I wrote yesterday about the use of songs in movies and TV shows, and today’s song is a splendid example. Though I bought Sarah McLachlan’s Surfacing album when it first came out and knew it pretty well, I will always associate ‘Full of Grace’ with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The Buffy fans out there already know what I’m talking about. At the end of Season Two (possibly the best season of television’s best show) Buffy is forced to kill Angel, the vampire she loves. She then boards a bus and leaves Sunnydale without saying a word to her friends or mother, and this is the song that plays over the final montage.

It’s a little more complicated than that. Angel, normally a vampire with a soul, had lost that soul earlier in the season and was wreaking havoc as Angelus, the nastiest son of a bitch you ever met. Buffy’s task at the end of the season was to kill Angelus and prevent a world-ending portal from opening. But unbeknownst to her, her best friend (and aspiring witch) Willow was attempting a spell that would return Angel’s soul and render him good again. Unfortunately, as fate (or more appropriately, the show’s creator Joss Whedon) would have it, Willow’s spell succeeded too late and Buffy was forced to kill not Angelus but Angel.

I’ve included a camcorder capture of the scene at the bottom of the page for kicks. It inconveniently ends right when the song is beginning, but I found one of those popular anime music videos to play the song.

Anyway, I’ve gone off on a major tangent, and now I’m itching to watch my Buffy DVDs again. My point is that great shows can do great things for great music, and vice versa. And here’s one of my favorite examples.