Some of you may have already read Selina’s column detailing her so called “selections” for the top five episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I saw her idea and blatantly stole it as my own hoping to steal her traffic. In doing so I accidentally triggered a duel between the two of us.
Not really, it was more like a playful Twitter argument that was more or less fueled by Hypable fans like yourself. Come and join the conversation whenever you want! We don’t bite! (Shameless plug: @hypable and @ThisIsJimmyBean)
I am a very new fan of Buffy. I vaguely remember hearing the name in 5th grade and I think I actually watched an episode or two with my cousin. When I met my amazing, wonderful, gorgeous and intelligent girlfriend Megan, (I just earned about a billion cool boyfriend points) and found out that her favorite TV show was Buffy I was more than intrigued.
Megan baptized me into the Buffy fandom by showing me no less than the entire first season in one day. I’m surprised the experience didn’t come with wafers and grape juice. After the third episode, (‘Witches’, which sadly didn’t make the cut) I was already addicted and it hadn’t even gotten good yet.
How good did it get? Well, Buffy is now among my favorite TV shows of all time and if you don’t know why then you should get a Netflix account and watch every season in a row without stopping.
So behold, the real top five episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Obviously, beyond this point there be spoilers.
5)’Passion’ (2×17)
This was the first episode of Buffy that showed me exactly what the show was capable of.
Who didn’t realize the lengths to which prime-time television evil could go until they watched Jenny Calendar get her neck snapped on camera and then left in Giles’ bed in an unnecessarily shocking act of cruelty? This episode absolutely stopped me in my tracks and convinced me that nobody (and especially not women that we like) are safe in Joss Whedon shows. Black Widow and Maria Hill better watch out in The Avengers.
Making Angel the villain for this season was an act of absolute genius since we had just spent the first season and three-quarters being convinced that just because he was a vampire didn’t mean that he was a bad guy. We had gotten so accustomed to seeing him with a soul that we completely forgot about the demon that dwelled inside.
Even Buffy let down her guard. She was in love with him and let him closer than she had ever let anyone in before. What’s every girl’s worst nightmare? That the object of their affection would change for the worse after giving themselves to him completely. Angel didn’t just stop calling her. Instead he murdered her teacher, left drawings of her asleep by her pillow every night and summoned a demon that would try to swallow the world. Man, what a dick!
Best Moment: Although it is difficult to call Buffy‘s inaugural “oh my God how did that just happen” moment as a “best” moment, the death of Jenny Calendar and the subsequent morbidly romantic re-appearance of her carefully placed body is one of the more brilliant moments in the entire series. It was such an incredibly evil thing to see Angel’s villain incarnate do and it gave plenty of cause for Giles (and us) to not ever really fully forgive him.
Dialogue:
Willow: [nailing crosses by her windows] I’m gonna have a hard time explaining this to my dad.
Buffy: You really think it’ll bother him?
Willow: Ira Rosenberg’s only daughter nailing crucifixes to her bedroom wall? I have to go over to Xander’s house just to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas every year.
Buffy: I see your point.
Willow: Although it is worthwhile to see him do the Snoopy dance.
Buffy: It’s so weird… Every time something like this happens, my first instinct is still to run to Angel. I can’t believe it’s the same person. He’s completely different from the guy that I knew.
Willow: Well, sort of, except…
Buffy: Except what?
Willow: You’re still the only thing he thinks about.
4)’Fool for Love’ (5×07)
We see him unsuccessfully attempt to woo young ladies, and we hear him mention that he still lives with his mother. To put it plainly, he is the exact opposite of the Spike that we have gotten to know in the past three seasons. Well, except for his poetic revelations. Let’s face it, losing his soul was really the best thing for Spike’s poetry. Every truth bomb dropped by Spike throughout the series is twinged with all the beauty and nuance of a fallen poet, so it is gorgeously fitting that his desperate desire to be loved (by Cecilia, by Drusilla, by Buffy, by Buffy-bot) was what led to his eternal downfall.
His reputation as a slayer slayer (which was hinted at in season 2) is revealed and examined in detail in this episode, mostly since Buffy is milking him for advice on how to avoid a brutal vampire-related death. We watch him kill slayers just like Buffy, even going so far as to steal his trademark black leather trench coat off of one from New York that he killed on a subway. His final monologue here is spectacular, but we’ll save it for the dialogue portion.
Best Moment: Although Spike’s flashbacks (especially the glimpse of 80’s Spike and the baller exit that he, Drusilla, Darla and Angelus share as they exit China) are incredibly powerful, the best moment has to be a tie between Buffy’s rejection and Spike’s redemption.
Near the end of the episode, Spike attempts to kiss Buffy and she shuts him down immediately. Her line of “your beneath me” cuts Spike to the core since it is reminiscent of the final rejection of his mortal life. She tosses the money that she owes him in his face as he sits on the asphalt literally beneath her. Cold, Buffy. Hella cold.
This moment is only matched shortly afterwards by Spike’s newfound ambition to finally kill Buffy with a sawed-off shotgun. When he finds her as a crying mess on her porch, we see what little soul there is left inside of him yearning to hold her. He puts down the gun and asks if there is anything he can do. She doesn’t respond, so he sits down next to her, allowing his anger to be diffused by his budding love for the Slayer. Executive Producer: Joss Whedon.
Dialogue:
Spike: The only thing about the dance is, you never get to stop. Everyday you wake up, it’s the same bloody question that haunts you. Is today the day I die? Death is on your heels, baby, and sooner or later it’s gonna catch you. And part of you wants it… not only to stop the fear and uncertainty, but because you’re just a little bit in love with it. Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day. That final gasp. That look of peace. Part of you is desperate to know, what’s it like? Where does it lead you? And now you see, that’s the secret. Not the punch you didn’t throw or the kicks you didn’t land. She merely wanted it. Every Slayer… has a death wish. Even you. The only reason you’ve lasted as long as you have is you’ve got ties to the world. Your mum, brat kid sister, Scoobies. They all tie you here but you’re just puttin’ off the inevitable. Sooner or later, you’re gonna want it. And the second – the second that happens, you know I’ll be there. I’ll slip in. Have myself a real good day. Here endeth the lesson. I just wonder if you’ll like it as much as she did.
Drusilla: The King of Cups expects a picnic. But this is not his birthday. (Note: I will always quote Drusilla when applicable. Un-note.)
3)’Once More With Feeling’ (6×07)
They run through the gambit of musical theater genres, switching from the Disney-esque “Going Through the Motions” to the ensemble “I’ve Got a Theory” to Spike’s rock opera-ish “Rest in Peace.” Xander and Anya even have a number stolen from the pages of Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers (dancing in silk pajamas much?) with “I’ll Never Tell.”
The most “musical theater-y” thing about this episode (well, aside from all the singing and dancing) is the fact that everyone is hiding something.
“I was in Heaven when my friends pulled me back to this hell on Earth,” “I don’t know where our relationship is going but I’m too afraid to talk to you about it,” “I’m standing in the way of the growth of my daughter my Slayer” and “I’m leaving my girlfriend because I can’t trust her anymore” are among the bombshells dropped during this episode. There was so much that everyone was holding back from each other before this episode, and through the magic of musical theater, they are forced to reveal it.
Or as the tap dancing smooth-as-hell demon named Sweet put it, “All those secrets you’ve been concealing, say you’re happy now, once more with feeling.” Did you just get chills? I think I just got chills.
Best Moment: How could anyone possibly choose? Hell, buy the soundtrack if you want a list of the best moments in this episode. Every song is strategically placed and masterfully composed. I have the CD sitting in the player of my car right now. Really.
If a best moment must be chosen however, it would have to be when Dawn is thrown to the ground at The Bronze only to see Sweet’s feet tapping on stage. Followed this with his “I’m just doing this to be smooth,” on-screen wardrobe change and you get a demon that I was frankly sad to see leave.
Dialogue:
Buffy:There was no pain/ no fear, no doubt/ till they pulled me out /of heaven. So that’s my refrain/ I live in hell ’cause I’ve been expelled/ from heaven/ I think I was in heaven.
Sweet: I can bring whole cities to ruin/ and still have time to get a soft-shoe in.
Spike: The torch I bear/is scorching me/ Buffy’s laughing, I’ve no doubt/ I hope she fries/ I’m free if that bitch dies/ I’d better help her out.
Tara: The moon to the tide/ I can feel you inside/I’m under your spell/Surging like the sea/drawn to you so helplessly/I break with every swell/Lost in ecstasy/Spread beneath my Willow tree/You make me complete/ You make me complete/You make me complete/ You make me…
2)’Normal Again’ (6×17)
Since we’re obviously watching this on television, we knew from the get-go that Buffy’s world isn’t real. Our world isn’t populated by vampires, zombies and werewolves (or is it?), but it was fun to watch. Then bam, everything turns tables when we find out that Buffy is bonkers (in a mental hospital in our world) and has just been hallucinating this whole thing.
I know, the ending of this episode has been left up to interpretation, but the point is that it frankly explains everything that even Buffy’s world was labored to rationalize. Scenes where the doctor sits down with the disturbed Buffy and carefully explains the inconsistencies and gaps of logic in her world are frighteningly fitting.
He asks her why she has been struggling to fend off three teen aged boys when she just defeated a God. He asks where Dawn came from and as Buffy attempts to explain that she is pure energy that was transformed into a human form by a group of monks, she begins to sound eerily like the guy that stands in front of Target arguing with himself.
Her stint in Heaven is explained as a “breakthrough” in her mental regiment where she was supposedly doing quite well (y’know, where there was “no fear or doubt”) before her friends pulled her back into her augmented reality. Even the entire situation of being The Slayer is a textbook example of a delusion that places her in the center of the world, the weight of it resting on her shoulders.
I am of the party that believes that “Normal Again” is the key to understanding the Buffy universe, so it is only bested on this list by Whedon’s masterpiece.
Best Moment: Buffy’s whole struggle of determining whether or not her world is real is one of the most intelligent and disturbing in the show’s history. We have five years of history in Buffy’s universe, so we followed along with her reasoning and her doubt as she explored whether or not she wanted to return to her life as the Slayer. Maybe the best part is that after she decides to leave her mother, her father, and her entire reality behind, this entire concept is never mentioned again.
Dialogue:
Joyce Summers:I know you’re afraid. I know the world feels like a hard place, sometimes. But you’ve got people who love you. Your dad and I, we have all the faith in the world in you. We’ll always be with you. You have got a world of strength in your heart. I know you do. You just have to find it again. Believe in yourself.
Spike: “I hope you don’t think this antidote’s gonna rid you of that nasty martyrdom. You’re addicted to the misery.”
1) ‘The Body’ (5×16)
So here we are. Whedon’s masterpiece. Sure, it’s not an episode I would watch on my birthday (‘Once More With Feeling’ would be a good contender for that) but I defy anyone, especially those who haven’t yet had an episode of Buffy in their lives, to watch this and not recognize it as a work of art.
From having the paramedic’s eyes just out of frame to Buffy’s discovery of Joyce’s body to Anya’s tearful rant about not understanding death, this episode is masterful in everything it does.
It is the only episode to not have a bumpy and dangerous accompanying score, and it is also the only episode to be completely devoid of a supernatural threat (until the vamp in the morgue in the last three minutes). It served to remind us that Buffy’s world is a dangerous place full of terrifying mystical beasts and threats, but our world and our threats are just as real. We’ve seen Joyce’s life in jeopardy on multiple occasions, but it isn’t a vampire or a regurgitating Frolopse demon that tops her in the end. It’s a brain aneurysm.
Best Moment: The entire sequence leading up to and following the discovery of Joyce’s body was one of the most startling truthful and sickeningly haunting moments of the entire series for me. The moment when the paramedics are attempting to revive Joyce and Buffy has a 20 second fantasy about her mother coming back to life and everything turning out okay just added to the tragedy.
Dialogue:
Buffy: She’s cold.
911 Operator: The body’s cold?
Buffy: No, my mom.
Anya: Are they gonna cut the body open?
Willow: Oh my God! Would you just… stop talking? Just… shut your mouth. Please.
Anya: What am I doing?
Willow: How can you act like that?
Anya: Am I supposed to be changing my clothes a lot? I mean, is that the helpful thing to do?
Xander: Guys…
Willow: The way you behave…
Anya: Nobody will tell me.
Willow: Because it’s not okay for you to be asking these things.
Anya: 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.
So there they are. The best episodes of Buffy of all time. Please bear in mind that these are not my personal favorites, just what I believe to be the best. I wish I could have included a few more (if it were a top 6 you better believe that ‘Hush’ would have been included in the mix) Also, if you are of the group that hates “Once More With Feeling” because of the amateur vocals, you may have missed the entire purpose of life. Just saying.
Don’t agree with my choices? Check out Selina’s picks right here! Don’t agree with either of us? Let us know about your personal top five in the comments below!