Continuity
- When Buffy realizes that Angelus has lured her away from the library so that Giles can be captured, he gleefully points out that "she falls for it every single time!" This is a reference to the season's first episode, When She Was Bad, in which Buffy followed a deceptive lead, allowing Willow and Giles to be kidnapped for the Master's restoration.
- As the episode ends, the gang is left to ponder the sequence of events that took place at the fight. Although they are fairly confident that Angel's soul was restored (Willow "felt something flow through her" when performing the spell), they know (through Buffy's note to her mother) that Buffy has survived, and they know that the world has not ended, they know nothing else about the fight: whether Angel has survived, Spike's influence on the fight, or even whether or not Acathla was ever awakened. Giles would ultimately force Buffy to reveal these in Faith, Hope & Trick.
- In this episode, a vampire burns up in indirect sunlight. In future episodes of this show and its spin-off, Angel, stronger and more direct sunlight becomes necessary for killing a vampire. Angel and Spike often survive in rooms that are more well lit than the one which killed the nameless vampire in this episode. The vampire may be newly "sired," however, and thus comparatively weak; similarly, the vampire is shown to be smoking from exposure to the sun before she enters the classroom where she burns up, implying that indirect sunlight would be enough to kill her in her weakened state.
- In order to escape with Drusilla, Spike appears to suffocate her so that she is rendered unconscious. However, it is addressed many times in both Buffy and Angel that vampires do not need to breathe, and therefore cutting off an airway will do them no harm. He is, in fact, performing a sleeper hold on Dru, which cuts off the blood (or the vampire equivalent) to her brain.
- When Angelus regains his soul and becomes Angel again, he tells Buffy that he doesn't know what's going on or remember anything. This is explained by the Romania flashback in Part One when Angelus is first cursed by the Kalderash people. When his soul first re-enters his body, he is disoriented and cannot remember everything he did as a vampire. The Kalderash elder tells him it will all come back to him soon, and he will always suffer from the memories. The same thing happens in Part Two when Willow restores his soul. He will have a brief phase before the memories come back, so he doesn't know that he killed Jenny or why they are there. Buffy stabs him before he remembers. The same pattern will occur later. When he once again loses and later regains his soul in season four of Angel, he will eventually remember everything that occurred while he was Angelus.
Read more about this topic: Becoming (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
Famous quotes containing the word continuity:
“Every society consists of men in the process of developing from children into parents. To assure continuity of tradition, society must early prepare for parenthood in its children; and it must take care of the unavoidable remnants of infantility in its adults. This is a large order, especially since a society needs many beings who can follow, a few who can lead, and some who can do both, alternately or in different areas of life.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)