By Leo Milmet, Extreme Buffy Enthusiast

Warning: There are spoilers for all 7 seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer in this post. Also, this post is designed for people who are very familiar with the series — there will be references to certain scenes, lines, etc. that simply may not make sense if you aren’t at least a casual fan of Buffy. I have tried to minimize this while also speaking to die-hard fans of the series such as myself.

I previously revealed my choices for #25-11 on my list of the top 25 Buffy The Vampire Slayer episodes. Now we’re down to the top 10! I love this show so much. I could go on about it all day, but as I fear that this post may get a little long, I’ll shut up and get on with my choices!

10. “Fool For Love” (Season 5, Episode 7) — It’s very rare that a single episode has such a long-lasting major impact, but “Fool For Love” is relevant from the moment it begins all the way until the series’s final moments. This episode is, as vampire Spike might say, “bloody brilliant.” Its exploration of what it means to be a Slayer is one of the more important themes throughout the series, executed nowhere better than here. While watching the show up to this point, one may have always had the thought remaining in the back of their head, “What if Buffy were to be severely injured or killed just by having an off day with a totally normal, regular vampire? Everybody makes mistakes, right?” Well, yes. Buffy is bested in a fight by a totally normal vampire in the opening scene of “Fool For Love,” prompting her on a journey of self-exploration that leads her to Spike, who knows about Slayers.  Funnily enough, no one knows more about Slayers than vampires, especially those who have killed multiple Slayers, such as Spike. He was always a layered character, but I feel his “William the Bloody” moments showed the complexities of how one changes when becoming a vampire. I believe Spike ultimately is able to act benevolently because of who he was as a human — an awkward but oh so well-meaning romantic. In “Fool For Love,” we are treated to a deconstruction of Spike the man, Spike the monster, and most interestingly and importantly, Spike the tragic hero. Spike is one of the most layered, fully developed characters in the series, and this episode is one of two reasons why.

9. “Lies My Parents Told Me” (Season 7, Episode 17) — This episode is the other reason why I love Spike so much. He’s a human in the world of vampires; he’s a vampire in the world of humans. Now, it seems harder and harder for him to prove that he really isn’t beyond redemption. However, this episode is also about Buffy’s transformation into becoming a leader. Sometimes a leader must lead by defying her advisors, including Giles (who is trying to see things the most rationally but ultimately cannot be persuaded by his own bias against Spike and his firm opinion that demons are irredeemable). Buffy must confront the idea that sometimes leaders do need to know how to break the moral boundaries when the time is right. However, the discussion of this episode is “Is this the right time?” And that idea is the basis for one of the most revealing episodes in the entire series. Giles’s sometimes-harsh “leadership” tactics are finally shown to be somewhat misguided, and it is in this episode where his mentor-mentee relationship with Buffy is finally destroyed; they are now equals.

8.  “Hush” (Season 4, Episode 10) — If I had to single out a single, incredibly valuable strength of this show, I’d have to say “dialogue, dialogue, dialogue.” Then, Buffy creator Joss Whedon comes along with a largely dialogue-free episode that is one of the most horrifying (and also one of the silliest) of the entire series. The Gentlemen are truly terrifying in its use of silence. The lyrical melody hummed by a small child in a dream sequence, reminiscent of A Nightmare on Elm Street’s famous “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you,” sets off the tone about how the loss of verbal communication can actually help Buffy and Riley cement their feelings for each other. The Gentlemen are also the perfect villains for a show like Buffy. They come from an old fairy tale and represent the demonic nature of the sins of the past: patriarchy, slavery, and more. They even steal the hearts of their victims, a reference to the destruction one person can create by metaphorically breaking someone’s heart. It’s surprising even for Buffy villains how layered these guys can be (more so considering they exist in one episode, without a single line of dialogue between them all). And the fact that Buffy is the “princess” who stops The Gentlemen by screaming is perfect. This episode, with almost no dialogue, was the only Buffy episode ever to be nominated for a writing Emmy.

7. “Innocence” (Season 2, Episode 13) — This is where Buffy stops being a silly ‘90s vampire show that happens to be laden with amazing characters and great metaphors about teenage life and becomes a truly legendary show. The pain that Angelus will cause Buffy is so clear here, and he’s only just begun. The Judge is a very good villain as well. Though he has little flair or personality (and almost no character development over the two episodes in which he appears), he has lots of thematic and symbolic meaning. His place here is mainly twofold: giving Buffy a corporeal villain to fight that poses a larger threat and is more powerful than a vampire, and reminding the audience of Angel’s soullessness. We have entered the golden age of Buffy! The title reflects the literal innocence of everyone at this time in their life (just before and after they lose their virginity), especially Buffy’s vulnerability in her deep yet very innocent love for Angel and her incapability of killing him at the end of the episode. “Dream on, schoolgirl. Your boyfriend is dead.” With that line, we enter the golden age of Buffy.

6.  “Graduation Day, Part 2” (Season 3, Episode 22) — This episode is the perfect climax of the greatest season of Buffy. Buffy learns, from Faith, about the nature of being the Slayer. This episode marks several ascensions: the students are ascending in graduating high school; the mayor is ascending into a demon; et cetera, but more important are the sacrifices that must be made to achieve ascension. The end battle is epic, with major stakes that lead to the tragic deaths of many important characters (the secretly gay football player Larry Blaisdell being one of the most heart-wrenching for me; he had one season of being allowed to be his gay self and STILL be the star footballer, and then he died. I’m crying a few tears as I write this.)

5. “Earshot” (Season 3, Episode 18) — This is maybe the most relatable episode in the entire series, one of the most strikingly real and deafeningly alarming episodes ever on television. In the post-Columbine era, this thing reminded us that maybe direct mass murder isn’t even the scariest thing in our crazy world; maybe that distinct honor goes to how humans as a group can bring specific people to their breaking point. This episode draws us in with a murder-mystery premise and some of the best dialogue in the entire season. I love it for how relevant it has stayed for almost twenty years since it was created. I love it for how well-written it is.

4. “Once More, With Feeling” (Season 6, Episode 7) — “The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.” — Dawn Summers (as written by Joss Whedon). Everything about this episode is perfect. I mean, the idea of people singing out their most deep-seated painful thoughts and secrets is perfection. Sweet is the greatest one-off villain on the entire show, and he’s even more impressive given his rather small amount of screen time. Every single scene in this episode is rich with character. Buffy feels like she is “Going Through the Motions”; for the first time in her life, she doesn’t give a damn about anything going on in the world. She is singing a Disney-like song about being very depressed and giving up hope in general. Sweet leads her on the path of admitting all of her secrets, ending with the revelation to her friends about how they took her out of a literal heaven when they brought her back from death. Tara and Giles, who never really had much in common before, are in similar roles here, trying to save a person they love from going down a very dark path. For Tara, it’s Willow with her magic, and for Giles, it’s Buffy with her post-resurrection depression and dependence on his help. Spike is also conflicted. He feels deep lust for Buffy (which later proves uncontrollable in “Seeing Red”), who won’t give him the time of day but often tortures him with her presence. These are deep, nuanced characters. The songs are all great; the depressing and non-Disney-like meaning of  “Going Through The Motions” contrasts with its natural Disneyish charm; “Standing” is an emotional, introspective soft-rock ballad about Giles’s role in Buffy’s life now that she is an adult; “Under Your Spell” is a love song that glimmers with ironic truths; “What You Feel” is a jazzy, gleeful crowd-pleaser ironic in its intent; “Rest In Peace” is a hard-rock song about the anger that can come with love; “Walk Through The Fire” is a harmonic masterpiece about characters overcoming their fears.

3. “The Body” (Season 5, Episode 16) — In the middle of a very good season of television, we suddenly have this literally musicless interruption that discusses the profound impact death can have on loved ones. This episode tackles profound emotions in every character. It is absolutely perfect in its handling of every single character’s reaction to this loss. Anya’s reaction to Joyce’s death is heartbreaking; she’s never felt anything like this before in her life. The impact of a sudden, very tough loss like Joyce’s on the lives of other people is immense, and that’s what the show captures here. It treats the brutal realities of death in all their horrible simplicity. It has no conventional Buffy-like plot; it is just the characters we have grown to love dealing with all the issues, big and small, that are brought on by death. It is realistic in a way that even few non-fantasy films and TV shows can even aspire to. I love this episode; it’s painful, real, and (sometimes) darkly comedic — just like the loss of a real loved one. And the ending, with its brutal reminder that the real, normal world is still there, waiting for Buffy’s return is heartbreaking. Buffy has to return to the real world because so many lives depend on her existence. Now it’s time to go back to the real world, holding your bleeding heart in your hands and placing it back in your chest so that you can keep going on. Wow.

2. “The Gift” (Season 5, Episode 22) — “The Gift” made me bawl. A lot. “The Gift” begins with a tragic reminder of Buffy’s past, a simple little vampire fight with almost no emotional stakes attached to it. And then she goes back inside and argues with Giles over whether he’s allowed to kill her sister. Dawn is all Buffy has left; her mother is dead; her finances are in serious trouble; her life revolves around killing soulless demons that will murder people unless she stops them. She is a necessary human sacrifice to keep the forces of evil at bay; the First Slayer said that “death is your gift” because the only thing Buffy can do to stop the endless trauma that pokes at her is die. That sucks. The moral discussion between Giles and Buffy is my favorite scene in the episode; two people, both trained to think rationally– even during the apocalypse — disagree on how far they can go to save the world. It’s about the personal versus the rational; the emotional versus the logical. It is logical to kill one person to save the rest of the world, but most of us probably couldn’t pull the trigger ourselves; we couldn’t have such a thing on our conscience, especially when that person is closely related to us. How could we kill everything we still love about ourselves in human form and stay alive in the metaphorical sense of the world?

1. “Passion” (Season 2, Episode 17) — I first saw this episode at the age of eleven, I was lying in bed while watching it. I didn’t sleep that night. This episode is witty, tragic, intense, thoughtful, philosophical, gutsy, morose, operatic, brutal, and most of all, shocking. Angel is an intense, thematically rich villain. Angel, Buffy’s former lover who has lost a soul, talks about passion. Passion is the beating heart in all of us. One could even say that passion is what makes up one’s soul — or, in Angel’s case, one’s lack of a soul. This episode is about the passions of all of the characters. Angel’s horrifying obsession with Buffy is downright painful to watch, especially because the episode is narrated by — and told from the perspective of — Angel. Buffy’s passion is her love and caring for a man she finds sympathetic — a man who lives in the dark while still having a conscience — until he loses his soul, and all hell breaks loose. She feels the need to neutralize Angel without killing him; she still believes that the man she loves is inside somehow. Giles’s passion is one of the most interesting; it ebbs and flows through the episode from passionate love for Jenny to an intense hatred for Angel. One last little side note: I’ve heard (but can’t quite confirm) that before Buffy, David Boreanaz wasn’t pursuing acting; he was apparently discovered by a friend of one of the casting directors who lived nearby and watched Boreanaz walk his dog and saw in Boreanaz everything they were looking for in Angel. If that’s true, then I must truly tip my hat to David Boreanaz. While this would explain some wooden acting early in season one, for Boreanaz to be able to do anything resembling the kind of work he does here with so little acting experience is…well, it’s breathtaking. His performance here is captivating; he embodies this cold, soulless, darkly comedic, slightly melodramatic (yet also intensely passionate) character of Angelus (Angel, when he has no soul, is sometimes referred to as Angelus) to a degree that many seasoned actors would be jealous of.

So that’s my top 10! Hope you all enjoyed this little Buffy geek-out session. And if you haven’t seen the show, just go watch it. It’s the greatest thing ever. Like, now. Like, WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE GO WATCH IT!!!!!!!

Editor: Makena Behnke