15 Most Important Buffy The Vampire Slayer Episodes
4. The Gift (Season 5, Episode 22)
The Gift offers fans the chance to see Buffy's second selfless sacrifice. She initially died in the season one finale, Prophecy Girl, before being revived by Xander. In The Gift, Buffy, Spike, Willow and the gang race to save Dawn from Glory, before the younger Summers can be killed and used to open a world-ending hell dimension.
There, the gang do battle against Glory's forces, before Buffy beats Glory and realises she has to give up her life to close the portal. Giving Dawn a speech about how she has to die because it's her job, she leaps through Glory's portal, closing it and giving her life in the process.
Watching the others react to her death is heartbreaking, and even more crushing given how this was the original ending to the series. Of course, Buffy would be resurrected by Willow at the start of season six, with her death in The Gift forming the backbone of the new season's various ups and downs.