
There are very few episodes in
Buffy and
Angel that I find outright scary. One of the exceptions is “Billy” from season three of
Angel. I used to actively avoid it, skipping around it when watching my DVDs, and only fairly recently have I felt comfortable watching it. Instead of a scaly demon or fanged vampire, the titular villain is very human in appearance, and his power evokes human evil. Joss’ thing is that he tries to promote feminism, and “Billy” might be his most overt attempt with a villain that exists as an embodiment of misogyny.