Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 2 Review

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another TV review yo. So after checking out season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. and really getting into it, I decided to jump into season 2 straight away. For those who didn’t read my review of Buffy season 1 on it can be read right here. Now let’s talk about Buffy season 2 and man is there a lot to talk about. Minor spoilers to follow…

Once again we follow the live of Buffy Summers, a normal teenager by day, vampire slayer by night. As part of the “Scooby Gang” along with Giles, Xander, Willow and Cordelia, they take on the supernatural happenings that go on in Sunnydale as they tackle vampires, witchcraft, werewolves, sea monsters and other bizarre things.

The show continues to have episodic storylines but also has sense but also over the course of the series. This season starts out strong with Buffy coming to terms with the events that took place during the finale of the last season, but we also have to deal with her further relationship with Angel, the introduction of Spike, Drusilla, Oz and a few other faces, the future love lives of both Willow, Xander and Cordelia are explored and we also get to see the darker side of Giles. Everything is going down in this season and man does it get interesting.

All I have to say about this second season is OMG! Frigging OMG! The writers really pull out the big guns for these stories as they are strong, intense and emotional episodes that’ll suck you hook you in and never let go. I mean there is humour, love, loss, loneliness, tension, confusion and drama. Holy cow is there some drama, from the start of the season its strong material and it builds up to an epic conclusion where all I could say was “Wow.” DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA! That’s all this show is now and it’s SO FRIGGING GOOD! I can’t stress that enough. And then there is death! Joss Whedon, god of all things TV and film apparently became infamous for killing off main characters because of this series and while I’ve seen it in his later works, I can now see why it was such a big deal. In the end, this show is filled with dramatic incidents that will tug at your heartstrings and leave you emotionally invested throughout.

Episode highlights include:

• When She Was Bad
• Halloween
• Lie to Me
• Innocence (Personal Favourite)
• Passion (Personal Favourite)
• I Only Have Eyes For You
• Go Fish
• Becoming Pt 1 & 2 (Personal Favourite)

When it comes to the cast they’re all brilliant with returning cast members changing a lot and really step up their acting game, while new cast members are a solid addition to the show. So again let’s start with Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers. SMG is still awesome as Buffy, while we still get all of her great qualities in terms of her being a courageous, sassy, quirky and complicated teenager, but we also get to see her t her best and most vulnerable. Buffy goes through a lot of significant changes that really change her personality and way of thinking, she basically goes through the best and worst times of her life and while I love seeing Buffy being all badass, I also loved seeing her so emotionally broken and tortured. Oh and by the way SMG still looks hot as hell, there is never a moment where she doesn’t look impeccable. 🙂

As for the rest of the main cast they are all great. Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris becomes one of my main favourite characters in this season. Xander is still the funny, sarcastic and ridiculous guy that we’ve come to know and love, but in this series we really get to see him grow in confidence, become more assertive and speak his mind and come to terms with his feelings with Buffy, Willow and surprisingly Cordelia too. Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg is pretty much one of the best characters in this show by this point and Rosenberg really shows off her acting talent. Willow is still her funny and cute self, but in this season we finally get to see her sort out her emotional attachment to Xander and move onto Oz and then there’s a build up in confidence in not only her looks but assertiveness.

As for Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase, let me just get this out of the way first… She is smoking hot! I swear she just looks incredibly pretty like all the damn time! Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about the character. Cordelia really goes from being a horrible bitch to a much more tolerable bitch in this season, she’s still a source of humour because of her ditsy nature, but she does grow to like Buffy and the others and eventually becomes a full-on member of their group… And of course, there’s the whole thing with her and Xander! What the actual hell man? Random as hell but totally great for TV purposes. Also Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles has become one of my personal favourite people! Giles is the man stuck in his books, always coming up plans and being straightforward. But in this season we learn so much more about his dark backstory, see his developing relationship with Jenny Calendar and see him step up as her Buffy’s father figure which is beautiful.

But the real star of this season is David Boreanaz as Angel. I love how mysterious he was in the last season, but here Angel’s allowed to be a little more emotional, awkward, funny, and most importantly menacing. Oh, and of course we get to see more of Angel’s history and that is a welcome bonus too. Boreanaz is a very versatile actor and his acting talent is so frigging impressive, I won’t say what happens specifically but Angel is at his best when he’s a bad guy, he is simply in his element and delivers most his best work in that regard.

Now let’s talk about the rest of the highlights in the cast. James Marsters as Spike is a great addition, I love how British he is and he’s very relatable with his choice of language and mannerisms, but in addition to that, he’s a great bad guy with a cracking personality. Juliet Landau as Drusilla is someone I’m kind of half and half with, on one hand, I like how strange and creepy she can be, but sometimes I feel like her character is pretty annoying because of how strange and weird she is. Kristine Sutherland really steps up as Joyce Summers in this season, as Buffy’s mother she starts to question Buffy’s actions, lay down the law and discover things about her daughter that she can’t quite understand, and Sutherland handles her material with great flair and talent.

I also had a lot of love for Robia LaMorte as Jenny Calendar, I grew to like her in season 1 and here she’s given a lot more material to work with as we discover more about her backstory and continue her relationship with Giles too. Her character goes through a lot and LaMorte does well in her role and looks fantastic at all times! This season is where Seth Green makes his appearance as Oz and he is totally great. He’s a guy who is pretty funny, level-headed and calm about a lot of the crazy happenings going down in Sunnydale, I just love his relaxed personality and how funny he is in some of these serious situations, and then there’s the fact that he eventually hooks up with Willow which is a beautiful and cute relationship. Overall Seth Green is a great addition to the cast fitting in perfectly well. Armin Shimerman continues to be a douche as Principal Snyder, but frigging props to him for playing the role so well. And lastly Bianca Lawson as Kendra was an interesting character, she was cool but very strange, hard to get attached to and Lawson’s Jamaican awkward accent was kind of off-putting at times.

So is there anything I didn’t like? Well surprisingly enough yes. As great as this season was, I have a few nitpicks I wanna get out of the way like:

1. Buffy’s strength: I dunno if it’s just me but I found myself questioning how strong the slayer was in this series, sometimes she seemed superhuman in strength and other times she seemed normal.
2. Does everyone know martial arts? While I can understand to a degree about Buffy’s ability to fight, I find it strange how all the vampires she goes up against know how to do karate and crazy roundhouse kicks too, it’s just funky haha.
3. The initial build up towards Buffy and Angel’s relationship: While it was inevitable that these two would hook up I found it strange how Buffy went from hating him to switching it around to loving him in a very short time before they became official
4. Buffy and Angel’s relationship: While for the most part, I liked these two characters together, there were points where they’re lovey-dovey kissing-all-the-time stuff got really repetitive and boring, I just wanted something action-based to kick in.

In conclusion season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is simply amazing. The show takes the foundations of what was done in the last season and steps everything up by ten! There is just a great plethora of stories to be told with excitement around every corner, character development in full effect and revelations that change the tone of the show forever. I haven’t fallen in love with a show this much since Fringe, Firefly or Breaking Bad, but now I can add Buffy to the list as Joss Whedon has proved once again that he is godly when it comes to telling great stories with amazing characters. Bring on season 3! 😀

Rating: 9/10 (An absolutely stunning season filled with great themes, characters and amazing storylines)