Duel of Buffy episodes #3

[Antho]

Reminder : You will have to vote for the episode you prefer. Share with us the reasons of your choice, why you prefer one episode to another. Is it because of history ? Scripting ? From the theme ? The tone of the episode ? Or maybe just because of what this episode makes you feel ? If you have idea to suggest me for the next duel, send me a pm or propose your idea here (of course the episode must have some commons points : episodes about a character in particular, same register, similar scenario...).

Previous results duels :

Spoiler: Duel 1

Doppelgangland : 10

vs

The replacement : 2

Spoiler: Duel 2

Bad Girls : 5

VS

Who Are You : 6

Duel 3 :

Angel

Vs

Amends

​

 

[Carrie Hopewell]

Amends!!!

Amends all the way. It's my favorite Buffy episode. I love all of it: the reconciliation between the Scoobies, the themes of existentialism and forgiveness, Buffy and Angel's epic scene outside the mansion - wonderfully written and acted out, Buffy and Angel holding hands in the snow... Such a great, underrated episode.

 

[Mylie]

Amends definitely is the superior episode. That said, I love Angel. It's one of my favorite episodes as well but it comes from season 1 where they were just starting to build the buffyverse and Amends is just a lot more ambitious at what it tried to achieve and it's part of a near flawless season.

I absolutely adore the themes in the episode and I even love the ending with the snow. I have a soft spot for christmas episodes in general and this one is a very special one.

 

[Antho]

Yeah I also vote "Amends" but honestly this is two episode I absolutely love.

"Angel" exploits the mythology of the series by revealing that Angel is a vampire with a human soul. This is an important episode, the best of season 1 for me. It's also the beginning of a great story, Bangel ! I like seeing Buffy being tortured by her personal feelings and her duty as a slayer and on the other hand I like seeing Angel being tortured by his vampire instinct and his human conscience.

"Amends" has a great symbolism. We see "The First" haunted Angel, who faces the faces of the people he killed. Buffy and Angel share dreams and I really like that she gets her way into his darkness just before bringing him to light, to hope, with the speech and the snow at the end..

 

[Foxy]

Amends without a doubt

 

[Fuffy Baith]

Amends. I've seen this episode more than Angel, and I just really love all the moments with the scoobies. It's basically a setup episode for the Angel show, but it also brings Bangel together again. And I love the connected sex dream. The First evil is used well here, not so good in season 7. Willow and Oz get back together! Xander acts tough at Willie's bar, Giles pulling a crossbow on Angel. There's a lot of good here. It's probably the most important episode for Angel on Buffy.

 

[Priceless]

Amends is the better written and more interesting episode, plus the visuals are beautiful

 

[Foxy]

Amends is the better written and more interesting episode, plus the visuals are beautiful

And the soundtrack!

 

[Guy]

'Amends' is probably the better episode overall... But the ending really pisses me off (the question of the episode is "why should Angel keep living?", and the answer is... Because god wants him to? Lame. And cheesy. And completely contradicts the existential philosophy of the Buffyverse), so I voted for 'Angel'.

 

[Priceless]

'Amends' is probably the better episode overall... But the ending really pisses me off (the question of the episode is "why should Angel keep living?", and the answer is... Because god wants him to? Lame. And cheesy. And completely contradicts the existential philosophy of the Buffyverse), so I voted for 'Angel'.

Essentially Amends is just a set up, an Angel-centric episode, to prepare the way for AtS. The PTB want Angel in his own show, helping the helpless 🙂 But even so, this episode works on a lot of levels and is so well written and emotional that I give it a pass on the heavy cheese factor

 

[thetopher]

Amends. Much better episode in terms of the shows ethos; no easy answers. Plus you get Woz and Fuffy bonus on top of all that other good stuff.

Also Angel ends with a pistol-packin' Darla at the end; lame and kinda dated.

 

[RomanticSoul]

'Amends' is probably the better episode overall... But the ending really pisses me off (the question of the episode is "why should Angel keep living?", and the answer is... Because god wants him to? Lame. And cheesy. And completely contradicts the existential philosophy of the Buffyverse), so I voted for 'Angel'.

I actually always saw it as 'you are not allowed to take the easy way out' rather than 'God wants you to live'. Guess it depends on how you interpret the story. Of course looking back at it with hindsight the correct answer seems to be 'we are not done using and abusing you yet so you are not allowed to die'.

 

[Guy]

Essentially Amends is just a set up, an Angel-centric episode, to prepare the way for AtS. The PTB want Angel in his own show, helping the helpless 🙂 But even so, this episode works on a lot of levels and is so well written and emotional that I give it a pass on the heavy cheese factor

I can forgive cheese. For example - 'Grave' is pretty damn cheesy, but I can forgive it because the episode fits the themes of the story and the character arcs. It's cheesy, but it makes sense in terms of themes.

'Amends', on the other hand, does NOT make sense in terms of themes, IMO. The literal deus-ex-machina in the end (some sort of god or higher power sends the magic snow to stop Angel from killing himself) is NOT a logical resolution to Angel's struggles with suicidal tendencies.

I actually always saw it as 'you are not allowed to take the easy way out' rather than 'God wants you to live'. Guess it depends on how you interpret the story.

But that's still an intervention-from-on-high solution - Angel stopped trying to kill himself because god told him something, or because Angel thinks that god told him something. And that's not a good resolution for stories about suicidal tendencies, because people who try to kill themselves in the real world don't get messages from god to stop them. They don't have magic snow to save them. It's an unfitting resolution, thematically.

Of course looking back at it with hindsight the correct answer seems to be 'we are not done using and abusing you yet so you are not allowed to die'.

I would actually prefer that.

 

[Priceless]

'Amends', on the other hand, does NOT make sense in terms of themes, IMO. The literal deus-ex-machina in the end (some sort of god or higher power sends the magic snow to stop Angel from killing himself) is NOT a logical resolution to Angel's struggles with suicidal tendencies.

We might disagree on what the theme is. I don't see Angels suicidal tendencies as the theme, only a by-product of his guilt and it is Guilt that is the theme. It's that Guilt can be used in a positive way, we don't have to drown in it - we can make up for what we have done and Forgiveness is available. Forgiveness here being in the form of snow (pure, white, clean etc. etc.) This feeds into Angel's upcoming mission on his own show, hence the set-up factor.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Amends blows. And it's actually made worse by subsequent seasons. It just feels like a .... Hallmark episode or something. One of the worst episodes of the season.

 

[Priceless]

Just wanted to say that one of my favourite things in Amends is Xander waking up on the rooftop when it begins to snow. That scene, lasting seconds, sums up Xanders life beautifully imo

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Just wanted to say that one of my favourite things in Amends is Xander waking up on the rooftop when it begins to snow. That scene, lasting seconds, sums up Xanders life beautifully imo

Wasn't he was on the lawn in the front of the house?

 

[Guy]

We might disagree on what the theme is. I don't see Angels suicidal tendencies as the theme, only a by-product of his guilt and it is Guilt that is the theme. It's that Guilt can be used in a positive way, we don't have to drown in it - we can make up for what we have done and Forgiveness is available. Forgiveness here being in the form of snow (pure, white, clean etc. etc.) This feeds into Angel's upcoming mission on his own show, hence the set-up factor.

I like this interpretation better, actually. But I don't think it's what the episode itself is showing, even if it WAS the intent.

Guilt and suicide are BOTH themes in the episode, IMO. But even if we only look at Guilt as THE theme, it still doesn't work, because Angel DOESN'T listen to Buffy when she says that he can make amends. Buffy's monologue about making amends DOESN'T change Angel's mind - the magic snow does. Angel decides to make amends because a higher power gave him a sign that amends are possible. And again - in real life, people don't have magic snow to convince them that redemption is possible.

I don't know, maybe I just have a pet peeve with deus-ex-machinas?

 

[Priceless]

Wasn't he was on the lawn in the front of the house?

I've always thought of him as on the roof 😱 Fanon at work

 

[Skanky Vamp]

I've always thought of him as on the roof 😱 Fanon at work

Yeah, it was the lawn; there was grass and everything. Right there on the front lawn where any passing vamper could take a bite outta him. It's amazing that anyone was still alive in Sunnydale by the time Buffy showed up.