Season one has a lot going for it. It ends on a really big cliffhanger, it introduces something which can drive Angel’s ongoing adventures, and the show develops and sympathizes a character just so they can kill him in the ninth episode. Many people think that Glenn Quinn was canned, but Joss Whedon was clear from the beginning that the character was going to be killed heroically shortly; it was something he wanted to do with Jesse in Buffy the Vampire Slayer but didn’t get a chance to accomplish.

The show was much less serialized than in later years, but you could still see the reverberating consequences of stories. The most interesting aspect of the season is the growth of Angel. As Wesley said, it’s our desires that define our humanity and, while there was a tacit understanding of why Angel fought the good fight, the Shanshu prophecy gave Angel something to desire; something to make him human. Angel moves from that view as his story continues, he begins to fight the good fight because it should be fought, not because of some base self benefit. Angel is always seeking redemption, but somewhere along the way he realizes that redemption isn’t a destination, it’s an ongoing process.

Already in the first season, you can see how the stories told on Angel will be much darker and ambiguous as to who is evil and what is moral. And neither the questions nor the answers get easier as the show progresses.

I’m not sure if the Angel spin-off had been decided on by the time Amends aired, but based on what I just saw, I’m betting it had. It’s a powerful story, and it brings a bit of resolution to the ongoing emotional struggle Buffy and Angel have had since Angel returned from hell. But one can’t help but see the writer’s establishing Angel’s story for the long run. We see Angel at various points in his life and death, as the First taunts him in various forms. The goals of this mental torture are the final destruction of Buffy by Angel.

When the show Angel begins, we’re treated to a new prophecy related to the ensouled vampire. The so-called Shanshu prophecy promised Angel the chance to be human after preventing the apocalypse. But the final story of Angel isn’t that Angel fights to give himself a better life. He fights because there are people worth fighting for. He fights because the world isn’t as it should be and he can do good. As Buffy says in the climactic scene “You have the power to do real good. To make amends.”

Angel doesn’t want to keep fighting. The memories of the things he’s done are so terrible and haunting that he doesn’t think life is still worth fighting for. He thinks the world would be better without him. He says to Buffy “I’m weak. That’s all I’ve ever been.” trying to convince her, and himself, that he can’t resist the temptations of the world and its inevitable that he’ll make the world a worse place. Buffy says “If you die now, all you ever were was a monster.”

Every moment of this scene is replayed in the later years of Angel. And the most powerful moment is when Angel, begging Buffy to let the sunrise destroy him and end both his suffering and the threat he represents to the world, says “Just this once, let me be strong” to which Buffy replies “Strong is fighting. It’s hard and it’s painful and it’s every day. It’s what we have to do.” As a long time Angel fan, who on most days considers Angel to be the better show of the two, I can attest that this sentiment is at the absolute centre of what that show is about. So this episode, aside from being a great addition to the ongoing stories of Sunnydale, prepares the viewer to see Angel go through these struggles on his own in the coming years.