Buffy Season I Episode Guide: Angel

Underground, The Master is spending time with Colin, The Annointed One. Darla enters and reports that the Slayer has killed yet another one of their own. Fed up with this constant failure, the Master decides to send The Three after Buffy. While heading home from the Bronze, Buffy encounters The Three: three super strong vampires that pin her against a wall. Just before one of them can plant their teeth into her neck, Angel appears out of nowhere to rescue Buffy. Momentarily startled by seeing Angel smash his elbow into the vampire's face, Buffy frees herself of the other two vampires by flipping up and split-kicking them. During the battle, one of the vampires grabs a pipe and swings at Angel, slashing his ribs. Buffy and Angel flee for her house and get inside. According to Angel, the vampires can't get in unless they are invited. After bandaging up the wound, Buffy sneaks Angel into her room for the night. He sleeps on the floor while Buffy takes the bed.

Xander is dismayed the next day when he finds out Angel spent the night in Buffy's room. Willow sees it as incredibly romantic. In The Master's Lair, Darla kills The Three for their failure to destroy the Slayer. That night, Buffy returns to her home with food for Angel. She finds her diary sitting on her nightstand and thinks that Angel read it. She tries to explain that all the things she wrote about him in the diary didn't mean what he might have thought they meant ("'A' doesn't even stand for Angel, for that matter! It stands for Achmed, a charming foreign exchange student!"). Angel explains that her mother moved the diary around, and he never read it. He then tells her that he has to leave because he is deeply attracted to Buffy, yet is much older than her. They then move towards each other and kiss. Angel suddenly turns away, and Buffy tries to ask him what's wrong. Angel turns around and reveals that he is really a vampire, sharp fangs and all. As Buffy screams, Angel escapes out her window.

The next day, Giles goes through the diary of a past Watcher and finds information on Angel, whose full name is Angelus, meaning "angelic face". Xander and Giles believe that it is Buffy's duty as the Slayer to kill Angel, but Willow and Buffy can't look past the fact that he has never attacked her, despite the countless opportunities he's had. Meanwhile, Angel returns to his place, which is hidden in the basement of a building. He discovers that Darla is there, waiting for him. They talk about the past, which dates back over two hundred years. Darla sees that Angel keeps bags of blood in his refrigerator. She then leaves, suggesting to Angel that he tell Buffy about his curse. Darla then goes to Buffy's house, where her mum, Joyce, is sitting in the kitchen alone. Darla knocks on the door and introduces herself as one of Buffy's classmates, coming over for a study appointment. Joyce invites her in and offers her a snack from the kitchen. During this time, Angel comes over and raises his hand to knock on the door, but pulls his hand back. As he is leaving, he hears a scream from inside and rushes in to see Darla holding Joyce in her arms. There are two bite marks in Joyce's neck. Darla knows that Angel can't suppress his natural urges forever, so she passes Joyce to Angel and leaves them in the kitchen. Angel wants to drink Joyce's blood, but he can't bring himself to go through with it. Just then, Buffy walks into the kitchen and sees Angel holding her unconscious mother in his arms

Buffy throws Angel through her front window and warns him to never come near her again, or she will kill him. Joyce is brought to the hospital, where she is successfully treated. While Giles, Xander, and Willow stay at the hospital to watch over her mother, Buffy leaves to hunt down Angel. She arms herself with a crossbow and tracks Angel to the Bronze, which is closed for fumigation. After she leaves, Giles finds out from Joyce that Angel was not the person that bit her, but rather it was Darla. Of course, Joyce never learns the whole truth that Darla was actually a vampire that bit her. She believes that she passed out and fell on a barbecue fork, despite the fact that they don't own one.

Inside, Buffy and Angel fight to the point at which Buffy has her crossbow leveled directly at Angel's heart. He waits for her to kill him, but she decides to divert her aim and fires the arrow into the wall besides Angel. She then gives him a chance to explain his intentions to her. Angel reveals that he once fed on a gypsy girl, angering the elders that knew her. As a punishment, they restored his soul, which is the one thing that a vampire demon cannot take over. With his soul back, Angel was never able to take another human life, and has thus lived alone for eighty-years, isolated from the rest of his vampire family. Just then, Darla enters and explains that she is still in love with Angel. When it becomes apparent that he has no plans of returning to The Master's side, she whips out two guns and shoots Angel. This doesn't kill him, just wounds and stuns him. She then begins to fire at Buffy. Giles, Xander, and Willow make their way into the Bronze. Willow yells out to Buffy that Darla was the one who bit her mom, not Angel. This distracts Darla long enough for Buffy to dive behind a counter. As Darla approaches Buffy's hiding spot, Angel springs up behind her and drives the arrow that Buffy fired earlier through Darla's heart. She dies and turns into dust on the floor of the Bronze. After seeing that Buffy is okay, Angel turns and leaves. The Master is grievously upset over Darla's death, but Collin comforts him, telling his master that he will bring the Slayer to him.

At the Bronze's post-fumigation party, Buffy sees Angel there. They meet on the dance floor, realizing that they can never have the sort of relationship that they both want. As they have one last parting kiss, Buffy's cross necklace burns into Angel's chest, leaving behind a cross-shaped mark, a bitter reminder of their love that can never be.

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