Buffy the Vampire Slayer # 4: Graduation Day

Season 3, Episodes 21 and 22
First Aired May 18th and July 13th, 1999

After three years at Sunnydale high, where Buffy and her friends faced the horrors of high school, graduation day arrived, and Buffy finished high school with a bang. She was an outcast from the moment she stepped on campus, but she spent her time protecting her classmates from vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. In an unexpected twist the week before, at the prom, Buffy's classmates gave her the greatest honor imaginable: they thanked her all she did. Meanwhile, throughout the season, Sunnydale's mayor was preparing for a bizarre ritual that would transform him into a gigantic, demonic serpent. And he revealed that the transformation would occur during his speech to the graduating class of Sunnydale High.

Buffy and her friends needed to find a way to stop the Mayor from doing too much damage, but they also had to find a way to deal with Faith, who had gone dark after she accidentally killed a human. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, her new watcher, tried to capture her instead of talking to her about what happened, and she lost faith in her friends. In an effort to take out both Buffy and Angel, she shot Angel with an arrow coated in a vampire poison. Angel became very sick, and Buffy became obsessed with curing him. When Buffy discovered that the only antidote was the blood of a slayer, she went to great lengths to make sure Angel got some before it was too late.

Eventually, Buffy was able to formulate a plan to take out the Mayor, and it invovled the entire school. For one night, the entire graduating class was able to put aside their differences and come together to fight their demon(s). The sequence was incredible, but unfortunately, the Columbine tragedy had recently occurred, and Part 2 was delayed for a few months due to fear of being insensitive. The fight ended with Buffy blowing up the school to kill the Mayor (like I said, she left high school with a bang), and the network was afraid of that, plus all the school kids with weapons, wouldn't be positively received. Fortunately, the end was extremely satisfying and was one of the best sequences from the entire series.

Up next: Interlude...