Buffy The Vampire Slayer, “Passion" Review (2x17)

Brief Synopsis: “Angelus continues his obsessive torment of Buffy by visiting her during the night and leaving presents in her bed. Meanwhile, Ms. Calendar tries to make amends for deceiving Buffy and Giles by attempting to translate the Gypsy curse to restore Angel's human soul, with dire consequences.”

"Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered" (2x16) quick link here                                 "Killed By Death" (2x18) quick link here


Two quick notes before we get started...

1)    I will be reviewing the episodes in bullet point form. This is because it makes the reviews simple to read, and helps break up the text.
2)    If you are watching the show for the first time along with these reviews, please be warned that there may be a few spoilers for things that haven’t happened yet.

With that being said, let’s get started, shall we? 



•    This is the episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” that put the show on the map. This is the episode that made a lot of people take notice. “Innocence” gained “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” some mainstream attention, but “Passion” is the episode that turned a lot of people on to the show. Its importance to the success of Buffy cannot be overstated.
•    In essence, “Passion” revolves around Angelus tormenting the Scoobies. Angelus stalks Buffy, stalks Willow, tells Joyce about himself and Buffy having sex, and then kills Jenny in one of the most shocking, unexpected moments in the show’s history.
•    The opening monologue from Angelus is captivating. Not only is the monologue itself hauntingly beautiful, but it conveys so much intensity in such a short space of time. Like “Surprise”, the opening of this episode instantly makes you aware that something is different, that this episode is going to be memorable. Why are all the most memorable episodes heartbreaking?!
•    From a musical score standpoint, this is Christophe Beck’s finest performance to date. As Angelus is stalking Buffy from a distance, the musical score adds so much intensity and intrigue to the scenes. I don’t think it would be hyperbole to label Christophe Beck as a genius. If Joss is the master at drawing emotion out of you, Christophe is the master at creating music that captures the essence of any scene or episode. He’s my favourite composer of all time (John Williams would be second).

•    I have an interesting relationship with my own memory. I had a lot of negativity and trauma in my younger years. My brain decided that in order to protect myself, it was going to blank out almost all of my memories from before I was 11 years old. With the exception of around 10 memories, everything I remember from my childhood is Buffyverse related. Ironically, I can remember watching this episode for the first time like it was yesterday. I was nine years old. The first episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” that I ever watched was “Killed By Death” (the next episode), the first time it aired in the UK. It terrified me, and I loved it. The next day, BBC Two were airing a repeat of the previous week’s episode, “Passion”. I recorded it on VHS (I miss VHS...), and sat down on a Saturday morning before the rest of my family was awake to watch it. I jumped out of my seat at Angelus being outside of Buffy’s window! HE’S WATCHING HER SLEEP! WHY IS HE WATCHING HER SLEEP?! THAT’S SO DAMN CREEPY!...he’s going to kill her, isn’t he? He’s going to kill her, and the show is going to be renamed “Giles The Vampire Watcher”, and it’s going to be set in the Cotswolds...actually, that sounds like quite a decent spin-off. Someone should run that by Joss...sweet mother tangent, where was I? Oh yes...I think that Angelus stalking Buffy and playing mind games with her shows the true genius of his character. He could have killed Buffy right there and then, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to torture her mentally and physically, he wants to destroy her before he kills her (like he did to Drusilla before he turned her into a vampire). He’s a psychopath! It makes him such a fascinating villain! All these things he does, like turning Teresa into a vampire, like leaving Buffy a drawing of her sleeping...it’s all to mess with her head. His greatest strength lies in psychological warfare, but it’s also his greatest weakness. He could have killed Buffy at least three times by now, but he’s decided not to.

•    Giles: “This is a school library, Xander.”
     Xander: “Since when?”

I’m so glad that they mentioned this. Almost no student is ever in the library except the Scoobies. Why is the library always so empty? Are people scared of Giles because he’s stuffy and English? Perhaps it’s the freakishly-sized occult section of the library that scares people away.

•    Giles: “You mustn’t let him get to you.”

On the surface of things, this line is rather insignificant. However, Joss has very purposefully inserted this line into the beginning of this particular episode. It’s foreshadowing Giles losing complete control and letting Angelus get to him after Jenny’s death.

•    I adore Willow’s smiley face backpack. It holds more sentimental value to me than other people, as I have something similar...only it’s a badge. If you’ve been reading these reviews from the beginning, you know about my attempted suicide in 2011 (I will talk about this in depth during the review of season three’s “Amends”, as it’s particularly relevant to that episode). After miraculously surviving, I tried to come up with as many ways as possible to keep myself positive and motivated. One of those things was to pin a smiley face badge to my right trainer (“sneaker”). Whenever I look at my feet it reminds me to smile.
•    Jenny: “I know you feel betrayed.”
     Giles: “Yes, well, that’s one of the unpleasant side effects of betrayal.”

Oh Giles, never change. Sassy, sarcastic Giles is my favourite version of him. Since Angel lost his soul in “Innocence”, Giles has been a little less sassy than usual, so it’s nice to have him back to his full-sarcastic self.

•    Angelus not only killed Willow’s fish, but TIED THEM TOGETHER! Please see my above statement about doing things just to mess with Buffy and the Scoobies. How sadistic is that? That was unexpected. I wonder if that’s what Angelus did to the puppy that Giles mentioned in “Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered”? Sort of like a canine version of “The Human Centipede”...
•    Got to point out the irony that Drusilla named the puppy she got for Spike to eat “Sunshine”. She’s giving Spike Sunshine...that’s a bit lethal.

•    Angelus: “Well, maybe next time I’ll bring you with me, Spike. Might be handy to have around if I ever need a really good parking space.”

That might be my favourite Angelus sarcastic remark ever. The way David delivers “parking space” is so funny. Angelus has so much more personality than Angel does at this point in the story. Angelus is charismatic and sarcastic, whereas Angel was always broody and dark. I much prefer Angelus here. This completely changes after Angel moves to Los Angeles and develops a personality.

•    I have a love-hate relationship with Juliet (Drusilla)’s English accent. Sometimes it sounds fantastic, other times it sounds unrealistic. On the flipside of that, James Marsters’ English accent is superb right from the beginning. There were a few moments in season two where he sounded a little off, but he was damn near perfect for most of his run on the show. So much so that most English people thought that James was English!
•    I was stunned at Jenny’s reveal that she was planning to re-ensoul Angel. She said it couldn’t be done! This episode has suddenly got much more intense.
•    The drawing of Joyce is so much creepier than the drawing of Buffy. Stalking the Slayer is one thing, but stalking her mother?! The writers and David Boreanaz do such a fantastic job of making Angelus hateable after only four episodes. It’s oddly fascinating to watch Angelus progress as this episode goes on. It’s classic psychopath behaviour. Angelus starts small with stalking Buffy outside her window. He then escalades to drawing Buffy to mess with her. This evolves into Angelus stalking Joyce, as he knows that it will terrify Buffy (and telling Joyce that he slept with Buffy! Holy awkward! Joyce’s look of shock and disgust will be etched into the back of my retinas for days), and it culminates with the grand finale of Angelus carefully displaying Jenny’s body in Giles’s bed. It’s so deeply disturbing...I love it! It makes for must-watch TV!
•    Buffy: “Sorry, Angel. Changed the locks.”

This was one of those moments where I whooped at the television. It was such a great moment for Buffy’s character to be able to keep Angelus out of her house. It’s a metaphor for the fact that Buffy can now keep Angel out of her thoughts when she’s facing Angelus. She knows that Angel is gone for good now. There’s no way to save him. If a situation like the end of “Innocence” were to happen again, Buffy would be capable of killing Angelus. Sadly, by the end of this episode we learn that Angelus doesn’t need to be creeping around Buffy’s house in order to hurt her.

•    Go home with Giles please, Jenny? Please?! Don’t stay at work. It won’t end well. If I pretend she went home with Giles, then the rest of this episode won’t happen, right?
•    This episode is the first classic case of what I like to call “Jossism”. Jossism is where Joss has a very happy, nice, funny episode and then the following one is death, destruction, and emotions flooding out of me. Some other examples of this include “Something Blue” followed by “Hush”, “I Was Made To Love You” followed by “The Body”, and “Smile Time” followed by “A Hole In The World”. If Joss is building up our happiness, it’s only to tear it down again...bastard...
•    I love the orb of Thesula. It’s so shiny.
•    Angelus: “Looks like I get to kill two birds with one stone...and the teacher makes three.”

To quote a famous wrestling announcer, “Business has picked up!” That sentence was when everything fell apart in this episode. The funny thing is, even at this point I wasn’t expecting Jenny to die. I was expecting there to be a chase, a struggle, and then Jenny to somehow escape and run into the arms of Giles, setting them up as a proper couple again. Shows that have Buffy’s target audience don’t kill characters in such dark ways! You can imagine my surprise when Jenny ran straight into Angelus!...

Angelus: “Sorry, Jenny. This is where you get off...*Angelus then snaps Jenny’s neck*”

What the hell just happened?! WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?! TV shows like “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” don’t do that! Fair play to Joss Whedon for having the guts to go to the horrific lengths that he does in this episode. I recently watched an interview with Joss where he said ‘you can’t be afraid to go to the dark place...that’s where the fairytales live’, and Joss is right. The show goes to a very, very dark place sometimes. It does this because a hero (or heroes) need to go through a lot of adversity in order to be a hero. If Buffy never faced any true danger or powerful enemies, the show wouldn’t be anywhere near as good. As much as I hate Tara’s death, Joyce’s death, etc., each one of them serves a purpose and helps the surviving characters grow significantly.

What makes Jenny’s death more shocking is Angelus’ casual reaction to it. He’s so calm and collected after killing Jenny. I think that’s the first moment where it truly dawned on me that Angel was completely gone. There’s no coming back from this. Even if Buffy and the Scoobies can somehow come up with a way to re-ensoul Angel, how is anyone ever going to be able to forgive him? How is Giles ever going to be in the same room as him? Angel’s character has been tarnished so much after this act. It was a very risky move on Joss Whedon’s part to take such a loved character and to make him so undeniably evil. I love emotionally complex plots! That’s why seasons two and three are my favourites.

Just as Jenny and Giles were sorting things out and were about to be really happy, Jenny gets killed. I think I may adore and hate Joss all at the same time. The sound of Jenny’s neck snapping was spine-chilling. It’s the worst part! I just want to curl up in a ball and rock back and forth until that noise disappears from my brain.

•    I just can’t get over how perfectly written and acted Angelus is. He’s different to the other villains of the show because he doesn’t just want to kill Buffy. Killing Buffy is the easy part. He wants to completely strip Buffy of everything that she holds dear first. No other villain on the show has had such a personal connection to Buffy. It’s so captivating to watch unfold...in a horrific, terrifying sort of way.
•    Joyce is such a fantastic mother. Not only does she have the sex talk (and does a very good job of it, might I add), but she tells Buffy just how much she loves her. It’s such a rarity for a parent to be so openly affectionate or loving in my experience. I never got a sex talk of any kind...thank God for small mercies.
•    The hardest scene to watch thus far into reviewing “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” is Giles walking into his house, smiling, walking up his stairs, and finding Jenny. It was brutal. Brutal. I think it’s one of the most powerful scenes, if not the most powerful scene during the show’s seven-year run. Angelus is so meticulous and takes such care planning and arranging Jenny’s body (and the house in general). He really is like a sadistic, psychotic artist. It’s interesting that Jenny’s death isn’t the part of this episode that put Buffy on the map (it certainly helped though). This scene was. Not only did Angelus kill Jenny, but he planted her dead, cold body in Giles’ bed for Giles to find. That’s a whole new level of disturbing.
•    The quality of acting in this episode is high. Perhaps the highest that it’s been thus far. However, the star of the show is Anthony Head. Tony’s acting in this episode is flawless. I mean flawless. It’s so realistic that it’s scary. The look of pure shock, the half-mumbled words, the blank stares...ugh. It’s such a hard scene to watch for me. My best friend died a few weeks before I turned eighteen, and my reaction upon finding out the news was exactly like Giles’ was here. Just numb disbelief and shock.
•    I think the choice to have the viewers see the phone call from Giles to Buffy and Willow from Angelus’ point of view was an amazing choice. It worked so much better that way. Angelus is entranced at the reactions of Buffy and Willow, and he loves every single second of it. How could anyone not despise Angelus at this point? Buffy collapsing against the wall, Willow breaking down and Joyce rushing in to comfort her...this episode is truly heartbreaking.

•    Xander: “I’m sorry, but let’s not forget that I hated Angel long before you guys jumped on the bandwagon. So I think I deserve a little something for not saying ‘I told you so’ long before now. And if Giles wants to go after the fiend that murdered his girlfriend, I say ‘faster, pussycat. Kill, kill!’”

Okay, I for one support Xander’s little rant about Angelus. Giles is perfectly entitled to wanting revenge. Angelus just murdered his girlfriend and left her dead body in his bed for God sake! I know Xander makes some questionable decisions in relation to Angel(us) throughout the first few seasons, but in this instance I completely side with him. Xander has hated Angel since day one. He hated Angel for all of the wrong reasons (because Buffy had feelings for Angel), but he hated Angel nonetheless. I don’t think Xander hated Angel simply because Buffy was attracted to Angel. I think he also hated Angel because Angel was a vampire, and vampires are dangerous. Vampires killed Jesse. Deep down I think Xander knew it was only a matter of time before Angel killed someone again.

•    I was really surprised at how well Giles was doing in his fight against Angelus. He was winning the fight for a long time! He was running off of pure emotion and was really beating Angelus up. Is this the first glimpse that we get into the ‘Ripper’ of the old days? I also love that Spike wouldn’t allow Drusilla to get involved. Spike was getting off on Angelus being beaten up.
•    The scene between Buffy and Giles after the fight in the factory is the most emotionally investing scene in the episode for me. I believe this is the only time that we ever see Giles truly breakdown. Oddly, I get more upset watching Giles cry than I do at Jenny’s death.
•    I’m grumpy that we had no funeral for Jenny whatsoever! I think the fans needed to grieve after such an emotional episode. We needed an outlet to mourn, just like the Scoobies did.
•    The last few minutes of the episode show the true impact of Jenny’s death. Buffy is full of guilt and regret at not killing Angelus at the end of “Innocence” when she had the chance. She wasn’t strong enough emotionally to kill Angelus in that moment and Angelus being alive led to Jenny’s death. Willow has now taken over Jenny’s classes temporarily. Earlier in the episode Willow was upset that she planned a lesson to cover Jenny’s class, only to have Jenny show up. Willow was sad that she didn’t get to teach that class. She now has her wish in the most twisted way possible (thanks again, Joss!). Giles is alone and heartbroken. This point is hammered home by the scene where Giles goes back to his house, because it makes a point of showing just how empty it is. That’s how Giles is feeling. He’s numb, and he’s alone.
•    Another wonderful thing that this episode did was set up that Angelus is a big threat for the rest of the season. What makes a ‘Big Bad’ truly great for me is knowing that they could kill anyone at any moment. That fear of being on the edge of your seat the whole time. Angelus was the Big Bad that encompassed this the most. He’s already killed Jenny. Who else is he going to kill before this season is all said and done? For the first time we got to see the Angelus that everyone has been talking about since season one. The Angelus who was the most vicious vampire in recorded history.
•    The episode ends with Jenny’s floppy disc falling down the side of her desk, as Buffy says “I can’t hold on to the past anymore. Angel is gone. Nothing’s ever gonna bring him back.”...more on that later...
•    To summarise this episode briefly, it was amazing. The first episode that I awarded a 10/10 rating was “Innocence”. This episode is every bit as deserving of a 10/10 rating. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change a thing about this episode. It was focused all the way through, there was zero filler, it was filled with emotion, and it holds a lot of significance for the rest of the season and beyond. As a fan, there’s nothing more that I could ask for from a single episode. 


Quote Of The Episode

Angelus: “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. It lies in all of us. Sleeping, waiting, and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir-open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us, guides us, some to despair. It drives others to murder and others to madness. Passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love, the clarity of hatred, and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. Passion is the source of hope and the cause of despair. It is the source of life and the cause of death. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace...but we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead.”


That is beautiful. Arguably the best monologue on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”...just a shame that it’s uttered by a murdering psychopath. 

  
FINAL SCORE: 10/10

So what are your thoughts on "Passion"? Did you enjoy this episode? Dislike it? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments section below!

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