Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Every episode ranked! (Part 2/5)

#82 – Into The Woods – season 5, episode 10

Goodbye Riley. The episode leading up to the climactic moment when the derpy goober finally flew off into the proverbial sunset was nothing spectacular. In fact, it was flat-out regressive at times, with Buffy running to him desperate to patch things up when it was really Riley that was in the wrong. Whatever. The sight of him flying away, out of the show for good (but for a one-off a year later) was all I needed to rank this one as high as it is.

#81 – Anne – season 3, episode 1

Season one ended with Buffy dying (for a sec). Season two opened with Buffy dealing with the PTSD that followed. Season two ended with Buffy running a sword through the heart of her lover. If you didn’t think season three would deal with the emotional fallout of that, you haven’t been paying attention. Buffy ran away from home and ended up in a hell dimension. The plot itself is pretty forgettable but the episode’s willingness to show the title character’s aforementioned vulnerable side remains its great strength and makes for a solid start to the best overall season of the series.

#80 – Helpless – season 3, episode 12

At the heart of this episode is the quasi-father/daughter relationship between Giles and Buffy. Going in, after two or so years together, the two had grown very close, to the point where viewers could be forgiven for thinking of Giles as a surrogate father to Buffy. Then we find out he is willing to drug her and strip her of her powers to test her as per the Watcher’s Code. The gross violation of Buffy’s person rightly hurts not only her but the viewer (and Giles, once his guilt takes over). It’s almost as if the writers wanted to pull back on the “surrogate father” idea, especially since the episode’s sub-plot features Buffy waiting for her real father to return for an annual ice-skating trip. When he doesn’t show, we all sit in front of our TVs waiting for Giles to take her…only he never does. He ends up being fired as a Watcher because they say he’s too close to Buffy. And yet, when it’s time for someone to take Buffy to the Ice Show, Giles doesn’t step up: He isn’t her father, and this episode—painful but well-made—hammers that fact home for us.

#79 – Homecoming – season 3, episode 5

Slayerfest ’98 is a great idea and a good use of Trick, but it’s the relationship between Buffy and Cordy that carries the episode. Those two were natural enemies in the show’s early going but season three is the year where they start to become close and Cordy actually becomes a Scooby. The turning point of that change is this episode, which sees the two girls feuding over which one can become Homecoming Queen. It’s a rare thing to see Buffy be so vapid, but it won’t be the last time her obsessive tendencies come out. The result here is an action-heavy episode with surprisingly strong character development (and a fun ending).

#78 – Bring On The Night / Showtime – season 7, episodes 10-11

The scene of Buffy searching for “evil” on the internet, in search of tips on how to defeat “The First” is one of my favorite gags on a series replete with little one-off gags. It also works on a separate level, however, as it illustrates the near-futility in trying to fight something that has no corporeal form and cannot, technically, be killed. How do you even begin to fight the whole concept of evil itself? Buffy starts with a word search. I get it. The first half of this two-parter ends with Buffy getting beat up pretty badly by an ubervamp, and just when we think she’s about to launch into another one of her dreaded season seven speeches, she tells the heroes to suit up and come with her for a fight. That takes us to part two, which is perhaps the episode most devoid of plot in the whole series. Buffy fights the ubervamp in a sort of makeshift gladiator ring and, after a struggle, takes off its head. They might not be able to kill “evil” but they can take out evil’s minions. That’s a start. The two-parter offers little by way of plot, but it has some good humor in part one and good action in part two. The whole of it is better than the parts.

#77 – As You Were – season 6, episode 15

Midway through season six saw Buffy at a very low point, so what better way to kick a heroine when she’s doing than by bringing back her ex-boyfriend who seems not only happily moved on with his life, but 100% improved since the breakup. This is easily the best use of Riley in the whole series, which isn’t saying much, and it’s probably because there’s a good story being told with Buffy that Riley is integral to, something he often wasn’t when he was a main-star.

#76 – Dead Man’s Party – season 3, episode 2

On the one hand, the episode is little more than fluff. It’s a basic monster mash romp of an episode with no real weighty stakes or world-threatening danger on the line. It’s about a zombie outbreak in Sunnydale for crying out loud. But, in classic Buffy style, the show takes the cliched and makes it too charming, too funny, and too much fun to roll your eyes at. This is the episode that spawned this amazing line from an exasperated Giles…

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I almost pushed it to a higher ranking just for that.

#75 – Out Of My Mind – season 5, episode 4

A lot is going on here and while the different pieces don’t really mesh together into a tight cohesive unit, each of them are entertaining in their own right. There’s the revelation that Riley is doping to get stronger to keep up with Buffy, which further exposes what a terrible person he is. Good stuff there. There’s the beginning of the Joyce/brain tumor subplot that will last for much of season five and will lead to some great dramatic moments, and one of the absolute best episodes of the series. And there’s the dream Spike has about making out with Buffy, which wakes him up in a start, shocked and mortified at what his subconscious has revealed to him. Good parts, not necessarily a great whole.

#74 – Villains – season 6, episode 20

This is a heavy episode. Tara is dead. Buffy is injured by a bullet. Willow has gone nuts with anger. A lot is going on and there are some great moments here, including the scene where Willow removes the bullet from Buffy using magic. Spike is gone, off to hunt for a soul, Buffy leaves Dawn in the care of Clem, Xander is no help (as per usual); everything feels like it’s spiraling out of control. The climax of the episode features Willow literally flaying Warren alive (though the deed almost instantly kills him) as punishment for murdering Tara. It’s dark. In a season whose whole theme is sending the Scoobies to rock bottom, this is it. We’ve hit rock bottom. Now we have to spend a few episodes just wallowing around in it.

#73 – The I In Team/Goodbye Iowa – season 4, episodes 13-14

Buffy struggles juggling her time with Riley and the Initiative with her time as a Slayer and with the Scoobies. Considering how little Riley offers as a character compared to the Scooby Gang, and considering how cringy and embarrassing the Initiative is compared to how funny and charming the Scooby Gang is, it’s reeeeeally hard for me to see the struggle here. Things come to a head when the leader of the Initiative tries to kill Buffy, forcing Riley in the follow-up episode to choose between the goobers and the Scoobies. I wish he had chosen poorly, but he chose team-Scoob. Whatever. This was the two-parter that introduces us to Adam, the replacement baddie because the Initiative arc had been going so badly (and the central villain requested to leave the show) that they had to call an audible.

#72 – The Initiative – season 4, episode 7

Spike made his big comeback one episode earlier, but that was at the very end of the episode; now we get his big return in all its glory. It takes something “other” to make the Initiative-heavy episodes any good, and having Spike return after a year away is like a breath of fresh air in a previously-stale environment. He’s got a chip in his head that makes him incapable of attacking humans, which leads to a hilarious discovery while trying to attack Willow. To say the show missed Spike is an understatement.

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There it is, the second chunk of episodes ranked and reviewed.

We’ll be back next month with an even bigger chunk of (excellent) episodes to examine.