Passion was probably the first episode to really break my heart. We all knew Ms. Calendar wasn’t going to be around forever, but her getting taken like this was a massive gut-punch. She was little gay me’s first favorite character outside of the core group and I was crushed by this episode. Poor Giles.
In the classroom scene Jenny inches forward from the door because there is a door in the back of the classroom she's trying to get to, before Angelus grabs her. Also, in reference to the floppy disk, it's a nice bit of writing where she ends her class telling them, "And I want both a paper printout and a copy on disk" and then she save the translation on paper and disk, which is the only thing that offers a sliver of hope that her work will be found. Clever that!
*Finally* someone recognizes the _La Bohème!_ Thank you!! Music geekery aside, this is really one of the best episodes of the season, and I love seeing people react to it.
@@Wungolioth GOT definitely took a lot of death but it was hardly a surprise as it followed the books More thinking the next cabs off the ranks were things like The Sopranos and The Wire Before GOT and Walking Dead had more fun and then everyone was expecting lots of death
The song that is played at parts in this episode and then in full at the cemetery scene at the end, "Remembering Jenny" have vocals (the background humming) by Anthony Stewart Head aka Giles.
@@jspettifer yep, heard that he have some samples from the theme song as well in one of his songs. Then there are other musicians that have written entire albums inspired by the series, e.g Musica Ostium Infernum :: Liber Primus is an album based on S1.
Yes, never be afraid to pause and take a moment before continuing. With this show, you're gonna need it. I was 8 when this aired and her death broke me. I never saw TV the same way again.
When the music swells right as Giles sees Jenny I get a lump in my throat and do the big gulp of air because I'm thiiiiiiisclose to bawling my eyes out. Even 20+ years (and dozens of viewings) later. I was a leaky, sobbing mess during the first airing on television. I didn't even care about Jenny but the music paired with the realization on Giles's face destroys me to this day.
I never get tired of watching reactors see that Jenny/Angel scene at the window and also Giles apartment scene. It's devilishly evil of me to get so much enjoyment out of it. Loved your empathetic reaction. Love how much reactors care about the characters.
I just watched someone react to _Innocence_ and thought it is the first real stakes in the show for the main characters, but in order for those stakes to be upped and Angelus not to just be cranky and not say mean things he had to kill someone the group (or at least Giles considering the way Buffy [and Xander and Willow on Buffy's behalf] thought of her) cared about.
09:29 Oooh interesting what you said here. Hmmm, I'll have to think about that perspective. I never took that's what Willow meant. I thought she was saying before he thought about her all the time romantically and now he thinks about her all the time but because he wants to torment and kill her. Great video, my heart was with you! This episode is so tragic, but also an amazing episode. I still get overwhelmed when Giles gets home and finds Jenny and I still tear up when Giles and Buffy are arguing and crying at the end. They did do that scene so perfectly when Giles goes up the stairs, with the music and seeing her and the glass shattering. So operaesque. Tragic but complete perfection!
I think up until S2 episode Innocence, it was the best episode so far. However this is where the show went into overdrive. Passion is a superb episode which had absolutely everything and very much a top ten episode from the whole series. The plot really thickens here with Jenny trying to get the way to restore Angel's soul, but Angelus is too strong and clever and foils her attempt with her brutal and shocking murder of a main character. Superb atmospheric narration from David Boreanaz at the start and end of the episode explaining Passion itself. The bit where Giles see's Jenny in the bed lifeless is so cruel, as is Angelus looking in through the window at Buffy and Willow crying, pure evil. The writing here was excellent as we build up to the Season finale with this incredible arc of Season 2. You can really see here how brilliant the Series has now become heading towards a fantastic Season Finale. The ending where the computer disk falls in between the desk is so well done. Superb writing and brilliant acting. Passion is I think a top ten episode from the whole Series.
Also I would like to add that while general translation software in the 90:ies where horrible, it is a whole different affair if you wrote a piece of software that only did translation between two specific languages. The reason the generic ones where so bad (and still is to some extent) is because they are trying to solve a completely different problem, a problem where every single language on earth can be translated to and from a common for-the-purpose invented language (aka an intermediate language). - Programmer by trade since 1982.
The way Jenny said it there seems to be some predictive text shenanigans going on. A pure translation from the Romani language would probably be not that difficult, I even suspect Jenny can speak that language, her being "Janna of the Kalderash".
@@boghag yes there is most definitely something going on. The text being on Romani (which historically btw isn't a written language) should be no problem for Jenny nor any one else to translate since it is a live language so therefore I guess that the texts that she had was in some form of code. Fun fact about Romani is that English have gotten the words "pal" for friend and "shiv" for knife from Romani.
Trivia: I seem to recall hearing that there was a writer discussion about /how/ Angelus was going to kill Jenny, and they opted for “not even going to bother draining her”. (I trust someone will be along to correct me if I got that wrong)
Yes, I believe you are right, I think they say on the dvd commentary for the episode that they decided not to have him bite her, in part, because they didn't want the audience thinking she might come back as a vampire. It was definitely the right decision to make the death more brutal, but also grounded in reality, it makes for a more emotional gut punch.
Yeah they wanted it to be as callous as possible. I also remember that the writers didn't want any confusion or thought of "Maybe he made her a vampire".
Up to now it had mainly been just talk about how bad Angelus was, so they eventually had to show it. One option was to kill of Oz(!), but he had become a pretty big fan favorite by then. So Jenny was the next natural choice as it did make sense with her connections to the curse and all.
4:39 You're not wrong 5:40 A car isn't a home, so... vampires don't have to be invited in. But Cordelia's right to inquire about that. 9:34 Don't tell me what to do! just kidding, but hey, it's the gothic genre, always some romanticizing going on. Not in this case or in that way though That floppy disk.
After Xander, Willow, Jenny, Cordelia and Oz all knew Buffy was the Slayer, it was ridiculous not to tell Joyce. I get that it was for storytelling purposes, but still.
with the exception of xander, who didn't really believe it, everyone found out in essentially the same way -- a personal experience with supernatural evil. it's not something you could just tell joyce.
if only angel's attempt to kill xander last episode had been successful, jenny might have lived all the way thru season seven. this wake-up call was coming one way or another -- giles in particular is way too apathetic about the danger, so on one level it makes sense that he pays the price -- but i would have much preferred xander being that price.
and she was a favorite of mine. She transgressed, was transgressed against, but in the end wanted it right, showing remorse and a willingness to make amends.
18:11 Yeah, confusing. Willow is trying to tell Giles that Angelus told Joyce that he and Buffy had sex - without saying it. "Being a librarian and all, I thought maybe you didn't know" She thought Giles didn't know about sex???
On the one hand, yeah, the 90s computer translation would be garbage. On the other hand, why are the texts even considered lost if all she needed to do was translate it from Romanian? Romanian isn't a dead language. It was presumably her uncle's mother tongue.
@@TheRiskPig Apparently not, since the magic shop guy's comments imply that the book is Lost Knowledge to the entire magical community, not just her. I can buy that Jenny didn't speak Romanian, that's not uncommon for people with immigrant parents, but...nobody just went to Romania and asked for a translation? The Magic 90s Computer Program might literally have been magic, since Jenny could use technology to do spells, so the translation software actually makes sense to me now that I think about it. But this really shouldn't be Lost Knowledge.
The text was not in Romanian as such "Without the annals, the surviving text is gibberish" so she wrote a computer program to crack the code so to speak, most likely a brute force method where she used "a random sampling of the text", shuffled it around a bit and then "translate the Rumanian liturgy to English" to see if it ended up as a real text in English and if not the program proceeded to use the next "shuffle". A 90:s computer translation would not be garbage, they where as capable as our modern machines, only slower.
Sadly no, right now I just don't have the right set of circumstances to get two versions of each episode going. That's why I just have a $1 tier for a support credit.
![Diggy Graves - Red Vineyard [Official Lyric Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8Ro085T0mnQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Passion was probably the first episode to really break my heart. We all knew Ms. Calendar wasn’t going to be around forever, but her getting taken like this was a massive gut-punch. She was little gay me’s first favorite character outside of the core group and I was crushed by this episode. Poor Giles.
In the classroom scene Jenny inches forward from the door because there is a door in the back of the classroom she's trying to get to, before Angelus grabs her. Also, in reference to the floppy disk, it's a nice bit of writing where she ends her class telling them, "And I want both a paper printout and a copy on disk" and then she save the translation on paper and disk, which is the only thing that offers a sliver of hope that her work will be found. Clever that!
*Finally* someone recognizes the _La Bohème!_ Thank you!!
Music geekery aside, this is really one of the best episodes of the season, and I love seeing people react to it.
You also have to remember that this was 1998. Deaths of recurring TV characters was not a common thing.
Pre-Game of Thrones...
@@Wungolioth GOT definitely took a lot of death but it was hardly a surprise as it followed the books
More thinking the next cabs off the ranks were things like The Sopranos and The Wire
Before GOT and Walking Dead had more fun and then everyone was expecting lots of death
The song that is played at parts in this episode and then in full at the cemetery scene at the end, "Remembering Jenny" have vocals (the background humming) by Anthony Stewart Head aka Giles.
...Excuse me, everyone. I need to go cry in my bed for three days.
This was sampled by Ed Sheeran for his song Afire Love. He’s a big Buffy fan.
@@jspettifer yep, heard that he have some samples from the theme song as well in one of his songs.
Then there are other musicians that have written entire albums inspired by the series, e.g Musica Ostium Infernum :: Liber Primus is an album based on S1.
this is how Angel once earned his old reputation - with refined cruelty!
The Master did say that Angelus was the most vicious creature he'd met. Here we get a taste of what he meant. Hugs.
Saw the thumbnail and I yelled "Oh fuck! Here we gooooo...!" 😅
DITTO!
Yes, never be afraid to pause and take a moment before continuing. With this show, you're gonna need it. I was 8 when this aired and her death broke me. I never saw TV the same way again.
How quickly we forget Jesse, Principal Flutie, Buffy in the S1 finale, heck, even Darla. Every once in a while we have to be reminded, nobody's safe.
This episode is so fucking heartbreaking, the whole scene with Giles gives me the worst chills every time.
Also you see Giles smiling with the rose during the intro every episode and I hate it cuz it just reminds me of *this* episode and makes me sad again.
When the music swells right as Giles sees Jenny I get a lump in my throat and do the big gulp of air because I'm thiiiiiiisclose to bawling my eyes out. Even 20+ years (and dozens of viewings) later. I was a leaky, sobbing mess during the first airing on television. I didn't even care about Jenny but the music paired with the realization on Giles's face destroys me to this day.
I never get tired of watching reactors see that Jenny/Angel scene at the window and also Giles apartment scene. It's devilishly evil of me to get so much enjoyment out of it. Loved your empathetic reaction. Love how much reactors care about the characters.
I just watched someone react to _Innocence_ and thought it is the first real stakes in the show for the main characters, but in order for those stakes to be upped and Angelus not to just be cranky and not say mean things he had to kill someone the group (or at least Giles considering the way Buffy [and Xander and Willow on Buffy's behalf] thought of her) cared about.
You are now no longer a sweet summer child. You are a Woman of Winter.
09:29 Oooh interesting what you said here. Hmmm, I'll have to think about that perspective. I never took that's what Willow meant. I thought she was saying before he thought about her all the time romantically and now he thinks about her all the time but because he wants to torment and kill her. Great video, my heart was with you! This episode is so tragic, but also an amazing episode. I still get overwhelmed when Giles gets home and finds Jenny and I still tear up when Giles and Buffy are arguing and crying at the end. They did do that scene so perfectly when Giles goes up the stairs, with the music and seeing her and the glass shattering. So operaesque. Tragic but complete perfection!
I think up until S2 episode Innocence, it was the best episode so far. However this is where the show went into overdrive. Passion is a superb episode which had absolutely everything and very much a top ten episode from the whole series. The plot really thickens here with Jenny trying to get the way to restore Angel's soul, but Angelus is too strong and clever and foils her attempt with her brutal and shocking murder of a main character. Superb atmospheric narration from David Boreanaz at the start and end of the episode explaining Passion itself. The bit where Giles see's Jenny in the bed lifeless is so cruel, as is Angelus looking in through the window at Buffy and Willow crying, pure evil. The writing here was excellent as we build up to the Season finale with this incredible arc of Season 2. You can really see here how brilliant the Series has now become heading towards a fantastic Season Finale. The ending where the computer disk falls in between the desk is so well done. Superb writing and brilliant acting. Passion is I think a top ten episode from the whole Series.
Also I would like to add that while general translation software in the 90:ies where horrible, it is a whole different affair if you wrote a piece of software that only did translation between two specific languages. The reason the generic ones where so bad (and still is to some extent) is because they are trying to solve a completely different problem, a problem where every single language on earth can be translated to and from a common for-the-purpose invented language (aka an intermediate language). - Programmer by trade since 1982.
This was a fascinating read!!! Thank you so much for the insight!
I just realized I may have sounded sarcastic - I was genuinely interested.
@@TheRiskPig I didn't get it as sarcastic at all so no worries even without the explanation!
The way Jenny said it there seems to be some predictive text shenanigans going on. A pure translation from the Romani language would probably be not that difficult, I even suspect Jenny can speak that language, her being "Janna of the Kalderash".
@@boghag yes there is most definitely something going on. The text being on Romani (which historically btw isn't a written language) should be no problem for Jenny nor any one else to translate since it is a live language so therefore I guess that the texts that she had was in some form of code.
Fun fact about Romani is that English have gotten the words "pal" for friend and "shiv" for knife from Romani.
Trivia: I seem to recall hearing that there was a writer discussion about /how/ Angelus was going to kill Jenny, and they opted for “not even going to bother draining her”. (I trust someone will be along to correct me if I got that wrong)
Yes, I believe you are right, I think they say on the dvd commentary for the episode that they decided not to have him bite her, in part, because they didn't want the audience thinking she might come back as a vampire. It was definitely the right decision to make the death more brutal, but also grounded in reality, it makes for a more emotional gut punch.
Yeah they wanted it to be as callous as possible. I also remember that the writers didn't want any confusion or thought of "Maybe he made her a vampire".
@@mirandasaralyn haha you beat me to it by one minute! 😜
Shows do have their own rhythm. This is part of BtVS's. ❤🧡💛💚💙💜
Brilliant reaction to a brilliant / tragic episode. Thank you for sharing your time and work.
Only saw the pre-announcement predictions so far, but... yeah... yeah
Goodbye Ms Calendar 😭
Up to now it had mainly been just talk about how bad Angelus was, so they eventually had to show it. One option was to kill of Oz(!), but he had become a pretty big fan favorite by then. So Jenny was the next natural choice as it did make sense with her connections to the curse and all.
Jenny wrote the translation program herself.
Princes Diaries represeeeent
4:39 You're not wrong
5:40 A car isn't a home, so... vampires don't have to be invited in. But Cordelia's right to inquire about that.
9:34 Don't tell me what to do! just kidding, but hey, it's the gothic genre, always some romanticizing going on. Not in this case or in that way though
That floppy disk.
So sorry you were not protected from this happening.
After Xander, Willow, Jenny, Cordelia and Oz all knew Buffy was the Slayer, it was ridiculous not to tell Joyce. I get that it was for storytelling purposes, but still.
with the exception of xander, who didn't really believe it, everyone found out in essentially the same way -- a personal experience with supernatural evil. it's not something you could just tell joyce.
if only angel's attempt to kill xander last episode had been successful, jenny might have lived all the way thru season seven. this wake-up call was coming one way or another -- giles in particular is way too apathetic about the danger, so on one level it makes sense that he pays the price -- but i would have much preferred xander being that price.
I actually forgot how Jenny left the show, it was an awful ending of her character, in regards to Angel he was and will always be EVIL
and she was a favorite of mine. She transgressed, was transgressed against, but in the end wanted it right, showing remorse and a willingness to make amends.
18:11 Yeah, confusing. Willow is trying to tell Giles that Angelus told Joyce that he and Buffy had sex - without saying it. "Being a librarian and all, I thought maybe you didn't know" She thought Giles didn't know about sex???
It's a play on the old myth that all librarians are frigid old women.
On the one hand, yeah, the 90s computer translation would be garbage. On the other hand, why are the texts even considered lost if all she needed to do was translate it from Romanian? Romanian isn't a dead language. It was presumably her uncle's mother tongue.
THANK YOU! THIS WAS ALSO BOTHERING ME. I'm like "Was it in a dialect your clan no longer spoke, or what???"
@@TheRiskPig Apparently not, since the magic shop guy's comments imply that the book is Lost Knowledge to the entire magical community, not just her. I can buy that Jenny didn't speak Romanian, that's not uncommon for people with immigrant parents, but...nobody just went to Romania and asked for a translation?
The Magic 90s Computer Program might literally have been magic, since Jenny could use technology to do spells, so the translation software actually makes sense to me now that I think about it. But this really shouldn't be Lost Knowledge.
The text was not in Romanian as such "Without the annals, the surviving text is gibberish" so she wrote a computer program to crack the code so to speak, most likely a brute force method where she used "a random sampling of the text", shuffled it around a bit and then "translate the Rumanian liturgy to English" to see if it ended up as a real text in English and if not the program proceeded to use the next "shuffle". A 90:s computer translation would not be garbage, they where as capable as our modern machines, only slower.
Great reaction 😢
buxom dream
are the unedited reactions on patreon?
Sadly no, right now I just don't have the right set of circumstances to get two versions of each episode going. That's why I just have a $1 tier for a support credit.