Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Graduation Day (Part 1)

"Mom, graduation is a pointless ceremony where you sit around and listen to a bunch of boring speeches until someone hands you a little piece of paper that says you graduated, which you already know, and maroon does nothing for my complexion so don't argue, okay?"

- Buffy Summers

"Graduation Day (Part 1)" is the twenty-first episode of season three of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the fifty-fifth episode of the series overall. It was written and directed by Joss Whedon and is the first chapter of the series' two-part season finale. It originally aired on the WB Network on Tuesday, May 18th, 1999. In this episode, the students of Sunnydale High School prepare for the upcoming graduation ceremonies. Buffy and the Scoobies discover that the evil town mayor, Richard Wilkins III, plans on giving the graduating commencement speech, wherein he will conduct the rite of Ascension, which will transform him into a demon of immense power. Wilkins continues to use Faith Lehane to take down his enemeis, but after Faith deals a near-fatal blow to Angel, Buffy decides that she needs to take her down once and for all.

Notes & Trivia

 * This episode has been made available on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Chosen Collection and disc six of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Third Season DVD collections.


 * Production code number: 3ABB21.


 * Final appearance of James Lurie as Mister Miller.

Quotes

 * Wesley Wyndam-Pryce: I'm sorry, uh, Lohesh was a four-winged soul killer, am I right? I was given to understand that they're not that fierce. Of all the demons we've faced...
 * Anya Jenkins: You've never seen a demon.
 * Buffy Summers: Uh, excuse me, killing them professionally four years running.
 * Anya Jenkins: All the demons that walk the Earth, are tainted, are human hybrids, like vampires. The Ascension means that a human becomes pure demon. They're different.
 * Rupert Giles: Different?
 * Buffy Summers: How?
 * Anya Jenkins: Well, for one thing, they're bigger.

....


 * Xander Harris: The Mayor is gonna kill us all during graduation.
 * Cordelia Chase: Oh. Are you gonna go to fifth period?
 * Xander Harris: I'm thinking I might skip it.
 * Cordelia Chase: Yeah, me too.

....


 * Anya Jenkins: About eight hundred years ago, in the Kaskov valleys above the Urals, there was a sorcerer there who achieved Ascension, became the embodiment of the demon Lohesh. I was there cursing a shepherd who'd been unfaithful.

....


 * Richard Wilkins III: My god, what a feeling. The power of these creatures... It suffuses my being. I can feel the changes begin. My organs shifting, merging, making ready for the Ascension. Plus, these babies are high in fiber and what's the fun of becoming an immortal demon if you're not regular, am I right?

....


 * Xander Harris: Yes. Men like sports. Men watch the action movie, they eat of the beef, and they enjoy to look at the bosoms. A thousand years of avenging our wrongs, and that's all you've learned?

....


 * Xander Harris: Guess who our commencement speaker is?
 * Willow Rosenberg: Sigfried?
 * Xander Harris: No.
 * Willow Rosenberg: Roy?
 * Xander Harris: No.
 * Willow Rosenberg: One of the tigers?
 * Xander Harris: Come out of the fantasy, Will.

...


 * Willow Rosenberg: I'm going to miss her.
 * Buffy Summers: Don't you hate her?
 * Willow Rosenberg: Yes, with a fiery vengeance. She picked on me for ten years. Vacuous tramp... It's like a sickness, Buffy. I'm missing everything. I miss P.E.!