Becoming (Part 1)

Season 2, Episode 21
Written by Joss Whedon
Directed by Joss Whedon
Original Airdate: 10 May 1998

“It’s a big rock. I can’t wait to tell my friends. They don’t have a rock this big.”
Spike

REGULAR CAST

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
David Boreanaz as Angelus
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

SPECIAL GUEST STAR

Max Perlich as Whistler

GUEST CAST

Seth Green as Daniel “Oz” Osbourne
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers
Julie Benz as Darla
Bianca Lawson as Kendra Young
Jack McGee as Doug Perren
Richard Riehle as Merrick
James Marsters as Spike
Juliet Landau as Drusilla
Armin Shimerman as Principal R. Snyder

CO-STARRING

Shannon Welles as Gypsy Woman
Zitto Kazann as Gypsy Man
Ginger Williams as Girl
Nina Gervitz as Teacher
Dean Butler as Hank Summers (Uncredited)

SYNOPSIS

1753, Galway in Ireland. A man named Liam and another guy are thrown out of a bar. Liam spots a young girl in an alleyway: it’s Darla. Liam goes to her, offering his services. She offers him the world, and then sires him: Angelus is born. Back in the present, Buffy is fighting in the graveyard against two vampires. She kills them, unaware that Angelus is watching from the shadows. Buffy picks Xander up from the ground and they head home to study for finals.

In the cafeteria that day, Xander re-enacts Buffy’s fight from the night before with fish sticks. Cordelia, Buffy, Willow and Oz all sit around the table watching. Buffy says she’s ready to kill Angelus but not to face their finals, and Willow assures her that she is going to pass. Snyder shows up and breaks up all of their touchy-feely fun and threatens Buffy with expulsion.

In 1860, Drusilla enters a church and then heads over to confess her sins to the priest. Angelus is killing the priest when she enters. She tells him she’s been having visions and that her mother thinks she’s cursed. Angelus tells her to be evil, and to go with what God has told her to do with her life, but she protests saying she wants to be good and pure. He finally tells her to say ten Our Father’s and an act of contrition. She is satisfied with that and then Angelus tells her that God is watching her. Then, back in the present, Drusilla walks down the steps in the mansion’s garden and Spike greets her from across the room. He is reading the paper and she explains to him that she met an old man, but didn’t like him because he got stuck in her teeth. Angelus comes in, hitting Spike in the head and asking Drusilla if she’s had a vision. She says she sees a present at the museum with a surprise inside. Angelus is amazed with the details she picks up. Spike then tells him that she read it in the morning paper.

At school, Willow is tutoring Buffy in Chemistry. Buffy is whining because it doesn’t make any sense. While Willow tries to figure out what Buffy did wrong, Buffy complains that she is a moron and Willow argues that Buffy shouldn’t be wasting her time if she thinks like that. Buffy lets her pencil roll down her book and between the desk and the filing cabinet. She picks up the pencil and puts it back, thinking that the feeling is deja vu. She lets the pencil fall again and picks up a yellow disk that’s there too. Willow takes it and puts it in her computer where they find the Restoration ceremony that Jenny had finished translating before she died. They both stare at the computer screen wide-eyed.

Angel is running, horrified through the forest. It’s 1890 and a young girl is dead. Gypsies are spreading flower petals around her and the elder woman of the tribe is chanting a spell around an Orb of Thesulah. Angel falls to his knees, his eyes illuminating. A man approaches him, and tells him that he will suffer for his sins. All of the deaths he has caused will haunt him forever. Angel pleads with him and drops further to the ground, crying. Back in the present, in the library, the gang talks about the ceremony. Everyone expresses his or her feelings about the subject. Xander starts yelling, saying that Angelus should die after what he did to Jenny. Buffy says that she wants him back, but Xander persistently argues against it. Giles snaps at Xander when he says that Jenny is dead and Angelus should die for it. Buffy breaks up the fight and says that she isn’t sure what she wants to do. Xander says she only wants to do the spell so that she can have her boyfriend back and she leaves the room, with everyone mad at Xander.

At the museum, a curator is analysing a large block of stone. He’s asked Giles to aid him in identifying the markings on the side, and in the evening, he hears something and gets up to find it. He hears chanting in the background and before he has a chance to do anything, Drusilla grabs him and sinks her teeth into him. Meanwhile, Buffy is packing in her room to go slaying for the night while talking to Willow on the phone. Willow says a swear word and Buffy is shocked. As she takes some stakes out of her desk drawer, Buffy finds the Claddagh ring. As Buffy patrols the graveyard, she hears footsteps. She stops and then turns around to find Kendra. They talk and Buffy figures out that there is a ‘dark power’ coming to Sunnydale.

Angelus, Spike and Drusilla are in the mansion with the stolen slab of rock, and Spike makes some joke about it. Angelus explains that inside there’s a demon that can swallow the world into Hell. Two vampires pull the tomb open revealing a demon with a sword in his chest. If the sword in his chest is pulled out, the world will go to Hell. Angelus is going to attempt to pull the sword out. In the library, Giles, Buffy and Kendra talk about the demon, named Acathla. Giles explains that the demon world is a different one from our world and if the sword is pulled out and the demon takes a breath, this world will be pulled into the demon world. Anyone who’s not a demon will suffer a painful and eternal Hell. Buffy asks Willow to do the spell of restoration, since it may be their only hope. Kendra presents a sword that is blessed by the knight that first killed Acathla. Willow says she needs about a day to get the spell ready and that she also needs an Orb of Thesulah. Giles says he has been using one as a paperweight in his office. In the mansion, Spike is walking around a room when Drusilla calls him. He quickly returns to his wheelchair and follows her out to the ceremony. A man is dragged out by two vampires. Angelus chants and comes out of the shadows. He bites the man and then walks towards the stone.

In 1996, Angel is homeless, walking the streets of Manhattan. He finds a rat and chases after it but misses. A man approaches him, claiming that Angel smells like death. The man knows that Angel is a vampire and offers to help. His name is Whistler, and he’s a demon, but a good one. He offers Angel the chance to be a bum, or to be a person. They leave for Los Angeles, more specifically, Hemery High School. A car pulls up with spray painted windows. Angel rolls down one window and cowers behind it, hiding from the sun. Buffy walks out of class with several girls around her. They talk about the upcoming dance and then the girls leave. A man approaches Buffy, saying that she is the Chosen One and that she has very little time to kill the vampires.

In a cemetery that night, Buffy is attacked by a vampire. She struggles beneath him then pushes him off her. He is flipped onto his back and she stabs a stake into his gut. Then she takes it out and puts it in his heart. He turns to dust. Angel watches from behind a gravestone. Back at Buffy’s house that night, her mother yells at her for being out so late. Buffy goes into the bathroom and starts crying when she hears her parents fighting. In the sewer that night, Whistler tells Angel that he can help Buffy, if he wants to. Angel says he does, and that he wants to learn from Whistler, but he doesn’t want to dress like him.

In Sunnydale, 1998, Angelus grabs the sword from Acathla and pulls at it. The sword illuminates and Angelus struggles to keep a good hold. Angelus continues to pull at the sword but is thrown off it. Spike is pleased, while Drusilla is really upset. So is Angelus. But he has a plan. At school the next day, a dark figure walks the halls of Sunnydale High. It enters Buffy’s class where she is taking her final. A vampire reveals her face saying that Buffy will meet with Angelus tonight. The vampire then burns up in the sunlight.

In the library, Buffy gets ready to distract Angelus while Willow performs the ceremony of Restoration. Kendra gives Buffy her lucky stake named Mr. Pointy. Buffy leaves and everyone gets to work on the spell. Angelus meets Buffy in the cemetery and pretends to be sincere. He asks her if they could maybe get back together, but then he says that he would rather fight. In the library, everyone is performing the spell while Buffy and Angelus fight. Some vampires attack them and the group scatters. Willow is crushed behind some bookcases, Xander’s arm is broken, Cordelia flees the scene and Giles is knocked out cold. Drusilla comes in and fights for a minute with Kendra, then hypnotizes her. While Kendra is under her spell, Drusilla slits her throat. They take Giles and leave.

Meanwhile, Angelus tells Buffy that she fell for his distraction, again. Buffy runs to save her friends but it is too late. She comes in to find Kendra dead. As she grieves for her fallen friend, a police officer holds a gun towards her and tells her to freeze.

TRIVIA

The character of Whistler was originally intended to be in Angel, but a different direction meant the character of Doyle was created. Whistler is Angel’s first connection with the Powers That Be. Max Perlich confirmed in an interview that he was never asked to return.

When this episode was repeated on September 15, 1998, it was presented with a different first scene. There are several differences, but the most notable is that Max Perlich provides the voice-over for that scene, rather than David Boreanaz.

The building of Hemery High, Buffy’s previous school, was also used as the clock tower in the Back To The Future movies. The set is at Universal Studios, along with a number of European village sets often used in Buffy and Angel flashbacks.

Although not credited, the voice of Buffy’s father belongs to Dean Butler, who played him in Nightmares and When She Was Bad. Butler was apparently unavailable to shoot the episode, but recorded his lines for Joss and sent them on.

Richard Riehle plays Buffy’s first Watcher in this episode, and it’s the only appearance and mention of him. Presumably, Giles speaks to him on the phone in The Wish, but it’s not actually confirmed whether the character is Merrick or not. Donald Sutherland played Merrick in the 1992 movie, and at least one official guide refers to Riehle’s character as Merrick.

CONTINUITY

Julie Benz makes a return as Darla in flashback. Darla died in Angel in season one, but is next seen in Angel, first in flashbacks and then resurrected by Wolfram and Hart in To Shanshu in LA.

This episode reveals that Drusilla was sired by Angelus in the year 1870.

This episode confirms that Angel was sired by Darla in 1753. His tombstone in The Prodigal shows that he was born in 1727, which made him 26 when he was sired. This information contradicts Willow’s in Halloween when she claimed that Angel was still human and eighteen in 1775. Giles’ diaries must have been wrong.

Jenny’s computer disk, with the information allowing the restoration of Angel’s soul, is finally discovered by Buffy and Willow in this episode.

Snyder challenges Buffy to give him a reason to kick her out of school. He expels her in the proceeding episode.

In flashback we see Buffy battle her first vampire. She misses the heart initially, a fact that she recites to Dawn when she also misses the heart in Lessons.

Buffy is lured away from the library, exactly like she was in When She Was Bad. Angelus even comments that she falls for the trick every time.

Kendra gives Buffy her lucky stake in this episode, Mr. Pointy, which appears in many future episodes. Kendra is murdered by Drusilla in this episode, which paves the way for Faith to become the Slayer and arrive in Sunnydale in Faith, Hope and Trick.

GOOFS

The scene of Buffy listening to her parents argue in Los Angeles in 1996 conflicts with the timeline presented in Nightmares, in which Buffy says that her parents’ divorce was “finalized last year, but they were separated for a while before that”.

During the flashback to Hemery High, Buffy’s lollipop gets bigger and smaller between shots.

As the Scoobies are attacked by the gang of vampires, Willow gets caught under a book shelf. As she falls, you see her hair is clearly covering her face but in the close up shot it’s not.

Why is it that from New York to California, Angel didn’t get pulled over for driving a car with it’s windows blacked out?

After Darla bites Liam, she runs a nail across her chest, creating a bleeding cut so Liam can drink from it and become a vampire. If you look closely, she actually just runs her finger across her chest, not her nail.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Go Fish / Becoming (Part 2)