Buffy the Vampire Slayer S1E7 “Angel”
AKA: I can be your Angel… or I can be your devil
The Rule of Three
We begin not with Angel, but with the underground crew. The Anointed One, aka Colin, is throwing stones into a puddle as The Master recounts how many vampires (“his family”) The Slayer has killed. Darla volunteers to solve this problem, while Colin simply suggests annihilation. The Master decides to go with The Three. He sure likes referring to folks with a “the.”
Meanwhile, the Scoobies are at something horrifyingly referred to as The Bronze’s Fumigation Party. It’s one last hurrah before it shuts down temporarily for some much-needed cockroach decimation. Buffy is upset about her singleness. She claims not to be bothered by this most of the time, but I feel like we just covered this concern a couple episodes ago. After Willow expresses similar dreariness and Xander has a verbal sparring with Cordelia, Buffy’s decided she has caused enough melancholy in her friend group and heads home.
On her way home, she senses she’s being followed. Indeed she is – by three vampires. Perhaps The Three? We won’t know for at least a few minutes, because it’s off to the theme song.
Slumber Party
Angel appears and starts throwing punches after attempting a quip about good dogs. Perhaps projection of his desire to be a good boy himself? They run to Buffy’s house and she lets him in to take cover. He reminds her and the audience of that wonderful vampire lore: they cannot come in without being invited.
She has him take off his shirt so she can tend to his wounds and oggle his tattoo (among other things). Unfortunately Joyce comes in at that moment, and Buffy does everything in her power to keep her from seeing the hunky half naked man in the kitchen. She tells her mom they bumped into each other on the street; she apparently invited him in because he’s her tutor.
Once Joyce goes to bed Buffy pretends to let Angel out the front door while actually sneaking him to her room. Keep the eyebrow waggling to yourself, because they work out some very chaste sleeping arrangements, and Angel even turns away while Buffy changes – without peeking at her in the mirror, Xander. They chat a bit, mostly about Buffy’s chosen one status and Angel’s dead family. Ah, the meet-cute.
The next day, Xander is incensed at the recounting of the sleepover while Willow is enchanted. Giles steers everyone back on track to the topic of The Three, who were indeed the three vampires hunting Buffy (and, incidentally, Angel). Giles assures them that they will be offering their lives in penance for their failure.
Fight or Flight
We see The Master lecturing The Anointed One about the seriousness of taking a life. Colin asks if they will be spared, which Darla answers with a resounding, dusty “no.”
Buffy and Giles are in weapons training. She wants to play with the crossbow but her Watcher insists on working with the basics first. She knocks him down down to the ground rather swiftly, which he deems as rounds to move on up to the crossbow. Not that Buffy isn’t a proficient fighter or anything, but knocking Giles down is a pretty low bar, even as early as episode seven.
That night Buffy brings Angel some food and erroneously accuses him of reading her diary/Buffy-Angel fanfic. Angel says he can’t be around her because he wants to kiss her when they’re together. This is bad, because he’s older than her. When she asks how much older he responds by… kissing her. It’s a totally adorable and heartwarming smoochfest, until Angel gets a nasty case of vamp-face and jumps out the window.
Buffy recounts the incident the next day, asking if a vampire can ever be a good person. Giles reminds her – and us – that a vampire is not a person at all, just a demon. Xander admonishes her for being in love with a vampire just as Cordelia walks by, but she is too distracted about another girl wearing the same dress as her to hear Xander’s urging to slay Angel.
Time to stop living in the past
Angel enters a crypt to find Darla. They apparently go way back. She is not amused by his human-like antics or recent Slayer entanglement. He melodramatically points out that he may not be human, but he isn’t exactly vampire anymore either.
It’s research time in the library, and Giles is actually reading some diaries – Watcher diaries to be exact. Angelus was turned in Ireland roughly 240 years ago. He wreaked havoc in Europe before arriving in America nearly 80 years ago. Suddenly he was no longer killing.
Darla proposes to The Master that she convince Angel to kill Buffy and bring him back into the fold. She figures if it’s a life-or-death situation he will do what it takes to protect himself. The Master says he loves his happy family and how they work together.
In the library, Willow is tutoring Buffy. But Buffy is more interested in talking about Angel (which gives Willow the opportunity to talk about Xander). Willow is too nervous to talk to Xander about her crush, and Buffy is determined to avoid picturing anything with Angel.
Darla, meanwhile, has arrived at the Summers household. She tells Joyce that she is helping Buffy study the War of Independence after Willow helps her with the Civil War. Joyce fully believes her daughter needs three tutors amd invites her in to wait. She offers her a snack, but probably doesn’t have the same thing in mind as Darla.
Bloodlust
Luckily, Angel is walking by the Simmerd house and hears the scream. He bursts in to see a passed out Joyce. Darla has only had a taste and encourages Angel to finish her up. Unluckily, Buffy walks in on a vamped-out Angel holding her bleeding and unconscious mother.
Buffy throws him out through a window and threatens to kill him if he comes near them again. She then calls an ambulance, saying her mom cut herself and lost a lot of blood.
Xander, Willow, and Giles are in Joyce’s room, the latter much to the confusion of our patient (“The teachers at the school really do care!”). The official story is she slipped and stabbed herself with a barbecue fork while making Buffy’s “friend” a snack.
Buffy blames herself for inviting Angel into her home. She is mad that emotion trumped reason, so she prepares to retaliate… with death. Giles says he is powerful and will require more than a stake. Enter Chekov’s crossbow.
Darla is in Angel’s face egging him on. She reiterates how much he must be missing his vampire bloodlust. He breaks down and says he just wants this finished.
Giles and Joyce have a heart-to-heart about Buffy. Joyce is concerned that Buffy is studying with Willow and Darla and still struggling with history. Giles clocks the name and bids adieu.
Hot and Cold
Buffy shows up to her showdown with Angel. He snarls that he’s just an animal, to which Buffy replies that no, she actually likes animals. He goads her on while she asks why he would attack her this way. This is where he details his trail of death over the years. It only stopped after he killed a young Romani girl. The elders of her group restored his soul as punishment. Vampires don’t typically have a soul, and therefore have no conscience. To have his soul restored meant remorse and guilt for every heinous act he had committed. This is where he finally reveals he was not the one who attacked Joyce.
Darla appears. She is upset that Angel has chosen not to come home to the family – especially as his sire and former lover. She pulls out a couple of handguns and starts shooting. The first shot hits Angel (who cannot be killed by bullet, just wounded) and starts in on Buffy. Giles, Willow, and Xander appear and attempt to help. After Buffy’s shot woth the crossbow misses Darla’s heart, Angel sneaks up and stakes her. She has just enough time to see it was him before she turns to dust.
The Master is screaming and breaking things. Darla was his favorite, and Angelus was meant to be his right-hand man. Colin promises to bring him the Slayer and says to forget Darla and Angelus.
The Bronze has a Post-Fumigation Party, too, apparently. Angel appears, and he and Buffy agree they would be an ill-fated couple. That didn’t stop them before, and it sure isn’t stopping them this time: it’s time to return to smoochfest.
What did we think?
“Half the episode is providing background on an old dude accompanied by his romance with a high schooler, the other half is bring your kid to work day.” – Trav’s one sentence review of this episode.
I am coming to this episode as a long-time fan of the show. However, I also come to this episode as a new audience member of the spinoff series Angel. I will fully own up to the fact that this biases me, because in the past I found Angel to be a tedious character. Now I fully get it. 
(4.5 / 5)
Where to find “Angel” (sponsored links!)
We have come now to the finale of season four of The Boys. And while it didn’t have the literal blood fireworks I wanted, someone did get ripped in half in the air. So, that’s pretty close.
As a note, I will try to avoid spoilers as much as possible. This ending was a hell of a gut punch that should be experienced as blindly as possible. That being said, I will not be able to avoid spoilers and still give a full legitimate review. Proceed at your own risk.
The story
The main storyline for this episode is the attempted assassination of President-Elect Robert Singer. The Boys join forces with the Secret Service to protect him. But, as we learned last episode, Annie has been replaced with a shapeshifter. A shapeshifter that was welcome not just into Hughie’s anus, but into the protective bunker in which the President-Elect is hiding.
What worked
The first thing I want to discuss about this episode is the ending. But we need to do this carefully.
The important thing here is that the ending breaks your heart on so many levels. So many terrible things are happening to characters that it’s almost hard to keep track. And each moment is significant to each character.
I cannot give a specific example. But no matter who your favorite character is, you’re going to weep for them.
Unless your favorite character is Sage. And this is the next thing that made this episode so fantastic.
I don’t think I’m spoiling anything to say that Sage’s plans worked out exactly as she wanted them to. And she got exactly what she wanted.
What she wanted wasn’t power. It wasn’t money or fame or vengeance. It wasn’t to win the love of anyone. She just wanted to see if she could do it.
That is a terrific, terrifying motivation! Because all she wants is to play a massive game of chess with people as pieces. She doesn’t care about anyone. She just wants to see how many people she can manipulate. She just wants to set things on fire to see if she can.
Fantastic. A plus villain work.
The next thing I want to discuss is a cornerstone of the whole series.
The morality of The Boys shifts through the series. While it’s very much a battle to save the world from overpowered super monsters, it’s also a battle for the souls of our real heroes. And in that battle, there are two warring factors. We have Hughie, always trying to bring everyone up to a better level. And we have Butcher, who has no problem at all hitting rock bottom with a shovel in hand to do some more digging.
In this episode, we saw almost every member of The Boys challenged. Will they rise to their higher angels, or sink with their demons?
On a similar note, I am so glad that the writers kind of addressed my issues with Annie. They did this by having the shapeshifter get right into her face and accuse her of thinking that she’s better than everyone.
While that was devastating for the character, it was a little cathartic for those of us who felt like Annie was a little too good of a good guy.
What didn’t work
This is a small matter, but it is an issue that I want to address. After Annie finds out that Hughie slept with her doppelganger, she is furious at him.
In addition to this being unfair, it’s also a very cliche element to add. In almost every instance of a lookalike in fiction, there’s a moment where the love interest of the victim is fooled. Or almost fooled. And it’s always the same fight. It’s just played out and predictable. I’m just glad that it didn’t last very long.
Now that we’ve come to the end of the season, I can officially say that it was amazing. The story was deep and rich. The special effects were a stomach-turning good time. The character development was spot-on and satisfying. And, of course, it left me just about gagging to see what happens next. Unfortunately, it looks like we’ll have a bit of a wait. Because as of right now, the fifth season isn’t expected until 2026.
(5 / 5)
We’ve reached the second to last episode of The Boys, season four. And, as is appropriate for the penultimate episode of any show, things have to get a lot worse before they can get better.
Let’s discuss.
The story
Christmas is coming, and the whole world is getting ready. Ryan, despite being very clear that he didn’t want to appear on any TV shows or movies, has been strong-armed into participating in a Vought puppet Christmas special. He draws the line, though, when asked to sing about turning one’s parents in if they start talking about woke things.
Meanwhile, The Boys are trying to keep each other together. Butcher decides to take Sameer to the rest of the team. He also gets Frenchie out of prison, hoping they can make the Sup virus necessary to finally take down Homelander. Instead, this decision means disaster for one member of the team.
What worked
I first want to talk about Ryan’s speech near the end of the episode. Because it was exactly the moral of this whole story.
Ryan’s dad is a monster. His stepdad is also kind of a monster. But Ryan is a good kid. He cares about people, about family. And while he loves Homelander and Butcher, he doesn’t want to be like them.
Even better, this speech sounded like something a kid would say. Ryan didn’t open his mouth and start sounding like a college student all of a sudden. He sounds like a kid who misses his mom and wants to live up to the good standards she set for him. And I think that’s terrific.
Speaking of Homelander, he shot himself in the foot in this episode. I said earlier in the season that his hubris was going to be his downfall, and I was right. Without Sage, he just has the same weaknesses he’s always had. He’s going to fail because he just isn’t clever enough or patient enough to succeed.
Without Sage, I think a win is in the bag for The Boys. This isn’t to say that Homelander by himself isn’t dangerous. It’s just that he’s more like a wildfire than a controlled burn. He’s going to cause a lot of damage, but not get anything he wants out of it.
More’s the pity for him and everyone else who has to share his world.
Finally, I am thrilled with A-Train’s redemption story. I love that he wants to be a good person not to save himself, but to be a good person. His honest, pure and warm reaction to that little kid smiling at him in the last episode was heartwarming. It changed him in a moment, bringing to light a goodness that he’s been keeping under wraps for a long time.
This, along with Ryan’s courageous speech, proves once again what The Boys does so well. Yes, it’s gruesome. Yes, there’s blood and balls and batshit events. Yes, someone occasionally gets ripped in half. But there is a true human goodness in the story. One that we catch glimpses of. There are good people among the monsters. There is hope for redemption.
What didn’t work
Of course, so few things in this life are perfect, and this episode was no exception. For instance, I was irritated by the insinuation that Butcher cheated on his wife.
That just doesn’t make any sense. We’ve seen flashbacks of Billy and Becca. They were happy. He was happy. He was head over heels for her. And I don’t think it’s realistic or necessary for the character to throw in that he cheated. It does nothing to add to the story, it’s just a weird and offputting moment.
Doesn’t Butcher have enough to hate about himself? Can’t we just give him that at least he was a good husband?
Finally, I kind of hate that we ended up with Annie being caught. It’s just cliche, which is something I don’t normally say about this show. It feels lazy unless they do something very clever with it in the last episode. Which, I suppose, they might.
Next up is the season finale. And with this season being as insane as it has been, I’m expecting nothing short of bloody fireworks. And I mean literal fireworks of blood. At this point, would it surprise anyone?
(4 / 5)
Episode six of The Boys was one of the most surprising episodes of the series so far. And that is certainly saying something. Because this season has so far been bonkers.
The story
Our episode today revolves around a party at Tek Knight’s lovely mansion. Yes, it does look just like Wayne Manor.
The Boys know that Tek Knight is working with Homelander on something, but they don’t know the details. So they decide to send Hughie in to bug the mansion.
Because that’s worked so well the other two times he’s tried to hide a bug!
It should surprise no one that this time goes no better. Hughie finds himself in Tek Knight’s basement. And by that I mean his BDSM dungeon.
Meanwhile, the party upstairs is no less disturbing. Homelander and Sage are trying to convince some well-off political donors to support a cue after the election. When pressed for details on his plan, Homelander freezes. He looks to Sage for help, but she wasn’t recently shot in the head and still in the junk food stage of her healing.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, Neuman jumps in and saves the day.
What works
If I’m going to say one thing about this episode, it didn’t hold back at all. I didn’t expect them to show a character masturbating, sitting their bare behind on a cake, or spraying breastmilk into someone’s face. But every time I thought they’d cut the scene and let something be left to our imagination, they did not do that.
This is a dangerous move. Whenever you show the monster, you run the risk of them not being scary enough, or gross enough. As Stephen King says in Danse Macabre, to leave this sort of thing to the imagination if the reader makes things so much worse. So when they finally experience the monster, they might say that this isn’t so bad. It could have been so much worse.
But in this case, they managed to avoid that by making the scenes, especially the ones in Tek Knight’s dungeon, so much worse than I imagined it would be.
What doesn’t work
While this was a deeply disturbing episode in many ways, there was one really innocent and sweet moment.
And yes, I did have a problem with it.
Confronted by Firecracker, Annie decides to apologize for spreading rumors about her when they were kids. She tells her that she is genuinely sorry.
And I believe her. I don’t think Firecracker did, but I did.
So why is this an issue? Because I’m starting to think that Annie is maybe too nice. She is too good.
I know that Annie is our good guy. But every one of the other good guys has flaws. Hughie let his pride get in the way and took Temp V. MM hid himself from his daughter instead of teaching her to work through her emotions. Kimiko is far too closed off and has a hard time trusting others. Frenchie numbs himself with drugs. And well, what hasn’t Butcher done?
It is unrealistic that Annie is just so kind and so flawless. We all have shadows in our personalities. We all have weaknesses, we all mess up. We all do things we wish we could take back. The fact that Annie doesn’t seem to have anything like that is not just unrealistic. It’s infantilizing.
Give her some deep dark secrets. Give her something real to regret.
This was a shocking episode, even for someone fairly jaded like me. I wasn’t expecting the sort of weird sexual depravity, though I guess maybe I should have seen it coming. It was dark, upsetting, tense, and funny as hell. And with just two episodes left in the season, I can imagine the stakes are only going to get higher.
(4 / 5)
By the way, if you like my writing you can get my short story, Man In The Woods, on Smashwords and Amazon.
