S05.E16: The Body

[Joe Hellandback]

The Good; All of it, an epic 40 minutes of TV, the cast are all incredible

The Bad; A few problems. Why did the paramedics tell Buffy to stop CPR when she breaks Joyce's rib? A broken rib won't kill her, lack of oxygen would. Surely only a doctor can officially determine that someone is dead? How can the vamp rise when it's already had it's autopsy, its' heart has been taken out and put back in again?

Best line; Buffy; "That's not her, she's gone" Dawn; "Where did she go?" Just beating Anya's heartful monologue as she desperately tries to understand what's happening. Also the powerful; Buffy; "Mom had an accident" Dawn;(dreading what is to come) "Is she okay?" Buffy; "No..."

Women good/men bad; No room for that here

Jeez!; Buffy breaking Joyce's rib is just wince inducing. The scariest vamp in all of the Buffyverse is the one who attacks Dawn in the morgue, partly because this is a naked man attacking a terrified 14 year old girl but also because this is a vamp stripped to it's bare bones, it genuinely looks like what it is, a reanimated corpse. The scene where Buffy imagines successfully reviving Joyce then we realise it's all just her fantasy is just too cruel for words.

Kinky dinky; Dawn's schoolfriend Lisa says that her crush Kevin 'Wants her'

Captain Subtext; The Willow/Tara's first on screen kiss, so much going on that it almost goes unnoticed. Willow likes it when Tara rubs her tummy. Could she be related to Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory? Willow and Tara refer to the Amazons. Anya and Giles hug. Buffy's 'Mommy?' line surely needs no explanation?

Scoobies to the ER; Xander hurts his hand again

Apocalypses; 5,

Scoobies in bondage: Buffy: 8 Giles: 4 Cordy: 5 Will: 3 Jenny: 1 Angel: 4 Oz: 1 Faith: 3 Joyce: 1 Wes: 1 Xander; 1 Dawn; 1

Scoobies knocked out: Buffy: 16 Giles: 10 Cordy: 6 Xander: 8 Will: 5 Jenny: 2 Angel: 6 Oz: 3 Faith: 1 Joyce: 3 Wes: 1 Anya;1

Kills: 1 vamp for Buffy Buffy: 95 vamps, 32 demons, 6 monsters, 3 humans, 1 werewolf, 1 spirit warrior & a robot Giles: 5 vamps, 1 demon Cordy: 3 vamps, a demon Will: 6 vamps Angel: 3 vamps, 1 demon, 1 human Oz: 3 vamps, 1 zombie Faith: 16 vamps, 5 demons, 3 humans Xander: 5 vamps, 2 zombies, a demon, a demon Anya: a demon Riley; 18 vamps + 7 demons

Scoobies go evil: Giles: 1 Cordy: 1 Will: 2 Jenny: 1 Angel: 1 Oz: 1 Joyce: 1 Xander: 3

Alternate scoobies: Buffy: 6 Giles: 3 Cordy: 1 Will: 2 Jenny: 2 Angel: 3 Oz: 2 Joyce: 2 Xander: 3

Recurring characters killed: 10, goodbye Joyce, how we loved her and how we never really realised it until she was gone. Jesse, Flutie, Jenny, Kendra, Larry, Snyder, Professor Walsh, Forrest, McNamara, Joyce

Sunnydale deaths; Joyce but from natural causes 89;

Total number of scoobies: 6 Giles, Xander, Willow, Buffy, Anya, Tara,

Xander demon magnet: 5(6?) Preying Mantis Lady, Inca Mummy Girl, Drusilla, VampWillow, Anya (arguably Buffy & Faith with their demon essences?), Dracula?

Scoobies shot: Giles: 2 Angel: 3 Oz: 4 Riley; 1

Notches on Scooby bedpost: Giles: 2; Joyce & Olivia, possibly Jenny and 3xDraccy babes? Cordy: 1? Buffy: 3 confirmed; Angel, Parker,Riley, 1 possible, Dracula(?) Angel: 1;Buffy Joyce: 1;Giles, 2 possible, Ted and Dracula(?) Oz: 3; Groupie, Willow & Verucca Faith:2 ;Xander, Riley Xander: 2; Faith, Anya Willow: 2;Oz and Tara Riley; 3; Buffy, Sandy and unnamed vampwhore

Buffy and Dawn more than sisters?; Buffy seems to just be able to sense when Dawn is in trouble and where to find her.

Questions and observations; Notice that Buffy never hugs Dawn, never holds her? More on that next episode. How can you have an episode so sad yet so beautiful? Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, cannot praise this highly enough. Wonderful details like Buffy pulling down Joyce's skirt as the paramedics arrive. The end of the fantastic Joyce/Kristine Sutherland as a semi-regular on the show, she'll be missed as all the cast and crew remark upon but what a wonderful send-off she gets. A very real possibility that this may be simply the best ever episode of television ever.

Marks out of 10; do you have to ask? 10/10

[lembergwatcher]

It was a truly heartbreaking experience for me to watch that ep for the first time years ago. Unfortunately its magic faded (for me at least) over the years. The only moment I continue to like about said episode nowadays happens to be the adorable exchange between grief-striken Xander and Willow in W/T dorm room. Those Willow and Xander, two lovely kids who can make everyone lighten up even in the darkest hour (one of the reasons I love 'em so much).

Another good thing about The Body: no Spike.

[Pallas]

The lack of a score becomes more perceptible -- maybe a question by the viewer -- when Buffy stands on the back porch and hears the wind chimes. The purity of the ambient sound, its seeming to come a long way across stillness, from an insuperably separate reality. 

[Loandbehold]

This episode is, for me, a good piece on the numbness that death causes. How we all react differently to loss and yet come to realize that we still must go forward. There's pain and grief, but there's also having to make arrangements, park the car, get dinner. One life ends, but, for the rest of us, it doesn't. We can't get off, we just must find a way to go on. My father passed away suddenly about three years before this episode aired and it did bring back some of the feelings that I went through.

The opening scene sees tremendous acting by SMG. And, the final scene is so raw. This is one of the only times a vampire death is not poetic or through Hollywood stunt fighting. It's vicious, scrambling for life, and ends w/ a violent beheading by pushing a saw down through the neck. No flourishes.

[Halting Hex]

Yawn.

"This episode is like watching TV with the 'Pause' button on." —me on TWoP, years ago.

My heart is actually not cold and dead.  Many things in this series move it.  However, watching characters sit around in shock about Joyce not being able to have eggs any more is not one of them.

Whedon had already done "death is scary and inevitable and difficult to deal with".   And then he did the rest of Prophecy Girl, the part where things happened and the characters grew as people.  No Dinner Theatre speeches needed.

And Whedon had already done "the Scoobies react to the death of somebody close* to them" in Döppelgängland, and he made it three minutes long and funny as hell.  And it was for Willow, whom Buffy and Xander and Giles have a direct relationship to, whereas Joyce was only a secondary relationship ("Buffy's Mom") for everyone here except Buffy and Dawn.

*—Anya is so not-"close" to Joyce that Joss has to insert the Christmas flashback into the start of the episode to show the two of them exchanging dialogue, as they had never done any Anya/Joyce conversations before this episode.

Act Three does have some nice moments:  "Put 'em up."  "Xander decided that he blames the wall." (See, Anya can actually be a real girlfriend when they let her), and the nice bit where Anya, having missed the whole "what can Willow wear?" hyperdramatics  between W/T, actually finds the blue top and puts it away, not knowing what's "important" about it.

Act Four, OTOH, features pseudo-wisdom to fluff Tara ("It's always sudden") and Buffy being all "Dawn's in danger, wouldn't want you to follow me thirty feet down a fucking corridor, you might end up being relevant to the plot."

To reiterate:  Yawn.

Edited September 27, 2018 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎27‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 5:47 PM, Halting Hex said:

Yawn.

"This episode is like watching TV with the 'Pause' button on." —me on TWoP, years ago.

My heart is actually not cold and dead.  Many things in this series move it.  However, watching characters sit around in shock about Joyce not being able to have eggs any more is not one of them.

Whedon had already done "death is scary and inevitable and difficult to deal with".   And then he did the rest of Prophecy Girl, the part where things happened and the characters grew as people.  No Dinner Theatre speeches needed.

And Whedon had already done "the Scoobies react to the death of somebody close* to them" in Döppelgängland, and he made it three minutes long and funny as hell.  And it was for Willow, whom Buffy and Xander and Giles have a direct relationship to, whereas Joyce was only a secondary relationship ("Buffy's Mom") for everyone here except Buffy and Dawn.

*—Anya is so not-"close" to Joyce that Joss has to insert the Christmas flashback into the start of the episode to show the two of them exchanging dialogue, as they had never done any Anya/Joyce conversations before this episode.

Act Three does have some nice moments:  "Put 'em up."  "Xander decided that he blames the wall." (See, Anya can actually be a real girlfriend when they let her), and the nice bit where Anya, having missed the whole "what can Willow wear?" hyperdramatics  between W/T, actually finds the blue top and puts it away, not knowing what's "important" about it.

Act Four, OTOH, features pseudo-wisdom to fluff Tara ("It's always sudden") and Buffy being all "Dawn's in danger, wouldn't want you to follow me thirty feet down a fucking corridor, you might end up being relevant to the plot."

To reiterate:  Yawn.

Your heart is cold and dead and you need STAKING!

[Jack Shaftoe]

The episode is fine, if hilariously overrated, when looked in isolation. As a part of the show, it's not so fine. First of all, it's the episode that killed Buffy's smile (to borrow the phrase of a certain TwoP poster).

Spoiler

From that point on the show seems based on the idea "How much misery can we heap on Buffy?" rather than "What interesting stories can we tell"?

Second, the presence of the wacky serial killers Spike and Anya becomes even more jarring after an entire episode dedicated to the idea that death is horrible, that deceased people are missed terribly by their loved ones, etc. Anya giving a whole speech about how she doesn't get death only adds insult to injury,

[Halting Hex]

From the script for The Wish:

Quote

GILES:  Cordelia Chase. What did she wish for?

ANYANKA (smiling): I had no idea her wish would be so...exciting. A brave new world. I hope she likes it.

GILES: She's dead.

ANYANKA: It happens.

But…but…Anya doesn't understand how this happens!  Now Cordelia will never brush her hair, or apply lip gloss, or have a low-calorie lunch again!

And even if Anya somehow managed to blank out the 1100 years of slaughter (despite her having such perfect recall that she was able to share anecdotes constantly [like the one about the "repeat customer" in Triangle]), she had a human life before she was a demon. Presumably even in

Spoiler

9th Century Sweden

, people died.  Anya is talking out of her ass so much here, I wonder if they gave Emma the absent James's paycheck. 

Because, let's face it, normally, that's Spike's job…

Edited September 29, 2018 by Halting Hex

[lembergwatcher]

Why couldn't Anya start her career in Hollywood after losing all the demonic powers? She would be 10,000 more authentic than Cordelia...


Someone should have saved Xander from her (if the boy himself was too blind to realize)...

Spoiler

Why did it have to be the Bringers in the friggin' final episode? They had at least three opportunities to bring the retribution on Anya at least three times - in The Gift, Grave and Selfless and they've wasted each and every one of them... Was the growing dullness some sort of sickness that plagued every single corner of the Buffyverse, and even someone like D'Hoffryn couldn't do anything about it?

Edited September 29, 2018 by lembergwatcher

[Joe Hellandback]

17 hours ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

The episode is fine, if hilariously overrated, when looked in isolation. As a part of the show, it's not so fine. First of all, it's the episode that killed Buffy's smile (to borrow the phrase of a certain TwoP poster).

  Hide contents

From that point on the show seems based on the idea "How much misery can we heap on Buffy?" rather than "What interesting stories can we tell"?

Second, the presence of the wacky serial killers Spike and Anya becomes even more jarring after an entire episode dedicated to the idea that death is horrible, that deceased people are missed terribly by their loved ones, etc. Anya giving a whole speech about how she doesn't get death only adds insult to injury,

There are some happy moments for the Scoobs in eps to come, I'll point them out as we go. Remember it's been a thousand years since Anya experienced death as a human and it didn't mean so much to her as a demon, she's relearning what it means to be human. Spike genuinely liked Joyce but he is an exceptional vampire.  

[Halting Hex]

(Note:  The first part of this is over a month old; I realized that I was in part reviewing a review, and it was getting long, so I moved on.  But I still like what I wrote then, and the board's editor function is wonderful about  preserving text.  So I belatedly present…)

So, I'm watching Shan's vid for this episode, and it turns out she's been delaying watching it, because it's not as if Joss didn't put his cards on the table (or corpses on the couch, as it were) at the end of I Was Made To Love You, but we're going and I'm watching Buffy make an absolute mess of the CPR (she panics, she doesn't really know how to do it, she breaks Joyce's rib, etc.) and I realize that the only reason that Buffy is even here to be less-than-skilled here is because Xander came through in the clutch, back in Prophecy Girl.

Which was certainly under adverse circumstances (he's in the Masters' lair, there's an apocalypse due, he just got through having to force Angel to play tour guide) and strong emotional issues at well (he just admitted that he's in love with Buffy, for the first time).  But Xander comes through when Buffy needs him, so good for him.

And then we get the "it's a miracle!" fake-out and Shan's eyes go wide and she starts smiling…and then of course it's too good and her brows furrow and we're right back where we started from and her face falls.  And I'm wondering what the point of all this was…it just seems so senselessly and needlessly cruel.  More "trick the audience" crap, just to get a cheap response.  Yes, Buffy might have had a fleeting fantasy that Joyce would be okay (would she really? would it be that detailed?), but when I'm watching Shan react, I'm seeing less dramatic necessity, and more Joss being an asshole here, I'm thinking.

So then the EMT tells Buffy that Joyce is dead (a scriptwriting site I went to pointed out that EMTs don't do that, even with obvious corpses…only a medical doctor can sign a death certificate, so only a doctor [or someone from the coroner's or Medical Examiner's offices, all of whom are M.D.s] pronounces someone dead;  the EMTs bring the patient to the hospital, trying to revive her all along) and then they run off and leave "the body" there (WTF??) which is all a contrivance so we can have a very nice Buffy/Giles scene.  But still, nice or not, it's bullshit.

We start Act II with another fake-out, ffs.  (Dawn's crying in the bathroom and her once-off friend Lisa says it's no big deal, horrifying Dawn, but in fact Key-Face is only teary-eyed because Hot Jew Kevin Berman called her "freaky".) So then we go with Dawn and Lisa into art class and have what passes for character development

Spoiler

(although the fact that we never see Lisa or Kevin or the referenced Kirstie ever again somewhat undercuts that)

but we're basically just waiting for Buffy.  Who walks into the classroom (never mind that in real life, Dawn would be called to the office to avoid a scene just such as now develops) and we get to watch Dawnie get all emotional when she gets the news, although we can't hear her, and this is compared to Ingmar Bergman and stuff.  

Except that it wasn't planned that way, at all.  Joss actually wrote an entire chunk of IMO extremely pedestrian dialogue here:

Quote

DAWN: What's going on? Something's going on.

BUFFY: Let's go outside...

DAWN: No. Tell me what's going on.

BUFFY; It's... bad. News.

DAWN: What is it? What happened?

BUFFY: Dawn, it's bad, I think we should --

DAWN: Where's Mom?

(Buffy pauses.)

BUFFY: Mom had an accident, or a, something went wrong from the tumor...

DAWN: Is she okay? Is she -- but she's okay... but it's serious but...

BUFFY: Dawn, Mom died this morning. While we were both at school, she --

DAWN: No...

BUFFY: I don't know exactly what happened, but, she's dead...

DAWN: No. NO NO No No you're lying you're lying she's fine she's FINE and you're lying oh no no please please no you're lying she's fine, she's fine...

(Dawn is sobbing uncontrollably, none of her screams or pleading or anything making a dent in the wave of grief crushing her, she half falls, half sits right there on the ground, Buffy coming down after her but Dawn not ready to be held, not able to do anything but deny, deny...)

BUFFY (crying anew): Dawnie...

DAWN: It's not true it's not real it's not real ohhhhh noooooo....... no.....

And he only reaches his "Bergmanesque" conclusion ("There is silence entire") at the end of all this.  What happened was, as Joss apparently says on the commentary, that he could tell this wasn't working at all, so he cut all the dialogue and just went for the silence.

Which would be nice if it was groundbreaking, but of course it isn't.  Joss did the same thing in Passion, and before that there was the famous E.R. episode, "Love's Labour Lost" (1.19), where Dr. Greene makes a series of minor fuck-ups and ends up killing the pregnant woman in his care and then has to go tell her husband (Bradley Whitford) that his wife is gone and he's going to have to raise the baby alone (and all we see is Greene going into the room where Whitford is tending to the baby, but we hear almost nothing…) and before that, there had been this 1989 scene from the soap opera Santa Barbara, where we see-but-do-not-hear hero Cruz Castillo (A Martinez) tell Eden (Marcy Walker) that their newborn daughter has been abducted from the maternity ward…

(Nice 1980s soundtrack, lmao.)

So Joss's "brilliance" here was more necessity than brilliance, and not so much Joss, it turns out.  And with the classroom apparently a big glass cube, just because it makes it easier to shoot the shot.  Oh, whatever, dude.

Act III does give us good character interactions, even if Anya's Dinner Theater Speech is still utter bullshit.  (Even if we only go by what we've actually seen on the series, who was the first person Anya met in Sunnydale?  No, not Cordelia, she used somebody else to infiltrate Cordy's social circle…Harmony.  Who may be undead instead of dead-dead, but that's close enough for Anya to get the concept, I'm thinking.)  Still, seeing Xander punch the wall (reminiscent of his kicking the trash can over Jesse's death in The Harvest) adds depth to his character, and we do get good couple moments for W/T (good to finally get that "first on-air kiss" out of the way), W/X, and Xanya.  And Act IV does give us some character work on Tara (Family never specified that Mama Maclay was dead; for all we knew, she could have decided she was just sick of the rest of the crew, and stolen Tara's favorite horse to ride off into the big city), even though I'm still infuriated by Buffy not letting the rest of the gang follow her thirty feet down the corridor, as noted above.

But all in all, watching Shan's pain here, I'm not just thinking this ep is ultimately pointless (everything it covers is better handled in the ensuing Forever), but also pointlessly cruel.  So very glad that no Emmy™ nominations were forthcoming, especially now that I know Joss wasn't really going for "Bergmanesque", he was just recycling something that had worked for him before because the script was deeply unimpressive.  And that it was a technique that was hardly new to television.

Somewhat OT: Marcy Walker's sister on Santa Barbara was played by a young Robin Wright (now Robin Wright Penn); their mother was played by Judith McConnell.  Who, as a young "Judy McConnell", fresh off her Miss Pennsylvania 1965 title, had a bit part on the Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold". (The "Jack the Ripper in space" episode; "Judy" is the yeoman who's manning the computer during the inquiry.)  Which, since George Takei is in the episode and Takei was later in Heroes with Leonard Roberts, means that Judith has a Buffy number of 3.

(Yes, those who count everybody who ever guested on a series as having been "together" even if they were in separate episodes can skip a step, linking Judith to Jack Donner ["The Enterprise Incident"] or Michael Ansara ["Day of the Dove"], but that's not how I roll.    IMO, you'd have to use William Shatner or another regular to get from Judith to Ansara or Donner.  So I might as well take the Takei-Roberts link, instead.)

This means that the Santa Barbara cast has a Buffy number of 4, assuming there's nothing better.  But far, far more importantly, it means that the same can be said of me, as Judith and I worked in a non-profit fund-raising office together for about a year in the 2000s.  (And yes, I can actually claim a "2" by using my various brief fannish encounters with the cast, from the time I saw Alyson Hannigan in the Tower Records on Ventura Boulevard but was too shy to speak to her to the time I almost went to Nicholas Brendon's Christmas play in 2010 but decided it wasn't worth it, but did see Nick entering the theater, but again, IMO, that's cheating.)  So I guess you can link me to the "silent" sequence here, by the same "logic".  

But I still find it, and the episode, vastly overrated. [/OT]

(Robin Wright achieved immortality in The Princess Bride, alongside Mandy Patinkin.  Patinkin quit Criminal Minds [JFC, has that shit been on for FOURTEEN years?  Not as bad as the N.C.I.S. franchise, but still…] in a huff several seasons before Nick Brendon had his recurring run, but that still gives Robin a 4 or a 3, depending on whether you count Patinkin-NB as one link or [via Greg or the Fat Chick or Shemar Moore] two.)

Spoiler

Wayyyy OT:  Dharma & Greg was on for five seasons, I see.  So that means that Greg's been on TV for 19 seasons, assuming he was on Criminal Minds since day one.  Still a few seasons behind David Boreanaz (21 seasons and counting) in the chase for the Michael Landon/Harry Morgan Record (27 seasons), but close enough for DB to feel him coming up behind him.

[illdoc]

2 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

So that means that Greg's been on TV for 19 seasons, assuming he was on Criminal Minds since day one.

Greg? You mean Thomas Gibson? He hasn't been on CM for a few years.

[Halting Hex]

Oops, my bad.  I guess I should have actually looked up his name.

Spoiler

Or remembered that Gibson got cashiered from CM because of (looks it up, but I know there was something) the backstage fight he got into with one of the producers.

However, now that I'm looking at Gibson's IMDb, I see that he was on Chicago Hope for three seasons before he split to become Greg.  So that puts him right back at 19 years' work (Chicago Hope [3 seasons], Dharma & Greg [5 seasons], Criminal Minds [11 seasons]), but as he's rather less-employable these days (I guess producers don't want to hire actors who might kick the shit out of them, as Gibson allegedly did to Virgil Williams…can't think why…), I guess David Boreanaz is under less pressure than I thought, previously). 

Edited January 9, 2019 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎09‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 5:56 AM, Halting Hex said:

Oops, my bad.  I guess I should have actually looked up his name.

  Hide contents

Or remembered that Gibson got cashiered from CM because of (looks it up, but I know there was something) the backstage fight he got into with one of the producers.

However, now that I'm looking at Gibson's IMDb, I see that he was on Chicago Hope for three seasons before he split to become Greg.  So that puts him right back at 19 years' work (Chicago Hope [3 seasons], Dharma & Greg [5 seasons], Criminal Minds [11 seasons]), but as he's rather less-employable these days (I guess producers don't want to hire actors who might kick the shit out of them, as Gibson allegedly did to Virgil Williams…can't think why…), I guess David Boreanaz is under less pressure than I thought, previously). 

CM is ending next season, it was a great source of Buffy alumni not to mention that ep where all the characters were named after Buffy stars and they genuinely went to Sunnydale High.  Nice if they get NB back for the final ep. Or if the final scene is Thomas Gibson waking up, turning to the blonde woman lying beside him and saying "Dharma I just had the weirdest dream" 

[VCRTracking]

Damn right.

[Halting Hex]

(Feh.  I abandoned this post in the middle, thinking the board's editor would save it.  Not so, Boston.  Sigh.  Restarting…)

On 1/8/2019 at 11:24 AM, Halting Hex said:

BUFFY: Dawn, Mom died this morning. While we were both at school, she -

So, wait a second.  Let's get the timeline down:

•  Buffy goes to school.

•  Buffy comes home from school.

•  Buffy finds Joyce taking an eternal nap.

•  Buffy calls 911

•  Buffy screws up the CPR

•  Buffy dials Giles (rhyme!) while waiting for the EMTs

•  Buffy watches the EMTs, has a brief fantasy, gets the bad news.

•  The EMTs rush off for a quick round of mini-golf, leaving Joyce's rotting corpse behind.

•  Buffy vomits from the stench of putrefying Mom.

•  Giles arrives, tries to revive Joyce, Buffy yells at him

(Next parts unseen)

Giles comforts Buffy

The EMTs interrupt their make-out session and finally take the stinking corpse out of the house

Buffy cleans up the puke (I should hope!)

Buffy cleans up herself, redoes her makeup

Buffy decides to go tell Dawn, overriding Giles's (I presume) offer to do it himself

Buffy drives to Dawn's school…

…where Dawn is taking a class, with absolutely no indication it's the last class of the day or anything like that.  (You know how kids start clock-watching at like 1.00 or so? No indication of that here.)  I mean, Jeez, how long does the Junior High run? Is this where

Spoiler

Warren got the idea for the time-loop

?

It just really hit me that Buffy and Dawn should be getting out of school at the same time (if anything, Dawn's school should break earlier, to allow for buses home;  universities, with a lot of the students resident on campus, have little compunction scheduling classes for the late afternoon, in contrast) and yet Buffy has a full afternoon's worth of Joyce-related work, and still gets to Dawn's school long before anyone has given a thought to dismissal, it appears.  

Just weird, IMO.

[secnarf]

9 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

(Feh.  I abandoned this post in the middle, thinking the board's editor would save it.  Not so, Boston.  Sigh.  Restarting…)

So, wait a second.  Let's get the timeline down:

•  Buffy goes to school.

•  Buffy comes home from school.

•  Buffy finds Joyce taking an eternal nap.

•  Buffy calls 911

•  Buffy screws up the CPR

•  Buffy dials Giles (rhyme!) while waiting for the EMTs

•  Buffy watches the EMTs, has a brief fantasy, gets the bad news.

•  The EMTs rush off for a quick round of mini-golf, leaving Joyce's rotting corpse behind.

•  Buffy vomits from the stench of putrefying Mom.

•  Giles arrives, tries to revive Joyce, Buffy yells at him

(Next parts unseen)

Giles comforts Buffy

The EMTs interrupt their make-out session and finally take the stinking corpse out of the house

Buffy cleans up the puke (I should hope!)

Buffy cleans up herself, redoes her makeup

Buffy decides to go tell Dawn, overriding Giles's (I presume) offer to do it himself

Buffy drives to Dawn's school…

…where Dawn is taking a class, with absolutely no indication it's the last class of the day or anything like that.  (You know how kids start clock-watching at like 1.00 or so? No indication of that here.)  I mean, Jeez, how long does the Junior High run? Is this where

  Hide contents

Warren got the idea for the time-loop

?

It just really hit me that Buffy and Dawn should be getting out of school at the same time (if anything, Dawn's school should break earlier, to allow for buses home;  universities, with a lot of the students resident on campus, have little compunction scheduling classes for the late afternoon, in contrast) and yet Buffy has a full afternoon's worth of Joyce-related work, and still gets to Dawn's school long before anyone has given a thought to dismissal, it appears.  

Just weird, IMO.

I don't remember Buffy being at class, but when I went to university, it was not unheard of to just have one or two classes in the morning on some days - you might be done classes by 9:30 or 10:30 am!

[Halting Hex]

True, Buffy could be taking advantage of a light schedule and getting home early.  It just seems odd that she'd make such a quick U-turn rather than, say, hanging with Willow/training with Giles/studying/shopping/beating up Spike for shits'n'giggles.

I suppose she could be concerned that Glory might come over again to hang out with her new pal, Dawn…but, as noted, my problem with the timing is that Buffy appears to be home well before she could expect Dawnie to join her.  And I really don't see her rushing home to spend lunchtime watching game shows with Joyce.

(Although All My Children will be on soon, and Buffy always did find something about Pine Valley very familiar…)

[Loandbehold]

7 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

I suppose she could be concerned that Glory might come over again to hang out with her new pal, Dawn…but, as noted, my problem with the timing is that Buffy appears to be home well before she could expect Dawnie to join her.  And I really don't see her rushing home to spend lunchtime watching game shows with Joyce.

Remember that this takes place right at the end of IWMTLY. The question is what time was it when April went to the big scrap heap in the sky? After the fight and moment of sharing, I can see Buffy heading home. She did live there and not in the dorm any longer. And, she probably didn't feel like doing a spot of training at the time.

[Halting Hex]

(And as before, the post that vanished in the editor reappears after I no longer need it.  Odd.)

I think IWMTLY is clearly meant to be a different day from the tag.  The sun is setting as April "dies" ("it's always darkest before the…") and it's night during the subsequent Buffy/Xander scene.  Whereas Joyce's death and this episode taken place in the cinematically over-bright sunshine.  IIRC, of course.

[lembergwatcher]

Good thing this episode is Spike-free. Hard to believe it's Joss' episode without his favorite blondie bear Jimmy.

Why couldn't this episode be Anya-free as well? I don't understand why is she even present during the scene in W/T dorm room? What's the reason to bring her there? Apart from the Christmas flashback at the beginning of an ep I don't remember her and Joyce interacting at all throughout seasons 4-5. In fact Spike was much closer to Joyce than Anya. Thus I can see no reason for her to be in that episode. It's not like we would've missed something truly important without her stupid monologue regarding Joyce's death.

There are fans who think Xander should have stfu regarding avenging Jenny's death in Passion because he was "the less close to her" than the rest of the gang. Somehow those same rules do not apply to Anya who's free to open her mouth when it comes to person she knew nothing about and probably met only a few times...

The Body would've been so much better if Joss gave Emma Caulfield a week off.

[Halting Hex]

I assume Anya is there to show the childish confusion about death exhibited in The Dinner Theatre Speech and let Joss make his points about "it's scary but it's REAL" and we have grow and deal and blah.

Willow and Xander can't do this, because they've already lost Jesse and Ms. Calendar and whomever else.  (Even Larry.)  Tara can't do it because she needs to have the "it's always sudden" my-Mom-died-too wisdom she shares with Buffy in Act 4.  Hence, Anya.

(The small detail about the 1100 years of slaughter that she has perfect memory of aside, of course.  😉 )

[lembergwatcher]

On 3/22/2020 at 7:37 PM, Halting Hex said:

Willow and Xander can't do this, because they've already lost Jesse and Ms. Calendar and whomever else.  (Even Larry.)  Tara can't do it because she needs to have the "it's always sudden" my-Mom-died-too wisdom she shares with Buffy in Act 4.  Hence, Anya.

How about Dawn showing all things childish, not some remorseless money-obsessed x-vengeance demon? 

[Joe Hellandback]

On 3/24/2020 at 12:31 PM, lembergwatcher said:

How about Dawn showing all things childish, not some remorseless money-obsessed x-vengeance demon? 

But then we wouldn't have the final scene in Forever, my favourite in all of Buffy. 

[lembergwatcher]

2 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

But then we wouldn't have the final scene in Forever

So Anya's meaningless drivel was there only for the sake of 

Spoiler

umpteenth Buffy/Dawn sisterly bonding moment at the end of the following ep

?

Edited April 10, 2020 by lembergwatcher

[Halting Hex]

Dawn's reactions are, of necessity, particular to Joyce herself and Dawn's own personal journey. But Joss also wants to make a "larger" point about Death as a Concept.  Hence the Naive Innocence of the EveryDemon, shown here.

(I may think it's a stupid conception, but I understand what Joss is going for, at least.  One supposes this shows the problem with filling the supporting cast with supernatural characters, rather than normal humans.

Quote

CORDELIA:  You know, I'm just going to say it.  I am getting really sick of this 'constant death' thing.  It was bad enough when it was Ms. Calendar or Kevin or whoever, but now Joyce?  Wham-bam, it's over?  And now she's never going to put on makeup or…or…or cook stuff, I guess, or drone on about her gallery, ever again!  She'll never use ten tons of hairspray or wear those stupid giant necklaces…seriously, what was with those?  Were they weapons that Buffy gave her?  Was she trying to whip the vampires or tie them up or something?  Anyhow, none of that, ever again.  

Okay, so Dawn still has me to worship; it's a burden being such a role model, but I can deal with it.  But Buffy's got enough trouble, what with all the fighting and not being able to keep a boyfriend;  she doesn't need this, too!  No wonder she's such a freak.  This sucks!

Never change, Cordy.  Never change.)

Edited April 10, 2020 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

On 4/10/2020 at 2:00 PM, lembergwatcher said:

So Anya's meaningless drivel was there only for the sake of 

  Hide contents

umpteenth Buffy/Dawn sisterly bonding moment at the end of the following ep

?

Unfair , it represents Anya's continuing struggle with her humanity. 

[watcher1006]

On 4/12/2020 at 6:11 AM, Joe Hellandback said:

Unfair , it represents Anya's continuing struggle with her humanity. 

Anya's struggles with her human existence are a continuing theme in the series which

culminates in the penultimate episode of the series "End of Days" with her dialogue with Andrew - "I'll fight too", "You Looove humans!" Meanwhile Dawn's reaction to being pulled out of art class and hearing the devastating news was done perfectly, and was completely believable. Hooray for Michelle Trachtenberg!

[lembergwatcher]

One of the few good things about that episode is the way Xander (mostly) ignores what Anya says. Seems like she was getting on his nerves just as she was getting on mine. I just love the look Xander gives Anya after hearing an umpteenth stupid question while on their way to Willow/Tara dorm room. There are moments Xander's facial expression is like: "Why?! Why am I dating this insufferable bitch???" Well, I'd like to know the answer to this question myself, Xand...

Edited October 21, 2020 by lembergwatcher

[lembergwatcher]

This scene in the morgue... Probably the very first time Dawney witnessed full-frontal male nudity. I mean, after all those Anya's stories... Although due to the circumstances surrounding Dawn's first experience with intimate stuff, the latter wasn't pleasant at all, I'd say...