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Buffy arrives too late to save Kendra from Drusilla's surprise attack, and ends up being arrested for Kendra's murder. Escaping from the police, she goes to the hospital to find that Willow is comatose and unable to complete the spell to restore Angel's soul. She also learns that Drusilla took Giles, and heads out to rescue him and stop Angelus once and for all with the help of a most unlikely ally.
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Angelus: No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away, and what's left?
Buffy: Me.
Great character development, great dialogue and a great plot.
"Becoming Part Two" is not only brilliant in and of itself, it also plays a vital role in the rest of the series. This is the episode that redefines Angel and Buffy's relationship, starts bringing Spike to the good-side, shows the start of Willow's power, paves the way to a new Slayer for next season and has Joyce finally seeing the truth about Buffy's calling.
The whole shows premise of subverting stereotypes reals cranks into high gear here. Just the fact that it's turned the hero into the villain (Angel/us), and the villain into the hero (Spike) in a believable way should tell you what's in store from here on out. Spike's love for Drusilla and his enjoyment of the mortal world, has him joining the white hats, a side that he'll find himself on more and more as time goes by. His entire scene with Buffy is pivotal. The two of them eye each other suspiciously, trade blows and insults, but within moments they're sort of...trusting each other. It sets the stage for their entire relationship.
The title "Becoming," in "Part One" was referring to Angel. In "Part Two" it refers to Buffy. This is the episode that changes her forever. In a way, it burns away the last of her childhood and makes her the person she will "become." Strangely, she's able to make the toughest call of her life thus far, in this episode. She sacrifices Angel to save the world, but her faith in goodness and in right, never completely recovers. Under similar circumstances in season three's "Choices," season five's "The Gift," and even season seven's "Lies My Parents Told Me," Buffy chooses to risk an apocalypse rather than sacrifice people she loves. She's "become" a stronger Slayer, but she's also lost her innocent belief in a white and black world. Things are much grayer from now on.
From a different review. The scenes between Spike & Buffy are packed with some great dialogue and foreshadowing. The season-long parallels drawn between the two are reinforced when Whistler tells Buffy: "You’re all you’ve got" and the very next scene features Spike telling Buffy, "I’m all you’ve got." They are each other’s counterparts, and that pays off in the clinch:
- Spike knows exactly how to get past Buffy’s initial reluctance to listen: "He’s got your Watcher. Right now, he’s probably torturing him."
- Buffy has Spike’s number immediately: "You want my help because your girlfriend’s a big ‘ho’?" They literally pull no punches.
- All Buffy has to do is clear her throat, and Spike realizes he shouldn’t kill the cop if he wants Buffy’s help. Later, all she has to do is look at him, and he understands that Kendra’s death was not a good thing "from her perspective."
- Spike catches on instantly to what is happening between Buffy and Joyce ("What? Your mother doesn’t know?"), and they lie to Joyce in tandem.
- Though they have never fought as a team before, they confront and dispatch Angel’s vampire lackey like a well-oiled machine. Wham, bam - I’ll be damned. They’ve got rhythm.
- In a style we’ll see repeated, they quickly negotiate the terms of their agreement, reaching simultaneous satisfaction in no time flat. No need for any fancy pre-show, they just smack each other around a few times, and then get right down to the nuts and bolts.
Then we finally say hello to the pain. It isn’t only Angel who finds that he must spill his own blood – not someone else’s – to achieve his goals. No pain, no gain. You want something from this world? Then, as Whistler asks Buffy: "What are you prepared to give up?" Because the world? It asks for blood. Your blood. Willow, Spike, Giles and Buffy literally bleed in this episode. Figuratively, they all do. They save the world, but it costs them.
And it costs no one more than it costs Buffy. In the end, with Spike gone, she is, indeed, all she’s got. And she faces an emotionally excruciating decision: Should she send her beloved boyfriend to hell alone, or should she let us all go along for the ride? True, it’s a no-brainer. But she’s not struggling with her brain; it’s her heart that is crying out for mercy. But our hero does the right thing. Buffy skewers Angel, and sends him right to hell. Buffy has lost everything. And when Buffy, a teenage girl with an idealized love in whom she invested all of her identity – loses Angel, she loses the one thing she had left in the end: herself.
The third appearance of the sad/depressed overalls.
Foreshadowing
Spike: I want to save the world.
My views/status of characters;
Buffy - like
Willow - like
Xander - like
Giles - like
Cordelia - like
Spike - like
Angel/us - like
Oz - like
Overall I consider this a very good episode compared to the rest of the season.
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