27 Years Later, One Of Buffy’s Worst Episodes Has Aged Like Milk

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Though Buffy the Vampire Slayer is remembered for many fantastic episodes and its impact on television, some haven’t held up over time. Despite being a classic, the show isn’t perfect, which may be one reason why Joss Whedon’s later HBO Max series, The Nevers, was quickly canceled after just one season. Some episodes simply haven’t aged well.

Despite strong acting and generally good writing that made Buffy the Vampire Slayer a beloved show, some aspects haven’t held up well over time. The series sometimes treats its female characters in a way that feels condescending and uncomfortable, and it often oversimplifies difficult issues. While the show occasionally demonstrates a surprisingly insightful understanding of mental health, it unfortunately relies on grief and trauma for easy jokes or melodramatic storylines.

These problems appear consistently throughout the series, but are most noticeable in specific episodes that expose the weaknesses of the show’s writing. A prime example is the notoriously bad episode “Beer Bad” from season 4, which tried to be both a clever satire of anti-drinking campaigns and a genuine warning about the dangers of alcohol. Ultimately, the episode felt confused and strangely self-satisfied, with a message that wasn’t clear.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 4 Episode 8 “Pangs” Mishandled Its Heavy Themes

However, some storylines pushed the show’s realistic approach to death too far, notably when Tara, Willow’s girlfriend, was unexpectedly killed by a random bullet. While the death felt grounded in reality, it wasted years of character development. A show like Misfits, known for its darker tone, could have handled this effectively, but in a series that consistently protected its main characters, Tara’s death felt like a cheap plot device used to create drama by sacrificing a less central character.

While some episodes don’t hold up well on second viewing, season 4’s “Pangs” is particularly difficult to watch. This Thanksgiving episode tries to tackle the difficult history of the holiday and its impact on Native Americans, but unfortunately, that’s where the positives end. The portrayal of the Chumash tribe was filled with harmful stereotypes, and the show’s attempt to deal with the racist origins of Thanksgiving actually comes across worse than ignoring the issue altogether.

Look, as someone who’s seen a lot of teen dramas – from shows like Euphoria to Everything Sucks – I get that tackling really heavy stuff like the genocide of Native Americans and its connection to Thanksgiving is a huge challenge. But honestly, the ‘Pangs’ episode of Buffy really missed the mark. Picking a stereotypical, angry Native American warrior as the big bad felt like a completely avoidable mistake. And the fact that Joss Whedon himself kept highlighting it as a favorite? It just shows how the issues with that episode weren’t really understood back then, which is a shame.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Infamous “Pangs” Could Have Been Great

The idea of Native American spirits returning to haunt a modern Thanksgiving was a clever one, and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Pangs” had the potential to thoughtfully examine the weight of historical guilt through a horror story. Unfortunately, the episode falls short. Instead of challenging harmful perspectives, it features Giles defending the genocide of Indigenous people, and portrays the Native spirit as a silent, emotionless force whose only function is to attack the main characters – failing to offer any meaningful representation or counterpoint to colonial viewpoints.

The storyline involving a vengeful Native spirit demanding destruction to spare the main character seems to support Giles’ argument, particularly because Willow casually acknowledges the problematic history of Thanksgiving but still chooses to celebrate it. However, it’s probably unrealistic to expect a teen show like Smallville to delve into complex historical issues like the impact of the East India Trading Company.

The issue with the episode is that Buffy the Vampire Slayer deliberately crafted a story where the villain was a spirit presented as a simple, unfeeling killer. This allowed the characters to justify killing him and then conveniently celebrate Thanksgiving, creating a problematic narrative.

I’d call this a really clever satire, but what struck me is that the show doesn’t make its characters feel bad about what they did. Honestly, considering the monster was trying to kill them and was basically unreasoning, I totally get why they acted the way they did. It felt justified, not malicious.

“Pangs” Is Proof That Buffy the Vampire Slayer Needed A Reboot

The show doesn’t do a good job of making its characters believable when compared to their historical counterparts. Willow’s objections to the holiday stem from the fact that, historically, indigenous people weren’t a genuine threat to newcomers, didn’t needlessly kill them, and were able to communicate with the settlers who invaded their lands. Therefore, the show’s storyline doesn’t work as a meaningful analogy, unless it was meant to support a biased, colonial perspective like Giles’.

Unlike shows like Deadwood which realistically portrayed the brutal violence of the Old West, this Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode felt like it brought up a difficult historical event simply to explain it to today’s viewers. It’s a challenging episode to watch, and it’s one of those stories that, while ambitious, hasn’t aged well and could benefit from a more sensitive and accurate retelling in a potential reboot. Unfortunately, a reboot doesn’t seem likely at this point.

The planned reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was suddenly canceled in March 2025, even after Hulu commissioned a pilot directed by Chloé Zhao, the director of Hamnet. The new series aimed to include Sarah Michelle Gellar alongside Ryan Kiera Armstrong as the next Slayer, but the project was unexpectedly scrapped despite a lot of fan anticipation. Given the high profile of this reboot—it had the potential to be a truly impressive reimagining of the original—its cancellation doesn’t look good for the future of the Buffy franchise. It now appears unlikely that Buffy the Vampire Slayer will ever overcome the negative response to its tenth-season comic book storyline, “Pangs.”

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2026-05-30 21:39