Jenny Calendar - Death

Death

By the episode "Passion" it has become clear that Angelus is targeting Buffy's friends and family and has, in Giles' words, "regained his sense of whimsy", demonstrated by petty cruelties that keep the group unsettled and frightened. In their first real conversation since estrangement, Giles warns Jenny to beware of the increasing danger to them all; during this conversation she admits to Giles that she has fallen in love with him and they agree to meet later. Despite the improbability of success and without telling Giles or Buffy, Jenny attempts to restore Angel's soul by using her computer to translate the ancient curse. Upon learning what she is doing, Angelus destroys the computer, taunts Jenny, then laughs as he chases her through the school, finally killing her by snapping her neck. He then takes Jenny's body to Giles' apartment and sets up music, champagne, and roses, as if she is awaiting him in his bedroom for a romantic encounter; Giles then finds her dead body arranged on his bed. To derive the maximum pleasure from what he has done, Angelus waits outside Buffy's house to watch their shock and distress as Buffy and Willow receive the call that Jenny has been murdered.

Steve Vineberg, a film and theater professor, asserts in a 2000 article in The New York Times that the character's death marked "the most terrifying and upsetting phase of the show". Similarly, author Kathleen Tracy states that "Passion" is, among the first two seasons' episodes, the most "viscerally disturbing" not only for Jenny's death and its brutality, but because the series killed off a regularly recurring and sympathetic character, something which was unprecedented in television history. Joss Whedon recognized this when he stated in an interview that killing Jenny, and the manner of her dispatching, was precisely devised to make several points. It was integral that the show make clear to the audience that "not everything is safe, that not every one is safe...to show that death is final and death is scary", and to signal that any character, at any time, could die. Jenny's death was also used to make clear that Angel, in his incarnation as Angelus, is truly evil and now Buffy's mortal enemy whom she must kill. After much discussion, Whedon and the writers decided that Angel should not bite Jenny, but instead break her neck as a show of his contempt for her: "I'm not even going to feed" is the attitude Whedon wanted to communicate, as well as Angel's evident pleasure in the act. Whedon also felt that it was important that Angel do so wearing his vampire face as they planned to bring the re-ensouled Angel back later, and it would be "too disturbing" to the audience to accept Buffy ever kissing him again had the murder been committed while in his normal visage. Whedon stated that the writing team wanted the prospect of bringing Angel back after the murder of Jenny Calendar to be very difficult and so fraught with consequences that even the characters would not be sure they wanted him to return.