Best of Buffy

Okay…Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite show in the world. However it is not above criticism. My biggest problem with the show as a whole is season 5. Buffy season 5 is perhaps one of the worst things to happen to the show and quite frankly television as well. I will complain about this in further detail but the addition of Dawn and introduction of Glory were so wildly out of left field and inconsistent with the show as it had been established that it did nothing but bring out bad writing, weird and wrong character development and some terrible recovery after the fact. This season is not good and I almost always skip it but here we go.

Big Bad: Glory; Okay so I have so many problems with this but let's start with the fact that all of our monsters at this point ALL OF THEM have been earthbound. Yes we live on a hellmouth. But interdimensional whatever has literally never been mentioned up to this point. And now Buffy is fighting a GOD. It literally has never made any sense especially since they bring it back to the groundedness that existed before season 5, which tells me that I am not the only one that had major issues with this season. They jumped the shark and it was terrible. Also the whole Ben is Glory thing is a wildly tired thing in the fandom and I hate it.

Terrible decisions; Dawn existing. Look the decision to 5 SEASON IN, add a new character with such a close relationship with our main character and then attempt to gaslight the characters and the audience into feeling like she was always there was a truly terrible decision. Dawn added nothing to the dynamic of the group, she added nothing to Buffy’s character development. She was whiny, annoying and uninteresting on her own, she was truly a terrible character.

Um this season had a lot of rapey vibes. I Was Made to Love You and Intervention are inexcusable and needlessly gross. And I have made this complaint a lot but for some reason seasons 5, 6, and 7 all have rapey episodes and I need you all to know that it's because that's when Joss came back to actually writing for the show.

Best Episodes:

Despite all of the absolute trash that was this season there were a few not just good, but phenomenal episodes. I really love Buffy vs Dracula. I think it's great and fun but that’s not what we are talking about here. I’m referring to the life changing writing that happened in episode 6; Family, episode 12; Checkpoint and episode 16; The Body. In episode 6 we get to see the scooby gang fully accept Tara as one of their own and give her a safe place and I cry every time. In episode 12 we get Buffy just reaming some stodgy old people and I love watching my girl stand up for herself. And of course in episode 16 we get the most real, honest, raw portrayal of grief and loss that has yet to be matched.

Overall I think everyone should always skip Buffy season 5. It is terrible and in the context of the current world that was already set up and solidified for 4 seasons it actually makes no sense. Dawn is whiny, annoying and she adds nothing to the show or to the group dynamic. If we needed the Buffy dying and being resurrected storyline there were about 1000 better ways to do that without bringing in a literal God. And honestly if you removed this entire season from the show and jumped back in at season 6 nearly everything would still make sense. So anyway Buffy is better if you skip season 5.