"Did anyone explain to you what 'secret identity' means?": Rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 2 Episodes 1-11

Season Two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is more solid than Season One; and starts to lay down the serious relationship material that will be instrumental in twisting the knife in Season Three. So it seems harder to pass up some of these episodes, and I worry this playlist may end up pretty long.

One thing that you should start to notice when you're 24 episodes into 144 is how well-crafted the episodes are, how thematically focused they are. For instance, the Halloween episode is all about trying out different parts of your (forming) personality, and we see this idea across the major characters, both magically-induced and stress-induced: Buffy becomes regular (and helpless); Xander becomes tough; Willow--seeking invisibility--becomes hypervisible; Cordelia continues her growth into a helpful partner; while we also see a first glimpse of Giles's darker past--the part of his personality that he left behind.

Right now, my playlist for the second season is

1. School Hard (3), which introduces Spike
2. Halloween (6)
3. What's My Line, Part 1 and 2 (9 and 10)
4. Ted (11)

"Ted" might be controversial, but I think it's important to show a "monster of the week" episode and I think John Ritter really sells the 1950s psychokiller.