Best of Buffy

We have been talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and taking it season by season discussing the best episodes, moments and structural parts of the show. We have already done the first two seasons and as such we are moving onto season 3 of my beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We are talking about the best of Buffy. Season 3 does a lot in the way of writing and character development and story progression. Our big bad carries the nuance that season 2 brought to us. And we get a different kind of emotional pull from season 3 then we’ve previously experienced in the run of this show.

Big bad part 1: The Mayor.

So our major big bad for season 3 was, of course, the mayor. He was the drive behind all kinds of evil stuff including trying to take over the entirety of Sunnydale. He turned himself into a giant snake on graduation day and ate a bunch of people. It was all very sinister. I would argue his biggest evil doing was corrupting Faith.

Big bad part 2: Faith.

Faith was undoubtedly the second big bad of this season. This might be a controversial take but I really do not care, season 3 Faith was a villain. “But she was alone and just needed someone to love her!” yeah…that's what Buffy tried to do but the reality was that Faith was a very lonely, angry person who thought her Slayer powers entitled her to do whatever she wanted. She was selfish and definitely a little crazy. She killed someone and felt no remorse and she aided the mayor with full awareness of what she was doing. Did she redeem herself eventually? Maybe but not within the confines of this season.

Best episodes;

Episode 9: The Wish; I think this episode really does a great job of showing the impact that Buffy had on not just Sunnydale as a whole but on her friends as well. I really love this episode and it also gives us really the beginning of Anya.

Episode 12: Helpless; Probably the best episode of the season, Helpless is great at showcasing just why Buffy is a great Slayer. She is smart and resourceful and if they had put Faith through this test she absolutely would have died.

Episode 20: The Prom; The class protector award makes me cry every single time. That moment is one of the best of the entire series but it's also just a great showing that not only do we the audience know the impact that Buffy has had on this town but the people around her have also noticed and they appreciate her.

I am really not a fan of Faith, I kind of like watching the dynamic of the Scooby Gang change when she enters the picture. I also think she is a good character as kind of a foil and challenger to Buffy but I really just can’t stand her so I really don’t rewatch season 3 very often. I can rewatch specific episodes but I can’t stand the whole season. As I’ve pointed out there are also a lot of unpleasant feelings that this season invokes which is great from a writing standpoint. The writers most definitely did their jobs, but that also means that unless you are nostalgic, or you are in a very specific mood the feelings of loss and moving on and releasing innocence and childhood are not something one normally wants to invoke intentionally. That said the show is wonderful and season 3 is the peak before the fall as far as quality for this show goes.