Buffy the Vampire Slayer plot summary
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Note: This page refers to the live-action television show. For the film of the same name, see Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
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[edit] Season One
- See also List of Buffy season one episodes
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a mid-season replacement series and featured only 12 episodes in its first season: 22 were to follow in each of the remaining six seasons. The first season begins several months after the events of the movie, with Buffy Summers arriving in Sunnydale with her mother, Joyce.
After moving with the hopes of leaving her born slayer duties behind, Buffy inevitably comes into contact with her Watcher, the librarian Rupert Giles, and the two friends who would fight demons alongside her through the series. They soon realize that Sunnydale High is located on a Hellmouth, a portal to demon dimensions, which attracts supernatural phenomena to the area.
The first season included mostly standalone episodes, exploring the problems faced by the student population as a result of the centrality of the hellmouth that it has. Such issues explored include: students turning invisible; witches; demon teachers; and the never-ending supply of vampires.
With the high emphasis on teenage angst and metaphorical nature of the episodes, Buffy's inevitable love interest came in the form of Angel, who frequently turns up with cryptic warnings for Buffy. However, the relationship becomes complicated when the truth about Angel's past is uncovered. Angel is a vampire with a soul that was restored by Gypsies many years prior to the series beginning. The emphasis on Angel's inability to become close to Buffy is explored to a greater extent in season 2.
The overarching plot concerned The Master's attempts to reach the surface. He is an ancient and very powerful vampire who was trapped by an earthquake caused by his attempt to open the Hellmouth decades ago. Buffy and her comrades manage to stop each supernatural threat, typically employing a combination of detective work, frequent physical combat and extensive research of ancient mystical texts.
Ultimately, the Master recruits a prophesied Anointed One who brought Buffy to her death in the Master's underground prison. He used her blood to escape to the roof of Sunnydale High, but she is quickly revived by Xander, who had tracked her with the help of an unfed Angel. She manages to throw the Master onto a stake, and the Hellmouth is closed.
[edit] Season Two
- See also List of Buffy season two episodes
Buffy returns to the town after leaving her friends bored in Sunnydale to spend the summer with her dad in L.A. and interrupts a moment of tenderness between Xander and Willow. She works to overcome her feelings regarding her "death" -- scientifically, death is irreversible.
Season Two continues with many standalone episodes, but the tone soon turns serious along with the relationship between Buffy and her vampire lover. The Anointed One is soon placed in sunlight by Spike, who with his mad lover Drusilla became Buffy's adversaries. Halfway through the season, Buffy loses her virginity to Angel. Unbeknownst to the major characters, Angel's moment of happiness took away his soul and he became a vicious killer once more. This is perhaps the most potent example of the show's metaphoric exploration of adolescent fears. It is an allegory for the girl who sleeps with a man and discovers that he changes completely afterwards. Angel joins with Spike and Drusilla as they torment Buffy and her friends.
New characters this season include Oz, a guitar player and werewolf who becomes Willow's boyfriend; Kendra, a Slayer called when Buffy was dead; Jenny Calendar, a descendant of the Gypsies who cursed Angel; and Ethan Rayne, an evil, but weak warlock who met Giles during his rebellious youth.
Angel's torments become more sinister as he kills Jenny, just as she discovers a way to restore his soul, and leaves her body in Giles' bed, as he knew the two were about to become romantically involved. Ultimately, Angel discovers an ancient artifact which he can use to destroy the world. By using the demon Acathla, he targets the world and tries to suck it into hell. The particulars of the ritual dictate that, once Angel opens the portal, the only way to close it is by killing him. The gang hopes to either kill Angel or restore his soul before he can perform the ritual: however, in a classically tragic conclusion, they succeed in restoring his soul only after he has performed the ritual.
Even though Buffy's love has been restored and made "good" again, she still must kill him to save the world. In the end, having been expelled from school, revealed her demon-fighting life to her mother, and killed her true love, Buffy leaves Sunnydale with the intention of never coming back.
[edit] Season Three
- See also List of Buffy season three episodes
Buffy returns to Sunnydale after trying to begin a new life in L.A. for a few months, leaving her friends to fend for themselves in the still dangerous town. Just when she begins to accept Angel's departure, he returns from a hell after being tortured for probably centuries. The unseen mayor of Sunnydale proves to be a bad guy; indeed, Mayor Richard Wilkins III emerges as the major villain in the third season (once discovered, seasonal villains are known affectionately as "The Big Bad.")
The story is complicated by the arrival of another Slayer, Faith, who was called after Kendra was killed at the end of Season Two. Faith is a unstable, leather-clad bad-girl who had an "unhappy childhood." She takes pleasure in violence and enjoys one-night stands afterwards. After accidentally killing a human being, strictly forbidden for a Vampire Slayer, she turns rogue and joins the evil mayor, who had built the town of Sunnydale "for demons to feed on" over a century ago. He plans to Ascend into pure demon form on graduation day, becoming much larger and more destructive than the demons Buffy is used to facing.
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce appeared as a Watcher to replace Giles, who had failed a traditional test given to the Slayer and her Watcher on her 18th birthday. Though Wesley was generally inept and played mostly as a comic fop, he develops into a more heroic figure as a regular on the spin-off series Angel. Jonathan, who would become a major player later in the series, also reappeared while vengeance demon Anyanka, who would later become a series regular, loses her power and becomes a mortal in Sunnydale.
The season ends with Buffy having to stab Faith, putting her in a permanent coma. The Mayor Ascends, but the gang blows up the school with him in it. Knowing that he has no future with Buffy, Angel leaves Sunnydale for L.A. and stars in his own spin-off. Though no mention was made of it at the time, regular character Cordelia Chase made the same move.
[edit] Season Four
- See also List of Buffy season four episodes
Season Four begins with Buffy and Willow enrolling at UC Sunnydale, whilst Xander begins his working life. While the first three seasons dealt metaphorically with adolescent struggles, post-high school life deals with issues of leaving home, redefining relationships and adapting to more responsibilities and social pressures.
UC Sunnydale sits not on a Hellmouth, but a top-secret military installation called The Initiative. Special-ops soldiers pose as teachers, students and fraternity brothers. The Initiative is headed by Maggie Walsh, Buffy and Willow's psychology professor. Riley Finn, with whom Buffy eventually finds a loving relationship, is Walsh's teaching assistant by day and her protègè in the Initiative at night. Buffy and Riley strive to protect their secret identities from each other.
Though the Initiative appeared at first to be a well-meaning anti-demon operation, it is soon revealed that tests and operations are performed on supernatural beings. Among other things, the Initiative has combined demons, humans and cybernetics into a prototype super-creature, Adam. An unwitting Buffy tried to integrate her work with that of the Initiative before finding herself in traps set by Walsh. Adam kills Maggie before escaping the Initiative. He masterminded a plan to create a third race, Frankensteinian creatures like him who would replace humans and demons. Riley discovers that the authority figures he had unquestioningly accepted are not so trustworthy after all.
Season four saw the return of the vampire Spike as a regular character, neutered by the Initiative with a microchip in his brain that prevented him from harming human beings. Spike was now one of the most morally ambiguous characters on the show.
Meanwhile, Oz departs as Willow develops a romantic relationship with fellow Wiccan Tara. Faith wakes up and escapes to Angel. As Buffy and her friends grow apart, they eventually must reunite to defeat Adam through a spell that combines all of their powers into Buffy's body. The Initiative is destroyed by the demons during the battle.
Season Four earned the series an Emmy Award nomination for the critically acclaimed episode "Hush".
[edit] Season Five
- See also List of Buffy season five episodes
Dawn appears in Sunnydale as a younger sister of Buffy. No one finds this strange, but it is soon revealed that the teenager is a mystical energy called "The Key" that was transformed by a group of monks, using Buffy's essence, into human form. False memories were implanted in all those concerned to protect the fourteen-year-old from Glory, an exiled God from a demon dimension who wants to leave her body -- Ben the hospital intern -- for her home universe. While she worked to locate the Key, she creates an army of mental patients as she fed off their brains. Buffy and her friends struggle to discover her plan while protecting the innocent Dawn, who struggled to accept who she is while Spike fell in love with Buffy. Joyce Summers dies after a struggle with brain tumor in an episode which won the series its widest critical acclaim.
Glory eventually discovers the Key's new form and kidnaps her for a ritual that would bring down the walls separating different dimensions. This would bring total chaos on Earth. While Glory cannot be killed in her God form, Ben was murdered by Giles to protect Buffy and the world. Once the ritual began thanks to a demon who came to help Glory, Buffy finally understood a cryptic message from the First Slayer. As she shares the same essence with Dawn, Buffy throws herself into the vortex and sacrifices her own life for the world. She leaves Dawn with the message, "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it."
[edit] Season Six
- See also List of Buffy season six episodes
Season Six was the first of two seasons in which Buffy aired not on the WB Television Network, but on the United Paramount Network (UPN).
Giles decides to return to England months after Buffy's death, but on the same day, her friends resurrect her through a powerful spell. Her mystical (as opposed to a natural) death meant that she might have been sent to Hell. The season deals largely with her sorrow at being in fact stripped from Heaven. Buffy finds a job at the Doublemeat Palace as she finds herself again in the daily grind (almost literally in the episode "Doublemeat Palace"). Buffy eventually begins a violent relationship with Spike, which brings momentary relief from her struggles.
She is consistently tormented by the Trio, three nerds from Sunnydale High who have joined to take over the town in an effort that goes from being inane to truly evil. Jonathan, who featured in earlier seasons mostly as a victim, joins Warren, the architect of a robot girlfriend in Season Five, and Andrew, whose brother Tucker sent Hellhounds to the Prom in Season Three.
A persistent subplot involves Willow and her growing abuse of magic. After she is forced to face with the consequences of her addiction, she attempts a difficult withdrawal when her lover Tara is accidentally killed by Warren. Willow descends into darkness and begins a destructive rampage, at first to avenge, but later to relieve her own suffering by bringing on an apocalypse. Xander's unconditional love brings her back and saves the world.
Spike eventually insists that Buffy admit she loves him. When she refuses, Spike attempts to rape her as a way to resume their no-means-yes sexual affair. He then leaves Sunnydale seemingly in search of vengeance, but is awarded his soul after painful trials instead. Rupert Giles departs as a regular character; he would now return only as a special guest.
[edit] Season Seven
- See also List of Buffy season seven episodes
Buffy's final season revolved around the First Evil, which can appear in the incorporeal form of any dead person. It is more determined than when it tried to convince Angel to kill Buffy and commit suicide in Season Three. A number of young girls who are potential Slayers are gathered by Giles with the help of seers after the Watchers Council is destroyed. They live in fear of "the Bringers," mute wielders of deadly swords who have been killing Potentials around the world.
Much of the story takes place at the newly reconstructed Sunnydale High School, bringing the series and its characters back to their roots, The Hellmouth.
Spike now lives with the remorse of a soul. He begins the season driven insane in the school basement by the First. The First also develops a hypnotic "trigger" for him allowing him to eat people again. He has both his chip and trigger removed eventually.
It is revealed that the army of feral, primitive vampires known as Turok-Han are much more powerful and violent than the part-human variety. The First Evil attempts to use the imbalance created by Buffy's return to amass an army of vampires in the Hellmouth. When that army outnumbers humans on Earth, the First Evil would take corporeal form.
In the end, Buffy brings the war to the Hellmouth itself. Willow invokes a magical spell that activates all potential Slayers in the world. With her army of girls now endowed with full Slayer power, they manage to contain the army of vampires long enough for a powerful Amulet worn by Spike to take effect. It vaporizes the Hellmouth and kills Spike in the process. However, Spike returns in the Buffy spin-off Angel as Angel's vampire counterpart. Anya is revealed to have been killed by a Bringer. The empty town of Sunnydale is sucked into a huge crater. "The Hellmouth is officially closed for business," and Buffy no longer fights alone.
