Buffy's Alyson Hannigan and Fans Agree: This is the Best Episode
Fans think that Alyson Hannigan's favorite episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was one of Joss Whedon's best creations.
When an actor is part of a long-running show, it can feel like all of the episodes are blending together into one endless story. Luckily, Buffy was something else entirely, as its creators were not afraid to experiment, especially when it came to the monster-of-the-week format.
Not surprisingly, when recalling her favorite episodes, Alyson Hannigan, who played Buffy's friend Willow Rosenberg in all 144 episodes of the supernatural series, named the most experimental ones.
As it happens, viewers also love experiments. And one of Hannigan's favorite episodes has made the top lists of many longtime fans because it was both terrifying and exciting to watch. This is Episode 10 of Season 4 titled Hush.
The episode features some of the creepiest Buffy monsters, fairy tale ghouls named The Gentlemen, who come to a town with the intention of stealing seven human hearts. In order to do this quietly, they take the voices of all the townspeople. That way, no one can hear anything while The Gentlemen are cutting out hearts ("You'll die screaming, but you won't be heard.") Chilling!
With such an intriguing plot twist, Buffy and the gang also lost their voices, making the episode almost entirely dialogue-free and focusing on music, visual effects, and acting. Naturally, this was an exciting and challenging task for the cast.
"It was a whole new way of figuring out how to act, the not-talking thing," Alyson Hannigan said.
The silent episode turned out to be so great that it became a favorite for many fans. Besides the dead creepy villains, fans loved the cast performances and the comedy relief moments (Giles and his epic overhead projector drawings). The episode also started a major storyline that made many fans' hearts melt. In Hush, Willow meets fellow witch and love interest Tara Maclay. Their love arc became the show's first multi-season LGBTQ+ romance.
Hannigan's other favorite Buffy episodes include The Body, which was a direct opposite of Hush with no music or sound other than speech, Ted with John Ritter as a guest star, and Dopplegangland, where Alyson got to play an extra role as the vampire Willow and spend time on set with her future husband, Alexis Denisof.
There is no doubt that these episodes are great. But none of them has left the same impact in the minds and nightmares of the fans as Hush.