Back in 2017, Buffy the Vampire Slayer turned 20 … somehow. I still have a hard time believing the 90s wasn’t like ten years ago, but here we are. Anyway, NME posted an article on fan-voted favorite episodes, and I found myself giving fans some serious side-eye on their number one choice.

It’s not that I hate “Normal Again,” because it’s actually one of the better episodes in Season Six. It’s just … as a writer, I understand that putting Buffy through shit is a way to examine her character, but damn, they torture her to the point where she nearly kills her friends? It’s almost too much, and this is coming from the woman who had a very different response to Spike’s attempted rape than most did. You know, I think I’m going to do a supplemental post on that, because I really do have many conflicting opinions on what transpired and I’d like to at least get them down on virtual paper to make sense of them. 

While “The Body” is so emotionally charged that I can only watch it about once a year – and that hasn’t happened yet in 2018 – “Normal Again” simply exhausts me, as both a viewer and an author. I can understand why others love it, but meh. I’d rather watch “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  

Art Credit: Buffy Wiki