"Graduation Day, Part 1" & "Graduation Day, Part 2" (3x21-3x22) | Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reaction
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- I hope you enjoy my reaction to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Three, Episodes 21 & 22: "Graduation Day, Part 1" and "Graduation Day, Part 2" - another finale in the books!
FULL Reaction Here: / cassreacts
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I love when people realize Mayor Wilkins genuinely cares about Faith and isn't just stringing her along or manipulating her. He's a multifaceted villain, not just plainly evil.
Dude was gonna feed LITERAL BABIES to that sewer demon... Homie was cartoonishly evil. One semi-redeeming quality does not a facet make.
Yeah, I love it when reactors are stunned at how upset the mayor is about Faith.
I've yet to see a Buffy reactor who didn't regard the mayor as creepy, false, 'just using Faith', or something along those lines. Every single one is shocked in the final episode when they find out he's been genuine the whole time and cares for Faith like a daughter.
Edit: Interestingly, Cass never addressed it later or after the episode.
His performance is one of my absolute favorites of the series, especially of the villains. So much nuance and humor while always being terrifying.
I think the most unsettling thing about the Mayor, is that he ACTUALLY did think of Faith as a daughter. That he is both evil and deranged and still human enough to care about her in that way. As for deaths, we saw Snyder, Larry, and Harmony be taken out.
Larry died? Aw, I forgot that.
@@dereknolin5986First, Larry is gay. Second, Larry is dead. Third, the school is destroyed.
*We see Harmony get bitten.
We had more than one death, but they were kinda quick! Larry gets whipped by the demon-mayor's tail and falls to his death. Also, Harmony (Cordelia's blonde friend) is seen being attacked by a vampire.
And Snyder had to get eaten because that's what happens to all the principals in Buffy's high school, lol - they get eaten! RIP Principal Snyder and RIP Principal Flutie!!!
Also I'm SO excited for you to watch the next season!
The Mayors relationship with faith really completed his character, like the way he takes the time to listen to Faith talk about her childhood, he's a relection of Giles for buffy
What I like most about Snyder's death is that it basically proves that while he was a bit sleazy and dishonest, he wasn't ever really in cahoots with the Mayor. He was more of an ordinary, everyday adversary than a supernatural or organized one -- and I like it that way.
He was a sincere jerk.
To me, this makes him more interesting than if he were only one of those 2 things.
I could never find a way to word this you just nailed it@@UTU49
I loved the Mayor as the big bad. His aww shucks persona while still being threatening is great.
I think the mayor is always gonna be my favorite villain.
My favorite is S5 Big Bad(I hope it's not considered as a spoiler...I won't say _who_ it is),but he's N°2.
@@Nicamon 4 is my second favorite. Big fan of the concept.
@@Nicamon Me too. But , Mayor and Faith are my favorite combo.
The mayor and Faith are a hell of a one-two punch. Great combo of villains with a really sweet, demented, and interesting relationship between them.
You've gotta remember (prior to the Ascension), the Mayor isn't a demon. He's just some old-timey guy who practices magic. He might wanna become a big snake, but he's just a guy, and Faith was like a daughter to him. We know he was married back in the good old days, but that he outlived his whole family. I think Faith and the Mayor both filled that role for each other; a child for the Mayor, and a parent for Faith.
I was re-watching Buffy in high school and timed it so perfectly that I was able to watch the graduation episodes on my actual graduation day. My whole family was running around getting ready and I was just sitting there watching it in my cap and gown. Absolutely love Buffy
R.I.P. Snyder, Harmony and Larry.
harmony isnt found out dead until next season
@@toastttttyy
Sure, but we see her being taken and bitten here.
@@toastttttyy No spoilers for Cass....
shame harmony died & will never come back
@@thomasbeauchamp3781 that’s what I’m saying, I don’t think she realised harmony died this episode
Your reaction made me realize that Amy was in the room when Willow and Oz were, uh, “being together”
Rat Amy isn't aware, though.
The 3rd season of buffy is arguably the best one for Buffy’s development herself. It’s all about her discovering who she really is, not just as a slayer.
• In the beginning, she’s trying out a new persona named Anne, and realizes she can’t sit back while hell breaks loose.
•We discover in an alternative universe if Buffy never had her friends, and went at it alone, she’d die.
• We discover that Buffy wants to be more than just a slayer. She wants to experience life like a regular teenage girl, prom, homecoming, graduation, maybe even college.
• We discover what Buffy would be if she tried to be more like Faith (reckless and dangerous).
• And now she’s graduated. And she’s going at life without Angel to back her up.
Overall, she’s gone through some pretty big character development this season
Exactly that's why this is my favorite season and with the sixth
Really never thought about it that way. But S3 is definitely my favorite.
Happy to hear you're watching Angel, don't watch the opening credits on the first episode!
Yes, the Mayor really cared about Faith like a daughter. Very much a mirror of how Giles cares about Buffy like a daughter (which is why I don't think the Mayor needed to have lost a daughter to transfer those feelings to Faith any more than Giles needed to). I am convinced that the scene where the Mayor threatened Buffy and Giles stabbed even though he logically knew it wouldn't do anything, pure emotional anger, was a prelude to understanding how the Mayor would irrationally chase Buffy out of anger because of Faith.
Daaaang yeah!!! Great parallel! I hadn't picked up on that!
One of the best fight scenes in a TV show ever! I love when she says "stick around" cause she knows Faith's a runner🤣
"Congratulations, you have all proved more or less aduquate." Definitely in my top 10 Buffy lines.
It's tradition at this point for the principal to be eaten.
From the list, "Things I Learned From Buffy the Vampire Slayer" -->
#17. Principals are delicious.
Yeah, probably goes over great when interviewing. What happened to the last principal? He was eaten. Good thing the school's gone.
The principal always dies
@@UTU49 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 😋
If I remember correctly from the dvd commentary, the spiders that the mayor was eating were actually made of black licorice.
Since the scene only required seeing one in his mouth, they were able to get away with it.
I would have hoped that they didn't make him bite into plastic, but I didn't know this detail.
@@jameshenner5831 I think he even had to swallow some of it. That's not something they would make him do with plastic
"Now!"
What TVTropes calls a "Crowning Moment of Awesome." The most badass moment of the the high school years in Buffy.
Chills every single time. Especially the camera angle, just really adds to it.
Buffy and faith fight is awesome and Buffy was totally willing to take her first human life which is powerful
Yes, but what few people mention is the kiss Buffy gives Faith later on in the hospital. It’s a great moment that illustrates Buffy’s maturity and moral character. After all that happened she still felt regret and showed forgiveness, even though, as far as anyone knows, Faith was unaware of it.
22:00 It's not permanent but the blood of a slayer makes vampires stronger, we see it in season 1 where Buffy's blood allows the master to break free.
Perfect season finale! I love these 2 episodes so much!
Also this exchange sums up Buffy and any teenage superhero basically:
Xander: The Mayor's gonna kill us all during graduation.
Cordelia: Oh. Are you gonna go to fifth period?
Xander: I'm thinking I might skip it.
Cordelia: Yeah, me too.
24:06 "We attack the mayor with hummus." 🤣🤣🤣 Oz's deadpan delivery is so great! 😆
Remember that Mayor Wilkins is at least a century old. You can expect that he's lost several people he loved in that time.
I've always found the Mayor's genuine affection for Faith intriguing; not because it makes him sympathetic, but kind of adds this insidious layer to the Mayor; that for everything he wants to do, everything he's willing to do, he still genuinely ends up caring for Faith like the daughter he never had. He's this gosh, golly, Mr. Roger's type who sees Faith the way she deserves and needed to be seen, and wasn't being seen by pretty much everyone else; yet he's still completely evil. Like, the two things should be contradictions, but he makes it work.
He's very disarming in that way, because he doesn't feel threatening; which would be the most dangerous thing about him, because he could 100% hurt you if he wanted or needed, and probably not give it a second thought, and you'd never see it coming. Harry Groener does such a great job with the role, and when he does those turns where he says something like, "I'm going eat her." or the worry he had when he goes to Faith's and can't find her, and the anger at the hospital - it's so good. It's that "the anger of a quiet man" type of intensity.
And on a side note, "Dick Wilkens" is the name of Ebenezer Scrooge's friend and fellow apprentice under Fezziwig in "A Christmas Carol;" and upon realizing he shares the same name as the Mayor, my headcanon is that the Buffyverse exists in the same reality where A Christmas Carol takes place, and they are in fact the same person.
Broooooo 😮😮😮😃😃😃😄😄😄😄 I accept this head canon. Thank you for your contribution.
Love how oz steps in front of willow. These season three episodes really show how much of a protector he is and how he always thinks of her happiness and safety first.
"Sigfried?" "Roy?" "One of the tigers?" is one of my favourite Willow lines for some reason!
"Come back out of this fantasy." 😂😂😂😂
The zoom in when talking about the future of Snyder's character was excellent.
Can we talk for a moment about this epic slayer fight? Its just so good and epic. We were waiting a whole season and knew this moment would come. Its just soooo good
To my knowledge, Mayor Richard Wilkins never lied. He also kept his deals and was loyal to his henchman. My kinda villain.
"Well Gosh"
Such a fitting last line for him :)
Maybe others have mentioned this but when it comes to Angel, don't watch the opening credits for the first episode. Turn and look away until they're done.
If you haven't watched the first episode of Angel yet, don't watch the credits during the first episode, it has a spoiler in it. You're good to watch from the second episode on.
31:00 Wasn't just Snyder, we saw several people in the crowd die, including Larry.
I always get emotional when everyone takes off their graduation gowns and they are ready to fight with Buffy. The slayer always carries the weight of the world on her shoulders but in this moment she had an army!
Buffy was always under threat of cancellation. It was never safe.
23:00 I think Faith gave Buffy some of her slayer power, again for a limited time. Which is why Buffy doesn't die.
So, bit of trivia off the DVD commentary - when the snake Mayor was tearing up the school, that was actually a Mac truck being driven through the hallways of the school that had been used for establishing shots. Most of the hallway scenes were shot on a fairly small set. Also, when they blew up the school... yeah, they actually blew up the school... in the middle of the night... without warning people before hand. They, the production team, were barred from coming back to that city again. I can't find any articles about that, but that's what they said on the commentary, and I like to believe it.
The Mayor did *genuinely* love Faith as a daughter, exactly how Giles loves Buffy like a daughter.
His Ascension was his upmost priority, yet the second it seems Faith is in trouble, he makes her his number one priority. And in the comics, his spirit would visit her to keep her company.
And let’s not forget that it’s literally Buffy taunting him about Faith’s defeat that causes him to have a moment of deep grief before focusing on trying to kill Buffy rather than consume people to maintain his transformation, as was the original plan.
The Mayor loved Faith as his daughter. Truly.
The mayor is still one of my favorite villains because he is just SO scary.
Wesley and Cordy, best awful kiss in TV history! 😂
Graduation Day part 1 was another brilliant episode with the Buffy and Faith fight a super climax. We can see Faith out of control committing cold blooded murder of the Professor. We now know where Faith's knife ended up with Buffy giving it back to Faith in her gut. All this leads up to the brilliant part 2. S3 was where the show really developed into a stellar series. Interesting part where Xander pays homage to Jaws ' we are gonna need a bigger boat'. This was a brilliant Season.
Cass, I don't think you caught that but maybe you got to see it during editing, during the final battle, Harmony got attacked by a vampire. And yes, Larry died too.
And if you didn't know already or maybe you forgot, Charisma originally auditioned for the role of Buffy. And because she wasn't chosen for the role of the slayer, they at least wrote it in for her character to slay a vampire.
Loved your thoughts, predictions and future outcomes. Can't wait to see your reaction to the next season now that our characters are young adults ❤👍
Wesley and Corey’s kiss is one of the funniest moments in the whole series.
DON'T FOLLOW ONLINE VIEWING ORDERS!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE watch Buffy and Angel simultaneously after this season, ie: Buffy 4x01 and Angel 1x01 in the same video. Since you are already watching two episodes per video, you can actually watch them one after the other, the way nature intended. That's how we watched them when they originally aired back in the day: Buffy would play and then Angel right after on the same night. It would also be cool because there were a bunch of crossover episodes that would air the same night, so you were supposed to watch them together in pairs. You will be the first reactor I have ever seen do it this way if you actually pull through and that would be great!
EDIT: I know I’m duplicating this comment from last video, I just hope it's seen and taken into consideration.
Agreed. This is the best way to watch.
Angel's show has more grown up themes. It would be a scheduling nightmare but I would love you to follow both.
RIP Harmony. You're going to be missed.
;3
Thank you for your reviews and I get a kick out your predictions. BTVS is like no other show and the plot line is not always as important as the themes and metaphors. Without any spoilers, it’s not possible or necessary to try to anticipate what will happen. Sit back and enjoy the ride. There have been several happenings over the last 12 episodes that are integral to the stories, characters, and moral themes that took place in plain sight and are almost always missed. That is one of the genius of the show. In life important and life altering things happen and it is not realized at the time.Get ready for the next 4 years and you will realize what a great show, superb writing, and super acting you are viewing. You gave one of the tipoffs to investment… when you has 42 minutes whiz by and you has no idea episode 21 was ending. Be prepared to have that feeling again .
Keep up the fun and reactions . You are a joy to watch and observe your descent into the Buffyverse.
"Everybody made it except Snyder" Well and Larry, and Harmony. I mean they weren't the main characters, but if we're gonna include Snyder they at least deserve some recognition
I've been screaming for weeks for you to accept that Faith wasn't switching back. Lol. I mentioned last week you should really do Buffy and Angel back to back. Please do
for me the mayor became a great villain, after the first rewatch. amazing villain
So this is the second finale to a full-length season.
Graduation Day vividly illustrates how different Seasons 2 and 3 are.
It leaves the viewer not knowing what to expect from subsequent seasons.
"Snyder went out doing what he loved."
I just laughed so hard I offended the cats.😂😂😂
I just binge-watched all of your Buffy reactions so far and had SO much fun doing so! I love your reactions, you're so insightful and funny, thank you so much for making these. I'm so excited for season 4 that it sounds like you're going to be watching Angel too!
I hope you don't see this info as a spoiler but the single season where the producers and writers wasn't 100% sure if there would be any more season was the first season only. And no matter what some people might claim in the future the series was never cancelled.
I don't remember ever being suspicious of the mayor in his relationship with Faith. It seemed to me that he genuinely grew fond of her.
And his actions in part 2 confirmed that.
Same here. Unfortunately reactors seem to overthink it now, so they end up viewing it as creepy or suspicious rather than simply a father-daughter relationship.
To be fair though.. we're talking 90s/early 2000s versus 2024 - a lot of "impressionable young woman under the tutelage of older man" storylines have come and gone since then. It's not entirely unreasonable to be.. unnerved - by it.
But it is one of those rare ones where it really is what its depicted as - to its credit. @@cherryfreckle
@cherryfreckle Well, it genuinely does have sinister elements. The Mayor does love Faith, but he's soulless and lacks empathy, so it's not a healthy kind of love. He implies that he'll kill Faith for failing him at least once, and he is taking advantage of a homeless, traumatised teenager to get her to kill for him. It doesn't require overthinking or mistaking for sexual grooming to be creepy.
@@Talisguy Well, while I agree he's a twisted monster, we can't say the Mayor doesn't possess empathy. He might initially see her as a lackey, but he develops an active interest in Faith, not only as a slayer but as a person, he consistently tries to make her happy, he reassures her when she's down or second-guessing herself, he's visibly terrified when he thinks she might actually be in danger, he's completely distraught (and enraged) when he finds her in the hospital, and in the end his emotional attachment to her ends up proving to be his ultimate weakness. The Mayor (like Spike and Drusilla before him) proves that Buffy and Angel's "you can't love without a soul" narrative just doesn't really hold up. It might be a warped take on love, but it's there.
@@Talisguy exactly, his love for Faith isn't unconditional. And despite him having feelings for Faith as daughter-like it is still grooming.
We'll see what happens in S4! Thanks for the reactions, I always enjoy your predictions. Sometimes you hit the nail precisely on the head, and sometimes it is a swing and a miss, but hopefully no one spoils what will come in the future episodes!
The actor who played Mayor Wilkins appeared on the NBC sitcom Dear John a few years prior to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Fayth dying would bring forth another slayer. Fayth in a coma ties up her story and leaves Buffy as the one and only slayer.
Cordelia stakes her first vampire in G2❤
Ahhhh not in front of Amy!!
I love that they kept in David Boreanaz's slipping haha
You gotta love the whole year getting involved!
You know what, I'd always remembered the Mayor as a weak villain but this has reminded me that he was one of the best.
You wanting Anya and Spike both is crazy.
I think the mayor being whatever he was already made him not be able to have kids so he latched onto her as a daughter he always wanted.
The school explosion was at 3am and extremely liud. Buffy was never allowed to film there again.
I think they linked as slayers. .
The Mayor was just a warlock (granted, a very good one). He worked out a way to make himself immortal sure, but there's no reason he couldn't have had kids anymore than Willow could. We don't know too much about his past, but we do know he's been married and doesn't appear to have married again since. (We also know he stayed with his wife til the end, despite her eventually loathing him for his youth in her old age, so whatever family he once had, he certainly seems to have cared about them). I think the Mayor probably did have kids, but they all would've died a long time ago, and I think that'd probably put him off from ever having any more (just like how he never married again). So, much like the way the Mayor became the parent that Faith had lost, Faith became the child that the Mayor lost. That's my two cents anyway.
@@blueren6649 OK on the the warlock part. I think we agree on how he sees Faith.
Just gonna mention that the reason those viewing orders exist is so that if you're watching from literal DVDs, you don't have to switch the disc after every episode. They're a compromise. The only "correct" order is Buffy 1, Angel 1, Buffy 2, Angel 2 etc.
Yes, they are sharing a dream. Slayer dreams are mystical in nature so yes they are sharing. They'll do it again eventually.
Faith being a runner parallels Buffy to an extent. Buffy also ran from her problems, early on. At the end of Season 2 she ran from her problems but came back at the begging of Season 3. Faith also ran from her problems, but unlike Buffy, she never had anything to come back to. Faith had no friends, and no family, no mentors.
Even though the master is my favorite primary antagonist, there are two season finales I like better than season 1.
This is one of them, and the mayor is a great antagonist in his own right.
I know some have mentioned this before but I wanted to add my 2 cents. Many times Buffy's dreams contain dialogue that foreshadow events/persons in future seasons. If someone says something cryptic, it probably has been written for that purpose...
Just wanna say, I love the 2 episode format you have going on with your Buffy reactions!
Not just Snyder, Harmony looked like she bit it too...
I missed her death on my first watch too, and there was Larry too.
"not the organs moving around" ...welcome to pregnancy 😂
The mayor calling Buffy a murderous little fiend.....um isn't that one of the qualities you love about Faith lol
IIRC, The WB originally delayed the broadcast of part two by a month or two due to the Columbine tragedy in 1999. It's already been 25 years since that.
It was a shared slayer dreamscape. Also, Buffy has already been seen as a vampire in season 1.
Angel's gone to his own series. Was a big deal back in the day
And now you lucky thing you get to watch Angel too!
The Mayor did really care for Faith as a daughter - which mirrors Giles loving Buffy like a daughter. It shows how the people in a child's life affect them. In "The Wish" reality, Buffy didn't have Giles, and in that reality, she was a lot more like Faith.
In order to become a vampire angel would have had to pour his blood into her once she's near death. So all angel did was feed. Feeding on someone doesn't make them become a vampire
Oz: you too huh
Always makes me laugh
Love your reaction as always, Cass! That last fight is so special, always gets me emotional how Buffy protected these people for 3 years and now they return the favor and also fight back, i love it!
The Mayor is the best father figure in the entire series after Giles.
This does not contain spoilers but does contain lore you have been given in earlier episodes. Slayers and girls who might become slayers have the gift of prophecy in dreams. The shared dream was because of that. Faith was giving voice to prophecy. We will let you know every so often to go back to see a scene like this when the events have happened.
Love the reactions btw.
You have to watch Angel too!! It is sooo good and in some ways even better than Buffy!! Angel’s character growth is insane!!
i wouldn’t go that far, but it is really good
She decided to do rough cuts on Patreon only
@@Matt-id5mi It stands on it's own as a show. Many have loved it without ever seeing Buffy. The dismissive attitude from Buffy fans, like it's somehow an extra chore and not required is totally false. One does not get the full story of many Buffy characters without seeing both shows. The Buffyverse is 254 episodes.
@@republicoftexas3261 she didn’t say that throughout the entire video. I paid attention to anything involving her watching Angel. All she said was there was a schedule made for her so she could know to watch what episode when
While i agree with you in terms of it being borderline required viewing -- there is a reason why some (if not most) people regard it as somewhat inferior to "buffy".. and the reason is that there is quite a bit more fluff over the course of the series -- granted, its dark noir gothic urban type fluff.. but still fluff.
But having said that.. im glad that Cass pulled the trigger on doing rough cuts of it for Patreon. @@gungho1284
Im really excited for you to see Cordelia's future. No spoilers, but it makes sense.
With Buffy and Faith's shared coma-dream, I've always viewed it that The Slayer has a sort of mystical dream-space, which is where she gets all her prophetic dreams. But, because both Buffy and Faith are The Slayer, they are both linked to that dream-space.
If you don't mind star trek, Deep Space Nine has a character named Quark who is played by the same actor as Schneider and is the best character in the series.
SO many reactors are so afraid for Willow and Oz this season finale. They are TOO happy and the reactors have at this point learned that that is a dangerous thing to be and it must lead to doom 😂
I couldn't help but smile through this whole reaction. I've said it again and again, but your ideas and speculations about this and where it might go from here makes me SO excited to see you see what happens next. 😁
The end of of buffy season 3 great season sad to see angel go but it was for the best so we got the awesome angel series
- The Mayor couldn't be stopped before the ascension because he was invulnerable.
- The Mayor said, "Well done".
Larry and Harmony died too
You could almost say Xander is a demon magnet.
You forgot about Larry. The boy who came out to Xander. He died also. I’m sure there was more if you have a Patreon account but I am going by this video. 😊
Buffy claimed going after Faith was about helping Angel. Taking a knife that would have depleted the blood supply Angel needed instead of knocking Faith out by shooting the tranq gun they use on Werewolf Oz long enough to tie her up shows she had more of a revenge idea in her mind than even she probably realizes. The look on her face afterword even shows that realization.
The Scooby gang lying about why Angel left the hospital always bugged me. I get they have issues but I think they only add to their own overall toxicity about him concerning Angelus when they treat him the way they did before lying to Buffy about why he left.
The Ascension never would have happened if Buffy and the Scoobies had found Faith before the Mayor. The second she was found The Ascencion was back on. Too bad Angel hadn't of told them how much the Mayor cared about her before this episode after having been undercover. Even if he was unsure (to the point that some fans were also unsure), there was enough there that they could have worked with it before the moment they did) aka kidnapping Faith or mending bridges to lure her back to good rather than just assuming she was evil (It's all another reason why I'm so hard on the group for why Faith chooses The Mayor over them). or if nothing else understood Faith's perspective once and for all. And too bad Buffy was in shock over the action of realizing she isn't any better than Faith. But also, as much as I dislike the fact that Buffy sought revenge against Faith (instead of just being there for helping Angel), the bloodied knife was a good tool for luring The Mayor into the school to blow it up. But again, possibly unnecessary if Angel had just said earlier how much The Mayor cared about Faith. The undercover could have played a bigger help than knowing what side Faith was on. As Faith or Buffy also made that realization/reveal late aka the dream.
"Find them!!!" is my favorite non-humorous Mayor moment. It ties so well into the fact that he cares about her in a way that goes against what many fans don't always realize until he yells it.
Joss Whedon always called Angel biting Buffy and her obvious reaction to it one of the series "thinner metaphors."
RIP Snyder, Harmony, Larry, and the school.
Buffy should have brought the tranquilizer gun rather than the knife. And had someone drive her there. But then we wouldn't have had the fight scene drama...
@@ernesthakey3396 While that's true, I don't think in a Doylist viewpoint very often. I think in a Watsonian way.
Later there was a character who was originally intended to be a Slayer who had been turned into a vampire, but they abandoned that idea, she was just the leader of a group of vampires.
31:05 I think Larry was killed and Harmony got grabbed by a vampire, most others made it.
The Mayor was invulnerable right up to the point where he ascended, so they couldn't stop him before that. Once he transformed he was still very strong, but no longer completely invulnerable, that amount of explosive killed him, which it could not have done beforehand.
The Scoobies can no longer use the school library as their HQ, even if they hadn't destroyed it. At college more students are actually going to use the Library so even if Giles became librarian there they could not use it as Slayer HQ.
One of my favorite parts in the season is when the rest of the graduates reveal they are in the fight as well!! That and when they honor Buffy at prom! Great moments!
A great combo of episodes to watch together is:
Band Candy
Earshot
The Prom
Graduation 1 & 2
There are some really nice plot threads running through those episodes.
21:00 nice single shot scene here to complement the one in episode 1.
Harmony bit the dust.
Cordy dusted the biter.
What in the world gives you the idea that Buffy being 18 has anything to do with her being able to reject the authority of the Watcher's Council? They aren't her legal guardians. They have no legitimate authority over her and they never did, at any age. The only power they had was derived through intimidation and gaslighting. She could have rejected them at any time(and should have much sooner), it just took their refusal to provide any assistance with Angel to push her to that point.
S3 has a special place in my heart, even though it's not my favorite season.
I'm looking forward to your reactions to S4. It's full of great comedic moments, and I think you're gonna like it! People tend to get harsh on S4, but, as someone said in the comments, it's a good transitional season.
And then S5 and S6, the true gems of BTVS.