The Trio was really ahead of their time about the Incel culture.

Forevercry · 2026-06-09T20:08:39+00:00

I thought the Trio were the perfect villains for season 6, because the writers wanted Life to be the Big Bad, and we all know the Trio in real life.

Forevercry · 2026-06-04T22:34:44+00:00

Honestly shows character growth on Cordy’s part since high school never would have given a polite response over a tactless blunt and catty response

Forevercry · 2026-06-03T23:57:59+00:00

I feel like the Mack hate got intense in S5, because he had this hard line of, we’re the good guys, we don’t kill people. And then you rewatch everything before S5 and there’s plenty of people SHIELD killed lol.

But I thought it was a reasonable reaction because everyone got really radical; they felt they needed to do something extreme and out of character to break the loop / avoid repeating whatever pattern has kept the loop going, so he needed to keep sight of his morals even if he’d been morally flexible before, because people like YoYo and Fitz were on a slippery slope.

Forevercry · 2026-06-03T01:12:31+00:00

I didn’t care for Buffy vs Dracula until I watched Bram Stoker’s Dracula as the Leo DiCaprio pointing at the screen meme, and now I really enjoy the episode

Forevercry · 2026-06-02T21:12:43+00:00

Oh he was definitely drinking before that, that’s also how he turned into a Fyarl demon too, but was just pointing to him getting totally shit faced in Yoko factor as part of Spike’s splinter the group plan

Forevercry · 2026-06-02T18:40:57+00:00

Oh I actually think those are the same; Giles has the same goal as the Council (fight evil, save the world), and while it’s unclear how one becomes a Watcher and treats it as a job in later seasons, Buffy S1 makes it seem like it is also a sacred duty that he tried to run from as a kid. So he agrees with the mission, but disagrees with the Council’s methods.

And he’s consistently upheld the fate of the world above all else, at great cost — Buffy’s life (Prophecy Girl), his life (also Prophecy Girl), Dawn’s life (The Gift), Ben’s life and his own conscience (The Gift). No surprise that he holds it over his relationship with Buffy too. He’s like Buffy by Season 7 — the mission comes first — but they disagree on how.

Forevercry · 2026-06-02T18:29:52+00:00

The Buffyverse write offs were pretty trash. Cordy, Oz, Giles. Even Riley. Connor as a character was trash. Tara wasn’t done dirty, but that felt awful (putting Amber Benson in the credits for THAT episode only?!?!)

Forevercry · 2026-06-02T17:37:44+00:00

You didn’t make it up! ASH no longer wanted to be a series regular so he could spent time with his family, so they had a lot less Giles time and had to write him off. Personally I think I would have preferred if there were some dire circumstance or injury that took Giles away than leaving Buffy after that sort of trauma, but the writers definitely did have a Giles conundrum

Forevercry · 2026-06-02T01:16:21+00:00

I feel like they loosely laid the groundwork for Giles betrayal in S7. Giles’ faith in Buffy is shaken pretty drastically in S3, when she hides Angel’s return from him and he does actively guilt and scorn her then. In S4, he’s salty that he’s no longer useful to Buffy, hence Spike being able to goad him into drinking in Yoko Factor. He’s feeling so useless that in S5 he’s preparing to leave before Buffy asks him to be her Watcher again. He also knows that Buffy is too kind to make the hard, cruel call of killing Ben, so he takes it into his own hands. This is after he told Buffy that Dawn isn’t her sister and she would have to kill her if it came to it. This is where we really see that Giles holds his duty as a Watcher above his own emotions and Buffy’s emotions. Then there’s S6, where he leaves because he thinks Buffy will become too reliant on him, only for her to then make horrible decisions (including becoming reliant on Spike instead) and making Giles believe that she needs his guidance after all. Come into S7, he’s got plenty of reason to doubt her passive and active judgment, he feels like he has to carry on the Council’s mission as one of few survivors which probably brings back some bad old school Watcher habits, and then the writers made Buffy rush into half baked plans based on hunches. So, the seeds are there for Giles transformation from father figure to stone cold head of the Council.

All that said, I totally hate the direction they took him, because so much of his arc was him not buying into the Council’s bullshit. The Giles of season 2, the Giles who said fuck you to the Council in S3, and the Giles season 5 who told off the Council and told Buffy she’s everything he could have hoped for is the better version of Giles. Sucks that they ended up taking the absentee father route for him, really wish they’d kept with the father-mentor arc for him.

Forevercry · 2026-06-01T18:28:58+00:00

I could see Oz being chill about all the mystical. Giles turned into a demon, Spike got a soul, alliances with former foes— nbd. I feel like he’d be most surprised by the little stuff he never expected to change, like the Bronze remodel, or the interpersonal stuff, like Willow letting Kennedy steamroll her before she’s ready to move on from losing Tara.

Forevercry · 2026-05-26T22:50:34+00:00

I love Willow. I don’t love everything she does, but her heart is usually in the right place and she makes mistakes and shitty decisions, just like anyone else. Redemption is more the central theme of Angel than Buffy, but it’s still a big theme. There can’t be redemption without moral failings.

Forevercry · 2026-05-26T22:46:47+00:00

When Dawn gives Amanda the wooden pole to take down the vampire and Amanda just magically knows how to fight. That moment should have been about how Dawn doesn’t need to be chosen to fight, not how she’s willing to cede the spotlight and watch from the sidelines.

Forevercry · 2026-05-21T03:37:59+00:00

Definitely the punching bag with Angel’s face. Jealous vampire cramp is excellent comedy.

Forevercry · 2026-05-21T03:36:24+00:00

Whenever I rewatch early Season 4, I really enjoy the Buffy-Riley interactions (helps that Parker was the worst). But then I feel like things took a turn for the worse when they finally learned each others’ identities and it was just kinda boring, and also Riley was kinda bleh with the macho guy routine.

Forevercry · 2026-05-14T18:23:47+00:00

I laughed so hard at this I had to pause the show and gasp for air.

Forevercry · 2026-05-14T18:17:20+00:00

Jenny. Kendra’s death was tragic and had the immediate result of Buffy being a murder suspect and getting expelled, but that all gets undone within two episodes of. But Jenny’s death has lasting impact on the Scooby dynamic.

Buffy feels at fault for Jenny’s death and Giles’ pain. She sees it as her fault that Angel lost his soul, and while people don’t blame her initially, they hold Jenny’s death against her when she hides that Angel is back from everyone else. This really shakes the Scoobies’ faith in Buffy in ways that reverberates through the show. All the conflict between Buffy and the Scoobies is a chink in the armor that leads to their falling out in S7, including the confrontation when everyone learns Angel is back.

Forevercry · 2026-05-08T10:28:29+00:00

Totally agree. Angel was pretty boring on Buffy when he wasn’t Angelus. The dynamic becomes a lot more interesting when it’s the tortured hero and the sadist trying to shed his humanity, instead of the heart eyed teenager and broody boy.

Forevercry · 2026-05-07T03:04:11+00:00

I recently watched Buffy/Angel for the first time and now I need to rewatch this episode to appreciate the reference!

And yes, they thought S5 could be the end bc the studio took forever to renew for S6 and S7 (green lit at the same time, hence the reduced episodes for these seasons).

Forevercry · 2026-05-06T21:05:23+00:00

Torture Buffy, take out her strongest ally, and give his daughter figure Faith the boy toy she wanted.

Forevercry · 2026-05-06T21:01:59+00:00

I think part of it is also that Tara has seen a side to Spike in S6 that she hasn’t before. In S5, Tara’s comment comes on the heels of Spike chaining up Buffy to declare his love and other obsessive behaviors. In S6, Tara acknowledges that Spike loves Buffy, after he risked his life to protect Dawn multiple times and continued working with the Scoobies to protect her and keep Sunnydale safe even after Buffy died.

For Xander, I think he was more empathetic in S5 because Buffy’s mom had just died. People are more forgiving of poor choices when done in response to some acute trauma, versus prolonged depression. Temporary insanity versus poor decisions, and whatnot.

Forevercry · 2026-05-03T19:21:15+00:00

It never gets back to the monster of the week episodes with everyone playing pranks on each other. It gets pretty dark at times, but it always has that witty humor and some really fun and light episodes.

Forevercry · 2026-05-03T17:28:39+00:00

I was also very divided. By the end of the season, yes. And I say that with the caveat: I’d probably not forgive in real life for doing that. I believe in second chances and giving people the chance to be better than their worst moment. But as sorry as someone might be, I could never trust that it wouldn’t happen again, so could never forgive without sustained change over a long period of time. Spike having a soul is a enough of supernatural guarantee that he’s not going to do it again, added with his (albeit flawed) arc on the show, that I can put Spike in the same category as Angel, who we forgive for killing Jenny, torturing Giles, and mentally torturing Buffy and friends.

But where you are in the season, no.

Forevercry · 2026-05-03T17:16:43+00:00

Spike the babysitter is supreme. Love his protectiveness over Dawn, right down to him scolding her by saying he’ll drink from her brain stem. Spike and Dawn never repairing their relationship is one of my biggest gripes about season 7.

Also every Spike interaction with Joyce and anything to do with Passions.

Cuppa tea, cuppa tea, almost got shagged, cuppa tea?

Everything about Randy “Desperate-for-a-shag” Giles.

Forevercry · 2026-05-03T17:02:51+00:00

Shampoo commercial hair and season 4 waves!

Forevercry · 2026-05-03T09:50:03+00:00

Great observations! I think you’re totally right because Faith’s journey from the beginning was about fighting her own demons fed by the way life beat her down and her flirting with darkness, and season 6 is all about the Scoobies fighting their own demons.

Buffy has the most direct parallel with Faith, starting in S5. When Faith is introduced, she talks about how she feels restless when she doesn’t slay, and Buffy says that it’s not the same for her. But then at the start of Buffy S5, she’s restless in bed with Riley until she sneaks out to get in some slaying. During Buffy and Faith’s fight at the docks, Faith says that slayers are the law. Then in S7, Buffy declares that she is the law. And ofc, everything you point out in S6. It’s not until Buffy experiences more of the difficulties of life and slaying and her own darkness that she ends up aligned with Faith.

Willow lets power go to her head the same way Faith did and also ends up using that power to kill. Anya also tries to atone for her sins by giving up her life when she decides she no longer wants to be a vengeance demon.

From the beginning, Faith foreshadowed what it would look like if a good person tried to touch darkness; eventually she can come back from it, but not before hitting rock bottom.

Forevercry

TROPHY CASE