A little extra

Sometimes Buffy writers leave little jokes of their own in their scripts. The following is a stage direction for Innocence, a little nod to the fact that it costs more for extras to speak:

Another direction from the same episode regards a kiss between Xander and Cordelia:

Cup cake

Joss Whedon admits that the final, low-key moment of Innocence, in which Buffy and her mother watch an old movie on TV and celebrate her birthday with cupcakes and a single candle, made him just as happy as “his big man toy” (the rocket launcher, seen previously in the episode).
In an interview with The Watcher’s Guide, Kristine Sutherland, who plays Buffy’s mother, says that this scene is one of her favourites. She says, “Joyce being her mother and knowing that something is going on that is very hard for her. Just being there and not asking what it is.”

Cut scene in Innocence

Two actors are credited in Innocence but they do not actually appear in the episode. Their parts were ‘Teacher’ (James Lurie) and ‘Student’ (Parry Shen). Their scenes, in which Buffy runs out of class after having bad thoughts about the sex she had the night before, were cut due to length.

Hacked me to pieces

The following line was cut from the script of Innocence for length. The Judge’s line would have followed Spike’s line “So let’s take some! I’m bored!” from the beginning of the episode.

The Judge: “I fought an army. They hacked me to pieces. For six hundred years my living head lay in a box buried in the ground. I’ve learned to be patient.”

Heavy breather

In the flashback scenes of Buffy and Angel making love in Innocence, the heavy breathing wasn’t voiced by David and Sarah, but by series creator Joss Whedon and supervising sound editor Cindy Rabideau. Joss was too embarrassed to ask the stars to record it.

Joss on Buffy’s rocket launcher

In the episode Innocence, when Buffy hoists the rocket launcher to her shoulder, about to obliterate the Judge, Joss Whedon says in his DVD commentary that, “I’ve never loved her more”.

Marcia’s favourite episode

Buffy casting director Marcia Shulman’s favourite episode is Innocence.

No weapon forged

The original “no weapon forged” that was to be used to defeat The Judge in Innocence was to be a tank. The rocket launcher was David Greenwalt’s idea. Though its cost seemed beyond their means, they knew they just had to have it.

Pesky soul gone

The following scene was cut from the episode Innocence, I assume the “Gypsy Man” was Jenny’s uncle:

Rain in Innocence

The pouring rain in the scene where Xander visits the military base to steal a rocket launcher (Innocence) was not in the script. The rain poured down in the outside shots and Joss was delighted as it added so much atmosphere to the scene.

Reshoot

Angelus cruelly dismisses Buffy’s concern for him the first time they meet after having sex. This scene is in his bedroom in Innocence and Buffy can be heard saying she saw him at “the house”. The scene had actually already been filmed outside of Buffy’s house, but no-one was satisfied with the final cut so they filmed it again. Sarah Michelle Gellar felt as though she hadn’t given enough justice to the gravity of the situation between Buffy and Angel, so she asked for the scene to be reshot.

Shutdown

Filming the scene in Innocence where Buffy is crying in her room, heartbroken for the loss of Angel, was deeply affecting for Sarah Michelle Gellar. So much so that the set was closed down for 25 minutes while Sarah recovered from the difficult emotional place she visited when performing this scene. She said in an interview with Nylon magazine:

“Last year, with Angel and the heartbreak, I would go home and cry. My body couldn’t work properly. I don’t take the demons home with me, but I do take Buffy’s pain. The vampires I’m immune to, but not the emotion. When we filmed the episode where Angel breaks up with her, I cried for 25 minutes. I thought I was having a breakdown. They had to shut down the set. When they say rip your heart out, that’s really what unfufilled love does.”

Thanks a lot

Speaking admiringly in the DVD commentary for Innocence of the performance of Robia La Morte as Jenny Calendar, Joss Whedon comments. “And what did we do to thank her? We killed her”.

The Mall in Innocence

The shopping mall and multiplex scenes in Innocence were shot inside a Los Angeles department store on South Grand Avenue called Robinsons. The production team constructed a trench to stop the water from the sprinkler system from flooding the shop.

The Smurfs

The Judge was nicknamed “The Smurf” on set because of his blue colour, a reference to the cartoon characters in the 80s TV cartoon The Smurfs. In Innocence, Buffy calls the Judge a Smurf.

Ryan Francis

Ryan Francis, who played the soldier who questioned Xander in Innocence, previously played the young Peter in Steven Spielberg’s Hook.

Vincent Schiavelli

Vincent Schiavelli, who played Jenny’s uncle in Surprise and Innocence, is a well known face on TV and film. His movies include: Tomorrow Never Dies (as Dr. Kaufman), The People vs. Larry Flynt (as Chester), and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (as Frederickson). Vincent played the Organ Grinder in Batman Returns, which may be where the organ grinder’s monkey in Buffy’s dream in Surprise comes from. He was also the voice of Mr. Bailey in the Hey Arnold cartoon and movie. Vincent is the author of three cookbooks, based on Sicilian food.

The Judge

The Judge was a demon brought forth a thousand years ago to rid the Earth of the plague of humanity. His body was dismembered by an army and the parts were buried in every corner of the Earth (despite the fact that it’s a sphere). Spike and Dru arranged for all the parts to be sent to Sunnydale where they reassembled him (Surprise). Buffy killed him using a rocket launcher (Innocence) and the Scoobies kept the thousands of pieces apart so he was unable to reassemble.
The Judge was played by Brian Thompson, who also played Luke in season one.

Arm in a box

Cordelia references Buffy episodes Surprise and Innocence when she tells Doyle about Spike in ‘In the Dark‘:

“Oh, and this one time he and Dru raised this demon that burned people from the inside. It was this whole weird thing with an arm in a box.”

Changed his mind?

In Innocence, Spike and Drusilla attempt to get rid of humanity by reassembling the Judge. This makes no sense considering that in Becoming (Part 2), he admits to Buffy that he loves the “Happy Meals on legs” in the world.

Naming the stars

In Selfless, Spike says that Drusilla liked to look at the stars. We saw her doing this in Innocence:

No Assembly Required

Buffy says of the Judge in Innocence, “No assembly required,” which is a reference to an episode title from earlier in the season.

Own fun

In the episode Ted, Willow says, “I have my own fun.” In Innocence, she says of herself and the Scoobies, “Well we don’t have cable so we have to make our own fun.”

Oz’s van

In Halloween, Oz drove a zebra-striped van with right-hand drive. His van changes to a dark left-hand drive van in Innocence.

Slayage alternatives

Buffy shows some ingenious ways of killing demons, and the gang have some great suggestions too. Here’s a list of alternative ways of killing, seen or mentioned on the show:

• Hummus and Ebola: In Graduation Day (Part 2), Oz suggests, “We attack the Mayor with hummus.” Cordelia later suggests, “No, we’ll get a box with the Ebola virus and… or it doesn’t even have to be real. We can just get a box that says Ebola on it and… chase him! … With the box!”
• Drowning and licking: In Something Blue, When Spike’s in the bath-tub at Giles’ apartment, he yells, “Passions is on! Timmy’s down the bloody well, and if you make me miss it, I’ll…” Giles yells back at him “You’ll do what? Lick me to death?” In the same episode, Anya and Xander drown a Pargo demon to kill it (the only way, apparently).
• Nuzzling: In Buffy vs Dracula, Riley says to Giles about his being found with Dracula’s ladies: “You were gonna nuzzle ‘em to death?”
• Rocket launcher: In Him, Buffy attempts to kill Principal Wood with a rocket launcher, something she killed the Judge with in Innocence.
• Puppets: In Get It Done, Xander says, “Puppets! That’s it. The First hates puppets. Now if we can just airlift Kermit, Fozzy the Bear and Miss Piggy into town, The First will be a-runnin’.”

Soldier Boy

A large part of the episodes Innocence and Graduation Day (Part 2) rely on Xander’s recollection of the events of Halloween, when he became a soldier for a short time. In Innocence he says he still has all his memories of being a soldier, including “procedure, ordnance, access codes, everything.” Xander’s military knowledge was a great plot device help to Buffy writers when they needed lots of gun power easily. We discover in the episode The Harsh Light of Day that Xander has lost his power when he has a girly scrap with Harmony, though in The I in Team, he says “My pseudo-soldier memory bank tells me that’s a tracer.” In Goodbye, Iowa, Anya says, “It’s not like he was in the ‘Nam. He was G.I. Joe for one night.”
In Never Leave Me, Xander realises that Spike has a “trigger”, to which Willow replies, “Is this left over from your days in the Army?” He admits that knowledge comes from Army movies. In Potential, Dawn says to Xander, “Well, you had that sexy Army training for a while.”

Ways to kill Wood

In Him, whilst under a love spell, Buffy goes to kill Principal Wood using a rocket launcher. She used one of these to kill the Judge in Innocence so it’s possible that it’s the same launcher - otherwise where would she have got it from?

We Hate Cordelia Club

Willow discovered in Innocence that Xander would rather kiss Cordelia than her. She reminded Xander that he was treasurer of their ‘We Hate Cordelia Club’ in past years.

Stowaway

At the end of Innocence, Buffy and her mother wach the movie Stowaway, a 1936 musical starring Shirley Temple, Alice Faye and Robert Young. The song “Goodnight, My Love”, heard in the episode, is sung by Faye and Young.

Angel’s curse

Is that a “perfect moment of happiness” in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me? The vampire Angelus tortured and killed a gypsy girl, and was cursed by Kalderash gypsies. They restored his soul and gave him a conscience, so that he must live with the guilt of all he had done as a vampire. The curse would be broken if Angel had one second of “perfect happiness” (a big fat euphemism for sex). He and Buffy made love and his soul was stripped from him, causing him to kill again. Ironically, one of his victims was Jenny Calendar, a member of the Kalderash clan, in Passion.

Quest for Camelot

The final fight between Buffy and Angel in Innocence takes place in a movie theatre lobby which is lined with posters for the movie Quest for Camelot, an animated film which was released in 1998 by WB.

X-Men

Buffy creator Joss Whedon is a huge comics fan, particularly the Marvel comic X-Men. His dream came true when, post-Buffy, Joss wrote the Astonishing X-Men comics. The comic has been referenced numerous times in Buffy:

• In No Place Like Home, Riley says, “Giles, you got that Danger Room set up out back?” The Danger Room was a training room in the X-Men.
• In Tough Love, Xander reads an X-Men comic while in the Magic Box.
• In Two to Go, Jonathan says Willow is like the “Dark Phoenix” who was a character in the X-Men comics.
• In Him, Xander calls Spike a “nimrod”. Xander himself was called this by a soldier in Innocence, and Spike called Warren a nimrod in Smashed. Nimrod was a figure in ancient Babylon, and was also an X-Men character.
• In Bring on the Night, Andrew mentions Apocalypse, who was also an X-Men character (”Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Andrew, bad guy. You think I’m a super-villain like Dr. Doom or Apocalypse or The Riddler.”)
• Gwen Raiden in Angel’s season four appears to have been inspired by Rogue from the X Men - the two had great powers which could harm other humans by touch, and had to wear gloves to protect others.
• Joss Whedon has said that the X-Men character Kitty Pryde (AKA Shadowcat) was a large influence for the character of Buffy.

Seen at 11.14 minutes:

In Innocence, when Cordelia is looking in the book for information on the Judge we see her put the book back on the shelf sideways. Then when she and Xander start kissing, the book appears and disappears behind Cordelia in different shots.

Seen at 11.27 minutes:

Cordelia is doing her research on the Judge in the fiction section in the library.

Seen at 22.22 minutes:

Xander tells Cordelia to meet him at Willow’s house in thirty minutes, wearing “something trashier”. Then Buffy has a dream and goes to school the next day. It’s then night again and Xander, Willow, Cordelia and Oz are at the army base. Joss himself has spoken on this: “I was watching the final mix of Innocence when I noticed this huge mistake. Let’s just think of it as them going to Willow’s the night before to practice and go over what they were going to do.”

Seen at 29.54 minutes:

At the military base, why is a door labeled “Secured Area” left unlocked? Especially considering the secured area contains a building full of weapons - next to a broken fence!

Seen at 36.01 minutes:

We see Angel running from the Judge in slow-motion. He reaches the barrier at bottom of the staircase and is about to jump over it. In the next shot, he is seen further away from the barrier and running towards it again.

Seen at 36.05 minutes:

The Judge bursts into flame before the missile actually strikes him.

Seen at 36.15 minutes:

Drusilla’s reflection can be seen in a pillar in the mall.

Seen at 37.40 minutes:

In the final fight between Buffy and Angel, you can see their stunt doubles clearly in several shots.