Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
After returning from summer in Los Angeles, Buffy is still shaken by the Master’s attack and strains her friendships while vampire leaders Spike and Drusilla target her. Their plans bring Kendra, another Slayer, to Sunnydale, and Buffy gains an ally even as the gang faces threats ranging from a resurrected demon called the Judge to the secrets of Giles’s past. Buffy and Angel grow closer, but their relationship changes on her seventeenth birthday: a moment of true happiness breaks the curse that had restored Angel’s soul. He becomes Angelus again and turns on Buffy and her friends. Jenny Calendar completes her translation of the ritual instructions and obtains the Orb needed to restore Angel’s soul, but Angelus kills her and smashes the Orb before she can perform it.
Angelus’s effort to awaken Acathla escalates into a threat to pull the world into a hell dimension. Kendra is killed by Drusilla, and Buffy is blamed for the violence at school; Joyce learns Buffy is a Slayer and tells her not to return if she leaves. After Spike agrees to help Buffy in exchange for escaping with Drusilla, Willow finds Jenny’s saved translation and performs the restoration ritual while Buffy confronts Angelus. The spell returns Angel’s soul only after Acathla’s portal has opened. Buffy kisses Angel, then runs him through with the sword to close the vortex and save the world. Angel disappears into the portal; Buffy leaves Sunnydale by bus, grieving and unable to explain the choice to her mother or friends.