Top Twenties: My Favorite Buffys
Since we're cursed to live in interesting times, we can all use a little comfort, so here are twenty Buffy episodes to make you scream, laugh, and sometimes cry
The funny thing about me and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show I love deeply, is that the first episode I saw was the season premiere of Season 6.
I was not an early adopter.
I’d been a fan of the movie (I’ll always have a soft spot for vampire Pee Wee Herman) but the TV show on debut looked cheap and targeted toward much younger viewers. Later during the show’s fourth season when Willow began her journey to lesbian identity, the show suddenly appeared all over gay media with the usual “You have to watch this if you’re gay!” message that makes me stubbornly refuse to watch.
I hate being told what to do.
Then Buffy left the WB for UPN, home of Star Trek Voyager, so I finally checked it out. Since then I’ve acquired every season’s DVD box set, seen each season entirely six or more times, conducted a beginning-to-end rewatch with my then-tween nephew, and just generally been obsessed with the show’s seven-season metaphorical journey from high school to adulthood. Whether I’m bingeing seasons like I did last year or simply settling in for a favorite episode or two when I need comfort viewing, the show is a bedrock of my genre fandom, right alongside Star Trek, The X-Files, and most of the Marvel universe.
I recently discovered a new friend of mine shares in my Buffy passion and, after chatting a bit about which seasons and episodes were our favorites, I started a list. After no small amount of time shuffling them around (and more re-watching), I ended up with this, my top twenty favorite episodes of Buffy.
As a bit of a nerd, I have to note that this is not the same as ranking seasons. You’ll notice the near absence of seasons one, six, and seven, as well as a glut of season three. Frankly, season three is nearly wall-to-wall bangers. While season six and seven don’t have the same banger-to-bust ratio, they do have some of the best overarching theme work that the series ever did.
But that’s a different list. For now, here are the eps. Feel free to tell me where you agree or disagree — it’s Buffy, so it’s hard to be wrong. Except maybe for “Beer Bad,” I think we all agree that one was a stinker.
Obviously, spoilers follow for a show that will be turning thirty in the near future. Consider yourself warned.
20. The Prom (Season 3)
I dropped a couple season three episodes from the list because it felt like I was starting to rank only that season. But I knew I had to keep “The Prom” in the mix because it’s an emotional highlight of the entire series. Even as Graduation Day looms for the Scoobies and with it the culmination of the Mayor’s evil plan to ascend to demonhood, Buffy is determined that the Soobies and the whole class will get the kind of nostalgia-making prom experience they deserve.
Naturally, Buffy ends up spending most of the prom saving her classmates from a monster of the week (this time, demon dogs). After that, when she’s feeling all alone in a crowded, crepe-festooned gym, she’s called to the stage to receive a new and special award: “Class Protector.” It’s a beautiful moment when she understands that her classmates, even though they may not be close friends, value and see her. One of the ongoing themes of Buffy is her isolation as a Slayer — in “The Prom,” for one glorious moment, she gets her due.
19. Conversations with Dead People (Season 7)
Season seven and six get undeserved grief for swapping its metaphors from high school to adulthood. While I don’t have many individual episodes from those seasons on this list, I actually love the themes of both. In “Conversations,” Buffy, her mystically created sister Dawn, and Willow, all have interactions with dead people from their past. Buffy goes through a psychoanalytic evening with a newbie vampire, while Dawn fights to reconnect with her dead mother.
This episode lays a lot of groundwork for the rest of the season and provides some nice character moments for all three. I’d have it ranked higher but for one major flaw: Willow’s conversation is with a dead character she’d never met who presents as a conduit for her girlfriend, Tara, who died near the end of season six. The writers were backed into a corner as Amber Benson declined the offer to come back, which is understandable given what the show did with her character (we’ll get to that in a bit). Still, it provided a window into Willow’s post-evil recovery and overall is a highlight of the season.
18. Doppelgangland (Season 3)
Speaking of Willow, “Doppelgangland” is one of the early foreshadowings of “Dark Willow.” After we met her vampire version in the alternate timeline “The Wish,” a magical misadventure brings the evil and fanged vampire Willow into their own reality. Hijinks ensue, including yet another vampire attack on local nightclub The Bronze, which we all have to wonder how that place stays in business.
“Doppelgangland” hinges on Alyson Hannigan’s work as both sides of Willow, obviously having a lot of fun as her evil counterpart. It’s a near perfect encapsulation of Buffy’s tonal balance, from dark spookiness to goofy comedy to martial arts brawls. I struggled picking this over “The Wish,” which introduced one of my favorite characters, Anya, but ultimately I have to go with Hannigan’s performance here.
17. Homecoming (Season 3)
“Homecoming” is the flip-side to “The Prom.” At the start of season three, with the Homecoming dance fast approaching, Buffy gets dumped by her human boyfriend, Scott, and enters a social spiral courtesy of everyone’s favorite mean girl, Cordelia. With no small amount of jealousy for Cordelia’s top-of-the-pack social life, Buffy launches a competing campaign for Homecoming Queen.
This being a major school event, mayhem is just around the corner. This time, Buffy is being hunted for sport and, saddled with Cordelia when they’re kidnapped in their limo, and she’s forced to save them both. Ultimately they do gain a modicum more of respect for one another (although they both lose the homecoming crown). “Homecoming” highlights Buffy’s disconnection from her high school peers, setting up the path to “The Prom.” Super fun, with a maudlin undercurrent, just how I like my Buffy.
16. Prophecy Girl (Season 1)
Okay, we all know it: season one is rough. Part of that comes down to the general cheapness, from sets to scripts. The pilot is good but the middle episodes of the season are not the easiest to rewatch.
It does go out with a bang in the season finale, “Prophecy Girl,” where vampire big bad the Master finally enacts his plan to escape to the surface world and establish hell on earth. That requires fulfilling the prophecy that the Slayer will die, something Buffy is very much not on board with. Over the episode, we see her fear of death — suddenly real after a season of goofy monsters of the week — and her emotional journey to accepting her destiny as a protector of the world. All while leaving room for quips.
Buffy’s first death is the moment where the quality to come became apparent.
15. Becoming Parts 1 and 2 (Season 2)
This is the first of three two-parters that I’m combining into one “episode” because they really function as a whole. Also, it saves me spots for other episodes.
“Becoming” caps off season two’s big-bad arc, with Angelus (Angel’s soulless evil counterpart) culminating his reign of terror against Buffy and the Scoobies with an attempt to end the world — Buffy villains follow the “go big or go home” school of evil ambitions. Even as Willow attempts to reclaim Angel’s soul, Buffy commits to killing Angelus despite her love for Angel. Ultimately, those two efforts combine in a terrible and melodramatic moment where Buffy has to choose the world over her re-souled soulmate, Angel.
Sarah Michelle Gellar’s work on Buffy gets a lot more respect now than it did back in the day. Being on a genre show that was also on a second-tier network blocked her from a lot of recognition (she did Emmy-nomination worthy work in every season). I’m glad the culture is there for her now but it still sucks she didn’t get the appropriate props back in the day.
14. Restless (Season 4)
Unlike the other seasons that ended with climactic battles with the year’s big bad, season four ended with a character study that went deeply into the Scoobies’ internal lives and emotional states after defeating the cyborg-demon hybrid, Adam. Xander, Willow, Giles, and Buffy are all visited in their dreams by the first Slayer, who uses their fears and insecurities to threaten their lives.
There’s plenty of surrealist fun to be had tripping through the heads of our protagonists. But what makes this episode great, especially as a rewatch, is how densely packed it is with payoffs of past prophecies and foreshadowing of what’s to come. You can spend a whole 35-minute YouTube unpacking all the symbolism and signals in every frame (check it out, it’s a fun hang). Season five begins with a sudden an unexpected twist — except that it’s telegraphed here in a way you don’t realize until you go back (“Be home before dawn.”). Just nice work all around.
13. Halloween (Season 2)
No surprise that Buffy produced some good Halloween episodes, even if the spooky holiday is the one night of the year that vampires and demons choose to stay in. This is my favorite (though “Fear, Itself” is pretty delightful).
For “Halloween,” the Scooby gang gets costumes that, being mystically enchanted by chaotic villain Ethan Rayne, cause each of them to take on their costume’s personality. Buffy becomes a vapid princess in search of rescue, Xander morphs into a meathead soldier, and Willow dodges a bullet when she ditches her sexy tramp outfit in favor of a more chaste sheeted ghost.
It’s not simply a light romp through jack o’lantern season. Elements of the episode, especially Xander’s mystical military knowledge, pop up again over the course of the series. I don’t believe the writers had planned out every callback in later seasons but they did an excellent job crafting stories and character beats that could be revisited in super satisfying ways.
12. Tough Love (Season 5)
Seasons two through four charted Willow’s growth from shy computer nerd to confident magic wielder, complete with hints of how powerful and dangerous she could be. “Tough Love” marks where the hints stopped and the power came out.
After god-in-exile and ferocious fashionista Glory (who may be my favorite big bad of the series) scrambles her girlfriend Tara’s brain, Willow wants revenge. Although Buffy believes she’s talked Willow out of confronting an actual god one-on-one, she’s wrong. Consumed with grief and anger, Willow absorbs all the magic she can hold and starts a showdown.
And she does pretty damn well, having become powerful enough she can damage a god, but not so powerful she can actually win. She’s saved by Buffy, who pulls her into a hasty retreat. But the cat’s out of the bag on Willow’s power and what she’ll do in the name of her great love, Tara. This is the moment that put her decisively on the good-intentions-paved road to being a big bad in the next season (see #8).
11. Innocence (Season 2)
Toxic masculinity has been around forever and Angel’s soulless heel turn into the villainous Angelus — his Romani-cursed soul having fled his body after experiencing a moment of pure happiness with Buffy, a.k.a. the world’s greatest orgasm — is among the most painful moments the show ever put the Slayer through. Angelus ripping through Buffy’s emotions and self-esteem by dismissing her as a slut the morning after her first time will break your heart. Angelus goes on to do much more damage over the rest of the season but this is the first of two evil moments that stick with you long after the episode ends. (See #9 for the second.)
10. Band Candy (Season 3)
I’ll admit that most of my top 10 here leans toward the dark side but Buffy is often best when it gets silly. “Band Candy” brings back Ethan Rayne, this time as a purveyor of cursed chocolate that reverts Sunnydale’s adult population to their teenage years (part of a diversion for the Mayor to pull off a mass murder of infants to further his journey to demonhood).
True, baby murder sounds dark but they get saved in the end — television still had boundaries at the turn of the century. Far more fun is the adolescent adventures of the series’s main grown-ups, Buffy’s mom Joyce and her surrogate father Giles. Those two embark on a bad-boy, good-girl romance that…um…climaxes on the hood of a police car. It’s all very funny and ultimately reverberates throughout the next couple seasons as Buffy keeps getting icked out by reminders of their magically induced fling. Also, given what was down the road for Joyce, I’m glad she had a chance to get her game on here.
9. Passion (Season 2)
It’s a well-worn trope that Buffy creator Josh Whedon kills off characters suddenly to pull an emotional reaction from viewers. That trope gets beaten nearly to death over the years, in Buffy and his other work, but this early use of it stabs deep enough to hit bone. Jenny Calendar, the computer science teacher and secret member of the Romani group that cursed Angel, was a series regular and fan favorite in large part due to her relationship with Giles.
So when Angelus brutally murders her with a horrifying neck snap it sent shock waves through the audience. While before Angel had been tormenting the Scoobies in cruel but whimsical and non-lethal ways, Jenny’s death announced that the world of Buffy wasn’t safe from death. Regardless of how Whedon overplayed the tactic in later years, this first major character death set a crushing bar for how far the show would go.
8. Villains (Season 6)
Speaking of Whedon killing off characters for easy dramatic effect, season six climaxed with the emergence of Dark Willow, driven by the sudden and maddening death of Tara by gunshot. That episode, “Seeing Red,” garners a lot of hate among fans for that (and for the sexual assault Spike commits against Buffy). I’m not the biggest fan of that episode but the one immediately after is an uncomfortably cathartic piece of revenge that pays off what the entire season had been building to.
Willow’s pursuit of Warren, Tara’s killer and a deeply disturbed misogynist, frightens her friends even as they discover the reason. Willow has struggled with her use and abuse of magic throughout the season, from bringing Buffy back from the dead to nearly killing Dawn while driving under magical influence. All the hints about Willow’s path from earlier seasons bear fruit here when she commits the one act that Buffy maintains they can never do: taking a human life, no matter how evil it may have been.
And it’s horrifying when she traps Warren in the forest and literally flays him — she crosses a line she can never truly come back from. Yet, having watched Warren sexually abuse and even murder women over the course of the season, it’s immensely satisfying to see Willow exact maximum vengeance. That uneasy balance between humanity and bloodlust make this episode the standout of Willow’s season finale big bad arc.
7. Graduation Day 1 and 2 (Season 3)
If high school is both a literal and metaphorical hell as it in Sunnydale, it stands to reason that graduation would be the most hellish day of all. And it kicks into high gear in part one, with the battle that brewed all season: a Buffy versus Faith, slayer-on-slayer showdown, that’s worth every punch, kick, and stab. Yeah, with Angel’s life on the line Buffy finally found herself going for the actual kill.
Side note: Watching Buffy these decades later on higher definition screens certainly makes the presence of stunt performers more noticeable; it can be painfully obvious at times. But it doesn’t take away from the action sequences, in fact it adds a little nostalgic charm. And both Gellar and Eliza Dushku put in the hard work to sell their parts.
And that battle is just the appetizer to the Mayor’s plan to complete his ascension to demonhood and feast on Sunnydale High’s graduating class. The WB declined to air the second half of the finale on its original schedule, a few weeks after the Columbine shooting. You don’t need 20/20 hindsight to see that was a bad decision. But executives saw a group of high school students whipping out crossbows and battle axes to fight a giant snake demon and thought kids might be confused.
There’s a reason people think entertainment executives are overly timid fools.
Anyway, the Scoobies and their classmates win the day over the Mayor — the best-written, best-acted, and most compelling villain the show ever created, answering the question of what would happen if Mister Rogers was evil. No wonder so many people feel that season four was a comedown from such heights.
6. This Year’s Girl/Who Are You? (Season 4)
Season four’s big bad, Adam, may have been a step down from the Mayor, but the season as a whole boasts some incredible work. This two-part story of Faith’s return from a long-term coma to pursue some sort of revenge against Buffy is second only to the next episode on this list. With a posthumous assist from the Mayor, Faith swaps bodies with Buffy, slinking into the Slayer’s life, friends, family, and boyfriend included.
I adore Gellar in this story. She’s clearly having fun getting to play the bad side for once and she nails Dushku’s mannerisms and tics. And while it sounds like a hijinks-laden Freaky Friday scenario, it’s ultimately a much more serious piece, with Faith-as-Buffy discovering that she does, in fact, have a moral compass. Gellar sells every moment of it.
5. Hush (Season 4)
Sure, this episode can be found in almost any top five list of Buffy’s best, but there’s a damn good reason for it: this episode is a structural marvel and packs some honest-to-god terrifying moments. I’d never expected to see something on Buffy quite so horrific as a voiceless college student having his heart cut out by the grotesque, but exceptionally polite, Gentlemen.
Told mostly without dialogue (the Gentleman having stolen all the voices in Sunnydale) this Joss Whedon written episode earned Buffy its one and only Emmy nomination during its seven years on the air. While that means there was a whole lotta snubbin’ goin’ on, at least there was one time the creativity of the show was acknowledged by industry peers.
4. Selfless (Season 7)
As a vengeance demon turned human then turned vengeance demon once again, Anya had one of the most substantive arcs on Buffy. She often filled a Spock/Data type of role: someone whose lack of experience as a human and intensely literal approach to life lets her spit truth just about every time she opens her mouth, usually to hilarious effect. But when she returns to the demon fold, providing bloody vengeance to wronged women no longer holds the same thrill.
After years of providing that comic relief, “Selfless” finally gives Emma Caulfield an episode of her own, as she’s emotionally untethered after enacting the slaughter of a house full of frat boys. Buffy, being the Slayer, realizes that her job means Anya must die; Xander, still in love with Anya even though he left her at the altar, begs for her life. And Anya ultimately just wants to take it back — which she does, with an unexpectedly painful price. Plus, during her fight with Buffy, she unloads all the anger that had been bubbling under her comic-relief surface.
I’m glad she got this episode because I absolutely hate what Whedon did with Anya in the series finale. She deserves better and she gets it here.
3. Once More With Feeling (Season 6)
I am not a theater gay. You can tell because I spell “theater” correctly, rather than the affected, British “re” way. I know about most of the major musicals, stage or screen, because I have a basic cultural literacy. But I can take ’em or leave ’em — usually leave ’em.
But I love “Once More with Feeling,” the much ballyhooed musical episode of Buffy that launched countless imitators. Is it a gimmick? Of course. Is it effective storytelling? Hell yes.
That it would be an hour of musical fluff had been my fear going into the episode when it first aired — remember, this was only seventh episode I’d ever seen — but I was into it immediately. Everyone gets a showstopper number (except Hannigan, who speak-sings about two lines, which is what my vocally inept ass would have demanded as well if I’d been in her place). And it moves the story forward. Giles decides he’s holding Buffy back in her growth and decides to leave. Tara realizes Willow has been messing with her memory to smooth over the bumps in their relationship. Anya and Xander sing the truth of their doubts about marriage. And Willow hears just how badly she screwed up with her magic when Buffy sings that she’d been brought back from heaven, not hell.
All that, plus catchy songs and dance numbers make this possibly the most re-watchable episode of any season.
2. The Gift (Season 5)
There are so many things that can and have been said about this season finale that could have — and to some fans, should have — been a series finale. There’s the final battle that draws on every Scoobie’s skill and talent, from Willow’s magic to Xander’s construction machinery. There’s Buffy’s epic battle with Glory, the narcissistic big bad second only to the Mayor. There’s Giles taking on the burden of saving the world by killing Ben because he knows Buffy wouldn’t and shouldn’t have to.
But it all comes down to the last moment when Buffy understands and accepts that the prophecy she bears, “Death is your gift,” is a sacrifice for the people she loves, not a curse she inflicts on the living. Her last words to her sister before making that sacrifice — “The hardest thing in the world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.” — are nearly the most gut-wrenching the show ever pulled off. Even if the vagaries of the television business and network shenanigans brought her back eight months later, “The Gift” will always be the best end Buffy could ever give.
1. The Body (Season 5)
Yeah, I’m going dark for my list, especially putting “The Body” at the top. Sure, pretty much any episode on this list could sit here, they’re all that good. So what makes this story of grief my absolute, no question favorite?
First is how phenomenally raw the entire episode feels, from the moment Buffy comes home calling out to her mother, only to find Joyce dead on the couch. After the season-long arc of Joyce’s brain tumor and recovery, it’s a harsh snap into reality. And not just the reality of the show, the reality we all live in, where death isn’t dealt in fair or reasonable ways. In a show where the supernatural reigns and characters live and die and live again, Buffy’s mother dies in an utterly natural and irrevocable way.
It is brutal. And Sarah Michelle Gellar is so phenomenal in this episode that I tear up every time I watch the first minutes, when she sees Joyce on the couch and regresses with her voice: “Mom. Mom? Mommy?” And while Joyce was never a main character, her role as a surrogate mom for the Scoobies makes everything even more painful. But I think the most potent moment is when Willow lashes out at Anya for her literalistic questions about what will happen to “the body,” and I just have to quote it here, even though it only gets full justice through Emma Caulfield’s performance:
“But I don’t understand! I don’t understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she’s, there’s just a body, and I don’t understand why she just can’t get back in it and not be dead anymore! It’s stupid! It’s mortal and stupid! And, and Xander’s crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever, and she’ll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why.”
And that’s the trick. This life is mortal and stupid. The hardest thing is to live in it. And we find the strength to do it, together.
