I'm not sure what you mean - you mean the Angel-Darla interactions?

Giles's comment about Buffy living in the now is also really key -- she doesn't (much) consider the future, at least not for a long time. It's a weird way to live when at that age most kids can think of nothing but the future.

I love the parallels between Buffy and Darla here -- the clothes Darla wears really works it, I think, making it the first indication (before Buffy and Faith) of the different roads any girl could take.

I also adore the ending of this episode. SMG is so good in that scene, there's just so much in her eyes, and the cross burn gets me every time.

It's also interesting note how pat she is about her fate, their fate -- "This can't be anything." True. Even when it *was* it couldn't be, not for good. And how true that the more she loved him, the more she was willing to fool herself about their possible future.

Also, I miss this kind of interaction with the bad guys.

I'm not quite sure what you mean either, although I could see something like that for S6 (the evil is us) but they really missed the mark on that, I think.

Huh. Thinking about the action sequence, I looked up the director, Scott Brazil....

...and it turns out he's dead. Died in 2006 of complications from Lyme disease. He'd done some other TV directing(looks like no movies, though) like Strange Luck , JAG ,and The Shield ,but it looks like this was his only Buffy episode.

(reads further) Huh. He was a producer on Hill Street Blues ,too. Wild.

Oh, yes, Buffy's 911 call hurts.

And, gah. I'm simultaneously broken and extremely irritated by Willow continuing to fruitlessly pine after Xander (probably because she reminds me too much of my own high school self, with the emotionally naked and the easily wounded and the pouring of so much energy into something so hopeless; it's all horribly watch-from-the-hall for me).

Oh, young(ish) Giles, though! And the quarterstaff! And hovering earnestly at Joyce's bedside to pay his respects and fret over Buffy!

I love Willow egging Buffy on -- even after learning that Angel is a vampire.

About the bad-guy interactions; what I meant was mostly the sort of pseudo-family interaction we see here, with maybe some of the Master's faith in something larger and more evil than himself. Some of it we had to lose as the Big Bads became the "larger evils" themselves(Glory and the First), but even over on Angel with the demon underground and Wolfram & Hart. it never quite felt the same. W&H, in particular, was a corporation instead of a family, with a literal dog-eat-dog atmosphere.

even over on Angel with the demon underground and Wolfram & Hart. it never quite felt the same. W&H, in particular, was a corporation instead of a family, with a literal dog-eat-dog atmosphere.

I see what you mean now. I liked the W&H stuff, though -- corporatizing evil that way worked really well for me, and I liked the rungs of power, as well as the idea of the faceless Senior Partners.

Something I forgot to mention; Darla really has a history of underestimating Angel's bond with Buffy, both here and on his show. She makes a comment in the second scene in his apartment about, "Did you think she'd look at your face - your true face - and give you a kiss?" And of course, Buffy does just that one season later.

When I watch the action scenes all I think is "John Woo! John Woo!"

And then I'm reminded how BtVS always stole the cool action stuff from the movies they liked whether it's The Matrix or LoTR.

We went back and watched "The Pack" which freaked Emmett's shit. He's in the tub now, "I can't get that laugh out of my head!"

missed the last two Tuesdays . i think I might have to watch both eps back to back - Thursday or friday - just to see what I see.