“So, you’re the Slayer. The Slayer. The strongest, the fastest, the most aflame, with that most precious invention of all mankind -- the notion of goodness. Slayer must indeed be powerful. [Thwack] So, what else you got?” Caleb.


It’s not only the best episode of Season 7, but is also easily in the series’ top 5, and it all begins in a dark and spooky wood, with a potential running from the Bringers. She flags down a passing car, and thinks her luck's in when she finds an apparently kindly preacher driving. He is a handsome, dark haired man with a broad, all-American face complete with chiselled jaw and a soft, bucolic drawl; the epitome of the gentle country preacher.

Ah, for the Devil is in the detail.

The preacher is named Caleb, and unfortunately for the potential, he's more than willing to get her to Sunnydale like she asks – that is, after he stubs a cigarette lighter into her neck and cuts her up with his favourite dagger. He then proceeds to dump her onto the road. Unless the Beeb do a major piece of rebranding, this man won't be auditioning for Songs of Praise anytime soon.

Well, it's certainly a good start, and just gets better as Faith and Willow, fresh from LA (see Angel's "Release" ), stumble across the seriously battered potential. Faith comments: "Yep, guess I'm back in Sunnydale." Never a truer word spoken love.

You see, Caleb is antithetical to everything a priest should be (like Ian Paisley, just without the accent), and he's in the employ, or should that be thrall, of the First, whom he likes to appear as his victims, the many "dirty girls" he's slain. Yep, ol' Caleb has serious, bigtime women issues, of the "you're all Whores of Babylon" sort. I don't know why priests gone awry can make such superb villains, but they do, and Caleb is among the best of a long and perverse tradition. All Old Testament fire and brimstone, meditating on what Christ would have done if someone had ordered a "nice Chardonnay" at the Last Supper, he's at a stroke the best villain Buffy has created since Angelus. Until the First came along, the series has failed to come up with anyone to match Angelus (though the Mayor came close), and even this season's Big Bad was lacking Angelus's sheer gleeful malevolence. Caleb fulfils the final link in the chain better than I could have hoped, being more willing ally than minion, and having no limits whatsoever. Speaking of the First, it’s started to appear to Caleb as Buffy herself, as his “reward”; y’see, the unholy Father is responsible for all the very nasty things that have been happening this season; slaughter of the potentials, destruction of the Watchers’ Council, the lot. Whatever this means, it bodes about as well as Caleb’s version of the testament.

Quite how few limits he has becomes clear in the final confrontation. There are some great scenes on the way there, like Xander's hilarious soft-focus Playboyesque fantasy involving the potentials that opens the first act, and Faith and Spike getting acquainted (I'll say Faith refers to herself as a "schoolgirl" at one point, and tease you cruelly until you can see it for yourself), but this is Caleb's story, and with all the inevitability of a multiple trainwreck, it careers towards its finale. Buffy decides it's time to throw the potentials into the fray, and though Giles advises against it, she ignores him and goes ahead anyway. Which is about as wise as when Margaret Thatcher followed the advice "Nelson Mandela? Nah, go ahead and call him a terrorist, no one'll ever say different."

They follow the Bringers to an abandoned wine clear (a brilliant and subtle piece of symbolism), and swiftly engage in typical Buffy fistcuffs. They're getting the upper hand (surprise), all is going to plan etc.

And then, out the shadows, in a moment that, intentionally or not, is reminiscent of Drucilla’s grand entrance at the end of “Becoming, Part 1”, emerges our Preacher Man: "Well now, you girls are just burning with riotousness, aren't you?" he says, and promptly proceeds to knock Buffy, Spike and the potentials senseless among cascades of spilt wine that appears to have just undergone the transubstantiation in industrial quantities, while delivering the sort of Biblical hooey that would make The Omen's scriptwriters blush. This is not good, but it’s about to become one whole lot worse, taking the episode into the sort of darkness Buffy's not been in since "Passion". Faith takes on Caleb, and lasts about as long as the others. In quick succession, one potential, Shannon, has her neck snapped in front of everyone, Rona has her arm broken like a twig, and yet another, Molly, the “Cockney” who apparently went to Dick Van Dyke for voice coaching, has a knife embedded snugly in her gut. Hang on, this isn't meant to be happening ...

Xander spearheads the evacuation, after Spike makes it clear to Buffy in no uncertain terms, in a spine-tingly quiet, determined tone, "We are leaving." When Spike decides to retreat, you get worried. Kennedy gets out (she was thrown roughly into a wine vat in the fight), and then Xander feels a hand on his shoulder. Mr Caleb I presume, and it is he. "You're the one who sees everything, aren't you?" he says, looking Xander full in the eyes. "Well let’s see what we can't do about that." He raises his hand, thumb outstretched. At this moment, you get that horrible feeling in your gut, caught between being glued to the screen and turning away in revulsion, because you just know what's coming, but at the same time are certain it won't happen. But as Spike looks helplessly on, it does, and in what's quite easily the most disturbing scene Buffy (and quite possibly Angel) has ever shown, Caleb gouges out Xander's left eye. Graphically, on screen, accompanied (understandably enough) by the most terrible cries from Xander. Most 18s aren't as violent as this, and it seems to go on for an eternity before Spike finally throws Caleb aside. "Xander!" screams Buffy, running over to her friend, whose left eye-socket is now a mass of blood. She and Spike lift him to his feet, and drag him from the cellar.

Caleb rises as they leave, dusts himself down, and smiles a self-righteous smile.

The screen fades out to a nightshot of Sunndydale. Caleb's farmboy voice cuts in as the camera shows you Buffy passing the wreckage of the fray in Sunnydale hospital. "Now it's a simple story, stop me if you've heard it," he says casually. "Now I've found, and truly believe, there's nothin' that cannot be made better with a story." As he speaks, we see the bloodied, bandaged potentials. "And this one's got a happy ending," we hear as the camera pans to Xander, his head and left eye are swathed in bandages. A forlorn-looking Willow is by his side. "There once was a woman, and she was foul, like all women, for Adam's rib was dirty, just like Adam himself, for what was he, but human?” We are now in Buffy’s house, where the walking wounded are being tended to. “But this woman, she was filled, with darkness, despair, and why?" As he talks, Buffy leaves her house, and walks alone down Sunnydale's main highstreet, arms folded protectively about herself. "Because she did not know, she could not see. She didn't know the good news." Caleb, shrouded in shadow, appears. "The story that was coming -- that'd be you." The First, appearing as Buffy, appears. "For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours. Now and forever. You show up an' they'll get in line; ’cause they followed her. And all they have to do is take one more step, and I'll kill them all." The camera pans high over Buffy walking through Sunnydale, very much alone.

The screen fades to black as Caleb finishes, "See, I told you it had a happy ending."

And so "Passion" part deux ends. If they can keep this up for another four episodes, I imagine the audience’s nerves will be in about the same state as Xander's left eye. But buckle up folks, 'cause we're in for the final ride, and it looks like all bets were just left fading into the distance at the starting gate -- and I, for one, am mighty glad to be along for the trip.