R.I.P. Nicholas Brendon, The ‘Buffy’ Star That Battled Demons On-Screen And Off

Photos: Getty Images, Everett Collection, Disney

What might have been joshingly referred to as a rough week for Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans – the Hulu reboot canceled at the pilot stage; Sarah Michelle Gellar given little to do in her bad new movie – turned genuinely tragic over the weekend with the death of Nicholas Brendon, best known for playing sidekick Xander on that show. It’s especially painful coming just about a year after the untimely passing of Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Buffy’s sister Dawn on the last three seasons of the show, and shared some tender moments with Brendon’s Xander.

Buffy is one of those shows where almost everyone onscreen did the best work of their careers, which is both impressive – the show lasted for seven seasons and was good-to-great for all 144 episodes, its crackerjack cast no small part of why – and, of course, probably a source of disappointment for the many young actors who never really surpassed that early high point. Though Brendon had a variety of post-Buffy gigs, including multiple roles for the Blank Theatre Company in Los Angeles, a recurring stint on Criminal Minds, and even some work contributing to Xander storylines in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic that employed several of the TV show’s staffers, he had a sideline in teen movies (like Gellar) or a regular role on a second TV hit (like Alyson Hannigan, who did a decade on How I Met Your Mother), or even a major character-actor career.

Some of this likely had to do with Brendon’s history of alcoholism, drug problems, health challenges, and, later in his life, domestic violence charges. After initially seeking treatment for alcoholism a year after Buffy ended, he was arrested multiple times throughout the 2010s, and seemed to maintain a contentious relationship with some of his co-stars – while defending series creator Joss Whedon, who was accused of misconduct on the sets of multiple projects, and has become persona non grata in Hollywood after a string of massive successes.

©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett C

It makes sense that Brendon would share some kinship with Whedon. Apart from giving the actor his big break, Whedon wrote the character of Xander – a non-superpowered, wisecracking teenage boy with a crush on Buffy – based on his own teenage experiences, and for better or worse, the character reflects that, especially in retrospect. Rewatching the show decades later, Xander often reads as a now-overfamiliar real-life type: The aggrieved nerd, minus any redemptive nerd qualities of expertise or skills. He’s the stereotypical “nice” guy who feels entitled to certain love or attention because of his supposed underdog status, ignoring his own mediocrity.

Yet despite Whedon’s toxic personal qualities, he’s too sharp a writer to let Xander’s worst tendencies feel unintentional. In fact, while the show clearly extends empathy toward the character, it’s often unsparing in exploring just how weak and flawed a man Xander is, even when he means well. Brendon rose to that complicated challenge repeatedly; though he delivers his quippy laugh lines with the required precision, he doesn’t make Xander into a Dawson Leery type – the hunk in a mild dork drag. Nor is he always relegated to pure comic relief. He’s a fully dimensionalized goober.

One of the most endearing elements of Xander’s character is his insistence on sticking with the so-called “Scooby Gang” on their vampire-and-demon-fighting mission, despite his lack of superpowers (his fellow nerd, the actually-good-at-school Willow, dabbles in witchcraft) – something that is also, as the show will regularly point out, kind of foolhardy. That’s explored most directly and comically in the third-season episode “The Zeppo,” where Xander, smarting from his ex-girlfriend’s insistence that he brings nothing to the Slayer-centric group, heads off on his own adventure while the rest of the character face a largely offscreen apocalyptic threat. Xander’s story occasionally intersects with what would normally be the episode’s A-plot, with Xander only faintly aware of the world-ending threat.

It’s a funny premise, deepened by how Brendon plays multiple levels at once: Desperate for acceptance from anyone, including the undead bros who adopt him as their wheel man; congenitally nervous about the danger he’s in; longing to be involved in whatever’s going on with Buffy and the gang; sure enough of himself, despite his insecurities, to know that when he attracts the attention of a car-obsessed girl with new wheels, she’s ultimately kind of boring. Granted, the episode also finds room form very Whedon-y wish-fulfillment when Xander casually loses his virginity to Faith (Eliza Dushku), but Brendon is also credible in that moment, again in multiple modes at once: Handsome guy who can step up to the plate when a strong woman makes advances; flustered nerd, nervous with inexperience; regular guy who can’t believe his luck.

The specific idea of Xander as a layered and sometimes self-defeating character was further explored a few seasons later in “The Replacement.” In this episode, Xander thinks he’s been replaced by a demon doppelganger but it turns out to be his authentic self, split in twain: One side gets all of his stumbling weaknesses, while the other gets his strengths. Naturally, it’s the stronger, more confident Xander who reads as more “off” (helped along by Brendon’s twin brother playing him in scenes where the two share the screen, though Brendon himself played both versions in most of their solo shots).

Those two Xanders kept showing up, albeit reunited in the same body, throughout the series: Leaving his longtime partner Anya at the altar in “Hell’s Bells”; saving the world by comforting a grieving Willow in “Grave”; shaming Buffy for her relationship choices in the seventh season; quietly making Dawn feel seen in “Potential.” Maybe Whedon gave Xander so many emotional scenes to play because he truly did identify with him, and as such was comfortable with a bit of self-glorification. But Brendon’s performances felt too raw to be an uncomplicated self-insert.

It’s also possible that Brendon’s personal problems emerged after his work on the show; it’s also possible that he related to Xander’s complex and deeply flawed character on a more personal level than anyone would have assumed at the time. Whatever the reasons, Brendon made what could have been a stock part into a multifaceted, entirely believable person, and an integral part of the show’s ensemble. On a horror-fantasy show, he was tasked with playing a non-superpowered human. But he clearly understood demons.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Guardian, among others.