External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to Becoming (Part 1) .
Wikiquote has quotations related to Becoming (Part 2) .
| "Becoming" | |
|---|---|
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes | |
| Episode nos. | Season 2 Episodes 21 & 22 |
| Directed by | Joss Whedon |
| Written by | Joss Whedon |
| Featured music | "Full of Grace" by Sarah McLachlan |
| Production codes |
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| Original air dates |
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| Guest appearances | |
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"Becoming" is the season finale of the second season of the drama television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer , consisting of the twenty-first and twenty-second episodes. The episode aired on The WB was split into two parts, which were broadcast separately; "Part 1" first aired on May 12, 1998, and "Part 2" first aired on May 19, 1998. Both episodes were written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon.
The two episodes feature vampire slayers Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Kendra working to prevent Angelus (David Boreanaz) and fellow vampires Drusilla (Juliet Landau) and Spike (James Marsters) from awakening the demon Acathla.
Throughout the episode, key moments in Angel's life are shown; his siring by Darla, his first encounter with Drusilla, being cursed with a soul by the Kalderash tribe and finally a demon named Whistler finding him on the streets feeding on rats and taking him to witness Buffy learning that she is the slayer and staking her first vampire, which motivates Angel to want to fight at her side.
In the present, both Buffy and Angel are tiring of their war against each other and just want it finished. Giles visits a museum at the request of the curator to examine a big stone block that it has just acquired; he finds an opening in the rock.
Buffy and Willow find the floppy disk containing Jenny Calendar's reconstruction of the curse that initially gave Angel his soul. They are eager to attempt it so they can get Angel back. Giles warns that it will be difficult. Xander prefers to see Angel killed, rather than risk leaving him alive. He accuses Buffy of being willing to ignore Jenny's murder so she can get her boyfriend back. Buffy later encounters Kendra, who has returned to Sunnydale upon learning a dark power is rising. Giles realises that Angel has Acathla, while Kendra provides Buffy with a sword blessed by the same knight who originally stopped the demon.
Angel learns of the stone block in the museum and realises what it is. Drusilla kills the museum curator while Angel and his minions steal the stone block, which contains the stone form of the demon Acathla, which has a sword sticking out of its chest. Angel tells Spike and Drusilla that Acathla was a demon who came to suck the world into Hell. A virtuous knight had stabbed him in the heart before he could draw a breath, however someone worthy can remove the sword to awaken Acathla, at which point the demon will destroy the world. Angel wastes no time in performing the ritual, killing a human and using his blood to try and awaken Acathla however this fails.
The next day in school, a vampire walks into Buffy's class and is killed by the sunlight as she demands Buffy meet Angel that night. Buffy decides to meet the challenge, and tells Willow to try and perform the ritual while accepting she may have to kill Angel. Meeting Angel, the two fight until Angel reveals that this is a trap and he has tricked her into leaving her friends unguarded. In the library, Willow is attempting to cast the curse, using an Orb of Thesulah which Giles provided, when vampires attack. During the ensuing fight, Xander is injured, and Willow has a bookshelf pushed on her. Meanwhile, Drusilla hypnotizes and kills Kendra, after which she and her fellow vampires kidnap Giles. Buffy arrives too late, and a policeman finds her with Kendra's body and tells her to freeze.
Buffy manages to escape from the police, but finds herself the prime suspect for Kendra's murder. At the mansion, Angel tortures Giles for partially for information on how to awaken Acathla but also for the sheer pleasure of it. Buffy finds Whistler in Giles' apartment, and Whistler reveals Angel was destined to stop Acathla however thanks to Buffy he's now going to be the one who wakes him up. Buffy heads to the hospital and finds out that Willow is in a coma.
Heading home, Buffy is nearly arrested but Spike attacks the policeman and reveals that Angel has Giles and offers a temporary alliance. He has no wish to see the world destroyed, and wants revenge against Angel for his attempted seducation of Drusilla; he will help Buffy stop Angelus if she allows him and Drusilla to leave town. Buffy agrees to let Drusilla live only if Spike ensures that Giles isn't killed. Buffy and Spike go to her house to talk, but meet Joyce who demands to know what is going on. However one of Angel's vampire lackeys attacks, and Buffy slays it in front of Joyce. Buffy is forced to tell her about her role as a vampire slayer. Joyce tells her daughter not to come back if she leaves the house. Buffy leaves anyway.
Xander sits by the comatose Willow and confesses his love for her. She wakes up, but the first person she asks for is Oz. Willow is determined to try the curse again. She sends Xander to inform Buffy of her plans, hoping she can stall until the curse is complete.
Buffy goes to the library to retrieve Kendra's sword. She encounters Snyder, who gleefully announces that she is expelled. Spike returns to the mansion. Giles still hasn't revealed any information to Angel despite extensive torture. To stop a frustrated Angel from killing Giles, Spike suggests that Drusilla use hypnosis. She appears to Giles as Jenny, and he tells her that Angel is the key. He must use his own blood, not someone else's, to awaken Acathla. Angel orders Giles killed, but Spike persuades him to leave Giles alive in case he is lying.
Buffy returns to Whistler, who tells her that if Angel wakes Acathla, only his blood can again defeat him, in the process sending both evil beings to hell. On her way to the mansion, she meets Xander, who decides not to pass on Willow's message.
In the mansion, Buffy announces her arrival by decapitating a minion. Spike rises from his wheelchair and surprises Angel from behind, knocking him unconscious and proceeding to beat him brutally with a tire iron. To his dismay, Drusilla sides with her sire, defending Angel and attacking Spike. Xander frees the injured Giles, and they escape as Spike and Buffy fight against Drusilla and the remaining minions. Angel regains his senses and removes the sword from Acathla; he and Buffy engage in a swordfight. Angel overpowers Buffy and taunts her. Spike knocks Drusilla unconscious and, content to leave Buffy to die, escapes with her in his car, leaving Sunnydale. Buffy manages to recover and fights back against Angel, starting to overpower him.
At the hospital, just as Willow appears close to fainting, she suddenly regains strength and begins incanting in Romanian. She succeeds in restoring Angel's soul just as Buffy is about to kill him. Buffy realizes that Angel is back and embraces him. She then sees that Acathla is awake as it opens its mouth and creates an expanding vortex. When Angel, oblivious to the vortex opening behind him, questions what happened and where he is, Buffy kisses him, professes her love and then drives her sword through him into the vortex. Angel is sucked into the closing hellish vortex and the world is saved. Distraught at losing her lover, being kicked out of her home and expelled from school, and now becoming a wanted fugitive in Kendra's death, Buffy departs from Sunnydale on a bus, while her recovering friends regroup at school. They don't know what happened between Buffy and Angel in the end, and are unsure if Buffy will ever return.
The Orb of Thesulah was the key to translating the Transliteration Annuls for the Rituals of the Undead. These texts contained the spell to restore a soul to the undead but were lost. In "Becoming Part 1," Giles says to Willow that he has an Orb, which he uses as a paperweight. In "Passion," the owner of the Occult shop says to Jenny that he sold an Orb to someone who was going to use it as a paperweight.
The score to "Becoming" won Christophe Beck a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series. [1]
Vox ranked Part 1 at #14 and Part 2 at #4 of all 144 episodes on their "Every Episode Ranked From Worst to Best" list, writing, "It's all firmly rooted in character, which is what makes each moment lead to the next with such terrible inevitability — and yet it's still difficult to believe that it will happen, that Buffy isn't going to pull some brilliant idea out of her back pocket just in the nick of time, that she is going to kill her boyfriend. When it does happen, it's devastating." [2] Rolling Stone ranked Part 2 as the fifth-best episode of the entire series. [3]
The Cultural Catchup Project writes that the season finale offers "a non-linear, unpredictable sort of character development which offers a nice conclusion to a non-linear, unpredictable sort of season. ... The single best thing in these episodes? Spike in Buffy's living room." [4]
Reviewing for The A.V. Club in 2008, Noel Murray wrote that the two episodes are "a marvel, weaving together all of the season's major threads...into a concluding chapter as assured and well-realized as any in TV history." [5]
Sarah Michelle Gellar, talking to Entertainment Weekly about her personal favorite Buffy episodes, cited this one, along with "The Body," "The Prom," and "Who Are You?" (Entertainment Weekly, "Buffy Quits," 7 March 2003). [6] Joss Whedon listed "Becoming, Part 2" as his seventh favorite episode of the series. [7]