For two and a half seasons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer followed its heroine and her friends through the turmoil of life at Sunnydale High School, and in doing so among other things poked fun at the high school horror sub-genre. But not being The Simpsons and therefore unable to have its characters remain at the same stage of their education for life, things have to move on, and in what in some ways is a very brave step indeed, at the end of the third season, the production team had Buffy graduate. It’s a natural step and a very liberating one, as graduation left the producers with the opportunity to re-format the series and allow the regular cast to fragment somewhat, with Angel allowing some of the characters to follow the natural path which leads to the big city. And blowing up the school (with explosives set in the library, which has been cleared of books) is as self-evident a piece of symbolism as we’re going to get (although in the immediate aftermath of Columbine, the network postponed the second half of the season climax for several weeks). True, the episode does feature students with flamethrowers, crossbows and flaming arrows at Graduation, and it’s probably one of the more justified scheduling panics ever to have occurred bearing in mind that the graduation phenomenon encompasses the entire United States and thousands of teenagers graduating simultaneously, it would only have taken one student to have been unduly influenced for the series to have become assocaited with tragedy.

Not wishing to hold back, what we have in ‘Graduation Day Part 2’ is an entirely fitting climax to two and a half years of Sunnydale High. It’s written and directed (by Joss Whedon, naturally) in a style which allows all the cast to do what they do best, while also showing a brilliant sense of detail. The minor characters come out particularly well because of this- there’s the return of Larry the gay athlete, who sadly comes a cropper when his flamethrower runs out of fuel, another appearance for Jonathan and an understated return for Harmony, who gets vamped in a development which would, ironically, keep her going right through the Buffyverse until the final episode of Angel. But the other characters also get their moments- Angel feeding on Buffy, with extra helpings of unsubtle sexual symbolism, is nevertheless the only consummation left for their relationship to have, given that in the course of the season they’ve explored all the alternatives to a real romatic relationship, while we also have Willow and Oz talking around their feelings (particularly Willow’s guilt at the conflict between her passion for Oz, the desperate situation and Angel’s near-death) and the rather nice touch that they turn up to Graduation at the last minute after a bit of a canoodle. It’s also a neat conclusion to one of the character threads that Cordelia’s crush on Wesley dies a death after she discovers that the repressed ex-Watcher simply can’t kiss. Add to that Principal Snyder joining the noble tradition of Sunnydale High principals to have been eaten while in harness, and another excellent turn from Harry Groener as Mayor Wilkins, as ever creepily turning from the jovial all-American family man into the driven occultist and back again.

The resolution of the story (and indeed the season) takes place on a scale which borders on the cinematic; it’s particularly clever of Whedon to keep the viewers in suspense as to how Buffy plans to defeat the Mayor until it actually happens. It’s a great moment when the students throw back their graduation robes to reveal crossbows, axes, flamethrowers and so on- more than that, for a series which thrived on the drama and comedy created by the high school environment and students being unpleasant to each other, it’s a tremendously positive image of what the student body can achieve when they work together- on another occasion, Principal Snyder and Mayor Wilkins would surely be proud. And if the Mayor’s demon form could probably be done slightly better nowadays, the way Buffy calls to the Mayor as "Dick" is as close as the series could sail to the wind on language, and luring him to the deserted library before blowing him up is also resonant with implications- the Scooby Gang’s main base for the previous few years and violated by the Mayor in the previous episode, essentially it’s sacrificed in order to win the battle. It fits in completely with the sense of liberation associated with Buffy’s graduation- not only is Buffy not at school, there is no school, which also makes Giles’s role in the future less obviously apparent. At the risk of repeating myself, it’s almost certainly the best season conclusion so far and captures everything that’s best about Buffy in one package on the series’ most ambitious scale yet- not just the adventure, drama and excitement but a succession of well-judged character moments and attention to detail which really make the episode stand out.