Buffy the Vampire Slayerfrequently courted controversy across its seven-season run.
Possessed by spirits,Buffy and Angelus are forced to relive the final moments of a doomed couple.
As Willow discovers during the episode, James Stanley was a student at the school in 1955.
He had an affair with his teacher, Grace Newman.
When she broke it off, he lashed out and killed her before turning the gun on himself.
Pete’s jealousy has pushed him to concoct a serum to make himself stronger.
It’s also made Pete more violent, as he engages in a domestic violence cycle of abuse.
Repeatedly in the episode, Pete gets mad and either beats or kills someone.
He then apologizes before blaming the victim and growing angry again.
Making matters worse, Debbie is shown repeatedly defending him to others and ends up killed by her boyfriend.
After being infected a temporary form of telepathy, Buffy overhears someone contemplating a mass murder at the school.
The situation only became more contentious because of the release schedule of the season.
Even with that in mind,the season took a particularly bleak turn in “Dead Things.
In one, she’s a heroic Slayer fighting to protect the world from monsters.
In the other, she’s a woman with schizophrenia in a mental institution.
The episode is infamous for two plot beats, both of which resulted in devastating results.
This scene remains highly controversial decades later.
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