Bang!

The explosion scene in Graduation Day (Part 2) was filmed at 5am in Torrance, California (where the show had been filmed for outdoor scenes the past three years). The sound and vibrations from the exploding set woke up many residents and set off car alarms, causing locals to ban any future Buffy filming in Torrance. Producer Gareth Davies said in an interview with the BBC:

Best day ever

Xander’s excitement over the explosion at Sunnydale High in Graduation Day (Part 2) was deleted from the episode: “Guys, we blew up the school! It’s the best day ever!”

Columbine

The episodes Earshot and Graduation Day (Part 2) were delayed by the network because of the events at Columbine High School, in which two students shot and killed several of their fellow students. It was felt that the events of the Buffy episodes (which contained violence at school) might have upset some viewers so close to the tragedy. Some Buffy fans were mad at the decision, as they felt the show held a good message for unpopular kids, but the decision was mostly supported by the Buffy crew.

Sarah on Buffy’s death

Sarah Michelle Gellar told the BBC about when she found out that her character would die (in The Gift):

The monster graduates

The Mutant Enemy monster is sporting a graduation cap at the end of the episode Graduation Day (Part 2).

David leaves Sunnydale

After Graduation Day (Part 2), David Boreanaz quietly left Buffy for his own show Angel, which aired in the autumn of 1999. He returned to Sunnydale a few times, in the Buffy episodes Pangs, The Yoko Factor, Forever, End of Days and Chosen.

Cordelia’s final episode

Cordelia Chase’s final episode in Buffy the Vampire Slayer was Graduation Day (Part 2). She then moved to L.A on a mission to become an actress but instead met with Angel, making her life take an unexpected turn in the spin-off show, Angel. Cordelia never returned to Sunnydale.

Rogue Wesley

After battling the Mayor, Wesley headed off to become a rogue demon hunter which led him to L.A. There he met Angel and Cordelia and joined their private investigation work (in the spin-off show Angel). He became steadily cooler, stubblier and hoarser over the years was unrecognisable from the stuffy old Wes.

Big snake

In Graduation Day (Part 2), the Mayor turned into a giant snake-demon. His Ascension is referenced in several future episodes. In The Harsh Light of Day, Harmony and Willow discuss the “big snake” that threatened Sunnydale High in Graduation Day Part Two. It was during the confusion at the end of this episode that Harmony was bitten and turned into a vampire. In Shadow, Buffy says the snake is “big, but not Mayor-big”. In Primeval, Xander says, “Does anyone miss the Mayor? ‘I just wanna be a big snake?’” In Smashed, Amy mentions a “giant snake thing” and “Snyder got eaten by a snake”.

Blow out

Willow says to Buffy at the end of The Harvest, “Maybe you could blow something up. They’re really strict about that.” Buffy blew up the school in Graduation Day (Part 2).

Buffy’s scars

In Graduation Day (Part 2), Buffy allows Angel to feed from her, so that he can live (or rather, continue to be undead). The scars from this encounter can be seen in future episodes. It’s not the first nor last time that she allows a vampire to drink from her. Dracula (in Buffy vs Dracula) and The Master (in Prophecy Girl) have also bitten our Slayer.

Comatose and lovin’ It

Comas might very well be a running (if depressing) theme in the Buffyverse. First, we had Billy in Nightmares who was in a coma. Then in Becoming (Part 2), Willow was in a coma for a short time after being attacked by vampires. In Graduation Day (Part 2) and This Year’s Girl we see Faith in her long-running coma. In Angel, Cordelia was in a mystical coma until she died, and Faith and Angel lay in mystical comas in the episode Orpheus.

Cordy’s first stake

Cordelia stakes a vampire for the first time in Graduation Day (Part 2).

Faith’s knife

The Mayor gave Faith an intricate knife as a present in Choices. She used it to kill one of the Gavrok spiders and Buffy then took it away. Buffy stabbed Faith with the knife to try and cure Angel in Graduation Day (Part 1), then taunted the Mayor-snake with it in Graduation Day (Part 2). In This Year’s Girl, Faith dreamt that Buffy killed the Mayor with the same knife, and also that she still had the knife in her when talking to Buffy whilst making a bed.

Faith: good or bad girl?

Faith, by most people’s perspectives, during her time in season three appearances would be considered a ‘bad girl’ because of her rampant immorality, violence, murder, and lack of respect for any rules or legal system. This is embodied in the episode Bad Girls where she accidentally kills the Deputy Mayor yet refuses to accept responsibility, which causes her turn to evil. However, her evil boss, Mayor Wilkins, says in Graduation Day (Part 2), “Faith’s a good girl.” It all depends on your perspective.

Fire bad

In Flooded, Buffy suggests she burn her house down for the insurance. She says, “plus fire? Pretty.” In Graduation Day (Part 2), Buffy said to Giles “fire bad, tree pretty”. She also said the line, “fire bad!” in Beer Bad.

Foreshadowing the Dawn arc

There are two significant references to the character of Dawn before she first appeared in Buffy vs Dracula:
In This Year’s Girl, Buffy and Faith are making a bed in Faith’s dream. They have the following conversation:

Buffy: “I wish I could stay, but…”
Faith: “Oh, you have to go.”
Buffy: “That’s just what…”
Faith: “Little sis coming. I know.”
Buffy: “So much to do before she gets here.”

As well as referencing Dawn verbally, the two Slayers are making the bed in Dawn’s future room.
The second reference occurs in the episode Restless. Tara says to Buffy, “Be back before Dawn”.
There is also a couple more, slightly cryptic, references: In Graduation Day (Part 1), Buffy walks into Faith’s apartment and Faith says, “Look at you, all dressed up in big sister’s clothes.” In Restless. In Giles’ dream, Olivia is pregnant, which may signify the coming of Dawn as Giles became a father figure to her after Joyce died.
In Graduation Day (Part 2), Buffy dreams that she and Faith are making a bed together (again!). Faith says, “Miles to go. Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7-3-0″. Faith’s riddle is explained later in the series. “730″ is a forshadowing of Buffy’s own death (Buffy dies to save Dawn). It means 365 multiplied by 2, meaning in two year’s time. This date coincides with the episode The Gift where Buffy dies. The number crops up again in season four’s finale Restless, where Buffy sees a clock saying 7:30 and Tara tells her the clock is wrong. It is: there are no longer 730 days before Buffy’s death, there are 365.

Paternal love

The father-daughter relationship between Giles and Buffy was mirrored by that of the Mayor and Faith. This is never more evident than his distress over Faith’s coma in Graduation Day (Part 2), when he tried to suffocate the one who hurt her - Buffy. The Mayor made a tape sometime between Faith’s stabbing and his Ascension - and gave her a contraption she used in season four’s This Year’s Girl. This wasn’t the Mayor’s last episode. He appeared again twice in season seven, in Lessons and Touched.

Slayage alternatives

Buffy shows some ingenious ways of killing demons, and the gang have some great suggestions too. Here’s a list of alternative ways of killing, seen or mentioned on the show:

• Hummus and Ebola: In Graduation Day (Part 2), Oz suggests, “We attack the Mayor with hummus.” Cordelia later suggests, “No, we’ll get a box with the Ebola virus and… or it doesn’t even have to be real. We can just get a box that says Ebola on it and… chase him! … With the box!”
• Drowning and licking: In Something Blue, When Spike’s in the bath-tub at Giles’ apartment, he yells, “Passions is on! Timmy’s down the bloody well, and if you make me miss it, I’ll…” Giles yells back at him “You’ll do what? Lick me to death?” In the same episode, Anya and Xander drown a Pargo demon to kill it (the only way, apparently).
• Nuzzling: In Buffy vs Dracula, Riley says to Giles about his being found with Dracula’s ladies: “You were gonna nuzzle ‘em to death?”
• Rocket launcher: In Him, Buffy attempts to kill Principal Wood with a rocket launcher, something she killed the Judge with in Innocence.
• Puppets: In Get It Done, Xander says, “Puppets! That’s it. The First hates puppets. Now if we can just airlift Kermit, Fozzy the Bear and Miss Piggy into town, The First will be a-runnin’.”

Slayer kisses

In Enemies, Angel kisses Buffy on her forehead in her bedroom and Faith kisses Buffy in the same place before running away after they fight. Buffy returns Faith’s forehead kiss in Graduation Day (Part 2), after putting the Slayer in a coma.

Soldier Boy

A large part of the episodes Innocence and Graduation Day (Part 2) rely on Xander’s recollection of the events of Halloween, when he became a soldier for a short time. In Innocence he says he still has all his memories of being a soldier, including “procedure, ordnance, access codes, everything.” Xander’s military knowledge was a great plot device help to Buffy writers when they needed lots of gun power easily. We discover in the episode The Harsh Light of Day that Xander has lost his power when he has a girly scrap with Harmony, though in The I in Team, he says “My pseudo-soldier memory bank tells me that’s a tracer.” In Goodbye, Iowa, Anya says, “It’s not like he was in the ‘Nam. He was G.I. Joe for one night.”
In Never Leave Me, Xander realises that Spike has a “trigger”, to which Willow replies, “Is this left over from your days in the Army?” He admits that knowledge comes from Army movies. In Potential, Dawn says to Xander, “Well, you had that sexy Army training for a while.”

Suffocation: The in way to kill?

In Graduation Day (Part 2), Mayor Wilkins attempts to suffocate Buffy using his hand in the Sunnydale hospital after he learns that Buffy nearly killed Faith putting her into a coma; however Angel stops him. After Buffy defeats Glory, Giles suffocates Ben (Glory’s human side) in The Gift in the same manner that the Mayor used.

The casualties

In Graduation Day (Part 2), Larry and Principal Snyder are killed by the Mayor. Harmony is bitten by a vampire. She returns in season four as a fabulous vampire. I’m not sure how she was turned as when she was bitten there was a massive amount of confusion, so the vampire would have had to be really focused to bite Harmony and then ensure she drank his blood to turn.

Ascension

An Ascension is when a mortal or part-demon becomes pure demon, resulting in massive destruction. In Graduation Day (Part 1) Anya revealed she was the only living person to witness an Ascension, and it took a volcano to destroy the resulting demon (Lohesh, a four winged soul killer). In Graduation Day (Part 2), The Mayor of Sunnydale ascended to become a giant snake-like demon. He was eventually blown up, along with the rest of the school.

Kepler volume

Giles asks Xander to look through the Kippler volum

Ebola Virus

In Graduation Day (Part 2), Cordelia suggested a novel way of stopping the Mayor’s Ascension, “We’ll get a box with the Ebola virus and… and… Or it doesn’t even have to be real, we can just get a box that says Ebola on it and… um… chase him… with the box…”.

Little Miss Muffet

In Graduation Day (Part 2), Faith says, “Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7-3-0″ (a foreshadowing of the arrival of Buffy’s sister Dawn). In the season five episode Real Me, Dawn is approached by a mad man who calls her “curds and whey”. This is a line from the popular children’s nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet. In No Place Like Home, Glory says, “I’m just going to sit on this tuffet…” which is apt as she’s looking for the Key, which is in the shape of Dawn.

Popeye

In Graduation Day (Part 2), the Mayor says of Angel, “Looks like someone has been eating his spinach.” This is a reference to Popeye, who got his amazing strength from eating spinach.

Robert Frost

In The Prom, Buffy says “Miles to go before we sleep”, referring to Robert Frost’s poem Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening. The poem is quoted again in the dream sequence between Faith and Buffy in Graduation Day (Part 2), when Faith says, “Miles to go.”

Seen at 10.49 minutes:

As Angel carries Buffy through the hospital, we can see that Sarah Michelle Gellar is hanging on to his neck before realising she’s supposed to be unconscious and lets go.

Seen at 11.42 minutes:

When the camera moves into Faith’s hospital room (which is next to Buffy’s room), there’s a guard stationed in the hallway outside. When the Mayor tries to smother Buffy, the nurse yells to “call security”, but no one appears. Angel alone ends up saving Buffy from the Mayor’s grasp. Where’d the guard go so fast in under 2 minutes?!

Seen at 11.45 minutes:

When Angel uses the phone, you can see the reflection of his fingers and his shirt in the chrome plating of the phone.

Seen at 13.28 minutes:

As Angel pulls the Mayor off Buffy in the hospital, you can briefly see his reflection in the glass of the room’s door.

Seen at 25.27 minutes:

In Graduation Day (Part 2), when Wesley and Cordelia kiss, Cordelia’s hands keep changing position depending on the camera view. When the view is behind Wesley, Cordy’s hands are on Wesley’s waist, but when the view is behind Cordy, they are by Wesley’s neck. In the shot where they start kissing for the second time, Cordy’s hands are back on Wesley’s waist.

Seen at 29.37 minutes:

During the Mayor’s speech to the class of 1999, he comments on Sunnydale’s centennial, “The one hundredth anniversary of the founding of Sunnydale.” That would mean Sunnydale was founded in 1899. But in School Hard and Lover’s Walk, when Spike smashes into the ‘Welcome to Sunnydale’ sign, it says Sunnydale was founded in 1909.

Seen at 32.32 minutes:

The graduating kids’ parents didn’t exactly get a good view of the ceremony. Their seats were behind the stand where their children were sitting!

Seen at 35.08 minutes:

Angel’s stunt double can be seen clearly after Xander orders the kids to fight “hand to hand”.

Seen at 40.48 minutes:

At the end, when the gang are discussing the battle, there is a couple walking down the pavement, away from the group. The camera does a few close-ups and when it cuts back to the far-away shot, the couple is still walking close to the group.