10 Most Depressingly Realistic Lessons From Buffy The Vampire Slayer

6. Facing Reality Isn't Easy

Episode: Season 6, Episode 17 - "Normal Again" "Normal Again" was one of the most divisive episodes in a season full of them during Buffy's sixth season. Written by Diego Gutierrez, who wrote just this single episode for the series (he was Joss Whedon's assistant), it was unlike any other episode the show produced - and it surmised that Buffy's entire story might be the delusions of an emotionally and mentally troubled, institutionalized young girl. Throughout the episode, the character of Buffy is seen both in the magical world she inhabited throughout the series, and also as a young girl in a mental asylum who has concocted fantasies of being a vampire slayer and other magical devices in order to cope with emotional trauma. At the end of the episode, she's forced to make a choice: face reality, or avoid it. Here's the rub: the episode is intentionally presented in a way that leaves it open ended as to whether the magical world of Buffy and Sunnydale was "real" - or whether the asylum was "real." If you choose to believe that the series is "reality" than Buffy faces her fears, says goodbye to the asylum (where her dead mother and absentee father are present together for the first time in years), and returns to face demons and monsters and the stress of being a young girl without any supportive family structure who must single-handedly care for a younger sister. She is accepting her responsibility, facing reality, and moving forward. However, if you choose to believe that the asylum was the real world, then Buffy, in saying goodbye to her mother, retreated fully into her delusions and fantasies and escaped from reality forever. Either way, facing reality wasn't an easy choice, and it never is. It can be depressing, and this episode was one of the most depressing and disconcerting of the entire series.