, I'm thinking it's night again.] I bet military types the world over were insulted at how easily those two made it in, don’t you? Xander’s plan is to sneak into the base, using his infinite knowledge gleaned from his one hour as an army man on Halloween, a bit that will come back to haunt us time and time again. He uses Cordelia as an excuse. Chicks dig big guns. And those that don’t have big guns have to find a substitute. It works, of course. Because Sunnydale hosts the dumbest army base in the world.

Xander takes his big super secret weapon ( a rocket launcher. There, I just ruined it for you.) and hands it over the fence. Yep. Just sort of…hands it over. To Oz. Who has been sitting in his van, getting hit on by Willow, outside of a military base without being questioned. It’s so true to life it’s scary, yes? Oz, by the way, is the sweetest boy in the world and will always be better than Tara because he turned Willow’s request to make out down. I’m sorry, he just will be. You can send angry letters, you can picket the site in protest, you can start an online petition, but the truth will remain. Oz rocked. [Tara was sweet and cool too, but Oz just holds a special place in my heart.]

Oz worship aside, the gang’s all in the library, trying to figure out where people would line up to die. Oz, the newest member of the gang yet remarkably the most helpful at the moment, suggests the movie theater. The Scoobs and their rocket launcher head for the movie theater which is, gosh darn it, exactly where the Judge, Dru and Angelus were heading! It’s simply amazing, isn’t it? Out of all the places in Sunnydale…the docks, the universities, the malls, the starbucks, they end up at the movie theater. The judge starts to fry people, Buffy blows him up and all the gang pick up the pieces, except for Oz. You don’t get carnage duty until your second tour with the Scooby gang.

Pieces? We get the pieces. Our job sucks!

Buffy leaves her buds with clean up, because that’s what buds are for, and chases down Angelus. They fight, blah blah blah, and Buffy can’t kill him. So instead she reverts to 2nd grade and kicks him in the balls. Why she didn’t just go get one of her friends to come over and stake him, I mean it totally would’ve made Xander’s year, we’ll never know. Except that there never would’ve been an Angel series or all that “fun” angst in season three. And we would miss both this things. *cough*cough* Oh. Yes. We’d miss it. [And also we'd miss the big Jenny death scene!]

And what did we learn this week, folks? Say it with me: Sex is bad. Not killing your ex-boyfriend when you have the chance to is wrong. Even lesbians can’t resist the sweetness that is Oz. Stripes do not go with solids. Thank you, and good night.