Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Graduation Day Part 2 - S03E22 Review

GRADUATION DAY PART 2
SEASON 3 EPISODE 22

It may have taken two years, but we’ve finally reached the end of Season Three!  I hope you weren’t TOO attached to the high school conceit, because next season brings something a little bit different.  Still awesome, though.

We pick up exactly where we left off, with Buffy still on the rooftop and we get a time cut to the Mayor showing up at the trashed apartment, frantically hoping that Faith with be okay.  Opening credits!  Back at the library, Giles and Xander are studying and share some mild banter.  They are one of my favorite combinations that you don’t get to see too often.  When they’re in a group, Giles usually ignores or outright berates Xander’s jokes, but when they’re alone together, he’s usually much more playful.  Too bad Cordy had to show up and ruin it, whining about Buffy firing Wesley.  Don’t worry, their quasi-romance will not be going further than this episode.

At Angel’s, Will is taking care of him while Buff is gone, and there’s an awkwardly funny scene where he tries to lament his love to Willow, thinking it’s Buffy.  I feel really bad for Angel here – you don’t see him this vulnerable very much.  Buffy finally comes in, looking all defeated.  She shoos away Oz and Willow, and then goes in and makes Angel feed off of her after much resistance from Angel.  I always thought this was a really uncomfortable scene to watch.  Lots of weird sexual imagery.

Angel rushes a dying Buffy to a hospital... the same hospital that Faith was taken to, and the Mayor is getting the bad news that she’ll be in a coma forever, right next door!  What a coincidence!  Sunnydale really isn’t that small for all these coincidences.  The Mayor overhears the doctors and goes over to strangle Buffy, but is thwarted by... Angel shoving him?  Also, no one gossips about the Mayor trying to murder some helpless girl.  He still just gets to be Mayor and go do the commencement speech?  Okay, then.

Xander takes some verbal jabs at Angel when he learns that he fed off of Buffy and Giles is super pissed, although he doesn’t really say anything.  It’s not really his fault, guys.  Then Buffy has a weird dream involving Faith and some cryptic dialogue that actually pays off.

"Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7-3-0"

Pay attention to what happens in 730 days, aka two years, aka the Season Five finale.  This is also some good practice for Joss for the Season Four finale, Restless, which is 90% weird cryptic imagery and dialogue.  But we’ll get there.  Dream Faith tells Dream Buffy to prey on the Mayor’s human weakness – that’s the key to beating him.  Buffy comes out to the gang to reveal that she’s ready to take down the Mayor.

Cut to ominous music (which I can pinpoint as the music from the DVD menus due to watching them a million times) before fading into the library for a “battle plan” scene.  Of course, we don’t get to hear the actual plan (a technique also used in the same way in the series finale).  We also learn that Xander is the main piece of this strategy!  Woo!  And they’re still falling back on the Halloween episode where he learned soldier stuff.  That’s weird – it’s been a year and a half.  Whoa, Angel is in this scene?  Good hiding, bro!  Wesley shows up to help, too!  The gang is all back together!

Wesley and Cordy finally release their weird sexual tension with a disgusting kiss and their relationship is all over.  Oh well.  See you guys on Angel!  Xander and Willow round up a lot of the B-listers like Harmony and Jonathon (and C-listers, like Percy and Larry) for their secret... plan.  It’s explosives, okay?  Then Oz and Willow have sex again in a van, some hoppin’ sex bunnies they’ve turned out to be!

Back in the library, Buffy and Angel have one final talk on the show (until she visits the sister show and vice versa).  Poor sad Buffy and Angel.  It’s okay, I will ship them forever, I don’t care HOW the comics turn out!  Anyway, it’s finally time for the graduation, which Will and Oz show up late to due to banging.  The Mayor gives a speech, but it’s cut short by an eclipse and a weird, plastic-y transformation.  And... oh my.  I know you couldn’t afford good CGI since you’re a really low-budget show in the late 90s (and good CGI is hard to come by, even now) but... that’s a fake-looking giant snake.  The design itself is pretty cool, but the textures are like Nintendo 64 level.  It’s charming and fun, but it does distract a bit from the menace.  Also, this thing is big, but it’s not like dinosaur big.  It’s like two stories tall – that’s not even as big as the Titanoboa, a real creature that actually existed!

The vamps show up to kill the kids while the Mayor feeds, but then we get the big reveal: the entire school already knows about the ascension and has weapons ready to fight.  It’s corny, sure, but it works really well, largely because of the swelling music.  I don’t know where they got flamethrowers... but that’s neither here nor there.  Oz gets to shoot flaming arrows at vampires, so that’s pretty cool.  Then Angel and Wesley show up with another unit of people to fight off the vamps.  Wesley is knocked out immediately – pretty hilarious.

Now it’s time for the revolving door of secondary characters getting killed off!  First is Larry, who gets his neck snapped by the Mayor/Olvikan.  Then Principal Snyder gets eaten.  This one is very cartoony and I don’t like it.  He’s standing there, just yelling impotently at the giant snake that this is “unacceptable”.  It’s a bit too broad and silly even for a show that delights itself with broad and silly.  Finally, Harmony gets bitten and killed.  Other points of interest: Jonathon straight up tackles a vamp, and Cordy makes her first and only staking on the show!

Now that they’re alone, it’s time for the Buffy vs. Giant Snake, mono a mono.  She taunts him about stabbing Faith and then runs, getting him to chase her into the high school (taking out the entire wall as he does) and into the library, where she dives out the window and he finds the giant pile of explosives.  And then, I kid you not, the giant snake says: “Well gosh.”  Boom.  Best line of dialogue of all time.  Then an actual boom, as in an explosion that kills him and takes out the entire high school.

Now for the wrap-up.  Wesley gets taken to an ambulance, comically.  Angel flitters away into the fog as Buffy watches him leave.  Giles shows up to congratulate Buffy, and he actually dug through the wreckage to find her diploma.  Aww.

Final scene time!  Buffy heads over to Willow, Xander, Oz, and Cordy to close us out as they share a final reminiscence of high school.  Then they walk away, on to adulthood, as we pan down to a charred yearbook and then slowly fade to black.

I think I take back what I said during the previous recap – I like this episode more than I thought I did.  It closes out the season really well, sends off the leaving characters with dignity, and bridges the gap for a new season: the college season!  Everything is about to change.  But more on that later.