The episode opens with Willow reading aloud to Oz, who is in full-werewolf mode in the cage in the library.  Xander comes in to relieve her because Willow's got a test the next day she needs to get full rest for.  Naturally, Xander doesn't take his job seriously and falls asleep.  Cut to Faith and Buffy patrolling.  Faith's asking Buffy about her feelings for Scott, who she's been out on a few dates with by this point.  Cut to a guy running screaming through the woods, where he's taken down by something we can't see.  At school the next morning, Scott catches up to Buffy just to say hi.  Oz and Willow are also there, and say hi to Debbie and Pete, a couple who just joined them.  They all make small talk, and it turns out that Debbie and Buffy are both required to see Mr. Platt, the school counselor.  Buffy heads off to her meeting with him.  In the library, Giles is freaking out because he 's found out about the mauling the night before, and suspects that it might have been Oz.  Xander says it's not possible, until he realizes the window in the cage is open, and Oz could have gotten out.  He's forced to tell the gang that he was sleeping for the majority of the night, but says that Oz was there when he woke up.  Oz is afraid that he may be responsible for this guy's death.  In the counselor's office, Buffy meets Mr. Platt for the first time.  She gives him a shortened version of her relationship with Angel, and the counselor seems unusually sympathetic, lending her his ear, and advice.  Afterward, Buffy goes to the library and finds out that Oz may have gotten out of his cage the night before.  They assign Faith to watch him that night, and Oz thinks they're overreacting.  He wants to bail on the conversation, but ends up going into the cage, as it's almost nightfall.  That night on patrol, Buffy sees someone or something running through the trees, and tracks it down.  She gets tackled by it, and looks up to discover Angel snarling down at her.  He attacks her, and they fight, and she ends up knocking him out.  At the morgue, Willow and Xander examine the body of the previous night's victim, taking forensic evidence from the corpse.  Meanwhile, Buffy has taken the unconscious Angel back to the mansion, where she chains him to the wall.  He regains consciousness and snarls and lunges at her in the background, while Buffy examines the scorch mark on the floor where he landed in the last episode.  She goes to the library and relieves Faith of her watch on Oz.  While there, we see her start to research something.  The next morning Giles comes in to find Buffy asleep with a book on her lap, entitled "Demon dimensions and the demon Acathla".  He asks her what's going on, and she tells him she had a dream that Angel came back, and the dream brought up some questions.  She asks Giles if it's possible if Angel could come back, but Giles says there's no record of that ever happening.  Buffy says that if it DID happen, what would Angel be like? Giles says that the dimension Angel went to was particularly brutal, and torturous, and that time moved differently there.  That he would have been there possibly for hundreds of years already, and that it would take someone of incredible character to come back with any semblance of self and sanity.  Most likely he'd be a monster.  Willow comes in, and as Oz emerges from the cage behind her, wonders why Buffy is so uptight, considering that this time it's not HER boyfriend who's the cold-blooded killer.  Oz comes abreast of her, and Willow is immediately ashamed of what she said.  Buffy asks how the examination of the corpse went, but is told that it was inconclusive.  In the cafeteria, Buffy sits with Scott and the couple from earlier, Pete and Debbie.  Debbie talks about how she doesn't like Mr. Platt, the counselor, while Pete watches Debbie carefully.  Scott tells Buffy that she looks beautiful today, and she gets all wiggy and bails....heading to the mansion where Angel is still chained to the wall.  She tries to talk to him, but he doesn't seem capable of understanding her.  She touches him, and he flinches away from her violently, making Buffy run out.  Back at school, Pete drags Debbie into what looks like a tool room to make out, and Buffy reports for her 2pm appointment with Mr. Platt.  She comes in and he's facing away from her.  Telling him to please just listen without saying anything, Buffy says that he's the only one she can talk to who has an open mind.  She starts to go into her story, and then realizes that Mr. Platt is dead.  Back in the tool room, Pete confronts Debbie with an empty bottle with some green stuff in the bottom.  She tells him she was trying to get rid of it, because of the way he gets when he drinks it.  He becomes angry, and tells her he doesn't even need it anymore, he just needs to listen to her grating voice.  He then seems to undergo a transformation; his face changes to a horribly disfigured one.  He smacks her around, and tells her that he killed Mr. Platt.  Suddenly he changes back into what he was, and apologizes to Debbie for hitting her.  In the library, Giles tells the gang that Mr. Platt was found to have been killed shortly before Buffy found him, therefore ruling out anything that would have needed to kill him at night.  The gang rejoices that that rules Oz out, then they wonder where he is, as it's getting close to sunset.  Outside, Oz encounters Debbie, who is sporting a black eye.  She passes it off as nothing, although Oz is concerned.  From the shadows, Pete watches.  Oz heads to the library, where he's given the good news by the gang. They share what they all know about the murders, and come to the conclusion that it might be Pete.  Buffy and Willow find Debbie in the girl's bathroom, and try to get her to tell them.  Knowing that people are dying, Debbie tells them that Pete doesn't mean to do these things, that he only does it because he loves her too much.  Cut to the mansion where Angel breaks free from his chains.  Oz is waiting in his cage to turn into a werewolf, when Pete comes into the library, hopping mad.  He accuses Oz of putting the moves on Debbie.  He changes into evil-Pete, and rips the cage open, dragging Oz out.  He beats Oz up a little, until suddenly it's sunset, and Oz turns into a werewolf.  He and Pete fight, and the sounds of their struggle draw Buffy and the gang into the library.  Buffy makes to shoot Oz with the tranquilizer gun, but after some interference from Debbie, ends up shooting Giles accidentally.  Oz escapes out of the library, and Buffy sends Faith and Willow after him with the gun.  Buffy and Debbie run after Pete.  Debbie and Pete meet up in the tool room, where Pete is still evil Pete.  He attacks her, and Buffy enters to find her lying on the floor, dead.  She and Pete fight, while Willow and Faith engage Oz, finally managing to shoot him.  Pete gets the upper hand in the tool room, and knocks Buffy to the floor between him and the door.  Suddenly the door flies open, and Angel stands in the doorway, shirtless and still manacled.  He's got his vamp face on, and when he sees Buffy lying on the floor he looks up at Pete and snarls.  They fight, and Angel ultimately snaps his neck with unaccustomed ferocity.  He then stands up and looks at Buffy, losing his vamp-face.  He walks over to her and, with a pained expression, says "Buffy", and drops to his knees, holding her tightly and crying.  Above, Buffy cries also. At school the next day, Willow reveals that in Pete's lab books, he had formulas for his Dr. Jekyl / Mr. Hyde syndrome but that after awhile....he didn't even need the formula to turn evil.  Buffy sees Scott sitting alone on a bench, and tries to console him on the death of his friends.  The episode ends with Buffy at the mansion, watching over Angel in his troubled sleep.  FLAWS:        A couple. A)          The werewolf outfit they stick Oz in in this episode looks nothing like the one he had in "Phases" (season 2) B)          Angel is sent back from hell, right? Angel is mindless, has the mentality of a wild animal for most of this episode.  I get that.  He's so scarred by what he's had to endure while he was being tortured in hell that he can't even think straight.  So why, exactly, would a wild animal put pants on before he goes out to hunt in the woods? I mean, he's naked when he comes back from hell, but in this ep when he fights with Buffy, he's got pants on.  What gives?  I personally see nothing wrong with letting Angel run around naked for an episode, or two.     ;) THOUGHTS ON THE  EPISODE:     This one, in my opinion, was pretty useless except for the stuff with Angel's return.  I must confess to having watched the final fight scene between Angel and Pete numerous times, because I was so excited that he was back.  Yay.  Angel's back!  Otherwise, it seems awfully convenient to me to have some random bad-guy of the episode when it could have just as easily been Angel or Oz.  It's like, pushing the limits of "not-likely".  Also...how come Giles wailed on Xander for falling asleep when he was supposed to be watching Were-Oz, but doesn't say a word when he finds Buffy asleep the next morning?  BEST LINE:       Earlier, Willow had made a remark to Buffy saying "At least this time it's not your boyfriend who's the cold blooded.." Turning, she sees Oz, and says "Jelly donut?" (as she's brought donuts.)  When Oz shows up in the library for his third night of being locked up, he says "Hey, I may be a cold-blooded jelly donut, but I have impeccable timing."

"Beauty and the Beasts"