YMMV / Buffy the Vampire Slayer S3E9 "The Wish"

• Accidental Aesop: Of the more positive variety. While the episode is mainly a What If? scenario, it does seem as though there's a moral about not doing things in the aftermath of a break-up. It's even retroactively revealed that Anyanka's game plan was to catch a Woman Scorned in the heat of the moment and grant wishes.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Joss Whedon liked Vampire Willow so much that he wrote an entire episode about her.
• Evil Is Cool: Xander and Willow's vampire alter egos are incredibly cool and badass, becoming the Master's most prominent disciples. They also get to kill off a major protagonist! Vampire Willow even got brought back for another episode.
• Fanfic Fuel: How did Xander get turned? How did Willow? What happened with Darla and Luke? How did Angel became a wreck? Where's Faith? What was Buffy doing before coming to Sunnydale? How did Giles get involved?
• Harsher in Hindsight: The brutal death that Cordelia gets - being double-teamed by Vampire Xander and Willow as they slowly drain her blood - can look a little uncomfortable in light of Charisma Carpenter opening up about the abuse she suffered on set. One wonders if such a drawn-out death was an intentional Take That! to her.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Anya's debut episode has her trying to get Cordelia to wish vengeance upon Xander. Anyone who has seen the two of them as a long-running couple will find those lines hilarious. What's more is that one of Cordelia's wishes at the end is for Xander "to never again know the touch of a woman". Not only does she say this to his future fiancée, but he loses his virginity only a couple of episodes later.
• Magnificent Bastard: In the alternate universe created by Cordelia's wish, the Master's Harvest was successful and he rose to power in Sunnydale. Transforming the city into a vampire paradise, the Master rules over the humans with an iron fist, with the only resistance lying in the pitiful White Hats as led by Giles. When the Master learns from his Co-Dragons Willow and Xander that Cordelia mentioned Buffy's name, he immediately has them kill her so as to prevent Buffy from being called into town. That night, he unveils his master plan: utilize technology to create a new "golden age" for vampires by eliminating the need for hunting, placing the vampires at the top of the food chain where he feels they belong. Though Buffy interferes, the Master kills her with ease, only stopped when Giles resets the world to how it previously was.
• Narm: There is a scene after Vampire Willow and Xander die, and the Master and Buffy are literally pushing people from one side to the other in an effort to get to each other. Dramatic to the point of funny, the scene probably defines narm.
• Retroactive Recognition: Cordette #1 (the girl who is drained by The Master's blood machine), Nicole Bilderback, played opposite Seth Green in the 1998 movie Can't Hardly Wait. She also appeared in Bring It On with Clare Kramer and Eliza Dushku, and as Brin in Dark Angel.
• Signature Scene: The most remembered scene of this episode, and one of the most memorable across the entire series, is the climactic fight - where Angel, Xander, Willow and eventually Buffy herself are all killed.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: An alternate version of Sunnydale, where Buffy never stopped the Harvest, the Master rules, Xander and Willow are vampires, and Giles is leading La Résistance? Material that probably had potential for an entire season's arc of its own - or at least several more episodes.

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