The supernatural is a reliable source for spooks and scares in Buffy, the real world can be equally as hair-rising. Especially when the real world is the polar opposite of Sunnydale. The premise of season six's Normal Again is a deceptively simple one: Buffy wakes up one day believing she's in a mental institution, and she can't get out. Of course it's eventually explained that this is the work of a demon unleashed by Warren, Jonathan and Andrew, but even that's called into question when Buffy is told that all her friends, family, and vampire slaying-adventures were simply figments of her deranged imagination. And the ending doesn't help matters, either. Normal Again puts the audience right in their with Buffy, forced to question what they've assumed to be real (within the show's world, anyway) for six years. Having the rug pulled out so suddenly and comprehensively is really unnerving, especially coupled with an ending where asylum Buffy is found dead in the corner of her cell.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
