I certainly viewed it that way the first couple of times I've watched that episode. Been a while since I'd seen it to be honest, because in previous viewings, I tended to skip over Beauty and the Beasts - mostly because I remembered it grating on my nerves.
Was tempted to skip it this go-around as well. Very glad I didn't.
Sure the central part feels very after-school specialish. And it is a bit on the preachy side regarding the whole domestic violence/abusive boyfriend syndrom. But...
when you watch with the other episodes...you pick up things. One of the themes I picked up on, and keep in mind this is a horror series so tends to go for the nasty - is the whole love dynamic. The men literally become dogs - Angel, Pete, OZ - in regards to the women they love. But it's not the women who turn them into dogs. It's the passion/love - the feeling. Not the person. They've become so lost in the emotion, they can't think, rational thought is gone, it is all about devoring, consuming, and killing. Destroying all that gets in the way. And the women involved - all enjoy to a degree being the focus of that passion, they ignore the monster, want to ignore it, want to cage it, yet at the same time...
Pete and Debbie were fine, but Pete felt he had to be more for Debbie, much as Xander feels he has to be more for Cordelia in Go Fish. Or Scott Hope wonders if he is enough for Buffy. She seems so distant. He can't connect to her. Buffy in turn can't connect to Scott - he's not dangerous, he doesn't excite her, and he can't begin to fit in her life as the slayer. Re-enter Angel...who at this point she can't figure out, is he good, is he damaged and broken?
Giles gives her two options - he could have come out of hell, a monster, with no remorse, no good in him, a beast - the Mr. Hyde character that he'd been after Innocence and the MR. Hyde character that Pete becomes whenever he drinks the potion. OR he could have survived, found a way to hold onto himself, not given in, which would take extraordinary will - that person may be redeemable. Pete or Dr. Jekyll or Willow's OZ - who wants to beat back the wolf. Pete unfortunately loses himself to Hyde, and no longer requires the drug to change. OZ...the jury is still out on at this point. And Angel appears to at least at this point to have held on to himself, he comes in at the last minute and fights off Hyde, killing him. Sure you can see it as the typical guy saves girl, but I think the reason the writer chose to have him save her was to show him fight off Hyde, to fight off himself. It isn't Pete, Angel attacks in that scene but Angelus. For Pete is saying to Buffy all the things Angelus did and fighting her as Angelus did. Yet, it still isn't a happy ending - that's why we get the final frame - as reminder that these two can't be happy together. Buffy can never allow herself to trust Angel. Trust is non-existent. And without trust...love can not sustain itself.
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Was tempted to skip it this go-around as well. Very glad I didn't.
Sure the central part feels very after-school specialish. And it is a bit on the preachy side regarding the whole domestic violence/abusive boyfriend syndrom. But...
when you watch with the other episodes...you pick up things.
One of the themes I picked up on, and keep in mind this is a horror series so tends to go for the nasty - is the whole love dynamic. The men literally become dogs - Angel, Pete, OZ - in regards to the women they love. But it's not the women who turn them into dogs. It's the passion/love - the feeling.
Not the person. They've become so lost in the emotion, they can't think, rational thought is gone, it is all about devoring, consuming, and killing. Destroying all that gets in the way. And the women involved - all enjoy to a degree being the focus of that passion, they ignore the monster, want to ignore it, want to cage it, yet at the same time...
Pete and Debbie were fine, but Pete felt he had to be more for Debbie, much as Xander feels he has to be more for Cordelia in Go Fish. Or Scott Hope wonders if he is enough for Buffy. She seems so distant. He can't connect to her. Buffy in turn can't connect to Scott - he's not dangerous, he doesn't excite her, and he can't begin to fit in her life as the slayer. Re-enter Angel...who at this point she can't figure out, is he good, is he damaged and broken?
Giles gives her two options - he could have come out of hell, a monster, with no remorse, no good in him, a beast - the Mr. Hyde character that he'd been after Innocence and the MR. Hyde character that Pete becomes whenever he drinks the potion.
OR he could have survived, found a way to hold onto himself, not given in, which would take extraordinary will - that person may be redeemable. Pete or Dr. Jekyll or Willow's OZ - who wants to beat back the wolf. Pete unfortunately loses himself to Hyde, and no longer requires the drug to change.
OZ...the jury is still out on at this point. And Angel appears to at least at this point to have held on to himself, he comes in at the last minute and fights off Hyde, killing him. Sure you can see it as the typical guy saves girl, but I think the reason the writer chose to have him save her was to show him fight off Hyde, to fight off himself. It isn't Pete, Angel attacks in that scene but Angelus. For Pete is saying to Buffy all the things Angelus did and fighting her as Angelus did.
Yet, it still isn't a happy ending - that's why we get the final frame - as reminder that these two can't be happy together. Buffy can never allow herself to trust Angel.
Trust is non-existent. And without trust...love can not sustain itself.