Band Candy (S3)
Credit:
20th Television/The WB
Credit:
20th Television/The WB
High schoolers tend to forget that their parents (and teachers) were once hormonally challenged teenagers, too. So when all the adults in Sunnydale suddenly start acting like irresponsible adolescents again, it holds up an uncomfortable mirror to Buffy and the Scoobies. Those affected include Giles, who reverts to his younger, darker Ripper persona, and Buffy’s mother, Joyce (Kristine Sutherland). They have a wild night out on the town until a grossed-out Buffy interrupts them necking on the street.
It’s another Ethan Rayne spell, of course, this time delivered via the candy Sunnydale’s students were required to sell to buy new uniforms for the marching band. When Buffy confronts Ethan, he admits—after a blood-thirsty Ripper repeatedly urges Buffy to hit him—that he was hired to distract all the grown-ups so that Mayor Wilkins (Henry Groener) could pay a tribute of newborn babies to a demon, one of many supernatural beings to whom said mayor owes his august position.
Once that plot is foiled and the adults return to their usual selves, Buffy tells her mother and Giles that it was a good thing she came along before their whirlwind romance went too far. Giles and Joyce look distinctly uncomfortable. We learn in subsequent episodes that they had sex on the hood of a police car. The two never became an item, but when Joyce dies suddenly in S5, we see a grieving Giles listening to Cream’s “Tales of Brave Ulysses”—the music he shared with Joyce during their teen interlude.
The Wish (S3)
Credit:
20th Television/The WB
Credit:
20th Television/The WB
“The Wish” is one of the best episodes of the series, featuring an alternate dystopian reality in which Buffy never came to Sunnydale, the Master rose, and vampires took over and terrorized the town. A jilted Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) makes the titular wish without realizing she is talking to a vengeance demon in disguise: Anyanka (Emma Caulfield Ford), who targets scorned and wronged women. But vengeance demons don’t grant wishes to be helpful, and Cordelia soon realizes she’s made a dreadful mistake. She seeks Giles’ help—only for the vampire versions of Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) to track her down and drain her blood as a helpless Giles looks on.
