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3.01 - Anne
On her own in Los Angeles, Buffy is working as a waitress. She's trying to escape her life - and the pain and death that go with it - but that pesky destiny thing follows her. When a friend of a friend goes missing, Buffy literally goes to hell in order to rescue the victims of an underworld slavery ring. She emerges victorious and returns home, where Joyce welcomes her back with open arms.

3.02 - Dead Man's Party
The gang seems thrilled to have Buffy back again, but things are strained after the summer apart. Timing in Sunnydale being what it is, Buffy, the other Scoobies, and Joyce all start to air their grievances with each other in the middle of her awkward "welcome home" party, but zombies, attracted by a mask from Joyce's gallery, crash the party big-time.

3.03 - Faith, Hope, and Trick
Still awkward around the gang, Buffy has a hard time dealing with their open acceptance of the new Slayer in town. Faith is bold and sassy and not afraid to tell stories that involve her and public nudity. But she's also got some serious issues, which Buffy sees while the two patrol together. After they face down the vampire who killed Faith's Watcher, Buffy decides to deal with some issues of her own. She tells the group what happened in Becoming, how she had to kill Angel even though his soul was restored, then she goes to the mansion to say goodbye to him, leaving the Claddagh ring he gave her on the floor. Turning to go, she misses the pyrotechnic display that announces a shivering and naked Angel's return.

3.04 - Beauty and the Beasts
Willow fears that werewolf Oz might be behind a series of maulings and murders, but the culprit turns out to be Pete, a friend of Buffy's new boyfriend, Scott. Pete has been taking a home-brewed concoction that turns him into a literal beast. Seeing that the victims are all connected to Pete's girlfriend Debbie, Buffy tries to get the girl to talk, but even though Pete beats her, she won't help Buffy stop him. Buffy confronts Pete, but he's surprisingly strong. He has her on the ropes and is about to go in for the kill when Buffy is suddenly rescued by a still-feral Angel.

3.05 - Homecoming
In a desperate effort to put something 'normal' on her resume, Buffy runs against Cordelia for Homecoming Queen, but she won't have a date for the dance because Scott breaks up with her. The vicious competition between Buffy and Cordelia escalates until the gang decides to step in and arrange for the two to share the limo alone to work out their issues. Unfortunately, the dance is also the night of Mr. Trick's Slayerfest, and the girls spend most of the evening being hunted for sport, arriving at the dance just in time to see their competition win the crown. Oh, and also? Willow and Xander share illicit smoochies. Shame on them.

3.06 - Band Candy
Mayor Wilkins needs to pay tribute to a demon, and Mr. Trick brings in Ethan Rayne to help. To create a city-wide diversion, they have the students of Sunnydale High sell cursed chocolate bars. Soon the entire adult population has regressed to their uninhibited, teenaged selves, allowing the mayor's henchvamps to abduct the babies Wilkins needs for his tribute. With Ripper's help, Buffy arrives in time to save the babies (and dispatch the demon), but a greater challenge awaits: the SATs.

3.07 - Revelations
The gang finds out that Buffy has been hiding Angel, and boy are they pissed (Giles moreso than any of them, considering his torture at Angelus' hands). A woman claiming to be Faith's new Watcher preys on Faith's insecurities and the group's distrust of Angel to send Faith after him to steal a powerful relic that he's protecting. Faith and Buffy come to blows. Seeing Angel's efforts on their behalf (added to the fact that he saves Willow from the rogue Watcher), the gang reluctantly agrees to accept him, but the chip on Faith's shoulder is bigger than ever.

3.08 - Lover's Walk
Willow decides to use magick to put an end to things between her and Xander, but a lovesick Spike interrupts, demanding that Willow do a spell to make Dru love him again. Buffy and Angel reluctantly accompany him to get spell ingredients on his assurance that when the spell is done, he'll tell them where they can find Willow and Xander. After a bracing spot of violence, Spike decides to forget about the spell, and Cordelia and Oz find their significant others kissing in the warehouse where they've been held. Cordelia turns to run away but falls through the stairs and is impaled by a section of rebar.

3.09 - The Wish
Scorned by Xander and nearly killed, Cordelia blames all her problems on Buffy and wishes that the Slayer had never come to Sunnydale. The demon Anyanka makes Cordy's wish reality, and Queen C is killed soon after in a Sunnydale that's overrun with vampires (chief among them being VampXander, VampWillow, and the Master). It falls to a Slayerless Giles to interpret Cordelia's comments and summon Buffy to Sunnydale. Buffy faces the Master, who snaps her neck just as Giles destroys Anyanka's pendant. Reality is restored, and Cordy gleefully goes on to wish for Willow to wake up covered in monkey hair.

3.10 - Amends
Angel is being tormented by the ghosts of his victims, who taunt him, telling him to embrace who/what he is and kill Buffy. But it isn't his victims talking, it's the First Evil, trying to trick him into taking out the Slayer. Or failing that, to take himself out. Buffy finds him on a hilltop waiting for sunrise and tries to convince him to go on fighting. Angel is saved by an unseasonable snowstorm that suddenly arrives to blot out the morning sunlight.

3.11 - Gingerbread
Joyce finds the bodies of two children who appear to have ritually murdered. Haunted by their ghosts, she starts Mothers Opposed to the Occult, an organization determined to stamp out the unnatural elements that pollute Sunnydale. MOO's growing influence turns the town into a police state, eventually turning its wrath on witches and Slayers. MOO abducts Buffy, Willow, and Amy to burn them at the stake, but a spell reveals the "ghosts" for the manipulative demon they really are.

3.12 - Helpless
At the Council's orders, Giles reluctantly subjects Buffy to the Cruciamentum on her 18th birthday. It's a test which strips her of her Slayer powers and pits her against a vampire with only her wits and resourcefulness to rely on. When the test spirals out of control, Giles ignores his orders and helps Buffy, for which the Council fires him.

3.13 - The Zeppo
Friends with a Slayer, a witch, a Watcher, and a werewolf, Xander is vulnerable to Cordelia's mean-spirited comments about his expendability and lack of cool. Trying to prove himself, he ends up with a gang of undead tough-guys who want to blow up the school. While the Scoobies think they're protecting their unpowered friend from an apocalyptic battle, he's downstairs saving them all from the guy with the bomb.

3.14 - Bad Girls
When Giles' replacement Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, shows up, Buffy decides to join Faith in a hearty display of rebellion and sexy dancing. But Faith's impulsive tendencies get them both in trouble when she accidentally stakes the Mayor's aide. As if that weren't bad enough, the Mayor has begun work on his "ascension", and when Buffy confronts Faith about the accident, Faith closes herself off, insisting that she doesn't care.

3.15 - Consequences
Troubled by guilt over her role in Faith's accidental homicide, Buffy goes to tell Giles what happened, but Faith beats her there and tells Giles that Buffy was the one who did it. Giles sees through Faith's lie, and the Scoobies discuss how best to get through to Faith. Wesley overhears them and formulates his own plan to take Faith into custody, per Council procedure. Faith escapes, and when Buffy goes to find her, Faith stakes Mr. Trick to save Buffy's life. But Faith isn't as "back in the fold" as her actions suggest, and she approaches Mayor Wilkins about the opening on his staff.

3.16 - Doppelgangland
While Faith enjoys the life of a "kept Slayer" and double-agent, Anya seeks out Willow for help retrieving the necklace that Giles destroyed in the alternate Sunnydale. The two perform the spell, but instead of bringing forth Aynaka's pendant, it summons VampWillow from The Wish. Willow appears to have followed through on her threats to remake her image when Xander and Buffy spot "her" at The Bronze in a leather bodysuit, but when she snarls at them in gameface, they and Giles all mourn Willow's apparent death. When she appears in the library alive and unharmed, they are overjoyed and have Willow dress as her double in order to liberate VampWillow's hostages from The Bronze. Anya is pressed into service to return VampWillow to her own dimension.

3.17 - Enemies
When a demon who offers to sell Buffy the Books of Ascension winds up dead, she, Angel and Giles set up a trap to determine Faith's involvement. Sure enough, she and the Mayor conspire with a second demon to rid Angel of his soul, making him Faith's new boyfriend and the Mayor's newest staff member. Once she spills what she knows of the Mayor's plans, Angel and Buffy reveal their charade. Faith is angry at being played, and Buffy is wounded by Angel's convincing performance. Giles thanks the second demon for his assistance with the fake soul-stealing, and Buffy tells Angel she needs some time apart.

3.18 - Earshot
Buffy develops telepathy, courtesy of some demon blood, and enjoys hearing what's on everybody's mind. But as the deafening press of voices in her head starts to overwhelm her, Buffy overhears someone plotting to murder the entire student body. She thinks she's found the killer in Jonathan, but the only person he wants to kill is himself. Buffy talks him out of it just in time to help Xander with the real murderer, the lunch lady, who has put rat poison into the food to exterminate the vermin of the student population. Angel and Buffy try to put their uncertainties about their relationship aside, and Buffy busts Giles spectacularly for his and Joyce's band candy encounter.

3.19 - Choices
The Scoobies hijack a box that the Mayor needs for his Ascension, and Faith counters by kidnapping Willow. In captivity, Willow discovers the Books of Ascension, reading as much of them as she can (pocketing the pages she can't) before Faith catches her. But she can't kill Willow because the Scoobies have called for a trade. Willow for the box. When they meet up, the Mayor can't resist imparting some advice about the lack of any future Buffy and Angel might have together. Between this and the fact that her college dreams are limited to nearby UC Sunnydale, Buffy is feeling pretty down, but Willow cheers her with the news that she'll be staying in Sunnydale too. She can get an education anywhere, but the good fight is in Sunnydale with Buffy.

3.20 - The Prom
Buffy is looking forward to one perfect night at her Senior Prom, but those plans take a serious blow when Angel finally bows to the inevitable and breaks up with her. Things hit a second snag when the Scoobies discover that a malcontented student is planning to unleash a pack of demon dogs on the dance. Because it's always something, isn't it? Buffy sends the others ahead to enjoy the dance and dispatches the dogs herself, arriving just in time to be awarded the Class Protector award from the deceptively observant and grateful students of the senior class. It's still not the perfect night she dreamed of, but she does get one perfect dance when Angel arrives to honour the occasion.

3.21 - Graduation Day I
Graduation Day has arrived, and with it the Mayor's Ascension. Distressed by Anya's news that it took a volcano to stop the last guy who pulled one off, the gang works on formulating a plan, but Buffy is distracted when Faith shoots Angel with a poison that will kill him if he doesn't drink the blood of a Slayer. Wesley tries to convey the Council's orders on the subject, but Buffy invites both him and the Council to bite her. If Angel needs a Slayer's blood to live, then Buffy aims to bring him one. She stabs Faith with her own knife, but Faith leaps from the roof of her building to evade capture, landing unconscious in the bed of a passing truck.

3.22 - Graduation Day II
Seeing no other way to save Angel, Buffy hits him until his demon emerges and then tells him to drink. In a shared Slayer dream, the comatose Faith tells Buffy to prey on the Mayor's still-human weakness, and when Buffy wakes, she sets the group to their tasks. They enlist the help of other seniors, and when Mayor Wilkins "ascends" in the middle of his speech, it becomes apparent why. The enire senior class has been transformed into a fighting force that fends off the MayorSnake and his vampires until Buffy uses Faith's knife to taunt him into pursuing her into the library. Buffy dives out the window to where Giles waits. He pushes the plunger, and the the entire school goes up in a giant explosion. Afterwards, Angel nods a silent farewell, and Oz encourages the group to take a moment and marvel. They actually survived high school.

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