The Body

Season 5, Episode 16
Written by Joss Whedon
Directed by Joss Whedon
Original Airdate: 26 February 2001

“I don’t understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she’s…there’s just a body, and I don’t understand why she just can’t get back in it and not be dead anymore. It’s stupid. It’s mortal and stupid.”

Anya

REGULAR CAST

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Emma Caulfield as Anya Jenkins
Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers
James Marsters as Spike
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

GUEST CAST

Randy Thompson as Dr. Kriegel
Amber Benson as Tara Maclay
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers

CO-STARRING

Kevin Cristaldi as First Paramedic
Stefan Umstead as Second Paramedic
Loanne Bishop as 911 Operator
J. Evan Bonifant as Kevin
Kelli Garner as Kirstie
Rae’ven Larrymore Kelly as Lisa
Tia Matza as Teacher
John Michael Herndon as Vampire

SYNOPSIS

Christmas, 2000, brings the entire Scooby Gang together for dinner at the Summers home. In the kitchen, Buffy and Joyce both reach for a pie that falls to the floor. In the present, Joyce’s unresponsive body on the couch leads the frightened Slayer to do everything she can to revive her, finally calling 911 and attempting CPR. The operator instructs Buffy to wait for the paramedics, and then Buffy makes a call to Giles. The paramedics arrive and try to revive Joyce with CPR. Buffy imagines that her mother is miraculously brought back, but suddenly reality hits and the paramedics call Joyce’s time of death.

After informing her that the coroner has been contacted, the paramedics leave, and Buffy throws up on the floor. Buffy covers up the mess, and then Giles arrives, worried by Buffy’s phone call. He discovers Joyce on the floor but Buffy tells him it’s too late and the two embrace. The coroner takes Joyce’s body away.

At school, Dawn talks with a friend in the bathroom after being called a freak and hearing other rumours started by another student, Kirsty. They return to art class where the class is sketching a nude statue and Dawn talks about Kristy and a cute boy with her friend. Buffy arrives and after a few moments with Dawn’s teacher, she tells Dawn that they need to talk. Dawn reacts hysterically to the news that her mother is dead, not wanting to believe the truth of the situation.

Joyce’s body is stripped of clothing at the hospital morgue by an examiner. At her dorm, Willow stresses over what to wear to the hospital, and finally breaks down into tears. Tara comforts her, kissing her repeatedly to calm Willow. Xander and Anya arrive to pick up Willow and Tara. Willow and Xander are dealing by crying while Tara tries to remain strong and Anya is confused by the whole situation.

The group discusses their plans and their thoughts on how Joyce died. Xander overreacts and Willow calms him by offering to physically fight to help him get his aggressions out. Anya asks inappropriate questions about Joyce and Willow snaps. Anya is hurt by the death like everyone else, but she doesn’t understand death or how expressing emotions will fix anything. Xander punches a wall to let out some of his anger and after his hand is cleaned up, the gang goes to the hospital to help Buffy.

Everyone meets at the morgue, hugging each other in support. A doctor informs Buffy, Dawn and Giles that Joyce most likely died from an aneurysm. He tells them all that it was probably sudden and painless and there was nothing that anyone could have done. Giles volunteers to take care of all the paperwork and arrangements for Joyce, which Buffy graciously thanks him for. Anya awkwardly expresses that she wished Joyce hadn’t died, but Buffy understands what she meant. Buffy and Tara are left alone and Tara offers her support because she too lost her mother.

Not wanting to believe her mother is dead, Dawn sneaks into the morgue to see her body. When she hesitates to lift the sheet covering the body, another body behind her suddenly moves and a vampire rises off a table. Dawn’s disappearance is noticed and Buffy finally finds her being attacked by a vampire in the morgue. Buffy fights with and beheads the vampire. The sight of Joyce’s body shocks Dawn and when Buffy tells her that their mother is gone from the body, Dawn innocently asks, “Where’d she go?”

TRIVIA

This was not Kristine Sutherland’s final episode in the series. She appears again in The Weight of the World, Normal Again, Conversations With Dead People and Bring On the Night. Kristine is a fan of sci-fi and fantasy, though not of horror. She loves Buffy, and watched it every week, though she has said on several occasions that she can find the show scary. She worried a lot when she was working on Buffy that Sarah Michelle Gellar was working too hard. Kristine used her role as Joyce to prepare herself for when her daughter became a teenager.

Joyce’s death had been planned at least as far back as the end of season three. Kristine Sutherland had planned to leave the show, or make less appearances, during season four to spend more time in Italy but was told by Joss Whedon that he had plans for her in season five. She said in an SFX magazine interview: “He said, “But you have to come back. I need to kill you, and it’s really important.””

James Marsters is not in this episode at all, the first (and only) time this has occurred since he became a regular character in The Initiative.

This episode contains Willow and Tara’s first on-screen kiss. Joss wanted the kiss to be natural, and not to be the main focus of the episode so he included it in this episode. He told TV Guide, “It belongs somewhere where you least expect it”.

There was no Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer… teaser at the beginning of this episode and there was no music, incidental or otherwise at all. Joss Whedon told the BBC Buffy website: “The lack of music, the no cutting, every act in one scene… it was all supposed to be relentless, almost a kind of boredom to create what I wanted to capture”.

According to Joss Whedon’s DVD commentary for Restless, the first act of ‘The Body’ opens with a flashback Christmas scene because Joss didn’t want to have the cast and crew credits appear over the main body of the episode, which he felt would ruin the atmosphere. He also states (in the DVD commentary for this episode) that he wished he’d included Joyce in the scene at the table, rather than having her separated from the Scoobies in the kitchen.

CONTINUITY

In the opening flashback, Buffy warns Giles and Joyce to stay off the band candy, which refers to the events of the season three episode of the same name.

GOOFS

Buffy tells Dawn the news in the hallway during class. Kirsty and her friends are out in the hallway watching Dawn and Buffy. Why aren’t they in class?

The paper towel which Buffy uses to wipe up the mess changes suddenly from being wrinkled to folded in a neat square.

Dawn goes into the classroom and takes off her bag. The camera cuts away for a second and when it returns, Dawn still has her bag on.

Dawn’s drawing changes suddenly when Buffy arrives in the classroom.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

EPISODE
I Was Made to Love You / Forever

STORY ORDER
I Was Made to Love You / Forever