Our story begins in the Master's lair, where the Annointed One is tossing pebbles into a pool of blood. Darla returns just as the Master decides that he's fed up with the Slayer mucking up his plans. Not that she's actually spoiled many of his plans yet - witness the aforementioned Annointed Kid all undead and kicking - but she's offing his boys, and that's just bad for business. Darla wants to be the one to kill the Slayer, but the Master insists she's got a personal stake in the matter. Which now looks like such a very bad pun, but since I didn't mean for it to be, I'll leave it alone.

Anywho, the Master decides to bring in "The Three" to take care of the job. Cut to three badass biker guys. Leather, threatening facial hair, smoking, the whole "You so don't wanna mess with us" look. Then three much bigger badasses with much more leather, tricked out with the optional "metal plate armour" accessory package round the corner, and the first threesome quickly decide that being elsewhere is the better part of valor.

And now it's cockroach-squishin' time at The Bronze. Ah, that festive time of year when the body of a dead bug'll get you free beverages. No wonder it's the happening party place in town. Buffy & Willow are (brace yourself for the shock) talking about boys, and Buffy's got her mope on. Once again, Buffy's not optimistic of her future prospects with the brooding mystery that is Angel, but it's clear she's still very interested in him. Xander joins them, noticing their lack of energetic fun, and Buffy decides it's time to bail. Xander's disappointed she didn't stay to dance with him. Willow offers him a free drink, courtesy of the roach that's squashed on the bottom of her shoe, but strangely enough, the sight of a mashed bug doesn't perk him up very much.

As Buffy walks out, she doesn't notice Angel watching her from across the room, but she turns to look where he was just standing, almost as if she could feel him. The first couple times I saw that, I thought it was pretty cool. Now, several years later, it actually makes me catch my breath a little. Wow.

As she leaves the club, she stops again, feeling someone behind her. She's a bit cocky and impatient, just wanting to get this routine slaying over with so she can go home. But routine, this ain't. Nope, it's those lovely Three, come to give her a good old-fashioned killing. Two of the vampires hold her as the third moves in for the big bite. Then suddenly, he's ripped away by a very intense Angel.

Between the two of them, they manage to put up just enough of a fight to get away, but the Three are in hot and angry pursuit. They reach Buffy's house just in time, and she screams for Angel to hurry and get inside before their pursuers catch up to them. One actually gets his hand inside the door, but she's able to get the door closed. At which point they unveil the "Vampire can only come in when invited rule". Theoretically, that should apply to their hands as well, but I nitpick.

After making sure that Joyce is out, Buffy tells Angel to take off his jacket and shirt so she can get a look at the nasty slash to the ribs he sustained while saving her. Aah, and is was the point at which I come to believe wholeheartedly that a shirtless Angel is a very good thing. Buffy agrees with me too, and the flirting is finally out in the open. She remarks that she was lucky he came along, but he says he lives near the Bronze and was just out for a jaunty stroll about the Hellmouth. Naturally, that's a big lie. And hey, wow - she sure seems to need to stand awfully close to put that bandage on. Not that I blame her, of course. Just saying. After all, when you stand in all close like that, it makes it much easier to gaze up into his eyes. Plus, it means you're only inches away from that kiss we've been waiting to see! But the sound of keys in the front door means that Joyce is home. It's okay, though - best to let that tension that's out in the open now simmer for a day or so.

Buffy runs to the front door to pull her mom in safely. After all, she's not sure if the Three are still lurking about. Then she rather suspiciously tries to shoo Joyce off to bed. Joyce is of course not fooled by her innocent act, which is Angel's cue to walk into the front hall with his shirt and jacket back in place. Well, darn. Buffy introduces Angel as a college student who's tutoring her. Joyce greets him pleasantly, then drops a hint the size of an anvil that it's time for Buffy to go to bed.

Buffy pretends to send Angel on his way, then sneaks him upstairs into her room. After all, those Three could still be out there! No ulterior motives or anything, really! They spend a very adorable and awkward moment dealing with the question of sleeping arrangements. Angel insists she take the bed - after all, he doesn't want to impose. And besides, he's had worse than a carpeted floor. He turns his back so she can change clothes for bed, and she asks him the $64,000 question. Namely, why he fights vampires. He tries to brush it off as no big deal, but when she asks how his family feels about it, he admits that they're dead. Killed by a vampire. But before she can press the issue, he mentions how pretty she looks. Conversation neatly detoured, they bed down for the night, Angel on the floor beside her. She asks him if she snores, he tells her it's been a long time since anyone was in the position to tell him, and I fall deeply in love with the idea of these two getting together.

The next morning, Xander and Willow have very different opinions about Angel staying over. Xander's naturally distressed, thinking the worst of Angel. Willow, on the other hand, just can't seem to stop sighing about how romantic it sounds. Giles, however, wants to steer the conversation back to the Three. Spoilsport. Naturally, the Three are a mess of bad news, so Xander pipes in to suggest that Buffy should stay at his house until the danger's past and that Willow can run over to Buffy's to tell Angel to hightail it out of town. For Angel's own safety, of course. Man, I hate that I'm routing against Xander here. He & Buffy could be such a cute couple. But he and Willow would be even cuter, and I want Buffy to have Angel. Do the writers listen to me, though? Hardly ever.

Good news and bad news. The Master will no doubt send more vampires to kill Buffy, but since the Three failed, they must offer their lives as pennance to the Master. The look of excited glee on Darla's face as she plunges the spear through their hearts is just a creepy joy to behold.

Giles actually puts a "Closed for Refiling" sign outside the Library so he and Buffy can spend some time training. She's all over the crossbow, but he insists they start with the quarterstaff. Then if she makes enough progress with it, they can eventually work up to the crossbow. They begin, and wow, I think I hear a rib crack. So, um, moving on to that crossbow...

That night, Angel's still in Buffy's room. She brings him some unappetizing leftovers, which he doesn't eat. Then when he mentions he did a little reading while she was out, she assumes he looked at her diary and gets so full of flustered denial that it's obvious she's been writing dreamy Angel thoughts in there. Not that he looked, of course. Joyce moved it earlier when she came in to clean. But the "mutual attraction" thing is pretty much out of the bag now. He tries to fight it, though, citing the difference in their ages as a reason things between them could never work out. But Buffy steps in closer, and finally, they kiss.

At first hesitant and tender, the kiss quickly grows more passionate until Angel pulls away in alarm, hiding his face from her. She asks what's wrong, and he turns towards her to reveal the secret he'd hoped to keep from her. Angel's a vampire. Words just can not express how upset I am that I missed this episode the first time around so that I could have seen this scene not knowing. Buffy quite understandably screams, and Angel wisely dives out her bedroom window. Joyce comes running, but Buffy insists it's nothing... just a shadow.

In the morning, the gang is understandably shocked to hear that Angel's a vampire. Buffy wonders if a vampire can be good - after all, he's done so much to help her - but such a thing's never been heard of. Xander's all for staking Angel (a recurring theme for him, really), and even though it sounds like the jealousy talking, there is a certain logic to thinking that maybe the vampire slayer should stake the vampire.

Angel, meanwhile, has made his way home, presumably through the sewers. When he reaches his apartment, he's not entirely thrilled or surprised to see Darla there waiting for him. He comments on the "Catholic schoolgirl" look she's sporting - last time he saw her, she was wearing a kimono. As they talk, it's clear there's a history there, even though we don't know quite what. She tells him to quit with the tortured good guy act and embrace his true nature. He insists he's not like her, but she ridicules him for seeming to think he can be one of "them". Which she handily illustrates by flipping open his blinds. The sunlight comes pouring in, and he dives for cover. Plus there's the fridge full of blood. She tells him to talk to Buffy, tell her about his curse, and that he knows where to find her when Buffy doesn't come around.

In the Library, Giles has uncovered mention of a vampire named Angelus, 200 years ago in Ireland, with a tattoo like the one Buffy saw when Angel took his shirt off. Gee, Angel did mention something about being older than Buffy. Hey, he's only about 240 - that's not even middle-age for a guy on his diet. After cutting a swath of destruction through Europe for over a century, he suddenly shunned other vampires and doesn't seem to have fed off a human since. Still, that whole "brutal century of murder and mayhem" is kind of a blemish on his resume.

Darla, meanwhile, proposes a plan to the Master, a scenario where Angel ends up killing Buffy and returns to the fold.

Buffy and Willow are studying, in theory, but there's a lot of boy talk going on instead. Buffy encourages Willow to go for it with Xander, but Wil's too scared to. Willow asks about Angel, and Buffy's naturally confused. The kiss? Amazing. But he's a vampire. She knows she should stake him, but it's not like he's ever done anything to hurt her. So they'll study for a half hour, after which Buffy's gonna go home and mope. Sounds like a plan. Of course, Darla's been hiding in the stacks, listening in, and she's got that plan of her own to set in motion.

She goes to Buffy's, telling Joyce she's there to study with Buffy when she and Willow are finished, and Joyce invites her in. Crap. Joyce offers Darla a snack, but Darla's about to help herself anyway. She bites Joyce, just as Angel arrives to talk to Buffy. Presumably to see if she'll understand this curse Darla mentioned. He doesn't need an invite, having been inside before, and he comes to Joyce's rescue. Of course, this just makes Darla's plan even better (I'm going on the assumption that she didn't know beforehand that Angel was going to burst in at that moment). She shoves the unconscious Joyce towards him, telling him to give in to his hunger, and saunters off, her work done. His demon surfaces (i.e. he goes all fangy), and he's clearly tempted, but he resists.

Naturally, this is when Buffy saunters in and finds her bitten mother in Angel's arms, and the next thing we see is Angel crashing through the front window. If he ever comes near them again, she tells him, she'll kill him. Then she calls 911.

At the hospital, Joyce doesn't remember what happened. The doctors told her it looked like she cut herself with a barbecue fork, which is actually a pretty good theory, except that Joyce doesn't think they have one of those. She mentions Buffy's friend coming over, and Buffy draws the obvious conclusion. It's stakin' time.

Or, make that crossbow time. He mentioned something about living near The Bronze, which is conveniently closed for fumigation, so that's where she's gonna go. Darla, meanwhile, has beat Buffy to Angel's. She taunts Angel, telling him again to embrace his true nature and kill Buffy. Angel just wants it over with.

Giles has stayed with Joyce, who asks him about Buffy's performance in history. After all, she shouldn't be having so much trouble with it, since she's studying with both Willow and Darla, the friend she mentioned earlier. Uh-oh. Giles, Willow, and Xander take off to let Buffy in on this plot twist before she dusts Angel for something he didn't do.

Buffy finds Angel inside The Bronze. He makes a half-hearted attempt to fight her that's got everything to with wanting to get it over with. She's got her crossbow raised, Angel in her sights, but she fires the bolt into the wall next to him, demanding to know why he didn't attack her when he had the chance. Why he attacked her mother instead. He confesses a little overly proudly that it's not like he didn't kill his own family a long time ago, plus just about everyone he met for over a century. Oh, man. I'd tell him this might not be the wisest course of action, but he seems to want her to go ahead and put him out his misery. Then he segues into his curse. He fed on a gypsy girl, and her clan cursed him by restoring his soul so that he'd know the misery and horror he'd caused. He didn't bite Joyce. As if to test him, Buffy puts down her crossbow and offers him her neck. He doesn't accept the offer.

Then, oh goody, Darla's there, ready kill Buffy herself. But not before revealing that not only were she and Angel lovers for decades, she made him. She's his sire. Not that they use that word yet, but there it is. Buffy threatens Darla with the crossbow, but Darla shows her hand. Hands, actually. With huge and scary guns in them. She shoots Angel to get him out of the way - not that the bullet will actually kill him - then advances on Buffy, guns blazing.

Outside, Giles, Xander, and Willow hear the gunshots. Buffy fires her second bolt, but it just misses Darla's heart. Inside now, Willow shouts that Darla was the one who attacked Joyce, and Buffy uses the distraction to knock Darla down and dive for cover. Angel, meanwhile, manages to stand again and grab the first bolt from the wall near him. Darla finds Buffy easily, advances again, and is about to shoot her when Angel appears behind Darla and thrusts the crossbow bolt into her back. She turns to look at him, disbelief written across her face, his name a question on her lips. Then she falls to the floor, exploding into dust and ashes.

Angel leaves, clearly needing some time to process what's just happened. And Buffy, with tears in her eyes, seems to understand what he's just done for her.

The Master is heartbroken. And much to my dismay, I actually feel sad for him. But the Annointed One manages to cheer him up with the promise of mayhem to come.

The Bronze reopens (looking remarkably undamaged after the previous night's gunfight), and Buffy, Willow, and Xander are there. Angel's there too. Buffy crosses the room to him,and she's wearing the silver cross he gave her. Xander, thoroughly jealous, doesn't want to watch. Buffy and Angel cite the litany of reasons they can't ever be together, but they can't walk away from each other yet. They kiss, tenderly and passionately, then say their goodbyes. Angel looks so full of longing as she walks away. Then the camera pans down towards his chest. There's a burn there in the shape of Buffy's cross.

Thoughts

I just flat out love this episode. Angel's big secret's finally revealed, and even if you saw it coming, it's one of those moments that changes the show forever. It's just so Romeo and Juliet, the whole star-crossed love affair with impossible odds. Of course, Romeo and Juliet's not exactly the happiest of stories. Buffy and Angel agree they shouldn't be together. She's spent several episodes now, even before she knew that he's a vampire, telling herself that they couldn't have any real future together. But logic and reason aren't really in charge of this one.

Aside from the disaster of their first kiss, one of the strongest images in the episode is the burn on Angel's chest from Buffy's cross. Even though he gave it to her, it's a symbol of just what separates them. Still, kissing her was worth enduring the pain.

On top of that, Angel killed his sire for her. And not just his sire but the woman who was his lover for over a century. Even Darla, who claimed to know him so well, couldn't believe he would go to such lengths to protect Buffy. And I was so touched to see that Buffy seemed to understand what a huge thing Angel had just done.

Honestly? I'm shocked. I mean, I first tuned in expecting to see a fun, campy show about a girl who kicks some vampire ass. Which is definitely there and a huge part of why I love it so. But in the middle of all that, there's suddenly all the makings of a classic Shakespearean romance. Who'd'a thought?

One other little thing I thought was extremely effective: Darla's guns. Not effective as a weapon, since she had umpteen shots at Buffy and missed completely. But bringing guns into play made it clear just how intense and threatening the moment was. There's violence and death all over the place on this show, but more often than not, it's vampire fights and tazers and wooden stakes and crossbows. Things the audience can feel pretty safe from. Guns on this show mean business. Because Buffy can defend herself against a vampire, but she doesn't have superhuman speed to dodge bullets. A gun'll kill her dead just as easily as anybody else. And I took it as a sign of just how threatened Darla felt by the Slayer that a powerful vampire thought she had to bring two guns to the party.

Quirks

Neat how that vampire's hand was exempt from the "no invite" clause.

Joyce understandably screams when Darla attacks her, but for some reason, they decided to use Buffy's scream from earlier in the episode.

Buffy's upset with herself for inviting Angel into her home, even after she knew what he is. Huh? When did she do that?

Buffy goes to The Bronze to find Angel, since he lives near there. But instead of looking around nearby she sneaks in to search the locked club she knows he doesn't live in. Good thing he decided to wait for her there.

Body Count

Zachary - vampire Buffy dusted before the episode started
The Three - vampire assassins dusted by Darla
Darla - staked by Angel

Haiku

Know it shouldn't be
Falling for an undead guy
So wrong, but so right

Barbeque fork marks
Call it mild anemia
Common in this town

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