All about passion

The speech that Angel gives in the episode Passion is completely different from the one that was in the original script. The cheerful original version was as follows:

“Passion, it is born, and though uninvited, unwelcome, unwanted like a cancer, it takes root. It festers. It bleeds. It scabs only to rupture, and bleed anew. It grows, it thrives until it consumes. It lives so, it must die in time. Passion, it drives some to distraction, some to despair, some to vengeance. It drives some to murder and others to madness. Passion is the source of hope and the cause of despair. It is the source of life and the cause of death.”

Buffy’s photo

The photograph of Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) behind Joyce as she eats dinner in Passion is a publicity shot from Entertainment Weekly - the August 1997 issue.

Hearing about Jenny

When Buffy and Willow discover that Jenny has been killed in Passion, we don’t hear the whole of their conversation, as it’s covered by a voice-over. Here’s the scene:

Willow (referring to “the talk” with Joyce): “So was it horrible?”
Buffy: “It wasn’t too horrible.” (phone rings) “Hello?”
Giles (on phone): “Buffy?”
Buffy: “Giles! Hey, we finished the spe - ”
Giles (on phone): “Jenny…Ms. Calendar…she’s been killed.”
Buffy: “What…?”
Giles (on phone): “It was Angel.”
Buffy drops the phone.
Willow: “Buffy?” (she picks up the phone) “Giles?”
Giles (on phone): “Willow. Angel’s killed Jenny.”
Willow: “What? No…oh…no…”
Joyce: “Willow! My god, Buffy! What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

Oz or Jenny?

Alyson Hannigan said in an interview, “Angel…had to kill somebody we loved - we were all warned about that. Actually, I think it was supposed to be Oz that was killed, then they decided they’d keep Oz around and they killed Ms Calendar.”

Robia’s shoes

Robia La Morte said the following about filming the episode Passion:

“[The filming of] the confrontation in the classroom was one day in itself, that took probably four or five hours because of all the fire and explosions… On a separate day we did the rest…to the point of my death. A lot of running in high heels! The good thing about TV is, as soon as the camera goes to those tighter shots, put those sneakers on.”

Richard Assad

Richard Assad, who played the magic shop owner in Passion, has also been in Along Came Polly, Wishmaster, Mars Attacks!, Forget Paris and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Robia LaMorte

Robia LaMorte played Jenny Calendar. Born in 1970 in New York, Robia became a professional dancer at 16 and appeared in her first music video ‘Shake Your Love’ for Deborah Gibson. She was paired with dancer Lori Elle and they became known as Diamond & Pearl - dancers for Prince. Robia was picked by Prince to dance with him for the Diamonds and Pearls album. A single from the album went to number 1 and Robia was pictured on the cover. Robia played Jill Fleming in Beverly Hills, 90210 prior to appearing in Buffy. She has also been in Spawn and Robot Bastard!

Ira Rosenberg

Willow’s neglectful father was called Ira Rosenberg, mentioned only in the episode Passion and never seen on screen.

Jenny Calendar

Jenny Calendar was the Computer Science teacher at Sunnydale High, and also secretly Janna Kalderash, a Romany from the tribe who cursed Angel with his soul. Jenny was sent to Sunnydale to make sure that the curse was working, but she became friends with the Scoobies and liked Angel. Jenny fell in love with Giles, despite the fact that the two were exact opposites. When Angel lost his soul, Buffy blamed Jenny (Innocence). The technopagan tried to discover how to re-curse Angel but was killed by Angelus before she could tell anyone the cure (Passion). Jenny’s grave had no year of birth or date on it. It simply said, “Jennifer Calendar”.

Angel and Giles’s place

Many people think it is a goof that Angelus got into Giles’s apartment to place Jenny’s body there in Passion. It’s true we’ve never seen Angel in Giles’s apartment but that doesn’t mean he’s never been there.

College boy

In the episode Passion, Joyce remembers Angel as the college boy tutoring Buffy in Angel.

Crawford Street

Angelus, Spike and Drusilla lived in a mansion on Crawford Street after their old lair at The Factory burned down in Passion. Angel lived there when he was brought back from Hell in season three until he moved to L.A.

Jenny’s disk

Jenny’s computer disk containing the spell to restore Angel’s soul falls between two desks at the end of the episode Passion. This proves crucial in Becoming (Part 1), when Buffy and Willow find it and realise they can cure Angel.

Knocked out

In Buffy vs Dracula, Giles falls into Dracula’s basement, where he is surrounded by the sisters. After he falls he says, “Good show, Giles. At least you didn’t get knocked out for a change.” In A New Man, Giles says he has a “tendency to get knocked on the head”. He’s not kidding. Giles has been knocked unconscious in the episodes:

• The Witch (by vampires who want to raise the Master again)
• Never Kill a Boy on the First Date (by Andrew Vorba in the crematorium)
• Prophecy Girl (by Buffy, to stop him from trying to help her)
• When She Was Bad (by the vampires attempting to raise the Master)
• Passion (by Angelus, after Giles attacks him for killing Jenny)
• Becoming (Part 1) (by a group of vampires who take him to Angelus)
• Beauty and the Beasts (shot with a tranquilizer gun)
• Homecoming (by Lyle Gorch and Candy).
• Revelations (by Gwendolyn Post, in his office)
• Gingerbread (by the MOO mob as they come to take Buffy away. When Cordy wakes him up shes says, “I came over here to tell Buffy to stop this craziness and found you all unconscious… again. How many times have you been knocked out, anyway? I swear, one of these times, you’re going to wake up in a coma.”)
• Earshot (he doesn’t get knocked out in this episode - but he does walk into a tree in a very amusing manner)
• Flooded (by the Mfashnik demon as it breaks ino Buffy’s house. Giles later says, “Well, I know I’m back in America now. I’ve been knocked unconscious”).

Losing the one you love

During the seven years of Buffy, all four core Scoobies have the person they love die at some point:

• Xander - Anya dies fighting against The First’s army (Chosen)
• Willow - Tara is shot and instantly killed by Warren (Seeing Red)
• Giles - Jenny gets her neck snapped by Angelus (Passion)
• Buffy - Angel was already dead but Buffy kills him by stabbing him in the heart with a sword (Becoming (Part 2))

Not without you

In Tabula Rasa, Buffy tells Giles, “I can’t do this without you”. She made the same statement to her Watcher when Giles confronted Angelus after he murdered Jenny in Passion.

Punching Giles

Buffy punches Giles twice in the series: In Prophecy Girl, to stop him preventing her from facing the Master, and in Passion, after he attacks Angelus.

Something to fall back on

Willow taught Jenny’s computer science after she died in Passion and continued to do so in I Only Have Eyes For You, Go Fish and Becoming (Part 1).

Special Projects

In the episode Passion, when Giles questions why Jenny is in the computer lab so late, she replies that she is “working on a special project.” In the episode I Robot, You Jane, Fritz says to Jenny that he is working on a “special project” on the computer. Ironically, when Jenny asks if she will like Fritz’s ’special project’, he replies that she’ll die.

Tara’s detentions

In Passion, Willow asked Jenny if she could have the power to give detention and it seems she does. In I Only Have Eyes For You there is a detention list at the bottom right hand corner of the chalkboard. The list includes Lisa D., Dayton, Ericka, and also Tara x 2. Tara was the name of Willow’s girlfriend in seasons 4 to 6.

The Factory

Spike, Drusilla and, later, Angel’s, lair during season two was an old abandoned factory in Sunnydale. It was burned down in Passion when Giles tried to kill Angelus for murdering Jenny. The vampires then moved to a mansion on Crawford Street. The set itself was torn down to make room for the vampires’ mansion set on a Buffy soundstage.

Vamps in cars

In Passion, Cordelia remembers that she invited Angel into her car once, seen in Some Assembly Required. She eventually swaps it with her grandmother.

La Boheme

‘Acte 10 Soave Fanciulla’ from La Boheme by Puccini plays when Giles returns home to find Jenny dead in Passion. The nomadic group called gypsies or Romany are called “bohemiens” in French. Bohemians and gypsies share some characteristics: Both groups are known for their vagabond lifestyle, for their merry poverty, and for their disregard of money for the pursuit of music, color, and relationships (how Jenny got involved with Giles even though she was supposed to watch Angel). It is pretty interesting to see the similarities between bohemians and gypsies considering Jenny was a gypsy.
The part we hear when Giles discovers Jenny dead is “O soave fanciulla,” from the end of act 1 when Rodolfo and Mimì first declare their love to each other (as Giles probably thinks that Jenny and him are about to do the same when this piece is played).

Morcheeba

We hear Morcheeba’s “Never An Easy Way” (from the album ‘Who Can You Trust’) as Angel watches The Scoobies at the Bronze in Passion.

Remembering Jenny

The piece of music which plays at the end of Passion, is called ‘Remembering Jenny’, composed by Christophe Beck. The vocals were provided by Anthony Stewart Head (Giles).

Garlic

Traditionally, garlic is supposed to ward off vampires, though no explanation is properly given why. Buffy uses garlic, hoping to put off Spike if he tries to go to her house, in Wrecked. She also hung garlic in her room in Passion, when Angel was a threat.

Orb Of Thesulah

The Orb Of Thesulah was the key to translating the Transliteration Annuls for the Rituals of the Undead. These texts contained the spell to restore a soul to the undead but were lost. In Becoming (Part 1), Giles says to Willow that he has an Orb Of Thesulah which can restore Angel’s soul - he uses it as a paper weight. In Passion, the owner of the Occult shop says to Jenny that someone bought an Orb but the person that bought it was going to use it as a paper weight, so he must have been talking about Giles.

Public places

A vampire can enter a public place such as a school or hospital (this is seen in Passion and Killed By Death). In Passion Angel says the sign outside the school says ‘Romatia transicara edicatorum’ which translates to ‘Enter all ye who seek knowledge’.

The Ritual of Restoration

The translation of the ritual to restore Angel’s soul on Jenny’s computer is this:

As the orb is round in nature, as the earth, is round in nature and the heavens are round in nature so is the soul. Return from whence you were banished, using this orb as your guide - penetrate every ounce of the flesh, every sinew of the body and every tissue of the heart.
Make what lays before you more than the empty vessel that is animal, that is beast - make it man as God created when he separated the firmament of the heavens from the earth.
Come forth now, return, return. As the orb burns, let life burn.

Transliteration Annuls

The Transliteration Annuls for the Rituals of the Undead were encrypted texts on how to use the Orb of Thessulah. The translation had been lost for years until Jenny Calendar deciphered it using a computer programme. Angelus murdered Jenny in the episode Passion before she was able to use the spell, and it was several weeks before the disc containing the ritual was found.

Uninvite

Buffyverse mythology states that a vampire cannot be invited into a home unless invited in by a person living there. When a vampire is invited into a home once, it can enter again at any point, unless a reversal spell is done. The spell was first seen in Passion, after Angel lost his soul and started stalking Buffy. The last words of the incantation (read by Willow at Buffy’s house) are “Hicce verbis consensus rescissus est,” which translates into English roughly as “By these words permission is rescinded.”
The spell is done at Buffy and Willow’s houses, and Cordelia’s car. When Giles leaves Buffy’s house, he takes the spell book containing the spell to uninvite vampires and says to Willow, “I suppose I should do my house next.” Buffy also uninvited Spike to her home in Crush.

Charlie Brown

Willow and Xander have a Christmas tradition of watching A Charlie Brown Christmas together. This was first mentioned in Passion. The cartoon features the Snoopy Dance, which is something we see Xander do in The Replacement.
In All the Way, Spike says, “Great Pumpkin’s on in twenty.” He’s referring to Charles Schultz’s animated Peanuts Halloween special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Xander says of Giles in Passion, “Faster pussycat! Kill! Kill!”. This is a name check of a trashy B-movie made by Russ Meyer in 1965. The plot consists of three strippers who hit the road in their sports cars and crush everything in their path, plus a wheelchair-bound old man.

Seen at 05.06 minutes:

There’s a nice little scene in Passion where the gang’s research mode is interrupted by the unexpected appearance of two students (including Jonathan) looking for books. This unprecedented event forces the Scoobies to go elsewhere to finish their discussions. The only problem is - the gang haven’t even left the library before Jonathan reappears from the stacks to ask a question. He looks around confusingly and says, “Hello?”, but he should have seen them exiting the room. They would have had to have walked pretty fast to get out of the library without Jonathan seeing them.

Seen at 22.48 minutes:

Vampires need no invite into public buildings, so why does Jenny ask Angel how he got into the school?