8/15/08 - 8/22/08 Episode Discussion: Amends

SpikedBuffy

SpikedBuffy

Love Isn't Brains
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Feb 27, 2006
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Season: Three
Episode: Amends


Time to start discussing "Amends"

What are your likes and dislikes? Favorite parts? Did you even like this episode? 🙂

Why do you think The First wanted Angel to kill himself? Was there a deep fear of him? Foreshadowing that Angel would provide the amulet that would bring down the ubervamps?
 
I think they wanted to break Buffy, have Angel go nuts and have him kill her, or them each other.

There is that one point though, were Angel makes up his mind to kill himself and the First says "That works too" or something to that effect.

Maybe The First was setteling for just making Buffy miserable and trying to mentally break her. Deep down, I think the First is afraid of Buffy, not Angel.

I don't think Angel being alive was a concern of The First, since I'm under the impression they were the ones who brought him back in the first place. If 'it' was worried about anything he was going to do once brought back, I don't think 'it' would have brought him back to begin with.

Well, thats the quick and dirty version, I just watched this show last night! I'll revist this topic latter when i have more time, as for now, Work awaits.

(Also, I don't know much about the First, I have not saw any of the episodes that deal with it outside of this one in season 3, so I could be so very wrong. Still, thats what I think about the firsts motives with my limited knowledge on the matter. 🙂 )
 
If you consider the Shanshu Prophesy, where the "vampire with a soul will play a big part in the apocalypse," Angel was the only ensouled vampire at the time, so the First evil might have simply been trying to do the same thing that Shajahn did later in Angel by getting rid of Connor: eliminate its prophesied defeat by eliminating the source of that defeat. That would also explain why the First tried so hard to either trick Buffy, then later Wood and Giles, into destroying Spike.

As for who or what brought Angel back from hell, that would probably have been the Powers That Be, since they obviously had plans for him in the future. (Or maybe the inhabitants of that particular hell just got tired of Angel's brooding and feeling sorry for himself and kicked him out)
 
LIKES:

The DP did a wonderful job on that episode; from standing atop the cliff waiting for the sun, to the 'snow's eye view' as it fell on Xander in his sleeping bag (that one shot blew me away for some reason). Aesthetically, I have always felt that was one of the better episodes. And the image of Angel and Buffy walking the snow covered streets looked as though it would have been at home with Jimmy Stewart and It's A Wonderful Life. Such ambience.
 
This isn't my favorite episode. It makes me wanna smack Angel and go, "Snap out of it!" I mean, really, how much self-blame and brooding can one person manage? (Obviously Angel can manage a lot.) I never quite understood why he couldn't take the same basic attitude Spike did--"I was bad, I was a demon at the time, it wasn't entirely my fault, I'll do good stuff to make up for it, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it."
 
I have to admit I always get all teary when I'm watching the cliff scene towards the end of this episode. Where Buffy says

"And I've tried to make it go away. I killed you and it didn't help. And I hate it! I hate that you can hurt me so much. I know everything that you did because you did it to me"

A lot of what Buffy says in this episode gets me emotional because it's at this point in the season where Buffy seems to come to this realization that knowing she can't be with Angel doesn't mean she can pretend not to love him. No matter what he did or what's bad she will always love him and he her which is what makes it oh so much harder. I guess the relationship grew up a little bit at this point, especially with the momentary role reversal of Angel being the weak one turning to Buffy for guidance.

And I do get that warm and tingly Christmas feeling inside when that great piece of music plays as it fades through several shots of each of the characters experiencing the snowfall. It's definitely a Jimmy Stewart moment. I love that Xander instinctively pulls his cover over his head believing it to be just rain and then goes 'Wait a minute...'.

And it did bring the question forward like you guys have mentioned about who did and who didn't want Angel around. I mean The First didn't want to get rid of him remember? Because when Angel says he will kill himself rather than hurt Buffy Jenny/The First says "You're not supposed to die! This isn't the plan!" showing it didn't want rid of him completely- it just wanted Angelus instead. Of course the added "But it will do" shows that it just wanted the good vamp out of the picture and so dead vamp and bad vamp pretty much equal the same thing as far as grand plans go. And of course the PTB wanted exactly the opposite which is way they sent the snowfall that, in all frankness, saved his ass.

But as for who freed Angel from the hell dimension what if, unknowingly, it was both good and evil that did it? Good needed him back to be a champion, Evil needed Angelus back to do well what Angelus does best. And unknowingly the collaboration of both powers ripping through to the hell dimension was enough to bring Angel back. Maybe one set of powers wouldn't have been enough, but once he arrived through both (unknowingly) helping one another it immediately became a tug-of-war of Who Angel Belongs Too so-to-speak, haha.

Also, the Giles/Joyce shipper in me loved the scene of Buffy and Joyce Christmas Tree shopping when they are discussing who to invite over for Christmas Eve.

Buffy: What about Giles? I mean he doesn't have any f-
Joyce: No I'm sure he's fine.
Buffy: We could at least ask-
Joyce: He doesn't wanna spend Christmas Eve with a bunch of girls. Let's split up.
[She quickly exits leaving Buffy looking puzzled]
 
I didn't think about that. That perhaps The First didn't want to destroy Angel, but wanted to destroy Buffy. It was messing with Angel's head, trying to tell him to lose his soul by being with her again, and then I guess the plan was to have Angelus return and kill Buffy.

I love the Willow and Oz parts. When Oz tells her that he feels like he lost a torso... classic!
 
Watched yesterday this one..

I like it, is a Christmas episode! Holliday episodes are always great *_* The tree-shop scene is fantastic, I love how Joyce and Giles just can´t stay normal together after Band Candy xD

I don´t like de Angel and Buffy relationship, the brooding thing... If he iss broody she is winny. The two together is umberable xD

What this kind of episode makes me think is: what if Angel just had killed himself?
Another thing is... I think if Angel just forget Buffy he wouldn´t be so freaking broody. He was all tormented, okay, but the Buffy thing just made him annoying >.<

But the snow is great 😀
 
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