Buffy was one of the first shows that Millennials of a Certain Age™ had that really resonated with them. It was an ode to the outcasts, to those of us who didn’t fit in. That was awesome! We got to feel things! Things that really hurt, but things!
That’s why we’ve rounded up a bunch of moments to bring you right back to that feeling.
(FYI: I’m with you all on the ferris feel.)
13. Angelus Slaughtering Miss Calendar
A teacher that won our hearts by helping the gang, Jenny Calendar won Giles’s too. We wanted Giles to be happy, and suddenly there was hope. That is until he enters his home and finds her cold body on his bed.
12. Oz Leaving Willow for Good
Who remembers Willow feeling so invisible that she literally became a ghost for Halloween, and he still saw her? You think they split because he banged a Bacterial Foot Infection? Think again! It was because he loved her. And he was a werewolf. And this isn’t Beauty and the Bassist. (Bandname, calling it.) And we knew it.
11. Spike Literally Baring his Soul
When we’re introduced to Spike, it’s as a callous vamp who couldn’t care less. A microchip implant then gives him a soul and he falls for Buffy. Uh oh! No worries, he loses it again, and it’s all back and forth til he throws himself on a crucifix. #romanceisundead
10. Anya Dying Because Joss Likes Us to Suffer
So he brought us these characters and this world, yadda yadda. But also, let us get some AVADA KEDAVRA up in this gig. In ways, Anya’s unneeded death made her life more meaningful, and it sure boosted Kleenex sales.
9. Willow Choosing Magic Over Tara
Willow’s addiction to magic was a brilliant metaphor; how uncontrollable addiction is, and how quickly it can turn people away. Tara had given Willow so many chances that she had no more left to give.
8. Spike Sacrificing Himself For Sunnydale
Your feels suddenly came crashing onto him like a magnet to a blood-sucking fridge. His last words are a poignant summary of his journey when he smiles at the face of death and says, “I can feel it. Kinda stings.” YA THINK?
7. Buffy Jumping into a Gaping Vortex
Long before Dawn was a kleptomaniac, she was the key to destroying the world. Buffy knew that to stop the apocalypse coming to beep her, Dawn’s was a sacrifice that had to be made. Instead, she took her place.
BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS
1981-2001
SERIOUSLY JOSS
STOP 👏 INFLICTING 👏 PAIN 👏
6. Buffy Remembering Heaven
Yay for us, nay for her. For the first time in years, Buffy didn’t have to feel; she didn’t have to save people, and she didn’t have to exist. For the first time since Anne, she got to be. Her confession to Spike is Brutal with a capital B.
5. Buffy Having to Kill Angelus
And him getting his soul back right as she does. Buffy knew he had to die, but the feels kicker was his soul returning in the very last second. Give us a break!
4. Xander’s Yellow-Crayon Girl
All Xander knew was that his best friend was the person he still loved, even when she was about to destroy the world as evil-veiny Willow, and he’d have died to prove it.
3. Buffy Finding Joyce’s Body
The eerie silence of the discovery was all too impactful. Buffy had seen so much evil, but it was an illness void of anything demonic that took her mother. She couldn’t save her from that.
2. Anya’s Existential Realization
Anya’s reaction to the shell that used to be Joyce was one of confusion. Because how? And why? And it is stupid. And none of us will ever understand. Like she so eloquently puts it, not ever.
1. Tara’s Death
Time to round up the feels train with the biggie. We knew this’d be the topper. Painful, brutal, awful and fast; there one second, gone the next. Literally still go f*ck all of yourself, Warren. NOBODY ELSE WILL.
….annnd exhale.
