SFX : Classement des meilleurs épisodes flash-backs

A noter que l'on retrouve également Firefly en 13ème position.

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2. Buffy The Vampire Slayer
“Fool For Love”

Type of flashback: Spike bragging about past antics
Flashback to: Spike pre-siring, Spike immediately post-siring, Spike killing a Slayer during the Boxer revolution, Spike killing a Slayer in a subway train in the’70s

This is about as epic as TV flashbacks get, as we learn about key moments in Spike’s life, from his days a lovestruck wannabe poet spurned by the object his affection, through his siring by Drusilla to his two successful attempts at Slayer-slaying. Such reminiscing kicks off when Buffy is stabbed by a common-or-garden vampire. Worried she’s losing her edge, she grills Spike for info about his Slayer-killing antics in the hopes it may give her a clue about how to regain her mojo.

The episode mines the flashback formula for as much fun as it can have. Pre-Spike William is hilariously wet, and we learn that he gained his nickname “William The Bloody” not – as we thought – from his vampire antics, but because his poetry was bloody awful. Spike is also seen embellishing his tales to big himself up at times, while the flashback reveals the true story. And during the final flashback, thanks to some ingenious editing, Spike from the past actually starts talking out the flashback directly to Buffy in the present.

All this, and we get a brilliantly brutal slugfest between Spike and the ’70s Slayer too… at the end of which he nicks her leather coat for himself.

The same day that “Fool For Love” aired, Angel showed the episode “Darla” which is a direct sequel (see number seven).

The kind-of sequel, “Lies My Parents Told Me” from season seven is excellent as well. We’d have probably included it in this list if it weren’t so Whedon-heavy already. And, to be honest, the flashback is a lot less ambitious. In this one, we learn that Spike, having just been sired by Dru, returned home to turn his ailing mother into a vampire (in a vampire’s kiss sequence that would have given Freud kittens). The episode is worth watching for the look on Dru’s face when Spike tells her he wants to bring his mum along on a killing spree. Unfortunately dear old mum proves a ungrateful bint, so Spike stakes her instead.

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5. Angel
“Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?”

Type of flashback: Parallel story in the past
Flashback to: 1952, when Angel used to live in the Hyperion hotel

“Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been” has one distinct advantage over other flashbacks featuring Angel – we don’t have to put up with David Boreanaz’s dodgy Irish accent or his even dodgier shaggy wig. Instead, Boreanaz is much more at home as a BrylCreemed ’50s vampire, mooching around in the grandiose art deco hotel which will one day become the base of Angel Investigations.

This is a very elegant flashback episode with more than a touch of Stephen King about it, as the supernatural storyline is a peg on which to explore racism and McCarthyism, with the ghosts of evils past stretching into the present. The camerawork is part film noir part Kubrick, with slow panning shots sown corridors reminiscent of The Shining. The hotel is populated with a intriguing, shady characters. The sense of impending doom – just waiting to be ignited with the merest spark – is almost cloying. In a way, it almost serves as a pilot for phase two of the show.

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7. Angel
“Darla”

Type of flashback: A series of set-pieces instigated by the fact that the newly-resurrected (and now human) Darla can “remember everything”
Flashback to: Darla through the ages, from the time she was sired in 1609

“Darla” was aired immediately after Buffy’s “Fool For Love” and is pretty much a sequel; it even features scenes from the Buffy episode (the Boxer revolution, Dru siring Spike) though seen from Darla’s point of view this time. It’s cleverly plotted, and the dovetailing is seamless, but it’s also, you assume, a brilliant example of cost-sharing.

It’s another epic, detailing the 150-year courtship of Angelus and Darla as they cut a bloody swathe through the world. Darla, originally turned by The Master and his doting acolyte, is tempted away by the dashing Angel, when he asks her if she’d rather spend eternity in a sewer looking at the Master’s ugly mug, or with him. But the romance is over when gypsies curse Angel with a soul, and Darla is disgusted that he can’t bring himself to feed on a baby.

And here’s one for fact fans: this is the only episode in the history of Buffy and Angel in which Angel, Darla, Drusilla, Spike, and The Master all appear in one episode, although we never see them all together in one scene.

Yeaaah Et même si c'est pas mon épisode préféré (loin de là), Fool for love mérite sa place ^^