The Best of Buffy, Part Two

Chris Fluit is on vacation this month so this column s taking a break from the normal routine as well. Instead of writing columns about comics, I'm turning my attention to the world of television- specifically "Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. In The Best of Buffy, Part One, I looked at the best episodes from seasons one through four picking the classics plus a few personal favorites. Now it's time for Part Two, looking at seasons five through seven.

Season Five

The Replacement:When Xander blocks a Toth demon's magical blast from hitting Buffy, he wakes up the next day to find a doppelganger has taken over her life. Willow had her doppleganger episode back in season three's Doppelgangland. Now, it's Xander's turn. But instead of good Xander/bad Xander, the twist is that we get clumsy Xander and competent Xander. Xander has always been one of my favorite characters guess I just relate to him as the geeky guy in high school so I really liked seeing him take more control of his life and realize that he can be calm, cool and collected. But that didn't mean he couldn't still be fun. I went through a similar revelation, so again, I related quite a bit with this episode. Plus, it was just dang funny.

Fool For Love: After being impaled by a vampire, Buffy turns to Spike, who claims to have killed two Slayers, in an attempt to learn how other Slayers met their end. I always like the flashback episodes. It's just a lot of fun to see Angel as an Irish teenager, or Spike and Drusilla wreaking havoc in an earlier era. This is one of the best flashback episodes. It does a great job of building Spike's character, showing how he fell in love with Drusilla, how he killed two slayers, and introducing us to the real William the Bloody. And, like the best of the flashback episodes, it has relevance to what's going on right now. Buffy faces her fears about dying young as most slayers do, while Spike is able to get closer to Buffy. 

Into The Woods: Certain that Buffy doesn't love him the same way he loves her, Riley finally decides to confront her and offer her one last opportunity to give their relationship a chance. Buffy does great humor. Buffy does great horror. And Buffy does great heartache. This is definitely one of the latter. I know that other fans never got over Buffy and Angel, but I found Riley's departure to be much more heart-wrenching than Angel's. It was so tragic. Buffy realized that she did love Riley but her realization came too late for her to tell him. Also, I liked Xander as the voice of wisdom in this episode. Some fans dismiss him because he doesn't have super-strength like Buffy or witchy powers like Willow but Xander adds a lot to the others and this is a great example of that. 

 

The Body: Buffy, Dawn and their friends find themselves dealing with the painful events surrounding Joyce's sudden and unexpected death. This was a hard episode to watch but in this case, hard doesn't mean bad. So often, Buffy uses horror stories as metaphors for real life problems. Not this time. In this case, Buffy strips away the horror elements and deals with a real life problem head on. The series had actually been doing this all season with Joyce's illness and that finally comes to fulfillment in this issue. Joyce Summers is dead, but not by magic or some monster. She's simply dead. And now Buffy and Dawn have to pick up the pieces. It's every bit as heart-breaking as Into the Woods but for entirely different reasons. 

 

Spiral: Glory finally realizes that Dawn is the Key, and Buffy surprises her friends by telling them their best option for staying alive is to leave Sunnydale. It was pretty hard to pick best episodes for this season. There were just too many good episodes, and if I picked them all, I would have ended up with more than half the season. I had to skip the scary Listening to Her with the ceiling-crawling Queller demons, the funny Triangle with the troll that used to be Anya's lover, the powerful Crush with Spike and the three women in his life, and I Was Made to Love You which was a great one-shot story with Warren and his cybernetic girlfriend. But I just couldn't pick them all, especially not if I wanted to have room for the final stories. Spiral isn't quite the end, but it's definitely the beginning of the end. I picked a lot of funny episodes, and heart-wrenching episodes. The Spiral is one of the best action episodes. This is the episode in which Buffy and the Scoobies flee Sunnydale in a Winnebago before holing up in an abandoned gas station. The chase scene is amazing with knights on horses stabbing swords into a mobile home. Plus, it has a great doomed feel to it. 

 

The Gift: Refusing to believe that killing Dawn is the only way to save the universe, Buffy prepares to do battle against Glory and finally realizes the true meaning of her gift. Buffy has a tradition of great finishes. Most of them are of the good triumphing over evil variety. But a few of them are more tragic. Becoming would be one of those, with the death of Angel. The Gift is another one. It's a great episode with action, fighting and violence. I especially enjoyed Spike's role in the battle. But the real memorable moment is Buffy sacrificing herself for Dawn.  

Season Six

 

Life Serial: It's a case of bad timing as Buffy goes out searching for a job just as Andrew, Jonathan and Warren decide to test her in search of a weakness they can exploit. I know that a lot of other Buffy fans think that the series took a down-turn with seasons six and seven. I don't agree with them. Partly, it's because I remember some of the bad episodes of earlier seasons. And partly, it's because I found so much to like in these later seasons. For one thing, I loved having the Geek Trio as villains. The best Buffy villains bring menace and a certain kind of whimsy. The Geek Trio definitely qualifies on the latter, and even on the former.

 

Once More With Feeling: A demon named Sweet descends upon Sunnydale in search of Dawn, his arrival causing everyone to burst into song and dance and eventually into flame Here's another great reason to love season six. Once More with Feeling is one of the best Buffy episodes ever. It has the entire range of emotions, some great humor and a real threat. And it has songs! Great, singable songs! Plus, unlike most musicals, the songs actually move either the plot or the characters forward. One song introduces the beginnings of a rift between Xander and Anya. Another Giles' decision to leave. And a third allows Buffy to reveal to her friends that they had rescued her from heaven. And another thing: this episode sets up the relationships for the rest of the season. I can't hate the rest of the season without hating the episode that got everything going and this is episode is way too good to hate. 

 

Tabula Rasa:Confident that he has taught Buffy everything she needs to know, Giles prepares to go back to England just as Willow casts a spell which causes everyone to forget who they are. As I said before, I love these out of character episodes. It's just so much fun to put people in different situations and see how they react. The mistaken identities and conclusions are hilarious: Giles and Anya thinking they're a couple, Spike thinking that Giles is his father, and so on. This is another season six episode that measures up with the best of Buffy.

 

Older and Faraway: The guests at Buffy's birthday party are surprised when they realize they've been at the party for almost a whole day and even more surprised when they realize they can't leave. This is another great magic episode. Usually, the Scoobies are trying to keep evil things out of the house, such as an earlier party that was attacked by zombies. But this time, they can't get out thanks to Dawn's wish that nobody would leave. I like the interplay of relationships in this episode, and the inclusion of minor characters such as Clem. I doubt that this episode makes too many lists of classic episodes, but it's one of my favorites. 

 

Hell's Bells: All hell breaks loose at Xander and Anya's wedding after a man claiming to be from the future convinces Xander that Anya's future life will be far better without him. I picked a lot of episodes because they're enjoyable, because I liked them. Older and Faraway would be a good example of that. However, I also included some episodes that aren't exactly fun. Instead, they're well done, they're real, they're true to life. Hell's Bells was occasionally funny, but it was also hard to watch. I certainly didn't want to see Xander break up with Anya. Yet it felt very real. I've previously mentioned how much I identify with Xander. This was another episode in which I really identified with him, and empathized with his situation. This is pretty personal but I know what it's like to not trust yourself in a relationship because your parents are divorced. I've seen a lot of happy couples in fiction, but I've never seen this particular emotion portrayed before, let alone portrayed as well as it was in this episode. Having gone through something similar, my heart went out to Xander and to Anya. It wasn't what I would have wanted to happen. But what happened was very real and very well done. 

 

Normal Again: A demon which Jonathan, Andrew and Warren unleash on Buffy causes her to drift between her friends in the real world and an alternate reality where her mother is still alive. This is another episode that was neither funny nor fun. But just as my heart went out to Xander in Hell's Bells, I couldn't help but feel bad for Buffy in Normal Again. She's lost so much in order to be the Slayer and this episode really brings that home. I have to admire an episode, a season and a series that does such a good job of bringing out so many emotions, including difficult emotions such as Buffy's longing for a different life and Dawn's feeling of betrayal that Buffy doesn't want to be there.

Grave: Giles returns from England in an attempt to stop Willow, but in the end it is her oldest friend who reaches through her pain and stops her from destroying the world. This is another great climactic episode. There are just so many memorable scenes. There's the return of Giles. There's the destruction of The Magic Box. There's Buffy and Dawn trapped in a grave underground. And there's Xander's conversation with Willow: I love you. I love yellow crayon Willow and dark, veiny Willow. Plus, Xander, who's been feeling fairly useless is the one to save the day. Meanwhile, there's the great sub-plot as Spike fights for a soul.

Season Seven 

Lessons: As Giles works with Willow in England, Buffy accompanies Dawn to her first day at the new Sunnydale High and receives two surprises: a job offer and Spike. I'm surprised that I didn't pick more first episodes. I guess that most of them set things up that paid off later in the season and I picked the payoff rather than the set-up. But in this case, I really enjoyed the set-up. It was nice and refreshing to go back to Sunnydale High. But we didn't simply go back in time. Dawn is the one going to school. Buffy is the one who has grown up into adulthood. We get a bit of early season nostalgia, but without sacrifice all of the developments that have happened since then. I also liked the introduction of Principal Wood as I've liked D.B. Woodside in other roles and the return of Spike having been driven mad by his new soul. 

 

Help: Buffy's first day as a guidance counselor at Sunnydale High proves a bit more difficult than she expected after she meets a young girl who's convinced she's about to die. Season seven is more than just a return to Sunnydale High. It's also a return to some of the earlier themes. We get another horror story as metaphor for the real world with Buffy thinking a girl is going to commit suicide. And we get the struggle with fate and whether or not the future is written, something Buffy has dealt with again and again as she tried to avoid or to fulfill one prophecy after another. This is a great, though tragic, episode. 

 

Conversations with Dead People: As Andrew and Jonathan return to save Sunnydale from evil, Dawn is confronted by an image of her dead mother and Tara's ghost delivers a warning to Willow. This is one of my favorite episodes, though I guess I could say that a lot. First, I love the title. Second, I loved the various conversations with dead people and the impact that they had on the living from scaring Dawn, to antagonizing Willow, to helping Buffy come to grips with her situation. Also, I liked the return of Andrew and Jonathan, though I don't always remember that it happens in the same episode. But that's just another reason to like it. Three great conversations with dead people, plus the interplay between the Geek Duo, and then finally the tragic end of Jonathan: yup, there are a lot of reasons to like this episode. 

 

Potential: Dawn's belief that she's not an important part of the upcoming fight changes after one of Willow's spells makes her think that she's a Potential Slayer. I'm somewhat surprised myself at the number of Dawn-centric episodes that made my list: Older and Faraway in season six and now Potential in season seven. But they're both very good episodes. This one has the good twist in that its Dawn's friend and classmate that is the real Potential and not Dawn. It also has some great moments as Dawn continues to fight, showing her cleverness if not her Slayer-like strength. However, the best part of this episode is the ending as Dawn comes to terms with her lack of powers and as Xander tells her how special she really is. 

Storyteller: Andrew's videotape recording of the exploits of Buffy and the Potential Slayers suddenly hits a little too close to home after a link between him and the Seal of Danthalzar is discovered. As Xander takes over the Giles' role of mentor, Andrew steps nicely into the Xander role of geeky boy comic relief. I have to admit that Andrew cracks me up. And I really like this episode. I like how we're given a different perspective through Andrew's eyes. And I like how Andrew is given greater depth of character while also being forced to grow up a little. 

Lies My Parents Told Me: While Buffy attempts to figure out the secret behind The First's control over Spike, Principal Wood asks Giles to help him destroy Spike for good. It's been awhile since Buffy had a fight scene with this kind of emotion behind it, but Wood's battle with Spike in a room full of crosses goes down as a classic. Plus, we get more flashbacks into Spike's life, making us sympathetic to Spike and to Wood. We actually feel for both characters, making the fight that much more interesting. 

Chosen: In a desperate gamble, Buffy and the Potential Slayers decide that instead of waiting to be attacked they will open the Seal of Danthalzar and take the battle directly to The First. After this episode, I didn't need a season eight (though I'll happily read the season eight comic book anyway). Chosen did such a great job of wrapping up the entire series. There were the good, little moments such as Buffy, Giles, Xander and Willow standing together for one last time. There were the great, big moments such as all of the Slayers fighting the hordes of the Hellmouth. There were positive developments such as Willow becoming a white witch of goodness and tragic developments such as the death of Anya. It just felt like the end. And it felt good. I can't imagine a better finale.

That's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Come on back for Angel.

Join the Discussion either in Fluit Notes: The Best of Buffy and Angel discussion thread or read what other Superflous Heros have to say about the Whole Whedonverse at That Whedonverse Thread in the Captain Comics Message Board !

All synopsis quotations are taken from the liner notes on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Season One through Four DVDs.

All Images are thanks to the hard work of folks over at www.screencap-paradise.com

(Originally Published at CaptainComics.us on April 20, 2007, The Best of Buffy, Part Two)