I admit: I was only a casual Buffy the Vampire Slayer viewer. During the show’s run (1997-2003), I tuned it on occasion, finding great delight in Sarah Michelle Gellar’s wonderfully empowering turn as the titular vampire hunter, but it was never an obsession among my core group of friends. I have, of course, come around to the show since, and its fantastical storytelling holds a special place in my ghoulish, cold heart. More than any other episode, it’s the much-lauded “Once More, with Feeling,” a musical extravaganza bursting with heart-pounding choruses and aw-shucks quirk, that I hold most dear. Twenty years later, it remains one of the greatest episodes of television and musicals ever created.

The power of musicals courses in my DNA. I grew up transfixed by such landmark cinematic feats as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Little Shop of Horrors, and The Wizard of Oz, as well as Broadway productions like Into the Woods and Rent. So, imagine my wonderment in beholding “Once More, with Feeling” for the very first time. Picture this: a wide-eyed, very green, and totally “straight” 18-year-old witnessing the sweeping, orchestra-driven opening number and being transformed as one is after a baptism. “I just wanna be alive!” Buffy bellows, as she wanders aimlessly through a fog-imbued cemetery, knocking off various dead things. Those words, that performance, Gellar’s command onscreen sent a shiver down my spine. I knew I was in for quite a ride, but I never expected such thrilling musical compositions befitting a high-budget Broadway show.

In the summer of 2004, I worked as an intern for a local stage theatre company and befriended resident Buffy stans Allison and Alan, two good friends still to this day. I remember the experience like it was yesterday and how they gushed unapologetically about the show and this must-see musical bonanza. If memory serves, it all started when Allison, the costume shop manager and designer, belted along to the soundtrack playing through the company CD boombox. I can see it all now: Allison toiling away on a piece of fabric on the sewing machine while harmonizing with “I’ll Never Tell,” her voice carrying all the way up the stairwell to the theatre lobby. I’d never heard such rhapsody; obviously, I followed the sound of her voice, soon to discover what would become a defining moment of my young adulthood. A few days later, Allison invited me over to her place to witness the episode for myself. It’s not hyperbolic to say that I owe her everything for changing my life.

With music and lyrics entirely written/composed by show creator/director Joss Whedon, who has recently been accused of on-set abuse, “Once More, with Feeling” depicts the haunting of a musical demon, who forces the townsfolk of Sunnydale to spontaneously break into song. Buffy has recently been resurrected from the bowels of Hell, thanks to Willow (Alyson Hannigan) using magic, and finds herself with the opening song “Overture / Going Through the Motions” feeling listless and lethargic about her life. She’s far less inspired these days to save the world, and even the cold dead ones trailing behind have picked up on this cosmic shift. “I’ve been going through the motions, walking through the part. Nothing seems to penetrate my heart,” she laments. Two vampires and a demon admit in response, “She does pretty well with fiends from hell, but lately we can tell that she’s just going through the motions, faking it somehow.”

The emotional set-up teased the episode’s thematic strengths, particularly the dissection of depression and anxiety. Only a year prior to watching the episode, I’d found myself nearly as lifeless as Buffy. Her outright admission of her condition was a courageous first step, later to come full circle with the glorious finale “Something to Sing About.” In the summer of 2003, I first tried to kill myself, gobbling up a bottle of Tylenol to alleviate a similar sort of mysterious monster. Even now, I’m not even sure where such suffocating, dreadful thoughts came from; it was as if a demon, once lurking only in the shadows, had, in its hour, finally sprung to consume me whole. I still struggle most days, but “Once More, with Feeling” remains an essential source of great comfort, namely the soundtrack. 

With Buffy’s string-bound show-stopper, Whedon also primed you for the sort of musical feast in which you were about to partake. Emotional lyrics contrasted as a blanket of stars against the darkness swirling with the orchestra, heavenly yet remarkably eerie. Immediately, the characters realize that perhaps random musical numbers were not quite normal and together, they brainstorm for a solution with the first ensemble piece, “I’ve Got a Theory,” laced with Anya’s (Emma Caulfield) playfully absurd rock musical eruption “Bunnies,” detailing her fear of bunnies and their “twitchy little noses,” before segueing effortlessly into the saccharine, guitar-hooked “If We’re Together.”

“We have to try. We’ll pay the price. It’s do or die,” the cast sings in unison, before Buffy reminds everyone, “Hey, I’ve died twice.” Buffy walked through literal fire and lived to tell the tale, her playful self-deprecation notwithstanding. It was always her selfless nature and proclivity to sacrifice her own life that made her an iconic hero 一 but even heroes battle inner darkness. The pressure to be the hero becomes a story linchpin, and with nothing left to lose, she carries the cross anyway.

The stakes rise even higher when Buffy learns the entire town has been taken hostage by musical torment. Townspeople break into song about mustard stains (“The Mustard”) and getting a parking ticket (“The Parking Ticket”), humorous bite-sized pieces leading to the episode’s grander and more significant beats. Claiming to have a “volume-y text” about “mystical chants and boknals” back at their house, Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow, giddy and in love, rush off into the afternoon sun. Instead of doing anything useful, Tara launches into the tangy sweet “Under Your Spell,” declaring how much Willow changed her life. Benson’s soft vocal is pulverizing, slipping into her head voice as an angel truly blessed. “Your power shone brighter than any I know,” she coos.

The following day, Anya and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) enjoy an early-morning snuggle before breakfast. “Will you still make me waffles when we’re married?” Anya asks her groom-to-be. “I’ll only make them for myself, but by California law, you will own half of them,” he quips, giving her a quick peck on the nose. Their irritation with each other bubbles right below the surface, and the only way they can properly communicate is through song, of course. “I’ll Never Tell” emerges as one of the cheekier moments with Anya and Xander finally confessing their many pet peeves for one another. Their most hilarious exchange is below:

Xander: “I talk”

Anya: “He breezes”

Xander: “She doesn’t know what please is”

Anya: “His penis got diseases from a chumash tribe”

Structured in a call and response format, frequently found in popular music (The Who’s “My Generation” is a common example), Xander and Anya come to a mutual understanding. In venting their long-held grievances, including the admission they’re actually “petrified” to get married, they find validation, and their love only grows stronger and more resilient. Whedon further pulls the proverbial rug out from under the listener/viewer with an “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better”-approved face-off. “Look at me! I’m dancin’ crazy!” barks Anya, scooting her furry slippers across the floor. The absurdity of the moment punctuates the emotional truth rumbling under the surface. In the end, the payoff is well worth it. “I’ve tried, but there’s these fears I can’t quell,” they sing, coming together. If you weren’t charmed before, you sure are now.

Unable to find the answers on her own, Buffy confronts Spike (James Marsters), her former nemesis, who is now in love with her, later that night to find out what he thinks about the strange occurrences. “Come to serenade me?” he asks, then offers her a swill of whiskey. “I remain immune, happy to say,” he adds. Funny enough, he pours all his frustrations over unrequited love into the roak-soaked “Rest in Peace,” much to Buffy’s visible displeasure. Mid-song, the two eventually make their way to the cemetery during a funeral procession and fall down into an open grave. “I died so many years ago. You make me feel like it isn’t so,” he begins, unraveling his tattered heartstrings. But Buffy remains unmoved, paralyzed by her own anxiety-addled thoughts to even entertain the notion of love, much less with Spike.

Meanwhile, Tara suggests to Buffy’s little sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) that Willow “has a lead on the whole musical extravaganza evil 一 this demon that can be summoned. Some Lord of the Dance,” she says. Dawn, thinking she may be the cause of the group’s troubles, deflects to bring up a previous dispute between Tara and Willow. “I’m glad you guys made up,” she plasters a wide smile on her face.” Tara is taken aback, “What?” “That fight you guys had about magic and stuff. It gives me belly rumblings when you guys fight.” Suspecting Willow of erasing her memory, Tara rushes off to the Magic Box, leaving Dawn alone with her own impenetrable sadness. “Does anybody even notice? Does anybody even care?” she weeps over a somber acoustic guitar on the tender “Dawn’s Lament,” abruptly interrupted by three of the dancing demon’s minions, appropriately dressed as Slappy the Dummy.

Dawn’s expression of her own depression here suggests how frequent it hides in plain sight. Those who appear fine on the surface, much like such artists as Robin Williams, are aching and only wanting to be heard. These subtle, but obvious, clues are part of what makes “Once More, with Feeling” such a brilliant episodic adventure. It’s far more than combating some unknown entity, but it is what lies beneath the conspicuous disturbances that requires equal attention.

Captured and bound, Dawn is then transported to The Bronze where she launches into an interpretative dance against the nightmarish musical interlude, “Dawn’s Ballet,” in her attempt to escape. It’s all for naught, however, and she soon comes face-to-face with the demon, simply known as Sweet (Hinton Battle), making the most extra entrance with a tap-dance routine to “What You Feel.” His zoot suit is stylish and perfectly pressed. Sweet charms his way with a jazz lounge act, and you almost forget he’s the villain of this saga. Almost. “I come from the imagination, and I’m here strictly by your invocation,” he sings, inviting her to “dance a while” so he can make her his darling queen in Hell.

As she pleads for her life (“I’m fifteen, so, this queen thing’s illegal,” she sings), Dawn accidentally lets it slip that her sister’s the slayer. “Find her!” he tells his ventriloquist henchmen. “Tell her… tell her everything.” They quickly scamper off into the night.

While working through personal troubles 一 Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) realizing he must let Buffy lead in her responsibilities to care for Dawn (“Standing”) and Tara in her relationship with Willow (“Under Your Spell / Standing – Reprise”), Spike captures one of the dummies, who relays Sweet’s devilish plans to the group. “Buffy’s going alone,” Giles pipes up. In this moment, firmly believing Buffy possesses the power to stop Sweet, much to Spike’s protest, Giles forces Buffy to take charge even if she doesn’t quite want to. “You’re really not coming?” she asks, visibly hurt. “It’s up to you, Buffy,” he replies, quietly stern. “What do you expect me to do?” “Your best.”

Still reeling from this harsh reality, and contending with ongoing mental health, Buffy forges ahead into the cold, dark night and embraces whatever the future might be. “Walk Through the Fire” reads as Buffy’s swan song, her final cry as she rides into battle. Her very life is on the line, and whichever way the dominos may fall, she prepares for every possibility. “Why can’t I feel? My skin should crack and peel / I want the fire back,” she pleads. It’s like a switch, a mental flip somewhere down a cavernous hole in your soul. Once you’ve attempted suicide, and lived, there often comes a monumental shift in perspective about life and death 一 at least from my vantage point, the last time I tried to kill myself transformed something inside of me. You brave forward, even if you really don’t want to.

“Now, through the smoke she calls to me, to make my way across the flame,” she sings, the music slowly building and burning brighter. “To save the day or maybe melt away. I guess it’s all the same.” With these lines, in particular, Buffy takes ownership over her mental state and faces her predicament with purpose, even if she remains resigned to her lot.

Spike quickly joins in, toiling over his own plight, “The torch I bear is scorching me, and Buffy’s laughing I’ve no doubt. I hope she fries. I’m free if that bitch dies! I better help her out.”

Beginning as her opus, “Walk Through the Fire” is not only a sterling solo showcase but the episode’s best ensemble piece, as Giles, Anya, Tara, Willow, and Xander unite on the chorus and later have their own one-off interjections. “So one by one, they turn from me. I guess my friends can’t face the cold. But why I froze, not one among them knows and never can be told,” Buffy sighs. 

Many individuals with mental health issues frequently find themselves isolated from the world, feeling as though those they love have abandoned them; perhaps, it’s the fact of the matter, or it’s completely self-constructed delusions. In “Once More, with Feeling,” it’s quite literal, and the characters soon realize the error of their ways, as mirrored with the layering of vocal parts in the last third of the song. Buffy’s lines begin bleeding into Tara’s and so on. One by one, vocal lines tumble like a house of cards, in almost a Stephen Sondheim complexity.

The group performance could be a finale in and of itself, but it’s nothing compared to “Something to Think About.” A Buffy solo provoked in her confrontation with Sweet, to whom she offers to switch places with Dawn, it embodies Buffy’s feelings about life and death. “Where’s there’s life, there’s hope. Everyday’s a gift. Wishes can come true,” she gathers up a renewed will to live. “Whistle while you work. So hard all day to be like other girls, to fit in in this glittering world.”

Amidst her performance, Giles realizes she “needs backup,” with first Tara and Anya playing supportive dancer roles. Musically, “Something to Think About” jarringly flips between introspective ballad and funky shake-down. Moments later, the production all crumbles away, leaving only a piano and Buffy’s admission that she was never in hell to begin with. “There was no pain, no fear, no doubt ‘till they pulled me out… of heaven,” she sings over a chilling minor chord. Buffy had escaped her own personal hell, raging like chained demons inside her skull, and found true bliss in the afterlife. Gellar’s performance haunts me as she glides into the last few lines: “So that’s my refrain / I live in Hell ‘cause I’ve been expelled from Heaven,” she sings, cutting deep into the core of what it feels like to want to die. You believe you’re worthless, and a toxic cycle of thinking becomes your own self-imposed Hell. 

This truth hits Willow like a ton of bricks as much it does the viewer, but what’s done is done. As a result, Buffy is sent into a dancing whirlwind until she literally smokes 一 and only Spike can stop her, grabbing her shoulders. “Life’s not a song. Life isn’t bliss. Life is just this: it’s living,” he sings, begging her “to go on living, so one of us is living.” It’s Spike’s outstretched hand that saves her. It’s not undertaking yet another life and death crusade. It’s not being left abandoned, scrambling to uncover inner strength. It’s compassion from another human being. It’s a support system. It’s the knowing that if you’re OK, you’ll have someone else to catch you in your darkest moments.

Now, that’s something worth singing about.

Tying up loose ends, Dawn subsequently claims (once again) that she never summoned a demon. “It was in the shop,” Giles muses. “Then, one of us probably…” He trails off for a moment, and Xander slowly raises his hand behind him. “I didn’t know what was going to happen!” he whines. “I just thought there were going to be dances and songs.” He then offers to be Sweet’s Queen. “It’s tempting,” the dancing demon considers. “I’ll think we’ll waive the clause just this once.”

Naturally, Sweet takes the stage one last time with “What You Feel – reprise.” “All those secrets you’ve been concealing. Say you’re happy now, once more with feeling,” he croons with an intoxicating smokiness. His words hang thick in the air, underscoring the complete arc of the episode: once ridden with anxiety and depression, and feeling alone in her battles, Buffy comes to greater appreciation for life and those she loves. The somber “Where Do We Go from Here?” and “Coda” turn the gaze upon the viewer and leave them to confront their own role in all this. “Where do we go from here?” the ensemble ponders, the music crescendoing with dramatic flair.

Twenty years on, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Once More, with Feeling” manages to be a campy good time, a masterfully produced musical, and a provocative conversation piece about mental health. Since my very first viewing, I’ve listened to the soundtrack scores of times and under very different conditions, from the shower to the morning jog, and like all great musicals, the songs more than hold their own. Despite Joss Whedon’s on-set behavior, which is absolutely unacceptable and downright loathsome, he was nothing short of a genius when he set about writing and creating one of the greatest musicals ever made. As far as I’m concerned, “Once More with Feeling” is a top tier musical and right up there with the likes of Little Shop of Horrors.