Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Every episode ranked! (Part 3/5)

#52 – Bad Girls / Consequences – season 3, episodes 14-15

In “Bad Girls” Faith plays the devil on Buffy’s shoulder. At first, it’s harmless, then it becomes a problem the others can see but which Buffy ignores, then Faith accidentally stabs a guy. Not a vamp; a man. When she expresses zero remorse, Buffy finally realizes the path she was blindly speeding down. In the follow-up episode, faith tries to cover up the killing and then, later, tries to blame it on Buffy. Fortunately, Giles sees right through that and everyone turns on Faith. Desperate and alone, she turns to the season’s Big Bad, the Mayor, and offers herself as henchwoman. Faith’s turn is comparable to Angel’s from the previous season, but it packs a much lesser punch since the emotional investment wasn’t as strong. That said, Faith is a tragic character, and her fall to the dark side happened in large part because she felt abandoned by what should have been her surrogate Scooby family. These two episodes only scratch the surface of all that could be said about Faith, but what we get here is solid stuff.

#51 – Potential – season 7, episode 12

Dawn takes some time to grow on you. Some fans never took to her, but while I found her a bit annoying in season 5, I at least appreciated the turmoil the character was going through, especially in the latter half of that year. In season six everyone was a miserable mess, so it’s hard to judge her too harshly there. Season seven is where Dawn finally finds her place in the Scoobies, but that comes after she is teased as someone who could “potentially” be the next slayer. Watching her realization that she is not “special” is heart-wrenching, but then Xander has his shining moment in a beautiful monologue where he makes her (and the audience) appreciate this character for what she is not…

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#50 – The Yoko Factor / Primeval – season 4, episodes 20-21

In the first, Spike breaks up the Scoobies (for a sec). In the second, Buffy dispatches of the “Big Bad” of Season 4, the robo-demon Adam (complete with 3.5in Floopy Drive for maximum cringe). The former is the fun one. The second, despite all the grief the Initiative Arc gets, and rightly so, is a great “season finale-feeling” episode.

#49 – Band Candy – season 3, episode 6

Buffy’s mom has sex with Giles. On the hood of a police car.

Twice.

#48 – Enemies – season 3, episode 17

Faith tries to seduce Angel, to turn him into Angelus so he can join Team Mayor. No one seems to get that it’s not sex that triggers Angel losing his soul, it’s a moment of pure bliss. He’s not a eunuch (as he will often remind us on his own show). Faith’s attempts backfire spectacularly, but not without her getting some excellent psychological daggers plunged into Buffy’s mind in the process. As said, her turn is not as emotionally charged as the Angelus arc in season two, but Faith offers something else: Faith is what Buffy could have turned into without a stable support system. We should pity Faith, which makes her all the more effective as a villain.

#47 –Storyteller – season 7, episode 16

Andrew is a bit polarizing in that he’s almost entirely a comedic relief character and his brand of comedy can be somewhat grating. Season seven suffered from having so many characters to juggle it was hard for any one of them (outside of the core Scooby gang) to stand out. Andrew was maybe the only one who became a semi-regular in the final season to properly integrate into the group. Well, he didn’t “integrate,” per se; he was basically a house hostage, but darn it if he didn’t have such a “glass half full” perspective on it. “Storyteller” gives Andrew the podium and lets him walk us through a day in the life of Buffy and her pals. There are some hilarious sight gags and little asides thrown in by the narrator but the real magic of the episode comes in the finale, where Buffy forces Andrew to come to terms with murdering Jonathan. The final shot sees him—the comedic relief—tearfully stating his belief that he would die, and that he deserves to, ending an otherwise fun episode on a heavy and effective note.

#46 – Sleeper – season 7, episode 8

Spike is being used by the First like a hypnotism victim. He knows it and wants to die for it. One of the consequences of having a soul is having to deal with guilt, and even though we’ve seen people like Warren (ordinary, souled humans) show their capacity to switch off guilt, the fact is you have to work on being that level of psychopathic. Spike hasn’t had a soul in centuries. He’s out of practice and his turmoil in this episode is the standout.

#45 – The Replacement – season 5, episode 3

In this great comedy episode, Xander gets split in two. It works as an allegory for the season’s arc (Glory and Ben, Buffy and Dawn, etc) and provides plenty of rich material for Nicholas Brendon to mine. Watching the “good Xander” be everything the “real Xander” wished he could be is both hilarious and sad, which is also the perfect summary of Xander himself.

#44 – Help – season 7, episode 4

Cassie Newton seems like a character too well-acted, and too thought-out to be as lightly used like this. She seems like a regular on a Buffy spinoff show. And since much of season seven feels like the Scoobies are observing a Buffy spinoff show take place around them, I guess that makes sense. Her ability to predict the future is haunting and cleverly handled, especially the tease regarding Spike and Buffy.

Gone too soon, IMO.

#43 – Hells Bells – season 6, episode 16

Season six is the year where everyone’s worth selves dominated. Xander has always struggled with insecurities, personal fears, and a nagging worry that he will end up a failure. Those dark thoughts come to a head on his wedding day where a visitor claiming to be him from the future shows him the life he’s stepping into, one in which he is a deadbeat husband much like his loathsome father. The idea that he would be so unworthy to Anya leads him to break off the wedding, and even when he learns the truth that the so-called time-traveler was really a demon out for revenge on Anya (a brilliant twist), Xander still runs away, knowing that the demon merely forced him to admit what he had already been stewing over in his subconscious. Of all the season six episodes that make me disappointed for the Scoobies, this one is the hardest to watch. Poor Xander. Poor, poor Anya.