Sweeney: Guys, we’ve now watched five seasons of Buffy. These posts are awesome ways for us to celebrate finishing things, because of how infrequently we do that and how excited we are when it happens. At this point, though, the actual series finale is in sight. By “in sight” I mean, “Probably not until the last week of February or first week of March,” but STILL. It’s exciting stuff.
Season 4 was an awkward transition season. Part of what I love about this season is that while most of these episodes were fantastic all on their own, it did a lot of set-up work for the two remaining seasons. We’re starting to get a little more consistent, and we dug deeper into the Slayer Magic, which was awesome. I’m not sure if “fun” is the way I would describe season 5, but “immensely enjoyable,” sounds accurate. S3 still narrowly holds my top spot, but S5 is a very close second, and it’s that half step down primarily because I’d like to go a long time before I think about all the ugly crying I’ve been doing lately. (BRB, going in a corner to cry some more as I remember that we have two more seasons for Whedon to fuck with our emotions.)
- The Body – One of the best episodes of television, period. All the love.
- The Gift – I went back and forth on this, because I love this finale so hard. I love all the finales, I guess, but this is one of my favorites of the finales.
- Forever – Along with the rest of S5, really, it represents one of the most honest portrayals of grief I’ve ever seen on TV.
- Fool For Love – YAY BACKSTORY AND CROSSOVER MAGIC. I know this is higher on most of your lists, so just know that on my list, these top spaces are all super close competition.
- Checkpoint – BAMF BUFFY FOREVER. Some weird bits in this episode, but the final scene is fantastic.
- Blood Ties – I love Dawn. Good Spike/Dawn scenes and in spite of the annoying miscommunication plot points, I loved the way this was written.
- No Place Like Home – This was a great combination of fun to watch coupled with plot advancement. We meet Glory, and get the epic random introduction of Dawn (somewhat) explained. Plus, Giles in a wizard hat!
- Tough Love – I’m having a hard time deciding where to place this. Plot advancement and lots of feels, though a little less stand-out-ish for me than the above episodes.
- Family – Middle of the pack. I liked that we got to know Tara better, and that she was declared “family,” though it doesn’t compete with the season’s heavy-hitters. A pretty solid episode for E6, though.
- Weight of the World – Some decent moments, but it struggles under the weight of all that finale set-up. #punny
- Intervention – A great Giles scene, more Slayer history, and awesome development for Spike don’t quite nullify the creepiness of Buffy Bot for me, which is why this finds itself in the middle.
- I Was Made To Love You – I hate Warren and robots aren’t a Buffyverse specialty, but this actually felt like it served a purpose and I liked the Buffy’s conclusion was that she didn’t need to date anyone.
- The Real Me – This episode is higher than it should be because I loved all of Lor’s Harriet The Spy gifs.
- Spiral – Some fun camp moments (Spike’s goggles!) but it was just too much camp to throw into an episode where Buffy essentially admits to Dawn that she wants to die.
- Crush – Underwhelming return for Drusilla, and this is still Spike in mega creepy territory.
- Buffy vs Dracula – I hated the whole Dracula plot, but endless points to Whedon for punking his audience with Dawn’s entrance.
- Listening to Fear – We said it in the recap, but this episode suffered from season-arc heavy lifting. And space cockroaches.
- Out of My Mind – MEH. That’s really all I have to say about this.
- The Replacement – Definitely the best Xander episode we’ve gotten so far. I don’t mind it, but again, the Xander episodes seem to put the season arcs at a stand still, and I don’t like that.
- Shadow – I barely remember this episode and am ranking it higher than I should on account of it not having been traumatically bad in any way, but I know that Joyce’s brain tumor is represented with a side of Biley dramz and creepy Spike, so, you know, no thank you.
- Into The Woods – Yay, he’s gone, but I hate this final plot for Riley and I hate the note their relationship ends on.
- Triangle – In a season that handles one emotional fallout so brilliantly, it’s crazy that this episode happened. I never want to watch Buffy’s “comedic cry” ever again.
Lorraine: Where the heck did time go? Actually, I’ll answer that. We were so excited to put season 4 behind us and get on with it, that season 5 sped on by, the way vacation does in a way that the work week refuses to. I said it then and I’ll repeat it: a big part of the problem of season four was that it was a hinge, a transitional point. All of the Scoobies were in flux and it weakened an already super weak plot arc. I say that only to say that season five really seemed to redirection everything and everyone. There was so much character development in this season and it was all fantastic to watch.
The Magic Box and Dawn were both A+ additions to this season. Glory was a moderately entertaining villain, though not my favorite. Mostly, I am amazed at how so well thought out the whole of it seemed, dating back into Restless, and even other hints we had that Dawn was coming before then. It was so strong thematically, with the exploration of life, death, love and family. The weakest parts of this season are easily stronger than a lot of what we’ve seen so far.
- The Body – All of my Buffy watching so far really seemed to culminate here, at this place. An exquisite episode that was real, relatable, unique and that I’m sure will prove to be a plot marker. Things changed for Buffy after this, and they will continue to, I’m sure.
- The Gift – An emotional journey that still manages to be action packed and humorous at times. And a perfect end to this season and so much of Buffy’s journey.
- Forever – Angel and Buffy might be one of my favorite scenes of the series, all said and done. If The Body was about the immediate effect of death, Forever delved a little more into the subsequent fallout.
- Fool For Love – Spike really gets a ton of development in this season, and a big portion of that happens here.
- No Place Like Home – Giles in a wizard hat, our introduction to Glory, an explanation for Dawn and, “out for a walk. Bitch.” YEP.
- Weight of the World – Episode 21 usually has a tough job, and this one is no different. It works hard to set up The Gift, all while including excellent Willow moments and a great look into Buffy’s season long trauma.
- Tough Love – Lovely character moments and Willow in her witchy glory (GET IT? GLORY.) make this an episode to remember.
- Checkpoint – Buffy is helpless a lot during this season, so that she got a moment of being large and in charge? Love it.
- Into the Woods – I was the odd Snark Lady out, because I liked this culmination of Biley, and it gave me all the feels.
- Blood Ties – The emotional parts of the episode were handled well, plus we got to watch Spike and Dawn team up.
- Crush – Spike is creepy, but it’s a credit to the writing and actor that this episode still managed to be fun.
- Intervention – Buffybot WAS gross and obscene, but it was supposed to be. It led us to– have I said character development yet?
- I Was Made to Love You – As I said, it was an almost upbeat episode, right until the sucker punch to the feels.
- Family – The Tara A-plot was #meh, but it gave us the big family is who you choose speech, and I liked it.
- The Real Me – It’s kind of hilarious how upset I was by Dawn’s appearance. In retrospect? Genius.
- The Replacement – I’m with Sweeney: a stand-out Xander episode that still gets buried in the season.
- Spiral – Most of its points come from Spike with goggles on.
- Listening to Fear – Plot legwork + space roach = meh.
- Shadow – Joyce has a brain tumor and it was sad. This was an episode that moved plots and little else.
- Buffy vs. Dracula – I’m prepared to admit that I didn’t appreciate this as much because of my Dracula ignorance.
- Out of My Mind – Character development is overshadowed by a weak, contrivance-y plot.
- Triangle – Considering what a lasting affect the break-up had on Buffy, I’m still shocked they went this route to deal with the immediate aftermath.
Kirsti: As the girls have already said, season 5 was a dramatic improvement on season 4. That said, we flip-flopped merrily between ALL THE FEELS and unwelcome slapstick humour. Where season 4 was about the transition from high school, season 5 was about the transition to adulthood. Also, this list may seem a little wonky seeing as I’ve mentioned in the past that Fool for Love is my third favourite episode of all time. But the rewatchability factor is a big part of why things are my favourites, and while the Feelsy Episodes of Feels are phenomenal, I can’t handle rewatching them regularly.
- The Gift – OH. MY. GOD. I love everything about this episode.
- The Body – A truly phenomenal episode of television.
- Fool For Love – There is nothing about this episode that isn’t perfect.
- Forever – Spike/Dawn BROTP.
- Checkpoint – BAMF Buffy FTW.
- Tough Love – I like Badass Willow, and the episode delivered a kick to the Tara feels. But Buffy attempting to snap suddenly from big sister to parent grated.
- Blood Ties – I really enjoy the Spike/Dawn friendship, as I’ve already said. But the “let’s talk about Dawn in stupid ways while she’s still in the house” thing drives me insane.
- Family – It took a freaking long time to get going, but I love all the Scooby solidarity and feels at the end.
- Intervention – The Buffybot is a special kind of gross. But the Spike character development is incredible.
- No Place Like Home – If it weren’t for “Out. For. A. Walk. Bitch.” and Giles in a wizard hat, this would probably be a lot lower down the list.
- Crush – It’s an underwhelming return for Drusilla, especially when you’ve seen the awesomeness going on over in Los Angeles. Spike’s creepy as all hell, but his attempts at romancing Buffy are kind of hilarious.
- Buffy vs. Dracula – I think I’m the only one who likes this episode. It’s still middle of the road overall, but I love the cheesetastic Dracula plot.
- Weight of the World – Not the worst thing ever by a long shot. But the loop in Buffy’s head rapidly becomes infuriating.
- The Real Me – Meh.
- The Replacement – Decidedly middle of the road. Too much Xander, although it proves to ultimately be the turning point for his character.
- Spiral – I really don’t enjoy this episode. That said, it gave us Spike in steampunk goggles, so…yeah.
- Out of My Mind – Meh + contrivance = why does this episode exist?
- Shadow – Joyce has a brain tumour and Glory made a giant snake. In short, a giant bucket of pass.
- I Was Made to Love You – The introduction of Warren and his special brand of grossness = a world of NOPE. I enjoy the Buffy-sitting-with-April-on-the-swings scene, but that’s not enough to rescue it for me.
- Into the Woods – As much as I hated Biley and was thrilled to see the back of Riley, it felt like a disservice to both of them to have it end like this.
- Listening to Fear – Space cockroach of grossness. Blurgh.
- Triangle – Ugh. The Willow vs. Anya thing pretty much appeared out of nowhere, and Buffy’s fake crying was super awful.
We can’t wait to hear how you rank the episodes in the comments below!
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
