Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Every Season 2 Episode Ranked
12. When She Was Bad
The season premiere is one of the show's more underappreciated entries. It would have been easy for the writers to look away from the first season's finale, but instead When She Was Bad takes a bold look at Buffy's trauma over her death at the hands of The Master.
It's a fairly standard affair plot-wise, following Buffy and the gang as they hunt a group of vampires intent on raising The Master from the dead (again), but it's what it does with Buffy that makes the episode soar.
Thanks to Sarah Michelle Gellar's conflicted performance and the way the episode highlights how everything that happens in the show will have consequences, When She Was Bad is a cathartic beginning for the season, bringing the gang closer together and promising big things to come.