[continued from previous message]   
      
   slumber by a quick shag with your one-and-only? Get the old gang back   
   together and help summon an ungodly demonic presence who can burn the   
   humanity out of his victims, of course!So then, what do you do if you're a   
   young slayer facing your newly evil-ed toy boy and an ungodly enemy of whom   
   'no weapon forged can harm'? You grab yourself some good ol' US Military   
   hardware and go to town, is what.   
      
   In the second half of season two's devastating mid-season two-parter   
   (comprised of Surprise and Innocence), Buffy puts an end - or at least   
   severe dismemberment - to The Judge courtesy of a whopping great rocket   
   launcher.While rockets, guns and grenades are not the slayer's go-to   
   toolkit, it always pays to think outside the box and keep the options open   
   when dealing with some unspeakable evils - and there is nothing quite as   
   pleasing as seeing the look on Angel's face as he dives for cover, realizing   
   that the gloves are off and Buffy isn't messing around - and won't be messed   
   around - anymore.   
      
      
   5. The Gift - Buffy's Sacrifice   
      
   The season five finale and hundredth episode overall, The Gift, features one   
   of the defining images of the entire series: Buffy, our one and only vampire   
   slayer (kind of), launching herself into the ether in order to save not only   
   her little sister, but ostensibly the whole world.As the god Glorificus uses   
   Dawn Summers (aka the glowing ball of energy formerly known as The Key) to   
   open interdimensional portals and unleash hell on earth in her quest to   
   return   
   home, Buffy fights to the top of her makeshift tower. But, even after   
   defeating all of the bad guys, she is just that bit too late, and either   
   Dawn or she herself must go.   
      
   The entire season, and arguably the show, has been building up to this one   
   scene, where Buffy has to make that ultimate choice; one might call it   
   destiny.   
   Though Joss Whedon has maintained that this was never meant to be Buffy's   
   final episode, it can't help but feel like a definite closer, with a clear   
   sense of an ending, all the way from how the Warner Bros Network marketed   
   it, to the scene's flashbacks, to the foreshadowing of Buffy's death several   
   seasons earlier.   
      
      
   4. Graduation Day, Part One - Buffy Vs Faith   
      
   The first part of the third season's finale sees vampire slayers Buffy and   
   Faith go head to head in a perfectly matched battle of good and bad (Faith   
   doesn't quite earn the title of 'evil')   
      
       [the couple of fights between Buffy and Faith were the best fight scenes   
   in the entire series...IMO. (2nd was Faith kicking Connor's ass on Angel)]   
      
   This is not an episode short on thrills and spills: The Mayor is ramping up   
   final preparations for his ascension to true demonhood as one of the Old   
   Ones, and Faith has shot Angel with a poison that is draining the life from   
   him, which can only be cured by drinking the blood of a slayer. But all the   
   drama hinges on this fight, which is the decider of Buffy, Angel and Faith's   
   fate, and the reckoning of both slayers' season of missteps and misdeeds.   
      
   An awesome, no-punches-pulled fight leads into a truly shocking climax,   
   which sees Faith with her own knife in her gut and, in a twist of cruel   
   fate, she falls from her apartment building and lands on a truck headed out   
   of town, meaning the only way Buffy can save Angel now is to sacrifice   
   herself (but, hey, that's kind of her speciality).   
      
      
   3. Fool For Love - Spike Kills Nikki Wood   
      
   For all his bragging, it is five seasons into the show before we actually   
   see Spike take down a slayer.In an ultra-cool 1970s New York subway fight   
   scene, Spike (with a punk rock look influenced by the likes of the Sex   
   Pistols and Generation X) faces Nikki Wood - and wins. This victory, we   
   discover, is where his iconic black duster came from, which he pries from   
   the limp body of his latest victim.   
      
   His obsession with the Chosen Ones was well-known but, until this point,   
   Spike's slayer slayings had been either the stuff of legend or locker room   
   talk, depending on how convincing one found Captain Peroxide's swagger,   
   bluster and boastings.This pacey and stone-cold, drop-dead awesome scene is   
   also intercut with a present-day tête-à-tête with Buffy, which adds a   
   satisfying dual layer and cinematic sensibility to proceedings, as the pair   
   play out the sequence blow for blow. But this time the shoe is on the other   
   foot (or perhaps the coat is on the other back) and Buffy leaves Spike on   
   the ground, echoing his former love by denouncing him as 'beneath her'.   
   Ouch.   
      
      
   2. Graduation Day, Part Two - Blowing Up Sunnydale High   
      
   Season three's concluding episode doesn't let up from the get go, picking up   
   from Part One, where Faith's apparent death has doomed either Buffy or Angel   
   and paved the way for Mayor Richard Wilkins' ascension.While any sequence in   
   this episode might be considered gold-standard for the ol' grey matter's   
   vaults, it is the climactic, penultimate scene that really sits on the   
   brain.With the sun blocked out of the sky, the school under siege, a battle   
   raging for the   
   students' lives and The Mayor ascended to giant snake form, Buffy taunts the   
   big guy (literally) with Faith's knife in order to lure him away from the   
   fray.   
      
   The battle is epic and the stakes as high as they have ever been, but it is   
   this last moment, as Buffy leads The Mayor on a merry chase through the high   
   school in his new demonic form, that inspires awe and brings a fitting   
   conclusion to this Big Bad and, uhh, all of Sunnydale High.   
      
   The beloved library - home to many of the hijinks of the last three years -   
   has been loaded with explosives, and Buffy leads The Mayor straight to them   
   before diving through the window onto the lawn where Giles waits with the   
   detonator. One plunge and a "Well, gosh!" from The Mayor later, and the   
   whole building goes up and then comes down on top of him.   
      
      
   1. Chosen - The Final Battle   
      
   The finale; the big kahuna; the final statement. This one's a doozy.   
      
   If ever there were a memorable moment from Buffy, it is season seven's last   
   stand, where Buffy and co. take the fight to The First's doorstep,   
   descending into the Hellmouth right where it all began - underneath   
   Sunnydale High.The extended Scooby Gang assemble, Willow goes goddess, Anya   
   is slain by Bringers, potential Slayers are called and Spike finds   
   redemption while bringing the house down one last time. What's not to love?   
      
   After Spike has gone up in a pillar of fire and dust, and Buffy has made it   
   out in the nick of time, our heroes are left on the edge of a   
   Sunnydale-sized crater, wondering what to do now that they've defeated the   
   most evil of evils that ever eviled. It is an epic conclusion to an epic   
   series and, though we know there are more demons out there lurking all over   
   the globe, it brings a definitive sense of closure to Buffy Summers' time   
   spent living just north of hell.   
      
      
   David   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)