Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Angel's first appearance is in "Welcome to the Hellmouth", the first episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in 1997. In it, he meets the protagonist Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a young girl destined to fight evil in the small town of Sunnydale, California. For the first half of the season, Angel is an enigmatic love interest for Buffy, showing up only to offer her cryptic messages about upcoming threats. It isn't until the episode "Angel" that the character is revealed to be a benevolent vampire from Galway, Ireland, who immigrated to the United States to escape his past as the sadistic Angelus after his soul was restored by a vengeful gypsy clan. Although uneasy about trusting a vampire, Buffy and the Scooby Gang eventually come to view Angel as an ally. In the second season (1997–1998), Buffy and Angel's romantic relationship develops and the pair make love in the episode "Surprise". For experiencing a moment of pure happiness, however, the gypsy curse on Angel is revoked, unleashing his soulless alter-ego, who reunites with his old friends, vampires Spike (James Marsters) and Drusilla (Juliet Landau), and begins terrorizing Buffy and her friends. Upon discovering gypsy descendent Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte), who is working to translate the text of a spell to restore Angel's soul, Angelus murders her by breaking her neck, and places her body in the bed of her boyfriend, Giles (Anthony Head), for him to discover. Angelus then attempts to destroy the world by awakening the demon Acathla. In the season finale, neophyte witch Willow (Alyson Hannigan) manages to restore Angel's soul at the last moment, but Buffy is forced to kill him to save the world from Acathla, and Angel is sent to hell. In season three (1998–1999), episode three, "Faith, Hope & Trick", Angel is inexplicably returned from hell by an unknown party and is soon found by Buffy. The Scooby Gang are outraged when they discover that Buffy has been secretly caring for him since his resurrection, but grudgingly accept him after he saves Willow's life in episode seven, "Revelations". In the episode "Amends", the primordial First Evil attempts to manipulate Angel to murder Buffy, but Angel chooses suicide instead by waiting for the sun to rise on Christmas morning. California's heatwave is suddenly interrupted by a freak snowstorm hiding the sun, sparing Angel's life, which he takes as a sign from above that he was brought back for a reason. Buffy and Angel initially attempt to be friends but eventually resume their romance. However, Angel becomes more and more aware of their limitations as a couple and breaks up with her in the hopes that she will be happier without him, leaving Sunnydale altogether after attending Buffy's prom and helping her in the battle against Mayor Wilkins (Harry Groener).
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 2)
During the season finale, Buffy and Willow come across the spell Jenny was working on just prior to her death. While they deliberate on what is to be done, Kendra returns to Sunnydale by word of her watcher who claims that a dark power is once again rising at the Hellmouth. This power turns out to be the stone statue of the powerful demon Acathla who, once upon a time, attempted to swallow the world into Hell. Angelus hatches a plan to awaken Acathla once again and destroy the world. After he fails to awaken the demon however, Angelus sends a team led by Drusilla to kidnap Giles while he calls Buffy out to distract her. As Giles is taken away, Willow is left comatose, Xander's arm is broken and Drusilla kills Kendra. Buffy returns to the library to find the police waiting for her. She flees their attack and makes it to the hospital to find her friends. When no one can find Giles, she goes to his house where she finds a demon named Whistler (Max Perlich). He tells her that what happened with Acathla wasn't meant to go the way it did — Angel is in fact the key that will re-open Acathla but the Powers that Be thought that Angel's destiny was to stop him. Drusilla uses her psychic powers to trick Giles into giving Angelus this information after Angelus sadistically tortured the watcher. Meanwhile, Willow awakens from her coma after a proclamation of love from best friend Xander and adamantly decides to try to perform the ritual of restoration to return Angel's soul. Spike joins forces with Buffy to help take down Angelus while Buffy's mom, Joyce Summers (Kristine Sutherland), finally figures out the truth about her destined daughter. As Buffy leaves to retrieve a mystical sword brought to Sunnydale by Kendra, Joyce tells Buffy never to come back. Sunnydale High School Principal Snyder (Armin Shimerman) expels Buffy from Sunnydale High. With nothing left, Buffy storms Angelus' mansion while Xander aids a weakened Giles. Buffy is too late, even with Spike's help (who takes Drusilla out of the fray). Angelus uses his blood to reawaken Acathla. As Buffy and Angelus compete in an epic sword fight, Acathla begins to swallow the earth. Meanwhile, Willow successfully performs the powerful spell after she is overcome by an unknown mystical energy. As Angel's soul is returned, Buffy has one chance to save the world and, after kissing him and proclaiming that she loves him, runs the magical sword through Angel's chest, who is then swallowed by the portal, closing it for good. Left utterly devastated, Buffy flees Sunnydale.Series creator Joss Whedon served as executive producer and showrunner. Besides Whedon, only David Greenwalt and Rob Des Hotel & Dean Batali, now executive story editors, returned. Whedon wrote the most episodes, writing five by himself and co-writing one with co-executive producer David Greenwalt, and doing another story with Greenwalt, totaling seven episodes. Marti Noxon joined as a staff writer (promoted to story editor midseason) and wrote the next highest amount of episodes, writing five on her own and co-writing one with Howard Gordon, who joined as consulting producer for the first half of the season. Greenwalt devised the story for "School Hard" with Whedon, but wrote the teleplay solo. He then wrote and directed one episode, co-writing "Ted" with Whedon. Rob Des Hotel and Dean Batali (returning from the first season) wrote three episodes together. Freelance writer Carl Ellsworth was fired following his first episode "Halloween". David Tyron King wrote two freelance episodes (as Ty King), King was previously an executive producer on the previous series Whedon worked on, "Parenthood" (1990). Former story editors Matt Kiene and Joe Reinkemeyer returned and wrote one freelance episode. The other freelanced script of the season was "Go Fish", wrote by husband and wife team David Fury and Elin Hampton, Fury would continue to write freelance in the following season before joining the show full-time.