24 Years Ago Today, Buffy Confirmed One Massive Change to the Vampire Slayer (But It Was Never Explained Again)

There’s a sense in which Buffy the Vampire Slayer is all about change. It makes sense; these characters are teenagers, after all, and the show charts their journey from high school through to university and beyond. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy changes more than most, weighed down by the pressure of being the Slayer, consistently refusing to conform to the expectations of others. Her time as the Slayer even involves not one death but two (even leading to the activation of the next Slayer at one point).

Buffy drew inspiration from superhero comics as much as anything else, which naturally means death is merely a temporary inconvenience. Buffy was brought back the first time by CPR, but the second time was far more spectacular, involving a resurrection spell that left her feeling disassociated with the real world. Eventually, she revealed the reason she was struggling so much; the Scooby gang had inadvertently pulled her out of heaven itself. But, surprisingly, the show also set up another consequence – one that was never fully explored.

Buffy Was Changed on a “Molecular Level”

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6, episode 13 – “Dead Things” – the resurrected Buffy talks to Tara about the concerning fact Spike can hurt her in spite of his chip. The focus is really on the emotions, on Buffy’s fear – or, in an odd sense, perhaps her hope – that she’s been brought back wrong somehow, and that this is the reason she feels such a strange sense of grief and loss after her resurrection. It all builds up to Buffy admitting that she’s having sex with Spike, and she breaks down in shame.

While reassuring Buffy, though, Tara makes a surprising admission; she notes that the resurrection spell did somehow change Buffy “on a molecular level.” Tara doesn’t believe this change is significant, comparing it to a strong sunburn, but that displays more her lack of knowledge than anything else; the changes Tara is sensing run through every molecule of Buffy’s body, not just affecting her skin. It all feels like a Chekov’s gun, an apparently irrelevant detail introduced that will have much greater meaning at a later date. Except… in this case, Chekov’s gun never fired.

Buffy Never Explained What It Meant to be Changed on a “Molecular Level”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6 focuses purely on the emotional drama that spins out of Buffy’s resurrection. She feels like she’s been brought back wrong somehow, simply because that’s the only thing that can explain the deep sense of depression she’s going through after coming back from the dead. Buffy smartly subverts expectations by treating resurrection not as a wonderful thing but rather as a trauma that must be healed from, one of the show’s smartest storytelling decisions.

That’s probably the reason Buffy never fires that particular Chekov’s gun. But it’s still a (rare) misstep in a classic TV series, given the very fact Buffy was in heaven proves there’s a difference between the physical body and her spiritual essence. She has indeed been brought back right, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there are no physical consequences to the resurrection. The human body is not designed to be reanimated; continuing with Tara’s sunburn analogy, we all know that a bad sunburn can cause lasting damage to the body as a whole.

Will the Buffy Revival Reveal the Real Consequences of Buffy’s Resurrection?

A Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival is in the works, with Gellar even reprising the role as an older Buffy Summers. Just as the effect of a bad sunburn can take years to manifest, it’s entirely possible the impact of Buffy’s resurrection has only become clear with the passage of time. Again, that would be a smart subversion; it would mean the Buffy who’s back has changed somewhat in unexpected and unpredictable ways, meaning viewers have to get used to this new Buffy. Effectively, Chekov’s gun could finally fire after all these years.

This would also potentially explain why the Buffy revival is introducing a new Slayer, and would mean Buffy isn’t always on hand to save the day if the character of Nova gets out of her depth. That’s the danger with a Buffy revival, because Buffy herself is such an experienced and dearly-loved character that it will be hard to believe anything can happen to her successor under her watch – unless there’s a narrative reason for Buffy Summers to be unable to help.

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