The Prom

One nice episode I liked the most when the Buffy Angel Award came dancing and she experienced a perfect moment in high school the way she wanted and deserved.

I was hardly the target audience "back in the day" but from S1E1 to the end I never missed an episode. And while this isn't the best BTVS episode, it does have several moments.

This and a couple episodes before and after this one are when the show is really hitting its stride in terms of character development and the sheer brilliance of dialog in the Buffy-verse.

There's been a lot of drama leading up to this point, still some more to go, but what has finally "passed" is the missteps that were breaking the Scooby's apart. They're all BFFs again and in fine form.

There is of course a simmering big bad to take care of and his mini-me, but what would a season finale be without ensuing armageddon?

Angel has been thinking about what the mayor said to him about his relationship with Buffy... the mayor might be an evil demon but Angel fears what he said was true so decides to end their relationship. She is shocked and upset, especially since he ended the relationship days before the school prom. She is still determined that her friends will have a great night. At first it looks as if the only problem will be what they should wear and with whom but then a ferocious hellhound attacks a boy trying on his tuxedo in a cloths shop. It appears that somebody has trained the creature to attack people in formal wear... this person must really hate the prom. As her friends have a great night Buffy sets out to deal with the threat.

This was a solid episode despite the fact that the main threat isn't introduced till half way through the story. The early part contains some downbeat moments as Angel and Buffy's relationship comes to an end, it also contains some fun as Anya asks Xander to the prom. The scene were Xander starts goading Cordelia in the dress shop was also impressive as he learns she has fallen on hard times and then switches to being kind. Early on we get a dream sequence featuring Buffy and Angel; as it started I thought it was a little obvious but it managed to subvert my expectations totally. The hellhounds provide some decent action before the touching finale were our protagonists all enjoy their prom. Overall a bittersweet episode with plenty of character development and some decent action.

... and by that I don't mean that "there can be only one" as in slayer, because part of the dilemma this season is that there are two slayers and the other one has turned into a killer.

Instead I mean the issue of Angel being eternally early 20s and Buffy, being a mortal, aging on a normal human schedule. The mayor brought this up to them in a previous episode concerning his own wife, saying that she aged while he stayed young and in the end she cursed him for his youth. Buffy chooses to block that out and is trying to take her relationship with Angel to the next level - possibly spending the night, maybe bringing over some things - while Angel has what the mayor said on his mind.

And then Joyce appears at Angel's house trying to get him to consider Buffy. She asks if it's fair to tie her to a relationship like this with her starting to college the following year. What happens? Watch and find out.

Given that Angel loses his soul if he has even one moment of true happiness - and this happened the one time he and Buffy had sex in Season Two - their relationship means no sex, thus no children, no being anywhere together except home unless it's dark outside, and Buffy growing old as Angel stays young. Nobody brings up that slayers have a very short lifespan. I doubt any have ever reached 40. So how would that be fair to a mortal man that Buffy might meet in the future? It's never talked about.

This is also the start of the evolution of Cordelia Chase. It turns out she suddenly has a very substantial downward turn in financial circumstances.

On the demon front, there are hell hounds loose in Sunnydale that attack and kill anything in formal wear, with the titular prom right around the corner.

Doing a rewatch on the series and as before I get the feeling that this should have been the season ending. I never felt strongly about the mayor as supervillain and after the amazing prom episode the last two episodes is a bit ... meh.