Buffy the Vampire Slayer # 3: Hush

Season 4, Episode 10
First Aired December 14, 1999

Joss Whedon knows how to write incredible dialogue, and the only major Emmy nomination Buffy ever received was in the writing category. Ironically, the episode that was nominated, "Hush", used very little dialogue. More than 2/3rds of the episode was done without characters saying a word. A group of monsters, called the Gentlemen, come to Sunnydale, and because their only weakness is the human voice, they magically steal the voice of everyone in town.

Without their voices, the actors had to use their faces and their bodies to convey what their characters were feeling, and they did an incredible job. I still don't know why some of the Buffy actors are relative unknowns, because they certainly know how to use everything at their disposal to play their parts.

The music was also instrumental (sorry) in telling the story. The musical cues helped express the way characters were feeling, and it added to the sense of dread the residents of Sunnydale felt. Also, the Gentlemen were some of the freakiest villains ever to appear in the Buffyverse (this includes monsters from Angel).

In the hands of a lesser writer, "Hush" would be a bad gimmick episode. With Joss Whedon, we have one of the series' best episodes.

Up next: Buffy #2...