Perfect Buffy Episode Secretly Channels Greatest Movie Of All Time

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 15 seconds ago

Normally, The Godfather is the last movie you’d associate with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After all, the former is the greatest mafia film ever made, and the latter is a show about plucky teenagers fighting demons. As it turns out, though, one perfect episode of Buffy managed to honor The Godfather in a powerful way.

In the episode “Passion,” there is a fairly innocuous scene where a newly evil Angel harasses Joyce Summers, causing her to drop some oranges. Shortly after, Angel murders the Sunnydale High computer science teacher in a brutal attack. These may not seem like related events, but the whole thing is secretly an homage to The Godfather’s “orange motif,” which went on to inspire decades of groundbreaking cinema!

The Not-So-Annoying Orange

What the heck is the orange motif, you ask? If you go back and rewatch The Godfather, you’ll notice there are oranges in so many very important scenes. At first glance, they don’t seem to have much special significance, and you might be forgiven for thinking that director Francis Ford Coppola just has a thing for oranges.

However, what’s important is when the oranges appear: namely, they appear shortly before a character is killed. For example, Vito Corleone is killed, it is while he’s peeling oranges. When the titular Godfather is shot, he is buying oranges, which dramatically scatter on the ground. When the Five Families meet, you can see oranges near the Mafia leaders that would soon be killed.

Because The Godfather was so influential, “the orange motif” (as this phenomenon was eventually called after it was used in the subsequent Godfather films) started popping up in other movies, including Point Break, American Beauty, and Requiem for a Dream. Fittingly enough, the orange motif also popped up in The Sopranos, where we see Tony Soprano buy some orange juice shortly before someone tries to whack him. Before that, though, Joss Whedon hid an orange motif reference in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Orange You Glad To See Him?

In “Passion,” Angel (who has recently lost his soul and become evil) harasses Joyce Summers outside of her own home, causing her to drop some oranges. While Joyce herself doesn’t die, those dropped oranges and the presence of the show’s scariest vampire foreshadow a major death right around the corner. Soon afterward, Angel kills Jenny Calendar, a beloved character whose death sends a chilling message to viewers: none of your favorites are guaranteed to make it out of Season 2 alive.

In retrospect, it’s not really all that shocking that Buffy the Vampire Slayer hid such a powerful reference to The Godfather in plain sight. After all, the show is filled with references to countless other movies and shows, mostly courtesy of quip-heavy characters like Buffy and Xander. Given how much of a film buff showrunner Joss Whedon and the rest of his team were, it’s not that surprising they wanted to homage one of the greatest movies of all time.

But is the orange motif from The Godfather the greatest cinematic trope of all time? It’s certainly one of the most prolific. As for me, I don’t really like this Godfather reference as much as some Buffy fans turned cinephiles. Why? Because, in the immortal words of Peter Griffin, it insists upon itself!