Buffy The Vampire Slayer, "Graduation Day Part One & Two" Review (3x21 & 3x22)

Brief Synopsis: “The Scoobies receive some valuable information from Anya, who has actually witnessed an ascension. She reveals that The Mayor plans to transform himself into a pure demon. When Angel is poisoned by Faith, Buffy faces Faith one last time in order to get the only cure to the poison: the blood of a Slayer.”

"The Prom" (3x20) quick link here                                                                                                                                "The Freshman" (4x01) quick link here


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1)    I will be reviewing the episodes in bullet point form. This is because it makes the reviews simple to read and helps break up the text.
2)    This review will almost definitely contain spoilers for episodes after this one.
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With that being said, let’s get started, shall we? 



•    It’s the end of an era on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”. The high school years of the show are coming to a close. It shouldn’t come as a surprise by this point, but the high school years are my favourite section of the show. I just adore Sunnydale High, I adore the students, I adore Snyder (don’t judge me!), I adore the way that the show is able to take school issues, make them supernatural, and explore them in the most interesting of ways. Don’t get me wrong, I find the college year fascinating and the adult years very interesting as well, but in my personal opinion, Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s best seasons are two and three. Everybody ready to leave Sunnydale High with a bang?

Part one starts out with Willow feeling emotional about leaving Sunnydale High. She’s going to miss everything...even Harmony, who bullied her for years. Willow is correct though, her and Harmony will hang out. Harmony will bite her in season four’s “The Harsh Light Of Day”. It’s how vampires make friends, okay! That counts as quality time!

Willow: “Oh, trusty soda machine…I press you for root beer, you give me coke.”

That’s probably because Xander dropped the machine on ‘Big Bob’ in “The Zeppo”.

Xander mentions that he has this feeling that he’s not getting out of high school alive. I totally thought this was foreshadowing his death after The Mayor achieved ascension. It made me very nervous. That’s probably what Joss and the army of meanie writers wanted. They wanted us to be worried about the safety of each and every one of the Scoobies. While I wasn’t worried about Buffy dying...what kind of show kills off its main character when there’s going to be another season?...*cough* “The Gift” *cough*....*cough* “Game Of Thrones” *cough*...but I was worried about the rest of the Scoobies. Especially Xander and Giles for some reason. I figured that Willow was safe after her deciding to go to U.C. Sunnydale in season four. There was far too much story left to tell to kill her off. Giles, on the other hand, would be directionless without Sunnydale High after being fired by the Watcher’s Council. I thought if anyone was going to die, it would be him.

I think this is the episode where you can tell that Faith’s descent into darkness has truly hit rock-bottom. Just a few months previously, Faith had struggled with accidentally killing Allan Finch, a human. Now, Faith kills Leister (also a human) without showing any remorse or caring whatsoever. The Mayor wanted him dead, so Faith killed him. I was horrified at how casual and nonchalant she was about the whole thing! He had a bow-tie on for God sake! Matt Smith’s version of Doctor Who judges you, Faith!

Honestly, no villain after The Mayor ever lives up to him. Angelus is so perfect as a despicable, unpredictable villain that nobody can match him afterwards. The Mayor is so perfect as a loveable father-figure that is still genuinely creepy, that no other villain can live up to him either. Joss has set the bar so high with ‘Big Bads’ that he can never reach it again. “Graduation Day” are The Mayor’s most interesting episodes and Harry Groener’s best work. He gets to act such a wide range of emotions in these two episodes. The first time we see him, he’s convincing Faith to come out wearing a pink dress. Nobody else in the world could make Faith wear that dress. It’s a testament to how much The Mayor means to Faith that she’d wear the dress at all. I love the look on The Mayor’s face when he sees Faith in it. He’s wearing a look on his face that we usually only see when Giles is proud of Buffy. It’s clear from those few seconds of screen time that The Mayor adores Faith and looks at her like his daughter. I read something very interesting recently in the comments section of one of my reviews. Someone raised the point of wondering if The Mayor ever had a daughter, but lost her to old age like he did his wife, Edna May. It would make a lot of sense. Perhaps The Mayor is recapturing a relationship that he’s already had with his own daughter by adopting Faith as a surrogate? We’ll never know the answer, but it’s a fascinating topic.

The Mayor: “Nobody knows what you are. Not even you, Miss. ‘Seen-It-All’. The ascension isn’t just my day, it’s yours too. Your day to blossom, to show the world what a powerful girl you are. I think of what you’ve done, what I know you will do…no father could be prouder.”

You see what I mean?! He’s evil and wants to eat all the residents of Sunnydale, yet I love him. How am I supposed to root for the Scoobies to kill him when I want him and Faith to live happily ever after in a cottage by the sea?! Just think of the difference he could have made in Faith’s life if he wasn’t a budding psychopath.

We also get a lovely scene where Faith opens up to The Mayor about her childhood. Faith never talks about her life before Sunnydale with anyone. She doesn’t trust people enough to open up. She revealed snippets about her life when she was about to torture Buffy in “Enemies”, but outside of that we know almost nothing about her childhood. Not only does Faith love and respect The Mayor, but she trusts him wholeheartedly. You can sense that deep down Faith just wants to be loved. She was neglected by her mother growing up, she was abused by Gwendolyn Post, her Watcher was murdered, she feels like the Scoobies treated her like an outcast...she’s looking for a place where she belongs. The Mayor has given her that. In return, she’ll do anything for him. Part of the reason why I love Faith’s character journey is that I understand it. I can totally empathise with her. The ironic thing is that if Faith had opened up to Buffy in “Consequences” instead of blaming Buffy, she would have gotten everything that she’d secretly been seeking. She’d have friends, a surrogate family, and a place where she fit in. It’s frustrating to watch Faith make mistake after mistake when you can see that small spark of decency hidden below all of the pain and anger.

On the flipside of all this fatherly love is the scene where The Mayor enters the library. Oh my goodness, the tension. Thus far in season three, The Mayor has been built up as a loveable character, but we’ve rarely seen him annoyed or angry. We saw him get annoyed at losing the Box of Gavrok, but that didn’t make him scary or threatening. Now, he has the audacity to stroll into the library! It’s like when Glory goes to Buffy’s house in season five! What are you doing there?! That’s sacred ground! This scene was absolutely necessary in making The Mayor seem like a threat instead of just Faith. It shows that The Mayor can be vindictive and is someone to be scared of. Why does The Mayor go to the library? Because he can. It’s that simple. He’s invulnerable, what does he have to be afraid of? He’s playing mind games with the Scoobies. He threatens to eat Buffy, and Giles retaliates by shoving a fencing sword through his chest! Oh my God (I also love that Giles could sword fight with Wesley while reading the newspaper)! The Mayor shrugs it off like it was nothing and instantly turns back into his friendly, loving self, telling Giles off for his outburst of violence in front of the ‘children’.

Speaking of The Mayor being invulnerable, if he wanted to he could have killed the Scoobies then and there with the fencing sword. He’s invulnerable and has a weapon in his hands. So why doesn’t he? Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t want to get arrested before he ascends (even if he couldn’t be killed by the police). The more likely option is that he’s there just to mess with the Scoobies. Just like Angelus, just like Glory in season five, it’s all about mind games to weaken and shake up his opponents. While I love the mind games aspect of the ‘Big Bads’, it does seem counterproductive. Why not just kill them and get it over with instead of giving them time to come up with a plan? In The Mayor’s case, I think the answer is simple. The Mayor wants to die. He’s lost his wife, he’s been alive for over a hundred years, and he’s ready to move on. He wants to go out in a blaze of glory and eat the residents of Sunnydale on his way out, but he doesn’t intend to last forever as a pure demon. The way he talks to Faith in the video he leaves for her in season four’s “This Year’s Girl” is evidence of this. In fact, The Mayor does something of a goodbye tour with his speech to Faith and his thanking of Snyder in this episode - “Sunnydale owes you a debt, it will be re-paid.”...yes, by eating you. Finally, I love the re-using of the musical score “Kralik’s House” from “Helpless”, as The Mayor wipes the fencing sword down. It’s perfectly timed and it really makes the moment that much more memorable and eerie.

Xander: “Yes, men like sports. Men watch the action movie. They eat of the beef and they enjoy to look at the bosoms.” - That’s more or less accurate.

Another aspect of this episode that I really enjoy and find fascinating is Anya. She’s more than a thousand years old, yet she’s stuck in the body of a teenager that isn’t even able to buy alcohol. I’m glad that Marti Noxon and Joss Whedon decided to keep her around after “The Wish” and “Doppelgangland”. That wasn’t the original plan. Yes, it was Marti who auditioned and hired Emma Caulfield, not Joss Whedon. Watching Anya come to grips with being made human is a treat to watch play out. It’s only in season seven that she truly realises and appreciates just how special it is to be a human, when she confides as much to Andrew in “End Of Days”. Watching her journey from Vengeance Demon to human, to Vengeance Demon, to human, to acceptance of her human status, to death, was one of my favourite character developments in the Buffyverse. I love her progression. In this episode, as the Scoobies are preparing for battle, Anya is running as far away from Sunnydale as she possibly can. She can’t even fathom Xander wanting to stay and possibly die just to protect his friends. It’s completely alien to her. She tells Xander that he has no special powers and will just get in the way. If “The Zeppo” hadn’t happened, Xander might have considered Anya’s proposal. Now, however, he has a little bit of self-confidence. He wants to stay and fight regardless. It makes his ‘key’ status in Buffy’s plan all the more heart-warming. Instead of telling Xander to stay out of harm's way like they do in “The Zeppo”, Buffy trusts Xander with one of the most important parts of her plan. Xander is now perceived as valuable to the Scoobies. By the time “Chosen” rolls around, Anya is also willing to fight and die for her friends. Ugh, my heart. Having Anya previously witness an ascension gave her the perfect reason to integrate with the Scoobies. We don’t know a great deal about what an ascension is or what The Mayor will become at this point. Anya’s description of “for one thing, they’re bigger” did nothing to make me nervous about it. Give me terror, give me deaths, give me details about the previous ascensions! Make me worried!

 I feel I also need to dedicate a paragraph to Anya’s romantic declarations of love to Xander. My personal favourites are “When I think that something could happen to you, it feels bad inside. Like I might vomit” and “You know what, I hope you die!...Aren’t we gonna kiss?” Why she didn’t follow a career in match-making, I’ll never know.

Buffy convinces Joyce to leave Sunnydale in another emotional scene. Buffy apologises to Joyce for not being a normal teenage girl. She explains that there is one thing she can do better than anyone in the world, but Joyce’s presence in Sunnydale would distract her and possibly get her killed. Joyce listens to Buffy, respects Buffy, and leaves. God, I love Joyce! Even though Buffy is apologising, you can just tell that Joyce is proud of Buffy being the Slayer. She worries about her, naturally, but Joyce has a look of such respect and pride during this scene that I can’t help but smile. I suppose that’s at least one person that will survive the season...

“Graduation Day Part One” is an episode where not a lot happens. What I mean by that is most of the episode is setting up part two. The remarkable thing about this is that it doesn’t detract from part one. Part one is still really memorable and exciting, even though there is no major battling or intense scenes, except Buffy’s fight with Faith at the end. It’s not the easiest feat to accomplish.

In “Amends”, Willow tries to seduce Oz and have sex with him because she feels guilty over cheating on him with Xander. Oz rejected her at the time because he wanted their first time to be special and not because Willow felt guilty. Oz decides that this is the perfect time because they could be dead in a few days. His way of panicking is by finding solace inside his girlfriend...I went for romantic there and it came out dirty. It’s the perfect way for Willow and Oz to have sex for the first time. It’s oddly romantic and cute. It also added to my theory that someone was going to die. Just like with Buffy and Angel being happy at the beginning of “The Prom”, just like Wesley and Fred being happy at the beginning of “A Hole In The World”, Joss couldn’t let this adorableness last, could he? Oz is going to become Mayor chowder, isn’t he? Their post-sex adorableness also makes me giddy. Willow is hyper and won’t stop talking, whereas Oz is his usual stoic self.

Angel arrives at Leister’s house in the stealthiest way possible; he walks straight into the doorframe. Smooth. As hilarious as it is, I love this! The Angel of season one or two was too broody and mysterious to do ridiculous things like this! It gives him a little bit more personality before disappearing to Los Angeles. Awesomely, Angel keeps this personality trait after leaving Sunnydale. In the first episode of “Angel”, “City Of”, he dives into the wrong car when he’s about to chase after some villains. Buffy, rightfully so, is ‘bratty’ towards Angel (that’s Angel’s word for it, not mine). Angel did just dump her! Even though Buffy understands the dumping (everything sounds dirty today!), it doesn’t mean the wounds don’t hurt. It’s still raw. Not only did Angel just dump her, but Buffy has to still see him on a frequent basis until he leaves. It’s a rough situation for her to be in. Out of nowhere, Faith fires an arrow through Angel! Faith deliberately misses the shot in order to poison Angel, so that he’ll ‘die’ slowly, thus leaving Buffy no time to research the ascension. Talk about vindictive! It’s a damn good strategy. Faith has lost all semblance of the person she was before killing Allan. Angel was the only person who got through to Faith before. He was the person who nearly convinced her to change her ways. Here she is killing him slowly to keep Buffy distracted.

The Mayor getting Faith to kill Leister leads the Scoobies to a very valuable piece of information: The Mayor is only invulnerable until his ascension. After that he can be killed. I always grin when I see Giles and Xander open the pull-out picture of the pure demon that The Mayor is turning into. They open one page, then another...then another! Buffy doesn’t care about that right now, though. All she cares about is helping Angel. As much as she resents him for leaving her, she still loves him deeply. In a surprisingly selfless move, Wesley offers to help Buffy and goes to the Watcher’s Council for information about curing the poison. The Council refuse to help and Buffy quits the Watcher’s Council! Buffy just threw the rulebook out the window! Shazzam! Take that, stuffy English guys!  I’m so proud of Buffy for quitting the Council. What have they ever been good for besides introducing her to Giles? They test her on her 18th birthday, which results in Joyce being kidnapped and Buffy nearly being killed. What have they done to aid the Slayer all this time? Nothing! They view the Slayer, they view Buffy, as nothing more than a weapon. She’s just a means to an end. Buffy’s had enough of their shit and I can’t blame her for that at all. Her “I like to think of it as graduation” line was so beautifully poetic that it made me grin from ear to ear. She is overly mean to Wesley, however. It’s not his fault. He was trying to help her. Wesley’s in a difficult position now, much like Giles was in “Helpless”. What’s best for Buffy and what’s best for the Watcher’s Council, his employer, are two very different things. He’s walking a fine line. Does he try to convince Buffy to rejoin the Council? Does he leave Sunnydale and return to England? Or does he stay and fight regardless because Sunnydale is in danger? Ultimately, he does something that I wasn’t expecting...he stays to fight. He has no obligation to Buffy anymore, but he wants to stay and fight anyway because he wants to help. This leads to the most disturbing, awkward, grotesque kiss that I’ve seen in my life between Wesley and Cordelia. Kill it, kill it with fire! The string of drool is perfection...and disgusting. In that one moment, Cordelia realises that she has zero attraction to Wesley anymore. It’s the funniest thing. I defy you to watch it without giggling!

Oz reveals to Buffy that the only way to save Angel is the blood of a Slayer. Sweet mama, how are the writers going to get around this one? I was expecting there to be a way around it. Surely Angel isn’t going to drink Faith or Buffy? Buffy arrives at Faith’s apartment and we are treated to the best fight scene of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” thus far. Seriously, it’s a thing of beauty. Jeff Pruitt is a master of choreographing fight scenes and this is his finest work. They fight all the way through the apartment and onto the balcony. The amount of objects that are used in the fight scene is amazing. It brings a whole new level of intensity to the Buffyverse. Buffy handcuffs Faith to her so that Faith can’t run away. Buffy knows Faith too well. I’ve said it before, when the going gets tough, Faith runs away. She ran away from Kakistos, she tried to run away after killing Allan in “Consequences”, and she runs away from Sunnydale in season four after ruining Buffy’s life. She can’t run away now...then the handcuffs break apart. Well, that was pointless. Should have bought stronger handcuffs, Buffy. Wait, are those the same handcuffs that Joyce had in “Band Candy”? They’re strong enough for kinky Giles-Joyce shagging, but not strong enough for a little Slayer fightin’?

The look of surprise on Buffy’s face when she stabs Faith tells you everything you need to know. She didn’t mean to ‘kill’ Faith. She intended to when she arrived at Faith’s apartment, but I don’t think she was prepared to actually do it. I think it came down to instincts. Buffy’s Slayer powers stem from the First Slayer having a demon forced inside her. Buffy has animalistic instincts in her nature, as do all Slayers. Buffy was backed into a corner and Buffy stabbed Faith. I wasn’t prepared for this! Faith, as her final act of revenge, throws herself off of the balcony so that Buffy can’t use her blood to save Angel. Just as Buffy twisted the knife into  Faith, Joss twisted the knife into his audience. All of that work and heartache, and Buffy still can’t cure Angel! Gah! Buffy spent so much of this season telling Faith that killing a human is wrong and now she was forced to do the same thing (or so we thought), and it was all for nothing!

Even at this point, I was expecting there to be a way around Angel drinking Buffy. Who are we kidding, though? It was always going to be Buffy that cured Angel. Even before Faith escaped. Angel is about to leave Sunnydale forever. It wouldn’t be dramatic and ironic enough to be a Joss Whedon show if it was someone other than Buffy saving Angel, even though he just dumped her. It’s like when Harry faced Voldemort in “Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows”. You knew it was coming. It had been building up to it the whole time.

Due to the Columbine Massacre, there was a two month gap between “Graduation Day Part One” and “Graduation Day Part Two” when they first aired! There was also another two month gap between “Graduation Day Part Two” and “Earshot”, which didn’t air when it was originally intended to, due to “Earshot” revolving around someone wanting to kill everyone at Sunnydale High. Can you imagine having to wait two months to know what happened to Faith and Angel?! Due to England airing the episodes about a year after the United States, I didn’t have to wait two months to find out what happened.

In his last episode on the show (excluding flashbacks, dreams, videos, and The First Evil appearing as him), we get to see Harry Groener’s true range as an actor. The Mayor is distraught at finding Faith’s apartment destroyed and Faith being missing. He’s falling to pieces. It’s why I love The Mayor! He wasn’t just pretending to have affection for Faith to manipulate her; he genuinely loved her like a daughter. This scene proves it! Faith isn’t there, so he can’t be pretending. It makes his character so much more interesting. He’s evil, yet he’s a loveable father.

Willow: “He was delirious, he thought I was Buffy.”
Oz: “You too, huh?”

I really want to see the scene where Angel was holding Oz’s hand, kissing it, and proclaiming his love to Oz. That would have been the most hilarious scene ever. Give me that scene now!

Here’s an interesting thought...if Willow was indeed Buffy when Angel was delirious, do you think Angel would have stuck to his word and not left Buffy and Sunnydale? Or was it just fever and delirium talking? I think that he would have left either way. Just because he nearly died, it doesn’t eliminate the fundamental problems that they have as a couple. They still wouldn’t have worked in the long run. We’ll never know for sure, though, so thanks for that, Whedon.

My guess was incorrect. There was no way around it. Angel had to drink Buffy in order to be saved. At least he tried to not bite Buffy. She kept hitting him until he vamped out, then she practically forces his mouth onto her neck. I mentioned before how Buffy’s instincts kicked in during the fight with Faith and she ended up stabbing Faith. In this scene, I feel like something similar happened with Angel. He fought against it, but after Buffy forced his mouth to her neck, his instincts kicked in and he drank her blood. Even though he’s a vampire with a soul, he’s still a vampire. He’s still done terrible things with a soul. He still has urges to drink from humans. In his weakened state, he didn’t have the energy to fight against it and he gave into the cravings. This is one of those scenes that really hammers home to the audience that no matter how nice Angel can be, his vampire side is never far from the surface. He drinks Buffy for a long time before stopping. The sexually metaphoric aspect of the scene was not lost upon me either. The positioning of their bodies, the grunting noises, Sarah’s superb facial expressions, Angel rolling off of Buffy when he was finished...it was all intentionally played in a very sexual way. There has been so much sexual tension between these two during season three that it feels oddly satisfying for this to take place. I was overwhelmed by the emotion in this scene, which is the highest praise I can give it. I feel like I need a cold shower now...

That emotion quickly turned to rage when it becomes apparent that Faith is in the hospital room next to Buffy! AAH! Buffy letting Angel bite her was all for nothing! She could have used Faith’s blood! CURSE YOU, WHEDON! WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO TWIST THE KNIFE IN FURTHER STILL?! Although, it does lead to an amazing piece of camera work when The Mayor walks straight from Faith’s room into Buffy’s room, where he tries to asphyxiate her. What the Hell is going on?! The charming, friendly, loveable Mayor is trying to kill Buffy in public! It’s amazing to see The Mayor lose control of his emotions for a little while at the hospital. He is genuinely terrifying when he wants to be. Also, Faith being in a coma means that Buffy didn’t kill a human, so that’s a positive thing, right? Plus, this moment actually leads to something later on in the episode. Faith is The Mayor’s weakness. Faith makes The Mayor emotional and irrational. Buffy uses this later on to lure The Mayor into the library.

Holy awkward, Batman! Angel having to explain to the Scoobies that Buffy is in hospital just before the ascension because he drank from her is so uncomfortable that it makes me want to cover my eyes. When in hospital, Buffy has a dream that she’s in Faith’s apartment talking to Faith. Like most dream sequences in “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, it’s very cryptic and foreshadowing some things that are coming over the next couple of seasons. The show later uses this again, but takes it to another level during the season four finale, “Restless”. Faith mentioning “counting down from 730” is revealing that two years later, Buffy will die (730 is two years in days). Also, Faith mentioning “Little Miss Muffet” can be read as her referring to Dawn’s arrival in season five (a crazy man in “Real Me” tells Dawn that she’s ‘curds and whey’). What this dream sequence does is make me miss Faith like crazy. It makes me appreciate how important she’s been in this season. It also makes me damn curious for the future. Faith is in a coma, not dead, so she’s obviously coming back at some point. Will she try to make amends for the things she’s done or will she continue with her psychopathic ways? Luckily, we find all of this out in the next season.

The final thing that Faith tells Buffy in the dream sequence is to play on The Mayor’s human weakness. Buffy wakes with a plan on how to stop The Mayor, but she doesn’t reveal this to the audience, just the Scoobies. I personally like Cordelia’s plan to chase The Mayor with a box that says “Ebola virus” on it, due to The Mayor’s fear of germs...or, alternatively, Oz’s plan to attack The Mayor with hummus. Oz is right, he’d never see it coming!

I’m a huge fan of scenes that show two different points of view at the same time. The dual scene between the Scoobies preparing for battle and The Mayor and his vampire minions preparing for battle is no exception. It’s so well done! They blend together perfect. It makes you amped up for the fight that’s imminent! Oh, also, “…and boys, let’s watch the swearing” makes me die. Richard still has his priorities in order, doesn’t he? He’s no Hermione (give yourself 10 points if you get that reference).

I think it was absolutely genius for the Scoobies to reach out to the rest of the school for help in bringing down The Mayor. Firstly, it allows the show to bring back a lot of recurring characters for one final time (even though most of them go on to appear again). We get to see Jonathan, Harmony, Percy, Larry, and Mr. Miller in this episode (Mr. Miller has previously appeared in “Innocence”, “I Only Have Eyes For You”, and “Anne”). Secondly, it makes perfect sense for the Scoobies to do this after the ‘Class Protector’ award in “The Prom”. The Scoobies are aware now that the students of Sunnydale High know that something is different about Sunnydale. They know that there are weird occurrences and mysterious deaths. ‘Sunnydale Syndrome’ has been thrown out the window! Why not make use of the army of students that are surrounding you?

Angel’s decision to not say goodbye if they survive the ascension makes a lot of sense. Saying goodbye again would be too hard on them both. He doesn’t stick to it, however. This is all a clever rouse to be able to brood at Buffy one last time, while disappearing into a cloud of smoke, like some form of vampire ninja. In all seriousness, it’s actually quite a fitting ending for them. Certainly more fitting than “Becoming Part Two”, where Buffy stabbed Angel and sent him to Hell. Compared to that, this is practically a fairytale ending.

Oz and Willow are late to graduation because they were having a quickie in Oz’s van...classy.

Do you know, as nervous as I was during The Mayor’s speech, I absolutely loved it! His speech was amazing! It was so full of hope and inspiration...that was aimed at people he was about to eat. The part where he mentions that some people should be there who aren’t (Faith) was oddly emotional. Harry Groener was, yet again, perfect. Then, the eclipse happens, The Mayor ascends, and chaos ensues. The C.G.I. for snake-Mayor isn’t great, but it’s certainly an improvement on Lurconis from “Band Candy” earlier in the season. Can I just mention that The Mayor actually succeeded in his plan! He wanted to ascend into a pure demon. It was his goal. Mission accomplished. It’s so rare for a villain to actually succeed in a television show or film. It’s another reason why The Mayor was such a successful ‘Big Bad’. He was more interested in his own goals than he was in destroying the Slayer, then he succeeded in those goals.

One of my favourite moments of the entire series is when the students of Sunnydale High all open their graduation gowns to reveal weapons underneath them. It’s such a cool moment! After three years of burying their heads in the sand and shrugging off the mysterious deaths and weird occurrences, the students are fighting back against the evil in front of them. It makes me beam with pride at them all...then The Mayor starts attacking the students, they start firing arrow at him, vampires arrive, and all Hell breaks loose.

Wesley is vertical for a grand total of two seconds during the fight scene. He briefly runs, then he is clotheslined by a vampire and remains on the ground for the duration of the battle. I cannot contain my laughter when Wesley asks for a painkiller or to be knocked unconscious by the paramedics after the battle is finished. It was a clothesline, Wesley! Grow some balls!

Larry! For three years after this aired I was living in denial. It wasn’t 100% confirmed that The Mayor killed him in this episode, so I liked to pretend that Larry somehow survived and lived happily ever after with a boyfriend somewhere...then Willow tells Amy that Larry died! Ugh! WHY COULDN’T IT HAVE BEEN PERCY INSTEAD?! I have no objections to The Mayor eating Percy...I’ve yet to forgive him for being douchey to Willow in “Doppelgangland” and later in season four’s “Doomed”.

As loathe-able as Snyder is, I was quite sad to see him killed. After “Band Candy”, I stopped finding him annoying and started finding him hilarious and interesting. With that being said, if Snyder was going to be killed, this was a spectacularly fitting death for him. It’s oddly poetic that Snyder was killed by a giant snake after spending the past three years acting like a slithering little serpent to the Scoobies.

Harmony has been turned into a vampire. She’s now annoying and immortal. Oh, joy. To be fair, she does become much more interesting after being turned into a vampire. I’m surprised she didn’t move to Pylea. At least she’d have a reflection there.

Jonathan finally has a manly moment after spending the last two years being bullied and lacking any self-confidence, when he dives onto a vampire. While manly, the visual was amusing. Tiny Jonathan diving onto a vampire. Also, Cordelia finally stakes her first vampire! It only took her three years to accomplish this! Again, it’s oddly fitting that this took place in the last episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” that she appears in.

In another beautifully poetic moment, Giles detonates the explosives that destroy the library and Sunnydale High with it. It physically pained me to see the high school get destroyed. It’s like watching your home obliterated. I notice that the library was still full of books. I hope that Giles at least removed his glorious occult book collection before the room-go-boom.

As the dust settles and the last of The Mayor meat succumbs to gravity, all of the Scooby Gang is still standing. Well, Wesley isn’t technically standing, but you know what I mean. I was very surprised to see that nobody died. This episode is as close to a happy ending as you can get. It’s been one big emotional love-fest since the ‘Class Protector’ award in “The Prom”. Don’t get used to it though, kiddies. A happy season finale is not something that will last long. Giles salvages Buffy’s diploma from the wreckage and my heart finally breaks completely. I CAN DEAL WITH NO MORE FEELS IN SEASON THREE, THANK YOU. Cordelia has her diploma in the first season of “Angel”. It’s a little burned, but she still has it. I wonder if Willow, Oz, and Xander also received their diplomas?

 The episode,  season, and high school era close on the Scoobies reflecting on the battle and on their journeys through high school.

Oz: “Guys, take a moment to deal with this. We survived…”
Buffy: “It was a hell of a battle.”
Oz: “Not the battle. High school.”

I love that the ending to this episode is so…normal. The thing that they are most surprised about isn’t that they survived the ascension, it’s that they survived high school. All of them, together. It’s a beautiful way to close out an era of the show.


A few other thoughts on “Graduation Day”...

•    I have a Buffy mug which reads “I have a strategy, you’re not in it” on it. ‘Tis beautiful.
•    I still maintain that Faith’s knife is the sexiest weapon on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” (closely followed by the scythe from season seven).
•    Cordelia: “I demand an explanation!”
     Xander: “For what?”
     Cordelia: “Wesley.”
     Xander: “Uh…inbreeding?”
•    Buffy: “Fire bad, tree pretty.”

 

Quote Of The Episode

There’s a lot of memorable dialogue over the course of these two episodes, but my favourite exchange is this one:-


Cordelia: “I personally don’t think it’s possible to come up with a crazier plan.”

Oz: “We attack The Mayor with hummus.”

Cordelia: “I stand corrected.”

Oz: “Just keeping things in perspective.”


FINAL SCORE: 9/10 (part one) & 10/10 (part two)

What are your thoughts on "Graduation Day Part One & Two"? Did you enjoy this episode? Dislike it? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments section below!

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