The Worst Buffy Episode Didn’t Need A Monster
“Doublemeat Palace” is widely considered one of the worst Buffy episodes, but it had the potential to be one of the best. The episode finds Buffy working at a fast-food restaurant, where she struggles to fit into the mundane environment, and then co-workers start disappearing. Early on it fits perfectly with the existential dread and class themes of season 6, but falls apart with a generic “monster of the week” plot at the end.
Buffy Needs A Paycheck
Airing on January 29th, 2002 “Doublemeat Palace” came out in the middle of season 6 which centers largely on Buffy’s trauma after being resurrected. The Slayer’s attempts to find meaning in her life after experiencing a peaceful afterlife are complicated by money concerns caused by her mother’s death in the previous season. Despite its reputation as the worst Buffy episode, “Doublemeat Palace” brings these themes together expertly at first.
Things Are Creepy Enough Without The Supernatural
Before it turns into the worst Buffy episode, “Doublemeat Palace” begins as a vaguely sinister exploration of menial fast-food jobs. It shows the way major corporations treat their employees as disposable cogs in the larger corporate machine while tying into its protagonist’s emotional detachment. Due to an overly controlling manager with cult-like company loyalty and worn-down employees, it’s much creepier before the murder mystery starts.
As Usual… A Demon
When Buffy finds the finger of a missing employee near a meat grinder it quickly becomes the worst episode in the series. Initially, she suspects the company is grinding employees up as a secret ingredient, a direction that would have been more thematically coherent if a bit on the nose.
Instead, it abandons its thematic cohesion entirely by having the killer be a frequent customer who turns out to be a demon using the restaurant as its hunting ground.
A Mediocre Ending
People calling “Doublemeat Palace” the worst Buffy episode frequently cite this ending as the cause. It comes out of nowhere, making it an unsatisfying conclusion to its central mystery and featuring a boring monster.
The demon behind the disappearances disguises itself as an old lady, but under her wig, it has a long, phallic, true head that looks cheap and cheesy.
The best option for the worst Buffy episode would have been a risky move, it should have avoided a supernatural explanation entirely. The disappearances could have been the mundane result of the restaurant’s poor work conditions and high turnover rate, an explanation floated earlier on but dismissed.
A bleak ending acknowledging that what Buffy saw as an evil plot was just soul-crushing work conditions would have fit with the season as a whole and paid off the pervasive dread.
It Didn’t Need The Supernatural
This approach would have turned the worst Buffy episode into a memorable exploration of the season’s recurring themes. Buffy’s inability to find any meaning or joy in her job at the Dooublmeat Palace emerging as an imagined murder mystery would have helped her existentialist arc, forcing her to confront how disconnected from reality she’s become.
It also would have given more weight to the class subplot throughout the season, focused on her financial woes in the wake of her mother’s death, connecting her existential crises directly to her economic anxieties.
I genuinely think if “Doublemeat Palace” had ditched the usual “monster of the week” structure it would be considered one of the best instead of the worst Buffy episode. The show had success minimizing its supernatural elements in “The Body” proving that it doesn’t always need a monster to succeed.
Generally the monsters in Buffy function on a metaphorical level, but in “Doublemeat Palace” the monster worked against the central themes and should have been abandoned for a more ground conclusion.
