Notable Buffy the Vampire Episodes
Jan. 17th, 2016 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatStarted this in another post...but decided today, on the way to church of all places, to do a complete listing. These are the episodes of the series that I found the most memorable and explain why this series continues to be a favorite. It is notably the only series that I ever got serious enough or rather, obsessive enough about, to join a fandom.
I think the list below may well be the most objective list that I've done regarding the series. Since it's been well on six to seven years since I last watched an episode of Buffy. And like various others on my flist, have drifted a bit away from the fandom. So, I'm more detached, and less emotionally invested in various characters and arcs. For example? I'm no longer a Spike or Spuffy shipper. Don't ship anyone at the moment. Well maybe the Tardis -- because having one's own interstellar time machine is sort of cool.
[ETA: What motivated this list was a list of top 20 Buffy Episodes on Gameraider - which had been linked by petz. Suffice it to say, I really didn't agree with their list.]
The Most Notable Episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
First off, here are one from ten (as grouped together from a previous post, which can be found here, along with a review of The Sherlock Episode - The Abominable Bride.)
1. Once More with Feeling (S6) - first time anyone tried a musical episode and it worked. A meta-narrative on the musical. Without this episode, there most likely wouldn't be a Glee, Galavant, Crazy-Ex Girlfriend, or half a million other takes on the television musical. In the episode - Whedon uses music to pull out what the character's are really feeling, the undisclosed thoughts, often to themselves. When they burst out in song, they are as astonished by their actions as the audience. The episode not only furthers the plot of the story - from a character perspective, it evolves the characters and their relationships, and serves as a humorous meta-narrative on the movie/television musical video, where people sign for no apparent reason. They walk down the street - and all of sudden start singing and dancing. At one point, the characters even look at the camera and state "okay, enough of that, move it along."
2. The Body (S5) -- an episode with no music, very little supernatural stuff, it was just about losing someone. The grief of a loss. And how nothing really helps. Taking the idea of negative space or the absence...and expanding on it both visually and through dialogue.
3. Hush (S4) --- a dark made-up fairy tale, complete with a princess. But it subverts the trope.
And it has no sound but eerie music. And the princess saves the day by screaming. A homage to silent horror films and fairy tales wrapped in a box.
4. Dopplegangland (S3) --- a vampire version of Willow is accidently yanked by Anya from an alternate universe. This version is everything Willow is not, or so we think. Besides being an interesting commentary on sexuality, exclusion, bullying, and using vampirism as a metaphor for detachment and disconnection, it also examines identity. How we see ourselves, how other's see us, our dark and light sides. Buffy more than any other series at this time delved into the dark parts of the human soul, yet in a light almost quippy manner, and this episode is a perfect example of that. Must viewing for Willow fans.
5. Surprise/Innocence (S2) - - two episodes which should be seen together, or the second episode makes no sense. It subverts and flips the star-crossed lover trope. Buffy and her alleged one true love Angel finally sleep together, only to wake up and discover that Angel in having achieved a moment of bliss - no longer has a soul. He couldn't be happier. Now, he can destroy the world, be the villain, no pain, no guilt. But Buffy's world is shaken to its core. The metaphor goes deeper than that of course. For one thing it's Buffy's 17th Birthday - she's come of age, and lost her innocence in both the emotional and physical senses of the word. It's a cynical take on romantic love, in particular the Romeo and Juliet trope of romantic love. And it plays with the high school nightmare of sleeping with the hot older guy, only to have him treat you like shit the next day. (Which is a common nightmare for most women. )
6. This Year's Girl/Who are You (S2) - Two episodes that work better if seen together. Faith and Buffy do a body switch. And discover they know nothing of what the other is going through. Plays with what it would be like to live in another person's skin. Faith has high old time -- until she shares an intimate moment with Riley, and is thrown by it. Interesting take on the different types of sexual intimacy. Faith as Buffy launches herself sexually at various people, amongst them Spike, but when she has a deep and true sexually intimate moment it turns her world upside down and brings her self-loathing to the surface.
7. Fool for Love (S5) -- Spike spins Buffy a tale about his past and the slayers that he killed, when she comes to him for info on how he killed two slayers. Spike isn't the most reliable of narrators and it's not quite clear how much of what he tells her is the truth and embellished. The flashbacks we see, however, appear to be the truth. And it becomes clear upon watching them that Spike is a bit of a chameleon. He trades coats and personas. Redefining himself as required. And he has serious issues with women. Half-poet and half assassin, he charms Buffy almost as much as he does the audience...all the while, smiling with sharp teeth and a devil's grin. Then, the story flips in on itself. Spike, who appears to have all the power here, is cruelly rejected by Buffy. So he flips to assassin mode and decides to kill her - no matter the pain. (His typical routine and what he's done for decades.) Only to find her sitting alone, on her step crying, because she just discovered that her mother has cancer. Struck dumb by this news, Spike does an about face, and instead of killing her. Puts the shot-gun down, and comforts her instead. Like Doppelgangland - this episode is another example of how deeply the series explored identity and the battle of dark and light inside us all.
8. [ETA: Helpless (S3) and] Lies My Parents Told Me(S7) -- LMTP is a disturbing episode about male/female parental relationship tropes. Both Spike and Wood either idolize or romanticize their mothers. It's revealed that Spike killed his in hopes that he could save her. (Which is an idea that was stolen from Anne Rice, but it doesn't matter.) He also killed Wood's Mother -- mainly as a reaction to killing his one. He's basically been either killing or screwing his mother over and over again - in an attempt to assuage guilt and understand the complicated relationship between the two. Wood meanwhile resents his mother for abandoning him to kill vampires and at the same time aspires to be her, but can't quite get there. He's all about vengeance. (It's all very Freudian.) Off on the side, is Buffy and Giles, and her Daddy issues. Giles after abandoning her to her own devices, pops up again, and is telling her to kill Spike. Her discussion with Giles, and the later one with Wood and Spike, shines a light on her relationship with men - which like Spike's with women, is about her father - who abandoned her. She's either slaying him or screwing him or trying to please him over and over. [ETA: But it should be watched with Helpless from S3 or at least with knowledge of that episode. Since the writers examine the same themes but from different angles in each episode. Helpless is about a vampire with severe mother issues, he'd been mistreated by his mother. So he kidnaps Joyce - to make Buffy go through the same thing he did. Meanwhile, Giles is testing Buffy, by removing her strength. But not telling her he's doing it. She's to be put in the house with the nasty vampire - to see if she can defeat him with her wits, without being superstrong. He basically sets her up. The vampire has also in a way been set up by Giles and the Watchers - to do what he's doing, they take advantage of his mother issues -- to make him a deadly challenge for the slayer. Buffy's discussion with the nasty vampire and with Giles, shines a light on her issues with her mother and father figures. LMTP is slightly better because it's a bit more ambiguous.]
9. Becoming I & II (S2) --Episodes that need to be seen together to be truly appreciated. Angelus decides to destroy the world. Spike and Buffy team up to stop him. The story explains who Angel is, and why he does what he does. Turns out it's all about pleasing Daddy, who is long dead. It also goes into depth on Buffy - who thinks she saves the world on her own, yet in the background are her friends fighting along beside her. Her focus on Angel almost to the exclusion of all else - almost dooms them both. Interesting take on the traps of romantic love and how it isolates us from others.
10. Beneath You & Conversations with Dead People (S7) & Dead Things(S6) - these episode also work better if you've seen all of them. Since they each comment on each other and give a full picture of the theme. Various medleys on male and female sexual violence, guilt, remorse, and death. All brought together by a haunting song written by the writer in Conversations with Dead People - about being alone, even in the midst of sexual intimacy. Of how a good-night kiss can be the kiss of death. Or a lust can become violently confused with love. There's moments of violent poetry and striking metaphor in each. Beneath You - the last ten minutes twists the entire episode on its head. Up until that point - it's about the evil male worm, after that point, you see it's not that simple. The women, Nancy, Buffy and to a degree Anya, have demonized the men in their lives. Turned them into worms. Pull the curtain back - they discover while the men's actions were horrible, people are more than their acts. And demonizing them did not resolve the problem or provide satisfying closure. Dead Things - shines a light on those actions and how sexual relations can turn horrific, and relationships become violent mockeries of themselves...love and lust are not the same. It also talks about the war between light and dark inside use all. Then we jump to Conversations with Dead People - about the craving for closure with those we lost and seeing what we want to see...hearing what we want to hear, to feel no pain.
11. Selfless (S7) --- Anya has become a vengeance demon again, but she's having difficulty with the gig. Before, she could justify it. Now, she finds herself feeling sympathy for her targets, and well the whole demon thing has lost its appeal. The episode delves into who we are, the dance of light and darkness inside, and the degree to which our choices define us. In addition - it comments on vengeance, justice, and to a degree redeemption. Does killing our enemy solve the problem? Can we heal with hate and violence? No, we really can't -- as Xander begins to realize. He who up to this point was all about killing the demons, begins to realize demons aren't what they appear to be.
Anya like Spike trades roles, defining herself by how others see her or their proscribed roles. "Spouse, Scorned Wife, Vengeance Demon, Mrs. Xander Harris, Xander's Girl-Friend..." but who is Anya?
12.The Zeppo (S3), Superstar (S4), and Storyteller(S7) -- These three episodes, while not amongst my favorites, from an objective stance are rather brilliant meta-narratives on the nerdy writer of the verse. The nerdy writer who fantasizes about being a hero and writes himself into the story, but turns out to be an observer, on the sidelines. At the same time -- it's an interesting commentary on the side-kick, or character who has no powers...and is jealous of the hero. Taken from three different perspectives, Xander (the sidekick), Jonathan ( the nerdy fanboy, damsel, who resents not being a hero) and finally Andrew (the fanboy observer, who sees everything as little more than a game or fantasy.) Each episode asks what is real, and has an unreliable narrator at its core. In Xander's episode - he's the hero, and Buffy and Angel are sappy heroes going through the same old silly crap.
The episode feels at times like a parody of itself. Same with Superstar -except it goes further, satirizing both the genre and the fans who worship it, then Storyteller, goes a bit further, satirizing the writers who make it up...
13. Bad Girls/Consequences/Enemies (S3) -- the problem with serials is there really aren't any stand-alone episodes. It's not like Twilight Zone, where you can do a list of best episodes separate from the rest. Each episode in a serial builds on the last one. To fully appreciate these episodes, you really have to see all three of them, one right after the other. Bad Girls delves into how one handles power and the desire to do whatever you want. Consequences is well the consequences of doing just that. And Enemies...is how do you come back from it, if at all? And to what degree can we really trust someone who has broken our trust and gone down that road? The desire to forgive and forget is key, but so is remorse and the desire to change. What these episodes do is take what appears on the surface to be an accident, and watch it derail through cover-up into a serious crime resulting in one of the characters surrending to the dark side of her soul -- and attempting to take everyone with her.
In between, it has some interesting gender flipping moments regarding sexual violence and power.
14. Passion (S2) - Angelus decides to take out two birds with one stone. He goes after tech-witch, Jenny Calendar, who is attempting to bring back his soul. And in a horrifying sequence, snaps her neck. Signifying to the audience that he has gone full-blown dark side. Then, he artfully places her in Giles bed, plays a record, sets up a romantic venue of roses, and wine...and hangs back in the shadows to see what transpires. The voice over is pure gothic poetry...that coments on and to a degree satirizes the romantic vampire trope, made so popular with Anne Rice. It underlines the dark side of love - obsessive, lustful, without brakes, devouring.
15, Bargaining I & II (S6) - After Buffy has died, the world goes crazy. And her friends decide to bring her back, to save her from hell, or so they believe. This episode doesn't make a lot of sense without watching the Gift first. What's interesting about the episode and why it is notable is the commentary to 9/11 which occurred not long before it. Buffy stands at the top of decaying tower, the world burning below her and wonders if it makes sense to stay. The world is filled with dread. It burns. Is there any hope? Hope arrives in the form of her sister, Dawn, whom she'd previously sacrificed her life for...and Dawn reminds her of her own words at the end of the Gift, the it's not supposed to be easy -- but if she isn't alive, how can it be better? The episode perfectly captures the insane emotional angst that I felt during 9/11 - where the world suddenly appears to go insane.
16. Restless (S4) --- a surreal, somewhat avant guard episode, that delves deeply into the four prinicipal characters identies. Exploring each character's deepest fear in depth - and in a way exploring our own as well. The slayer - the original slayer - jumps from each character's dream slaying them through their fear. For Xander - the heart of the group -- it's his fear of romantic love, of giving his heart to another, without becoming his parents in the process. For Willow -the spirit of the group- it's her fear of being herself, of who she is...and how she appears to others.
For Giles (the brains or head) -- it's the fear of making the wrong decisions, or not thinking it through or getting it right. And for Buffy, the hands, its the fear of the power that resides inside her, the darkness it represents and being defined soley by it. Through his examination of each characters emotional and psychological issues - the writer gives his audience a road-map of sorts to the series as a whole, where he plans on going with it, and the themes he wishes to explore. He also does an intricate meta-narrative on the series and the genre.
17. Something Blue (S4) & Tabula Rasa (S6) - a comedic tour de force, that also serves as foreshadowing on each character's emotional arc. A precurser to Restless. Buffy goes nuts over Spike -- but it's all sexual and not quite real. Giles is blind to everyone's issues, too focused on his own. Xander attracts demons, for fear of being one himself. And Willow wrecks vengeance on those she loves most out of grief.Tabula Rasa (S6) - another comedic tour de force, but this time the identity of the characters is examined through a momentary loss of memory. They gravitate towards those who they've been most attached to of late, yet their pairings don't quite work and seem awkward. It too makes fun of itself and its genre.
18. Crush (S5) and Smashed (S6) - In Crush - Spike goes out of his way to win Buffy, by doing all the wrong things. And up pops Drusilla - who offers him a chance to go back to his old ways. He's stuck between three women, Buffy, Harmony and Dru...and all three get the better of him. Even though it appears at first that he has the upper hand. Smashed - notable for how the episode culminated. The heroine has violent, hot, sex with the villain. Or the presumed villain. The ambiguous Spike --- who can turn on a dime. Up until this point, it hadn't been done or not in series like Buffy. Also, notable for the ambiguity of the Spike character. Spike finds out his chip isn't working - so he tries to talk himself into eating a girl in an alleyway, being a vampire again. It doesn't work. His chip, it turns out, just doesn't work on Buffy. And Buffy is struggling with her attraction to Spike, who represents death, bliss, a return to the grave from which she came. When he confronts her - offers her a chance to dance with death - she takes him up on it - and brings the building down. I examines sex and lust and love as addictions...a way of escaping oneself and one's own reality.
19. Normal Again(S6) and The Wish(S3) -- two episodes that explore another reality, and to a degree reality itself as a construct. In the Wish Anya, grants Cordelia's ill-advised wish that Buffy never came to Sunnydale, believing her life would be so much better if Buffy weren't in it. Too bad she doesn't last more than five minutes in a Buffyless world. She's killed immediately. And we get to see dark versions of all of our heroes, from Xander to Buffy herself. Normal Again - Buffy is infected by a demon with a hallucinetory poison, which makes her believe that she's actually inside an insane asylum and this is all in her head. A make believe world that she has created. It's difficult to know which world is real, the world where she slays vampires, or the one in which she is committed to an asylum? And it also comments on the character's own self-absorption - and how one can feel as if the entire world rests on their shoulders.
20. Prophecy Girl(S1) and The Gift(S5) -- in both these episodes the heroine dies. And in both it is prophesized. In the first episode, Prophecy Girl, she drowns, after the Master (Vampire) sucks her blood. With it strengthening him, he breaks his bounds and goes after the town. Xander revives her, with Angel's reluctant assistance -- and together they take on the villains with great success. Notable for small touches her and there, and the flip in genre tropes. The Gift - Buffy actually dies saving the world. As her sister's blood opens the gates of hell, she leaps into them, her own blood, and her own death sealing them, as her friends mourn her loss. The metaphor of the death of childhood is underlined in both or innocence lost.
Okay those are mine, off the top of my head. Or basically the episodes I remember after six or seven years. What are yours?
I think the list below may well be the most objective list that I've done regarding the series. Since it's been well on six to seven years since I last watched an episode of Buffy. And like various others on my flist, have drifted a bit away from the fandom. So, I'm more detached, and less emotionally invested in various characters and arcs. For example? I'm no longer a Spike or Spuffy shipper. Don't ship anyone at the moment. Well maybe the Tardis -- because having one's own interstellar time machine is sort of cool.
[ETA: What motivated this list was a list of top 20 Buffy Episodes on Gameraider - which had been linked by petz. Suffice it to say, I really didn't agree with their list.]
The Most Notable Episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
First off, here are one from ten (as grouped together from a previous post, which can be found here, along with a review of The Sherlock Episode - The Abominable Bride.)
1. Once More with Feeling (S6) - first time anyone tried a musical episode and it worked. A meta-narrative on the musical. Without this episode, there most likely wouldn't be a Glee, Galavant, Crazy-Ex Girlfriend, or half a million other takes on the television musical. In the episode - Whedon uses music to pull out what the character's are really feeling, the undisclosed thoughts, often to themselves. When they burst out in song, they are as astonished by their actions as the audience. The episode not only furthers the plot of the story - from a character perspective, it evolves the characters and their relationships, and serves as a humorous meta-narrative on the movie/television musical video, where people sign for no apparent reason. They walk down the street - and all of sudden start singing and dancing. At one point, the characters even look at the camera and state "okay, enough of that, move it along."
2. The Body (S5) -- an episode with no music, very little supernatural stuff, it was just about losing someone. The grief of a loss. And how nothing really helps. Taking the idea of negative space or the absence...and expanding on it both visually and through dialogue.
3. Hush (S4) --- a dark made-up fairy tale, complete with a princess. But it subverts the trope.
And it has no sound but eerie music. And the princess saves the day by screaming. A homage to silent horror films and fairy tales wrapped in a box.
4. Dopplegangland (S3) --- a vampire version of Willow is accidently yanked by Anya from an alternate universe. This version is everything Willow is not, or so we think. Besides being an interesting commentary on sexuality, exclusion, bullying, and using vampirism as a metaphor for detachment and disconnection, it also examines identity. How we see ourselves, how other's see us, our dark and light sides. Buffy more than any other series at this time delved into the dark parts of the human soul, yet in a light almost quippy manner, and this episode is a perfect example of that. Must viewing for Willow fans.
5. Surprise/Innocence (S2) - - two episodes which should be seen together, or the second episode makes no sense. It subverts and flips the star-crossed lover trope. Buffy and her alleged one true love Angel finally sleep together, only to wake up and discover that Angel in having achieved a moment of bliss - no longer has a soul. He couldn't be happier. Now, he can destroy the world, be the villain, no pain, no guilt. But Buffy's world is shaken to its core. The metaphor goes deeper than that of course. For one thing it's Buffy's 17th Birthday - she's come of age, and lost her innocence in both the emotional and physical senses of the word. It's a cynical take on romantic love, in particular the Romeo and Juliet trope of romantic love. And it plays with the high school nightmare of sleeping with the hot older guy, only to have him treat you like shit the next day. (Which is a common nightmare for most women. )
6. This Year's Girl/Who are You (S2) - Two episodes that work better if seen together. Faith and Buffy do a body switch. And discover they know nothing of what the other is going through. Plays with what it would be like to live in another person's skin. Faith has high old time -- until she shares an intimate moment with Riley, and is thrown by it. Interesting take on the different types of sexual intimacy. Faith as Buffy launches herself sexually at various people, amongst them Spike, but when she has a deep and true sexually intimate moment it turns her world upside down and brings her self-loathing to the surface.
7. Fool for Love (S5) -- Spike spins Buffy a tale about his past and the slayers that he killed, when she comes to him for info on how he killed two slayers. Spike isn't the most reliable of narrators and it's not quite clear how much of what he tells her is the truth and embellished. The flashbacks we see, however, appear to be the truth. And it becomes clear upon watching them that Spike is a bit of a chameleon. He trades coats and personas. Redefining himself as required. And he has serious issues with women. Half-poet and half assassin, he charms Buffy almost as much as he does the audience...all the while, smiling with sharp teeth and a devil's grin. Then, the story flips in on itself. Spike, who appears to have all the power here, is cruelly rejected by Buffy. So he flips to assassin mode and decides to kill her - no matter the pain. (His typical routine and what he's done for decades.) Only to find her sitting alone, on her step crying, because she just discovered that her mother has cancer. Struck dumb by this news, Spike does an about face, and instead of killing her. Puts the shot-gun down, and comforts her instead. Like Doppelgangland - this episode is another example of how deeply the series explored identity and the battle of dark and light inside us all.
8. [ETA: Helpless (S3) and] Lies My Parents Told Me(S7) -- LMTP is a disturbing episode about male/female parental relationship tropes. Both Spike and Wood either idolize or romanticize their mothers. It's revealed that Spike killed his in hopes that he could save her. (Which is an idea that was stolen from Anne Rice, but it doesn't matter.) He also killed Wood's Mother -- mainly as a reaction to killing his one. He's basically been either killing or screwing his mother over and over again - in an attempt to assuage guilt and understand the complicated relationship between the two. Wood meanwhile resents his mother for abandoning him to kill vampires and at the same time aspires to be her, but can't quite get there. He's all about vengeance. (It's all very Freudian.) Off on the side, is Buffy and Giles, and her Daddy issues. Giles after abandoning her to her own devices, pops up again, and is telling her to kill Spike. Her discussion with Giles, and the later one with Wood and Spike, shines a light on her relationship with men - which like Spike's with women, is about her father - who abandoned her. She's either slaying him or screwing him or trying to please him over and over. [ETA: But it should be watched with Helpless from S3 or at least with knowledge of that episode. Since the writers examine the same themes but from different angles in each episode. Helpless is about a vampire with severe mother issues, he'd been mistreated by his mother. So he kidnaps Joyce - to make Buffy go through the same thing he did. Meanwhile, Giles is testing Buffy, by removing her strength. But not telling her he's doing it. She's to be put in the house with the nasty vampire - to see if she can defeat him with her wits, without being superstrong. He basically sets her up. The vampire has also in a way been set up by Giles and the Watchers - to do what he's doing, they take advantage of his mother issues -- to make him a deadly challenge for the slayer. Buffy's discussion with the nasty vampire and with Giles, shines a light on her issues with her mother and father figures. LMTP is slightly better because it's a bit more ambiguous.]
9. Becoming I & II (S2) --Episodes that need to be seen together to be truly appreciated. Angelus decides to destroy the world. Spike and Buffy team up to stop him. The story explains who Angel is, and why he does what he does. Turns out it's all about pleasing Daddy, who is long dead. It also goes into depth on Buffy - who thinks she saves the world on her own, yet in the background are her friends fighting along beside her. Her focus on Angel almost to the exclusion of all else - almost dooms them both. Interesting take on the traps of romantic love and how it isolates us from others.
10. Beneath You & Conversations with Dead People (S7) & Dead Things(S6) - these episode also work better if you've seen all of them. Since they each comment on each other and give a full picture of the theme. Various medleys on male and female sexual violence, guilt, remorse, and death. All brought together by a haunting song written by the writer in Conversations with Dead People - about being alone, even in the midst of sexual intimacy. Of how a good-night kiss can be the kiss of death. Or a lust can become violently confused with love. There's moments of violent poetry and striking metaphor in each. Beneath You - the last ten minutes twists the entire episode on its head. Up until that point - it's about the evil male worm, after that point, you see it's not that simple. The women, Nancy, Buffy and to a degree Anya, have demonized the men in their lives. Turned them into worms. Pull the curtain back - they discover while the men's actions were horrible, people are more than their acts. And demonizing them did not resolve the problem or provide satisfying closure. Dead Things - shines a light on those actions and how sexual relations can turn horrific, and relationships become violent mockeries of themselves...love and lust are not the same. It also talks about the war between light and dark inside use all. Then we jump to Conversations with Dead People - about the craving for closure with those we lost and seeing what we want to see...hearing what we want to hear, to feel no pain.
11. Selfless (S7) --- Anya has become a vengeance demon again, but she's having difficulty with the gig. Before, she could justify it. Now, she finds herself feeling sympathy for her targets, and well the whole demon thing has lost its appeal. The episode delves into who we are, the dance of light and darkness inside, and the degree to which our choices define us. In addition - it comments on vengeance, justice, and to a degree redeemption. Does killing our enemy solve the problem? Can we heal with hate and violence? No, we really can't -- as Xander begins to realize. He who up to this point was all about killing the demons, begins to realize demons aren't what they appear to be.
Anya like Spike trades roles, defining herself by how others see her or their proscribed roles. "Spouse, Scorned Wife, Vengeance Demon, Mrs. Xander Harris, Xander's Girl-Friend..." but who is Anya?
12.The Zeppo (S3), Superstar (S4), and Storyteller(S7) -- These three episodes, while not amongst my favorites, from an objective stance are rather brilliant meta-narratives on the nerdy writer of the verse. The nerdy writer who fantasizes about being a hero and writes himself into the story, but turns out to be an observer, on the sidelines. At the same time -- it's an interesting commentary on the side-kick, or character who has no powers...and is jealous of the hero. Taken from three different perspectives, Xander (the sidekick), Jonathan ( the nerdy fanboy, damsel, who resents not being a hero) and finally Andrew (the fanboy observer, who sees everything as little more than a game or fantasy.) Each episode asks what is real, and has an unreliable narrator at its core. In Xander's episode - he's the hero, and Buffy and Angel are sappy heroes going through the same old silly crap.
The episode feels at times like a parody of itself. Same with Superstar -except it goes further, satirizing both the genre and the fans who worship it, then Storyteller, goes a bit further, satirizing the writers who make it up...
13. Bad Girls/Consequences/Enemies (S3) -- the problem with serials is there really aren't any stand-alone episodes. It's not like Twilight Zone, where you can do a list of best episodes separate from the rest. Each episode in a serial builds on the last one. To fully appreciate these episodes, you really have to see all three of them, one right after the other. Bad Girls delves into how one handles power and the desire to do whatever you want. Consequences is well the consequences of doing just that. And Enemies...is how do you come back from it, if at all? And to what degree can we really trust someone who has broken our trust and gone down that road? The desire to forgive and forget is key, but so is remorse and the desire to change. What these episodes do is take what appears on the surface to be an accident, and watch it derail through cover-up into a serious crime resulting in one of the characters surrending to the dark side of her soul -- and attempting to take everyone with her.
In between, it has some interesting gender flipping moments regarding sexual violence and power.
14. Passion (S2) - Angelus decides to take out two birds with one stone. He goes after tech-witch, Jenny Calendar, who is attempting to bring back his soul. And in a horrifying sequence, snaps her neck. Signifying to the audience that he has gone full-blown dark side. Then, he artfully places her in Giles bed, plays a record, sets up a romantic venue of roses, and wine...and hangs back in the shadows to see what transpires. The voice over is pure gothic poetry...that coments on and to a degree satirizes the romantic vampire trope, made so popular with Anne Rice. It underlines the dark side of love - obsessive, lustful, without brakes, devouring.
15, Bargaining I & II (S6) - After Buffy has died, the world goes crazy. And her friends decide to bring her back, to save her from hell, or so they believe. This episode doesn't make a lot of sense without watching the Gift first. What's interesting about the episode and why it is notable is the commentary to 9/11 which occurred not long before it. Buffy stands at the top of decaying tower, the world burning below her and wonders if it makes sense to stay. The world is filled with dread. It burns. Is there any hope? Hope arrives in the form of her sister, Dawn, whom she'd previously sacrificed her life for...and Dawn reminds her of her own words at the end of the Gift, the it's not supposed to be easy -- but if she isn't alive, how can it be better? The episode perfectly captures the insane emotional angst that I felt during 9/11 - where the world suddenly appears to go insane.
16. Restless (S4) --- a surreal, somewhat avant guard episode, that delves deeply into the four prinicipal characters identies. Exploring each character's deepest fear in depth - and in a way exploring our own as well. The slayer - the original slayer - jumps from each character's dream slaying them through their fear. For Xander - the heart of the group -- it's his fear of romantic love, of giving his heart to another, without becoming his parents in the process. For Willow -the spirit of the group- it's her fear of being herself, of who she is...and how she appears to others.
For Giles (the brains or head) -- it's the fear of making the wrong decisions, or not thinking it through or getting it right. And for Buffy, the hands, its the fear of the power that resides inside her, the darkness it represents and being defined soley by it. Through his examination of each characters emotional and psychological issues - the writer gives his audience a road-map of sorts to the series as a whole, where he plans on going with it, and the themes he wishes to explore. He also does an intricate meta-narrative on the series and the genre.
17. Something Blue (S4) & Tabula Rasa (S6) - a comedic tour de force, that also serves as foreshadowing on each character's emotional arc. A precurser to Restless. Buffy goes nuts over Spike -- but it's all sexual and not quite real. Giles is blind to everyone's issues, too focused on his own. Xander attracts demons, for fear of being one himself. And Willow wrecks vengeance on those she loves most out of grief.Tabula Rasa (S6) - another comedic tour de force, but this time the identity of the characters is examined through a momentary loss of memory. They gravitate towards those who they've been most attached to of late, yet their pairings don't quite work and seem awkward. It too makes fun of itself and its genre.
18. Crush (S5) and Smashed (S6) - In Crush - Spike goes out of his way to win Buffy, by doing all the wrong things. And up pops Drusilla - who offers him a chance to go back to his old ways. He's stuck between three women, Buffy, Harmony and Dru...and all three get the better of him. Even though it appears at first that he has the upper hand. Smashed - notable for how the episode culminated. The heroine has violent, hot, sex with the villain. Or the presumed villain. The ambiguous Spike --- who can turn on a dime. Up until this point, it hadn't been done or not in series like Buffy. Also, notable for the ambiguity of the Spike character. Spike finds out his chip isn't working - so he tries to talk himself into eating a girl in an alleyway, being a vampire again. It doesn't work. His chip, it turns out, just doesn't work on Buffy. And Buffy is struggling with her attraction to Spike, who represents death, bliss, a return to the grave from which she came. When he confronts her - offers her a chance to dance with death - she takes him up on it - and brings the building down. I examines sex and lust and love as addictions...a way of escaping oneself and one's own reality.
19. Normal Again(S6) and The Wish(S3) -- two episodes that explore another reality, and to a degree reality itself as a construct. In the Wish Anya, grants Cordelia's ill-advised wish that Buffy never came to Sunnydale, believing her life would be so much better if Buffy weren't in it. Too bad she doesn't last more than five minutes in a Buffyless world. She's killed immediately. And we get to see dark versions of all of our heroes, from Xander to Buffy herself. Normal Again - Buffy is infected by a demon with a hallucinetory poison, which makes her believe that she's actually inside an insane asylum and this is all in her head. A make believe world that she has created. It's difficult to know which world is real, the world where she slays vampires, or the one in which she is committed to an asylum? And it also comments on the character's own self-absorption - and how one can feel as if the entire world rests on their shoulders.
20. Prophecy Girl(S1) and The Gift(S5) -- in both these episodes the heroine dies. And in both it is prophesized. In the first episode, Prophecy Girl, she drowns, after the Master (Vampire) sucks her blood. With it strengthening him, he breaks his bounds and goes after the town. Xander revives her, with Angel's reluctant assistance -- and together they take on the villains with great success. Notable for small touches her and there, and the flip in genre tropes. The Gift - Buffy actually dies saving the world. As her sister's blood opens the gates of hell, she leaps into them, her own blood, and her own death sealing them, as her friends mourn her loss. The metaphor of the death of childhood is underlined in both or innocence lost.
Okay those are mine, off the top of my head. Or basically the episodes I remember after six or seven years. What are yours?