Buffy has a disturbing dream in which she sees Drusilla kill
Angel. "Happy birthday, Buffy," says Dru. Shaken, Buffy
goes to check on Angel in the morning, and that of course leads
to kissing. And that seems to lead to a decision: Buffy confesses
to Willow at school that she wants to have sex with Angel. "Wow,"
says Willow, who then invites Oz to the surprise party they're
throwing the following night for Buffy's seventeenth birthday.
Buffy tells Giles about her dream, worrying that Drusilla is
still alive. And it turns out she's correct: Drusilla, with Spike
burned and confined to a wheelchair, is having a party of her
own, with many ornate wooden boxes being delivered to the site.
Buffy's birthday dawns bright
and clear, but then at breakfast Joyce unwittingly re-enacts
a part of Buffy's bad dream. Meanwhile, Ms. Calendar gets a strange
visitor who reprimands her for getting so caught up in her life
as "Jenny Calendar" that she has neglected her gypsy
heritage and her duty to see that Angel's torment is eternal.
She promises the visitor, her uncle, that she'll break Buffy
and Angel up. That night she takes Buffy to the Bronze on a mysterious
errand, and there they see vampires carrying ornate wooden boxes.
Buffy drives them off (crashing through the Bronze window and
ruining the surprise party) and carries one of the boxes inside.
She opens it to find a disembodied, armor-clad arm which
leaps from the box and starts to strangle her.
Angel
saves Buffy and says he knows what the arm is it's part
of the Judge, a demon whose sole purpose is to cleanse the Earth
of the plague of humanity. The Judge cannot be killed, so he
was dismembered and the pieces buried in remote parts of the
world. Ms. Calendar suggests Angel take the arm and re-bury it,
and Angel reluctantly agrees despite Buffy's protests. But as
Buffy says her tearful goodbye to Angel at the docks, they are
ambushed by vampires who reclaim the arm. The Judge is at last
reassembled. "Just what I wanted," says Drusilla. "He's
perfect!"
Buffy
and Angel go to stop the Judge from being reassembled,
but they are too late. They are caught by Spike and Drusilla,
but they escape into the rainy night. Returning to Angel's apartment,
the hellish events of the night start to catch up to the lovers.
"I love you," Angel tells Buffy. "I try not to,
but I can't stop." Buffy replies, "I can't either,"
and they kiss which leads to more. Waking up after what
is clearly a night of passion between them, Angel appears to
be in pain. He stumbles outside and drops to his knees in the
rain, yelling, "Buffy!!"
To be continued...