Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Top 5 Defining Moments

Virtually every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has great moments, ones rooted in character that change, define, or highlight the best qualities of the people who shape Buffy’s world or the show itself. This list could easily have different answers from everyone. But for me, these are the best moments, the ones that speak to who these characters are or who they’re about to become, individually or as a whole, or what Buffy the Vampire Slayer is about. These are, once again, in chronological order.

You’ll notice none of these focus solely on Buffy; come back tomorrow, and you’ll see why.

As with the other lists, there will, by default, be spoilers.

Angel Loses His Soul (Season 2, Episode 14, “Innocence”)

“The pain is gone.”

Technically, this happens at the end of the previous episode, “Surprise,” as well, but “Innocence” is where we see it for ourselves. The first half of this two-parter is heavy on the Buffy/Angel love story. On Buffy’s seventeenth birthday, she and Angel have a near-death experience facing the Judge, and after barely escaping with their lives, they finally consummate their relationship. Later, in the middle of the stormy night, as lightning flashes, Angel jolts awake and stumbles into the alley outside his place, crawling on the ground in pain and calling for Buffy. When “Innocence” opens (after a brief catch-up with Spike and Drusilla), a smoking woman walks over to Angel and asks if he’s okay. In response, he stands up, turns to her, and bites her neck, draining her of blood and killing her, before blowing the cigarette smoke she was inhaling out of his mouth. We don’t know the logistics yet, but we know what’s happened: Angel is gone, and Angelus has returned.

This is one of those moments that signifies a story is playing for keeps. Up to this point, Angel has been a constant on Buffy; he’s been moral and altruistic, loving towards Buffy, and stalwart in his desire to help people and fight evil. We learned about his past, but we’d never seen his capacity for evil. When he kills the woman in the alley, it’s shocking, and because of the strong character work of the past season and a half, we immediately understand that this is not Angel, just as we understand that everything about the show has changed. The rest of “Innocence” follows up on that, establishing the danger Buffy and her friends now face, the dread that will envelop their lives until Angelus has been destroyed. (Interestingly, he’s rarely referred to as Angelus on Buffy; this is to drive home how personal it is for Buffy, how, as far as she’s concerned, she’s facing the man she loves.) But before the elaboration, this one scene says it all: Angel has left the building, and no one will ever be safe again, from Angelus or Joss Whedon.

Everyone Stands up for Tara (Season 5, Episode 6, “Family”)

“We’re family.”

Tara, a fellow witch Willow meets in college and becomes romantically involved with, is harboring a secret – the women in her family are demons, and when they reach a certain age, they must be locked away, or they will harm those around them. Her father, brother, and cousin (played by a pre-stardom Amy Adams!) come to town to bring her home. But Tara is happy where she is, and to protect herself, she casts a spell on the group to make them “not see” the demon in her. Unfortunately, the spell goes awry, causing them to be blind to a trio of demon killers sent after them; Buffy is barely able to defeat them, and the gang is almost massacred. When her family shows up and tells them what’s going on, and Tara confesses to what she did, Buffy stares at her in what looks like disgust and tells Tara’s father to take her… then turns to him and says, “You just gotta go through me.” This begins a heartfelt scene where, one by one, the Scoobies stand up for Tara and make it clear that nobody is taking her away from them. Even Spike lends a hand (despite saying he doesn’t care what happens), using the chip in his head to prove that her demonic nature is a lie her father tells the women in the family to keep them under his thumb. And when her biological family leaves, Tara celebrates her birthday with the family she made on her own.

Before “Family,” Tara has been a hanger-on to the Scooby Gang. She was Willow’s girlfriend, which was more implied than said aloud (until the hilarious “Triangle”), but she was so introverted and shy that nobody got much of a bead on her. “Family” takes place on and around Tara’s birthday, and the gang struggles to figure out what to get here because they simply don’t know her. Also unspoken is that Willow’s relationship with another woman has thrown them a bit despite their determination to support her. And, to be fair, Tara is a bit strange. (The show puts its own spin on Seinfeld’s “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” response to being uncomfortable with the subject by having them follow up anything they say about Tara with, “But she’s very nice!”) But when they see someone Willow loves about to be dragged off as she weeps for everything she’s about to lose, they immediately accept Tara into their fold and put their bodies in front of hers. This is one of the most succinct demonstrations of the show’s stance on family, as summarized by Joss Whedon: “Your family is what you make it.” The Scoobies are more a family to each other than their actual families are, and Tara is a part of that now.

Spike Protects Dawn (Season 5, Episode 18, “Intervention”)

“The Slayer is going to kick your skanky, lopsided ass back to whatever place would take a cheap, whorish, fashion victim ex-god like you.”

Glory, the main villain of season 5, is a banished god hunting for the Key, the mystical ball of energy that will allow her to return to her home dimension – and destroy ours in the process, but omelets and eggs and whatnot. The Key happens to be Buffy’s sister Dawn, who was created by the monks guarding the Key because they knew the Slayer was the only one who could protect it from Glory. So, Glory tells her minions to find whoever Buffy protects above all others and bring them to her because that must be the Key. The problem is, Buffy is out of town on a mystical vision quest, and Spike is in the company of the Buffybot, a remarkably lifelike robot replica of Buffy he had built for… well, you can guess. And, seeing them together, Glory’s henchmen assume that he is the Key and kidnap him (a bit too easily, in my opinion). Glory can immediately tell Spike isn’t the Key, as he is a vampire, but she knows he’s close to Buffy and tortures him until he talks. And after a lot of pain, he finally agrees to give it up. And Spike tells her the Key is… Bob Barker. In other words, he refuses, telling Glory she can torture and kill him, but he’ll never betray Buffy.

For much of season 5, Spike has been in love with Buffy, or at least realized he’s in love with her. (Trust me, there’s a difference.) But what does that mean to a soulless monster like Spike? He’s violent, self-serving, and, above all, a survivor who always lives to fight another day. And he’s been conducting what can very loosely be called a relationship with the Buffybot (which is a long story, but in practice, the Buffybot is hilarious and shows how broadly funny Sarah Michelle Gellar can be), indicating that this is more an obsession with someone he finds attractive and can’t seem to kill than actual love. But “Intervention,” when his fixation on Buffy is at its creepiest, is the episode that proves Spike truly does love her. He has everything to lose and nothing to gain by hiding Dawn from Glory, but he knows it would destroy Buffy if she lost her sister, and he’d die before he’d let that happen. This is confirmed to us and to Buffy at the end, where she goes into Spike’s crypt pretending to be the Buffybot and gets him to admit as much. It even leads to their first real kiss; Buffy doesn’t love him, but she now understands that he loves her, and that’s enough for Spike.

Giles Kills Ben (Season 5, Episode 22, “The Gift”)

“She’s a hero, you see. She’s not like us.”

Glory, the unbeatable god-tier (literally) villain of season 5, has finally been defeated, with Buffy using mystical weapons to pound her into submission. But as Buffy is slamming a giant hammer into her head, Glory suddenly morphs back into Ben, her human tether to our world. Glory is from a hell dimension, and she was banished by the other two gods of that world, who feared her power and evil. But she can only exist on Earth by sharing a body with a human, who turns out to be Ben, an orderly at the hospital. And Ben is a pretty nice guy who hates Glory and the terrible things she does. Killing Ben is the only way to kill Glory because, without her tether to this world, she simply ceases to exist. But Ben is a human, and that’s a line Buffy doesn’t cross. This is something she tried to do with Faith in season 3, and even though Faith ended up living, the thought that she’d killed her horrified Buffy. So she tells Ben to make sure Glory knows it’s over; she won’t be going home, so she’d better accept her fate and leave them alone. She then drops her hammer on the ground and leaves. As Ben, on his back and breathing heavily, contemplates living the rest of his life with Glory, Giles walks in, kneels by Ben, and reassures him that, despite the assurance of Glory’s vengeful return, Buffy could never kill him because “she’s not like us.” Then, Giles puts his hand over Ben’s nose and mouth and suffocates him, killing a human being and saving those he loves and the world itself from Glory’s wrath.

This is another example of Joss Whedon understanding how to “subvert expectations” in an immensely satisfying way that is set up in the story and is consistent with the characters. Earlier in “The Gift,” Giles insists they at least discuss the option of killing Dawn before Glory can use her to open the gateway to a hundred hells, and Buffy flat-out refuses. They talk afterward, and Giles tells her he’s sworn to protect the Earth, “and sometimes, that means doing what others can’t, what they shouldn’t have to.” He means Buffy, because he knows she isn’t willing to go as far as he is. It’s understood that he’s talking about Dawn, taking an innocent life to save countless others. That’s a trade Buffy will never make, but Giles is capable of it. Meanwhile, Xander briefly suggests killing Ben before stopping mid-sentence, disgusted with himself. The idea is introduced but pushed aside, so it’s out of our minds when the big action finale begins. But it’s all been set up, and Giles shows the lengths to which he’ll go to protect the innocent, no matter what it does to his soul. He also demonstrates how proud he is of Buffy that she refuses to do evil for the sake of good; she’s a better person than he is, and he loves her for it as any father would. But sometimes, you need the guy who will cross the line the heroes can’t. This also works beautifully as a complement to Buffy’s sacrifice; she finally understands the meaning of death being her gift, just as Giles has now dealt out death as a gift to the world. Neither kills who they thought they’d have to, and both are happier for it, if only somewhat in Giles’ case.

Spike Wins Back His Soul (Season 6, Episode 22, “Grave”)

“Make me what I was so Buffy can get what she deserves.”

Season 6 saw Buffy and Spike engage in a sexual relationship, one born of despair on Buffy’s part. (Coming back to life was not as easy as everyone thought it would be.) But when she breaks it off, Spike is left adrift, wanting her to love him but being told, after finally seeming to get her, that he can’t have her anymore. It was frustrating and confusing, and it came to a head in an episode called “Seeing Red,” where, in a state of almost madness, Spike tries to rape her. Buffy kicks him off, and he comes to his senses, but he realizes what he’s done and, ultimately, why: he’s a demon, a soulless monster who, despite his clear capacity for love, will never be a good man. So he leaves Sunnydale and, over the last few episodes of the season, travels to Africa, where he seeks out a powerful demon and undergoes a series of painful, dangerous trials in exchange for something we’re not explicitly told. We’re led to believe it’s to get the chip out of his head at long last, to give him the means to fully become the monster he’s had to suppress since season 4. But, in the final moments of the final episode of the season, the demon agrees that he has proven himself worthy of his request, so he lays his hand on Spike’s chest and says, “We will return your soul.”

Again, the misdirection in the episodes leading up to the end of “Grave” is masterful. Spike is angry, lashing out at his friend Clem (a terrific minor character), saying that he can’t be a good man and, because of his chip, he can’t be a monster. He finally laments that things never change before getting that devilish grin of his and adding, “Unless you make them.” When he finds the demon, it describes Spike’s request as being allowed to “return to [his] former self.” And Spike is still angry, referring to Buffy as a “bitch.” The demon mocks him for his love for Buffy, telling him that it’s what’s been holding him back. (“You were a legendary dark warrior, and you let yourself be castrated.”) The notion of Spike wanting his soul seems to come out of left field, but there are clues to this being his goal. Through Spike’s anger is his insistence that he wants to “give her what she deserves.” Ultimately, he doesn’t mean a violent death but a righteous man. And when he leaves Buffy’s home after doing the most horrible thing he’s ever done, he leaves his trademark leather coat behind; this is the symbol of his darkness, the pelt he took off of one of the Slayers he killed. (That symbolism returns in season 7 and is used to great effect, not just for the immediate story but to differentiate Spike from Angel, the other ensouled vampire who loves Buffy.) His anger, his derogatory comments about Buffy, do not represent what he wants to attain but what he wants to leave behind: his evil, his ability to hurt Buffy, all the attributes he once celebrated but now laments. And all of this goes back to season 2 and the humanity – or lack thereof – revealed by the Judge; Angelus had no humanity and was cursed with his soul, but Spike is a monster capable of love and sought his out to be the man his woman needed him to be. It’s a showstopper of an ending to a dark season, a shocking moment that feels like it could only come from Spike.

Honorable Mention: Willow Chooses to Stay in Sunnydale (Season 3, Episode 19, “Choices”)

“Of the two people here, which is the boss of me?”

“Choices” focuses on Buffy and her desire to leave Sunnydale and have some semblance of a normal life, a recurring theme throughout season 3. At first, it seemed like she could delegate her Slayer duties to Faith while she went off to college, but then Faith turned to evil. In “Choices,” Buffy makes one last, desperate attempt to carve out a future for herself by trying to stop the Mayor’s plan before he can enact it. This entails stealing a vital component of the Ascension, the Box of Gavrok, and using a magic ritual to destroy it before the Mayor can consume its contents. And she and Angel pull off the heist! It looks like a solid victory… until they realize that Willow has been captured, and the only way to get her back is to give the Mayor his box. They make the exchange, and Buffy realizes that a normal life away from Sunnydale is a fantasy, that she must remain and be the Slayer, or people will get hurt. But the most interesting choices in “Choices” are not Buffy’s; they’re Willow’s.

We know Buffy will choose to stay in Sunnydale, just as we know she’ll choose to save Willow over destroying the Box of Gavrok because that’s who she is, who she’s always been. (And the show doesn’t insult us by trying to make us think Buffy would consider abandoning Willow for a moment.) But Willow is a different story. We know she’s a good person and a loyal friend to Buffy, but she’s not the Slayer. She has no sacred calling, no duty to the world or anyone else. And she has more options than Buffy; she’s been accepted to Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Oxford. The world is her oyster. And when she gets captured, she manages to escape, using her limited magical abilities to kill her vampire guard with a floating pencil. But she makes two choices in the episode, one brave and one monumental. First, she chooses not to escape but to read the Books of Ascension, which detail the Mayor’s evil plan; she even tears out and pockets the most important pages before she’s recaptured, handing them to Giles after she’s exchanged for the Box of Gavrok. But the biggie is at the end, where she tells Buffy she’ll be going to UC Sunnydale with her, forsaking the brightest future imaginable to stay with her friend. And when Buffy – after a moment of pure joy – tries to convince her to leave, Willow says she’s staying because “that’s what I want to do. Fight evil, help people.” And she tells Buffy that, despite her insistence that it’s her duty, she is staying for the same reason Willow is: she wants to help. This is the mirror of a scene in the very first episode of the show when new-in-town Buffy has the chance to be one of the popular girls, but she chooses to be Willow’s friend because she sees a good person in her, someone she actually wants as a friend. Now, Willow is choosing Buffy, and it’s because she’s the good person Buffy always knew she was. Willow Rosenberg is a hero as much as Buffy Summers is.

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If you’ve got your own set of defining moments or want to talk about these, feel free to comment below. The previous three articles in this series can be found here, here, and here; be sure to come back tomorrow for the final Best of Buffy list before I review Slayers: A Buffyverse Story.