Seven ‘Buffy’ Episodes That Showcase Michelle Trachtenberg’s Best Performances

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite TV show of all time. While I have often seen Dawn, Buffy’s little sister, referred to as one of the worst TV characters—sometimes even the worst—she was one of my absolute favorites from the series. The news of actor Michelle Trachtenberg’s passing still doesn’t seem real, and has made me reflect on both her career and her role as Buffy’s little sister, who was actually so much more than that.

As a teenager, I was positively smitten with Michelle Trachtenberg. That never entirely went away. She has always been one of those actors for whom I will watch whatever the movie is solely because I see that she’s in it. It is a surreal feeling to know that’s happened for the last time. I’ve been grateful, as new generations and audiences discover Buffy, to see people come around on Dawn, slowly but surely. I remember a time when it was almost unheard of to so much as hear someone call the character “underrated.”

This is absolutely a true story: the first time I ever heard anyone out in the real world, in person, complaining about an article that I wrote, it was about a defense of Dawn that I wrote years ago for Wicked Horror. When I wrote that, I never really touched on exactly what the character meant to me, though. To be honest, I never really even thought about it. I’m thinking about it now. For me, Dawn was so much more than an underrated character. She was a necessary one. She was essential.

I was a Buffy fan from a young age, but only got the WB on occasion, which meant by and large my appreciation for the show came exclusively through the novels and comics. I never watched it religiously until it moved to UPN in season six. That was when my fandom truly blossomed. Most people who grew up on Buffy started earlier than that, and were older than I was, watching the teenage cast while they were in high school and identifying with those struggles. When I was watching the show as it aired, I was younger and the characters were college aged, though by that point the show had dropped college almost completely. They were adults. But I had Dawn.

The slayer’s younger sister was almost the exact same age that I was, and she was my entry point into that world. She was the audience surrogate for us barely-teens just discovering the show. For her first two seasons, Dawn was kept at a distance from the dangers Buffy and the gang would encounter from week to week. She was a part of the show, she was in that world, but she was mostly an observer, watching along and providing commentary. Any young audience member could relate. Dawn entered high school around the time I entered high school. I obviously loved the overall stories and arcs of each season, but Dawn was without a doubt the character I related to most at that time in my life, watching those final two seasons as they aired.

Throughout her three seasons of Buffy, Michelle Trachtenberg was called upon to do so much, going from a weekly damsel to a heartbreaking, self-harming dissociating teen literally questioning the reality of her own existence just in season five alone. Part of the reason I will never condemn the final season of the show is that it finally gave Dawn stuff to do, made her a true part of the gang, and let her shine. While Buffy and friends spent the first three years complaining about doing research, Dawn was learning ancient languages on her own time just to be helpful.

Truthfully, Michelle Trachtenberg brought something charismatic and memorable to every single episode she appeared in, but I want to highlight some episodes that truly spotlighted her character and showcased her great performance.

“All the Way”

While still the lesser of the show’s three Halloween episodes, “All the Way” is fun because it it let Dawn go off on her own little adventure and basically slid her into an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? Rebellious teenage Dawn sneaks out of the house to meet up with her friend Janice, who had been mentioned several times but finally appears here, played by Amber Tamblyn. Joining them are some guys who happen to be vampires, planning to go “all the way” and turn the two girls. What I like about this one is that in this one episode, Dawn got to have all of the high school experiences that had been the focus of the show in its earlier years: sneaking out, getting in trouble, having your first kiss, kissing a vampire. Trachtenberg brought such an authenticity and natural teenage awkwardness to that particular, tender scene, which sold the moment when she had to deal with him as one deals with vampires that much more.

“Him”

“Him” is a goofy one. It’s not particularly beloved and it is very much about a bunch of girls fighting over one guy. But I love that it is a classic “the gang is under the influence of a wacky spell and hijinks ensue” episode, this time with Dawn in the lead. This was a full-blown showcase of Michelle Trachtenberg’s comedy chops, barely over a year before she starred in Eurotrip. She got to go big and over-the-top, and also got to play it completely straight and be just as funny at both. Dawn’s cheerleading try out in this episode is one of the most painfully embarrassing moments of the entire show. Her performance in this is so funny until it isn’t. By the end, there’s a blunt reminder of Dawn’s insecurity not just in being the youngest but in being the only one of the group without superpowers, special skills or years of high-stakes dramatic romance, as she—still under the influence of the spell, I must stress—decides the only way to compete with the older girls of the show is to simply give up and die. It leads to Buffy giving her the always relevant advice, “No guy is worth your life. Not ever.”

“Lessons”

There’s not a ton of emotional work for Dawn in “Lessons,” but that’s not what I love about it. “Lessons” is the first episode of the show’s final season. It’s kind of structured like a back door pilot for a Dawn series, and in it, Michelle Trachtenberg convincingly makes the case that she could lead one. It’s Dawn’s first day at the newly rebuilt Sunnydale High School, where she puts her very minimal slayer training to good use and helps her friends navigate a haunting at the high school. She immediately makes friends that seem like they’re meant to be her new Xander and Willow. Unfortunately, they are never seen again.

“Forever”

“The Body” was Buffy’s episode to deal with the death of her mother. It was raw and painful and the closest thing to recreating the actual experience of that out of any piece of fiction I have ever read or seen, let alone a TV episode. “Forever” is Dawn’s episode. This is about a girl unable to accept her mother’s loss, not allowing herself to admit its reality by grieving, deciding to bring her mother back, which forces a heartbreaking confrontation between Buffy and Dawn about how distant Buffy has been through the entire process. The adult/child dynamic flips between them in a moment the second they hear that deeply unsettling knock at the door. It’s probably the most “grown up” moment Dawn had gotten up to that point.

“Blood Ties”

This was the first Dawn-centric episode that really showcased Michelle Trachtenberg’s true depth as an actor. This episode comes just after the Scoobies learn of Dawn’s origin, that she was an ethereal mystical energy that was given human form and sent to the slayer to protect, thus making all of their memories of growing up with her artificial. The news completely offsets the way they act around her, Dawn immediately recognizes that they’re walking on eggshells around her, and then the truth comes out. Teenagers feel so out of place as it is, that Trachtenberg makes Dawn’s gut-wrenching discovery of learning the absurd and unreal truth about herself feel somehow natural. It is heartbreaking to watch Dawn, having harmed herself to see if she even bleeds, ask, “Am I real? Am I anything?”

“Potential”

Probably the standout of all the Dawn-specific episodes. Once the concept of potential slayers (the girls in waiting to be picked as the Chosen One when the slayer dies) had been introduced in the show’s final season, everyone was kind of waiting for the inevitable reveal that Dawn was one of them. This episode subverts that expectation in clever but also devastating ways. A spell to find the newest potential makes them think Dawn is one of them, and it makes Dawn think that, too. Dawn gets half the episode to deal with what it means for her life to possibly become a slayer, finally gaining an intimate awareness of that anxiety. As soon as she learns she isn’t, she relies on her wits alone to get herself out of a terrifying situation, just as she’s done all along. The speech Xander gives to Dawn at the end of the episode is easily one of the best moments for both characters. He is the only other person who intimately understands what it’s like to be the “normal” one and how everyone else in their circle is so far removed from that experience that they’ll simply never understand. It reminds the viewers that Xander and Dawn understand each other on a profound level. (Ideally, though, not in the way that the comics would later explore.)

“Conversations With Dead People”

Ironically, this is the only one on the list that isn’t an episode explicitly centered on Dawn, and yet it’s my number one pick. “Conversations With Dead People” is sort of an anthology episode, comprised of mostly unconnected, simultaneously occurring stories all somehow revolving around the title topic. A quarter of the episode deals with Dawn, by herself, basically dealing with a haunting in her own home. It’s not quite that, but you get the gist. It’s a mini-horror movie with Michelle Trachtenberg as its star, and it is the absolute scariest Buffy has ever been. We start off seeing her entertaining herself when she’s home alone, which is illuminating, because we never see much of that even though that’s Dawn most of the time. She’s dancing, watching old horror movies on TV, saying an adorable little chant about anchovies, and then it turns into pure nightmare fuel.

Trachtenberg sells the sheer terror we’re kind of used to seeing from Dawn, and then as she realizes this supposed entity is holding her mother back from sending a message, Dawn barely flinches at anything it sends her way, stopping at nothing to cast it out. Every other character had always had their moments to be tough, by this point. But seeing Dawn, bloody and tattered, roaring for this thing to get out of her house is simply incredible. It’s one of the fiercest moments of the show from any character. Dawn goes through the entire journey of a great horror movie final girl in about 15 minutes. It is an absolute powerhouse performance from Michelle Trachtenberg.

I recommend everything on this list, Hell, I recommend all 66 episodes she appeared in if you want to see her work on the series. But if you want to just watch one episode that shows what Trachtenberg was capable of when she was allowed to positively go for it, then this is the one.

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