Top 5 Episodes of Buffy Season 4

The return of the Internet also brings about the return of Anya to not-so-sunny Sunnydale and her hopefully unwavering commitment to watch the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She finally finished the latter half of the topsy-turvy Season Four, and can now present our favorite episodes of from this bizarre BtVS season. Per usual, spoilers for this and any previous season throughout.

Season Four is a strange one. It carries a few truly spectacular individual episodes. “Hush” is generally considered one of the greatest episodes of the entire series and you’d be hard pressed to find a “Top X” list of Buffy episodes that did not include it in the top 3 slots. However, Season Four also features one of the weakest seasonal arcs. As such, none of our favorite episodes really touch on it, so we’ll try to flesh out our overall impressions here.

The show echoed its struggling characters, attempting to find a place in the world post-high school and post-Angel. The secret government agency schtick is chock full of issues and the audience isn’t introduced to the Big Bad until halfway through the season (who’s just a vanilla version of Frankenstein’s monster). The loss of previous regular cast members brings us full-time Spike and Anya, and introduces Riley (who Paul hates and Anya loves, mostly to spite Paul) and Tara (who Paul loves and Anya doesn’t, mostly to spite Paul), creating a very different group dynamic. To various degrees of success, the season looks at the ways that our relationships change as our roles change. Friendships that might have come naturally before due to shared location and activities require efforts that we’re not always prepared to put in.

Without further ado, our list:

5. “Pangs”

"Well, maybe we started a new tradition this year... Maybe not. But at least we all worked together. It was like old times."

"Yeah, especially with Angel being here and everything."

This episode made our list for many reasons, most of which are just personal hangups, so bear with us. First of all, the Buffy in the kitchen trying to recreate “real” Thanksgiving bit is both hilarious and painful to watch. Girl, you are not a homemaker. While she has a lot of moments where she strives to be more “normal” or wishes for an unexceptional lifestyle, it’s more in theory than in practice. We see her struggle with her identity frequently in the series, but this is that struggle at its most lighthearted.

Willow’s campaign against revisionist history cracks us up, especially when it sort of falls apart as the house comes under attack. Like many people who mean well, she is forced to confront the fact that her own ideas pretty fucking revisionist too, just not in the same direction as her high school textbook.

And of course, the perfect perfect perfect ending pictured above.

4. “Something Blue”

“Oh, Spike! Of course it’s a yes!”

Having seen a spoiler on the Buffy reddit a couple of months ago, Anya had been badgering Paul about a Buffy/Spike coupling for quite some time. Little did she know that this episode would surpass her wildest expectations of the relationship, and all because Willow was being a grumpus. Buffy and Spike’s impending nuptials are the light and fluffy frosting on a pretty ugly and fucked up cake made of all of the other issues.

We always like it when Joss can poke fun at his own plot points (see the Buffy/Angel conversation interrupted by Xander in "The Zeppo"), and the over the top nature of Buffy and Spike’s affection taking place right in Giles’ living room is great because it doesn’t look so terribly different from the turn her relationship with Riley takes shortly thereafter. Besides, we just can’t get enough of saying “Spoooike” in Dru’s voice, and any excuse for that is golden with us.

This episode also features a three-second cameo from Amy, who is turned into a woman and then poofed back into a rat again, something that Paul always points to as evidence for Buffy being a truly great television show.

3. “Who Are You”

“'Cause I could do anything I want and instead I just pout and whine and feel the burden of slayerness? I mean, I could be rich, I could be famous, I could have anything. Anyone. Even you, Spike. I could ride you at a gallop till your legs buckled and your eyes rolled up, I've got muscles you've never even dreamed of, I could squeeze you till you popped like warm champagne and you'd beg me to hurt you just a little bit more and you know why I don't?”

As someone who was completely sick of Faith’s poor little unloved slut waif arc, Anya was not that excited to see this episode. Yes, we get it, Faith is what Buffy COULD HAVE BEEN. A Slayer gone awry is so very tragic, etc. She left off on "This Year’s Girl" before the big move, and kept saying “oh yeah…” when Paul excitedly reminded her of what was to come. All of that aside, when she did finally watch the episode, she came around a little bit. Watching Faith in Buffy’s body (or rather, SMG impersonating Eliza’s “Harlot”-type) was, admittedly, mostly funny. Faith-as-Buffy gets some great lines, like every moment of the above speech to Spike or “Well, we certainly don't want to cut into THAT seven minutes,” but it’s the combination of her clothing, body language, and line delivery that really make the episode.

Watching Faith try on Buffy’s life for size, at first acting above it all, and as she tried to mimic Buffs more convincingly, falling into that role to the point that she goes back to the church and then beats the ever-loving shit out of her own body while shouting, “You’re nothing! You’re disgusting!”? Mostly sad.

2. “Hush”

“Well, I guess we have to talk.”
“I guess we do.”

Here’s the thing, Internet (and also Paul): you really built this episode up to the point that Anya couldn’t even sort out how she would have felt about it in a vacuum because everyone was all over its dick! So she’ll let Paul take over to explain what you all already know, this is a great episode (maybe the greatest!?) and it has such a message to it.

This episode gives us a lot of great material to discuss. This is the first episode to feature Tara. We meet her at her meekest, but we can still see the hints of what she’ll become, a grounding member of the Scooby Gang, who serves as a catalyst for a number of important changes in Willow. This is the only episode to ever showcase The Gentlemen (who unfortunately go out with a bang), some of the creepiest villains to ever be on the show. The gaunt and sallow skin? The sunken-in bloodshot eyes? The permanent hungry wolf smiles? The monkey-like cronies in straight jackets? The polite golf clapping and “Oh stop!” miming while commemorating their heartnapping? Come on!

The best part of the episode is, of course, what happens when The Gentlemen come to town. They steal all the Sunnydale residents’ voices, meaning that the majority of the episode has no spoken dialogue. We then get a poignant look at the necessity and limitations of language, the words that we attempt to use to convey our wants, needs, feelings, and intentions. As much as we rely upon them, sometimes words get in the way, either because of our inability to select the correct ones or because some things can only be said with our bodies. The end of the episode where Buffy and Riley, with returned voices, sit in silence? Genius.

1. “Restless”

“I was on time, so I got to be cowboy guy.”

If we hadn’t already told you that Paul hates Riley, you would have guessed based on the fact that of ALL the pictures he could have chosen from this insane episode, he chose the one of Riley in a fucking cowboy hat (To be fair, this episode makes the ONLY occasion Paul ever finds Riley likeable, where Willow dreams up this hilariously simplistic Riley, poking fun at both the character and the actor’s oafish “acting”). Feelings on Riley aside, this is an incredible episode, and Paul’s second favorite of the entire series.

The original core members of the show get together for a restful night of movie watching after a long day of stopping supreme evil. They all fall asleep and, as an effect from the spell they cast to defeat Adam, are visited by the spirit of the First Slayer as they are each forced to confront their individual fears. The dreams that Willow, Xander, Giles, and Buffy have are simultaneously frightening, surreal, depressing, humorous, prophetic, and nonsensical. The episode is so multifaceted and loaded with symbolism that it’s impossible to completely analyze here. So, as we are wont to do when encountered with things of this nature, we’re just going to make a list of some of our favorite “Restless” moments:

-BUFFY: Oh my god, the place is packed. Everybody's here. Your whole family is in the front row, and they look really angry!
-Sexy Joyce coming on to Xander and Forgotten Joyce living in the walls with mice.
-ANYA: I think I've figured out how to steer by gesturing emphatically.
-Black and White Spike posing for tourists
-GILES: Come on, put your back into it! A watcher scoffs at gravity.
-ANYA (to Xander): Do you know where you're going?
-SNYDER (to Xander): Where are you heading?
-The Cheese Man.
-TARA: We just think you’re really interesting.
-ANYA: Quiet! You’ll miss the humorous conclusion.
-Surgeon General Riley and Human Adam making a pillow fort to hide from demons.
-Giles figuring out what’s going on in song.
-BUFFY: What are you still doing in costume… Willow, everybody already knows. Take it off.
-GILES: Buffy, you have a sacred birthright to protect mankind. Don't stick out your elbow.

Top 5 Episodes of Buffy Season 3

Anya has powered through another season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so here we are to once again rank our favorite episodes. It’s impossible to read any list of “best” Buffy episodes without thinking, “I can’t believe s/he included/left out [Episode]!” Hopefully you can find some of your favorite moments below, and that we can at least all be in agreement that Buffy is an all-around great show.

Season Three is an all-around great season. Unlike the rough and intense ride of the darker and more emotionally taxing Season Two, this season is much steadier trip, slowly building up to its cathartic ending. This season will probably be the only time where our list of favorites actually follows the sequential order in which they aired. This season may not reach the intensity of Season Two, but in terms of overall watchability, this season has fewer episodes that you might be tempted to skip on a rewatch (perhaps the fewest out of all the seasons). As usual, spoilers throughout for the entire show through this season.

5. “Band Candy”

“Whoa, Summers, you drive like a spaz!”

We begin with “Band Candy.” Buffy, resenting her mother and Giles for denying her the freedom and privileges of adulthood, spends a day in their shoes, when all the adults in Sunnydale are turned into obnoxious teenagers from eating Ethan Rayne’s tainted candy bars. We finally get a taste of the days Giles spent as “Ripper” and we also get a hint that Joyce liked to have a lot of fun in her youth. We love Willow seeing her shirtless, stage-diving doctor at the Bronze and we love the eventual payoff to Giles and Joyce’s cop car sex with Buffy’s temporarily telepathy in “Earshot.”

This episode is the only time on the series that Principal Snyder is ever likeable, and even then, it’s only from the knowledge that was such a clueless boob in high school. Pretty much everything that he says is gold, but highlights include:
“Oh! There’s some foxy ladies here tonight!”
(to Oz) “You’ve got great hair.”
“Let’s go do doughnuts on the football field.”
and
“I can do that too, I took Taekwondo at the Y!”

4. “Lovers Walk”

“You’re a very bad man.”

After being spurned by Drusilla, Spike returns to Sunnydale to give the pot a rather generous stirring. The drunk and depressed Spike enlists (read: extorts) the help of Willow to win Drusilla back with a love spell, kidnapping her and Xander and storing them in his old factory lair (“He’s probably just got ‘em locked up in the factory.” “...How thick do you think I am?”). During his time in Sunnydale, he has a wonderful reunion with Joyce (“Well, Spike, sometimes, even when two people seem right for each other, their lives just take different paths. When Buffy’s father and I started having trouble-” “But this is different, our love was eternal, literally! You got any of those little marshmallows?” “Let me look.”) and calls out Buffy and Angel on their bullshit “friendship.”

Willow and Xander allow their sexual tension to culminate at the worst possible time, celebrating life (and its probable end) with a heated kiss, just as Oz and Cordelia come to the rescue. After a stairway collapses, Cordelia is impaled and the scene fades to funeral, causing the audience to spend a (retrospectively) humorous 30 seconds thinking she’s dead, before the camera pans to Buffy and Willow walking outside of the cemetery talking about how she’s okay. Classic.

3. “The Zeppo”

“Did I mention that I’m having a very strange night?”

This is one of Paul’s all-time favorite episodes. Ordinary Xander Harris finally gets to shine on the center stage, experiencing a wild night of raising the dead, losing his virginity, and saving the school, only his friends are too busy preventing another apocalypse to notice. The usual meat of the show (Buffy’s relationship drama, Big Bad/Monster of the Week) is pushed to the side of the plate, allowing Xander’s plotline to be main focus of the episode. The audience thus only gets to see snippets of the action happening with the show’s de facto major players. We hilariously barely get to see the Hellmouth monster (“My god, it’s grown.”), and we never get to see any part of Angel’s brush with death or what Giles did that Buffy called “the bravest thing” she had even seen.

The show makes fun of its, at times, over-the-top action and drama, also featuring a delicious scene where Xander interrupts a soap-level of camp exchange between Buffy and Angel. Xander is forced to get through the night with his own special set of skills, receiving no aid from his supernatural friends. This gives him a boost in confidence and maturity, allowing him to end the petty war waging between Cordelia and himself.

2. “Prom”

“We’re not good friends. Most of us never found the time to get to know you. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t noticed you.”

“Prom” is a no brainer for this list, and the only episode so far that has really eked tears of our Anya. Although she flatly refuses to buy this whole Angel comes all the way back from the dead but still has the same deal going with his soul curse and they can never be together thing, we see the breakup coming from a mile away. Once the Mayor got in Angel’s head it was so. over. We have all that that high school moment where Buffy lays her sad little Slayer head on Willow’s lap and says “I feel like I’m dying”. (Fun Wikipedia fact: Sarah Michelle actually did cry for like half an hour after their onscreen breakup, and they had to close the set for her to recover.)

Paul warns Anya that the end of Prom is the happiest moment that will ever happen on Buffy: the Class Protector Award, and Angel coming through in the end for a last dance. We know Buffy’s sacrifices and hard work are rarely recognized, and that shiny little umbrella really hit Anya where it hurts. That and Angel in his goddamn tux prompting a “I knew he’d come through for me! Uh, her. Yeah, come through for her” text. The whole episode is an emotional rollercoaster, even engendering sympathy for Cordelia when her poverty (and sad, sad “relationship” with Wesley) is revealed.

1. “Graduation Day”

“Guys, take a moment to deal with this: We survived.”
“It was a hell of a battle.”
“Not that battle, high school.”

Graduation: a perfect finale for Buffy’s time in high school, and some of the most tense moments of the season, especially for a first time viewer. The Mayor is Paul’s favorite Buffy villain EVER, and we both enjoy his chipper attitude and sunny tone mixed with his completely fucked everything else. His affection for Faith highlighted how pathetic and love starved they both were, and they fact that Buffy lured him with her knife, of all things, was the final cherry on that twisted sundae.

Paul is a big fan of “Poor old Faith”, which Anya can’t get behind. Despite her hatred of Buffy’s foil, she did enjoy watching her arc play out on screen. Is this what Buffy could have been without her support system? It’s a tragic arc, from start to finish. The stabbing, the spiteful jump to avoid helping Angel, the final visit to Buffy to help her win in the end...it’s all Faith through and through.

Speaking of arcs, we can see that this episode/finale is the end of an era. High school is over, and some of our characters are heading their separate ways. Anya was forced to admit that Angel won’t be back for real this time, Cordelia is off to be vapid elsewhere, and Xander isn’t quite making it to actual college for the time being. We liked that this really felt like an ending, though only a couple episodes into season four, Buffy herself says “it’s basically just like high school.” Too true, Buffs.

Top 5 Episodes of Buffy Season 2

Followers of our blog may have noticed a recent increase in Buffy the Vampire Slayer related pictures and tweets. This is due to Paul finally succeeding in getting Anya to watch the spectacular (I will defend it to my grave) series. Although it may have started in large part due to Anya having to spend an hour a day in an internet free house, and Paul owning Buffy DVDs (we grew up without Netflix), she is now totally on board with the dark, witty, cheesy, and heartbreaking show, and Paul couldn’t be happier.

As Anya finishes a season, we’ll do a rundown of our favorite episodes. Season One only has 12 episodes, and while it sets up the show and has its moments of brilliance, the show did not really hit its stride until Season Two. So we’re just going to skip the first season (not sure we have enough favorite episodes to warrant an entry) and start with the emotionally-charged Season Two. Please be aware that all of these articles will feature spoilers for their, and any previous, season.

5. “Lie to Me”

“It’s just, like, the more I know, the more confused I get.”

We begin our list with “Lie to Me.” This episode is a favorite of Paul’s, mostly for its final scene. After an episode of being confronted with uncomfortable truths, Buffy asks Giles if “life ever gets easy,” and, knowing the answer, requests that he lie to her and gives her the answer that she wishes were true. Giles tells her that life is “terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.” His speech is sweet, yet incredibly tragic, especially considering upcoming events with Angel and Jenny Calendar.

Great comedic moments include Angel wearing the same clothes as a wannabe vamp, the eyeliner (oh god the EYELINER), everything about “Chanterelle” (the name, the clothes, the eternally clueless demeanor), and Drusilla talking to her dead bird (“You sing the sweetest little song. Won't you sing for me, hm? Don't you love me anymore?”).

4. “School Hard”

“Do you like daisies? I plant them, but they always die. Everything I put in the ground withers and dies.”

This episode is important for its introduction of bad British vamps, Spike and Drusilla. Drusilla is a truly magnificent secondary character. She manages to be ethereal, kooky, and terrifying all at the same time. You really never know what batshit crazy thing she’s going to do or say next, and we love it. Famed slayer of Slayers, Spike, rolls into town to up his kill count to three, and picks Parent Teacher Night, of which Buffy is in charge, to make his first big attack. We learn that subpar student Buffy is also incapable of making lemonade and that Principle Snyder and the police are somewhat aware of the supernatural goings-on and their go-to public explanation of PCP gangs.

Angel pretending to be evil with faux-hostage Xander is great, as is Spike seeing through the charade and angrily bewailing that Angel was his Yoda. If there’s anyone we quote more than Spike and Dru these days, it’s Ewan McGregor’s spectacularly pathetic “You were my brother, Anakin!” and the end of Episode III. Melding these two pop culture phenomena keeps us going through the endless days.

3. “Becoming (Part 2)”

“Close your eyes.”

This is one hell of a season closer. Willow successfully casts a spell to return to Angel his soul, but it is too late and, after a tearful reunion, Buffy is forced (still not buying the necessity of this part) to stab Angel, sending him to Hell. It’s all too much for Buffy, who then leaves town, giving us a rough end to a rough season. With Giles getting tortured, Buffy’s expulsion, Drusilla siding with Angel over Spike, and Xander lying to Buffy about Willow’s spell, there are not a whole lot of bright moments to this episode.

We thankfully briefly get the dynamic duo of Buffy and Spike. This gives us the incredible formal introduction of Spike and Joyce (“Um.. you hit me an axe one time, remember? Uh, ‘Get the Hell away from daughter!’” “Oh...So do you live here in town?”) which is perfection, even if it unfortunately dissolves into the brutal exchange between Joyce and Buffy on acceptance (“I mean, have you tried not being a Slayer?”).

2. “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”

“I think it’s more of a hot night, don’t you?”

We decided that we needed a safe and silly episode to sit between our third and first selections, and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” certainly serves that purpose. Though it doesn’t actually come in at second place for either of us, we couldn’t stand putting all of that sad in a row. After being scorned by Cordelia, Xander enlists the help of witchy Amy to cast a love spell on Cordy (so that he can dump and embarrass her), which goes awry and causes all of the women in Sunnydale to become violently obsessed with him. Poor Cordelia’s love(ish) for Xander can’t overcome her desire to be popular, but her getting the locket “out of her locker” pulls at the heartstrings of an especially sensitive viewer (read: not us). And how many times are those two idiots going to seek shelter in the Summers’ not-so-secure basement (Joyce must have some kind of ridiculous home insurance/If you’re okay with the constant threat of death, Sunnydale is the place for contractors and construction workers)?

By far the highlight of this episode for Anya was a creature we affectionately refer to as Buffy-Rat, and nervous little rodent intent on escaping the confines of the library and hunting down some delicious cheddar, but only in a place that is large enough for her to transform herself...in the buff. GET IT? Watching Buffy-Rat scuttle around was a close second to watching Willow try to murder Xander with an axe, uttering sentiments that are probably dangerously close to her true feelings sometimes.

1. “Innocence”

“I’ll just let it burn.”

This episode is the epitome of what Buffy accomplishes at its best: showcasing the heights and depths of the human condition through the Fantasy lens of monsters and magic in a moving way. The show attempts to do this with varying levels of success (Everybody ignored her so much that she became invisible! Be careful what you wish for!), but this is one of the times ol’ Joss got it very right. Anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone who turned out to not be the person you thought they were (which has happened to anyone who has ever fallen in love), can relate to plucky protagonist Buffy Summers, as she slowly (SO VERY SLOWLY!) realizes that the man she loves, Angel, has turned into a monster. Spike may criticize the evil Angelus for being too soft, but his torturous treatment of Buffy throughout this episode is pure cruelty and malice.

The scene in Angel’s apartment where he ridicules her performance in bed, calls her a needy child, and then brushes off her confession of love? UGH. This episode is light on the comic relief, highlights being Xander telling the soldier that he only needs five minutes in a closet with Cordelia and Drusilla’s eternal oddities (this episode features her stargazing through the ceiling and naming them all the same thing). “Innocence” also gives us the iconic Buffy-using-a-rocket-launcher scene and the wonderful speech from Giles, where he tells Buffy that she will only ever find support and respect from him. When Joyce asks Buffy what she did on her birthday and she replies with, “I got older,” you believe it.

Honorable Mention:
“Passion”
In a heavy season of dark and twisty plots and nothing great happening for anyone, Angel’s stalking and murder of Jenny Calendar (or Gyp-say Jen-nay as the more pro-Angel among us call her) really put the sad icing on the miserable cake of this season. This is an extremely important game changing episode, featuring the first death of a major character on the show, but it does not resonate with us as much as the above sad sack selections. We knew when the disc fell that her soul restoring work would live on, but watching Giles smell that rose before ascending the stairs with a smile on his face was a heart wrenching build-up to the scene that made us realize that things with Angel really never could be the same. Ouch.