Everyone’s finding out the original plan for this iconic Buffy character and I am shook

It’s no controversial take to declare that season four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a bit of a misfire. Not many hold it in high regard. For me, I do actually think season four has a lot of merit and is slightly underrated by fans and critics. The season is meant to be jarring and transitional to reflect the characters feeling lost and distant after school finishes like most do when they go through that life stage – but where the show makes a mess of it is the Initiative plot line. The military presence of the season and the general dislike for Adam as the season villain is wildly and justly hated, but there was one character back in the pilot episode of Buffy season four that everyone adored. Sunday, the sassy vampire who bests Buffy, is one of the most popular characters and most fans wish she stuck around longer. Fans are now just remembering that there was actually original plans for Sunday and her character in Buffy that never got used and it would have made season four SO much better.

Wait, who’s Sunday again?

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In the Buffy season four premiere The Freshman, Buffy encounters Sunday on campus at UC Sunnydale and is surprisingly bested by her and has to run for her life. The attack comes at a bad time for Buffy, who’s struggling starting university. Sunday and her vampire pals have been dominating the campus by killing off weak students and making it look like they dropped out because they couldn’t hack it. She’s instantly iconic, wise-cracking and confident – and steals every scene in the episode she’s in. She steals Buffy’s things, and when Buffy tracks her down to her lair she once again fights her and does eventually best her.

Not before Sunday crushes Buffy’s iconic Class Protector award her classmates awarded her with at the prom, however. Evil.

Sunday is notable for being quite a strong fight for Buffy despite being a seemingly regular vampire. It’s ambiguous on whether this is because she’s just quite a strong vampire or if it’s because Buffy is not in a great headspace. Likely a combo of the two!

The original plans for Sunday are wild and would have been way better!

So, as confirmed by Joss Whedon and discussed on the Rewatcher podcast, the original plans for Sunday was that she was going to be the big villain of season four and not only be a strong vampire, but she would have been a former Slayer who had been turned. This meant she had the supernatural abilities of the human Slayer as well as a ll the demon attributes one gets when sired by a vampire.

It’s wild the show never actually dabbled with this properly. In season one’s Nightmares, Buffy is turned into a vampire and then gets the confidence and skills to take on the Ugly Man in the hospital but it was more of a dreamscape than reality. Slayers as vampires, dubbed Slaypires, were however explored in the canon comics following the show ending in season seven.

Justice for Sunday, though! Even if she wasn’t the big bad of the season, it would have been great to see Sunday as a recurring secondary antagonist for Buffy for more of the early season four episodes – love those original plans.

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