Buffy: 10 Best Episodes Of Season 6, Ranked (According To IMDb)

Season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer begins with Buffy’s friends and sister coping with Buffy’s death. The Scooby gang has adapted to life after Buffy and have started using the Buffybot to patrol, worried that if word gets out that Buffy is dead, Sunnydale would be in a lot more trouble.

Meanwhile, Willow is plotting to resurrect Buffy using a spell. There are a lot of risks with a resurrection spell, but those are risks the group is willing to take if it means they can bring Buffy back. The friends are successful and Buffy returns, but is now forced to deal with being ripped out of heaven and forced back down to earth, where things aren’t nearly as perfect.

10 Hell’s Bells (7.9)

It’s Anya and Xander’s wedding day and a lot could, and does, go wrong. Anya is excited and practices her speech for her bridesmaids, Buffy, Dawn, and Tara, who are all dressed in hideous bridesmaid gowns, which Anya loves. Xander encounters an old man in the church who tells Xander he’s his future self and shows Xander what his life will be like if he marries Anya. Xander, not wanting that life, vanishes from the church. Anya discovers that the old man is really someone she cursed many years ago, seeking revenge, and she manages to explain that to Xander, but the damage has already been done, and Xander is too afraid to get married.

9 Bargaining: Part 1

Buffy has been dead for months and her friends, with help from the Buffybot, are doing their best to raise Dawn and keep Sunnydale’s demons at bay. Willow, Xander, and Giles use the Buffybot to pose as Buffy at Dawn’s school and during meetings with wild Protective Services, so Dawn doesn’t get put in foster care.

The Buffybot also comes in handy when fighting vampires and demons, preventing the evil beings from ever finding out the slayer is dead, which could be dangerous. It’s also revealed in this episode that Willow plans to use a spell to resurrect Buffy.

8 Bargaining: Part 2

While doing the resurrection spell, Willow is interrupted by a group of demons on bikes, crashing through the cemetery and running over the items Willow needs to finish her spell. Willow, thinking she has failed, flees to the Magic Box with Xander’s help. Little do Xander, Willow, and the gang know, the spell worked, and Buffy has to claw her way out of her own grave before she suffocates underground. She manages to do so and rises, in a daze, unsure of what happened, but she quickly realizes she is back in Sunnydale. Dawn is the first to find Buffy alive and their reunion is a bit traumatic.

7 Normal Again (8.2)

This episode really flips the entire series on its head and makes fans question everything they’ve ever thought or believed in about this show. We see Buffy in an alternate reality, a mental ward, where she is with her mom and dad who are begging her to fight the urge to retreat back to her Sunnydale hallucinations, which is revealed to be where Buffy has been these past six years.

In this episode’s reality, Buffy has been in a catatonic state with her hallucinations and schizophrenia that make her believe she is a vampire slayer. The episode is left pretty open ended with Buffy choosing Sunnydale over the alternate reality.

6 Seeing Red (8.3)

This episode dictates the rest of the season for Willow and The Trio. Warren, Andrew, and Jonathan devise a plan to finally take on and kill The Slayer. The Trio steals the Orbs of Nezzla’khan from a Nezzla demon. These orbs give Warren super strength, which he uses to wreak havoc on Sunnydale and confront Buffy. Jonathan, sensing his friends are against him, tips Buffy off on how to destroy Warren’s power, which she does successfully. Warren retaliates by showing up at Buffy’s home with a gun. Warren fires, hits Buffy, then fires again and accidentally hits and kills Tara in front of Willow. As Willow holds Tara’s body, her eyes darken and we meet Dark Willow.

5 Two To Go (8.5)

Willow is on a revenge tour after Tara’s death. She’s killed Warren and is now on the hunt for the other two members of The Trio, Andrew and Jonathan, who were previously arrested and now sit in jail cells. Buffy, Xander, and Anya, intervene, realizing Jonathan and Andrew are not responsible for Tara’s death, and save the boys from Willow’s wrath.

Willow returns to Rack, who is responsible for Willow’s magic addiction. In a turn of events, Willow kills Rack and takes all of his power, making hers almost unstoppable, until Giles returns to save the day.

4 Villains (8.6)

Willow, now Dark Willow, hunts Warren seeking revenge after he’s killed Tara. Warren does everything he can think of to flee and protect himself after learning that Willow’s magic is strong and capable of killing him. Xander and Buffy try to convince Willow to stand down, but it’s no use. Willow eventually finds Warren. She ties him to a tree, shoves a bullet through his chest slowly to torture him, then strips his skin from his body, killing him. Buffy and Xander are horrified by what Willow has done, but she simply responds, “One down.”

3 Grave (8.7)

The threats of Dark Willow are far from over. Willow fights Giles, who has borrowed powers from an English coven who sent him to defeat Willow when they sensed her power and what she was going to do with it. Willow defeats Giles and vows to destroy the world. Buffy and Dawn are trapped underground and can’t get to Willow in time, but Xander can, and he does.

Xander finds Willow as she is completing the spell that will end life as they know it. Xander appeals to Willow’s human emotions. He tells her he loves her and reminds her of her friendship, breaking Willow’s spell and causing her to crumble to the ground in grief as Xander holds her.

2 Tabula Rasa (9.2)

This episode is one audiences desperately need in a season that deals with so much sadness and regret, more so than any other season of the series. In this episode, Willow rushes to complete a spell that will help Tara and Buffy forget all of the bad stuff they’ve been dealing with, of Buffy coming back from the dead, and Tara upset by Willow’s addiction to magic. Willow accidentally leaves an entire bag of Lethe’s Bramble, an herb that makes you forget, on a fire, which the entire Scooby gang inhales. When they come to, the group has no idea who they are and watching them try to figure that out is quite amusing.

1 Once More With Feeling (9.7)

The first and only musical episode in the entire series. Not only was this episode written and directed by Joss Whedon, but the show’s creator also wrote all of the music and lyrics for the episode. It’s one of the most popular episodes for the entire series and getting to see our favorite characters sing and dance is wildly entertaining. It’s also an important episode because it’s the first time Buffy tells her friends that when she died she went to heaven and she was happy, and when they did the resurrection spell, they took her happiness and peace away.

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