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"Hush" is the tenth episode in the fourth season of the supernatural drama television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003). It was written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon and originally aired in the United States on December 14, 1999, on The WB. After reading critical response to the series in which the dialogue was praised as the most successful aspect of the show, Whedon set out to write an episode almost completely devoid of speech. Only about 17 minutes of dialogue is presented in the entire 44 minutes of "Hush". In "Hush", a group of fairytale ghouls named "The Gentlemen" come to town and steal everyone's voices, leaving them unable to scream when The Gentlemen cut out their hearts. Buffy and her friends must communicate with one another silently as they try to discover why no one can speak and find whoever is murdering the townspeople. They must also find ways to express their feelings about each other and keep some semblance of control as the town descends into chaos. The episode was highly praised when it aired and was the only episode in the entire series to be nominated for an Emmy Award in Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series; it also received a nomination for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single Camera Series (Michael Gershman). "Hush" addresses the limits and assets of language and communication and the disruption to society when communication breaks down. The Gentlemen are often counted as some of the series' most frightening villains, and the episode is frequently included on lists of the best of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

During a college lecture where Professor Walsh is discussing the difference between language and communication, Buffy has a dream in which Riley kisses her. They are interrupted by a young girl holding a distinctive box, singing a cryptic rhyme about "the Gentlemen". Riley and Buffy speak after class and they almost kiss, but are unable to stop talking. They leave when it becomes awkward. Buffy calls Giles to tell him of her dream and the details of the little girl's rhyme. In the middle of Xander and Anya's argument with each other over the meaning of their relationship, Giles asks Xander to allow Spike to stay over at his house, as Giles' girlfriend Olivia will be visiting him from London for a few days. Meanwhile, Willow attends a meeting of the campus Wicca group, hoping to meet others who share her interest in studying witchcraft, but is disappointed when they only talk about bake sales. Willow raises the subject of spells but is chastised for pandering to the stereotype about witches performing magic. A shy woman in the group, Tara Maclay, starts to speak up to support Willow's suggestion, but falls silent when the attention turns to her. That night, as Sunnydale sleeps, white wisps float from each person's mouth to a belfry, where they settle in the box from Buffy's dream, as ghoulish skeletal figures with metal toothed grins and impeccable black suits look on. In the morning, Buffy and Willow discover they are unable to speak and become visibly distressed; they soon discover that everybody is unable to speak. The group gathers at Giles' where they see that the news is reporting that Sunnydale is suffering from an epidemic of laryngitis. Buffy and Riley, each concerned that chaos will ensue, find each other attempting to keep order on the streets. Buffy does not know about Riley's paramilitary role as an agent of the Initiative; he in turn is unaware that she is the Slayer. They exchange a look and then their first kiss, before parting to continue their efforts. The next night, the ghouls leave the belfry and float into town accompanied by their straitjacketed, deformed minions. They knock on the door of a student. When he opens it, roused from sleeping, they hold him down and carve out his heart while he tries in vain to scream. At Giles' apartment, Olivia is frightened by one of the Gentlemen outside Giles' window. The following morning in a campus classroom, Giles uses a series of overhead transparencies to explain to the others that the Gentlemen steal the townspeople's voices so no one can scream as they gather the hearts they need, and that folklore indicates that they have been vanquished before when a princess screamed: the only thing that will kill them is a live human voice. On her own, Tara finds a spell to help the town get their voices back, and goes out to show it to Willow. On the way to Willow's dorm she trips, turns around and sees the Gentlemen floating toward her. In Willow's dorm she frantically knocks on doors which no one will open; the Gentlemen steadily pursue her. Willow hears Tara's panicked knocking down the hall and exits her room as Tara sprints into her, sending them both tumbling. They lock themselves into a laundry room and try to barricade the door with a vending machine, but it is too heavy for them to move. Willow, injured, sits and concentrates on moving the machine with telekinesis; she fails, but Tara sees what she is doing. They clasp hands and the machine moves swiftly across the room, blocking the door. On patrol, Riley notices shadows in the belfry and goes to investigate. Buffy finds two of the Gentlemen's minions, kills one and runs after the other. Riley fights his way into the belfry and while he is embattled, Buffy crashes through a window, fighting. He turns to attack and finds himself face to face with Buffy; she sees him as an agent of the Initiative for the first time. When a minion pins her down she sees and recognizes the box from her dream and gesticulates wildly for Riley to destroy it. When he does so, the stolen voices escape. With her voice returned, Buffy screams until the heads of the Gentlemen and their minions explode. The next day, Tara tells Willow she is special and has significant power. Olivia tells Giles that she now believes that everything he told her about witchcraft and darkness is true and that she is scared by the experience. Riley comes to Buffy's dorm room; they agree they "have to talk," but then sit in silence.

"Hush" explores issues relating to the limits and benefits of language and communication. During the first act of the episode, the characters are presented as being overwhelmed by language that is misused, used as white noise, and employed as a means of avoiding truth. Many of the conversations between characters, even those that are seemingly insignificant to the episode's plot or to the show's overall history, deal in some way with various aspects or forms of communication. Whedon stated that he was unaware of how "inevitably coherent" this theme was until after the script was completed. These pseudo conversations are what Buffy essayists Alice Jenkins and Susan Stuart refer to as "locutionary acts": language that is formed to have meaning but does not engage the listener. Community, notes Patrick Shade (citing sociologist George Herbert Mead), consists of institutions such as language, religion, and economics. When one institution disappears, Sunnydale residents begin to depend more heavily on the others. Mostly, however, individuals are isolated from one another during the silence. Even the Scoobies find their bonds shaken, as they are unable to use the witty banter that has marked them as a group thus far. (This awkwardness extended even to the actors: the first silent scene the entire cast attempted was the Scoobies gathering in Giles' apartment following the discovery that all of Sunnydale's denizens had lost their voices. It took several rehearsals as the scene came out mistimed, with all of the actors having trouble playing off one another without the use of verbal cues, or all pantomiming over one another. Authority figures in the series, such as the school principal, the mayor's office, and the Sunnydale Police Department, repeatedly either abet the town's endemic evil or choose not to hear about it. During "Hush", at Giles' apartment the Scoobies listen to a newscaster reporting that authorities in the town attribute the silence to a flu vaccine gone awry, causing mass laryngitis. Wilcox writes, "[H]ow many times will we see those in power maintain such a silence while evil proceeds? It is not surprising that [The Gentlemen's] attendants wear straitjackets; their garb suggests the insanity of such behavior—the pretense of civilized politeness while killing is accepted is a matter of course."

Two other episodes in the Buffy canon are also based on, or have elements of, fairy tales: "Killed by Death", where only sick children can see a demon who sucks away their lives, and "Gingerbread", where a demon takes on the forms of Hansel and Gretel to create a moral panic in Sunnydale. "Hush" is often compared to these episodes because they contain similar elements. Whedon intended The Gentlemen to be Brothers Grimm like monsters, with Giles playing the role of the wise man, Buffy the princess, and Tara the "little girl wandering through the woods". The Gentlemen murder by cutting chests open and removing hearts, penetrative acts. In Buffy's dream Riley says, "If I kiss you, it'll make the sun go down" and when he does so, it instantly becomes night, as if Buffy has crossed over a threshold. Riley's kiss creates physical and emotional intimacy, but initiates mental, intuitive knowledge as well: in this episode Buffy learns of Riley's secret role as a member of The Initiative. Threshold imagery is again used when Tara and Willow block the door with their combined efforts, shutting The Gentlemen out.

When the episode was originally broadcast in the United States on December 14, 1999, it received a Nielsen rating of 4.1 and a share of 7, meaning that roughly 4.1 percent of all television equipped households, and 7 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. The episode placed fifth in its timeslot and 93rd among broadcast television for the week of December 13–19, 1999. It was the most watched program on WB that night, and the second most watched program that week, trailing 7th Heaven. "Hush" was highly praised when it aired, not only for its riskiness in presenting viewers with extended silence, but for the frightening qualities of The Gentlemen. Robert Bianco from USA Today comments, "(i)n a medium in which producers tend to grow bored with their own creations, either trashing them or taking them in increasingly bizarre directions, Whedon continues to find new ways to make his fabulously entertaining series richer and more compelling. With or without words, he's a TV treasure." In the Racine Journal Times and Ottawa Citizen, Chuck Barney writes, "I wondered if this enormously entertaining cult favorite would lose some starch once our favorite little slayer moved on to college. But happily, it continues to win us over with the way it deftly bounces between the genres of comedy, horror and romance. The recent silent episode (Hush) was brilliant." Alan Sepinwall in The Star Ledger calls it a "magnificently daring episode", explaining "(w)hat makes it particularly brave is that, even when Buffy has been failing to click dramatically this year, the show has still been able to get by on the witty dialogue, which is all but absent after the first few scenes. Whedon finds ways to get around that, with several cast members—particularly Anthony Head as the scholarly Giles and Alyson Hannigan as nervous witch Willow—proving to be wonderfully expressive silent comedians." Likewise, in the New York Daily News, David Bianculli states that the episode is "a true tour de force, and another inventive triumph for this vastly underrated series" Brian Courtis in Australia's Sunday Age agrees, and writes that "Hush" is "(c)lever, well written and brightly directed Buffy at its best." Robert Hanks from The Independent in the UK writes that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in most weeks the funniest and cleverest programme on TV, reached new heights" with "Hush". Noel Murray in The A. V. Club calls it an "episode unlike any other, with a lusher score and some of the most genuinely disturbing imagery I've yet seen on Buffy." "Hush" was the only episode of the entire Buffy series to be nominated for an Emmy Award in the Writing in a Drama Series category. It also received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination. Following the series finale in 2003, "Hush" continued to receive praise. Lisa Rosen in the Los Angeles Times states that the episode is "one of TV's most terrifying hours". Smashing Magazine counted "Hush" as one of the top ten television episodes that inspire creativity. Keith McDuffee of TV Squad named it the best Buffy episode in the series, writing "(i)f someone who had never seen Buffy (blasphemy!) asked me to show them just one episode of the show to get them hooked, this would be it". TV. com named it as the fourth most frightening episode in television history. Screen Rant called it "an intriguing, clever episode with a unique dynamic It really is a genius installment and one of the finest television episodes ever produced." Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post listed the scene in which Buffy mimes staking The Gentlemen and its humorous misunderstandings by the other characters among the top five best Buffy moments, especially praising Sarah Michelle Gellar's (Buffy) comedic acting. Nikki Stafford, author of Bite Me! The Unofficial Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer writes "Hush" is "mind blowing" and "one of the best hours of television ever". For Buffy studies scholar Roz Kaveney, the primary reason "Hush" was successful was the acting strengths of the central cast. "Hush" is Alyson Hannigan's (Willow) favorite episode of the Buffy series, and the one Nicholas Brendon (Xander) considers the most frightening. Series writer Jane Espenson stated the episode "redefined what an episode of television could do".