Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Angel is the quintessential heartthrob. He’s every high school girl’s fantasy boyfriend and every parents’ worst nightmare, especially when you consider that he’s a demon who’s been roaming the earth and killing people for two centuries. Until one day, Angel kills the wrong person and a witch puts a curse on him, giving him back his soul.
Once he has his soul, Angel can love again, and once he meets Buffy, Angel realizes that this soul he has was never a curse, but probably the best thing that could have ever happened to him.
“Good dogs don’t bite.”
Angel always seems to be watching Buffy and looking out for her and also jumping in whenever she needs help fighting a vampire or another demon. One night, Buffy is walking home from The Bronze, when she feels danger lurking.
She doesn’t feel like fighting, but knows she has to, so like a teenage girl not wanting to do her algebra homework, Buffy rolls her eyes and turns to face her opponent, or in this case, opponents. Luckily, Angel isn’t far behind and he steps in to help Buffy and offer some wit as he attacks the vampires attacking his girl.
“I offered ugly death to everyone I met, and I did it with a song in my heart.”
Angel doesn’t reveal who or what he really is to Buffy right away. She finds out after the two share a kiss in her bedroom and Angel’s face changes to that of a vampire. When they meet again, they fight.
Angel’s feelings for Buffy are powerful and he knows they’re dangerous and he imagines that if he kills her or if she kills him, that will fix everything, but neither one of them can do it. Angel gives Buffy a summary of his life’s story, Buffy offers him her neck. But both of them know he won’t do anything to hurt her.
“I love you. I try not to, but I can’t stop.”
Buffy and Angel are trying to stop Spike and Drusilla in their latest plot to take over the world and kill everyone in it. After one of the many fights with Spike and his minions, Angel and Buffy retreat back to the former's house, and on the way there, they get caught in the rain.
It’s the perfect set-up for Buffy and Angel to spend the night together, which they do after Angel confesses to Buffy that he loves her and she responds the same. They spend the night together, which Buffy will come to regret.
“Yeah, baby, I’m back.”
The curse that gave Angel his soul back came with one condition, if Angel ever experiences a moment of true happiness, his soul will leave and he will return to being the demon he always was.
Angel gets that one moment of happiness when he and Buffy sleep together. In the middle of the night, Angel leaps from their bed, runs outside, and the change to his soul takes place. After killing a woman for the first time in a hundred years, Angel goes to Spike and Drusilla to let them know he’s back on their side.
“She made me feel like a human being. That’s not the kind of thing you just forgive.”
Once Angel is evil, his first mission is to kill the slayer. He has a personal vendetta because he fell in love with her, which when he had a soul, felt good, but now that he’s soulless, Angel wants Buffy to pay for what she did to him and how she made him feel.
Angel tells Spike and Drusilla to give him a night to confront Buffy. Buffy doesn’t know he’s changed yet and he can use that to his advantage, which is exactly what he intends to do.
“You’ve got a lot to learn about men, kiddo, although, I guess you proved that last night.”
After Angel disappears in the middle of the night and changes back to a soulless demon, Buffy is worried, understandably.
They’ve just spent their first night together, which Buffy thought was perfect, but when Angel is nowhere to be found, she starts to doubt their relationship and worry about Angel’s safety. Buffy finally finds Angel when she goes back to his apartment to look for him or any clues to where he might be. She’s relieved until she senses something different in Angel and the way he’s treating her.
“You can’t do it. You can’t kill me.”
Buffy and Angel finally face off in their first fight. It’s raining and Buffy is heartbroken, which really sets the scene for this duel. The two exchange a few punches and get a few hits in on one another.
Buffy seems to be winning and manages to corner Angel, as Buffy whips out her stake to finish the job, Angel looks up at her, unafraid, because he knows that she won’t kill him. She knows it too. She’s not ready yet. Instead of staking him in the heart, Buffy winds up and kicks him as hard as she can in the groin.
“I want to take comfort in you, and I know it will cost me my soul, and a part of me doesn’t care.”
In season three, Angel has returned with his soul. He keeps his distance from Buffy thinking that’s what she wants and needs.
Angel starts to have dreams about his past and the people he’s hurt, with one even telling him he should spend a night with Buffy, lose his soul again, and kill her. Angel knows this is something evil torturing him and that it is succeeding. At one point, Angel decides to stand outside and wait for the sun to come up to dust him, but Buffy finds him just in time.
“I’m not evil again. Why does everyone think that?”
By season four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel has left town and moved to Los Angeles, where he has a spin-off series of his own, aptly named, Angel. Angel gets a tip from a friend that Buffy is in danger, so he returns to Sunnydale to watch over her.
Angel can’t give her the message though because he doesn’t want her to know he’s there. She’s moved on and Angel knows that coming back into her life could mess a lot of things up. As Angel encounters Buffy’s friends, they all for one reason or another assumes he’s returned without his soul, which is not actually the case.
“I’m getting the brush off for Captain Peroxide?”
The series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer wouldn’t have been complete if Angel didn’t return. In the first scene of the final episode, Angel surprises Buffy and they share a kiss. Fans love seeing their favorite couple back on screen together after so many seasons apart, but the happy reunion doesn’t last when Angel learns that Buffy has been with Spike.
Buffy tries to get Angel out of Sunnydale and when Angel smells Spike on Buffy, thanks to his super-vampire nose, he wonders if that’s the real reason why Buffy doesn’t want him around.