Innocence (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

"Innocence"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
Buffy Summers prepares to fight The Judge.
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 14
Directed by	Joss Whedon
Written by	Joss Whedon
Production code	5V14
Original air date	January 20, 1998
Guest appearance(s)
Seth Green as Oz Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers Robia LaMorte as Jenny Calendar James Marsters as Spike Juliet Landau as Drusilla Brian Thompson as The Judge Ryan Francis as Soldier Vincent Schiavelli as Uncle Enyos James Lurie as Mr. Miller Carla Madden as Woman Parry Shen as Student
Episode chronology
← Previous "Surprise" Next → "Phases"
List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes

"Innocence" is episode 14 of season two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was written by Joss Whedon and first broadcast on January 20, 1998. It is part two of a two-part story. Part one, "Surprise". was broadcast the day before.

"Innocence" is one of the most critically acclaimed and highest rated episodes in the series, attracting 8.2 million viewers as the series moved from its Monday timeslot to Tuesday.

After making love with Buffy, Angel is racked with pain as his soul is ripped from him. In the street, he kills a passer-by when she offers to help him. He goes to the factory to join Spike and Drusilla, but the Judge attacks him. It is unable to burn him because Angel has fully reverted to the evil Angelus. Spike, Drusilla, and Angelus are clearly pleased to be reunited. Angelus vows to destroy Buffy for how she made him feel when he was Angel.

While researching a way to defeat the Judge, a demon with the power to destroy the world whom "no weapon forged" can harm, Xander and Cordelia are caught kissing in the library by a jealous Willow. Buffy finds Angel in his apartment, not knowing that he is now Angelus, and he blows her off, laughing at her as she weeps. Jenny is castigated by her uncle Enyos, who tells her that if Angel has one moment of true happiness, the curse placed on him will be broken and his new soul taken from him. Angelus terrorizes Willow and the Gang at school, emotionally tormenting Buffy. Later, as they discuss Angel's transformation in the library, Buffy realises that having sex with Angel is what caused him to turn evil.

Buffy has a dream in which Angel indicates that Jenny knows more than she is letting on. The next morning Buffy confronts Jenny who tells her that Angelus was cursed with a soul in vengeance for what he did to her people, and that Enyos had tasked her with keeping Buffy and Angel apart. When Buffy, Jenny, and Giles arrive at Enyos' home, they find that Angelus has brutally killed him, leaving Buffy a message written in blood on the wall. Buffy begins to accept that she has to kill Angelus.