3.20 - The Prom

It's the end of the school year and the gang prepares for one of their last rites of passage, the prom.


***

Welcome back, sappy little girl Heath. You were away too long.

This episode left me tingly and emotional for about an hour after I saw it. Man, I'm a wuss. I'll own it though.

SLIGHT SPOILERS

Angel, realizing what both he and Le Buffe know, tells her that they need to stop seeing her and that he's going to be moving away after the events of graduation day. They simply cannot be together. She's a young girl in the prime of her life and they can never truly be together or happy. So he's going to leave and get his own show. But that's another story.

When this goes down, Sarah really starts acting her heart out again, and I feel her pain completely. It doesn't matter that she knows it's true. It only matters that we believe that she feels like she's dying, and I did. There's a scene with Willow and Buffy in her bedroom where she breaks down and tells Willow she feels like she can't breathe. I wanted to reach into the tv and hug her.

The moments between Xander and Cordelia, when he finds out her secret about being poor and steps up and buys her dress for her secretly, really made me proud of the guy. It's weird. He's a fictional character, but I was proud of him. It's like he's a friend of mine. This is the power of this show. They so completely capture the archetypes and the real struggles of High School here that it doesn't feel like television, it feels like real life.

The second choker upper moment was when the school presents Buffy with their new award: class protector.
Here's the official dialog that Jonathon reads on behalf of the prom committee from the script:

Most of us never found the time
to get to know you. But that doesn't
mean we haven't noticed you. We
don't talk about it much, but it's
no secret Sunnydale High isn't really
like other schools. A lot of weird
stuff happens here.

But whenever there was a problem
or something creepy happened, you
seemed to show up and stop it.
Most of the people here have been
saved by you,
or helped by you, at one time or another.
We're proud to say that the class of
'99 has the lowest mortality rate of
any graduating class in Sunnydale history.

And we know at least part of that
is because of you. So the senior
class offers its thanks, and
gives you this.
It's from all of us, and it's got written
here, "Buffy Summers. Class Protector."

When this happened, I got really emotional again. They recognize what she's done for them. They aren't ungrateful cattle. It's really moving.

Finally, Angel walks in the room and Buffy walks up to him for a dance. It's the end of so many things. The end of Buffy's high school life. The end of their relationship. The end of pretty much everything we've known the show to be for it's three seasons, it's almost over. This is our chance to say goodbye to it.

And as the hauntingly beautiful rendition of "Wild Horses" by the Sundays plays and they dance, I can't help but myself think about when I said goodbye to those things. I hated high school. I didn't attend my prom. I never went to a single football game. I wasn't the shyest person, and I did have friends, but I didn't associate with High School at all as a great moment of my life. But I've been out of it for over a decade now, and I find myself quite often looking back on those events of my teenage years, wishing I could go back for just a day. Just to go to class. Just to see my friends. It was a simpler time then, and I know that I didn't enjoy it like I should have then. Joss Whedon has rightfully said of this show (and I paraphrase) "no matter what your experiences, High School is something that you never get over. You carry it with you forever." And he's right. This episode captures every second of how bittersweet it is to move on to the rest of your life and close a chapter. It's rough. I think episodes like this are not just for the teens who are watching, but for the adults in the audience who will forever identify with their memories of long ago, of their golden age.

This episode, for me, is perfect. a 10/10. If I could go higher, I would. This episode brings back so many memories of my own life, makes me miss them, and makes me want to tell Buffy and Oz and Xander and Willow that they should enjoy every moment they are living, because life moves too fast. I want to tell them that one day they will look back on these memories they are making and they will smile, and that they should enjoy every minute of their life. You can't go back to moments like these. You can only remember them.