Angel

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"Angel"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
Buffy and Angel kiss for the first time
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 7
Directed by	Scott Brazil
Written by	David Greenwalt
Production code	4V07
Original air date	April 14, 1997
Guest stars
Mark Metcalf as Master David Boreanaz as Angel Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers Julie Benz as Darla Andrew J. Ferchland as Anointed One
Episode chronology
← Previous "The Pack" Next → "I, Robot... You, Jane"
List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes

"Angel" is the seventh episode of season 1 of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was written by co-executive producer David Greenwalt and directed by Scott Brazil. The narrative follows Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), vampire slayer, coming to terms with her feelings for Angel (David Boreanaz), who is revealed to be a vampire cursed with a soul. However, Darla (Julie Benz) is playing a deadly game manipulating both Buffy and Angel to the Master's (Mark Metcalf) will.

Plot

The Master, displeased that Buffy is killing his vampires, sends three warrior vampires after her. They ambush Buffy on her way home from the Bronze, but Angel arrives to help her. Angel is injured during the fight and Buffy invites him back to her house to dress his wounds and provide a safe place for him to sleep. Buffy notices his tattoo and asks him if he was stalking her, because she felt his presence at the Bronze. He shrugs it off, and Buffy's mom runs into the two of them. Buffy then covers for Angel, and sneaks him into her bedroom. As Buffy changes she asks Angel why he fights vampires. He says that somebody has to. Buffy asked about his family and he then reveals his family was killed by vampires.

The next morning, Giles informs the group that the vampires who ambushed Buffy were known as The Three, very powerful warrior vampires controlled by the Master. Back at the Hellmouth, the Master allows Darla to kill The Three for failing their mission, as an object lesson in the use of power for Collin, the Anointed One.

The next day, after school and weapons training, Buffy returns to Angel, still hiding in her room. She notices her diary askew and, suddenly very agitated, tries to explain away entries that reveal fantasies about "A". Angel interrupts to assure her that he did not read the diary: her mom moved it when she came to clean her room. He then confesses his attraction towards her. They take that last half-step toward each other, and their kiss — at first hesitant and sweet — grows heated and passionate. Suddenly, Angel pulls back with a snarl of distress, showing his vampire face to Buffy (and the audience) for the first time. She screams in shock and Angel dives out the window.

Giles researches Angel's history and notices the peculiarity that, although he was previously infamous as the sadistic killer known as Angelus, Angel has shunned the company of other vampires since coming to America and apparently has completely stopped preying on humans. Meanwhile, deep in the Master's lair, Darla insists that she be allowed to kill Buffy, using Angel as her weapon. Later that evening in the library, Willow is having a hard time tutoring Buffy in the history of the Civil War, since they are both distracted by gloom over boys — Buffy because she doesn't want to slay Angel and Willow because she wants to attract Xander.

Darla cons Buffy's mother into inviting her in, by claiming to be yet another study buddy of Buffy's. Angel, prowling outside the house, hears Joyce's cry and rushes in as Darla begins to drink. Daring him to drink too, Darla shoves the now-unconscious Joyce into Angel's arms and escapes out the back door. Deeply tempted by Joyce's warm blood, Angel helplessly vamps; as he resists the impulse to drink, Buffy returns and is horrified to find him apparently feeding from her mother. Buffy throws Angel out of the house, then calls for an ambulance. At the hospital, "anemic" Joyce tries to reconstruct events; her last memory is of inviting Buffy's "study friend" inside. Buffy misunderstands, thinking Joyce means Angel rather than Darla, and storms out to kill him.

Meanwhile, Giles talks further with Joyce and learns enough to realize that it was Darla, not Angel, who bit Joyce. With Xander and Willow in tow, he rushes to find Buffy to warn her of the trap. Buffy tracks Angel to the deserted Bronze and demands an explanation; Angel recounts highlights from his years as the evil Angelus, then tells how he was cursed by Gypsies with a soul that would eternally torment him with guilt for the atrocities he had performed as a vampire. He denies biting Joyce, yet confesses wanting to, as well as wanting to kill Buffy herself. The Slayer lays aside her crossbow and slowly offers her throat to him. Suddenly, Darla emerges from the shadows with a pair of handguns, boasting to Buffy that she was the one who sired Angelus all those centuries ago. Hearing gunfire, Giles, Willow and Xander rush in and distract Darla, shouting to Buffy that it was Darla who bit Joyce, not Angel. Looming up from behind, Angel stakes Darla through the heart, dusting his sire.

In their Hellmouth lair, Collin consoles the Master for his loss of Darla at Angel's hands. Spying Angel across the crowded room at the Bronze, Buffy goes to thank him — and to tell him goodbye. Helpless in the heat of their burgeoning passion for one another, their banter trails to silence and they deeply kiss one last time. As she reluctantly pulls away, Buffy doesn't notice that the cross she's wearing — the one Angel gave her weeks ago at their first meeting — was scorching his chest.

Production details

During the production of this episode, it took the makeup department 60 to 90 minutes to apply the vampire prosthetic on David Boreanaz.^[1] Angel’s Hugo Boss duster is worth over $1,000.^[1]

Ratings

"Angel" reached a Nielsen rating of 2.3 on its original airing.^[2]

Continuity

• Buffy invites Angel into her house in this episode, an invitation she will later revoke in "Passion".
• Buffy mentions The Three in the Season Three episode "Faith, Hope & Trick" when describing past experiences with slaying to Faith.
• "The last time I saw you, it was kimonos": Kimonos are a type of garment from Japan. While Darla and Angel are never seen to have visited Japan together, the last time Angel saw Darla was in China, during The Boxer Rebellion. Kimonos are heavily influenced by traditional Han Chinese clothing, and so it is possible Angel mistook a Chinese silk robe for a kimono.
• Angel tells Buffy that he has not fed on another living human since his soul was restored, but this is contradicted by a flashback in Angel that showed in 1943 he sired a mortally-wounded engineer to save a submarine. As the kid would have died anyway Angel may not have thought it a big deal to omit this case. About 1975, he fed on an unnamed gunshot victim in a café, though that person was already dead when Angel fed.

Arc significance

• This episode provides many revelations about Angel. It is revealed that Angel is a vampire with a soul who was named Angelus (The One with the Angelic Face) and killed his own family when he first became a vampire. It is revealed that he is 240 years old and has a tattoo on his right shoulder blade. The origin of his gypsy curse, which will play a major role in Season Two, is also told.
• It is revealed that Darla was once romantically involved with Angelus and that she made him a vampire.
• Darla dies (for the second of four times, as revealed in later episodes of Buffy and the spin-off series Angel), but is resurrected three years later at the end of the first season of Angel.
• This episode is the first time Joyce Summers meets Giles and Angel.

Cultural references

• The Three: The Books of Samuel describe King David's Warriors as being divided up into The Thirty and The Three. The fact that these vampires are warriors may indicate that they owe their origins to the King David's Warriors of the same name.
• "I'm not going to be fighting Friar Tuck": Friar Tuck is a companion to Robin Hood in the legends of the latter. Tuck is occasionally seen fighting with a quarterstaff.

References

External links

• "Angel" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Angel" at TV.com