Buffy the Vampire Slayer delivered a number of game-changing twists across the course of its seven-season run, but one in particular altered the very fabric of the series. From the introduction of Dawn and reveal of her as the Key, to the death of Joyce Summers, the murder of Tara Maclay, the romance between Buffy and Spike, and the return of the First Evil, the show wasn’t shy of dropping a major bombshell or emotional gut punch for viewers. These helped make some of the very best Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes, and one of its earliest major twists fits right with that.
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In January 1998, Buffy released an incredible two-parter that lives long in the memory to this day: “Surprise,” which dropped on January 19th, and “Innocence,” which followed one day later. Though separated by 24 hours, they tell one cohesive story that make up some of the greatest, most shocking, and tragic 90 minutes in the entire series: Angel losing his soul after having sex with Buffy, and thus turning into Angelus.
Angel Becoming Angelus Was One Of Buffy’s Greatest Twists
“Surprise” begins with Buffy dreaming that Drusilla is actually still alive, and it’s a clever choice that adds so much to the episode. It builds perfectly on that sequence throughout as those visions start to come true and Buffy has more dreams. It creates a sense of foreboding, a palpable sense of unstoppable dread that is paired with the growing sexual tension between Buffy and Angel. Having those threads run alongside each other in the episode is a deliberate choice, because they collide after they do eventually sleep together, making the payoff all the more horrifying.
What’s also brilliant is just how instantly David Boreanaz’s performance flips a switch between the two episodes, going from his usual grim brooding to a villain who takes sheer delight in torment. There’s an unmatched cruelty to Angelus, and that itself is then amplified by the raw confusion and pain portrayed by Sarah Michelle Gellar in response. This is the episode that not only highlights their own doomed romance, but how destiny and love cannot simply co-exist.
Having monsters serve as metaphors for teenage relationships and struggles is a major reason the show endures today, and it perfected that with Angel changing into an evil character after having sex with Buffy – and that it came from true happiness and love, not just sex, is a real twist of the knife that adds to the cruelty. But even more than that, this was really a point of no return for the series that elevated it into a different stratosphere in the TV landscape.
It was a fun vampire show before this but, after “Surprise” and “Innocence” (and the loss of the latter), it became a more mature series after this point. Whereas before it’d been safe, playing by the rules of TV and its genre trappings, now it was a tragedy, and all bets were off. None of the other twists in the series would’ve worked quite as well without the groundwork laid by the devastation and brutality of this moment.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is available to stream on Hulu.
What do you think of “Surprise” and “Innocence”? Let us know down in the comments and join the conversation in the ComicBook Forum!
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Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme -
A photo of the Retrovolt Arcade taken in 2017, showing several classic arcade cabinets and stools.
