Category: Season 7

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons Ranking

We figured we'd give this its own post, mostly so you all could also rank with us in the comments.
I feel like I'm going to put this order up, wake up tomorrow and feel differently. Seasons are made up of so many moving parts, that ranking this way is difficult. I think I'm stalling now. OKAY. OKAY. Here we go:
  1. Season 5 - When season 5 took first place in my eyes, it surprised me.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E22 – The end

Holy shit balls, you guys. We made it. Episode 144. It's been a long time coming - I mean, we started this whole crazy trip at the start of July 2012 - and I think the three of us have been anticipating this moment for months now. And now that it's here, I don't quite know how to deal with it. Sure, we haven't always loved the show, and sometimes recapping it twice a week has been indescribably painful. But I'm not sure how to adjust to life without Buffy recaps. Seriously - I wrote S07 E22 up there in the title and immediately teared up.
Sweeney: There's going to be a lot of that. It's been a long road and it's surreal to be here. MANY FEELS.
Lorraine: Just chiming in to say, "YEP." Perhaps I wasn't as ready to say goodbye as I thought I would be. For that reason, I should also warn you that things get very capslock-y and SQUEE-y in the recap below. I'm not even sorry that I'm not sorry. No apologies; feels abound.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E21 – Callback Feels

This episode title is a liar because there's one more episode! It's JUST BEFORE the end. Silly title. This episode begins immediately where we left off. Faith tells everyone to get down and the bomb blows. Buffy eyes her prize as Priest-ion comes downstairs, gloating about how she can't pry it from solid rock and she easily lifts it up. It's a nice callback to the time it was assumed that the troll hammer couldn't be wielded and Buffy lifted it all NBD. Wolf howl.
Kirsti: Buffy's insta-pull and Priest-ion's face made me giggle.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E20 – End of times sexy times.

Inside the Summers' home, it's somewhat clear that whatever happened at the end of the last episode, it wasn't well thought out. All the Potentials, Giles, Willow, Faith, Xander, Anya and Principal Wood are having a disorganized discussion about how to have organized discussions. Kennedy is pretty much just excited about having more of a say.
Faith keeps trying to calm everyone down. Amanda goes on and on about parliamentary procedure. During this, Giles tries to assure Dawn that what they did was for the best. Dawn says it doesn't feel that way. Finally, Faith tells everyone that they need to chill out and get some sleep. Kennedy wonders if they have time to waste and Faith basically answers, "things suck so let's sleep." I support this plan. It's pretty much the best one we've heard this season.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E19 – Coup o’clock

We open in Sunnydale's main street. It's busier than we've ever seen it, bumper to bumper traffic as people flee the Hellmouth-y vibes.
Lorraine: Only seven season later. Better late than never, population of Sunnydale!
Sweeney: "See, even the population of Sunnydale is peacing out! We promise we're a couple episodes away from a real mega apocalypse!"
K: A+.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E18 – Hellfire and brimstone

I was pretty devastated when I discovered that I had to cover this episode, because - as you guys should know by now - I have eyeball phobia. The unfortunate thing is that I only have myself to blame for this - way back in the day, I was all "YAAAAAAY SPIKE!!!!" and insisted on the Sweeney, Lor, Kirsti recapping order because it meant that I could cover School Hard. Oh, Past Kirsti. You stupid, stupid girl.
Sweeney: To be fair, that was actually just the logical order based on when I joined the recaps -- it's more that you were excited about the way it worked out than that you actually moved for it to be that way. You know, for whatever consolation that affords you.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E17 – Save the drama for your momma.

New York City in 1977. We follow the pouring rain down to the street where Spike and Nikki are fighting and exchanging quips. Behind a nearby bench, baby!Wood watches the fight. Spike has Nikki in a headlock, and baby!Wood startles and knocks over a trashcan. Spike is distracted enough that Nikki is able to break out and continue the fight. She pulls out a stake and throws it at Spike, but he catches it mid-air and says he's spent a long time tracking Nikki down, and he doesn't want the fight to end so quickly. With one last compliment to her coat, he takes off.
Baby!Wood calls out to his mom. She tells him he did a great job staying low, just like she asked. I call bullshit on Spike not smelling/hearing/seeing the kid, but okay. Good job, baby!Wood.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E16 – Fanboy

Bach is playing and we're clearly in a fancy room which suggests flashback, at first, until I spot a comic book and then a Star Wars poster. This, instead, is Andrew's episode. He's sitting in a leather chair, telling the viewer that he's catching up on an old favorite, closing a fancy old book. "It's wonderful to get lost in a story, isn't it?" Sometimes, Andrew. Sometimes. He tries to smoke from a pipe, but coughs before awkwardly inviting to join him on the story of "Buffy, Slayer of the Vampyres."
Lorraine: I would've never thought to combine Andrew and Masterpiece Theater, but here it is in all its glory.
Sweeney: A rare stroke of S7 genius.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E15 – Original recipe

One of these days, I'll stop making KFC references in the title. BUT NOT TODAY. Chez Summers. Buffy wanders around in the dark, turning off lights, picking up books and generally checking on sleeping Potentials. Upstairs, she sees one girl, Chloe, crying in the corner of the hallway and heads towards her. But something jumps out at her and knocks her down the stairs. She lands at the bottom, the First Slayer above her. "It's not enough," the First Slayer hisses, and Buffy wakes with a start. Cue wolf howl.
Lorraine: I'm going to admit that I'd previously been confusing the First and the First Slayer in my head. #Snowproblems.
K: Awkward...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E14 – Dating time out

We jump back in time to that moment in London where Giles is about to get his head chopped off by a Rage Ninja. This time, we see the whole scene through: Giles grabs the axe like a, well, ninja and uses it to cut the Bringer's head off. In the present, Giles is telling this story to Buffy and the Potentials as they walk through a cemetery. This group includes a new Potential named Chao-Ahn. He's going on and on about how it was a mix of luck, years and years of training and an uncanny sense, so you just know something is about to catch him off guard.
Sweeney: It's season 7 people. You should all have learned your lesson about self-assured speech-giving by now.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E13 – Aggressively Mediocre

The previouslies remind us of Warren murdering Tara and the flaying, so that's SUPER promising. Giles is heading off to the desert to take the Potentials on Vision Quest, fretting about whether or not Buffy will be all right, Buffy jokes that they've managed longer than that -- you know when he ABANDONED THEM. The rest of the Scoobies strut in and out of the scene to talk about making marshmallows, the fact that the girls are fighting over who gets to drive since Giles doesn't have a valid license, and let Giles know that Molly is locked in the trunk. Good times.
Kirsti: My favourite thing about this scene is Giles berating Buffy for what she told the Potentials about the Vision Quest:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E12 – Not It

After approximately a million years worth of previouslies, we're in the cemetery at night. Rona and Vi wander around looking nervous, stakes in hand. They hear a rustling noise behind them and are jumped by Spike. He goes to bite Vi, then stops as the camera pulls back to reveal Buffy and the other Potentials conducting a training exercise. Rona complains that it's never going to be a fair fight, because she doesn't have Slayer strength, and Buffy informs them that while they may not have that, they're still strong. It would be a nice "YAY GIRL POWER!" speech if it didn't continue with her saying that they're strong because they have abilities that other, non-potential-slayer girls don't have. Sigh. On the plus side, she tells them that they have the potential, thereby earning herself a gold star. It's been aaaaaaaaaaaaages since Buffy had one, so wheeeeee:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E11 – Schooled.

Lorraine: Sunnydale Bus Station. A young woman of color (LOOK KIRSTI) (K: Season 7, otherwise known as "that one time Sunnydale had POC characters who survived more than two episodes...) who is wearing some Overalls of Overall Sadness gets off a bus. I don't actually know if she's sad, but it's been a while since we've had overalls and I wanted to call them that again.
Sweeney: Season 7 has a lot of nostalgia to deliver and those overalls were definitely plucked from early season Buffy's closet.
Kirsti: Plus, it lets us bring back a tag that's been languishing unused since season 3. HURRAH.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E10 – Bring the Sunrise

Xander is cleaning up the broken glass, lamenting that he's trapped in a "loop" in which he replaces the Chez Summers windows for all of eternity. (K: This is hilarious because he spends most of the rest of season 7 repairing those fucking windows.) This joke acknowledging the recurring destruction of the Summers home is obviously fantastic, but the word "loop" makes me twitch because I'm trying to learn actual code so that I can fix all the things that keep breaking on this website, but failing because it all looks unsettlingly like math. I feel you, Xander. I sometimes wonder if Snark Squad database errors are going to be ruining my life forever, too.
Lorraine: I really hope it isn't rage ninjas breaking our website.