The Best Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode From Every Season

Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran for seven seasons and 144 episodes, and each season had some of the best fantasy episodes on television. Every season of the show tracked Buffy Summers through her journey as this generation’s Chosen One, from her start in Sunnydale battling vampires and demons to her raising the Potentials to stop the Hellmouth from opening in the final season. With a reboot sequel series coming that will continue the Slayer’s story, it’s a good time to look back on the original seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and remember how great this show was during its run.

Here is the best episode from every Buffy the Vampire Slayer season, from the first through the last.

7) Season 1 – Prophecy Girl

The first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the ground running, and everything was clicking from the start. There were a few clunkers in the first season, but overall, it was a solid season, with the overall running storyline being Buffy facing an evil vampire called The Master, who is trying to get back into the real world with the help of Darla, the vampire who sired Angel.

The best episode of the season was the finale, “Prophecy Girl.” The lead-up to this episode saw Buffy learn about the prophecy that said she would die in the battle with The Master. Wanting to quit, she finally became the hero she was meant to be when she took the battle to the vampire, and she died. Luckily, Xander saved her with CPR, and she returned to beat The Master, proving she deserved the role of the Slayer.

6) Season 2 – Becoming

The best Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 episode was also its finale. This one was called “Becoming” and was a two-part finale. This season saw Angel lose his soul again after experiencing a moment of true happiness with Buffy, and this resulted in the evil Angelus deciding to make Buffy and the Scooby Gang’s lives a living hell.

Angelus had opened a portal that would allow evil to flow into Sunnydale, and there was only one way for Buffy to close this portal. However, that meant that she had to make the most traumatic decision of her life when she had to kill Angel to close the portal, and she had to do it just as he had regained his soul. It was a heartbreaking moment, and while Angel returned in Season 3, this finale was gutwrenching and delivered on every level.

5) Season 3 – The Wish

The best episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 3, was an alternate world episode. In this episode, “The Wish,” Cordelia is angry at Xander and is ripping up all his photos. She reconnects with Harmony and rejoins the Mean Girls, where they have a new friend named Anya. When Cordelia vents to Anya about Xander and wishes Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. Anya, a demon, had given Cordelia a pendant, and then she granted that wish.

Without Buffy, all of Sunnydale has been overrun by vampires, and this includes two of the best characters to ever appear on the series, Vampire Willow and Vampire Xander. This episode was a wonderful turn of events because it showed what would have happened without Buffy, and even when she showed up, it showed the heroes of the series losing before Giles finally found a way to reverse things.

4) Season 4 – Hush

One of the best episodes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s history arrived in Season 4. This episode was called “Hush,” and it was an almost entirely dialogue-free episode, which makes its brilliance even more impressive. The monsters here, known as the Gentlemen, remain the best monsters to ever appear in the series, bald-headed, with white skin, black suits, and giant scary smiles.

The Gentlemen’s weakness is to sound, but they have the power to take people’s voices away from them so they can go about their business, which in this case involves collecting human hearts. Buffy and her allies have to find a way to beat these almost unstoppable monsters, and can only do it with their voices back. It is a genius episode, and it still stands the test of time.

3) Season 5 – The Body

“The Body” is the most traumatic, depressing, and tear-jerking episode ever for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This episode begins with a shocking moment when Buffy walks into her house and calls out for her mother, Joyce. She then looks around and sees her mother, lying on the couch, her eyes open, dead. This shocks Buffy, and the rest of the episode shows how Joyce’s death affected Buffy and her friends.

The episode had some flashback scenes with Joyce spending time with Buffy, Giles, and the Scooby Gang. It had Buffy hallucinating that Joyce came back to life during CPR. It then shows how Joyce’s death affects Dawn, Willow, Tara, Xander, and Giles, and it remains one of the most emotional episodes in television history.

2) Season 6 – Once More, With Feeling

In Season 6, Buffy the Vampire Slayer offered up an episode that almost matched Hush in brilliance. Once More, With Feeling was Buffy’s attempt at a musical episode, and it ended up even better than fans could have expected. A demon named Sweet showed up, and his arrival forces people to break into song and dance numbers, which sometimes results in spontaneous combustion.

What resulted was the cast singing all the episode’s narration, where they opened up about their secrets. Tara and Willow sing about their love, Buffy sings about her lack of direction in life since high school, and Anya and Xander sing a duet. By the end, they finally break the spell, but Sweet forces them to admit they beat the bad guy, but are worse off for it after spilling their guts in song. It was brilliant.

1) Season 7 – Conversations with Dead People

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 7 was a tough one. The stories with the Potentials took up a lot of the season’s airtime, which took time away from the Scooby Gang, which is who fans wanted to see race to the final moment. Of course, this was leading to the Scoobies and Potentials stopping the opening of the Hellmouth and ending the danger in Sunnydale. However, the best episode of the season was one that was a little more laid back and allowed the cast some time to reminisce and prepare for the race to the end.

“Conversations with Dead People” was the seventh episode, and it saw Buffy at the cemetery hunting for vampires when she found a former classmate turned vampire, and she chose to talk to him about her troubles while they fought. Add in the recently dead Cassie claiming to deliver a message to Willow from Tara, and Dawn believing Joyce is trying to reach her from the dead. This is an episode that really brings back a lot of trauma to the characters.

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