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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Episode 1.7
Episode Title: "Angel"
Writer: David Greenwalt
Episode Number: 1.7
As usual, spoilers abound for all seasons. Most script transcripts garnered from TWIZ TV, though I also typed some of my own and tweaked theirs. Enjoy.
Vampire Lore
So, the Anointed One kinda likes to skip stones, and other childish things. He hasn't been of much use so far, beyond making hardcore announcements and playing cheerleader for the beleaguered Master. With what I know of what becomes of little Collin in the second season, I'm wondering exactly how much of a bad-ass this kid really is. Ah well, at least he has a suitably creepy voice and chilling proclamations.
New vampire group: The Three. Here's what Giles' Book of Thoth has to say about them:
Giles: "It seems you encountered the Three. Warrior vampires, very proud and very strong."
...
Giles: "Uh, o-obviously you're hurting the Master very much. He, he wouldn't send the, the Three for just anyone. We must step up our training with weapons."
...
Giles: "Angel and Buffy are, are not in any immediate jeopardy. Eventually the Master will send someone else, but in the mean time the Three, having failed, will offer their own lives in penance."
Conveniently enough, Giles' sources are exactly correct. The Three are a group of particularly virile vampires who stalk around in armor and make mincemeat of whoever they're bidden to kill. They're remarkably efficient, except when facing the Slayer and her little ensouled vampire. When they offer their lives due to their failure, we learn something about vampiric habits:
One of The Three: "We failed in our duty, and now our lives belong to you."
He hands the Master a spear. The Master passes it to Darla. She starts to walk around behind the Three as the Master goes over to Collin.
The Master: "Pay attention, child. You are the Anointed, and there is much you must learn. With power comes responsibility. True, they did fail, but also true, we who walk at night share a common bond. The taking of a life -- I'm not talking about humans, of course -- is a serious matter."
Collin: "So you would spare them?" He doesn't sound impressed.
The Master: "Hmm. I am weary, and their deaths will bring me little joy."
The Master begins to walk away, and Collin follows. Darla watches them go and smiles. She lifts the spear and dispatches the first of the Three. The Master stops and turns to Collin.
The Master: "Of course, sometimes a little is enough."
Killing is ostensibly a serious matter, but they still kill on a whim. They just spare a moment to think of the impact the deaths might have on their strategy, then usually go ahead with it anyway. That's what I got out of the Master's little "lesson," anyway.
So, vampires can't come into your house unless they're invited. They paid enough attention to detail to ensure that Buffy does actually urge Angel into her house when they're running from The Three. However, then (for extra scariness) they show one of The Three getting his arm into the house before Buffy's able to shut the door on him. What was that? Just a stupid concession to horror tropes, or some lingering mystical power from Buffy's invitation to Angel?
Apparently the Master likes living underground and doesn't just go in for it because he's trapped in a submerged church and has no choice. We discover this through Darla's comment to Angel:
"You're living above ground. Like one of them." I'm going to guess that this is something particular to the Master, since many of the vampires we run into over the series seem to like living above ground. (Although they do tend to stick close to graveyards. Or abandoned buildings.)
Buffy, on her mom's condition: "Her blood count was..."
Giles: "A little low. It presents itself like mild anemia."
This suggest that there are times when a vampire doesn't full drain a victim, a concept which is further corroborated in Season 5.
In this episode, Darla's vampire face is very ghoulish. The brow-wrinkles are drastically pronounced, her face is incredibly pale, etc. By turn, Angel's face is more animalistic.
Bullets can't kill vampires, though they can hurt like hell and immobilize them for a short time. Also, crosses burn vampires (as we saw in Luke's reaction from the first and second episodes).
The Master is genuinely hurt by Darla's death, showing some true emotional weakness. The Anointed One, who was so barely a human when he was made a vampire, leads him away and back to his purpose.
What's it like being a vampire?
Angel: "When you become a vampire the demon takes your body, but it doesn't get your soul. That's gone! No conscience, no remorse... It's an easy way to live."
But the soul can be cursed, recalled to the body. Does the soul then become damned, inextricably linked to the demon because they share the same body and because of what the demon has done with its vessel? This is a very confusing point-- do demon and soul become infused? Is the demon then a person or is the soul demonized?
Slayer Notes
Giles puts out a sign indicating that the library is closed for filing when he and Buffy train. We see him decide to step up her training in this episode on the evidence that better-trained vampires are now hunting her.
Here we learn that Slayers are expected to train in many different kinds of weapons. This makes sense since the entire purpose of the Slayer is to kill that which is difficult and dangerous to kill. We also see that Buffy has a natural affinity with these weapons, even if she hasn't handled them before. This raw talent still needs training, of course, but her natural abilities cannot be denied (as Giles learns to his chagrin).
Buffy must have been absent the day they were handing out the magical vampire-sensing ability. Giles indicated in previous episodes that she should be able to sense vampires, and we saw Buffy spurning the establishment and playing the game her own way. Well, it seems like her doing it her own way may also be because she can't do it the other way. She couldn't tell Angel was a vampire until after he vamped out, even when she was kissing his undead body a moment before. She also can't sense when Darla is spying on them from the stacks in the library.
Slayer Mythology:
So, Slaying isn't as cut and dried as it seems. Surely Buffy isn't the first to be confused or seduced by a vampire-- but the Slaying line seems to have gone in for black and white pretty whole-heartedly before her. This is more evidence of Buffy toeing the line, and rejecting the conventions. If she meets a demon and he has a face, if he helps her and doesn't harm her friends, she'll probably let him live and may even come to feel for him. This humanization of the evil element is probably the one thing besides her own nature that gives Buffy the most trouble in the series. (And, besides, Buffy's Slayer nature is a manifestation of this very problem.)
The Slayer hesitates before killing the vampire with the face of an angel: she has to find out why he did as he did, she has to understand, because her emotions became involved. That's what gets her, when her emotions get involved. As long as the vampires are faceless, she can kill them. When they're people, not so much. Does Buffy ever kill a vampire who's become a person to her? (Y'know, besides shoving a sword through Angel. It doesn't count since he comes back.)
"I've killed a lot of vampires. I've never hated one before." So the Slayer doesn't hate vampires? She's just an exterminator? This is a Buffy who hasn't come to hate her job yet, who doesn't understand that she's been cursed because people suck and vampires exist.
Angel Backstory
And we hit the jackpot on information about Angel. Here's what we find out:
Darla sired him. She claims to have loved him.
The Master says that Angel was the most vicious creature he ever knew, and that he was to sit on his right hand come the day.
Angel has a tattoo on his back which is used in the one of the Watchers' diaries to identify him (that and he has an angel's face):
Giles: "There's mention some two hundred years ago in Ireland of, of Angelus, the one with the angelic face."
Buffy: "They got that right."
Xander: "(clears his throat) I'm not saying anything, I have nothing to say."
Giles: "Does this, uh, Angel have, um, a tattoo behind his right shoulder?"
Buffy: "Yeah, it's a, it's a bird or something."
Xander: "Now I'm sayin' something. You saw him naked?"
Willow: "So, Angel's been around for a while."
Giles: "Not long for a vampire. Uh, two hundred and forty years or so."
Buffy: "Huh! Two hundred and forty. Well, he said he was older."
Giles: "Angelus leaves Ireland, uh, wreaks havoc in, in Europe for, uh, several decades, and then, um, about eighty years ago, the most curious thing happens. He, he comes to, uh, to America, um, shuns other vampires, and, and lives alone. There's, there's no, no record of him hunting here."
It's been one or two "lifetimes" since Angel and Darla last met, although she's been living in Sunnydale since the Master was trapped there and must have known when Angel first moved to Sunnydale.
The last time Angel and Darla met was in an Asian country if you buy into the suggestive "Last time I saw you it was kimonos" line Angel gives.
Angel apparently did a lot of damage in Budapest in the wake of a great earthquake.
He feeds on human blood garnered somehow from a hospital or bloodbank.
Looks like he actually pays for a place to live-- and electricity.
He killed his family. In Angel's own words:
Buffy: "I invited you into my home and then you attacked my family!"
Angel: "Why not? I killed mine. I killed their friends... and their friend's children... For a hundred years I offered ugly death to everyone I met, and I did it with a song in my heart."
Buffy: "What changed?"
Angel: "Fed on a girl about your age... beautiful... dumb as a post... but a favorite among her clan."
Buffy: "Her clan?"
Angel: "Romany. Gypsies. The elders conjured the perfect punishment for me. They restored my soul."
Buffy: "What, they were all out of boils and blinding torment?"
Angel: "When you become a vampire the demon takes your body, but it doesn't get your soul. That's gone! No conscience, no remorse... It's an easy way to live. You have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done... and to care. I haven't fed on a living human being since that day."
Buffy: "So you started with my mom?"
Angel: "I didn't bite her."
Buffy: "Then why didn't you say something?"
Angel: "But I wanted to. I can walk like a man, but I'm not one. I wanted to kill you tonight."
Angel still struggles with the demon within. It's like a normal person, except the internal war is between a demon-id and a soul-superego. What a poor conflicted ego that makes.
Angel kills his own Sire, which is the first time we see him actually raise a hand against his own kind.
Characterization
Buffy: At the beginning of this episode, we find Buffy a bit distracted and withdrawn. While she professes to being fine with being an independent woman, we see her longing for some actual warmth and youthful companionship. Willow, her typical gal-pal, is very keen to suggest Angel and we see that Buffy's clearly falling where he's concerned-- but still with her reservations that she can't be involved with someone who's too wrapped up in her job.
More supporting evidence of Buffy's backbone and her directness-- she can sense when someone's following her, though she can't sense what they are. She has no problem initiating a confrontation or continuing to fight when the odds are against her-- that is, until we're reminded she's a 16-year-old girl and terror gets the better of her. But only until the odds are once more evened out: she's quick with the recovery.
We are also treated to the softer side of Buffy-- she immediately switches to a protective caretaker once she and Angel are safe in her house. In spite of her burgeoning feelings toward him, she's able to request him to remove his shirt so that she can tend his wounds. And she's got enough confidence to then flirt with him after she's assured herself that he's not too badly hurt. She has a suspicion that Angel feels for her as well, but she's not entirely sure how.
When Buffy hears her mom, her first concern is over her mom's safety-- not hiding Angel. She rushes to the door to make sure her mom gets inside safely and to check outside for any vampires loitering. Of course, as soon as she's assured of her mom's safety, she's trying to hustle her upstairs so she doesn't find anything out.
Buffy is really shy and not sexually aggressive at all-- she's still firmly in the area of innocence, in spite of everything she's been through. She's innocent emotionally, sexually, and relationship-wise. This is shown in really simple ways throughout the episode: having Angel keep his back turned while she was changing, having him sleep on the floor, the honest heat with which he approached their first kiss, her loyalty in wanting to believe him when his true nature is revealed, her willingness to follow that loyalty at the end. There's no true bitterness in her yet, and she's only tempted by hatred and the dark in this episode.
Even I have to admit that there was real magic in the kiss between Buffy and Angel. I am not a fan of this pairing at all, knowing Angelus as I do (and the path he needs to walk). However, the power of narrative (i.e. Buffy's developing feelings toward him) are once more softening me up to the romance. It's not the pairing I like, but Buffy's feelings that I empathize with. Anyway, there's real honesty and heat in their first kiss that's heartbreakingly easy. Especially on the rewatch, my heart aches a bit, watching her get close to someone who she still supposedly can't tell is a vampire (even though she's all over him) and then finding out he's that which she's destined to kill. The look of horror on her face in response to his true face, her healthy screaming response: all evident of how little she's discovered about herself and her own path.
I can't remember if this is the first evidence of Buffy's diary in the show and that makes me a bad little analyst. I'll have to double-check my own preceding posts. Anyway, we get evidence of Buffy's diary in this episode, which never made sense to me. Yeah, okay, it's probably a handy thing for future generations of Slayers. BUt it never seems to be anything but a source of potential trouble for Buffy in the series. And it's interesting that her diary is casually mentioned several times in the story up until Season 5, when it's a foible that's transferred to Dawn.
I'd like to point out here that this is the first time we see Buffy willing to overlook someone being a demon based on the context in which she first meets him. Angel, though mysterious and stalkerish, was always helping out and giving her good tips. So he's okay, she can allow herself to be close to him and to believe in him.
She starts getting into some dangerous philosophies regarding Slaying here-- "God, I can't, he's never done anything to hurt me..." as she opines to Willow. Well, most of the vampires in the world have never done anything to hurt her either. Nor any of the other demons. But they've hurt other people, at some point, and that's why she kills them. They're humanizing the Slaying issue in this episode, which is a good thing, and launches the show on a long and convoluted philosophical ramble considering what is evil and what is human.
The Summers' women are very clannish, strong, and protective. When Buffy thinks Angel has harmed her mother, she immediately loses any sympathy for him (for the moment, anyway), throws him out a window, and says she'll kill him if he comes back. She keeps it together while she calls for an ambulance, though a tremble in her voice betrays how tightly strung she is with anger, fear, and potential grief. Still sure that it's Angel who's done this to her mother, she sets out to kill him:
Giles: "If you care about someone, you care about them. You can't change that by--"
Buffy: "Killing them? Maybe not, but I think it's a start."
I like how this scene really resonates with Season 2. Buffy shows an ironclad will and gives a violent answer. Coupled with Giles comment about how Angel isn't a "normal vampire" (if there is such a thing), on the rewatch you should be getting shivers. Knowing what Angelus is in Season 2 and knowing what Buffy must do by the end...
However... even with her ironclad will, even sure that he attacked her mother... Buffy still has this thing for giving those around her second chances (especially the men in her life). She may perceive he's holding back in the Bronze as she's hunting him... anyway, she listens to him and she takes a gamble on trusting him because she has feelings for him. Something she just bitched about in herself in an earlier scene:
Buffy: "No? I invited him into my home. Even after I knew who he was, what he was, and I didn't do anything about it... 'cause I had feelings for him, because I cared about him."
This has to be a fallacy, though, considering she supposedly didn't know what he was when she invited him into her house.
Another interesting point: both Angel and Spike (in their literally soul-baring moments with her), have said something along the lines of how they wanted to kill her. This always freaks Buffy out (understandably) and she never understands it's just the demon in them, something they're obviously controlling now. However, when Spike says it, she picks up a makeshift stake (her innocence is long-gone). When Angel says it, filled with the hope of youth, she puts her crossbow down.
And another: Angel is usually the first to lean in for a kiss when he realizes that Buffy wants it. Spike always waits until Buffy initiates (except for his first dream and the attempted rape). Angel knows it's wrong and doesn't have the strength to walk away until after all hell breaks loose. Spike knows it's wrong and often runs away, but doesn't have the strength to stay away until he dies.
I think I've wittered on enough about Buffy and her men for now.
Willow: Yet again, we're treated to more of Willow's puppy-love over Xander. Joss may have believed that Willow would be one of the most easily identified with characters in the show and, if that's true for the first half of the first season, it's because he's not giving her enough of a character to differentiate her from the viewer. So far, she just moons over Xander, refuses to say anything to him because she senses it's doomed, and is very helpful to the others in whatever they need: be that a study partner or someone to hack into various networks. She is very supportive of Buffy, completely willing to believe that Angel can be a vampire and a good guy. She's also not afraid to play the distraction in a dangerous situation-- Giles or Xander comments that they need a distraction, so Willow acts by immediately calling out the crucial information to Buffy.
Xander: And here's our first look into Xander's lack of moral compunction in the face of his jealousy. Xander wants Buffy, but he knows he probably can't have her. Beyond that, however, he definitely doesn't want anyone else to have her: not so much so that she'll be miserable but so that no one else will have the happiness of being with her. Add the fact that the "someone else" in this case is a vampire and you've got an incredibly dysfunctional supportive response. Because jealousy and hatred is the emotion that fuels his support of Buffy's Slaying duties, it turns his exhortations that she do as she must into something ugly:
Giles: "I say that there's no record, but, uh, vampires hunt and kill. It's, it's what they do."
Xander: "Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly."
Buffy: "He could've fed on me. He didn't."
Xander: "Question: a hundred years or so before he came to our shores, what was he like then?"
Giles: "Uh, like all of them. Uh, a vicious, violent animal."
The grim tenacity with which he approaches this is unsettling. Here is a Xander who will make some very poor decisions when motivated by such ugly emotions. We'll see this borne out at the end of Season 2. He ruthlessly renders things in black and white, insisting that the origin point is the light through which the entire rest of a life must be seen. A vampire is an evil thing, and therefore nothing that then happens in the life of a vampire can alter that fundamental fact: not the acquisition of a soul, installation of a chip, or demonstrated ability to love and assist.
Giles: In this episode, we become aware of the fact that Giles must be trained in some forms of weaponry. Previously to now, we've seen him as a bystander in the fighting department. He hides behind tombstones to evaluate Buffy's performance and he stands in as a moving, padded target when she needs to practice kicking and punching. Here, however, we see that the lock-up in the library is full of weapons (how the hell do they hide those?) and that Giles is likely acquainted with most of them:
Buffy: "Cool! Crossbow! Huh. Check out these babies. Hmm. Goodbye stakes, hello flying fatality. What can I shoot?"
Giles: "Um, nothing. The crossbow comes later. You must first become proficient with the basic tools of combat. And let's begin... with the quarterstaff. Which, incidentally, will, uh, require countless hours of vigorous training. I speak from experience."
Buffy: "Giles, 20th Century? I'm not gonna be fighting Friar Tuck."
Giles: "You never know with whom or what you'll be fighting. And these traditions have been handed down through the ages. Now, you show me good, steady progress with the quarterstaff, and in due course we'll discuss the crossbow. Put on your pads."
Buffy: "I'm not gonna need pads to fight you."
Giles: "Well, we'll see about that. En garde!"
When approached with the fact that Angel is a vampire, Giles seems apologetic when he's explaining to Buffy (once more) the rules of the game:
Buffy: "Can a vampire ever be a good person? Couldn't it happen?"
Giles: "A vampire isn't a person at all. It may have the movements, the, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over, but i-it's still a demon at the core, there is no halfway."
and
Xander: "Alright, uh... (sits also) ...you have a problem, and it's not a small one. Let's take a breath and look at this calmly and objectively. Angel's a vampire. You're a Slayer. I think it's obvious what you have to do."
Buffy doesn't react, so Xander looks up to Giles for support.
Giles: "Uh, it is a Slayer's duty..."
Giles' tone is a fatherly one, rich with sympathy for his charge. Although he's apologetically sure of his position, he's still willing to do as much research as possible, gently and fairly presenting Buffy with the results of said research. He's like an old jaded man-at-arms, who's seen it all and is sure of what he knows, yet can still find it in him to hope he's wrong.
When Giles discovers that it wasn't Angel who attacked Buffy's mother, he immediately goes to warn Buffy of the mistake. This is after Giles has attempted dissuading Buffy from hunting Angel: not just because he's no "simple" vampire, but because she can't make her feelings go away in such a manner. Giles is inexorably making his way over to Buffy's corner, beginning to not play by the rules anymore and to see the game in shades of grey.
Joyce: More evidence that Joyce is a good mother, caring and supportive of Buffy. She respects Buffy enough to allow her to gracefully say goodnight to the young man who shouldn't be alone with her in the house in the first place. She is warm and inviting to Buffy's (perceived) friends, and she responds positively to Giles' apparent interest in Buffy.
Cordelia: Besides the fact that Cordelia continues to act as the Queen Bitch in this episode, we are also given some subtext that provides future substantiation of her succumbing to a relationship with Xander:
Cordelia: "Ouch! Please get your extreme oafishness off my two-hundred-dollar shoes!"
Xander: "I'm sorry, I was just..."
Cordelia: "...getting off the dance floor before Annie Vega's boyfriend squashes you like a bug?"
Xander: "Oh, so you noticed."
Cordelia: "Uh-huh."
Cordelia was dancing and doing her own thing, yet she still noticed what Xander was getting up to on the dance floor.
Angel: This is the first time we see Angel in action as he lashes out in anger at the Three who have Buffy momentarily overpowered. He fights ferociously, and the two of them play off each other well in combat (both when fighting side-to-side and when facing each other to the death, as we shall later see).
He still bothers me with his creepy, stalkerish ways here. Watching her from the shadows, playing the flirtatious manipulator when he's in Buffy's house and she's tending him. The smirk on his face when Buffy is pretending to say goodnight to him at the door is pure Angelus, a spine-chilling look intimating thoughts along the lines of "Ah, the ungainly and unsophisticated subterfuges of youth." He doesn't let go of these manipulative vestiges until he's alone with her, in her room. Then he cracks a bit, and we see more evidence of the human-like Angel. The look on his face there is pure "Oh, man, I'm in trouble."
The details of Angel's past are detailed above, but I'll see here that he's very good at changing the subject when Buffy gets to close to painful details. She asks if it's a vengeance gig for him, hunting vampires. The answer is a sorta-yes, although the parameters of the answer fall under the category of self-hatred. So he deftly changes the subject, flattering her and leading her mind back to fluttery romantic thoughts.
Question: Angel spent the entire day alone in Buffy's room. We know how much vampires start with the obsession when they're romantically interested in someone. How do we know he didn't sniff her sweaters too, much like Spike did?
I appreciate the small bits of truth that happened between Buffy and Angel in this episode. Just before he kisses her, they're sharing a true moment. He's telling her that he can't allow himself to succumb to his feelngs, he's recognizing that what might happen between them is fundamentally wrong. Some part of him knows it's anathema according to the mythology they've been fed. But, as he goes on to say:
Angel: "I did a lot of thinking today. I really can't be around you. Because when I am..."
Buffy: "Hey, no big. Water... over the bridge, under the bridge..."
Angel: "When I am all I can ever think about is how badly I want to kiss you."
Buffy: "...over the dam... Kiss me?"
Angel: "I'm older than you, and this can't ever... I better go."
Buffy: "H-how much older?"
Angel: "I should..."
Buffy: "...go... You said..."
And then, of course, they kiss. What Angel is recognizing here is that he has no (or very little) self-control in the face of Buffy. It's this lack of self-control that eventually leads to them deciding that they just can't be around each other: an almost fatal realization. In a determinedly snarky moment here, I'd like to point out that lack of self-control in the face of desire doesn't necessarily mean it's true love. It just means that she's young and stupid. I'm not sure what his excuse is-- probably lack of touch and vulnerability to love.
Back to that kiss: as I mentioned elsewhere, I have to admit there's some magic in their first kiss, starting with real tenderness and flaring quickly to passion. Of course, then he vamps out. But why? So close to real blood, not in touch with his passions? This doesn't happen later when they get more blatantly sexual. Hmm. Of course, it was necessary to the narrative.
When Angel runs away from her after revealing his true face, Buffy tells her mother that she saw a shadow. This is rather apropos from a Jungian or shamanic standpoint: there's a shadow within us all, the specter of ourselves that we must face.
Angel is still a vampire and reacts in vampiric ways. When exposed to the sight of blood, the smell of it, the presence of another predator, his true face comes out. He has to struggle with himself to keep from drinking of Joyce's blood. The important thing is that he manages not to, though unfortunately Buffy still gets an eyeful of a highly incriminating scene.
Angel becomes confused and acts a bit confusingly at the end. Maybe out of self-hatred, maybe out of understanding that he and Buffy can never be together, maybe because he knows she needs to be toughened against all vampires, it seems that Angel intends to let her kill him. He fights with her very half-heartedly, then tries to help her hate him. He plays the part of a sin-eater, detailing his sins and taking on others to help Buffy along in her hatred. I like this Angel: this is real. He's raw and self-hating and pouring the darkness out straight.
But then he fucks up: he reveals that he didn't bite Joyce and tells Buffy about the curse. At this point, Angel doesn't have what it takes to die for a cause. He hesitates, he gives in to hope, and so Buffy sees something inside him. She refuses to kill him, and so their fate is sealed. Passionate love will be ensuing, just before the even more passionate blow-up and the eventual burning crash-landing.
He kills his Sire, which we see is a monumental step for him. He does it with a vampiric growl, but with his human face on. The last word Darla speaks is "Angel" and she says it gently, shocked. The look on his face is one of soul-deep shock. I'll probably have more to say about this when I understand more about their relationship. For now, I dare say it was something like killing his mother, and something he didn't do with love (unlike what Spike had to do in a flashback in Season 7).
Going back to their lack of self-control: Angel doesn't have the strength to walk away from her, at least not at the beginning of the series. He knows he should, but he stays. He lets her do as she will, kiss him (which he leans in for first whenever he realizes that's where they're going). She's always the one walking away from him (and, of course, returning). The cross that he gave her burning its imprint into his flesh as they kiss is quite the telling metaphor for their relationship, of course. The two of them really don't get anything but burned.
Darla: Darla's characterization has always been a bit strange. She's very much painted as a creature of the moment: she loves getting her rocks off, whether it's through killing whatever she can or taunting her ex-boyfriend. She's impetuous, impatient, and not the brightest vampire of the bunch. (Though she is smart enough to use guns against Buffy.)
In other moments, however, she's shown to be a manipulator-- something one generally expects takes patience and a certain deft touch. Her manipulation of Angel is a bit heavy-handed: she's bluntly hitting him with the facts of his existence, prodding at the caged beast and trying to wake it.
She just strikes me as a bit bumbling, so it's no surprise that she ends up getting stabbed in the back here. (Literally.) Since I've not yet seen Angel the Series, I can't comment on how well this gels with later representations of her character. However, according to Peter, it doesn't mesh very well.
As a side note, she also seems to approach Angel with genuine warmth. Her affection for him is not affected, though she's perfectly willing to hurt him to get her way.
And, like most vampires, her pleasure is very much tied to her pain:
She has pushed Angel to the limit. He jumps up and shoves her against the wall with her arms pinned up.
Angel: "Alright!"
Darla: "What do you want?"
Angel: "I want it finished!"
Darla: "That's good. You're hurting me. (smiles) That's good, too."
Themes
And this episode continues the theme that not everything is as it seems: not even the vampires. Here the alleged evil is humanized, given a human face and a soul. Things aren't so clear-cut as they seem: the Slayer can't just hate all vampires and kill them indiscriminately. Depending on the circumstances, her enemies have the ability to become her friends... to become her loves. Buffy is forced to revise her worldview, though she oversimplifies it once again to "anything without a soul is bad."
Miscellaneous
The job monologue opening is back on this episode, which is weird. Maybe this is something with the DVD and it was always aired with the first season episodes.
They do close the library when sparring: "Closed for filing. Come back later," or whatever the sign says. That's good to know.
Buffy's address is 1630 Revello Drive.
This is one of the first episodes that has prompted me to comment on how noticeable it is that the stunt double is not SMG. This continues to irritate me throughout the series: SMG is so petite, and the stunt double is often quite evidentally not. It's jarring, and jarring is bad when you're creating illusion.
The Bronze is closed annually for fumigation purposes.
Darla is the only supernatural creature to have thought of using guns against Buffy.
Favorite Quotes
Xander, sarcastically: "Whoa! Let's stop this crazy whirligig of fun! I'm dizzy."
The Master: "I'm weary and their deaths will bring me little joy. ... Of course, sometimes a little is enough."
Willow: "How is it you always know this stuff? You always know what's going on. I never know what's going on."
Giles: "Well, you weren't here from midnight until six researching it."
Willow: "No, I was sleeping."
Willow: "So maybe he is a good vampire. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being someone who's killing and maiming every night and 1 being someone who's...not."
Giles: "If you care about someone, you care about them. You can't change that by--"
Buffy: "Killing them? Maybe not, but I think it's a start."
Giles: "She lives very much in the now and history, of course, is very much about the... then."
Darla: "Do you know what the saddest thing in the world is?"
Buffy: "That hair on top of that outfit?"
Darla: "To love someone who used to love you."
Darla: "You love someone who hates us. You're sick. And you'll always be sick."
Darla: "So many body parts. So few bullets. Let's begin with the kneecaps. No fun dancing without them."
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