My Top Five Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episodes That Aren't the Usual Episodes

Did you know that BTVS is the most studied pop culture series by academics? Don't hate.

Ten years ago, I came home from teaching fitness classes all day to the cramped, cluttered apartment I shared with my fifteen-year-old son and eleven-year-old daughter. They were watching something I snidely referred to as “glittery vampire crap” on my computer.

“It’s not glittery,” my son told me. “It’s really really good.”

Unconvinced, I popped some popcorn in the kitchen (I make good popcorn) and shared the bowl as we watched. One episode became two episodes. Two became three.

“What’s this series called?” I asked.

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” my daughter said, rolling her eyes. “It was, like, a nineties thing. How did you not watch it?”

Well, I hadn’t, and now I was hooked. There were seven seasons. I stayed up late to watch them all. Pretty soon, I’d watched more episodes than my kids had, and I’d breathlessly ask them very early the next day, “Did you see that episode where Tara’s hick family comes to town?” My kids would blink at me non-comprehendingly, and it was so clear what they were thinking: Damn, Mom, you need a life in the worst way.

Since then, I’ve watched the entire series at least ten times. I can recite dialogue. I’m sure it’s a sign of mental illness, this unseemly love I have for all the characters, especially Buffy, Willow, and Xander, the storylines (even the silly ones, and yes, that includes most of Season One), its occasional missteps (in Season Seven, with yet another Armageddon on the horizon, Buffy’s sister, Dawn, and all the Potential Slayers kick Buffy out of the house—impossibly stupid), and an over-reliance on robot subplots.

There was a major hiccup for me along the way, namely Joss Whedon’s gaslighting, multiple infidelities, anger management issues, and general callousness toward the feelings of others. Yes, I recognize that applying a purity test to creatives is an exercise in futility. The great Renaissance painter, Caravaggio, was a murderer. Am I to slap one hand over my eyes every time I come across one of his paintings? But I continued to struggle with the Whedon conundrum. How could I continue watching a series created by a bonafide jerk? In the end, I realized that the series was far more than just Whedon’s. It belonged to the cast and crew—and most importantly, it belonged to me.

Here’s why I, a fully grown adult female, love Buffy. Not the Twilight movies, which I found cloying, dull, and insipid. Not Angel, which was a spin-off series starring David Boreanaz. Definitely not those Anne Rice fangers.

Just Buffy.

Women are starved for shows featuring strong, moral female characters. Sorry, but these Marvel Comics supergals have about as much depth as a cardboard stand-up at the mall. Buffy could have beaten anyone into a sludgy substance, but didn’t, not unless it was in the service of other people’s lives. Still, she had problems, just like the rest of us. She had breakups, just like the rest of us. She felt occasionally insecure, just like the rest of us.

Buffy wasn’t just physically powerful; she had emotional courage. She was a leader, and all that goes with it, including the loneliness of command. As a single mother, I related to her, deeply and personally. I was physically strong, too, teaching sixteen fitness classes a week. And I had to be strong on the inside, for my kids, which is where it really counted. I had to inspire and lead. And yet, at the end of the day, as I rode off into the sunset, I rode alone.

It is my belief that all women are Buffy. What we do is often impossible. But we do it. We save the world all the time, even if it’s just our own world. And no one is there to see it.

Here then are my top five Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes.

Fool for Love (Season 6, Episode 7). Full disclosure: I’m 100% Team Spike. I feel the Team Angel fans, I do. But Spike wasn’t cursed with a soul the way Angel was. He fought for it—and did so for the love of a woman who didn’t love him back. Talk about a hero! Also, Spike is played by the remarkable James Marsters, who can act circles around David Boreanaz. And does. Breaking the fourth wall (directly addressing the audience) is used masterfully in this episode, but it’s the writers’ psychological insights that leave me spellbound, namely the idea that Buffy has a death wish, which I suspect would be true for anyone in her position.

Hush (Season 4, Episode 10). You will find this episode topping many a BTVS list, and for good reason. It was risky, game-changing paradigm of storytelling that paid off in a big way. Most of the episode has no dialogue, and yet it overflows with wit, suspense, and genuine chills. If you commit to watching only one episode of Buffy, let it be this one.

Lover’s Walk (Season 3, Episode 8). Call me a sucker for these Spike-intensive episodes. Every word out of Marsters’ mouth is thespian gold. The episode was also nominated for an Emmy Award. In Lover’s Walk, Spike returns to Sunnydale after a painful and humiliating breakup with his girlfriend Drusilla. His rage, broken-heartedness, vulnerability and predatory ferocity is a tour de force unto itself. Combining those elements with some world-class fight choreography? I was riveted from start to finish. Also by dialogue like this, spoken by Spike to Buffy and Angel: “You’re not friends. You’ll never be friends. You’ll be in love till it kills you both. You’ll fight, and you’ll shag, and you’ll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you’ll never be friends.”

Band Candy (Season 4, Episode 6). For sheer comedic effect, not to mention outstanding acting by all leads, only Something Blue and The Zeppo come close to the “horror” of watching Buffy’s stuffy British mentor Rupert Giles revert to his sixteen-year-old self and her mother regress to her teenage, Juice-Newton-loving years. BTVS is usually at its best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s exactly what makes this episode so appealing: Teens become grownups, and grownups become teens.

Primeval (Season 4, Episode 24). Once again, Buffy is going toe-to-toe with another unstoppable badass, but she’s not doing it alone, and therein lies the very real heart of this penultimate episode of Season 4. Buffy, Giles, Willow, and Xander combine forces to create a “Super Buffy,” which feels very pleasing on an emotional level, especially since the series’ writers were careful to bake in some relationship conflict early on. The stakes are high and the tension top-notch in this climax, and it is followed by another huge favorite of mine, Restless, which brings new heights of absurdity to the idea of a dream sequence.

With the exception of Hush, none of these episodes are Buzzfeed or fan favorites (usually), but I’ve recommended them precisely for that reason. This is not to say I think any less of masterpieces like The Body, The Gift, Once More with Feeling (phenomenal), or Chosen; rather, I wanted to include a few lesser-known but equally remarkable episodes you may not have seen yet.

What are your favorite Buffy episodes? I want to hear aaaalll about them. Leave your comments below.