I just saw 'The Body'

POSTED BY: reginaroadie
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 15:51
VIEWED: 5815
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REGINAROADIE

Friday, October 7, 2005 7:45 AM

Last night, I saw for the first time what many consider to be the best episode of BUFFY last night. Goin in, I was a bit dubious. But after the first ten minutes, when I saw Buffy put her hand to her mouth after she refers to Joyce as "the body", I'm inclined to agree with them.

I knew it was coming a mile away, but just seeing Joyce sprawled over the couch, her skin already pale and that wide eyed vacant look in her eyes, just terrified me more than any monster Joss could come up with. And seeing how all the characters reacted to the news and how they cope with the whole thing also really moved me. Especially Anya's little speech where she says "She's dead and I don't know why." That's it right there. That one line sums up the human race's attitude towards death.

I like how the ep deals with the physical aspect of death and the initial reaction in those first few hours of the news that someone close to you has died suddenly without warning. It leaves the spiritual aspect of it aside, which is something that you would expect to be dealt with first. I think the only other bit of tv that deals with death on such an intimate level that "The Body" did is all of SIX FEET UNDER, especially the last few episodes of the series. I know some people might think "How dare he compare that ep to anything that other show had produced", and vise versa. I'm a fan of both of those, and I actually think they're good companion pieces to how tv deals with actual death. I'd be interested in hearing what Joss Whedon or Alan Ball would have to say about each other's work.

The ep actually made me think about how I actually have perceived and dealt with a death in the family. It's happened twice for me. In 97, just before my 12th birthday, my Aunt Jill and Uncle Phil were expecting their third child. And we were cleaning out the combine (it was harvest around the end of August), and my grandpa had come to us to tell us the news that the baby was a stillborn. We stopped work then and we went back to the house to tell my mom the news. My brother and my dad had gone ahead to tell her the news and I had to go to the house first for some reason or another. But when I got to the shop where she was working on a project, she was already sobbing and cursing. We had a group hug, but then we kinda went our own ways. I agree with a lot of Joss's comments about death and how it actually splits us apart more than brings us together. I remember after that, I was in the basement by myself, just grieving. And to deal with the grief, I put on a movie. I didn't want to watch an action flick, or anything in which someone died. So I ended up putting on THE SOUND OF MUSIC, of all goddamn things. In retrospect, it didn't really do anything for me (the movie never did anything for me any time I had watched it). Eventually, I did get over it, and we went back to work that afternoon. It was actually a few days before Princess Diana was killed, so I always thought that Di was taking care of the baby up in Heaven. Unlike Joss, I do believe in the "Big Sky Bully", and I think that death is an essential component to life. Life and death is the ultimate ying/yang principle. One cannot exist without the other.

The second time it happened was a few years ago, actually. It was with my Grandma Fran. Of the two gma's I had, she was my favorite of the two. She was really into movies, she was friendly and funny and warm. Everything you want a grandma to be. And she was also a chain smoker. She went in for a checkup at the hospital, and she didn't come out. She had lung caner and brain tumors. She only had a few months, if any at all. I only saw her twice when she was in the hospital and she looked bad. I was still able to talk to her and tell her all my feelings. All of us did, so there wasn't that sense of "I'll never get to tell her how I feel". It was a few months later that I think I got a phone call or my brother Matt told me that she had died, and I didn't like bawl or do anything theatrical. Instead, I was a bit ambivalent to it. I mean, it was inevitable, so it di

CHRISISALL

Monday, October 17, 2005 4:57 PM

I saw the ep a couple of weeks ago for the first time, and it destroyed me, brought up all manner of stored up grief I'd been carrying around for decades. You never really recover from your mom's death, you just learn to live with it. And Buffy's experience with it was REALLY close to my own experience, so much so that I can't really go into comparing details (tissues are scarce right now, I used 'em up during the ep).
Your stories were touching and real, I wish I had the time and tissues to respond in kind.

Most powerful 45 minutes I ever viewed.

Later,

Chrisisall

ANGELCRUSHERD

Saturday, November 12, 2005 4:30 AM

I was fascinated by the reactions of Anya/Xander (no surprise there) but Joyce's death didn't do anything for me. Frankly, I didn't like her character at all, especially after she willingly led the town against every one of our heroes. I was glad to see her go and her death provided a lot of quality to the episode.

I kind of wish she would've died around the first turning of Angel but then Anya wouldn't have been around to freak out, and that's a good part. Anyway, kudos to Joss for using her character to explore the concept of death and cleaning up the cast at the same time. No disrespect to Kristine, of course, I don't like the character, not her as an actress.

KNIBBLET

Saturday, November 12, 2005 4:41 AM

Willingly led the town against the Scoobies?

Are you talking about the episode with the demon who misled the town i.e., murdered twins, etc?

She was under the influence of the demon and no more responsible for her actions than when Xander's love spell backfired and everyone female in Sunnydale wanted hot Xander action.

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ANGELCRUSHERD

Saturday, November 12, 2005 7:59 AM

It was my understanding that the two children merely haunted her, no brainwashing involved. It seemed to me as if her actions were her own, although brought on in response to the demon- not coerced by it.

RIVERSBOUNTY

Saturday, November 12, 2005 1:37 PM

Uh, that was the whole power of the demon. The thrall it held over people. And geez, it was Joyce!

I know in the first few seasons she didn't know about the slayer thing and got on Buffy's case, and then when she found out it took her a while to adjust, but the idea that your daughter, someone you gave birth to, could die any night and you can't stop it, that sucks. She was being a mom.

I remember episode 3 of Season 2, "School Hard," where Joyce comes back and stops Spike from killing Buffy. I loved Joyce then, and no matter what she did after that, I knew her heart was in the right place. And I thought of my own mom, who I hope I don't take for granted, because she's always there for me, and I love her.

Joyce was trying really hard to understand and have a relationship with her daughter. By the time she died, she had finally succeeded. But even forgetting Joyce, as "The Body" was more everyone's reactions to her death than the death itself. I put myself in their shoes, and the thought of losing my own mom is devasting to me.

And perhaps the saddest part of all was the aftermath for Buffy. Joyce saw her always as the person she was, not as the Slayer who was expected to always be prepared for anything and strong all the time. Because once she lost her mom, her final link to her normal childhood, her normal life, hell, a shoulder to cry on no matter what, she began a downward spiral that took a long time to recover from. That pretty much goes for the rest of the gang too, as Joyce was the parent they all wished they had. Warm, loving, and protective.

Joyce was a huge part of the show, even if her amount of screentime says otherwise.

ANGELCRUSHERD

Saturday, November 12, 2005 6:56 PM

I guess I was wrong then. I still don't think of Joyce as a crucial character. Yeah, her heart was in the right place and she gave a perspective that no other character could, but I just didn't feel anything special from her. I'm not saying she shouldn't have been present, all the characters play their roles in the unfolding of events. The Body was a good episode and without Joyce it wouldn't have been made.

About the not having known about the Slayer- Buffy says late in the series that she told her parents about it before they moved to Sunnydale and they put her in a mental institution. Whatever adjusting that Joyce had to do should've been menial because she had already gone through the phase before, just full of denial.

FALLENANGEL

Sunday, November 13, 2005 6:01 AM

Well, that episode hit me like a ton of bricks. It kind of woke me up about the whole death thing. And Joss in that ep made it real.

I never really experinced death from someone close to me though. My mom, right now, is going through chemo. She has pancreatic cancer. She has had breast cancer in the past and beat it but now it made it's way in a different place. This is giving me a lot of thought about death. It, naturally, scares me. I don't know what happens after you die. Is there a heaven you go to like the so many times she told me growing up? Or it's all suger-coated so ppl can feel a lil bit easier about death? I hate surprises.

The Body ep gave me a lot of thouhgt of what would I do when MY mother dies. I have an older sister and brother but the thought that comes to mind is that I'll be alone. No one will take care of my anymore. I'll be on my own. That's scary. Now that I think about it.

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"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."-Wash.

SHINYGEEKET

Wednesday, November 30, 2005 8:59 AM

I think The Body is one of the best Buffy eps, hands down. It hit me hard the first time I saw it, and does even more so now because I've actually lost a parent. Buffy was a show that dealt with death in a lot of ways, but I don't think it was ever more realistic, in the sense of actual grief, than in this episode.

"We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... 'This Land'."

SERGEANTX

Wednesday, November 30, 2005 1:49 PM

yeah.... pretty much like everyone else here has said. Anyone who's dealt with the death of loved knows that feeling of helplessness well.

Watching the show I was reminded of an equally amazing song about someone losing their father. The chorus goes, " 'What do we do now?' was never said outloud." That's pretty much how I felt. It's just so hard to accept it as real, and even harder to imagine what life is going to be like from then on...

Anyway, one other thing that I'm not sure was mentioned - the complete lack of a musical soundtrack in the episode. It really underlined the shocked emptiness that pervades the story.

I'm with you on the time and tissues comment, Chris. I can't even really think about this one without a catch in the throat.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

BLACKEYEDGIRL

Wednesday, November 30, 2005 2:23 PM

The Body. Oi. It's tough to even talk about. See, I've dealt with a lot of death (A LOT). My cousin was murdered on Christmas Eve, my great aunt (who I was very close to), my grandma (who I was very close to), my great grandma (who I was very close to) and others. Death is the only time my mothers side of the family seems to get together, it's our own macabre family reunion.

My mother is the strong one. She is generally a mess, but when bad shit goes down she is all on top of things, so much so that you start to wonder if she even cared. I know she did, about every single one of these people, cos after they died she was a different person.

Like Joss, I don't believe in god. I can't believe in something that would take away all of these people from me for no reason. Don't give me make you stronger bullshit. Just when I needed my grandmother most she was stolen from me. These deaths left my mother with debilitating panic attacks (mind you all of these people died withing a 6 year time span), which only subsided when another family tragedy struck. So I take no comfort in the idea of them all hanging out in heaven. I think when you die, your body is absorbed into the earth, your energy is absorbed into the atmosphere and you are reborn as grasses and stuff like that. It's the whole circle of life thing. And I'm okay with it.

I was woken up at 4 am by my aunt bawling that her son was dead, someone spiked his drink with methadone to steal a pair of snakeskin boots and $2,000. They never caught the bartender that did it. No one told me my grandmother had died cos I was at a horse show, she had gone into the hospital for hip surgery after falling on some ice and never came back out, they found advanced bone cancer, she was dead within 6 days. I never got to say good bye, I didn't get to see her at all. My great aunt, well I got to watch her die of pancreatic cancer. She fought it as hard as she could, but that's generally a battle you don't win. She stayed at home with my mom and her sisters and the hospice people taking care of her. They all did a marvelous job, but still it was awful when she went. My great grandmother was 97 and fell out of a car, hit her head and went into a coma. 3 days later she was dead.

I am an only child. We don't talk to my dad's family cos they practically disowned my dad after he married my mom, they now only call for money. So to lose so many people on my mom's side in so many ways has done 2 things: made death easier and made death harder. Easier cos everytime you go through it, go through the motions of it you get more familiar with them. I think i could plan a funeral in my sleep. Harder because I realize that without siblings and my dad's side of the family when my mother, her sisters and my father are gone, I will have no one. No body. My parents are in their mid-60's and I am constantly paranoid that they are going to die before I get married, before I have babies, before I do the few things they want for me. It's hard, and the thought kills me.

In The Body when Anya freaks out about brushing her hair and the fruit punch it slays me. I can usually hold it together until that and Willow trying to find her shirt. cos that's the thing, no one knows what to do, and there never is a why. People die, and it sucks, and it's not fair. There's no rule book, there's no excuses, there's nothing. it's worse if you don't have a god or anything, cos you get no answers. it's just you, and your head.

Much like someone else on this thread, all of this is very very hard for me to talk about.

I gotta say death is one of those things that until you've really experienced it, you won't get. I gotta tell you the idea about putting the thing about the girl's dead father in her graduation video was really disrespectful. Her father's death was not something to put on that video. It was hanging over her enough, to drag that into it would have been totally inappropriate. Also the 'Everybody Hurts' montage, wow, talk about kinda evil. It was very nice that you wanted to make is somber or whatever, but

REGINAROADIE

Wednesday, November 30, 2005 3:36 PM

I realize now that those two times I dealt with death as a videographer was higly inappropriate. I wouldn't go so far as to say evil. Malice was never my intent with those two. At the time, I thought I was handling them with kid gloves.

I now realize that just to acknowledge it at all was uncalled for, and will clearly avoid the subject if it should ever come up. I Suppose that by filming it and dealing with it in my projects that I would be able to understand death a bit more.

But you're right. It was a bit evil but only a misguided one and not deliberate.

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"YES!!!I'm a man posessed by many demons....Polite demons that would open the door for a lady carrying too many parcels...BUT DEMONS NONETHELESS!!!! Yes. I have walked along the path of evil many times, it's a twisting, curving path that..actually leads to a charming plot garden, BUT BEYOND THAT EVIL!!!"

BLACKEYEDGIRL

Wednesday, November 30, 2005 3:51 PM

I didn't mean that you were intentionally being mean, no it was totally innocent. You didn't understand or get it. I'm glad to see that now you get that it wasn't the best idea. I also didn't mean evil in the big evil way, just more like the opposite of nice and good. Ahh watch me dig myself into a hole! Regardless, i think you should capture life as a videographer, there's too much death around us every day so celebrating life becomes a very important job.

Also though the brightside: Cos of all this death, and my comfort level with death (cos for all my btiching I'm actually really good around death and stuff) I went into anthropology, and eventually got a certificate in Medicolegal Death investigation. I wanted to help grieving families by helping to identify the dead to return them and to find the circumstances surrounding such events. Now I work in fingerprints, where I get to fingerprint the unknown dead occasionally to identify them to give a family closure. It's not a pleasant job, but someone's gotta do it. Although I am still considering going into the funeral home business and getting my mortition liscense. Yeah I'm this creepy and morbid. ;)

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Inara: "Do aliens live among us?"
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