The Watcher Diaries - Passion - Buffy Episode 2.17
Posted by Jason Chamberlain on 06.25.2008
This week in Sunnydale, Angelus goes on the offensive against Buffy and hits very close to home for the Slayer. 411's Scooby Gang has the full review of 'Passion'!
“Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping... waiting. And though unwanted... unbidden... it will stir. Open its jaws... and howl. It speaks to us. Guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have?
Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief.
It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we’d know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms. Shuttered and dank.
Without passion... we’d be truly dead.”
Episode 2.17 — "Passion"
W: Ty King
D: Michael E. Gershman
Original Airdate: February 24, 1998
Synopsis: Angel begins to play mind games with Buffy. Giles is the first to tell her not to be affected by his taunts. Meanwhile, in an attempt to make amends to Buffy and Giles, Miss Calendar goes to work on a spell to restore Angel's soul. Willow also gets into the spellage in order to lock Angel out of her and Buffy's homes (and Cordelia's car). Unfortunately, Jenny's efforts make her Angel's prime target. He tracks her down in the school late at night and snaps her neck. When Giles finds her body laid out in his apartment as a taunt, he tries to take it upon himself to get revenge. Buffy races to stop him before Angel, Spike and Drusilla make him a meal.
Jason Chamberlain
Passion. Well, I don’t think I could be as eloquent as Angelus is on the subject, but it’s true. Without passion, we’d be truly dead. It drives us forward, gives us purpose. It makes us love.
It makes Angelus kill.
Angelus has tremendous passion for Buffy. But uinlike Angel, his passion isn’t rooted in love, it’s rooted in hate. His passion is to make Buffy suffer. As much, and as long as possible. He’s not just interested in killing the Slayer. He wants to break her.
This is a truly remarkable episode and certainly ranks amongst the seasons best. The series too, for that matter. Beautifully shot, beautifully written, flawlessly performed.
David Boreanaz finds another gear in his stunning portrayal of Angelus. And it’s a good thing, because this is the episode that proves that ‘Angel’ is dead and buried. The monster that looks like Buffy’s old flame is just that; a monster, and she needs to deal with it or people will die.
And somebody does.
Jenny Calendar’s death was certainly the first real message to the show’s audience that nobody on Buffy was safe, that anyone could be sacrificed in the best interests of the story. She wouldn’t be the last, of course, but it’s arguable that no other death would reach the same heights of shock value and story line implications.
There were always questions about whether or not Angel could be redeemed after what he did to Jenny. Well, this is where I always drew a line between Angel and Angelus. To me, the two are entirely separate entities. There’s nothing in Angel that’s in Angelus, and vice versa. There’s the soul, and there’s the demon. Right now, there’s the demon, and so when Angel returns, to my mind, he is unfairly held accountable for actions he had no control over.
The issue of soul vs demon is complicated by Spike. His line was quite a bit blurrier, and indeed, it seemed like a good part of the soul remained even when the demon was there, to the point where he would eventually seek out the return of his soul.
But anyway, I never blamed Angel for Jenny’s death anymore than Buffy does.
Angelus though, is fair game and this episode sees the entire group realize that he needs to be taken care of.
One thing I always find remarkable about Angelus whenever he appears is the true depth of his evil. Just look at the scene where he lingers outside Buffy’s window to view her reaction to Jennys death. Aside from being a truly horrific moment for both the characters and the viewers – we truly feel the same shock and dismay that Buffy and Willow do at the news – we see Angelus take true delight in the pain he has caused. It’s a small touch like this that truly elevates Angelus to his status as, perhaps, the Buffyverse’s greatest villain ever.
Giles once again shows how hardcore he can get when he's mad, and his assault on Angelus destroys the factor and sets the stage for one of Buffy's coolest sets; the mansion!
But for now, Buffy and her friends have nothing but their grief.
And Angelus has his passion.
Mike Gorman
Every time I watch this episode I can't help but get emotional. Just as Buffy starts to get over her animosity towards Jenny and opens the door for Giles to date her again, the season takes its darkest turn. Angelus definitely crosses boundaries this week and it is nice to see them addressing the fact that he has previously been invited into all of their homes. The impact of Jenny being killed just as she discovers the way to save Angel will be felt for a long time. The end of the episode when Buffy and Willow get the call about what has happened leaves me feeling the same as Buffy as she slumps to the floor. Would Angel even be able to be redeemed at this point? Only the next few episodes would tell.
Ronny Sarnecky
Before I kick off my thoughts on the episode, I would like to bring to light “Entertainment Weekly’s” special issue from this past week. In the magazine, they listed the new classics from the last 25 years. In the television shows category, they ranked “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” the number ten new classic in their Top One Hundred Ranking. Great job by “Entertainment Weekly,” and thanks for recognizing a show that truly revolutionized how female heroines are now portrayed in Hollywood.
After a couple of “light” episodes, Joss Whedon gets back to the core that made Season Two so memorable; the Angelus vs. Buffy dynamic. This was the episode where you truly saw how evil Angelus really is. I was always a big fan of the Giles/Jenny Calendar courtship. I couldn’t wait until they finally became a couple. However, looking back at the Buffy series following Miss Calendar’s death up until the show’s end in Season Seven, Joss Whedon made the right choice in killing off Miss Jenny Calendar.
First, there was the shock value of Miss Calendar’s death. This happened at a time when the only time a major character would get killed off of a show was when the actor decided to leave, and wasn’t dictated by any storyline. Miss Calendar’s death left the fans stunned. Her death showed Angelus’ brutality. Usually a vampire would get a kill by a simple sucking of the neck. With Miss Calendar, Angelus grabbed her neck, and snapped it like a twig. Despite not seeing eye to eye with Miss Calendar lately, her death finally gave Buffy the strength and hatred that she needs to take down Angelus.
The other ramification of Miss Calendar’s death is that it gives Willow a greater character depth. Instead of being Buffy’s book smart friend, Willow learns the ways of witchcraft. She blossoms from a weak schoolgirl, and turns into a powerful witch. If Miss Calendar was still in the picture, who knows if Joss would have allowed the Willow character to blossom as much as she did. Overall, I loved this episode. Like a good old wrestling angle, Angel’s heel turn and attack on Miss Calendar left the viewer clamouring for Buffy to get her revenge and battle Angelus once and for all.
Ron Martin
This episode is in my Top Ten of all the seasons. Joss and company have given the viewing audience enough of a breather from the intense action that was the return of Angelus, and not only that, but it's time to turn it up a notch. This is the first real glimpse we get of how super-evil Angelus is supposed to be. Almost everything falls into place here for the writers. We get to see why Drusilla is so dangerous. Angelus leaving pictures of Buffy works as not only is it amazingly effective on the creepy scale, but also reminds us that he can come into Buffy's house anytime he wants. Angelus goes for the throat when he reveals to Joyce that Buffy is no longer a virgin and of course he taunts Giles as only Angelus can do...but more on that later.
The death of Miss Calendar works on so many levels that it almost justifies taking the gorgeous Robia Lamorte off my TV. Almost. When I first saw this, I was saddened because she was one of my favourite characters. Then, the writer in me took over. This was the right thing to do (I'll even ignore the fact that Joss wussed out again because this was supposed to be Oz biting the dust in this episode before Oz became popular). Miss Calendar's redemption story was completed in her death, Buffy finally gets pushed over the edge in her internal battle over Angel and, of course, there's Giles. Let's be honest. Anything that causes our core four a great deal of pain, we secretly like and this was no exception. Not only did we get to see Tony Head's best performance to this point, but we got to see Giles in badass mode -- something we won't see again until Season Six. The scene where he finds the body is incredibly gut wrenching just as the scene with him and Buffy in tears is heartbreaking.
Possibly best of all was that Angel needed this. Not Angelus, but Angel. Joss was asking us to hate a character we loved for a year and a half, though he had done little in the way to make us hate him despite killing random strangers and being an overall pest. Now we hate him and we want to see Buffy kill him. As icing on the cake, this gives the show a "nobody's safe" feel and legitimizes Angelus as a hardcore threat. And as ice cream on top of the icing, Buffy has to now live with the fact that her indecisiveness is the reason Miss Calendar is dead.
Terrific episode, marred only by the technical issue of how did Angelus set the body up in Giles apartment when he had never been invited in. You can say it happened off-screen and that in Season Three when Angel can't go into Gile's apartment without an invitation that Giles has used the uninvitation spell, but great writing shouldn't make you have to come up with all these cockamamie excuses. A small complaint that does not make the episode any less effective.
Jeremy Thomas
Here it is, folks. Proof positive that watching Joss Whedon shows will SCAR. YOUR. SOUL. But only in the best possible way. This episode starts off with Angel doing a voiceover, and the thoughtful, philosophical voiceovers that Buffy does so well. The episode builds beautifully, and is incredibly well-paced. Every single moment in this one is one to enjoy...even the little moments, like Buffy pausing to trash Jenny and then tell her that Giles missed her or Jenny's bit with the shopkeeper. Every instant of this episode is just an absolute delight.
Well...okay, that's not entirely true. The biggest moment is excruciating. Even this weekend, watching the episode to refresh myself for this review, I was exceptionally uncomfortable watching Giles heading up the stairs to discover his murdered love. And when Buffy and Willow get the call, it's just as heartbreaking for the viewer as it is for the characters. But that's what makes it so damn good. This is exactly the reaction Joss wanted; he's said so specifically in the interviews. He wanted to give the final nail in the coffin on Angel's salvation, the stake to the heart of any hopes that Angel was going to come back. And he did that so utterly effectively that I know people who couldn't accept Angel as a good guy from any point after that, and crapped all over his return in Season Three. One of these was a huge Angel fan for the first two seasons. THAT'S how effective it was.
You have to give HUGE kudos to all the actors involved. Robia Lamorte played a beautiful part in her big episode, and David Boreanaz reached heights here that, frankly, I thought he never reached again. Anthony Stewart Head was amazing as Giles in this episode...when he goes on the attack, you just find yourself cheering, hoping beyond hope that he'll get that sick-ass vampire down. The only thing I wish--the one and only single thing--is that Joss and the writers had decided on the other side of the fence of one of their huge debates, and shown Angel snapping Jenny's neck with his human face on. That would have been the last, final touch. Even with that aside--you know what, as I write this, I say screw "Innocence." As perfect as it was--and it was--for my money, "Passions" is the seminal episode of Season Two, the best bar-none, and possibly of the entire series.
J.D. Dunn
I wasn't a big fan of King's earlier script for "Some Assembly Required", but he more than makes up for it with "Passion" Again, as with "Surprise/Innocence", all the tiny character moments are carefully calculated so that the episode never teeters out of control, as it easily could. It's important that Giles is the one to tell Buffy not to fall for Angel's taunts because he is the one to fall victim. A novice writer may have a good idea for the episode, but it takes an expert hand to make little decisions like that. Also, Gershman's direction is spot on, from Angel's narration of the episode, to the taut chase scene, to Giles' call to Buffy and Willow. The best episode of the series so far, eclipsing even "Innocence." GRR!!! ARGH!!!
The 411: Another fantastic episode in a fantastic season, and a true game changer in that it shows just how high the stakes are for everyone as the show moves forward.
