15 Best Buffy The Vampire Slayer Episodes

"A lot of people grieve, they don't make with the flaying."

Like with Restless and a couple other episodes still to make the list, Conversations with Dead People is one of Joss Whedon's more daring and out-the-box episodes. Taking place over one night, it sees the gang come face-to-face with past family and friends, as the First Evil threatens to make its final attack on the town.

Buffy meets with Holden Webster (Jonathan M. Woodward), an old friend from high school who is now a vampire. Willow is approached by Cassie (Azura Skye), who is apparently being used a vessel so Willow can talk to Tara (Amber Benson). And Dawn is haunted by a spirit in her house, a spirit holding her late mother (Kristine Sutherland) hostage.

Full to bursting with some of the show's most powerful dialogue, Conversations with Dead People is the best episode of the show's final season and a perfect blend of horror and drama, as each character is set upon by old faces promising new threats, and nothing is quite what it seems.

This is the episode which solidifies the First Evil as a legitimate threat, and sets in motion the next part of Spike's road to redemption in the process.