Diary of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Virgin – Everything changes on Graduation Day

(Season 3, Episodes 19-22)

After three years with this gang, the final episodes of season four really were the end of an era. The kids are graduating high school, Angel’s heading off to LA to headline his own show. Truly, nothing will ever be the same again.

And the episodes played out just like that. They had all the emotional importance of such a significant transition for both the characters and the audience. We finally got the culmination of the Mayor’s century of scheming, got a resolution, of sorts, with Faith and saw Buffy take those important first steps into adulthood, by quitting the Council.

3.19 – “Choices”
(Original Air Date: May 4, 1999) Buffy and the mayor come face to face after Buffy rushes her attemps to stop him and the gang makes a key mistake. Why, after performing her spell on the roof of City Hall to take the wards off of the box Buffy and Angel need to steal, did Willow leave on her own? Why did Buffy let her?

That move made the “adventure” of the episode pointless as the box was restored to the Mayor and his plans weren’t thwarted at all. The Mayor has proven himself more layered than many typical villains, in that he has true fatherly affection for Faith, and seems to have honest advice for Buffy and Angel.

In his hundred-plus years of immortality, the Mayor wed a mortal woman and watched her age and die. He tells Angel that to subject Buffy, a young girl just getting her life started, to to a life with him is selfish. They can’t even consummate it sexually or Angel loses his soul and goes evil. What kind of life is that for Buffy?

Yes, he’s evil, which allows Buffy’s denial to just dismiss everything he says, but Angel is older and wiser. And he knows the Mayor is right.

3.20 – “The Prom”
(Original Air Date: May 11, 1999) Yet again, the big “adventure” of the episode was more a non-adventure. The kid with the hellhounds was no threat at all, and Buffy even dispatched the hellhounds themselves with relative ease. But that wasn’t the point.

With college looming and their futures on the doorstep, Buffy wanted one single night of high school normalcy. Surprisingly, Whedon gave it to her. But not before tearing her heart out again.

Angel, finally realizing that he and Buffy can never be, breaks up with her. Despite this, Angel showed up at the prom decked out in a tux to give Buffy that one night of fun and happiness she desperately needed.

This episode also saw the return of Anya, the wish demon who’d been cursed to be human. She hooked up with Xander for the prom. It’s an interesting pairing; I found myself laughing as she struggled to understand her human feelings, but at the same time talked about nothing but the horrible men she’s punished over the past thousand years.

In a rare moment of self-awareness, Jonathan presents the “Class Protector” award to Buffy for all that she’s done to protect the town, school and student body. The Class of 1999 has the lowest mortality rate in Sunnydale High history! A darkly humorous note similar to when Oz said he reads only the obituaries in the school paper.

3.17 – “Graduation Day, Part One”
(Original Air Date: May 18, 1999) Both Buffy and Willow take important steps forward in this episode, setting up the big showdown in Part Two. With the Mayor’s Ascension now looking to happen at graduation, where he will be the commencement speaker, there’s a doomsday clock ticking for the entire cast.

This sense of dread pulls Oz and Willow closer and they finally consummate their relationship. It’s also a continuation of making Oz a more important character to the show and the storylines. He’s been less relevant than Cordelia through most of the season so it was nice seeing him get involved.

I think part of the problem is the way Whedon developed the character. He’s a quiet, ironic personality on a show known for a lot of chatter. It’s easy for him to thus get overshadowed by the gabby Scoobies.

Buffy’s big moment came when she convinced herself that killing was justified. I don’t know if it was just because it was Angel’s life on the line, or because Faith had crossed too many lines to ever warrant redemption, but I didn’t find myself too disturbed when she finally gutted her.

Of course, I also didn’t believe for one second that Faith was dead.

3.18 – “Graduation Day, Part Two”
(Original Air Date: July 13, 1999*)

* – Due to the content of this episode, it was delayed until July 13 in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre. The earlier episode, “Earshot,” which dealt more directly with a potential school shooting, was delayed even further until September 21, shortly before the fourth season began.

There were so many great moments here. I love how Snyder came across as irrelevant at graduation when he was snapping at the students. It’s so true of high school. The faculty and principals are so powerful when you’re in school, but in that moment they lose all their power. Of course Snyder lost more than that.

Buffy graduated not only high school here, but the Council as well, choosing to stop taking orders from them. With Giles already fired, this is an interesting development that could certainly stick.

Where that leaves Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, I’m not sure, though I’m sure the Council couldn’t be too happy. He had one slayer go bad and the other quit. And he and Cordelia shared an absolutely terrible kiss. Terrible, but hilarious. All in all, though, it’s been a bad time for Wesley.

To finalize how wrong their relationship is, Angel has to feed off of Buffy to save his life after Faith poisoned him; Xander is appropriately appalled by this. But Angel comes through at the Ascension itself.

Speaking of which, I was a little disappointed that the Mayor was a giant snake, as we’d kind of already done giant snake. But I can see why it was more cost-effective. It was perfect, though, that Buffy used that special knife he gave Faith to ultimately spell his doom.

Speaking of Faith, great moment of vulnerability by the Mayor in the hospital where she turns up in a coma, likely to never wake up. I’m sure that’s not the case either, or Whedon wouldn’t have let her there.

One chapter closes, Buffy and the gang are heading off to college and Sunnydale High is no more. I’m sure they’ll rebuild, but the destruction of the school was very symbolic. Will Giles take a job at the college now?

Addendum

In the spirit of change, starting next week this column will become the “Diary of a Buffy/Angel Virgin” so that I can continue to follow the Buffy-verse in its entirety, as I’m sure most of its fans did. I know there were crossover elements from time to time, so this will help with those as well. I’ll just follow along with both shows in the order they aired. Hope to see you there.

Clacked by Jason Hughes
on Aug 31, 2009 @ 17:19 EST5EDT