Episodes in Focus: Fool For Love/Darla ***and more***
This week’s Episodes in Focus are Fool For Love and Darla. Yay! Because those two episodes go together *perfectly*. They are really companion pieces, showing the same flashbacks from very different perspectives. We’re excited to have the chance to focus for one week on the past lives of Darla, Angelus, Drusilla and Spike, and what that means for their present and future. What's more, because this is a once-in-a-series conjunction of flashbacks crossing over both BtVS and AtS, we declare this a special themed week: Fanged Four and Past Slayers Week!. From Monday your time, get sharing whatever you have to share on these episodes, on the past lives of our favourite evil vampires, or on heroic Slayers from the time Before Buffy. Art, fic, meta, vids, recs, quotes, trivia... we want it all!
We also have special tags in honour of the occasion. That's how excited we are! *runs in circles, tagging*
Episode in Focus: Fool For Love
Favourite thing about this episode? Any nominations? How about William the Poet, delicate and devastated in his romantic longings? Spike and Angelus getting their fists out? Chinese Slayer, in her silk and defiance? The woman we’ll come to know as Nikki Wood, in one of the great fight scenes of BtVS? Spike’s coat? Dru and the Chaos Demon?
Or how about the present? Buffy coping with her fears and tackling her enemy for help? Joyce putting on the bravest face, knowing how ill she may be? Riley and the Scoobies on hero duty? Or Spike, moving from potential assassin to hesitant supporter?
It’s an episode full of juicy stories, but also some big issues and tough questions, about Slayers and vampires both.
Key quote:
SPIKE She was cunning, resourceful... oh, did I mention? Hot. I could have danced all night with that one.
BUFFY You think we're dancing?
SPIKE That's all we've ever done.
SPIKE And the thing about the dance is, you never get to stop.
SPIKE Every day you wake up, it's the same bloody question that haunts you: is today the day I die?
SPIKE Death is on your heels, baby, and sooner or later it's gonna catch you.
SPIKE And part of you wants it... not only to stop the fear and uncertainty, but because you're just a little bit in love with it.
*
Episode in Focus: Darla
In Darla, we get to know so much more about the scenes we’ve witnessed through Spike’s viewpoint. We learn a huge amount about how Angel got his soul back, why it stuck, and how he tried to continue his life of evil, with Darla, even afterwards. Where Fool For Love looks at Slayers, Darla looks at vampires, and just what it means to be a creature of evil, and to have a soul. The episode takes us further back than we’ve ever gone, to the seventeenth century. We see Angelus and the Master failing to bond, Spike and Dru having a poorly-judged feast of gypsies, and Darla testing Angelus’s soul with the ultimate: a plump, delicious baby to eat. Or not.
In the present day, we see Angel Investigations frantically seeking Darla - and see Lindsey playing a very dangerous game. Turns out, Darla doesn't want to be saved, so much as returned to her vampire glory. How will Angel react?
Key quote:
Master: "Angelus - the Latinate for Angel. (Laughs) It's marvelous."
Darla, standing beside the Master: "His name would already be legend in his home village - had he left anyone alive there to tell the tale."
Master, caressing Darla's hand: "Ah, you had a nice trip. I'm so glad."
Darla: "On the way back we cut a bloody swath through South Wales and northern England. He was magnificent."
Angelus: "Hmm, Yorkshire men - tough as leather. (The Master and Angelus both laugh at that remark) So, Darla here tells me you're some sort of Master."
Darla: "The Master. He commands out order."
Master: "The order of Aurelius. We are the select - the elite."
Angelus folds his arms and surveys their surroundings.
Angelus: "And you live in the sewers, do you?"
Master: "We live below, giving tribute to the old ones. Awaiting that promised day when we will arise -Arise! - and lay waste to the world above us."
Angelus: "Why'd you want to do that?"
Master: "Huh?"
Angelus: "Well, I mean, have you *been* above lately? It's quite nice. Me - I could never live in a rat infested stink hole - like this, if you'll pardon me for saying so. I got to have meself a proper bed or I'm a terror. (To Darla) Isn't that right love?"
*
Meanwhile, over at still_grrr, it’s a Free For All for this month’s Alternate Universes!
*
Still have something to share about last week's episodes, Family and Guise Will Be Guise? You have another week's grace to post anything you want for these eps. We can always stand a little more of the good stuff!
We also have special tags in honour of the occasion. That's how excited we are! *runs in circles, tagging*
Episode in Focus: Fool For Love
Favourite thing about this episode? Any nominations? How about William the Poet, delicate and devastated in his romantic longings? Spike and Angelus getting their fists out? Chinese Slayer, in her silk and defiance? The woman we’ll come to know as Nikki Wood, in one of the great fight scenes of BtVS? Spike’s coat? Dru and the Chaos Demon?
Or how about the present? Buffy coping with her fears and tackling her enemy for help? Joyce putting on the bravest face, knowing how ill she may be? Riley and the Scoobies on hero duty? Or Spike, moving from potential assassin to hesitant supporter?
It’s an episode full of juicy stories, but also some big issues and tough questions, about Slayers and vampires both.
Key quote:
SPIKE She was cunning, resourceful... oh, did I mention? Hot. I could have danced all night with that one.
BUFFY You think we're dancing?
SPIKE That's all we've ever done.
SPIKE And the thing about the dance is, you never get to stop.
SPIKE Every day you wake up, it's the same bloody question that haunts you: is today the day I die?
SPIKE Death is on your heels, baby, and sooner or later it's gonna catch you.
SPIKE And part of you wants it... not only to stop the fear and uncertainty, but because you're just a little bit in love with it.
*
Episode in Focus: Darla
In Darla, we get to know so much more about the scenes we’ve witnessed through Spike’s viewpoint. We learn a huge amount about how Angel got his soul back, why it stuck, and how he tried to continue his life of evil, with Darla, even afterwards. Where Fool For Love looks at Slayers, Darla looks at vampires, and just what it means to be a creature of evil, and to have a soul. The episode takes us further back than we’ve ever gone, to the seventeenth century. We see Angelus and the Master failing to bond, Spike and Dru having a poorly-judged feast of gypsies, and Darla testing Angelus’s soul with the ultimate: a plump, delicious baby to eat. Or not.
In the present day, we see Angel Investigations frantically seeking Darla - and see Lindsey playing a very dangerous game. Turns out, Darla doesn't want to be saved, so much as returned to her vampire glory. How will Angel react?
Key quote:
Master: "Angelus - the Latinate for Angel. (Laughs) It's marvelous."
Darla, standing beside the Master: "His name would already be legend in his home village - had he left anyone alive there to tell the tale."
Master, caressing Darla's hand: "Ah, you had a nice trip. I'm so glad."
Darla: "On the way back we cut a bloody swath through South Wales and northern England. He was magnificent."
Angelus: "Hmm, Yorkshire men - tough as leather. (The Master and Angelus both laugh at that remark) So, Darla here tells me you're some sort of Master."
Darla: "The Master. He commands out order."
Master: "The order of Aurelius. We are the select - the elite."
Angelus folds his arms and surveys their surroundings.
Angelus: "And you live in the sewers, do you?"
Master: "We live below, giving tribute to the old ones. Awaiting that promised day when we will arise -Arise! - and lay waste to the world above us."
Angelus: "Why'd you want to do that?"
Master: "Huh?"
Angelus: "Well, I mean, have you *been* above lately? It's quite nice. Me - I could never live in a rat infested stink hole - like this, if you'll pardon me for saying so. I got to have meself a proper bed or I'm a terror. (To Darla) Isn't that right love?"
*
Meanwhile, over at still_grrr, it’s a Free For All for this month’s Alternate Universes!
*
Still have something to share about last week's episodes, Family and Guise Will Be Guise? You have another week's grace to post anything you want for these eps. We can always stand a little more of the good stuff!