a safe space for obsessions

It starts with Angel telling Cordelia and Doyle that going to Sunnydale was hard but he's okay. He knows he would be with Buffy if things were different, but they aren't and they never will be. So we have a thesis statement. "If Angel could be with Buffy, he would."

And of course Buffy shows up, rightfully pissed off that her ex is stalking her, telling her friends, telling her friends to keep things from her, grossly mischaracterizing the events in Pangs as "a fight for my life" because, honestly, Angel's presence made the sort of difference it might have if he'd phoned her to let her know something was coming. Like THIS gets a vision and not Glory? What are we even doing here, writers?

I digress.

Then, enter Mohra demon. Attack attack attack, Buffy and Angel follow into the sewers. Angel's blood mixes with the Mohra's and bing bam boom, he's human. He gets his new condition cosmically checked out, receives confirmation that it's permanent and he can do whatever the hell he wants now. And of course what he wants to do is Buffy. Which he does.

Everything is fine up until this point. Buffy and Angel have a shot at being together for real. They try to be logical about it, but decide logic's for the birds (and I'm not even sure why they tried, honestly, because this is literal miracle territory) and now they can be together in earnest.

Then Doyle gets a vision and comes to Angel, who, knowing how badly he traumatized Buffy in Innocence, decides to let her wake up in his bed alone AGAIN. Buffy has had sex three times now; Angel knows the last encounter wasn't a good one because Spike showed up and told him. Despite this, despite having intentionally caused the most pain he could the first time he and Buffy had sex, he lets her AGAIN wake up alone.

At which point the episode introduces a new thesis: "Buffy, you can't have Angel and save the world." This line is delivered by Cordelia, who reluctantly tells Buffy that Angel went after the Mohra demon on his own.

The problem with this statement is it's just a statement. There is no supporting evidence. The episode tries to tell us there is, but this evidence is entirely predicated on Angel being a fucking moron. Doyle had a vision; Angel had a choice. He could've woken Buffy up and said hey, thing to kill, but he said some schmoopy line and left her (AGAIN KNOWING HOW TRAUMATIC WAKING UP ALONE IS FOR HER), to fight something he had no hope of beating on his own. Buffy rushes in and saves the day and the episode tells us that her weak spot for Angel is what is going to get her killed. Well thank god Angel's the only person in the world she cares about and would risk her life for. Thank god her mom has never been put in danger, or she's never had to rescue Angel before (except those times she has), or that her friends haven't been used as leverage against her. Thank god Buffy is the sort of person who would happily let anyone BUT Angel die except OH WAIT THAT TIME SHE WAS THE ONE WHO KILLED HIM TO SAVE THE WORLD.

Angel sees this as irrefutable evidence that he will get Buffy killed, something the Oracles indicate is on the horizon. Whereas before this episode, Buffy had famously been staring down a long, safe, happy, threat-free life, suddenly because of one complication THAT ALREADY EXISTS IN HER WORLD, she's going to be put in more danger.

After a long, painful conversation with Buffy in which they discuss all options, including that Angel just NOT DO WHAT HE DID the next time there's danger, they mutally decide that the best thing Angel can do is become a vampire again.

Oh wait, no, that's not what happens. Angel gets an owie and decides on his own that he needs to be a vampire again. Clearly the only option in a world where demon hunters exist and he's given it his all (read: tried once and failed) to acclimate to humanity. He cuts Buffy out of the decision entirely, comes back just in time to tell her that he's again made a unilateral decision that affects her and gaslight her into thinking it's for the best. And this is what kills me: He could've gone back, enjoyed some ice cream with her, cuddled, said everything was going to be okay, told her he loved her, and let her have a few happy minutes, but instead he ensures she knows and spends those last minutes together sobbing and breaking in his arms, just the way he loves Buffy best. Yeah, it's great dramatic television, but there is no way it makes Angel a good guy.

And don't come at me with "he knew it was the last few minutes with her and couldn't keep his emotions in check." This is Angel. ANGEL. Mr. Notoriously Does Not Emote. Something both shows call out regularly. Even more specifically, we know he is skilled at keeping his feelings masked from Buffy, because SHE'S TOLD US A BAJILLION TIMES AND LITERALLY TRIED TO READ HIS MIND ONCE TO GET AROUND THIS. So if you expect me to believe Angel can't keep it together for a final few minutes to give the woman he claims to love a perfect end to a perfect day, then you don't know the character.

Circling back to "you can't have Angel and save the world" -- the thesis that Cordelia introduces with zero supporting evidence. The episode is designed to make us believe it proves this thesis. It does not, because Buffy Summers is Buffy Summers. She who will risk her life for anyone she loves, not just who she loves the most. We've watched 3 seasons of her doing this, making the hard calls, taking on unspeakable pain to spare the world tragedy, or her friends discomfort. There is literally no reason why Angel being human should make Buffy any more vulnerable than she already is, and this is further undermined by the insistence that Buffy's connections are actually what keep her alive. Make her a different, remarkable slayer. Make it so she lives as long as she does. "A slayer with family and friends," Spike says in School Hard. "That wasn't in the brochure." So we're expected to take at face value that Angel being human would upset this so much it'd undo all of that? That Buffy is so weak and fragile she'd let Angel get her killed more than she'd let anyone else get her killed?

Sorry. No. I do not buy it. Angel makes the decision because Angel has Main Character syndrome and won't be satisfied unless he's fighting.

And you know what? That's fine! A decision he is more than allowed to make on his own. He can have ambitions outside of Buffy. He can decide he'd rather have the ability to fight evil than a life with the woman he loves. What he cannot do (and what the show endorses), is let Buffy believe that if things could be different, he would choose her the way she would choose him. That he made the decision for HER when she had no say in the matter.

He could have chosen a quiet life. Chosen to be supportive. Chosen to relearn how to fight as a human. Chosen to become a part of the Scooby gang. Chosen to find another way to be useful, be strong, fight. He could have chosen that, and he didn't. Instead, he lets her leave LA believing the original thesis (if things were different they would be together) hasn't just been disproven. He lets her take the belief that what she needs is a normal guy back to Sunnydale with her, where she throws herself into a relationship with a normal guy who turns out to be exactly what Human Angel was. He doesn't tell her the truth. He lets her believe a lie, because if she knew the truth, she might actually get to move on. And we all know how much Angel doesn't want that in practice, just theory.

This is not a romantic episode. It's manipulative, gaslighty, agency-stripping, and if it happened within my ship, I'd be furious. Especially since the reason cited for Angel's decision (more bad is coming and Buffy will die) goes completely unacknowledged by Angel moving forward. And guess what. She does die. Angel's being a vampire has zero impact on her world, 'cause Angel? He didn't do anything to prevent it. Didn't even let her know it was on the horizon. Actually took off in Forever when she was at her weakest and needed help the most, still without letting her know any of this. Without staying to help her. But then, he had to go wash the Darla stink off, after having just tried to fuck his soul away, so maybe he was distracted.

I think it's one of the reasons why so many people feel so compelled by Spike and relate to him more than to let's say other characters in the show who are actually human.

He's this evil guy who is unapologetically himself for most of the show, who doesn't have a soul but is still able to love, hate, care for, show kindness, show indifference, regret, feel shame, support... he can be very straightforward in what he says, he can be rude on purpose but he will also read the room, he will hit Tara in the nose just to show her family she's not demon and help her out because he likes things clear. He's not the one to cheat his way out of a fight, he enjoys the fight.

He contains multitudes because even without a soul he has hobbies, he reads books, he enjoys food, he likes sarcasm and humor, he tries to say something funny to make Buffy laugh, he tells Dawn scary stories just because she would come to him to not be as lonely as she feels at home. He lets a hellgod torture himself to half death but doesn't let out a word about Dawn being the key, all because Buffy would be in a lot of pain.

He does all that, he's capable of all that and yet it's never enough. And that is one of the most relatable things to many people, isn't it? How many of us have relationships that didn't work out because no matter what we did it was never good enough for the other person? How many times we got disappointed with life because all our efforts were pointless, be it at work or once again in personal life?

this deleted part of the scene is rly cute ….

For writers who so clearly understood an audience's desire to root for an underdog, they never seemed to understand that they needed to give us an outlet for our frustration with Riley in order to "forgive" him.

Of all the worst problems with how Riley is written as a character, these are two moments in As You Were that always boil it down for me.

After having a year to reflect on everything that DIDN'T work in Into the Woods, apparently the writers' takeaway was that BUFFY needed to apologize. Chasing a helicopter wasn't QUITE humbling enough, I guess. She needs to say sorry to the guy who left her and got married within a year...because clearly SHE was the only one not fully committed to their relationship. Sure.

He, otoh? Has nothing to apologize for.

Now, bear in mind, at this point, we in the audience have watched Buffy lose her mom, sacrifice her own life, struggle through a legit resurrection, but the writers still want us to care that it hurt Riley's feelings that Buffy cried more over Angel than him.

AYW should've been Riley's redemption. He should've shown up apologetic, sheepish, and frankly, if we were meant to get on his side, a little loser-ish. But the writers seemed incapable of getting that you can't make us like a character by just repeatedly telling us he's faultless. They already let him leave once, with Xander lecturing Buffy and us that we had failed to appreciate the best guy we were ever going to have a shot with. But no one was buying. So how to drive it home this time? Have him show up literally "intense, fit, and more handsome than ever", now with new scar! Just like that other guy we know you're into!