The Watchers' Rewatch

Part 1 of our season 3 finale sees fencing, a poisoned arrow, a scene that makes even *Jago* emotional, smoochy time for Willow (finally), and a knockdown, dragout fight between Faith and Buffy. I was also going to put a spoiler alert/trigger warning for some of our tangents but by this point you should really be expecting them. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hellhounds threaten The Prom (generic important high school dance number Idontknowivelostcountatthispoint). Angel starts to make important choices about his future with Buffy (or lack thereof). Also Cordy has to earn money. Gasp! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Snyder busts the scoobies for drug dealing with... The Mayor? Then the drugs get out and attack people, including a security guard who gets his face eaten off.... In actuality, Buffy takes the offensive and discovers an important part of the Mayor's ascension - the box of Gavrok. She plots a heist to nab said box, which goes successfully.... except Faith nabs Willow in the process. Swapsies oc...

Trigger warning: over 3 hours in length. Trigger warning: Brits talking about gun control. Trigger warning: Jago talking about platinum trophies and XCom. Trigger warning: trigger warnings. Trigger warning: learning styles and presence or lack thereof of inner monologues and visualisation. Trigger warning: Giles having sex with your Mother (ok not *your* Mother...). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/...

Faith gets her hands on the books of ascension (at a hefty discount too) and plans to lure Angel to ... us. As in, to Angelus. But after a snafu with a light switch and a shrouded man of uncertain loyalties, she gives away some of the Mayor's plans to B & A. Psyche! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anya is seeking the return of her pendant and enlists Willow (aka Old Reliable) in said quest. Then shenanigans ensue and whoopsie-daisies vampire Willow is now loose in our Sunnydale. Aw, beans. Further shenanigans then follow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The aftermath of Faith killing Allan shows psychological distress, emotional manipulation, and absolutely no enjoyment from using the shredder. No, not the TMNT villain, that's always enjoyable. Also, I'm not saying a slightly trained man shouldn't be written to approach a bound Slayer's legs, but it is weird that it happens two more times before the end of season 4... Hosted on Ac...

Hold onto your kneecaps, this episode brings us shock twists, a new watcher, larceny, sword-wielding vampires, threats of kneecap removal, immortality, and a corpulent demon yelling "moisten the front". Everything you'd want to put into your ears from a Buffy podcast, obvs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are some apocalypse demons in town, capable of going one on one with a Slayer. At the same time, the Hellmouth is due to erupt again, and this time it's grown! Giles resorts to consulting with spirit guides outside our temporal restrictions. Buffy and Angel face emotional decisions about which of them might survive the climactic fight, Willow prepares to cast a spell more dangerous than any...

It's Buffy's birthday, so it's time to... what's the word.... celebrate? No, that's not it... Prepare! That's the one! Prepare for horror and bloodshed that is. Of course. In a remarkably "on the nose" assessment of patriarchal power structures Buffy is having her physical agency reduced so that she can prove she's worthy of said physical agency. Or something. It's entirely barbaric and unnecessar...

Joyce is witness to something terrible, but after seeing "Mr Sanderson from the bank"'s vampface she discovers what appears to be two children who have died in some sort of ritual. This develops into strong civic-mindedness from Joyce. This develops into fear-mongering and persecution of anyone outside what is considered normal. Because that playbook isn't tired enough in *real* life. Also, Pat ge...

Angel is having visions of his past, and we're not talking whimsy here. They follow him through both the waking world and his dreams, giving him no rest. The First Evil is pushing him to do something terrible, but he eventually decides to make himself the victim in order to avoid bringing harm to anyone else, with the exception of anyone who rewatches this episode and sees his various hairstyles a...

Cordelia decides that Buffy is the reason bad things happen to her. Cos without Buffy, all those world-ending or Sunnydale-threatening villains wouldn't exist.... oh wait... Enter new girl Anya, totally not Anyanka: Vengeance Demon extraordinaire. And an alternate reality where Xander and Willow are *still* together. Yeesh. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, it's finally time to put the majority of *that* storyline to bed. Thank goodness! Plus we get Spike for this episode - bonus! If only the episode weren't riddled with plot chasms... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Angel is back and everyone is about to find out, from bad Xander to "I statements" Willow and also dodgy former watch.... I mean totally legit and current Watcher who you *should not do a background check on* Gwendolyn Post. Sparks will fly when we have Slayer on Slayer action, but that's partly just this week's MacGuffin... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Important! This is *chocolate*, not *candy*. Hill. Dying on. The adults of Sunnydale end up under Ethan Rayne's nefarious influence by way of magical cand... I mean chocolate! We also discover just how bad Buffy is at driving, but how absolutely epic she is at finding a car parking space (that car is RIGHT OUTSIDE THE BRONZE). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the race for Homecoming Queen, as well as... Slayerfest '98? All bets are off as both competitions seem to feature Buffy paired with Cordelia. Oh, and Scott breaks up with Buffy. It's fine, even she completely forgets about it by next episode... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There's a bestial killer on the loose. Is it Oz? Is it a returned Angel? Or is it the character only in this one episode who's a douche to Buffy about mental health..... yeah, it's Pete. I mean, at least it's not Pat..... eurgh, Pat. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We meet one of the greatest characters in all of Buffy - that's right, Scott Hope is finally here! So is this guy called Trick and this new Slayer called Faith btw... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Buffy's arrival back in Sunnydale is the catalyst for all of her friends to turn into douchecanoes and behave terribly. Except Cordelia, because she was already a bit of a douchecanoe. Also zombies or something, plus PatOvu Mobani! And beep effects for Pat. Only for Pat. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Buffy is still away from SunnyD, but in her absence Willow and gang are on hand to tackle any big boys... any VAMPIRES that they find. Buffy encounters ChanterLily, who will add more names to her... names. She'll also meet Ken, played by Carlos Jacott, who could anger even Gandhi. Slightly dodgy audio from 25 mins in. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to our season 2 wrap up episode, featuring special guest, friend of the show, and reason for the show's existence: Mark. Also featuring WAY too many mentions of *that* episode. Join us for a top 5, another top 5 and an additional top 5 that I didn't tell Tish or Mark about in advance. Surprise 5! Now I feel like 'The Todd'... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well the gang are up against it. Kendra's snuffed it, Willow is unconscious, Giles is unconscious, Xander is unconscious. Everyone is unconscious. Well, not everyone. Angelus is trying to awaken AfalfACATHLA and ultimately it'll be up to our favourite slayer (no shade Kendra, the show is literally named after her) to save the day. But can Angel be brought back? Or will he forever be confined to th...

Season 2 comes to a head. I mean, it comes to a big rock that has a head in it. I mean the head is attached to a body and limbs too... Look, there's a big MacGuffin. Angelus is gonna use it to swallow the world into hell (which hell? More on that later...) and that's bad. But it's ok, because he doesn't know how to do it, the good guys have more experts than the bad guys and there's a surplus of g...

Something is after the successful SunnyD High swim team! Even worse, the official name for these beasties is "Gill-Monster" which just leans a little too much into nominative determinism for me. Either way, Buffy will have to protect the swim team, which sometimes means basically stalking them. Also it sometimes means breaking a swimmer's nose. Honestly, it would've gotten even worse for him if sh...