by Beth
I thought it only fitting that for 20
years of Buffy that I count down my 20 favorite episodes. It took me
2 days of notes and lists to decide what my favorites truly were.
Honestly I could probably write 1000 words on each of these episodes.
I don't see myself following through on such a big undertaking
(there's too much other stuff on my mind for me to devote the next 6
months just on Buffy posts) so I'm cramming them all into one
(hopefully not too) long piece. I'm just gonna list numbers 20-11
(with just a quick line or 2 about each), and then go for more detail
on 10-1. So without further ado I give you the top 20 episodes of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer as chosen by me.
- Seeing Red
Willow and Tara get back together, and
then Warren accidentally kills Tara. Fucking Warren!
- Chosen
Series finale. Buffy saves the world
one last time. Unless you read the comics that is.
- Halloween
Giles's former friend sells everyone
Halloween costumes that turn them into whatever they're dressed as.
- Beneath You
Spike (draped over a cross while his
skin smokes): “Can we rest now, Buffy? Can we rest?” Cue my
tears.
- Earshot
Buffy can hear what everyone is
thinking, and Jonathan gets off easy for trying to kill his
classmates. How many times does she save people who she would have
been better off letting go in the long run?
- Passion
That dick Angelus kills Giles'
girlfriend. Does he ever not suck?
- Graduation Day Part 2
For once the useless masses of
Sunnydale High work with Buffy to stop the Mayor from killing them
all. And Angel leaves the show. Maybe this one should be higher on my
list...
- Becoming Part 2
Kendra dies and Buffy kills Angel.
Hooray!
- Doppelgangland
Second appearance of the evil vampire
Willow. Not as good as The Wish though.
- The Body
Buffy finds her mother's dead body on
the couch. Deeply upsetting.
- Conversations With Dead People
Buffy, Dawn, and Willow each spend
their evening dealing with the dead. Buffy shares her deepest
feelings with an old high school acquaintance who has been turned
into a vampire. Dawn thinks their mother is trying to contact her
from beyond the grave. Willow is tormented by a spirit who claims to
have been sent by Tara and encourages her to kill herself so they can be together again. Of course,
Dawn and Willow's visions are sent by a power know as The First. The
evil entity also appears to Andrew in the guise of Warren who talks him in to killing Jonathan. Buffy is the only one not manipulated
by The First, but she does discover that Spike sired the vampire she
just poured her heart out to, and proving to her that he's gone bad
again.
- Grave
After the aforementioned Tara killing
Willow goes crazy and turns to dark magic to get some vengeance. She
fights both Buffy and Giles, and finally goes so far to the dark side
that she decides to put everyone in the world out of their misery.
Giles had a trick up his sleeve though, and bought Xander time to
reach her at the temple she's raised from the ground. He gives her a
very touching and heart-felt speech while she rages against him. Just
when you think she might actually kill him she breaks down in his arms
crying over the loss of Tara. Again with the waterworks.
- Prophesy Girl
All Buffy wants to do is go to the
prom, but Giles informs her that she has to face The Master in a
showdown that will lead to her death. Obviously she's upset by this
(“Giles, I'm 16 years old. I don't wanna die”), and walks out on
Giles and slaying all together. Giles decides to take The Master on
himself to save Buffy, but she finally mans up to face her destiny.
The Master ends up killing Buffy by drowning her, but Xander gives
her CPR and manages to bring her back to life in time for her to
finish the job. Unfortunately, her death leads to the appearance of
Kendra so it's not all good.
- The Gift
The crazy evil goddess monster Glory is
going to use Dawn (who is really a magical key disguised as Buffy's
little sister) to create yet another apocalypse. Buffy beats the shit
out of Glory which causes her to turn back into harmless nice guy
Ben, but doesn't kill him. Giles ends up doing it for her since she's
unwilling to take a human life. She's too late to stop the
world-ending ritual, and either her or Dawn have to sacrifice
themselves to close the portal of evil. Buffy takes the dive after
telling Dawn that “the hardest thing in this world is to live in
it”. And writing all of this out makes it sound kind of confusing
and silly. The whole Glory thing gets a little tired after awhile, but she's not the worst "big bad" they've faced (ahem, Adam). It'll all be much clearer if you watch them in order
rather than going by this list.
- The Wish
Cordelia is rightfully a little pissed
off after catching Willow and Xander kissing and getting impaled
right afterward. She decides it's all Buffy's fault so she makes a
wish to the vengeance demon Anyanka (who later becomes regular old Anya). She wishes that Buffy had never
come to Sunnydale, and it turns out to be a terrible idea. The Master
and his vampire minions are running the town, and the minions include
vampire versions of Xander and Willow. Cordelia gets herself killed
while Giles, Oz, and a few other “white hats” do their best to
fight back. Their fighting is not terribly effective so Giles tries
to call in a slayer named Buffy form Cleveland to help. A pissy and
cynical Buffy shows up only to get herself, and everyone else
killed. Giles is able to set things back to normal (or as normal as
they can be for this show) by braking Anyanka's talisman.
- Fear, Itself
The best of the Halloween episodes. The
gang attends a Halloween party at a frat house where the dumbasses
have painted a mysterious symbol on the floor to make the place look
spookier. In a town like Sunnydale why would anyone use weird magical
shit they don't understand? You deserve whatever you get fools. The
symbol (combined with Oz's accidentally spilled blood) summons a fear
demon which turns all of the creepy decorations into real scares, and
traps everyone in the house. Giles badassedly busts into the house
with a chainsaw, and helps them find them find the source of the
problem. Not knowing that it will cause the demon to manifest Buffy
destroys the symbol. The demon turns out to be the size of a G.I. Joe
figure, and Buffy squishes him with her foot.
- Band Candy
Another fun one. Giles's old friend
returns again, and this time he's spiked the candy the band is selling
to make all the adults act like teenagers. What's great about this
one is that the image of younger Giles, and how wild and surprisingly improper he used to be.
This is the episode that sold me on the young Giles show
idea that they were kicking around for awhile. I really wanted to see
the adventures of Ripper. It also creates lots of awkward moments for
some time to come between Giles and Mrs. Summers as it is implied
that they got it on while they were acting like kids.
- Once More With Feeling
I'm not sure what I can say about this
episode that hasn't been said before. It was groundbreaking, fun, and
even managed a few touching moments like when Buffy revealed to her
friends that they pulled her out of heaven when they brought her back to
life. A bit too much Dawn for my tastes, but the songs were great,
and even Xander and Spike pull it off (barely). I
still regularly listen to the soundtrack, and it paved the way for
Joss Whedon's other musical Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Buffy and
Spike even kiss at the end giving all of us Spuffy shippers something
to cheer about.
- Hush
Yet another ground-breaker. The whole
thing takes place without music, and the only dialogue comes at the very beginning and the end. A group of
monsters called The Gentlemen come to town, and remove everyone's
ability to speak while they kill them. The Gentlemen are terrifying,
and kind of look like older versions of Slender Man. It's amazing how
effective a show can be without anyone speaking. It's scary, and
intense, and one of the few episodes where Buffy's boyfriend Riley
doesn't annoy me. It's pretty much the only episode during the whole
time of The Initiative that didn't make me want to slap that guy.
It's the least humorous episode in my top 10 list so even if you
don't like Buffy I recommend at least checking this one out.
- Tabula Rasa
It was a tough call, but this one is my
favorite because it contains the perfect balance of humor and heart
that Buffy is known for. Willow casts a spell to make Buffy forget
she's sad about coming back to life, and Tara forget that she and
Willow are fighting. The spell is too strong though, and it instead
makes all of the Scoobies forget who they are. Spike and Giles think
they're father and son, Willow thinks she's Xander's girlfriend, and
Buffy believes that she's a normal girl named Joan. Spike tries to
help Buffy fight vampires, and realizes
she's a super hero, and that Spike is a vampire himself. Their
amnesia based adventures are hilarious, but there's also some sad
stuff too. When the spell is ultimately broken Tara decides that
she's had enough of Willow's magic abuse, and leaves her. If you can
ignore the annoying girl singing a sappy late 90's love song at the end it's great. Plus
there's more Buffy and Spike kissing, but that's also kind of sad since she's only doing it to bury her more painful
feelings.
This was longer than I thought it would
be, but as short as I can make it. I could go on and on, but I'll
save it for the future podcasts with Phantom and Chad. He assures me
we'll get back to that eventually. Do you agree, disagree, want to
tell me off for all of my Angel hate? Go for it. I did warn you up
front that this was just my personal opinion. So thank you Joss
Whedon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and the entire cast and crew for
bringing such a wonderful show to life. Basically, thank you Buffy
for saving the world. A lot.
Beth got her start writing for a site called Movie Criticism for the Retarded (which has been reborn as dorkdroppings.com.
Check it out sometime), but was pulled out of an early retirement to
write for Needless Things. When she isn't writing she plays video games
and watches bad horror movies while eagerly awaiting the zombie
apocalypse. She may try to save her husband and/or their cats, but
luckily hasn't had to make those tough decisions yet. Follow beth0rama
on Instagram or on Twitter @NeedlessBeth where she doesn't post often
enough to be annoying, but updates way more than Google+
No comments:
Post a Comment