If you're a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, Sarah Michelle Gellar's tribute to the late Anthony Head will leave you as much of a sobbing mess as you were during the Season 5 finale.
Shortly after news broke Friday that Head had died at age 72, Gellar, his longtime Buffy co-star, took to Instagram to publish a bittersweet post.
She captioned it with a quote from the Season 5 finale, in which Buffy (Gellar) gives a heartbreaking monologue about why she decided to sacrifice her life to save her sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) and the world. "Tell Giles I figured it out and I'm ok," Gellar began her caption, referring to Head's character, Giles, who was Buffy's Watcher or mentor on all things slaying before eventually becoming the titular character's father figure in the series.
"Well I don't have it figured out and I'm not ok. But I know I'm the lucky one because I knew you," Gellar continued before giving a shout-out to Head's daughters. "Thank you to Daisy and Emily who not only shared their dad with me, but with the world."
Gellar's post features a slideshow of backstage photos of her with Head. The last slide, however, shows screenshots from an exchange Buffy has with Giles in Season 2, Episode 7, titled "Lie to Me," in which a character Buffy thought was a childhood friend ends up double-crossing her in an attempt to become a vampire.
After Buffy realizes she's been conned by her friend, she turns to Giles for some guidance and comfort.
"Does it ever get easy, life?" Buffy asks Giles.
"What do you want me to say?" Giles responds.
"Lie to me," Buffy says.
"Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats. And, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies and... everybody lives happily ever after," Giles tells her.
The exchange between Buffy and Giles that Gellar decided to include may also be a reference to the sheer amount of loss Gellar has experienced in the past few years.
In 2024, one of Gellar's best friends, Shannen Doherty, died after a long battle with cancer. Last year, another Buffy co-star, Michelle Trachtenberg — with whom Gellar was particularly close — died of complications from diabetes at the age of 39. In March, another member of Buffy's Scooby gang, Nicholas Brendon, who played Buffy's friend Xander on the series, died as well. He was 52.
Aside from Buffy, Head made quite an impact on the small screen, especially in his native England. The British actor was well known for playing Rupert Mannion, the smarmy former owner of A.F.C. Richmond in Ted Lasso, and for being one part of the Gold Blend couple from an iconic string of Nescafe commercials in the 1980s.
