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22 Episodes 1997 - 1998
Episode 1
Mon, Sep 15, 199745 mins
Buffy returns from her summer vacation after defeating the Master and is not the same fun-loving slayer she used to be. Her cold, distant behavior escalates when she discovers that the remaining vampire population are planning to resurrect the Master.

Episode 2
Mon, Sep 22, 199744 mins
While arguing whether he is jealous, Angel and Buffy are attacked by a vampire, which is no problem. Then, she stumbles into an fresh grave, but remarks the body didn't rise itself as vampires do, it was dug up. Uncertain how to court a modern girl like Ms Jenny Calendar, Giles can use some dating advice, then starts researching what evil purpose digging up a girl's body may serve. His guesses being a voodoo priest creating zombies or a flesh-eating demon, which is ruled out by a dig on the graveyard. Hiding in a dumpster near school, Cordelia finds thrown-away body parts. The gang correctly suspects science class ace Chris Epps, a recluse since his elder jock brother Daryl's accidental death, and geeky yearbook photographer Eric Gittleson. They worry how far they will go as they still need a very fresh head. The third perpetrator is already Frankenstein-monstrously 'reassembled' Daryl Epps, who wants a mate and chose Cordelia's head for her.

Episode 3
Mon, Sep 29, 199744 mins
Principal Snyder puts 'worst students' Buffy and real rebel Sheila Martini in charge of parents night preparations as a last chance to avoid expulsion. The surviving vampires at the Hellmouth agree whoever kills the Slayer may succeed the Master, then are surprised by the entrance of Spike and Drusilla and promises the Anointed one, Collin, to do the job. Giles and Calendar warn Buffy next Saturday is St. Vigeous night, vampire prime day, still she joins the gang at the Bronze, where Spike sees her slay and promises revenge on Saturday. As if parent night weren't going bad enough, Spike's band attacks early.

Episode 4
Mon, Oct 6, 199744 mins
While on a field trip to the local museum, one of the students breaks a ceramic seal in the coffin of an Incan mummy, who rises and must consume the life-force of others in order to remain alive. She tries to fit in with the students at Sunnydale, and even starts to have real feelings for Xander. But when Buffy, Willow, and Giles realize who and what she really is, they may have to rescue Xander before he becomes the mummy's next victim.

Episode 5
Mon, Oct 13, 199744 mins
The people around Buffy start needing more and more, and she starts feeling pulled apart. When Cordelia's college crush shows up on campus with a friend who has eyes for Buffy, Cordelia convinces Buffy to come with her to the frat party. But the party soon turns sinister, and Buffy learns the connection between the fraternity and the local girls who have recently gone missing.

Episode 6
Mon, Oct 27, 199744 mins
It turns out that Halloween is the one night of the year when vampires actually lay low, so everybody is getting their costumes from the new store in town, Ethan's Costume Shop. Buffy wears a noble woman's dress from the time when Angel was human, Xander dresses up like a soldier, and Willow chickens out on dressing in a sexy outfit and goes as a ghost. But Ethan Rayne, the shop owner, has invoked the Roman god Janus so everybody becomes their costume. That means all the kids in the neighborhood are now monsters and Buffy thinks she is an 18th-century maiden who faints at the sight of demons and vampires.

Episode 7
Mon, Nov 3, 199745 mins
Ford, an old friend of Buffy's from L.A., shows up unexpectedly in Sunnydale, and seems to know that she is the Slayer. When Xander, Willow, and Angel discover that he is involved with a cult-like group of disillusioned teens who idolize vampires, they must find out Ford's true agenda before it's too late.

Episode 8
Mon, Nov 10, 199745 mins
The secrets of Giles' dark past come back to haunt him when an old friend turns up dead in Sunnydale. As a troubled youth, Giles and his friends summoned a demon. Now, it has returned and is hunting down the people who summoned it and its quest for revenge may place the life of someone dear to Giles in extreme danger.

Episode 9
Mon, Nov 17, 199760 mins
"Career Week", a must at Sunnydale High by order of the principal, finds Xander has a future as jail guard while Willow and geek Oz are nerdy first choice for top class companies. Buffy realizes that she has practically no future apart from that of a Slayer, at best law enforcer. Meanwhile, Spike sends the order of Taraka, deadly assassins who can be any form, to eliminate the Slayer. Giles and Willow's research a special cross stolen from the tomb of Du Lac, a theologian and mathematician, which is a key to his coded manuscript a vampire minion stole from Giles' library. It apparently contains a cure for Spike's weakened, crazy vampire lover, Drusilla.

Episode 10
Mon, Nov 24, 199760 mins
The girl who attacked Buffy turns out to be no vampire but another slayer, Kendra, who assumed her duty while Buffy was dead for a minute and works far more by the book, which Buffy didn't even know to exist. Angel fears to die as the rising sun reaches into his holding place, but is dragged out in time by snitch Willy, only to be sold to Spike, who needs Drusilla's sire to revitalize her in a demonic ritual in an abandoned church which will kill Angel, and allows her, first, to enjoy torturing the shirtless hunk with holy water. Helping Cordelia escape the maggot-made Taraka Order assassin makes Xander spike their formally continuing hatred with hot kisses, twice. A female killer fails to kill Buffy as police recruiter on career day.

Episode 11
Mon, Dec 8, 199745 mins
Buffy has parental issues when Joyce comes home with a boyfriend, the computer expert and master chef, Ted, whose charming personality impresses everyone except Buffy. Buffy insists there's something not right with Ted, but everyone keeps telling her she's just being paranoid.

Episode 12
Mon, Jan 12, 199860 mins
While Buffy is in trouble with her mother, who believes she's too selfish to think of anything other then boys and clothes, and resorts to grounding, the brothers Lyle and Tector Gorch, who murdered an entire Mexican village even before they turned into vampires, are spotted, presumably attracted by the Hellmouth. Meanwhile, a teacher who worries about irresponsible teenager sex, resorts to the parenting eggs lesson, only absent Buffy is a 'single mother'. Of course in Sunnydale, the eggs turn out to be not poultry but something nasty, dangerous and mysterious, of the body snatching order.

Episode 13
Mon, Jan 19, 199860 mins
While the gang is encouraged by Giles to prepare a surprise party for Buffy's 17th birthday, she has nightmares about Angel being vanished by Drusilla, who has indeed survived the fire with Spike and is preparing a revenge 'party'. They find out the hard way, by finding one of the severed armored body parts of the Judge, a terrible demon who can not be killed by any weapon and is designed to destroy all righteous people, which the vampires are reassembling.

Episode 14
Tue, Jan 20, 199860 mins
Angel's night of fleshly passion with Buffy has transformed him again into the vampire Angelus, without a soul, who teams up with Spike, Drusilla and the assembled demon Judge. Willow is shocked to see Xander kiss Cordelia and turns to fellow nerd Oz. Just sensing Angel doesn't truly love her back devastates Buffy. Seeing him turned vampire again reduces her to useless tearfulness. She then makes Giles's lady-friend Janna 'Jenny' Calendar, who clearly knew something, tell about Angel's soul-curse, while Angel kills her gypsy Uncle Enyos. Meanwhile, Xander works rather literally on the line 'it took a army' to defeat the Judge.

Episode 15
Tue, Jan 27, 199860 mins
While Xander and Cordelia make out in the woods in her dad's car, they are attacked by a werewolf, who has killed various animals, on the night before the full moon. Giles insists no silver bullets as a werewolf remains an innocent human except for three nights per lunar month, an ethical consideration wasted on former ivory poacher Kane, who wants his twelfth werewolf kill for the fur. Xander suspects and confronts school bully Larry, but finds out his secret is he is gay and agrees to keep it secret. When Buffy and Xander check the corpse of Theresa,they find out she was killed by a vampire and not the werewolf. She animates as a vampire and attacks Buffy until Xander saves her by staking it. But not before the vampire gives Buffy the message that it was Angelus who sired her. After Oz wakes up naked in the wood and his aunt confirms Jordy is a werewolf. too. But Willow is through waiting for him to make the first move and goes to his house at sunset before Oz has a chance to chain himself up.

Episode 16
Tue, Feb 10, 199860 mins
Nice, insecure Xander's unnatural passionate yet loveless relationship with snooty, selfish Cordelia has never felt right, but when her friends find out and decide that's the end of her popular status, she dumps him without hesitation, ironically without getting back in their favor. Being dumped on Valentine's day after he gave her a swell heart-shaped necklace is too much abuse even for Xander's low self-esteem. So when he notices Amy has taken up her mother's witchcraft, he blackmails her into putting his scorner under a love spell so he can take his revenge by dumping her just, as painfully. Alas, the novice's ineptly executed spell works on every girl except Cordelia and that means dangerous irrationality. Meanwhile, vampires Spike, Drusilla and, especially, spiteful Angelus have their own unconventional ideas about celebrating Valentine's day.

Episode 17
Tue, Feb 24, 199860 mins
Because of the way Angelus once tormented Drusilla by killing her family, Buffy fears a similar fate for her friends and her mother, Joyce Summers. Joyce and Buffy hash out some difficult mother-daughter stuff, but still Buffy does not tell the her mother the whole truth of the problem. Jenny Calender hopes to redeem herself in the eyes of Buffy and Giles by attempting to translate the Gypsy curse and restore Angelus' human soul. Unfortunately, Angelus is ahead of her and the gang loses a member. A grief-stricken Giles takes off on his own for revenge.

Episode 18
Tue, Mar 3, 199860 mins
Buffy barely survives Angelus' latest attack because she falls prey to a very common enemy: influenza, an epidemic among Sunnydale Highs students. Yet, in the hospital, a place she fears since she was alone with a dying close cousin, aged 8, she lends credence to children who claim there is a killer invisible to adults which comes at night who they call Death. Initially, Giles is skeptical, but after Buffy, who suspected Dr. Stanley Backer who has a dodgy record, experienced it herself, the monster is found out to be an actual child killer (Kindestod in German) which Buffy should slay.

Episode 19
Tue, Apr 21, 199860 mins
Even by Sunnydale standards, pupils and teachers have disturbing illusions which make them do crazy things. Giles soon realizes that it is a poltergeist, and insists it must be Jenny, but Willow's research in her PC, preparing to take over the computing class, points to the 1955 incident Buffy witnesses in a vision, when student James Stanley shot dead his teacher and lover, Grace Newman. One of them is the ghost stuck in reliving the fatal tragedy, especially as its anniversary is on the high school's annual, now approaching, Sadie Hawkins Dance with gender role reversal. Willow plans an elaborate exorcism, but the ghost plays dirty. Angelus' appearance changes everything.

Episode 20
Tue, May 5, 199860 mins
Principal Snyder is so eager to see Sunnydale High's swim team go trough to the state finals that he 'suggests' Willow should spare its boys failing grades, on top of general adulation and favors. However, the best swimmers are soon murdered -in order- by an aquatic monster, unknown even to Giles and his books, which leaves only their skin, as witnessed by Xander, who enrolls as new swimmer -sexier in Speedos and braver then Cordelia ever imagined- while Buffy tries to guard the number three and most likely next target. It turns out the whole team is on special steroids, inhaled in the sauna, a secret strictly guarded by Coach Carl Marin, even when school nurse Greenleigh gets second thoughts...

Episode 21
Tue, May 12, 199860 mins
Flashbacks reveal how Angel was turned into a vampire by Darla in 1753, started to drive Drusilla mad in London in 1860 and was cursed as gypsies' revenge in a Rumanian forest in 1898 to suffer ever since being burdened with a soul and guilty conscience, and witnessed Buffy being shown her destiny in Los Angeles in 1996. In 1997, only tutor Willow enjoys preparing for final exams, Buffy is eager to slay Angelus and be done with Angel. Giles is called to the museum after the digging up of an inscribed block of stone which he realizes is a container. Angelus and Drusilla steal it and explain to Spike it's the tomb of the demon Acathla, who was killed by a righteous knight's sword before the demon's breath could swallow the earth. His awakening will open a gateway to a demonic dimension which can then spill into earth. Discovering Jenny's black magic research and and any intention to return Angel's soul is opposed by Xander, who wants his 'rival for Buffy' dead, and by Kendra, who suggests using a knight's sword she brought with her. Despite a human sacrifice, Angelus is apparently unworthy. So he has Buffy summoned for a duel, which she accepts only to buy time for the soul ritual Giles' gang prepares. But Angelus is a diversion that allows Drusilla's vampires to attack them in the library and take Giles.

Episode 22
Tue, May 19, 199844 mins
Buffy arrives too late to save the gang from Drusilla's surprise attack, and ends up being arrested for the murder of one of her friends. After escaping from the police, she discovers that Willow is comatose, Giles has been kidnapped, and she is almost totally alone going into the final battle with Angelus. She heads out to rescue Giles and stop Angelus once and for all... with the help of an unlikely ally.
