Home TV News Buffy Is 20yrs Old Today, So Here’s Our Top 5 Buffy Episodes

Buffy Is 20yrs Old Today, So Here’s Our Top 5 Buffy Episodes

by Dave Elliott
Buffy Is 20yrs Old Today, So Here's Our Top 5 Buffy Episodes

Buffy Is 20yrs Old Today, So Here’s Our Top 5 Buffy Episodes

Yes, you read that correctly. Our beloved Buffy The Vampire Slayer is 20 years old today. The brilliant series, which put creator Joss Whedon on the map, went through many highs (and a few lows), throughout its 7 seasons, and became one of the most beloved shows of a generation. It not only went to spawn the equally brilliant Angel, but that also led to Joss being able to produce one of the best shows ever to grace our tellyboxes… Firefly. So, to help celebrate this monumental series, here are our top 5 Buffy episodes.

5. Becoming, Part Two (Season 2, Episode 22)

https://youtu.be/UklpzSAKLfo

Season 2 had a number of great moments, mainly due to the fact it had such a great villain in Angelus, Angel’s murderous alterego. In the season 2 finale, Buffy discovers Angelus’ plan is to suck Earth into a hell dimension. Obviously wanting to avoid that (I mean, getting post delivered would be a nightmare!), she aims to stop him, only to have the rest of the Scooby gang incapacitated, leaving her to face her former lover on her own. This leads to an (at this point in time) surprising alliance with Spike, who isn’t keen on spending eternity in a hell dimension either, so strikes a deal with Buffy to let him and Drusilla go if they lend a hand. The episode ends with Buffy and Angelus in a fight to the death. Buffy gets the upper hand, but just at the moment she is about to plunge a sword through his chest to seal the Hell vortex, a recently revived Willow manages to stuff Angel’s soul back into his body. Unfortunately, his death is still the only thing that can close it, and our heroine has to plunge the sword into her beloved, and seal the rift. Buffy is so traumatised by these events, and feeling she has lost everything, she leaves town… (don’t worry, she came back).

4. The Gift (Season 5, Episode 22)

Season 5 of the show started and ended with a major shock. First up, Dawn, Buffy’s little sister, who had not existed until the momentous WTF moment in the last second of the season 4 finale. It turns out, Dawn was actually not her sister, but a ‘key’ to opening a demon dimension… Always with the ‘wanting to open gateways to other dimensions’ these bad guys! Glory, this season’s big bad, kidnaps Dawn, and plans to use her blood to open the doorway. Although Buffy manages to best Glory, Dawn’s blood accidentally drips into the ritual site, and opens the demon portal. Buffy suddenly has a flashback to something the First Slayer had said to her earlier in the season about ‘her death being a gift’, and armed with the knowledge that she shares the same blood as Dawn, she sacrifices herself by jumping into the portal and closing it. The Gift marked 100 episodes of the show, and could easily have made an amazing finale to the whole thing, but we still had 2 more seasons to go.

3. The Body (Season 5, Episode 16)

Season 5 was not an easy one for the Buffster. Suddenly having an annoying little sister, and finding out she isn’t really her sister. Losing her boyfriend Riley, who ups and leaves town. Facing off against an actual god. But the most crushing thing comes in The Body… Buffy arrives home to find her mother, Joyce, dead on the sofa. No demon had attacked. No vampire had got to her. She died from of an aneurysm resulting from her recent brain surgery. It’s one of the most gut-wrenching emotional episodes of the entire 7 seasons, and still makes me tear up to this day. The performances from the entire cast is pitched so wonderfully, as we see the whole gang deal with the loss.

2. Once More, With Feeling (Season 6, Episode 7)

The episode which spawned a bunch of copycats (most recently with the upcoming Flash/Supergirl musical episode). What made ‘Once More, With Feeling’ so brilliant though wasn’t just the music… which was awesome… But the fact it does just abandon the overall story arc to have everything go back to normal the following week. In fact, it reveals a slew of information which totally change some characters relationships, and ultimately helps set up Willow as the season’s ‘big bad’. During the various musical numbers, it’s revealed that Willow had cast a spell on Tara, leading them to break up, Giles reveals he’s leaving the gang to go back to England, and most shockingly, Buffy reveals the gang didn’t save her from hell, but pulled her out from being at peace in heaven. The entire episode leaves the Scoobys at loggerheads with each other, and drives Buffy into a relationship with Spike. Even without the musical elements, this would have been a monumental Buffy episode in anyone’s book!

1. Hush (Season 4, Episode 10)

What do you do when you’re a writer, but the main comment people make is that you’re so great because of your dialogue? You make an episode which is 90% silent of course! This episode introduced one of the creepiest villains to ever arrive in Sunnydale – The Gentlemen. These almost skeletal like demons, who float along silently, steal the voices of everyone in town to enable them to steal people’s hearts without all that screaming which would wake the neighbours. Buffy eventually manages to break their spell by swiping their ‘box of voices’ and letting out a scream.

From start to end, this episode is a masterpiece in acting and directing, with some great humour, despite the lack of dialogue. Once again, it keeps advancing the overall arc of the show. Riley & Buffy discover they have been hiding rather big secrets from each other, and Willow & Tara get together for the first time. It’s an amazing episode in a brilliant show.

So that is our top 5. I’m sure there are others people would pick, and I’m sure, if I wrote this on another day, there would be other episodes I might pick. I’m now off to rewatch Once More With Feeling…

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