Buffy: Graduation Day Part 2 (3.22)

The end of Buffy part one. The high school years have come to a close, recurring characters are killed, Cordelia and Angel appear as regulars for the final time. The decision to blow up the school was a grand, apocalyptic and ultimately fitting end for these episodes. Buffy left Sunnydale High with a bang, embracing her destiny and defeating evil in the most spectacular way she could think of. Watching all of the Sunnydale High graduating year come together to fight off against the Mayor was visually stunning, a real war against the machine. Here are a bunch of kids who join together not only because they know it's the right thing to do, but because they trust Buffy, and they know that she's a strong leader. It's a really, really great closer.

Buffy: Graduation Day Part 1 (3.21)

I loved that Buffy had to, in some ways, become Faith in order to fight her. She got dressed up in tight leather pants, applied some heavier make-up, appropriated that ruthless, take-no-prisoners attitude. She even had Faith's kicky new knife. For her last real episode in this arc, Faith gained back some of her vulnerability right at the end. Sure, she was still gloating, but there was a resignation to the fact that she was beaten which had to hurt. One of the most successful elements of the Faith story was that, in the end, she's just somebody who's in a lot of pain. She has awful preconceptions about men, horrible ideas about how men see her, and has major attention-craving issues. She's a basket case, but was never written as a one-note crazy-train Slayer. She had levels, and while those layers are explored deeper as the series goes on, season three did a great job at reflecting the basic 'layers' of her persona.

Buffy: The Prom (3.20)

Buffy and Angel's break-up was absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, inevitable. The back-end of this season has been deliberately inconsistent in regards to their relationship. They've dated, they've been on a break, they've shared a bed. The status of their relationship is constantly changing, a symptom of a coupling that can never truly be consummated, in any form. The problem is that they're ridiculously in love with one another (an emotion that can't just be ended), and that they can't exactly leave their 'social circle' with both of them existing in the same world and the same town. As the (much) older party, it's Angel who needed to initiate the break-up, knowing that in the long run it'll save both of them.

Buffy: Choices (3.19)

Choices has the unfortunate distinction of featuring the one truly crummy Buffy moment in a long while: the Mayor's awkward speech about Buffy and Angel's doomed love affair. I like the Mayor, but this felt completely out of place, an annoying excuse to raise the issue of their flatlining relationship, and out-of-character for somebody who ordinarily wouldn't give a damn about Buffy's love life. The fact that before the climactic showdown in the cafeteria Buffy and the Mayor hadn't actually met also dented whatever power that moment could have had.

Buffy: Earshot (3.18)

One of the many, many reasons I adore this episode is because of the perfect Sunnydale High atmosphere it creates. It's probably the most obvious Buffy hour to develop the feel of a real high school community. We have Cordelia and the cheerleaders, the captain of the basketball team, the newspaper editor, the lunchlady, Jonathan, Buffy's English rival, bad boy Percy, big gay Larry. Even the quad is filled with people this week! I always admired Veronica Mars for creating such a realistic population of high school students, who drift in and out depending on whether or not they were needed, and Earshot really reaches that level of community. It feeds into the finale, too, but here it meshes so well with the idea that one of these people wants to commit mass murder.

Buffy: Enemies (3.17)

Enemies is constructed almost entirely around that fourth-act plot twist, with the big reveal that Angelus isn't back, and that in fact what we had witnessed was an elaborate ruse to expose Faith's evilness and the Mayor's plans for 'Ascension'. Therefore, a lot of the episode feels like treading water. Don't get me wrong, there are obviously interesting elements to the story, and the exploration into Faith as a person is intriguing, but as an episode it's not the most dynamic or fascinating.

Buffy: Doppelgangland (3.16)

This is a masterpiece. I always thought Doppelgangland, in some ways, was the perfect Buffy episode, the one that encapsulated every beautiful thing this show did so well. It takes a reliable and somewhat safe sci-fi idea (the evil double), twists it to fit the show, squeezes dry every little bit of potential to create something truly fresh and original. It challenges one of the show's performers and in the process forces everybody else to up their game. It features a script which is literally soaked in genius one-liners and wonderful comedy moments. And, finally, at the same time as all that is happening, it analyzes and helps evolve one of the series regulars in a way that hasn't been done before. It's one of the finest hours this series ever did.

Buffy: Consequences (3.15)

It's not Allen Finch's death that marks the radical change in Faith's character, it's her reaction to it. What happened was a mistake. Yes, a man was killed, but it was an accident. Buffy and Faith got carried away in the heat of the moment, both of them stuck in this world of death and violence at that one unfortunate time that the deputy mayor was stalking around an alleyway. It was an awful thing that happened, but his death isn't the defining moment for her. Buffy experiences significant grief and guilt over what happened, arguing with herself what rights she has over a human's life, regardless of the fact that she's a slayer. Faith, on the other hand, is so casual about the whole thing that it becomes scary and twisted. She exhibits no guilt or fear, in the end becoming increasingly manipulative as she tries to twist the situation into her favor. It's a horrible thing to witness, a character becoming so corrupt and sinister, and arguably more sinister than Angelus last year.

Buffy: Bad Girls (3.14)

This is Buffy-as-teenage-metaphor in its most basic sense, depicting the idea of teenage rebellion and how it becomes horrible and fatal and hideous when things spiral out of control. Buffy takes a walk on the wild side this week: partying, skipping school, stealing. But what creates the genre twist is that so much of Buffy and Faith's bad girl routine involves hunting and killing vampires. It's such an interesting approach to both characters. Buffy's idea of being a slayer is that it’s a curse and that slaying is a duty. Faith sees slaying as a sport, and vamps as a means to an end in her efforts to have fun. There's no conscience there, she just loves the hunting and the staking. It's because of Buffy's morals and her history that she quickly realizes that she's screwed up big-time.

Buffy: The Zeppo (3.13)

The characterization for Xander has been really off this year. I don't know if it's intentional, but the writers have constantly struggled between making him the lovable, nerdy humor monkey, and the calculating, immature asshole. It's difficult to like him, at least for me personally. The Zeppo is an interesting episode, told almost entirely from his perspective and interested in exploring how he sees himself and how others treat him. There are obviously a ton of funny moments, but in general it's not one of my favorites. The fact that I'm not a Xander fan is one of the problems, but even on its own merits the episode isn't exactly a masterpiece.

Buffy: Helpless (3.12)

For all the times Buffy would complain about wanting a normal life, Helpless reminds her that 'normal' is sometimes a terrifying and subservient place to be. Not only is Buffy pursued by a psychotic vampire with serious mommy issues after she has her slayer skills taken away, she's also routinely taken advantage of at school, sexually harassed in public, and can only run and scream for help when confronted with a physical attack. It's a horrible thing to see, a superhero of sorts enduring what regular mortals experience, but even more horrible when you realize that this is everyday for so many young women.

Buffy: Gingerbread (3.11)

There are a lot of great ideas here, most notably the concept of a demon that whips up paranoia and persecution in small, suburban communities. It's an idea that is still resonant today, and was oddly prescient at the time of airing, with Columbine just around the corner and nearly every element of pop culture criticized and analyzed in an attempt to blame the entertainment industry for making two disturbed young men embark on a murder spree. Back on topic, Gingerbread doesn't entirely fulfil its ambition, with a lot of padding and a tone that never entirely sits well.

Buffy: Amends (3.10)

This is an episode that I feel is unfairly maligned by a lot of fans. But, then again, I've never exactly been repulsed by elaborate festive corn. But even away from the polarizing snow storm that caps the episode, Amends has a lot of ambition in regards to Angel as well as the show's mythology. After being on the periphery of the action ever since he was resurrected, Angel is put center stage once again, hopefully bringing some closure to the Angelus arc. He once again questions his destiny, wondering if being alive once again is really anything positive. You can't exactly blame him. His presence isn't usually welcomed by Buffy's friends, his sadistic alter ego terrorized them all last year, and Buffy seems to want him out of her life. Of course, there's still that passion between the two of them, something she has to once again confess at the end of the episode. There's no separating these two, at all.

Buffy: The Wish (3.9)

Alternate universe stories are a time-honored tradition for genre television, and what makes Buffy's interpretation so special is in its clever subverting of our expectations as an audience, as well as its really beautiful ideas about having faith in something. Cordelia takes center stage for the early stages of the episode, angry and bitter over Xander's infidelity, and repeatedly humiliated by the bitchy popular girls she abandoned in order to be with him. She encounters a new girl in school who unexpectedly grants her wish to live in a Buffy-free Sunnydale, only to end up in a world where vampires rule, the human population is rapidly dwindling, and few saviors are in sight.

Buffy: Lovers Walk (3.8)

I really missed Spike. And considering I grew to violently dislike his omnipresence on the show in its later years (an opinion that may change during my re-watch), that's some feat. But while season three has been pretty spectacular so far, my biggest complaint is about the use of its cast of players. Buffy and Giles have never been better, but with Oz and Cordelia majorly on the periphery of things and Xander and Willow both becoming hateful, a vital element on the show had been lacking somehow. And while Spike's one-shot appearance doesn't turn that complaint around entirely, his presence is really, really welcome. I love his humor, his insight into the characters, and the fact that he's such a whiny sad-sack here.

Buffy: Revelations (3.7)

I hate Xander Harris. I've always been sort of ambivalent to him as a character, been occasionally annoyed at his inappropriate quippery, but this episode truly sewed the seeds of my hatred of him. Revelations sees him as jealous, petulant, obnoxious, reckless, stupid, arrogant and hypocritical, arranging for all the Scoobies to gang together to take a big metaphorical dump on Buffy, and then further betraying her by teaming up with Faith of all people to kill Angel. I had a lot of problems with this particular storyline, but Xander's actions were entirely reprehensible. He's a cowardly butt-munch here, stretching whatever credibility he may have by creating elaborate reasoning for why Angel must die, and doing everything in his power to humiliate and degrade Buffy for doing something stupid. He makes my skin crawl.

Buffy: Band Candy (3.6)

Like Homecoming, this was another comedy episode. But, annoyingly, it didn't have the emotional resonance or logical sense that made Homecoming such a classic. I know that Band Candy is popular with so many folks out there, but I never really got the love for it. It's amusing, sure, but it's one of the few Buffy stories that's essentially a one-joke hour. And once you get over the initial humor of all the adults acting like teenagers, it becomes kind of flat. It's nowhere near a bad episode, of course, but I'm not exactly a fan. And can we please stop the 'Willow and Xander secret love affair' subplot, show. It's seriously grossing me out.

Buffy: Homecoming (3.5)

Buffy became a sensation at a time when Hollywood once again began paying attention to the young buck, filling movie theaters with teen movie after teen movie, all generally involving some high school hijinks, a Shakespearean metaphor of some kind, and Freddie Prinze Jr. Buffy easily folded into that era because it was funny, had knowing humor, had a star destined for the big-screen (at least for a little while) and threw teenage characters into an unusual, dangerous world of monsters and vampires. Homecoming, one of my favorite episodes, balances those teen movie aspects so well with routine Buffy violence, the first half a cake-walk in breezy, light-hearted high school comedy all about homecoming queens and school politics. Man, this episode is fun.

Buffy: Beauty and the Beasts (3.4)

This wasn't good. I was reminded a lot of early season two here, episodes like Some Assembly Required, featuring flat one-episode characters who get wrapped up in thinly-drawn monster hoodoo and are so stupid that you don't care if they live or die. Beauty and the Beasts is a hollow attempt at depicting domestic violence in high school, featuring an angry teenage boy, his abused girlfriend, some magic goo which turns him into a beast, and lazy attempts at 'morals'. There's also an annoying "all men are beasts" message floating through, which is just offensive and way off compared to other metaphorical storytelling on this show.

Buffy: Faith, Hope and Trick (3.3)

I always loved the Buffy and Faith relationship, since both come at their identical destinies from vastly different perspectives. Buffy sees her destiny as a burden, something she's been plagued with and something that cuts her off from an ordinary existence. Faith, on the other hand, loves her destiny, seeing it as something that makes her special and interesting. She sees it as fun, and as a result she's more reckless and violent in battle. But when you look at their individual backgrounds, Buffy has always seen everybody else in the world as an 'other', people who are able to have fun and live fulfilled lives, while Faith (somebody from a poor background with a supposedly fragile family history) loves being a Slayer so much because she doesn't believe there'd be any 'other' life she could lead which would be better. In Buffy's mind, the grass is always greener. With Faith, her life right now is the best it could ever be.