The cross over episode (I will remember you) is very good and very sad.
Oh my god I hate I will remember you! Self indulgent Bangel wank! Now I admit that a lot of my venom comes from it's positioning. It is Doyle's penultimate episode. In the previous episode him and Cordy were making great strides forward in the most adorable romance of all time and then Buffy comes to town and the pair of them are reduced to doing nothing but sitting on a sofa chatting about someone one of them doesn't like and one of them doesn't know. Meanwhile their relationship doesn't get a mention in order to give space for a relationship that is a) over and b) has already had three fucking years!
The reason for the crossover is contrived and stupid. Doyle's vision is of Buffy fighting a vampire ... oh wow, the vampire slayer fighting a vampire, whatever shall she do? The 'danger' in pangs are those ludicrous (and not very P.C) vengeance spirits where Angel does absolutely nothing to change the outcome. Buffy kills the bear without even knowing Angel is there - at most he stops Willow/ Anya from taking a bit of a pummelling. And then Buffy comes to tell him face to face not to see her face to face. Pointless. contrived. piss poor.
She is horrible in the beginning of the episode. She's rightfully angry but the way she's written she comes across as petty and mean. She's needlessly rude about Doyle and Cordy. Buffy - I love you - but fuck off it's their show not yours.
Then fanservice Bangel wank.
And then Angel makes the decision about Buffy's future for her - again -without consulting her - again! (see my previous posts as to why Angel clearly does not love Buffy!) Now Angel is free to decide for himself he wants to be a vampire and fight the good fight - he can make that decision alone. Any reason he wants to do it for himself - he can make that decision alone. But he doesn't do it for him he does it for Buffy - because she will die sooner if he's not a champion (I mean she dies at the end of the next season anyway so ...) and becomes a vampire again to try and keep her safe. That is a decision he should have made with her. And if their relationship was actually worth a damn - worth the histrionics we have to sit through - he would have done. But he didn't and it isn't
And then - and then - having made the decision by himself, instead of keeping quiet and letting her have a blissful last minute together knowing she wasn't going to remember anyway so why upset her - he goes and fucking tells her what he did. that's not out of respect - if any of this was done out of respect, he would have told her before he went. Textually he tells her so he gets a goodbye and gets to share the burden (which is shitty of him, the act of love would be to pretend everything was fine and let her have those final moments together). Extra textually it's done to get SMG sobbing so the bangels can have their fanwank.
Contrived utter bullshit. I love Angel as a character - but he's very difficult to take in this episode. Not only does he show lack of respect to her as a person and a partner in making this decision without her - but he shows a lack of respect for her as a slayer when he decides to go out and kill the mohra demon by himself once he's human. He's letting her sleep and dealing with it himself even though he has no powers and it almost beat him before and it's her job to get up and fight this thing! He thinks he has to prove he can stand on his own two feet now he's human, but he can't in the demon world - that's the entire reason why there are slayers in the first place. But now Buffy's special and he isn't, he can't take it, so he overrides her ability to go out and do her job whilst trying to prove to himself he can do just as good a job as she can. As if being a slayer isn't really that special. He actually pulls a bit of a Riley here - and it's not a good look.
It does a disservice to every character in the show, the story line is paper thin (why is this demon suddenly attacking him? How come we never see any more? what happened to the soldiers of darkness we were promised? Hello - cure for vampirism alert - shouldn't we maybe be saving all these people turned vampires rather than executing them?) - but all anybody remembers is SMG sobbing in the kitchen. Wank wank wank wank wank.
What an utter fucking waste of a Doyle episode.
/rant.