We open with Buffy and Angel lying in bed together.   Buffy awakens to find Angel gazing down at her with an amused look on her face  Buffy has major bed hair.  Turns out after a night of slayage, the duo went back to Angel's place for a nap.  Buffy reflects upon the lack of a mirror in Angel's apartment, and talks about them getting one, as well as a drawer for her, so if/when she spends the night there again, she'll be prepared.  She mentions the upcoming Prom, but Angel seems to be kind of reluctant about attending.  Getting up to check how late / early it is, Buffy opens the drapes....letting the brilliant sunlight in to shine directly on Angel.  He jumps up and hurdles off the bed, as they're reminded yet again of the major difference between them.  At school the next day, Xander runs into Anya on campus.  After whining about how she hasn't gotten her powers back yet, and then bashing the male gender, she asks Xander to go with her.  He accepts.  Back at the mansion, Angel finds more evidence of Buffy's intent of couple-dom with him in the form of a notebook upon which she's written "Buffy and Angel forever".  Suddenly someone knocks on the door:  it's Joyce.  She confronts him with his relationship with Buffy.  Angel reassures her that he won't lose his soul again, but Joyce is worried about more than that.  She picks up where the Mayor left off in "Choices", telling Angel that he and Buffy are from different worlds, and that there are hard choices up ahead.  She says that Buffy doesn't necessarily know what's best when it comes to Angel....he's all she can see of her future.  Joyce says that if Buffy can't make the choices she needs to, she hopes Angel will be able to.  She knows he cares about Buffy....she just hopes he cares enough.  Back at school, Giles is annoyed in the library when the gang keeps talking about the Prom instead of trying to figure out the Ascension, which is fast approaching.  Buffy tells him to basically chill out....with all of this other stuff ahead of them to go through, they need a little 'down time'.  Cut to a room where some random guy seems to be making preperations, and there's a demon going wild in a cage. The next day it's bright and sunny outside, and we see an external view of a church.  Inside, a priest performs a marriage ceremony for Buffy and Angel.  They exchange rings, and kiss, and smile at each other happily.  They head up the aisle toward the open door.  As they approach it, Angel looks worried, and keeps glancing at Buffy, who is in oblivious joy.  They pass through the door, and stop outside it, in the indirect sunlight.  They separate, and Buffy looks up at Angel in alarm as she starts to burn.  Angel looks on in horror as Buffy burns up, turning to ashes, and then he wakes from the nightmare.  Later on, during patrol.Buffy and Angel head to the sewers to follow a vamp who got away.  Buffy works the conversation around to Prom again, and Angel tries to hedge it.  Buffy calls him on it, and Angel worries that she's getting 'too invested in this whole thing'.  Buffy wonders what he's talking about, and Angel tries to have it wait 'till later, but Buffy won't have it.  He tells her he's been thinking about their future, and the more he's thought about it he's come to believe that them being together would be bad for her in the long run.  It would be unfair to her.  He thinks she deserves more than him....more than demons and darkness.  That she deserves someone who can take her into the sunlight, and someone who can make love to her.  She protests that she doesn't care about that, but he says she will.  Eventually, she'll want it all, and he can't give it to her.  He loves her, and it's breaking his heart to say it, but he tells her it has to be over.  Buffy still doesn't want to break up, but he pretty much makes it final.  Faced with the unalterable fact, Buffy asks how she's supposed to stay away from him.  He tells her that he'll be leaving Sunnydale after the Ascension. The next morning Buffy fills Willow in.  Willow tries to be supportive, and Buffy tells her she thinks Angel's right.that in the long run he's right.....but then she breaks down crying.  Willow tries to comfort her as best she can.  Cut to the house where the demon's being kept in the cage...we see that all it's struggling has loosened its bonds, and it suddenly breaks out of the cage and takes off running.  At the dress store, Xander sees Cordelia inside looking at the same dress she was looking at in "Enemies".  He goes in to taunt her some more, and finds out that she works there.  Angrily, Cordelia tells him that her father made " a little mistake on his tax forms.....for the past 12 years ", and now she and her family are broke.  No more cell phone, no more car, no more dresses and accessories.  She's working at the shop to try to make enough money for the dress she's been admiring for Prom.  Xander is suitably stunned at this news, but doesn't really have time to react, as the demon that escaped suddenly bursts through the front window of the store.  Xander knocks Cordy out of the way and intercepts the beast as it attacks.  It knocks Xander to the floor, but then suddenly ignores him and goes after a guy trying on a tuxedo.  After, it runs back out of the store, and on the sidelines is a guy holding what looks like a remote control. Back at the library, the gang analyzes the tape.  Cordelia notes how odd it was that the demon ignored Xander.dressed in regular clothes, but went after the guy in the tuxedo.  Wesley identifies the creature as a Hell Hound.  Apparently these things can be trained.  He then asks Cordelia what she was doing with Xander, and the Xan-Man covers by saying he just run into her there while she was shopping.  They all then notice the guy with the remote control on the video tape.  Oz recognizes the guy as a fellow student from his chem lab named Tucker.  Willow manages to hack into his e-mail account, and from reading it the gang's able to deduce that the guy's trained this hell hound to attack people in formal wear so the Prom'll be ruined.  Buffy suddenly becomes obsessed with the idea of not letting him ruin Prom.  She sends the gang off on various missions, while she checks out the local butchery, or whatever.  Apparently, hell hounds eat brains, and it turns out Tucker's been ordering the brains from this butcher place.  She gets Tucker's address, but then unfortunately runs into Angel there, getting himself some blood.  He tries to tell her he's missed her, but the wound's still fresh, and Buffy tries to brush him off.  She comments on Tucker trying to "go Carrie" on the Prom, and her unwillingness to let him ruin everyone else's Prom just because she can't have "that one perfect high school moment", and Angel volunteers to help.  Knowing that it will only make it harder if she has to keep seeing him, she tells him no.  At the dress shop, Cordelia discovers that Xander had come in and paid for the rest of her dress, so she could wear it to Prom.    Back at the library, Buffy tells the gang to go get ready for Prom, while she tracks the latest lunatic down.  Giles thinks she's being rash.....that an address doesn't mean the fight's over.  Buffy goes on for a bit about how they should be allowed to be with their loved ones on this night of all nights, and not be bothered for once.  Giles finally gets a clue and asks her about Angel.  Buffy tells him that Angel's leaving town, and Giles tries to comfort her a little before she leaves to go to Tucker's place.  At the dance, Xander's getting his ear talked off by Anya, while Wesley chokes upon noting Cordelia's arrival.  They all meet up and Cordelia thanks Xander.  Only her expression tells us what for, really.  Xander smiles and nods, in a very atypical suave Xander moment.  Meanwhile, Giles (who is chaperoning), keeps looking for Buffy.  At Tucker's house, Buffy makes quick work of tying Tucker up, but then discovers three more empty cages.  Heading toward the school, Buffy stops one of the hell hounds with the crossbow, and the other two immediately start chasing her.  She tries to lead them away from the school, but they get distracted by the sound of music coming from Prom.  Buffy runs after them, killing them before they manage to get into the gymnasium.  She then drags the bodies away, and goes to change into her Prom dress.  Giles is relieved to see her enter the gym, and they smile at each other across the dance floor.  Later in the night, Jonathan steps up to the microphone during the awards ceremony (for king and queen, and funniest, etc).  After finding Buffy in the crowd, he tells everyone at large that they have a new category this year.  He reads from a prepared speech, saying how though no one ever really talks about it much, they all know Sunnydale isn't like other towns.  From the crowd, people yell out examples: :  "Zombies!"  "Hyena people!"  "Snyder!"  : )   Jonathan goes on to say that when these things happen, Buffy always seems to show up and help. That most of the people there have been saved by her, or helped by her at some point.  He tells them that the Sunnydale class of 1999 has the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class in Sunnydale history, and that they know at least part of it is due to her.  As a token of thanks, they have a little present for her:  it's a jeweled parasol, with a plaque on it that reads Buffy Summers, Class Protector. Buffy accepts it, all emotional and happy.  This is actually a moving scene.  Later on, Wesley wonders to Giles if he might be able to dance with Cordelia, and Giles tells him to just do it and get it over with, and he's tired of hearing about it.  Wesley takes him up on it and he and Cordelia take the floor.  The camera pans around to Xander and Anya, who is finally quiet for the moment, also dancing.  Buffy's on the sidelines looking lonely, but glad that she was able make this evening work for everyone.  Giles comes over to her and tells her he's proud of her, and that he's surprised that "children could be so gracious"  Buffy reflects that every now and then people surprise you, and Giles agrees....looking behind her.  He takes her parasol and backs away, as Buffy turns to find Angel walking toward her in a tux.  They meet, and he tells her that it's just for tonight, because he knew it was a big night for her.  He knew it was important to her.  She understands, and they dance (very cool scene.with the song "Wild Horses" by the Sundays).   FLAWS:       None found.  THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE:       A good one, I guess.  I have a hard time liking it just because this was the "break up" of Buffy and Angel, but overall it was still a pretty good episode.  It wasn't really about the hell hounds, or the maladjusted Tucker, it was more of a "Buffy's losing everything that makes sense to her...again...and fights really hard to let everyone else have this one perfect memory" episode.  The good parts were the Class acknowledging her good deeds, and showing her that she HASN'T gone unnoticed.  That she is appreciated.  And Xander had a surprisingly stand-up performance by paying for the rest of Cordelia's dress.  How unusually suave!  This ep was pretty much the last bit of familiarity before everything comes together / falls apart in the Graduation Day episodes.  Before everything changes.  BEST LINE:       Angel:  "Where you going?" Buffy:  (referring to her bed-head)    "I've gotta go kill this cat on my head!"

"The Prom"