Sassy Says Watch Buffy!

Posted by Saluki in Sassy Says | 4 comments

Hello, and welcome to another Sassy Says!

My first look at vampires as a kid came from movies like The Lost Boys and Interview with a Vampire. Well, technically it was Count Chocula, but I don’t think he really counts. I, of course, dressed up like ‘Dracula’ for Halloween, and it was all good and fun.

In 1992 a movie called “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” came out. Knowing my like of vampires, my mother went to the corner video store and rented it for us to watch. The movie was campy, and honestly, being 8, I doubt I even was able to understand most of the adult jokes in it. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed it.

Flash forward 5 years. Just after my 13^th birthday a show starts on the WB, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.  I figured that I enjoyed the movie, so I would start to watch it.

That’s how I got into my first real fandom.

It is now 2010. Buffy has been off the air since 2003. I have re-watched every episode of the seven season show once a year since it went off the air. There is something about Buffy that even in its low points, makes it my favorite television show of all time.  Buffy is the true reason I love anything vampire related today. It’s part of the reason I think Twilight’s love story works. It influences me in so many ways.

So, for today’s Sassy Says, I am going to count down and briefly summarize my top 10 favorite Buffy episodes and tell you why I like them!

**Note: There will be some spoilers in these descriptions. Please read at your own discretion. **

10. Prophecy Girl (01.12)

Prophecy Girl is the Season One finale. As a mid-season replacement, Buffy only had 12 episodes in the first season.  Prophecy Girl set the tone for the rest of the show. Buffy, dressed in a white gown and leather jacket stalks The Master with a crossbow.  The Master kills her after he leaves her in a pool of water face down. Xander comes to her rescue and revives her with CPR, bringing her back to life, in time to see the Master break out of his prison. She then fights him and ends up winning of course. Seriously, badass.

9. Who Are You? (04.16)

Season four saw the return of Faith. She attacks Buffy and with a gift from the Mayor before he died, she switches bodies with Buffy. Faith takes over Buffy’s body and initially takes it for granted. Faith eventually realizes that Buffy does the right thing because she has too. She realizes that as a slayer, she is called to do the right thing. Buffy and Faith eventually end up switching back, and Faith goes to prison where she belongs. Who Are You shows the great acting skills of both Eliza Dusku and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

8. The Wish (03.09)

Cordelia hates the entire Scooby Gang because she found out that Willow had kissed Xander. She starts hanging out with a new student named Anya, who happens to be a vengeance demon. Cordelia lets it slip that wishes that Buffy never came to Sunnydale, as she feels Buffy is the reason she even fell for Xander in the first place. Anya’s magic makes the wish come true and the result is a really interesting look at Sunnydale. Willow and Xander are both vampires. The master is running free in Sunnydale, and when Buffy finally shows up she is a hard person, not the caring one we know. The wish is an excellent example of how amazing the third season was.

7. The Body (05.16)

Season five is a turbulent season for our Slayer. It marks the end of the show’s run on the WB. Buffy’s sister Dawn (whose hot mess storyline just needs to go away and never happen in the first place. DIE DAWN DIE.) shows up, and her mother has a tumor on her brain. At the cliffhanger in 05.15 (I Was Made To Love You) we saw Buffy walk in her front door to her mother lying on the couch, dead.  The Body is a hard episode for me to watch, as my dad passed away three years ago. The way each of the characters reacts to Joyce’s death is really interesting. Xander gets angry; Willow gets nervous and worries about how to best comfort Buffy; Tara understands Buffy’s pain, as her own mother is dead; Anya is confused, as mortal death is something she isn’t used too, and she doesn’t like the way it makes Xander act. The Body is honestly a perfect embodiment of all the feelings a person has when someone close to them dies.

6. Welcome to the Hellmouth (01.01)

Welcome to the Hellmouth is the very first Buffy episode ever. As a mid-season replacement, it needed to catch audiences early and for me at least it did. It starts out with Buffy Summers transferring to Sunnydale High from Hemery High in Los Angeles, where she was expelled for burning down the high school gymnasium (It was full of vampires, which is loosely based on what happened in the BTVS movie.) It sets the tone of the entire rest of the first season. The show is no where near the peak it reaches in seasons two three and four, but it is a strong start to the show.

5. Graduation Day Parts 1 and 2 (03.21 and 03.22)

Graduation day is the two-part season finale of season three.  All season three we have seen The Mayor of Sunnydale preparing for “The Ascension.” Faith (Who took Kendra’s place) has become a rouge slayer, working with the Mayor, and Angel and Buffy are on the verge of a major break-up. There is a fight between Buffy and Faith that ends up leaving Faith in a coma, and one of the best scenes in the show is when the graduating class is sitting on the lawn of Sunnydale High, and the mayor starts to ascend. The graduating class stands up, and you think they are going to run in terror. Quite the opposite, as they pull off their graduations robes and are all armed with weaponry to fight off The Mayor’s vamps. Buffy and Giles turn the school into a giant “volcano” to trap and kill the ascended Mayor, and Sunnydale High is never the same. Angel leaves at the end of Graduation Day part 2 to go to Los Angeles for good. The climax of season three was amazing to watch. Such a great end to her days of High School, I mean, who doesn’t want to see their high school turned into a giant volcano?

4. Becoming Parts 1 and 2 (02.21 and 02.22)

Season 2 of Buffy was amazing. Buffy and Angel have sex, and Angel in a moment of pure happiness, turns into the big bad for the season. He goes in cahoots with his old friends Spike and Drusilla, two vamps who have come to Sunnydale to wreck some havoc at the beginning of the season. Becoming Part 1 shows the return of “the other slayer” Kendra (who gets called because of Buffy’s “Death” in Prophecy Girl, and shows up for an arc in the beginning of season two.). Kendra is killed, Giles is kidnapped, and Willow is seriously hurt. In becoming Part 2, Buffy’s mom find out she’s the Slayer, and basically tells her that if she can’t stop, she isn’t welcome in her house anymore.  We see Willow perform her first real bit of magic. It restores Angel’s soul, but it’s too late. In order to stop the end of the world, Buffy drives a sword deep into the gut of the man she loves. It really proves how emotionally invested you can be in some characters to feel the pain they feel. As the finale to season two we are left watching Buffy get on a bus to places unknown.

3. Hush (04.10)

Season 4 of Buffy saw our favorite slayer go to college, where she dealt with a roommate who sucked her soul at night, and played Cher song’s on repeat during the day. She also had to deal with The Gentlemen. The Gentlemen come to Sunnydale and steal everyone’s voices. Then steal hearts. Literally, surgically remove them. Hush is an amazing episode in the fact that there is silence for about 80% of it. There is music playing, but the actors can’t talk, so they have to communicate other ways. Hush is also the only episode of Buffy I ever had to turn off and watch the next day because it scared the daylights out of me.

2. Once More With Feeling (06.07)

Buffy once again breaks the Sci-Fi/Fantasy mold with this episode. The episode starts out with an overture. Yes, you read that correctly. This episode of Buffy is a musical episode. Singing vampires, a singing slayer, people who dance too much that they combust. Honestly, in a mediocre season of Buffy (Six is one of those low points I talked about earlier) Once More With Feeling is an amazing piece of television. Every character sings, even if it is only a few lines. I give mad love to the actors for going though with it. I do know every song by heart as well.

1. The Prom (03.20)

My number one once again comes from season three. Season three is my favorite season of Buffy, for many reasons, but The Prom is the best episode of Buffy in my opinion. Aside from the typical rite of passage nonsense, the hellhounds trying to kill people at the prom, and all the hot mess back story that leads up to the prom itself, the single most heartwarming moment of the show comes from The Prom. After three years of watching Buffy go through her own personal adolescent hell, she is presented with a Senior Award. The “Class Protector”, an award never given to anyone before. The award shows they know what she’s done for them, and what’s going on in their town. And it is the thank you they’ve never been able to giver her till now. It honestly gives me goose bumps every time I see it happen.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, please feel free to comment and tell me if you agree with my choices, or what yours are!

And that’s what Sassy Says!