Buffy The Vampire Slayer: 10 Best Characters Who Only Appear In One Episode
8. The Shrouded Man (Season 3, Episode 17)
The Shrouded Man crops up towards the end of Season 3, and despite only being on screen for about a minute, he's still a memorable character.
After arriving at Sunnydale City Hall, the Shrouded Man meets up with Mayor Wilkins and agrees to remove Angel’s soul with dark magic. Once the magic is performed, Angelus and Faith team up and kidnap Buffy with the intention of torturing her.
But as it turns out, this entire scenario was masterminded by Giles to expose Faith’s true allegiance and discover the Mayor’s plans, and the Shrouded Man’s magic was nothing more than a hoax designed to dupe Faith into thinking Angel had lost his soul. Though Giles deserves plenty of credit for developing this ingenious scheme, the Shrouded Man played a vital role here.
At the end of the episode, we also discover that the Shrouded Man agreed to help because he owed Giles a favour for introducing him to his wife. It’s a small detail, but it does humanise this intimidating and mysterious character.