Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Seasons 5-7

I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's , there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore. It's stupid. It's mortal and stupid. And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why. -Anya in The Body

Buffy: You ever heard the expression, "biting off more than you can chew"? Okay, um, how about the expression, "Vampire Slayer"?

Vampire: What the hell are you talking about?

Buffy: Wow! Never heard that one? Okay, how about, "Oh God, my leg, my leg?"

Vampire: (Buffy breaks his leg) Oh God, my leg! Ah!

Buffy: See, now we're communicating. (dusts vampire) Wow, been a long while since I met one didn't know me. You should get home.

Guy: How'd you do that?

Buffy: That's what I do.

Guy: But... you're just a girl.

Buffy: That's what I keep saying

-exchange in The Gift

Season 5: In either the first or second best season of the series, the main cast returns, with the exception of Seth Green. Blucas leaves in the 10^th episode. Emma Caulfield joins the main cast and Michelle Trachtenberg does as well in the 2^nd episode as Buffy’s younger sister, Dawn, a development that will be explored throughout the season. Amber Benson might as well be part of the main cast, appearing in all but 4 episodes. Kristine Sutherland also appears in quite a few episodes. The Big Bad of the season is Glorificus, Glory for short, and is portrayed by Clare Kramer. The season also contains what I hold to be either the first or second best episode of television I have ever seen.

Best Season 5 Episodes:

-Buffy vs. Dracula—The episode title says it all, but the episode is so much more, beginning the discussion about what it means to be a Slayer.

-Real Me—Dawn is seamlessly integrated into the gang and the members’ lives as though she has always been around. Also, Harmony returns and boy has she changed a lot.

-The Replacement—Xander is split into two people, a cool, successful half and an uncool, far less successful half by a demon.

-Out of My Mind—As Riley’s super-soldier enhancements kill him, Buffy enlists Spike’s help to get him help, but Spike instead kidnaps the doctor to get the chip out of his head.

-No Place Like Home—Glory is looking for The Key. After being whooped by Glory, Buffy meets a monk who relates some startling news. This is a truly amazing episode that receives not one ounce of the praise it deserves.

-Family—In the series’ only Tara-centric episode, her family comes on her 20^th birthday to take her away, but the gang won’t agree until they find out the whole story. The whole deal about overbearing parents is, I admit, clichéd, but the episode was well done enough to at least overcome it a bit.

-Fool for Love—Spike, in love with Buffy, tells her about the Slayers he killed. Buffy turns back his advances, angering him, but he comforts her when she finds out about the extent of Joyce’s illness. This is another astonishingly great, and criminally underrated, episode

-Shadow—Joyce has cancer and Buffy worries about how to tell Dawn.

-Listening to Fear—Buffy and Dawn help Joyce prepare for surgery, while an alien preys on people’s mind, turning them into mental patients.

-Into the Woods—Buffy learns of Riley’s unfortunate habits, confronting and thereby causing him to give her an ultimatum on their relationship and his own future. This is a powerful look at relationships and the issues that come when expectations are different and neither party is willing to enter into any sort of discourse.

-Checkpoint—The Watchers’ Council comes to help Buffy but puts her through tests instead. Buffy takes a stand against their short-sighted practices.

-Blood Ties—Dawn discovers the startling news Buffy learned from the monk and has a close call.

-Crush—I always love a Spike-centric episode, so this was just a damn good time.

-I Was Made to Love You—An incredibly odd, but still good, episode in which Warren builds himself a female robot but runs away. Also, Buffy’s scene with the robot at end is incredibly poignant.

-The Body—This is that monumentally perfect episode I mentioned earlier. Joyce dies and Buffy, Dawn, and the rest of the gang are left reeling. Featuring absolutely no music in a show that made its name on its dialogue and use of music, the episode also features a fantastic 3-minute-long single-shot scene right at the beginning. It also contains a towering performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who should have won an Emmy for it. There is only one scene with supernatural activity, allowing the entirety of the episode to focus on the immense difficulties associated with grief, mourning, and unimaginable loss. And even that supernatural scene is placed in order to show that the world isn’t going to stop crashing against Buffy just because she’s suffering immense personal loss. The episode isn’t too complex, but the emotions are. Everybody will react differently to the episode, but pretty much everyone will at least tear up: I don’t cry, or really even tear up, at movies or TV shows really ever, but every time I see this, I’m tearing up about 12 minutes in when Giles arrives and Buffy yells at him.

-Forever—Angel comforts Buffy after Joyce’s death. Dawn tries to resurrect Joyce, but Buffy convinces her not to.

-Intervention—4 Words: “Death is your gift.”

-Tough Love—Buffy is forced to drop out of college to care for Dawn and herself, losing yet another tie to normal life. The Buffy/Dawn exchanges and Willow/Tara scenes are pretty great.

-The Weight of the World—After Dawn is kidnapped, Buffy becomes catatonic and Willow must bring her back.

-The Gift—In this excellent season finale, Buffy and the gang set out to rescue Dawn, and Buffy finally realizes the meaning of the 4 words from Intervention, realizing the death of childhood and welcoming the challenges of the adulthood that follows.

Overall Season 5 Review: This season, for some ridiculous reason, isn’t usually ranked as one of the best seasons of the show, and I remember even seeing it called the worst someplace, but I personally thought this was probably third-best season overall. Actually, now that I think about it, this is absolutely the second-best season, after season 2, and it’s a close battle for first. It really is a truly amazing season of television. Season 3 has more A+ absolutely outstanding episodes, but this season has episode after episode of incredibly solid B+/A- work. The story arc is extraordinary, with the character of Glory harkening back to the Big Bads of seasons 2 and 3. And even the stand-alone episodes are strong.

The two main themes of the season are family and the issue of belonging and finding your place in the world. The second of these includes a large amount of development of what being a Slayer means, of who Buffy is because she’s a Slayer. It explores everything physical she does: the love, the sex, the violence, the power. The season attempts to define the Slayer while Buffy attempts to shatter that mold. The season also explores her relationships: how her relationship with Riley dies and her important revelations about the nature of relationships that follow. Willow and Spike also receive fantastic character development as well.

Every episode has beautiful cohesion thematically, and every single one is intelligent and funny.

Season Score: 10/10

Dawn: Oh my god. You will never believe what happened at school today.

Buffy: Everybody started singing and dancing?

Dawn: I gave birth to a pterodactyl.

Anya: Oh my god, did it sing?

-exchange in Once More, with Feeling

Warren: Say goodnight, bitch.

Buffy: Goodnight, bitch.

-exchange in Seeing Red

The first day of kindergarten you cried 'cause you broke the yellow crayon and you were afraid to tell anyone. You've come pretty far, ending the world, not a terrific notion... but the thing is, yeah. I love you. I love crayon-breaky Willow and I love scary veiny Willow. So if I'm going out, it's here. If you wanna kill the world, well then start with me. I've earned that. -Xander to Willow in Grave

Season 6: In the second-to-last season of the series, Anthony Stewart Head departs the regular cast, instead appearing as a guest star in a handful of episodes. The rest of the main cast returns, and Amber Benson essentially joins the main cast, special guest starring in every episode she appears in, except for one in which she is in the main cast. Tom Lenk, Danny Strong, and Adam Busch act as the Big Bads, Andrew Wells, Jonathan Levinson, and Warren Mears, for at least the first half-to-three-quarters of the season, before disastrous events lead to a dark path.

Best Season 6 Episodes:

-Bargaining, Parts 1 and 2—Giles leaves town and the gang attempts to resurrect Buffy.

-After Life—A truly amazing episode exploring Buffy after being brought back by the gang and all of the painful issues she has to deal with. Incredibly underrated is an understatement.

-Life Serial—Buffy is in financial trouble and tries to get a job, but instead has to go through a series of tries devised by Andrew, Jonathan, and Warren

-Once More, with Feeling—The best episode of the season, Joss Whedon spent months writing the score and lyrics to this excellent musical episode. While not everybody is up to the task, particularly Willow, Xander, and Dawn, the episode is carried by Anthony Steward Head’s, Amber Benson’s, and Emma Caulfield’s fabulous singing, James Marsters’ great Billy Idol-style singing, and Gellar’s decent voice. The episode occurs when a singing demon causes the citizens of Sunnydale to randomly burst into song. Two-time Musical Tony award-winner Hinton Battle guest stars as the demon. There are some truly great songs including Rest in Peace, Under Your Spell, Standing, Walk Through the Fire, Going Through the Motions, I’ll Never Tell, and What You Feel, which actually is pretty much all of them. There are also two hysterical 10-to-20-second numbers entitled The Mustard and The Parking Ticket featuring series writers and producers. The show is, similar to Hush, all about the limits of regular, spoken language.

-Smashed—While not great by itself, this two-episode arc titled using alternate vocabulary for drunkenness is pretty powerful in showing Willow’s descent into addiction to magic.

-Wrecked— While not great by itself, this two-episode arc titled using alternate vocabulary for drunkenness is pretty powerful in showing Willow’s descent into addiction to magic.

-Dead Things—An incredibly good, very underrated episode that I frankly overlooked when I first saw it.
-Older and Far Away—Dawn, feeling left out and unimportant, makes a wish in front of one of Anya’s old vengeance demon friends, a wish that comes true.

-As You Were—Riley returns to Sunnydale with his wife and enlists Buffy’s help to track down a demon. It's not great, but I loved Riley's character, so I liked the episode.

-Hell’s Bells—At Xander and Anya’s wedding, an older Xander convinces him that marrying Anya is a terrible move. Misfortune follows.

-Normal Again—The second-best episode of the season, Buffy is convinced by a demon unleashed by the Trio that her friends are figments of her imagination and that she’s been lying in a mental ward for the entire series.

-Seeing Red—Willow and Tara reconcile, Tara tells Willow about Buffy and Spike, and Buffy stops the Trio, but Warren escapes. He goes to Buffy’s house with a handgun with disastrous consequences.

-Villains—Pushed over the edge by the horrendous events of Seeing Red, Willow, racked by immense grief, becomes Dark Willow and hunts the Trio, starting with Warren.

-Two to Go—In the first part of the powerful season finale, the gang struggles to protect Jonathan and Andrew from an immensely powerful Willow.

-Grave—In the second part of the powerful season finale, Giles returns from Britain with a huge amount of temporary magic, but Willow still defeats him. Set on ending her suffering by bringing on an apocalypse, Xander must find the wherewithal to stop her. The final scene (pictured) is heartbreaking. Meanwhile, Spike completes a set of challenges given to him in order to be granted a soul.

Overall Season 6 Review: After the first season, unfortunately, this season may be the worst. Okay, that makes this season sound bad. It’s not. Actually, it’s probably comparable to season 4, quality-wise, which means it’s still a rewarding watch. Most detractors say it’s too dark and humorless, and while it could use more wit, the dark tone is an excellent development for the series. I mean seriously, the characters are now adults, you can’t honestly think that the show can keep up with the same, relatively lighthearted storylines of old? I truly loved this season for its riskiness. It’s certainly not flawless, but it does what Star Trek only discussed doing in the opening credits: it boldly goes where no one has gone before. That doesn’t just have to do with Buffy as a series, but with just about any series out there. The sixth season is an emotional powerful rollercoaster examining depression, love, addiction, loss, belonging, and the nature of power. The season can certainly be depressing, but viewed in a rapid fire setting (like two-to-three episodes a day for seven-to-eleven days, or even faster if you're up to it), its emotional effect is incredibly powerful. The series has created characters so likeable and supportable, that we can’t help but feel for them and root for them during their darkest hours. And there are a lot of dark hours for each and every one of them. But in the end, hope prevails and the season is remembered as a humorless, but immensely rewarding season. One of the major ideas I got out of this season was that we can’t really recognize every single amazing, gorgeous thing we are blessed with unless we first face the demons in our lives that plague us, fighting the darkness in our lives allows us to turn on the light and take in the beautiful world around us.

The main issue I found with the season as a whole was with the Big Bad. The Trio (Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew) are introduced very early on as the Big Bads, but they never really amount to anything more than comic relief. Warren becomes a villain, and a reasonably compelling one at that, but Jonathan and Andrew never really amount to much, though I really like their characters for various reasons. The only great episodes they’re involved in are Flooded, Life Serial, Smashed, and Dead Things. By the time the season’s magnificent final octet of episodes comes around, the Trio is already beginning to split. Warren has distanced himself from his partners in crime through his cold-bloodedness. Warren as a villain is great, but the Trio is not. But honestly, I think I would’ve preferred an earlier transfer to Dark Willow, although I don’t know how much I would have liked it if she had come about her transformation the same way and we had missed out on the always wonderful Tara for the interim episodes.

As I write this, I can’t help but change my entire opinion on the series. I still don’t think it’s the best season of the series, nor is it my favorite or even my third-favorite, but I respect its lofty goals and ambitions more than the intentions of any other season of television I’ve ever seen. The best television series nowadays have excellent seasons peppered with daring escapades into difficult-to-deal-with territory, but season 6 attempts to delve into those immensely complex and dark issues every single episode. It doesn’t succeed every time, and really only succeeds almost three-quarters of the time, but I respect it so much for trying every single damn time to push its boundaries in every way possible.

Season Score: 9/10 (the episodes really result in about an 8/10, but the immensely lofty goals of the season elevate it tremendously)

There's only one thing in this world more powerful than evil, and that's us.

-Buffy in Bring on the Night

Buffy: I just... if you knew what I've done, what I've let myself become. My best friends don't even - You'd laugh, you heard some of the things I've done to them.
Holden: Buffy, I'm here to kill you, not to judge you.
-exchange in Conversations with Dead People

Season 7: In the final season of the series, the regular cast returns, minus Amber Benson. Tom Lenk and Anthony Stewart Head are near the point of regular characters. D.B. Woodside also appears in quite a few episodes as the principal of the newly reopened Sunnydale High, Robin Wood. A huge number of previous important characters return in various capacities, many of them as agents of the season’s Big Bad, the inanimate First Evil.

Best Season 7 Episodes:

-Lessons—Dawn discovers vengeful spirits in Sunnydale High, Giles rehabs Willow in England, Spike lives in the high school basement, going insane with guilt after having his soul restored.

-Help—Buffy becomes a counselor at Sunnydale High and meets a girl who predicts her own death. Despite doing everything she can, Buffy can’t save her. Azura Skye guest stars and gives an incredible performance as the girl.

-Conversations with Dead People—In the second best episode of the season, purely because of the series finale, Buffy, Dawn, and Willow face familiar faces from their pasts. Future Angel season 5 recurring cast member Jonathan Woodward guest stars here in a quite entertaining role.

-Showtime—After numerous potential slayers arrive and start to live at the Summers’ household, Buffy must gain their trust and kill the Ubervamp.

-The Killer in Me—Willow faces her inner demons while Buffy contacts the government for assistance.

-Get It Done—Buffy learns more about the First Slayer and the source of her own power.

-Storyteller—In a humorous break from the dramatic story arc of the season, Andrew makes a documentary about the Slayer and the events in Sunnydale.

-Lies My Parents Told Me—The gang investigates what Spike’s trigger while Wood and Giles plot to eliminate Spike.

-Dirty Girls—Faith returns to Sunnydale just as an ultra-powerful, evil ex-priest, Caleb, also comes to town. Buffy leads an attack against him, but it doesn’t go well at all.

-Empty Places—Sunnydale starts to evacuate and the Potentials suffer numerous casualties. Buffy loses their trust and they oust her, putting Faith in charge.

-Touched—Spike comforts a depressed Buffy. Faith tries to do well at her new, unwanted position, but it doesn’t go so well.

-End of Days—Buffy finds an ultra-powerful battleaxe and faces off with Caleb. Just when she is almost certainly doomed to lose, a welcome ally returns and saves her. This isn't great, but Caleb is an incredibly compelling character.

-Chosen—In the best episode of the season, Buffy and the gang regroup and launch a daring attack against the First. Using some powerful magic, Willow changes the field of play drastically and Spike becomes a hero. In the end, Sunnydale is no more, and same with the Hellmouth.

Overall Season 7 Review: This season isn’t bad, but it isn’t nearly as good as all of the other’s, either (well, except for the worst season, season 1). The season has to wrap up everything that has happened in the series. Coming after the gutsy, emotionally powerful season 6, season 7 just doesn’t have the kind of riskiness it needed to measure up.

The season does succeed in a lot of places, but it doesn’t succeed in other where you might expect them to. While it’s incredibly hard to complete every character’s personal journey while simultaneously evolving those same characters, I would think that a series so well known for its entertaining plots would be able to go out in an incredibly memorable way, but overall it’s only marginally successful.

The season, though, is not a waste at all, and my saying it’s not as good as some of the others shouldn’t really deter you at all. It’s a satisfying end to a fabulous series.

Season Score: 8.5/10