He's what you might call... impervious.
If you've seen Buffy The Vampire Slayer (and hopefully you have, because there will be spoilers ahead), you probably know that the show's third season is widely considered to be one of its best – and for good reason. Season three introduces us to rogue slayer Faith Lehane (Eliza Dushku), snivelling watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof), and the character I consider to be Buffy's best major villain: Mayor Richard Wilkins (Harry Groener).
While I say the mayor was introduced in season three – and that is when he made his onscreen debut – his character was first mentioned in the season two episode I Only Have Eyes For You. While the mention, a man telling Principal Snyder (Armin Shimerman) that if he couldn't handle being principal on a Hellmouth he should take it up with the mayor, was brief, it immediately set up his character as being both aware of the supernatural forces in Sunnydale, and very powerful – and scary.
When the mayor does appear, we first see him through the eyes of Deputy Mayor Allan Finch (Jack Plotnick). While the mayor seems perfectly affable, if a bit forward about telling Finch to washes hands, Finch is nervous and flustered. Later in the same episode, we see the mayor introduce himself to vampire Mr. Trick (Kenneth Todd Freeman), and convince him they should join forces. Although the mayor upholds his jovial manner, this interaction is far more sinister, as he states that children need to be "controlled" and, when Mr. Trick suggests he doesn't want to work for the mayor, says it "won't be an issue".
This dichotomy – the mayor's friendly, all-American appearance and his villainous true nature – is part of what makes him so fun to watch. He's not pretentious, angsty, or sanctimonious about the evil he does. He's not motivated by revenge, trauma, or a misguided attempt to improve the world. Mostly, he just wants to turn into a big snake, and have a great time doing it.
When we first meet the mayor, he seems to be largely uncaring beneath the surface. He has a goal, and he'll destroy whatever and whoever stands in the way of him achieving it, without a trace of guilt or empathy. His likeable demeanour is just a front; he's a politician, after all, and he needs the town to like him.
This all changes when, partway through the season, Faith kills Allan Finch and Mr. Trick, and begins working for the mayor in their place. While still evil, the mayor grows to genuinely care about Faith – he is a self-professed "family man", and she is his surrogate daughter. Although he is grooming her to be an assassin, it's hard not to feel endeared to their bond. Faith is characterized by neglect; although she is a teenager, her parents are nowhere to be seen, and we get the sense that even when they were still in her life, they were often negligent, and suffered from addiction. Faith's first watcher (a sort of mentor figure to the slayer) was killed by the demon Kakistos, her second watcher turned out to be an imposter who manipulated her, and her third watcher was the ineffective and unaffectionate Wesley. For the time she lived in Sunnydale, Faith lived in a dingy motel, although we know that at least two adults – Buffy's mother Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) and watcher Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) – knew about Faith's living situation and lack of parental figures, and could have offered her a guest room. Faith consistently feels that she is seen as inferior to Buffy, who is close with her family, friends, and watcher, and heralded by them as a hero, whereas Faith is rarely given the same affection or praise.
When Faith starts working for the mayor, she gets this praise, along with a new apartment, and a fancy new knife that she describes as a "thing of beauty". When Buffy eventually takes that knife from her and uses it to put her in a coma, the mayor freaks out. He tries to smother Buffy, who is hospitalized after losing a large amount of blood in the process of saving her boyfriend Angel (David Boreanaz), with a pillow before Angel stops him, and she eventually defeats him in his demon form by taunting him with the knife, appealing to his "human weakness": his love for Faith.
Like iconic villain-turned-hero Spike (James Marsters), who's head-over-heels for his girlfriend Drusilla, and later for Buffy herself, the mayor's villainy does not stop him from feeling love, and this adds depth to his character. If we weren't staunchly on the side of our heroes, we could look past his crimes and root for the mayor as we have done for the leads of everything from Despicable Me to Ocean's Eleven. The mayor's horror at losing Faith is heart-wrenching, and even in season seven, when Faith has redeemed herself, the shape-shifting First Evil appears to her in the form of the mayor, because he's been the most supportive, loving figure in her life.
All of this makes the mayor not only a fun-to-watch, sometimes sympathetic character, but a terrifying one as well. The mayor is slimy, dangerous, and well-versed in getting people to like him. His persona is straight out of the 1950s (which makes sense when it's revealed that he's an immortal who has been the mayor for three generations). The mayor comes from a time when people, especially the middle-class, non-marginalized folk who populate most of Sunnydale, had a more innate trust in their government, sometimes supplemented by either a lack of information about the injustices that were happening in the world, or a prejudice against the people being treated unjustly.
In Sunnydale, people are often shown to be ignorant of the demons inhabiting the town. In several instances, such as season two's School Hard, we see Principal Snyder actively covering up the existence of demons, and we learn in I Only Have Eyes For You that he is doing this on the mayor's behalf. Notably, however, in the episode Gingerbread, the townspeople rally against the demons of Sunnydale – as well as Buffy, and several good characters who practice magic – after a couple of "children" (actually more demons) are killed. The mayor attempts to appease them, describing Sunnydale as a "good town" and promising that "never again" will he let children be murdered in Sunnydale. He fails to calm them down, however, and the townspeople quickly become an angry mob, indiscriminately targeting magic users, who they feel make their town "dangerous", and almost burning Buffy at the stake.
The episode parallels the Salem Witch Trials, with Giles even making an overt comparison. The Witch Trials, one of the most famous examples of mass hysteria and mob mentality in history, resulted in nineteen deaths, the first victims being a Black female slave, a homeless woman, and a poor, elderly woman, who were accused of being witches after being targeted by members of the Church. The people targeted in Gingerbread are not marginalized (except for Alyson Hannigan's Willow, a Jewish lesbian, although she was thought to be straight at this point, and her mother was one of her attackers), but the episode, like the Salem Witch Trials, shows how misinformed or prejudiced people, especially those in a position of privilege, can quickly become violent towards groups who threaten their status quo. By the end of the episode, it is revealed that the town's mentality is the influence of the demon "children", the effect wears off, and the townsfolk revert to their typical, apparently willful ignorance.
Between his affable "family man" persona, his enjoyment of being evil and total disregard for the people he hurts or kills, his loving-but-manipulative bond with Faith, and his commitment to using his position of power to keep the people of his town in the dark, the mayor is the scariest – and best – Buffy big bad. That is, until he becomes an awful CGI snake...
Who's your favourite Buffy villain? Do you like the mayor? Comment down below!