Yes, the character Faith Lehane from Buffy the Vampire Slayer makes several significant returns after her initial departure, appearing in later seasons of Buffy and even the spinoff Angel, evolving from antagonist to ally, with her story continuing in comics and discussions for future projects. Her arc involves being in a coma, body-swapping, going to prison, and ultimately fighting alongside Buffy in the finale, with her fate left open but with significant development across the series and its continuations.
After Faith tries to murder Buffy's vampire lover Angel (David Boreanaz) under the mayor's orders, the two Slayers finally battle it out in the season finale, a confrontation which leaves Faith alive but comatose. Faith returns to Buffy for two episodes in the fourth season.
"This Year's Girl" is the first half of a two-part story arc featuring the return of the rogue Slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku), who Buffy put into a coma in the season three finale. In this episode, Faith wakes up to find that months have passed and the Mayor (Harry Groener) is dead.
Re-joining the Scoobies
Like Angel, Faith switches from a more "passive" redemption to an "active" redemption. Rather than remaining in jail, out of society, she chooses to help fight "the good fight" and make the world better.
Post-Sunnydale
After thousands of Potential Slayers were activated worldwide, Robin became the Watcher of a Slayer Organization squad at the Hellmouth in Cleveland. Faith referred to him as "the ex," indicating that their relationship had ended.
The previous episode saw Faith use a magical device to swap bodies with Buffy, and Whedon wanted to use this premise to explore Faith's psyche and give her a moral epiphany. In Buffy's body, Faith experiences love and acceptance from others and realizes how unhappy her own life is.
After the Twilight crisis, Xander moved with Dawn into an apartment in San Francisco and they were officially together a couple.
One critic writes, "Drastic as it was, killing off Joyce was the logical way to bring Buffy and Dawn closer together, sever Buffy's last ties to girlhood and emphasize Buffy's inability to accept the limits of her power, a recurring theme this season."
On January 1, 2024, pre-production began for the fourth chapter.
Halfrek is killed and Anya is turned human once more. Spike is driven mad by The First, and soon it also gains control of him for a time. The First also reveals that Spike killed Robin Wood's mother, sparking a vendetta. Robin makes an attempt on Spike's life.
Buffy was always the more capable fighter over all. Faith may be stronger, but she's not disciplined enough to use her strength to her full advantage. Buffy didn't always win against faith.
Season 6 sees Giles reluctantly stepping back to allow Buffy to gain independence. One hundred and forty-seven days after her death, Giles decides to return to England.
Tara had become popular among fans, and Whedon and series writer David Fury decided that her death would elicit a strong response, something that Whedon felt sure was the correct course to take.
The season 5 episode "The Body" is the saddest "Buffy" episode in its run and certainly one of the most tragic television episodes of all time. You know the premise: Buffy's mom, Joyce (Kristine Sutherland), dies of a brain aneurysm, and the whole gang has to face the devastating fallout of her death.
During an interview with Boston Magazine in September 2024, Dushku revealed she had become a certified therapist, primarily focusing on psychedelic therapy for trauma patients.
Giles dies at the hands of Angel. When the battle was brought to Sunnydale, Giles attempted to bring the mʔ weapon to Buffy but Angel — possessed by Twilight — snapped his neck, killing him instantly.
After three seasons on Buffy, Cordelia left the series to move over to star in Angel, a spin-off series focusing on the reformed vampire Angel (David Boreanaz). The first season sees Cordelia move to Los Angeles, in the hopes of escaping her new-found poverty by becoming an actress.
To Joss Whedon, the tumor represented nothing more than cancer. He planned to kill Joyce as early as the third season, and he wrote the episode to reflect what he experienced when he lost his own mother to a brain aneurysm.
All of Xander's breakups, he brought that on himself. The second time he and Cordelia got back together he ruined it by cheating on her with Willow and then after he got caught he tried to apologize but she was completely done with him.
Darla becomes pregnant, a unique occurrence for a vampire. She sacrifices herself in order to give birth to her and Angel's human-like son Connor, ending her run on the series. However, Darla continues to appear in flashback episodes during the next two seasons.
The idea that Seth Green left for creative reasons is a lie. Green left because he wanted to pursue a film career and Whedon even intended to keep his character around longer.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured significant LGBTQ+ characters, most notably Willow Rosenberg and her girlfriend Tara Maclay, who developed one of the first mainstream, fully-realized lesbian relationships on television, breaking ground despite network hesitations, with others like Andrew Wells, Scott Hope, and Satsu also representing queer identities within the show's world.
As Buffy trains with Giles, she reveals to him that the First Slayer told her, on her vision quest (in "Intervention"), that death was her gift, an idea she rejects. Buffy also notes that while she survived killing Angel despite loving him, after the loss of her mother she knows losing Dawn will destroy her.
Knowing Faith injected herself with Orpheus, an enchanted psychedelic drug that poses a serious threat to her life, Lorne berates Wesley for allowing Faith to purposely get bit by Angelus. Connor updates Cordelia on Faith and Angelus' conditions.