Jenny Calendar

Jenny Calendar's first appearance is in the episode "I Robot, You Jane", which deals with the risks of online romance. Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan), one of Buffy's friends, is spending time online with someone she knows as Malcolm, who turns out to be a demon named Moloch the Corrupter. The series regularly employs monsters and elements of dark fantasy to represent real-life problems.[4] As a Watcher, Giles is extremely knowledgeable about the creatures that Buffy must face. He has a large collection of books detailing the demon realms, upon which he relies as the main tool of research and problem-solving. Jenny challenges his traditional approach and helps him to solve the problem of how to find and kill the demon when Giles reveals himself to be a technophobe; she both frustrates and flirts with him in the process.[5] Jenny's character was not intended to be recurring, but the chemistry exhibited between LaMorte and Head encouraged the writers to make her a regular member of the cast.[6]

Jenny's role as a recurring character was cemented in "Prophecy Girl", where she acknowledges that she is aware of the many evil forces in Sunnydale and indicates she is willing to join the Scoobies in their fight against them.[7] Jenny frequently helps through her access to, and knowledge of, technology; she and the related role of Willow represent the marriage of science and magic on the series.[8] Jenny refers to herself as a techno-pagan, not a witch. She says she does not have the necessary power to be a witch, but is adept at researching demons and other occult topics to assist Giles and Buffy. Jenny introduces viewers to the series' expression of magic. In contrast to the more clichéd portrayals of magic in the media as an evil force akin to Satan-worshiping tinged with sexploitation, magic in Buffy instead represents a more earth-bound force that can be harnessed for a physical price.[9] Jenny tells Giles that email and bone-casting are equally valid forms of receiving information.[10] The combination of technology and magic represent the joining of masculine and feminine fields, which Jenny Calendar embodies.[11]

Furthermore, many of Jenny's qualities demonstrate a closer kinship with the adolescent characters than the adult ones. In the first season, the female adolescents—Buffy, Willow, and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter)—establish their identities in contrast to older women, usually parents or teachers. Jenny's youthful style and her rejection of a staid way of life indicate that she is a role model for the young female characters. They do not see her as an adversarial adult.[12]

The conflicts in the second season broaden to explore the difficulties faced by Buffy as she becomes torn between love and duty—a theme which is also reflected in Jenny's storyline.[13] Jenny and Giles begin dating in the episode "Some Assembly Required", and his attempts to ask her out force him into facing issues far more frightening than the monsters and demons with which he is familiar, and bring her into direct conflict with her secret reason for being in Sunnydale.[14] Their romance is at the center of "The Dark Age", where it is revealed that Giles' past includes a youthful exploration into dark magic, when he was known to his friends as "Ripper".[15] The result of this experimentation 20 years ago calls a demon named "Eyghon" to Sunnydale; the demon temporarily possesses Jenny, prompting her to halt their relationship. At the end of the episode, she tells Giles she needs some time away from him.[16] Although the make-up requirement for LaMorte's appearance as Eyghon nearly gave her an anxiety attack,[17] she considered this the most fun episode she filmed. She was called upon to throw Giles across the room and slam his head onto a table.[3]

Jenny and Giles tentatively reignite their relationship in "Ted".[18] According to Lorna Jowett, Jenny Calendar—and later, Olivia (Phina Oruche)—serves to assure viewers that Giles, despite being a bookish man who spends most of his time with adolescents, is heterosexual and has no sexual interest in the teenage characters. His relationship with Jenny also allows them to emphasize the generation gap between themselves and adults: they consider the idea of him as a sexual being "gross".[19]

Author Tracy Little asserts that in addition to the theme of love vs. duty, "you are not who I thought you were" applies to the second season, and notably, centers around Jenny Calendar.[20] In "Surprise" it is revealed that Jenny is an emissary from the tribe that cursed Angel. Her true name is Janna (pronounced Yannah), and she has been sent to ensure he continues to suffer for his past brutality. Janna's Uncle Enyos (Vincent Schiavelli) comes to remind her of her duty to her people and he expresses his disappointment that, as a woman from a group of people wary of technology and intermarriage with outsiders, she has become a computer teacher in a relationship with a non-Gypsy.[21] Angel's ongoing torment allows the curse to continue working and must be maintained. An "Elder Woman," however, has had visions that Angel's pain is lessening and that this cannot be allowed to happen—Jenny must separate him from Buffy, as she is the cause of his relief. Enyos does not tell her a significant element of the curse: should Angel ever experience even one moment of true happiness, his soul will again disappear, making him "Angelus", the evil vampire he was. This factor comes into play when Buffy and Angel have sex in "Innocence" as in the intimacy of that experience he feels happiness deep enough to trigger the loss of his soul. Angelus becomes the second season's Big Bad and begins to terrorize Buffy and her inner circle by stalking and threatening them.[13] Buffy subsequently figures out that Jenny is involved in Angel's transformation and confronts her. This revelation causes a deep rift between Jenny and the rest of the Scoobies and effectively halts her romance with Giles. Buffy demands that she curse Angel again, but Jenny does not know how to do this. Angelus' first act is to kill Enyos, thus revealing that Angel already knew Jenny's true identity and motives prior to losing his soul at some point. For most of the rest of the second season Jenny remains estranged from Buffy's circle; only Willow, who Jenny asks to teach her computer class for her, regularly interacts with her.

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.[22] 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".[23] 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.[24] 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.[25]