What’s a rogue demon?
I’ve just seen the Season 2 finale, and frankly the “conscience” thing makes much more sense. Liam isn’t nearly as big a bag of soggy, wet, whininess that Angel is and Angel doesn’t gain David B.‘s (ghastly-bad)* Irish-esque accent (which I found charming due to the fact that David B. was clearly just having a blast doing it–when an actor is having that much fun, it’s infectious). There’s also none existential horror that Buffy suffered when they dragged her out of Heaven in S6. So…for me, when they say “Soul”–except in the case of Buffy’s S6 soul issues–I’m reading “conscience”. It makes the gypsy curse make sense, it makes Angelus’ behavior make sense, it explains the total lack of bad/fun Lucky Charms Irish accent.
As long as I’ve got this thread (and I may ask a mod to change the title) I thought killing Ms Calendar was a bad move–I liked the chemistry beteween her and Giles and she was just…cool. Killing Kendra sucked, but I read somewhere (commentary by Joss? Analysis by someone else?) that Kendra was the Watcher’s ideal slayer–by the book, no ties, no friends, no allies and followed orders pretty much blindly…and most of all: disposable. Faith and Buffy are total misfits as slayers: Buffy didn’t have a watcher for far too long and Faith’s watcher started out as a wimp (until Angel when he became seriously kick-ass)
Spike keeps stealing the show. He’s the perfect archtype of “deadpan snarker”
Dru (the character) never did much for me. The actress plays her perfectly, but I don’t see the appeal of her except as a deus-ex-machina.
I’d misremembered: I didn’t think Buffy came out to her mom (as a Slayer) until mid S3. I’m happy it happened earlier than I remember because playing “Dodge mom” was one of the more boring parts of the show. And I love Joyce (sniffle)
One thing that I didn’t get on the first watching was that Snyder was revealed as a bad-guy in S2. That’ll make the first part of S3 less annoying. But that said, as activist a mom as Joyce is, why has Joyce been letting Snyder get away with some of the crap he’s pulled (“You–Summers. You’re loitering with malicious intent. So you have to host parent’s night. It’ll take you a week and the budget isn’t my problem. Get to work.” My mom would have blown a gasket (as would my boss, as I had an after-school job). Joyce’s passivity is weird.)
Also, there were 3 mediocre-to-bad episodes in a row and one extremely stupid plot hole in a great episode: Killed by Death–a guy in a Freddy Kruger mask attacks little kids. Yawn. Also, you can’t “innoculate” someone if they already have the virus. And drinking flu virus won’t do anything. And adding more to it will make it hit harder, not faster. Just dumb. “I Only Have Eyes for You” is the one where the teacher takes advantage of the underage student who’s in her class and he shoots her. Sorry Buff–your blaming him is kinda back-asswards. It was also a boring episode. “Go Fish”–the fish DNA turn the swim team into Creatures from the Black Lagoon. Boring and dumb.
I freakin’ loved “Becoming 1 & 2” but there was one just totally idiot plot moment. The characters KNEW Angelus was attacking Buffy’s loved ones. The characters believed Angelus has some sort of early-warning-system for being re-ensouled. The characters KNEW Angelus can wander in and out of the school at will–hell, he killed Ms Calendar there. So…why do the ritual in the library, rather than in Giles’ living room where Angelus can’t get in? Just…dumb.
By the way, ranking Big Bads, the Master is Cooler than Angelus. Angelus is kinda stupid (as Spike often comments). The Master has read the Evil Overlord’s handbook and said “Yeah, it’d be smarter to follow these rules, but it just totally lacks panache.” and tossed it. The Master seems to be deliberately going out of his way to be an evil overlord for the style-points. Angelus is just doing it 'cause he’s dumb.
*I mean, it’s up there with Dick Van Dyke’s cockney accent for badness (“Ho, hit’s ha jolliee 'oliday wiv yew Mawry Popp’ns!”) 
As an aside, I’ve seen 'em all at least once, so no need to spoiler-box anything. I do request that no actual episode numbers be given though.
This is exactly why I’m ignoring the whole “Liam’s Soul” bit and just assuming “conscience”.
Liam didn’t do anything to anyone. He has nothing to feel guilty about. If Hitler possessed my body and killed a bunch of people (in addition to his previous crimes), I haven’t done anything wrong. And if my ‘soul’ was stuffed back there on top of Hitler’s I’d be pissed, not whiney (and would be doing my best to get my ex-body staked or whatever).
The “conscience” theory just makes more sense.
The dumbest move Angel made was to kill Jenny. As opposed to Vamping her. What would morale have been like if, at the end of the “rose petals on the floor” bit, Giles reaches over to Jenny and she monster-faces at him? Imagine Buffy having to stake Jenny? Imagine how screwed up Giles would be?
That said, Angelus is still a better character than the Buffy Show-Angel (as opposed to the Angel Show-Angel) in that Angelus isn’t a big ball of passive-aggresive whiny suck.
On the other hand, it would be pretty out of character for the teenaged demon hunter who’s dating a guy from the Enlightenment to suddenly get all huffy about age of consent.
In the first episode after Buffy sleeps with Angel and turns him into Angelus, Angelus sneaks into Buffy’s room when she’s asleep and watches her for a while, going into a voice over that starts the show about the power of passion. Then he draws a pencil sketch of her and leaves it next to her so she can see it when she wakes up, which gets her all freaked out and a lot of the episode is her and the Scoobies trying to find a spell to reverse the invitation to Angel to come into her house so that he can’t do that anymore.
Angelus’s dumbest move was not breaking Buffy’s neck while she slept.
Or vamp her… throughout the series I was waiting for a turned slayer as a (big) bad.
It’s not so much the age of consent thing that Buffy might have noticed as much as the crazy power-imbalance. Given how Snyder’s been treating her, I’d think she’d be hypersensitive to a teacher boinking a student in her class.
Also? I miss Mr. Flutie. He was more fun than Snyder, a somewhat better actor*. And dying because Xander ate him? Awwww…poor Mr. Flutie.
*Although whatshisname–Snyder…Zimmerman? Shimmerman? is no slouch either.
Or…why didn’t Dru vamp Kendra?*
*Also? The effects were bad in that scene. It looked like Dru gave Kendra a tiny paper-cut level cut with her fingernails. There was a microscopic trickle of blood and when Buffy came in, there was no blood on the floor. What did Kendra die of? It certainly wasn’t a slit throat.
Also, Miller (or whichever other mod) — Thanks for the title change. 
I don’t see her making that connection, not at that age. Snyder can bully her with his administrative powers, but he’s got very little ability to influence her emotionally. I don’t think she’d really get the dangerous ways emotional intimacy and authority can overlap until she experienced it first hand through the various betrayals at the hands of the Watchers, and Giles role in perpetrating them.
Yeah, his bald-faced insincerity was kind of awesome. I loved him dramatically tearing up Buffy’s transcript, then carefully taping it back together, all while she’s sitting there watching.
But Xander wasn’t with the pack when they ate Flutie. He was stalking Willow, IIRC. He was there when they consumed the school mascot, though.
Armin Shimmerman. Also did great work on Deep Space 9.
Yeah, it was dumb, but I enjoyed the obvious X-Files inspiration. There were a few episodes like that in the early days of Buffy.
With very few exceptions, vampires are created to serve as minions to other vampires. (This is the major reason so many vampires are idiots.) At best, a vampire Slayer is unlikely to put up with being a minion for very long. At worst, you’ve created something that still hates vampires, and is even better at killing them.
Still, if anyone was crazy enough to do it, it would be Dru.
That was twicks, not me, but you’re welcome!
A couple of other things: that Freddy Krueger episode – Killed by Death – had one excellent moment. The bit where Xander stands up to Angel was one of the very few times that we get to see Xander’s best traits: incredibly fierce loyalty and balls the size of Chicago.
In retrospect, I don’t think those three episodes before "Becoming "would’ve been all that bad if scattered through the series. The problem is back to back they suck
I seriously hoped that Faith was going to get vamped in S4 of Angel. After Angel tried to save her soul, Angelus removes it? Would’ve been his best existential crisis ever.
I remember searching once, because the idea was interesting to me. Apparently one of the spinoff comics talked about a vamped slayer from Japan in the 1600s or something. I really wish they had done it in the show, though. Would’ve made a great big bad if they awakened some vamped slayer that was dormant for a couple thousand years. Especially if it only happened because the Watchers were incompetent like usual. They probably could have fairly easily tied it into the whole subplot about the background of the slayers.
I’d say the bit of Human Liam that Angelus inherited (aside from the Oirish accent) was being a bit of a layabout. (He got over the accent.) Angelus was not a single-minded killing machine. He liked to torture. And think about torture. And threaten torture. On his return, he also enjoyed flirting with Dru & making fun of Crippled Spike. Or why not just Destroy the World? In his first vampire centuries, he had Darla–who was obviously the brains of the outfit.
“Go Fish” did offer Young Nick Brennan in a Speedo…
I seem to recall it was mentioned at some point that slayers couldn’t be vamped?