"INNOCENCE." BtVS Episode.

On Buffyworld.com: Trailer, Summary, Transcript

On BuffyGuide.com: Innocence

Originally aired on January 20, 1998, "Innocence" is the continuation of a two-part story begun with "Surprise." Written and directed by Joss Whedon, the episode is important for a number of reasons: it marked the show’s move from the Monday night spot to its new Tuesday night time slot, which was done by airing "Surprise" and "Innocence" on consecutive nights. Through transformations and revelations, "Innocence" presents major development for a number of the main characters. Most significantly, the events of "Innocence" will bring a new and hard earned level of maturity to the slayer and her two closest friends, and this will happen at the expense of Buffy, Willow, and Giles, who will each have suffer the loss of love’s innocence. "Innocence" also introduces the major conflict in the Season Two story arc, and it stands as Joss Whedon’s favorite episode of BtVS, at least among the first five seasons of the program.

A number of questions introduced in "Surprise" are answered in "Innocence." With the action beginning immediately after Buffy and Angel have sex, the episode’s teaser solves the mystery of the old gypsy’s warning about the danger of Buffy bringing Angel "even one minute of happiness," and it established the true Big Bad of Season Two. The episode opens in the factory with a weakened Spike worrying that Buffy and Angel will stop The Judge’s activation. Drusilla, now the mentally stronger of the two, assures him they are safe. While Spike takes out his frustration on The Judge, Dru is struck with what the shooting script describes as "orgasmic pain," which leaves her spent and smiling. At this moment, the setting shifts to Angel’s apartment where Buffy wakes up alone in Angel’s bed and calls out to him, receiving no answer. With another shift, the action moves to the alley outside of Angel’s apartment, where Angel is kneeling in the rain on the ground, in pain, clearly coming to an understanding about his condition that viewers don’t yet share. A woman described as a woman "of ill, if not actively professional, repute," lights a cigarette, sees Angel and approaches him, asking if he needs help. Angel replies, "No…the pain…is gone." In full vampire face, Angel bites the woman. The next shot is one of the most striking ever created for BtVS. After draining the woman and dropping her to the ground, Angel smiles, a smile instantly connecting him to Drusilla, and then he exhales the woman’s cigarette smoke. Viewers now understand that Angel has once again become Angelus, that his one moment of happiness with Buffy has turned him into a killer whose first pleasure comes from a prostitute, and that he no longer exists to help Buffy and Scoobies save the world but instead exists to help their enemies, his first circle of friends, destroy it.

The remainder of Act One is spent intensifying for Buffy and the Scoobies the mystery of Angel’s condition and the revealing of that condition to their enemies. Unsure of where Angel disappeared to after they had sex, Buffy attempts to sneak into her house without her mother seeing her. Buffy’s youth is reinforced when it is learned that, in a typical adolescent move, she has told Joyce she would be spending the night with Willow. While Buffy is worried about Angel, the rest of the Scoobies, along with Jenny Calendar, are worried about whether she and Angel were hurt the previous night trying to stop The Judge. As her chief defenders and friends, Xander and Willow insist on going to the factory to find Buffy and Angel, while the more practical Cordelia and Giles believe the danger is too great. When Buffy enters the library, the concern shifts to the whereabouts of Angel and how to stop The Judge, who Buffy confirms has been activated. As the students go to class, Jenny is captured watching Buffy and Angel with a worried look on her face. Jenny may not know where Angel is, but it is clear she is now worried about what Angel might have become.

Jenny’s concerns are realized when Angel goes to the factory. Not yet giving himself away, Angel mocks Spike with words echoing Tom Joad’s final speech to his mother in The Grapes of Wrath: "As long as there is injustice in this world…As long as scum like you is walking - - or, well, rolling - - the streets, I’ll be around. Look over your shoulder. I’ll be there." In this final scene of Act One, The Judge comes to Angel and touches, him, but no burning occurs. Dru is the first to understand what this means, that Angel has lost his cursed bit of humanity that was his soul. He makes it official by telling Dru, "Yeah, baby. I’m Back."

Angel, Spike, and Drusilla are still in the factory celebrating the renewal of old times when Act Two opens. Angel asks the others for one night to "work on" Buffy, and viewers understand that his goal is to break her psychologically just as he once broke Drusilla, leaving her insane.

The next three scenes are the most important in clarifying the episode’s title. Three of the show’s major characters face realizations that will take from them their innocence of belief. The first is Willow who sees Xander and Cordelia kissing behind a shelf of books. Willow sees this as a betrayal of her and the innocent dream of a relationship with Xander begun when they were small children. When Xander tells her the kissing "doesn’t mean that much," Willow replies, "No, it just means you’d rather be with someone you hate…than be with me."

Xander’s dismissal of his relationship with Cordelia as without much meaning reverberates in the next scene, originally shot outside Buffy’s house but reshot in Angel’s apartment. Buffy finds Angel there dressing, and he brushes her off, minimizing the importance of their sexual intimacy the night before. Buffy’s concern that she wasn’t good in bed, is met with Angel’s cruel reply that, "No, you were great. Really. I thought you were a pro." Buffy’s innocent belief that she could have a meaningful and physical relationship with Angel is shattered at this moment. She does not yet know that Angel is now Angelus.

Jenny’s fears about Angel are confirmed when she visits the old gypsy man and demands to know what is happening. She learns what only the viewers and the vampires already know, that the curse was reversed in Angel’s "One moment of true happiness," and that he no longer has the soul that prevented him from being one of the most violent vampires to ever walk the earth. Foreshadowing action in a later episode, the gypsy tells Jenny that Buffy will now have to kill Angel. For viewers, however, the gypsy’s announcement creates an immediate expectation, which the next scene only teases. At the high school, Willow and Xander are standing in hallway making peace when Angel appears at the end of the hallway. He calls Willow to him and sends Xander to get the others from the library. Suspicious, Xander turns around just as Jenny appears behind them, holding a cross and telling Willow to get away from Angel. Buffy appears and tries to get Angel to come after her. As Buffy is verbally sparring with Angel, it is Xander who actually saves Willow, using Jenny’s cross to frighten Angel. Angel throws Buffy to the floor, reminiscent of his earlier dropping of the woman in the alley. The scene ends with Angel leaving and Buffy sitting in a state of shock, surrounded by her friends.

Buffy’s powers seem weakened, while Xander has gained a few. Before Angel interrupted them, Xander was telling Willow he had a plan for destroying The Judge, and it is instinct that makes him suspicious of Angel.

Act Three begins by completing the final loss-of-innocent belief begun when Jenny brought a cross to face Angel. Back in the library, everyone but Jenny is trying to understand what has happened to Angel. Willow realizes that Jenny knew about Angel’s transformation. Then Willow realizes that Angel and Buffy have had sex. When Giles begins to question the trigger for the change in Angel, Willow again has a realization and, protecting Buffy from having her most intimate action exposed, tells Giles to "shut up" and stop questioning Buffy. And as Buffy runs away from her friends, they put into motion Xander’s plan for stopping The Judge.

The remainder of the episode is marked by quick action building to a final showdown. In the faction, Angel confirms to Spike and Dru that he wants to hurt Buffy psychologically so she will be easier to kill. Reminding Spike of his failure to kill Buffy when he had the chance, Angel delivers one of BtVS’s most memorable and ironic lines: "To kill this girl…you have to love her."

While Angel is planning her destruction, Buffy is in her bedroom, where she removes the claddagh ring Angel gave her, and then cries. Falling asleep, Buffy has a visionary dream in which Jenny’s knowledge about Angel is revealed. This is enough to revive the fight within Buffy, and the first person she takes on after awakening the next morning is Jenny herself. Trying to defend Jenny from Buffy’s attack, Giles learns of Jenny’s role in Angel’s life and transformation. Angel gets to the gypsy before Jenny can take Buffy and Giles, who want to learn how to restore Angel’s soul. Angel promises the gypsy a long, tortuous process before death.

Xander’s plan for destroying The Judge involves using a weapon not forged by man, since such a weapon can’t kill him, but one made by man that will have the power of an army. To get the weapon, Xander resurrects from "Halloween" his role as soldier and, using Cordelia as bait, breaks into an Army base and steals a rocket launcher. Oz, who has driven the two and Willow to the army base in his van, tells willow he wants to kiss her but not until her motives are a desire to kiss him rather than a desire to made Xander jealous. Act Three closes with Buffy, Jenny, and Giles discovering the dead gypsy and Angel’s parting message, written on the wall in blood: "Was it good for you too?" The rest of the Scoobies are prepared to take out The Judge, and Buffy is not ready to take on Angel, telling Giles she knows she has to "Kill him." Buffy’s realization confirms the warning given to Jenny by the gypsy and heightens the viewer’s expectation of Angel’s death.

The final Act proves to be truly final for The Judge, as well as presenting one last character transformation. While the Scoobies are preparing for battle against The Judge, Giles backs Buffy up rather than defending Jenny when Buffy tells her to "Get Out." Oz becomes useful for more than just transportation when he correctly identifies the movie theater at the mall as the place the vampires will take the fully charged Judge to begin his incineration of humanity. The second standoff in the episode occurs when, at the mall, Angel, Drusilla, and The Judge are met by Buffy and the Scoobies. Buffy faces her enemies alone from atop the popcorn machine, first getting their attention by firing an arrow at The Judge, and then hoisting a rocket launcher to her shoulder. This scene is shot from below, magnifying her solitary strength. Angel and Dru escape the effect of the rocket launcher, but The Judge is shattered in to smoldering bits. Leaving the others to "pick up the pieces," Buffy follows Angel through the smoke and the water falling from the sprinklers. The elements suggest the rain and smoke of the alley in the episode’s teaser, before Buffy has lost her innocence. The next scene hints that maybe a part of it is retained. Buffy is exhausted and afraid after one round of battle with Angel, but his goading is the spark she needs to attack again, and she fights as if possessed. She does not stake him when the opportunity arises; instead she leaves him bent over in pain from a fierce kick to the groin.

As much as the events following her intimacy with Angel have matured Buffy, viewers are quickly reminded that she has, after all, just turned seventeen. The scene following Buffy’s momentary triumph over Angel is short, with Buffy sitting in the passenger seat of Giles car, listening to him warn her that Angel is not done trying to kill her, and consoling her when she suggests that Angel’s turning was her fault. Just as Giles assures her of his respect, the scene closes with a shot of the tears running down Buffy’s face.

Buffy’s final comfort comes from her mother’s presence. Joyce does not know her daughter is the slayer, so she cannot know how Buffy has spent her birthday. But she is able to give her daughter a cupcake, an old movie, and a mother’s touch in a final scene that conveys some remaining innocence in the girl slayer who lost so much of it turning seventeen.

--Cynthia Burkhead