Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Top 5 Episodes
I don’t often get to talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer nowadays; the show has been off the air since 2003, and its spin-off Angel since 2004, so it’s not really relevant in the strictest sense. But with the news that several of the original cast members are coming back for a radio play on Audible called Slayers: A Buffyverse Story, it’s suddenly a part of the conversation once again, and that makes me happy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite work of fiction; it’s something that’s personal for me, to the extent that I could never offer an objective critique of it. If you’ve ever felt like something was made specifically for you, that’s how I feel about Buffy. (I know Mauler says a lot of this as well; that dude gets it.) I’ve identified with almost every one of the characters at different points of my life and their arcs, and even now, I find myself relating to them in new ways.
So, I’m using the week leading up to Slayers: A Buffyverse Story to celebrate the show. Every day, I’ll have a new list of my favorite elements of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and then on Saturday, I’ll review the Audible production. (Don’t worry; I’ll be much more objective about that.) To start things off, these are my favorite episodes of the show, in chronological order. There will be spoilers throughout these lists by necessity; Buffy constantly builds on itself, so it’s impossible to talk about anything save maybe the pilot without spoiling something. I will try to leave out at least some details, just in case anyone is reading these without having seen the show.
In case you need it, here’s a very basic, rudimentary background. The Slayer is a teenage girl who is chosen by mystical forces (that won’t be fully explained until the last season) to fight “the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness.” She has super strength, slight super speed (not like the Flash, but maybe Spider-Man or Captain America level; good reflexes, essentially), intuition about the supernatural, and the occasional prophetic dream warning her of horrors to come. When one Slayer dies, the next is activated. Buffy Summers is her generation’s Slayer, and in the season premiere, she moves to Sunnydale, a small town in Southern California that happens to be situated on the Hellmouth, a gateway between our world and hell that tends to attract evil. Rupert Giles, the high school librarian, is her Watcher, who is supposed to train her to fight and use her powers, support her with his knowledge (and access to knowledge) of the demon world, and command her in battle. (The last one doesn’t work out so well with Buffy.) Xander and Willow, two other students at the high school, quickly discover her secret and become her best friends and sidekicks; the group jokingly call themselves the Scooby Gang. Fun, drama, action, horror, comedy, romance, massive character arcs, and lore-heavy storytelling ensue.
Also, just to get this out of the way: “Hush,” “The Body,” and “Once More With Feeling” are not on my list. These are staples of every Best of Buffy list, but I sometimes wonder if they’re included partly because people feel like they’re supposed to put them on there. That’s not meant to be a critique; they’re all great, and they’re standout technical achievements. But they’re not my favorites.
Also, I’m counting two-parters as one episode; don’t be cruel.
“Becoming” (Season 2, Episodes 21 and 22)
“I hate you.”
“And I’m all you’ve got.”
The two-part season 2 finale begins with an episode that reveals Angel’s origins and a newly-restored Angelus’ plan to suck the world into hell using Acathla, a demon that was turned to stone thanks to a sword stuck in its heart. (A quick primer if you’re reading this without having seen the show: Angel, Buffy’s boyfriend at this point, is a vampire who was cursed by Gypsies by having his soul returned, making him renounce his evil ways; Angelus is Angel without a soul, effectively a completely different person – and, not coincidentally, the most evil vampire who ever lived.) Meanwhile, Buffy and Willow discover that the recently murdered Jenny Calendar had found the spell to return Angel’s soul and put it on a floppy disk, which was a thing back then. Things go badly, and Buffy finds herself alone, with her friends either killed, kidnapped, or hospitalized, herself wanted for murder, and Angelus about to bring about Armageddon, until she gets help from the unlikeliest source of all: Spike, who wants to take down Angelus and get his paramour, Drusilla, back. Phew.
The above paragraph should illustrate how important it is to watch Buffy from the beginning and not skip any episodes; you won’t understand what’s going on if you don’t know everything. “Becoming” is one of many payoffs you get for that dedication, an epic season finale where all the major plot points from multiple seasons converge. As you’ll see from this list, Buffy knew how to stage a finale, and “Becoming” has all the elements of a great Buffy episode at nuclear level: action, comedy, drama, surprises, stakes, and unbearable tragedy. The finales also excel at making the conflict seem hopeless; in “Becoming,” Buffy is at the end of her rope, with no backup and no hope of fighting three of the most powerful vampires on Earth: Angelus, Spike, and Drusilla. She’s also being hunted by the police, and when a squad car pulls over, and a cop points his gun at her, in an instant, it’s over; the world is going to hell, and there’s nothing Buffy can do to stop it… until Spike steps out of the shadows, takes down the cop, and tells her he wants to help her save the world. The climax is terrific, with Spike fighting Drusilla as Buffy fights Angelus while a revived Willow is trying to restore Angel. And then come the final, heartbreaking moments when Buffy sacrifices everything she loves for the greater good. If you asked me what Buffy episode has everything that makes the show great, I’d have lots of options but would still readily say “Becoming.”
“Graduation Day” (Season 3, Episodes 21 and 22)
“This is mutiny!”
“I like to think of it as graduation.”
See? Another finale already. Season 3 saw Buffy face the Mayor of Sunnydale, Richard Wilkins III, a wholesome, family values type of politician who was secretly evil. The Mayor’s actual plan isn’t fully revealed till this two-parter: he wants to become a demon, and not just any demon, but a pure, all-powerful, Lovecraftian entity like the Old Ones who once ruled the Earth. (There’s a good deal of Lovecraft in Buffy’s lore, although I imagine it would posit that Buffy would kick Cthulhu’s ass, if only eventually.) This transformation – called the Ascension – is to coincide with the Sunnydale High School graduation ceremony, at which the Mayor will be the keynote speaker. Added to that is the Mayor’s lieutenant, Faith, a Slayer who turned to the Dark Side. (How is there another Slayer when there’s only supposed to be one at a time? This is what I mean when I say you have to watch the whole thing in order.) Meanwhile, Angel has been dosed with a poison that will kill vampires, and the Watcher’s Council orders Buffy to let him die – which, you know, good luck with that, sparky.
Again, the finale brings many plotlines and character arcs to a head, and “Graduation Day” is fun, heartbreaking (Angel leaves Buffy and Sunnydale for LA and his amazing spin-off series), and ultimately very satisfying. The Mayor is one of the best villains in a show with many great ones; think Ward Cleaver if he wanted to take over the world. But he’s human as well, and he has a fatherly love for Faith, who comes under his wing when she decides evil is a better fit for her. Usually, the Mayor is more amusing than threatening, with his menace hinted at rather than fully displayed. But “Graduation Day” lets the mask slip as the Ascension nears, and especially after a big fight with Buffy puts Faith in a coma. Both Slayers are in the hospital and unconscious for different reasons, and after the Mayor tenderly touches Faith’s cheek, he walks over to Buffy and tries to suffocate her, stopped only by Angel, who’s been watching over her. Then, he visits Buffy and her friends in the school library (their base of operations at the time) and tells Giles – the father figure to Buffy as the Mayor is to Faith – that he’s going to “eat” Buffy, egging him on till Giles plunges a sword into his heart. (Unfortunately, the Mayor can’t be killed before the Ascension, so it’s ultimately ineffective.) This is something that makes a good villain; in both of these scenes, his hate for Buffy brings out the love those around her feel for her. And the final battle is a show-stopper, as the Mayor takes the form of a giant snake and begins eating attendees of the graduation before the students all throw off their gowns to reveal weapons underneath; Buffy has turned her graduating class into an army, and it’s go time. This is not only cool and a fitting end for the high school leg of her story, but it’s a broadening of the show’s central concept, turning traditional victims into warriors who can fight back against the monsters. The final shot of a yearbook on the ground is perfect.
“Pangs” (Season 4, Episode 8)
“I’m a great cook! In theory. I’ve eaten a lot.”
This is a fun episode more than a monumentally important or epic one, but it’s terrific. As Thanksgiving approaches, Buffy learns that her mother is visiting her aunt for the holiday, and Buffy will be alone. She then vows to throw Thanksgiving for herself and all her friends, who will similarly be alone – Willow is acting like a hippie and taking a moral stand against Thanksgiving (don’t worry, this pays off big-time later), Xander hates his family, and Giles is British and has no conception of the holiday. But matters are complicated when Hus, the warrior spirit of a Native American tribe, is awakened and seeks vengeance against those he sees as his oppressors. Meanwhile, Angel is back in town, watching Buffy from the shadows after being warned that she’s in danger, and Spike is without a home, having been implanted with a chip that prevents him from hurting people (long story).
“Pangs” is as much a Thanksgiving tradition for me as turkey, and that’s by design; the episode captures the many aspects of Thanksgiving, including bickering about politics, attendees who don’t like each other, taking in someone who has no place to go, and the hurdles that inevitably spring up when planning dinner. The backbone is Buffy’s determination to throw everyone the perfect Thanksgiving, and she refuses to let it go even with a murderous spirit on a killing spree. And it’s not hubris; it’s Buffy’s fear of losing the comforts of family and friends as she feels adrift in the adult world, a theme that will resurface throughout season 4 for all four of the main characters. It also leads to some hilarious moments as Buffy struggles to put dinner together. This is a Jane Espenson episode, which means lots of laughs, and there are some classic lines and running gags in “Pangs,” like everyone assuming Angel has become Angelus again when they see him (“I haven’t been evil for a long time”) and Spike hungering for blood because he can’t have any (“I’m saying that Spike had a little trip to the vet, and now he doesn’t chase the other puppies anymore”). But the centerpiece is Spike’s speech about “the bloody Indians,” the stake in the heart of the episode-long argument about whether Hus is actually right. Willow has been arguing in his favor, obsessed with the past and the atrocities committed against his tribe, while Giles has been saying that that isn’t practical and they need to stop him from killing innocent people. It’s hilarious, it’s correct, and it furthers the theme of alienation among the Scoobies as Giles points out that he made all those points earlier, and nobody listened to him. All that and Buffy fights a bear!
“Fool for Love” (Season 5, Episode 7)
“What can I tell you, baby? I’ve always been bad.”
“Fool for Love” begins with Buffy facing a vampire – a regular one, not a powerful one like Spike or Angelus – and getting stabbed with her own stake. This makes her obsess over her vulnerability and the likelihood that she will one day die in battle, as every Slayer before her has. After she and Giles go through the Watchers’ diaries and find no details (which includes a touching moment where Giles tells her that, if they were anything like him, the other Watchers found writing about their Slayers’ deaths too painful), Buffy remembers she has access to someone who’s actually killed two Slayers: Spike. The episode then becomes Spike’s origin story, where he recounts how he was turned into a vampire, where his old nickname “William the Bloody” came from, how he killed the two Slayers he faced before Buffy, and, in a moment just for us, why Drusilla really left him. Complicating all of this is that Spike has recently realized that he is hopelessly in love with Buffy, and his feelings are mixing with his pride in being the slayer of Slayers, causing him to, at turns, educate and brag to her.
Big surprise; I picked a Spike episode. Revealing the origins of a character previously shrouded in mystery is a massive risk, and it can easily go wrong in a plethora of ways; see almost any prequel ever made. But Joss Whedon (and Douglas Petrie, who has the writing credit for this one) has mastered the art of the secret origin, and “Fool for Love” is a great example of that. Spike’s story is grand, sad, exciting, and surprising, with Whedon subverting expectations in ways that enhance the character rather than tear him down. When he was a human, William was a shy, nervous, lovesick poet who pined for a woman who’d never want him and was mocked by his peers for his art. (“They call him ‘William the Bloody’ because of his bloody awful poetry!”) But when he meets Drusilla in an alley as he’s weeping over being spurned by the object of his desire, she opens a whole new world for him when she turns him into a vampire. Suddenly, the timid poet is a powerful monster who can make all those who hurt him pay, as a brilliant offhanded line assures us he did. It took being dead to make Spike feel alive, and that’s the lesson he tries to impart to Buffy: somewhere in the back of her mind, in a place she’ll never admit exists if she even knows about it, the Slayer wants to die, to have her struggle end, to rest. Spike sees that because this is how it was for him; he’s always known the Slayer intimately because the death she secretly seeks was his salvation. Only now is it a curse, because being a violent, evil vampire means the woman he loves will never love him back, just like when he was a poet. And then comes that incredible ending, where Spike walks to Buffy’s house with a rifle, determined to kill her and end his heartache no matter how much pain the chip causes him, only to find her crying over some tragic news and putting the gun down to comfort her, still the fool for love and unable to be anything else. Perfection.
“The Gift” (Season 5, Episode 22)
“You’ll fail. You’ll die. We all will.”
And we’re back to the finales. Season 5 has put Buffy through the wringer, causing her to face tragedy in the loss of her mother, giving her new responsibility in protecting her sister (kind of) Dawn, and having to face a full-blown god in Glory, the banished ruler of a hell dimension who wants to use Dawn – who is actually a mystical energy source called the Key – to return home. In doing so, Glory will open the doorways to all the various dimensions and unleash hell on Earth. And now, Glory has all but won, finding and kidnapping Dawn as she prepares to open the gateway to her world, killing Dawn and destroying us in the process. And, to make matters worse, Buffy can’t beat her; even the Slayer isn’t strong enough to fight a god, and the good guys can throw everything they’ve got at Glory, but it will do no good. Following an episode where Buffy’s hopelessness manifests as a form of catatonia (which Mauler recounts brilliantly in this epic video), she and her friends plan one final assault on Glory and her minions, using some magical tricks and a very pissed-off Willow in a desperate attempt to save her sister and the world. At the back of Buffy’s mind is the guidance of the First Slayer from a vision quest several episodes back, who told her, “Death is your gift.”
Remember what I said about the show expertly creating stakes and making the odds against Buffy and her friends look impossible to overcome? “The Gift” may be the strongest example of that. An episode called “Checkpoint” (which is also amazing and will turn up on a later list) ends with Quentin Travers, the head of the Watcher’s Council, telling Buffy, “Glory’s not a demon; she’s a god.” From that point on, the perspective was one of hopelessness, with Buffy struggling against the knowledge that she can’t beat Glory. But Whedon loves to throw us a bone every now and then, and at one point, Glory ponders why she hasn’t simply killed Buffy instead of “lowering [herself] to trading blows with the Slayer,” suggesting it’s the influence of Ben, the human vessel for her unstable godly form, that is holding her back. Then, through gritted teeth, a captured, tear-streaked Dawn says, “Maybe you just can’t take her.” And it’s that slight hope that permeates the episode, that makes us think maybe Buffy can pull this off. Using mystical weapons like the Dagon Sphere (there’s Lovecraft again!) – an orb the monks who once protected the Key used to ward off Glory – and the enchanted hammer of a troll named Olaf, Buffy is finally able to hurt Glory, and in a long fight, pounds the once invulnerable god into submission in a massively satisfying beatdown. Leading up to the final battle is a debate about whether Dawn should be killed to prevent the apocalypse, with Giles insisting they at least consider it. Buffy, of course, won’t allow it; despite her artificiality, Buffy feels connected to Dawn, sees her as a sister because Dawn was created from her blood, and she will give anything to save her. (In a sensational payoff, after a season of telling him he’s incapable of love, Buffy trusts Spike above all others to keep Dawn safe for her because she now knows he really does love her.) Death envelopes this episode, and it surfaces in surprising ways, as Giles does sacrifice an innocent life, but not the one he intended, and Buffy discovers that death truly is her gift, but not in dealing it out to others. “The Gift” is almost guaranteed to make every “Best Buffy Episodes” list, and while I did buck tradition with mine, no way am I denying this one its due.
Honorable Mention: “Something Blue” (Season 4, Episode 9)
“How? What? How?”
“Three excellent questions.”
It was down to the wire between this one and its immediate predecessor, “Pangs,” for my top five. I went with “Pangs” because it works on so many different levels, but “Something Blue” is a classic as well. Oz has left Sunnydale – and, consequently, Willow – to find a way to control being a werewolf (because Oz is a werewolf; this show is awesome), and Willow is depressed. She starts acting out, drinking too much, neglecting her responsibilities and commitments, and snapping at her friends when they try to help. Finally, she attempts a magic spell that will make anything she says come true. When it’s done, she immediately tries to get Oz to come back, but it doesn’t work. Willow assumes the spell was a bust because she’s still a novice witch, but she actually was successful. The spell only works when Willow isn’t trying to enact it, meaning her offhanded comments are what come true. She wishes random things into being, with hilarious results. When Giles tries to help her, she tells him he can’t see anything, which makes him go blind. When Buffy sets out to find an escaped Spike, Willow says she’ll probably find him in two seconds, and both instantly appear in front of each other. And, most amusingly, she says of Buffy and Spike, “Why doesn’t she just marry him?” which leads to them getting engaged. This is all very funny (there’s a terrific sight gag with Amy, a witch who turned herself into a rat that Willow has been trying to return to human form), but then it gets dangerous. When mocking Xander about his relationship with ex-demon Anya, she says he’s a demon magnet, and suddenly, every monster in Sunnydale is hunting him.
“Something Blue” is one of the funniest episodes in the show’s run, with the accidental effects of Willow’s spell getting zanier and more absurd as it goes along. The centerpiece is Buffy and Spike’s engagement, which, of course, happens while they’re threatening to kill each other for the millionth time. (“I get this spell reversed, they’ll be finding your body for weeks.”) Everyone’s reactions are the same as ours; at this point in the show, a romantic pairing between these two was a ridiculous notion. What’s fun is watching them do coupley things, like when they’re investigating the spell and Xander complains about Buffy insisting Spike come along, and she says, “Spike is gonna be my husband; I want him included.” But it also leads to a lovely moment between Buffy and Giles where she asks him to walk her down the aisle. “Something Blue” also acts as the precursor to two major plot points in subsequent seasons: Buffy and Spike’s love story and Willow’s abuse of magic. Late in the episode, D’Hoffryn, the master and creator of the vengeance demons, attempts to recruit Willow, making her realize how selfish and dangerous her spell was; that she almost got one of her best friends killed helped, too. “Something Blue” is a great episode to throw on if you want some laughs.
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Feel free to share your favorite episodes in the comments, and stay tuned for more Best of Buffy lists as the week continues.
