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Angelus Blade's Season 1 Plot Summaries

WARNING - these plot summaries will spoil the show for you if you haven't seen the episodes. Only read them if you really need to know!!

1. Welcome to the Hellmouth/2. The Harvest

Written By: Joss Whedon; Directed By: Charles Martin Smith (Part 1) and John T. Kertchmer (Part 2). Guest Stars: Mark Metcalf as the Master, Brian Thompson as Luke, David Boreanaz as Angel, Ken Lerner as Principal Flutie, Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers, Julie Benz as Darla; with Mercedes McNab as Harmony.

    Buffy Summers and her mother, Joyce, have moved from LA to Sunnydale, California. On her first day at a new school (she was kicked out of her last school for burning down the school gym because there were vampires in it) is when she meets many different people who will have a significant effect on her life. Cordelia (Miss Popular) befriends Buffy at first, but ditches her when she starts hanging out with shy, computer nerd Willow, and her friends Xander and Jesse. Giles, who is the school librarian knows Buffy's secret identity and is actually the Watcher assigned to her.

    Later on, Buffy meets Angel, who tells her the that Sunnydale is located above the Hellmouth, a place where mystical energy converges and attracts vampires and other nasties. He warns Buffy to be ready for the Harvest, but she ignores both him and Giles, preferring to try and live a normal life once more.
    In caves and tunnels below Sunnydale, the Master, a very old and powerful vampire, is waiting to be released, since he has been trapped for 60 years when he tried to open the Hellmouth at the time of an earthquake. The Harvest, which will be controlled by a vampire named Luke, the Master's right hand man, will allow the Master to escape. Luke and his vampires go out hunting, and Jesse gets captured and turned into a vampire after a brief fight between Darla and Buffy, and then Luke and Buffy, which she only escapes from because Luke burns himself on the crucifix given to Buffy by Angel.

    Later on, Luke is bestowed with the power to transfer the life force of his victims to the Master, to give him the strength to break free. He and Darla and other vampires attack the Bronze in search of victims, and most of them get killed including Luke, by Buffy and Jesse by Xander, although Darla escapes.

Episode Rating: 9/10

*Buffy Fact* The actor who plays Luke later appears in the Season 2 episodes 'Surprise' and 'Innocence' as the big blue meanie, The Judge.


3. The Witch

Written By: Dana Reston; Directed By: Stephen Cragg. Guest Stars: Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers, Elizabeth Anne Allen as Amy Madison, and Robin Riker as Catherine Madison; with Amanda Wilmshurst, Nicole Prescott, Jim Doughan, and William Monaghan.

    Cheerleading tryouts go pear-shaped when favourite for the squad, Amber Grove, spontaneously bursts into flames, prompting Willow's outburst: She's on fire! and Cordelia's jealous retort: Enough with the hyperbole. Amy Madison, daughter of the legendary Catherine Madison, who was the cheerleader in her high school days, also tries out, as does Buffy, but Amy will only get on the squad if something happens to three people on the team. Without any further ado, Cordelia is blinded (typical of witches according to Giles), Lishanne has her mouth sealed shut, and Buffy is turned silly (Macho, macho man! I want to be, a macho man!) then seriously ill from a Bloodstone Vengeance spell.

Buffy as Cheerleader
Giles takes Buffy to the Madison house, when a test for a witch reveals that Amy is their 'Sabrina.' It is revealed that it wasn't Amy, but Catherine, Amy's mother who was casting the spells, and she has switched bodies with Amy to recapture her youth. Giles manages to reverse the spells and Buffy manages to turn one of Catherine's spells on herself, trapping her inside a cheerleading trophy she won when she went to Sunnydale High.

Episode Rating: 7/10

*Buffy Fact* Xander sums up his philosophy of life with the line "I laugh in the face of danger - then I hide until it goes away."


4. Teacher's Pet

    Buffy is encouraged by her biology teacher, who turns up the very next day minus a head. The substitute chosen to replace him is Natalie French, who is obsessed with Praying Mantises and sends all the boys wild with passion. Buffy thinks that her teacher was killed by Claw, a vampire who has a claw for a hand, but rethinks when she sees him run away from Ms. French and she sees her head do a "full on Exorcist twist."

Giles decides to ask the advice of Dr. Carlyle Ferris, who knows all about entomology and mythology, but is unfortunately insane due to an encounter with a She Mantis at Oxford, England. Ms. French turns out to be this same creature, and has taken young male virgins Xander and Blayne prisoner, to mate with them and then bite off their heads also. Buffy comes to the rescue using an ingenious plan at first, but eventually resorts to dismembering the creature, to finally kill it.

Episode Rating: 6/10

*Buffy Fact* For length, this extract was cut from the original script:

Buffy: Dr. Gregory didn't chew me out or anything. He was really cool. But Flutie showed him my permanent record. Apparently, I fall somewhere between Charles Manson and a really bad person.
Willow: And you can't tell Dr. Gregory what really happened at your old school?
Buffy: I was fighting vampires? I'm thinking he might not believe me.
Willow: Yeah, he probably gets that excuse all the time.
Cordelia (just arriving): Here lies a problem. What used to be my table occupied by pitiful losers. Of course, we'll have to burn it.
Buffy: Sad, you spent so many memories here. You and Lawrence, you and Mark, you and John. You spent the better part of 'J' through 'M' here.


5. Never Kill a Boy on the First Date

    The Master is planning to raise the Anointed One, who will be his primary weapon against the Slayer. While this is going on, Buffy is patrolling the cemetery and kills a vampire, which is identified as a member of the Order of Aurelius from a ring he is wearing. This gives Giles a clue as to what the Master has in store. Giles hits the books and tries to research the relevance of the Order and the Anointed One, while Buffy arranges a date at The Bronze with Owen Thurman, a shy student with a passion for the morbid poetry of Emily Dickenson.

 
    However, Buffy goes to Giles' rescue when he gets trapped in a funeral home in an attempt to catch the Anointed One rising from the 'ashes of five.' Unfortunately, Owen follows Buffy, complicating things somewhat. The vampire they believe to be the Anointed, a man who was killed in a bus crash where 5 people died, rises, and Buffy manages to kill him. Owen thinks that his adventure was cool, and is eager to have another asap. Buffy has to dump him, for his own safety, otherwise he would probably just get himself killed somehow. Although Buffy believes that the Anointed One is no more, but it turns out that he has taken over the body of a small boy who was on the bus before it crashed.

Episode Rating: 8/10

*Buffy Fact* Every time a vampire is 'dusted' on screen, the computer graphics cost the producers $5,000
*Buffy Fact* All the books in Sunnydale High Library are real books


6. The Pack

    Buffy and the rest of the Slayerettes are on a school trip to the zoo, where among other things such as the zebras mating (like the heimlich manoeuvre with stripes) the school bullies, Kyle, Rhonda, Tor (well cool name, absolutely no sarcasm intended, I really do love it!) and Heidi, as well as Lance, a nerd who is their victim of the day, enter the forbidden Hyena House and become possessed by the spirits of hyenas, including Xander, who goes to save Lance. Xander starts to hang with the bullies and acting out of character, abusing Willow, and eating the school mascot, a pig called Herbert. Principal Flutie accuses the bullying Quartet (minus Xander), so they eat him as well.

 
    Giles researching animalian possession and discovers Primals, animal worshippers who invite the spirit of an animal to camp out in their bodies for a while. The keeper of the Hyena House is actually one of these, and when Buffy and Giles ask him for help he turns on them, threatening Willow with a knife. Buffy is powerless, but then he draws the hyena spirits out of the students who arrive soon after and Buffy manages to throw him to the real hyenas.

Episode Rating: 7/10

*Buffy Fact* All the zoo scenes were filmed at Santa Ana Zoo.


7. Angel

    Angel finally reveals his secret identity as a vampire. He only does this after he and Buffy admit their love for each other and they have their first kiss. Buffy first thinks that it is part of his elaborate plan to earn her trust then kill her, especially when she finds him holding a bitten Joyce after Darla has had her share and framed Angel for the crime.
    Very quickly, Buffy learns that Darla sired Angel (turned him into a vampire) 240 years before. 80 years previously, he killed a Romany (gipsy) woman, whose clan laid a curse on him: that his soul was restored (so he would feel unending guilt and remorse for his past actions, a terrible punishment as far as they were concerned). Darla tries to turn him evil again, but she fails, and when Buffy goes to The Bronze to kill Angel, Darla turns up too. When Buffy finds out the truth, she turns her anger from Angel to Darla, but it is actually Angel who stakes Darla, and destroys her once and for all.

Episode Rating: 10/10

*Buffy Fact* It takes an hour and a half to do Angel's vampire make-up


8. I Robot, You Jane

    In Italy, the fifteenth century, a monk imprisons the demon Moloch the Corruptor, in the text of a book. In present day Sunnydale, Willow scans the book into her computer as part of a computer science project, but does not notice the message 'Where am I?' flash up on her screen. She has inadvertently released Moloch onto her computer, and from there he swiftly finds his way on the Internet, where he starts up an online relationship with Willow, posing as 'Malcolm' and Willow falls hook line and sinker for him. He also gets Fritz and Dave, 2 computer geeks to build him a robotic body to live in, promising them untold gifts.
    Jenny Calendar, the computer science teacher, reveals that she is a 'technopagan' and knows about the demon on the Internet. She and Giles work out a way of trapping Moloch by Giles reading, and Jenny typing, the words of a spell of binding. Moloch is confined to his robot body, but he proves to be too strong for Buffy to fight outright, so she tricks him into punching into an electricity box on the wall. The episode ends with Buffy, Willow and Xander discussing their past love lives. Buffy loves a vampire, Willow loved a demonic robot, and Xander loved a giant insect.

Episode Rating: 9/10

*Buffy Fact* This was the first episode to feature Ms. Jenny Calendar. Her first name isn't actually used in this episode, but it was originally intended to be Nicki, but was changed to avoid confusion with Nicholas Brendon, who is Nicky to his friends.


9. The Puppet Show

    Principal Snyder, who is Flutie's permanent replacement, orders Giles to organise the annual talent(less) show. Snyder also forces Xander, Willow and Buffy to appear in the show, for cutting class when they fought Moloch. When one of the talent show performers is found dead with heart removed, Giles thinks it is the work of a regular human crazy, but to Buffy it screams 'DEMON!' even though it was done with a knife.

 
    Giles does some more research on the subject, and finds info about the Brotherhood of Seven, who are a group of demons who must obtain both a heart and a brain every seven years in order to keep their own image as youthful humans, which means practically the whole school is a suspect, particularly Morgan, the class genius, who talks to his wooden dummy and has severe headaches.
    That is until Morgan is found dead, minus a brain, and Buffy finds out that his dummy was actually alive. Sid, the dummy, turns out to be a demon hunter who must kill each member of the Seven to be released of the wooden body and lay his soul to rest, and the one plaguing Sunnydale High is the last of them. However, he thinks Buffy is the last demon, because she is so strong, while she thinks he is the demon. When they find out about each other they soon make friends, but Buffy is wary of getting a little too close. They find out that Morgan had been suffering from brain cancer and the demon could not use his brain, so the next smartest person who may be a target is...Willow. No, actually it's Giles, who the talent show magician manages to persuade to stick his head into a guillotine - uh oh! Fortunately, Buffy and Co. arrive before the damage is done, and the demon ends up losing his mind - literally.

Episode Rating: 8/10

*Buffy Fact* Willow runs off in terror midway through the drama piece at the end, which wasn't actually scripted. It does seem prophetic however, since her main fear in the next episode 'Nightmares' is to do with stage fright.


10. Nightmares

    For an unknown reason, people's worst nightmares are starting to come true in Sunnydale, and the only common factor is a small boy (not the Anointed One though). Examples of nightmares becoming reality are when Xander walks into class wearing only his underwear, and Cordelia has a really bad hair day and is forced to join the chess club. Also, Buffy's dad tells her she was the reason he and her mother got a divorce.

 
    Things go from bad to worse when the boy appears to Buffy, then she is attacked by 'the ugly man.' In an effort to escape his brute strength, she stumbles into a cemetery which bizarrely is at night. The nightmare Buffy had at the beginning of the episode becomes reality when the Master is freed, and then Buffy is killed, which is Giles' nightmare come true. She rises as a vampire (her worst nightmare) and traces the trouble back to a boy in a coma, who was beaten by his Little League Baseball coach for 'losing' the game, and whose nightmares and the power of the Hellmouth have caused reality to be twisted up and spat out again.

Episode Rating: 8/10

*Buffy Fact* The Master's first words to Buffy upon facing her in 'real' life are: "So you're the Slayer. You're prettier than the last one."


11. Out of Mind, Out of Sight / Invisible Girl

    Cordelia is desperately drumming up support for her to be elected as May Queen - no surprise there. But Mitch, her current squeeze, is attacked by a floating baseball bat in the locker room, which seems to be controlled by an invisible force. Cordelia's friend Harmony is then pushed down the stairs by an unseen hand, and all the Slayerettes correctly deduce that an invisible person is running amok. Buffy searches in the ductwork and finds the yearbook of Marcie Ross, a girl who no one, not even Xander and Willow remembered, yet they all signed her yearbook with 'Have a nice Summer' - yearbook speak for 'You have no friends' all except Willow, who signed 'Have a great Summer.'
    They realise that because everyone thought of her as being invisible, she became invisible, and now she is out to have revenge on the people who did it to her - especially Cordelia. Marcie manages to capture both Cordelia and Buffy, and nearly kills Xander, Willow and Giles, who would be dead if Angel had not gone to find Giles to give him the Pergamum Codex, which is highly important in the next episode. Buffy manages to break free just before Marcie mutilates Cordelia's face, and beats her up before being stopped by federal agents, who take Marcie away to a class full of invisible pupils - pupils who don't study chemistry or algebra, they study assassination and infiltration, which according to Marcie is 'cool.' Then again, as Buffy observes, she is a 'raving loony.'

Episode Rating: 8/10

*Buffy Fact* The voice over between Giles and Buffy between scenes about listening was not in the original script, but added after.


12. Prophecy Girl

    Giles translates a section from the Pergamum Codex which predicts that the Master will rise and kill the Slayer. Several signs, such as a cat giving birth to snakes which predict the coming apocalypse are noticed by Jenny Calendar, who appears again for this episode. At first upon accidentally hearing the news Buffy refuses to face him, but when Willow is deeply traumatised by finding a room full of dead fellow students, she decides to bite the bullet. She allows the Anointed to lead her to the Master, then briefly fights him, but gets bitten and thrown face-down into a pool of water.

 
    She drowns and dies, but Xander manages to use CPR and revive her.
    Meanwhile, the Hellmouth is opening beneath the school library, and Buffy faces the Master again, but this time kills him once and for all...or is it?
Episode Rating: 10/10

*Buffy Fact* Willow, the Master and Angel all complement Buffy on her prom dress, the one her mother bought her with the money she saved from not having to feed Buffy much of late.
 

p.s I will be doing this for Season 2 episodes as well, but only after I have seen the first few!!
*Starring*