‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Did Willow and Xander’s Relationship Dirty

The Big Picture

• Due to Willow’s long-standing crush on Xander in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they were bound to have a romance at some point.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer mishandled Xander and Willow’s relationship by having them cheat on their partners with one another.
• The cheating storyline not only ruined Willow and Xander’s relationships with their partners, but also changed their friendship going forward.

One of the biggest driving forces of Buffy the Vampire Slayer — aside from the titular vampire slaying, of course — was the friendship between the Scooby Gang members. While Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) may have been the slayer, and done most of the dirty work herself, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) were always there to lend a hand. Whether it be through research, distraction tactics, or assisting Buffy in cornering the creatures of the night. The friendship between them all was one of the greatest parts of the show because it helped to break up a lot of the doom and gloom that sometimes came with an episode — after all, they did fight off the apocalypse quite a few times. But they also brought their own dramas from time to time, and one of the biggest ones was the love triangle between Buffy, Xander, and Willow. Though, I suppose calling it a love triangle is a bit of a stretch since it was all very one-sided. Xander had a crush on Buffy from the moment he met her, but she didn’t share his feelings. Meanwhile, Willow has had a crush on Xander for years that he’s completely blind to. While Xander and Buffy may not have explored a relationship — unless you count the time he accidentally conjured a love spell — Willow and Xander did explore their feelings later on, and that wouldn’t have been a bad thing, if it weren’t for how the show went about doing it.

Xander and Willow Were Always Going To Happen

From the moment we found out that Willow had a crush on Xander, it felt rather obvious that the show would eventually explore a relationship between the two. Or at least, better explore Willow’s crush. And though they were great as friends, I was never opposed to the idea of them together. Sure they were likely never going to be endgame, but it would have been weird to just never address Willow’s crush. And it wasn’t a schoolyard crush either, it was clear that she had genuine feelings for him, and she deserved some closure at the very least.

Enter the Season 2 premiere, and we begin by following Willow and Xander as they stroll through a quiet cemetery, quizzing each other on movie quotes, and commenting about how quiet the summer has been. It’s all fairly innocent until Xander swipes some ice cream on Willow’s nose, and the pair share a moment that has them both leaning in, inching toward what seems to be a kiss. But then a vampire appears behind Willow, quickly shattering any shot at a tender moment, and the pair jump into slaying action, and are promptly reunited with Buffy. And after this opening, the almost-kiss is never mentioned. Willow even tries to reignite the moment later in the episode while at The Bronze by putting ice cream on her nose again, but Xander only responds by telling her she has something on her face, shattering her hopes of recreating the moment they previously shared. But even though the moment was interrupted, it did let us know that maybe Xander isn’t as clueless about Willow’s feelings as we originally thought, and that maybe he feels something for her himself. We’d soon learn that to be true in Season 3, when the pair finally explore their connection, but it’s hard to root for it when they hurt others in the process.

Rather than exploring a romance between Willow and Xander while both parties are single, the show waits until both are in steady relationships to have them act on their feelings. For Willow, those feelings were already there, but Xander’s come out of nowhere and seem to only come about when he realizes that Willow has moved on with Oz (Seth Green) and isn’t pining for him anymore. At the time, he’s in a relationship with Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), who is sort of a dream girl for him, the beautiful, popular girl who felt unreachable for a guy like him. Suddenly, he started to see Willow in a new light, and since she had had a crush on him for pretty much her entire life, of course she was going to lean into the attention he finally gave her. They carry on a little secret relationship, even going so far as playing footsies in class while Cordelia sits in front of them completely unaware. It was a recipe for disaster from the get-go, but it didn’t have to be.

The Show Did Willow and Xander Dirty

Willow and Xander were always going to happen at some point, it was clear from day one. After all, a show targeted towards teens is not going to miss the opportunity to explore a friends-to-lovers dynamic. It’s one of the most popular tropes for a reason. But you would think that considering they waited three seasons to do so they would have come up with a better arc for it. Instead, they had Xander and Willow cheat on their respective partners with one another, which is quite possibly the worst decision the show could have made. Cheating storylines tend to bog down a character, no matter how lovable they are, so giving such a storyline to two of the driving forces of the show was a questionable choice that didn’t really pay off.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was right to explore Willow and Xander as a couple, but it should have done so in a more organic way. Why couldn’t we have seen Xander slowly begin to have feelings for Willow while he was single? Why did the show wait until he was in a relationship with Cordelia to do so? The same goes for Willow and Oz. After years of pining over Xander and never being romantically noticed by him, she met Oz and finally found someone who noticed her and loved her as much as she loved him. Only then did Xander realize that he too has feelings for Willow. It just felt like a cheap cop-out on the show’s part. It wasn’t the juicy, fun kind of drama that we love in teen shows, it was just plain messy, and only served to hurt every party involved. But it wouldn’t have had the show just built upon that moment they shared in the Season 2 premiere. After all, there had to have been some previous events that led to that moment, things that we didn’t see between seasons. Perhaps it was just because Buffy was away for the summer and Xander wasn’t able to ogle her constantly, or maybe he really did grow to have some romantic feelings for Willow during that summer. Whatever the case may be, it would have been a much better choice to build upon that moment than go the cheating route. At least then we could’ve rooted for them. But cheating on their partners? That was just unforgivable. Especially when said characters are fan favorites, like Cordelia and Oz.

Willow and Xander’s Friendship Was Never the Same

While Willow and Xander ultimately ended their little illicit affair, and eventually found their true loves later in the series, the cheating storyline tainted their characters going forward. Not only did it cause Cordelia to distance herself from the Scooby gang, but it also put Oz and Willow’s relationship in a state of limbo for a while. They eventually made up and stayed together for a while afterward, but it was never quite the same dynamic after. And the same goes for Willow and Xander. Sure they were still best friends, and remained as such for the rest of the series, but there was a certain charm that was lost going forward. Their banter didn’t hit the same, they didn’t feel quite as in sync as they once had. There was a noticeable change in their friendship that was hard to ignore, and sure, maybe you could boil it down to being because they had gotten older, or because Xander didn’t follow Willow and Buffy to college, and because of that didn’t see them as often. But it was a pretty big change from how they used to be.

It’s also interesting to note that they never really discussed their actions afterward. They just sort of ended things and never really spoke of it again. That’s not to say we needed a big arc of them working out their relationship dynamic going forward, but surely a little conversation wouldn’t have hurt. Maybe it would’ve cleared things up a bit. At the end of the day, they are still teenagers with raging hormones, so it’s not entirely unbelievable that they would indulge in some reckless decisions, but I really do believe that they deserved to explore their relationship without the burden of cheating on their partners. Realistic or not, it was a bad choice on the show’s part, and only served to squander Willow and Xander’s characters, and any hope of fans rooting for them. Which is a damn shame, because the potential was there – it just got lost in the mix of raging hormones and questionable morals.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.

WATCH ON HULU