Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2x14 "Innocence" Full Reaction

This episode is the turning point of Buffy; where it stopped being just one pretty good show among lots of other good shows. This is when the show truly became amazing.

Christine

SMG spends almost this entire episode with tears in her eyes. This is a low budget TV show, and not a high budget Merchant/Ivory film where you get as many takes as you want. Tremendous acting.

Foamy

It was unsettling to see how much this affected you, knowing that at this point, you hadn't seen Passion yet. The show had only just hit its stride and I just knew a cinnamon roll like you would break when you saw what this show could really do. It's heartbreaking and wonderful to watch.

Raven Dark

You are correct about Angel "dying". If you go back and watch Buffy's dreams, there are parallels between Buffy and Drusilla, who is actually killing Angel in her dreams. Like in the second dream, she and Buffy are wearing the same dress. There's a lot to take apart in this episode for sure. I think we all fell in love with Oz in that van in that moment. Buffy with a rocket launcher will never get old. Whenever Buffy and Giles have a "father/daughter" scene, it's always one of the best. I enjoy Angelus as a villain.

Katherine Thoreson

David Boreanaz plays Angelus perfectly, it's absolutely stunning. There's been some fantastic foreshadowing of this all season, especially in Bad Eggs and (more obviously) in Surprise. In Bad Eggs, Buffy misses sex ed, and in one of the scenes of them kissing in the graveyard, the camera slowly pans away from them onto a gravestone that says "in loving memory." And then in the dream sequences in Surprise, Drusilla is a proxy for Buffy. Drusilla is having a party on Buffy's birthday, they're wearing the same white silk dress, there's a really dramatic close up on Buffy's face that fades into Drusilla's face, and of course, Drusilla kills Angel. All culminating in Drusilla's line in this episode, "you want to hurt her, just like you hurt me."

KT

Some trivia from the episode: 1.) The rocket launcher was originally going to be a tank, but that turned out to be too expensive. 2.) Filming had to be halted for 25 minutes after Sarah Michelle Gellar's big crying scene for the actress to compose herself. 3.) According to James Marsters the original idea was that Angel would become Angelus and kill Spike to have Drusilla to himself. However the character of Spike had become so popular with the cast, crew and fans he was instead preserved to serve as Angelus' 'jealous little brother'.