While Buffy the Vampire Slayer is remembered around this time of the year for the Season 2 episode "Halloween," the show's other Halloween masterpiece, Season 4's "Fear Itself," does not deserve to be overlooked. While Season 2 took a look at the costumes and masks of the spooky holiday, Season 4 instead explores, as the title suggests, fear itself. Through a deep look into the worst fears of each member of the main cast (excepting Giles), the show gives a small thesis on fear that leads to an important revelation about the very concept: how small fears really are when one faces them.
Though Buffy had done a "What do they fear?" episode in Season 1, that episode was early enough in the line that the characters were still being developed and hadn't quite arrived at their Season 4 levels of complexity. This episode is part of the early run of Season 4, the first college season, where the gang is exploring life after high school. Buffy has recently been tricked into a one-night stand, opening up her wounds over Angel from Season 2; Xander is unemployed and aimlessly left behind by the main gang; Willow is getting too deep into magic, and Oz is about to lose control of his werewolf in a devastating way.
Buffy's Scooby Gang Experiences Their Worst Fears
The gang visits a college Haunted House party, and thanks to the frat boys foolishly carving a real demon symbol into the floor, the fear demon Gachnar has taken over, populating the house with the worst fears of everyone who enters. While the episode has the fun and humor of Season 4, it is also one of the more genuinely unsettling episodes in the series at times, and not just for the creepy set design. The gang's fears are manifested one by one; the first, Xander's, involves him becoming invisible to the gang -- and it takes a disturbingly long time before he or anyone else even realizes this has happened.
Oz loses control of his scary inner werewolf and even scars Willow as the house transforms him without the need of a full moon. Willow, meanwhile, not only fights viciously with Buffy over her sidekick status, but loses control of her magic in an attempt to prove her power. Finally, Buffy's fear of abandonment leaves her alone with just the demons -- a state her life is perpetually on the verge of teetering into.
Buffy's 'Fear Itself' Works Well as a Metaphor
When the gang finally confronts Gachnar, however, they get quite a surprise. When the demon manifests, he is no more than a few inches tall, much to the gang's amusement. Buffy easily stomps on him, and the reunited Scooby Gang enjoy a candy binge. The episode deals entirely with metaphor. In this case, the demon's size symbolizes how small people's worst fears people can be when actually confronted. While in some cases the gang's fears are grounded in reality, the most terrifying part of it is the unknown.
Fear is one of the most powerful and dangerous emotions that people experience. It can control them and make them act in dangerous, irrational ways. Finding ways to actually cope with fear and anxiety is a difficult process, because there's no clear guidebook. However, Buffy's "Fear Itself" has a pretty good tip. First, it's important to acknowledge what that fear really is -- whether abandonment or loss of control or otherwise -- because without a name, it remains an abstract anxiety. Second, it's important to remember that fears can sometimes be smaller than one believes. Finally, that the only cure for anxiety is to take measured action.