Jon Solo Sebastian 10/06/2024:

Continuing with my Halloween themed “Creature Features,” I feel it would be a disservice if I didn’t write a piece about one of my all-time favorites: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The timing couldn’t be more perfect because my wife is currently re-watching the series, and I always re-watch season seven during the month of October as part of my Halloween Month Rituals; stay tuned for more on that in an upcoming blog.

I didn’t start watching the series from the beginning. I believe I found it on TV one night during season five or six. My memory is a little fuzzy on the exact season or episode, but I was instantly hooked. I was able to go back and watch all of the seasons in time for my favorite season of the series, season seven, to start airing. Whether you’re a fan of cheesy commentary that includes silly one-liners similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but spoken by a bad ass high school girl, or a fan of weekly creature features, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has it all; and seven seasons of it are just waiting for you to binge watch!

For the sake of your time, and mine, I’ve decided to give you a brief idea of what I love about season seven and the show as a whole.

Season Seven “From Beneath You It Devours”

As I mentioned above, season seven is my favorite. Everything I love about the show was packed into the final season. It kicks off with a dark horror film-like chase scene, and from there it blends the humor and the weird with all the serious repercussions of the past haunting nearly every main character while still presenting hope and light at the end of the tunnel.

Dawn jokes about the vampires having all the power, and Buffy rolls her eyes before raising the vampire out of the grave. She tells the vampire Dawn is his target, and a fight ensues. Dawn doesn’t do too well in her first outing, and Buffy has to help by beheading the vampire. She tells her younger sister she did pretty well on her first go, but she should run the next time she sees a vampire.

The whole opening sequence of the episode is exactly how this show has always been. It blends series tones with humor perfectly; as in the humor never feels out of place or forced. It feels natural and is always at the right time, and the show never hesitates to make fun of itself. An example of this happens in this particular sequence when Dawn suggests she can stake the vampire before he inevitably gains his marital arts skills they all seem to learn immediately after vamping. It’s hilarious and it’s true. The humor in the show never makes fun of the importance of what lies ahead, or beneath for that matter, but it has plenty of jokes and puns along the journey to maintain a solid balance of light and dark tones.

From beneath the earth, the first evil makes its return. Buffy and the Scooby gang first encountered the First (laughably named, but it works) in season three and now it makes it’s triumphant return thanks to Buffy being brought back to life. See, similarly to Abeloth from Star Wars, when characters mess with the flowing currents of time, it opens the door for something truly evil to enter. So with Buffy dying, again, at the end of season five, and her friends bringing her back to life it caused a ripple that opened the door for the First to come back. This time it isn’t messing around.

The First sends Bringers out to hunt and kill potential slayers; girls that have the potential to be the next chosen one if called upon. The potential’s Watchers are also targeted by the Bringers. If that isn’t enough, a Turok-Han Vampire, an ancient and savage beast dubbed as a real vampire by the First is unleashed on Sunnydale. There’s also a creepy priest played by Nathan Fillion who makes things miserable for the Slayer and her friends. The bad just keeps on piling onto the weight of Buffy’s shoulders, but she never gives up; she always finds a way.

This season, and the series as a whole, is action packed, funny, serious, filled with great characters at every turn, and just an absolute blast to watch. In fact, it’s about that time for me to start my season seven re-watch!

Buffy’s Smile

One of the most precious moments of the entire series happens at the end when the fight is finally over. One of the themes in the show is no matter how many friends surround her or how many boyfriends she’s had, the Slayer is always alone. No one can understand what her life is like, and no one can ever feel the weight of her calling.

That is until the final episode, when Willow uses a spell that turns all potential slayers into actual slayers. They needed an army to fight off the first, and that’s what they came up with, but I don’t think Buffy realized what it really meant for her until that moment when she smiled.

I will admit that I’m not a big fan of all the potentials becoming slayers because they kept the Buffyverse going with comic books, and a few more seasons of Angel (another fantastic series) after season seven. With that many slayers roaming the globe, what would be left for them to do, and why didn’t Angel ask Buffy for a few hundred slayers to help him in his fight. So it gets a little weird there if you think on it too much, but I try to look at this as the final step in her character arc and I feel she deserves this because it’s a huge weight lifted off of her.

For a girl that died several times throughout the series and had saved the world time and time again, it’s truly a great ending for her. For the first time in her life, she can relax; she can take a vacation or start a career. She doesn’t have to give up being a slayer, and I doubt she would because it’s not in her character, but she doesn’t have to shoulder all the work. Her smile at the end says it all. She’s happy, probably for the first time in years, she’s genuinely happy.