Ranking The Big Bads From Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Dark Willow was the culmination of Willow's magic addiction plotline. After a steady build over the course of the show, Willow went from an amateur witch to a powerful yet dependant magic user who could frighten even her girlfriend Tara. After Tara is murdered by a stray bullet fired by Warren, Willow's reliance on dark magic consumes her and she becomes the most dangerous witch on the planet.

The choice to take Willow's character in this direction may have been misguided, and the execution could certainly have been better. Losing Tara is bad enough, but watching Willow flay the unbearable Warren alive can be hard to watch. The groundwork of her magic reliance is there, but once she turns things feel very set in motion and there's no real time to digest Willow's new attitude or her actions.

In a 22-episode season, Dark Willow is only a factor in the last three episodes, and that feels like a mistake. Angelus was given almost half of Season Two to terrorise Sunnydale, and Willow's turn here feels like an afterthought that was quickly over before we had a chance to reconcile the consequences.