Leaving You to Get Hurt Not Again Now Deal Buffy

16th episode of the 5th season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"The Body"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
Episode no.	Flavour 5 Episode xvi
Directed past	Joss Whedon
Written by	Joss Whedon
Product code	5ABB16
Original air appointment	Feb 27, 2001 (2001-02-27)
Running time	44 minutes
Guest appearances
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers Amber Benson as Tara Maclay Randy Thompson as Dr. Kriegel
Episode chronology
←Previous "I Was Made to Dear You" Adjacent → "Forever"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season v)
List of episodes

"The Trunk" is the sixteenth episode of the 5th season of the supernatural drama television set series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The episode was written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon and originally aired on the WB network in the The states on February 27, 2001. In the series, Buffy Summers is a teenager chosen by mystical forces and endowed with superhuman powers to defeat vampires, demons, and other evils in the fictional boondocks of Sunnydale. She is supported in her struggles by a close circumvolve of friends and family, nicknamed the "Scooby Gang". In "The Trunk", Buffy is powerless as she comes upon her lifeless mother, who has died of a encephalon aneurysm.

Although Buffy and her friends bargain with death every calendar week, often in very gruesome and fantastic ways, in this episode they are bewildered by the natural death of Joyce Summers, the divorced mother of Buffy and her sister Dawn and occasionally a mother figure to their friends. They struggle to embrace what the loss ways to each of them and to the group. Buffy must begin to face her life and her duties as the Slayer without parental support and comfort. The episode was stripped of all music and disorienting furnishings were included to convey the sense of deportation and loss associated with the expiry of a shut family member.

"The Body" aired to wide acclaim, and has since been ranked by several critics as 1 of the greatest television receiver episodes e'er broadcast.

Background [edit]

Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is assisted from season ane by her close friends, who collectively refer to themselves as the Scooby Gang: Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon), whose chief strength is his devotion to Buffy, and Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan), who begins dabbling in witchcraft and grows progressively more than powerful. They are mentored past Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), Buffy's "Watcher", and joined past Xander'southward girlfriend Anya Jenkins (Emma Caulfield), who was a vengeance demon until her powers were taken away. Anya is often at a loss to know how to communicate with humans, and her speech is ofttimes abrupt. In the quaternary season, Willow became romantically involved with Tara Maclay (Amber Benson), also a witch.^[1]

Each flavor of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (often simplified as Buffy) presents an overall theme episodes necktie into. Roz Kaveney identifies family and belonging as the overall theme of the fifth season. Buffy's mother Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) begins experiencing headaches at the beginning of the season, once collapsing and requiring hospitalization. She subsequently has a brain tumor removed. She has been recovering well. In the previous episode, "I Was Made to Love Yous", she receives flowers from a male suitor, which Buffy finds at the end of that episode. The 5th flavour too introduces Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), Buffy'due south 14-year-old sis. Each season has a primary antagonist called the Big Bad; in the 5th season this takes the form of a powerful goddess named Glory (Clare Kramer).^[i]

Plot [edit]

Buffy arrives home and sees flowers sent by Joyce's suitor. She calls out to her female parent, just hears no answer. Buffy sees Joyce lying lifeless on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.

At that place is a flashback to a Christmas dinner where Joyce and all the Scoobies are nowadays, having a typical lighthearted conversation. The scene snaps back to a hysterical Buffy in the living room, shaking Joyce and screaming at her. She calls for an ambulance and attempts CPR, but to no avail. Equally the paramedics arrive, Buffy briefly fantasizes well-nigh Joyce reviving and recovering in the hospital; but to render to reality where the paramedics are unable to revive Joyce and pronounce her dead. Giles arrives and Buffy tells him not to move the body, shocking herself by using that give-and-take. At school, Buffy pulls Dawn out of class into the hall. Through the windows of the art room, the grade watches Buffy tell her that Joyce has died. Dawn collapses, wailing.

In Willow'southward dormitory room, Tara tries to help Willow find a shirt to article of clothing. Xander and Anya get in. Willow panics, rejecting shirt subsequently shirt, not knowing how to appear for Buffy and Dawn. Anya asks Xander what she is supposed to practise; he cannot reply. Xander expresses his want to find Glory and exact justice, and then complains well-nigh Joyce'due south negligent doctors. Anya asks if they will see the body, then if the body will exist cut open, and Willow responds angrily. Anya tearfully says she does not sympathise how to deport, or why Joyce cannot go dorsum into her own trunk, unable to sympathize human death. The group then leaves to visit Buffy, Dawn and Giles at the hospital.

In the waiting room outside the morgue, the medico tells Buffy that Joyce died of an aneurysm of a sudden and painlessly. Dawn goes alone to run into Joyce'due south body. While she is in that location, i of the bodies, now a vampire, gets up. After noticing Dawn has not come back, Buffy goes to look for her. Equally Buffy kills the vampire, the sheet falls from Joyce'southward face. Looking at her female parent'south trunk, Dawn asks where she went, every bit she reaches out to touch her cheek.

Product and writing [edit]

My experience with decease is that autonomously from a lot of people hugging at funerals, it seldom brings people together. Information technology actually tears them apart. And I had always learned from Television that decease fabricated everybody stronger and better and acquire about themselves. And my experience was that an important piece had been taken out of the puzzle ... and in that location is no glorious payoff.

Joss Whedon, 2008^[ii]

From the start of writing the Buffy series, Joss Whedon asserted that it would never have a "very special episode" as in contemporary serial Beverly Hills, 90210, The Wonder Years, or Party of Five, where the cadre cast of characters addresses a unmarried issue (AIDS, drug abuse, or alcoholism, for instance) and resolve all the issues at the end.^[three] Whedon was not interested in finding a life-affirming lesson for "The Body". Rather, he wanted to capture the isolation and boredom involved in the minutes and hours after finding a loved one has died,^[2] what he termed "the blackness ashes in your mouth numbness of decease". He did not intend to resolve any religious or existential questions near the end of life, but wanted to examine the procedure in which a person becomes a mere body.^[4] Whedon's mother, a teacher, also died of a cerebral aneurysm,^[5] and he drew on his own experiences, and those of friends and other writers, in amalgam the episode. He tried to achieve an "unlovely physicality" in "The Body" to portray the upsetting minutiae involved in attempting to comprehend what is incomprehensible.^[2]

Small details became significant: to protect her dignity, Buffy pulls the hem of Joyce'southward skirt downwardly subsequently it rode up when she attempted CPR; the camera focuses on a cakewalk through air current chimes while Buffy vomits; to emphasize Buffy's isolation, the scene has no exterior establishing shots of the house.^[2]

The opening sequence of "The Body" was as well the closing scene of the previous episode, "I Was Made to Love You"; this is the only episode in the serial that was first aired without a "Previously on Buffy" pb-in.^{[half dozen]} The Christmas dinner scene was used both to contrast the stark reality of the rest of the episode, and to avoid having the credits appear over the beginning scenes where Buffy is trying to revive her mother.^[2]

The episode is presented in four acts, each beginning in full silence and with a shut-up shot of Joyce's pale, staring face. Shooting the first deed was difficult for Gellar (Buffy). Whedon shot the scene where she finds her female parent as one long take, showing her motion through the house and calling the paramedics, about vii times. The remainder of the scenes in the human activity were shot in sequence. At the cease, Giles arrives and also attempts to revive Joyce, but Buffy blurts, "We're not supposed to motion the body!" Both Gellar and Trachtenberg (Dawn) were raised by single women, and Gellar later spoke most the experience of interim something that was very real and shut to her, stating, "you try to separate it as best you can and at the same fourth dimension it adds that actress layer".^[seven] As soon as the scene was finished with Gellar "at a fever pitch", they restarted it where she comes in the door happily, which Whedon regretted for the emotional range Gellar was required to suffer.^[2]

Kristine Sutherland (Joyce) was informed during the third flavour that her character would exist killed off, which she accepted because she intended to spend fourth dimension in Europe. She is absent from most of the 4th flavor because she was traveling.^[8] She reported that the atmosphere on the set of "The Body" was foreign and tense because she had been a regular character through the series and she was suddenly playing a corpse. She found the role difficult to play, not only for the stillness, but getting into the make-up, and lying on the morgue table with other bodies.^[9]

The most difficult scene for Whedon to film was Willow panicking in her dormitory room. Her obsession nearly what to wear to visit Buffy was inspired past Whedon's own experiences when he was at a loss for what tie to clothing for a friend's funeral.^[v] He praised Alyson Hannigan'due south interim, saying that she was able to be consistently emotional in every take and make him and the coiffure cry every time. Whedon best-selling his difficulty speaking on the DVD commentary while watching Hannigan in the scene.^[2]

Whedon'due south rejection of the "very special episode" format impelled him to address the physicality of Willow and Tara'southward human relationship within "The Trunk". Earlier this episode, they had held hands and danced on screen, but they had not kissed. A genre of television specials dealing with female homosexuality developed equally the "lesbian kiss episode" in the 1990s, where a female person character kissed another female simply no human relationship is further explored. Whedon set out to acknowledge Willow's and Tara'southward affection without making information technology the master focus of the bear witness. For attempting this, he received resistance from the airing network, the WB. Whedon informed them that the buss between Willow and Tara was "not negotiable".^[5] Co-ordinate to Whedon, the conversation about the osculation was approached by the network executives, who were concerned with the number of gay relationships on the network. Whedon countered that the buss was "truthful to character" and said he would quit the show if the network forbade information technology. It was the only fourth dimension during the serial he threatened to exercise so.^[7]

When Willow and Tara get-go met in the quaternary flavor, the writers did not intend the relationship to be romantic merely the actors had such chemistry that, two episodes later, Whedon and the writing team took Alyson Hannigan and Amber Benson aside to inform them where it would go.^[10] For the rest of the flavour, the sexual relationship between Willow and Tara was represented metaphorically by witchcraft, and none of the WB executives realized it. In the end, Whedon praised the way the WB handled the display of affection in "The Body", saying "They raised an eyebrow, but they've been great. I requite the WB props when it came to the [characters' first] kiss. What I want to prove is real amore, and 'The Torso' turned out to be the perfect place to put it in. To the network'due south credit, they not only aired it, but they did not annunciate it. I thought that was pretty swish."^[11] Stephen Tropiano in Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV writes that this approach was "truly groundbreaking"; no long speech, no huge discovery: "Like Willow, nosotros're fabricated to feel equally if her dearest for Tara is the nigh natural thing in the globe". Tropiano calls it "A elementary osculation. A tranquillity, simple moment. Ii lovers kissing. Just similar lovers do."^[12]

Audiences reacted more emotionally than Whedon expected to Emma Caulfield's performance. Anya's blunt innocence was like to a plot twist, as viewers did not expect the depth of sensitivity that she portrayed in her monologue, which Whedon considers "the heart of the experience" and critic Noel Murray reiterates as the "whole point of the episode in bolded, capital letter letters".^[13] Xander's punching the wall and hurting his hand served to give the 4 in this scene something to concentrate on, to redirect their helplessness, which was another facet of the physicality of dealing with the crisis. Whedon used another long tracking shot from Joyce's face in the morgue following the doctor down the hall to speak with Buffy and the Scoobies to cement the reality of their beingness so shut in proximity, every bit opposed to cutting shots to give the possibility that it was function of another set located somewhere else.^[2] The vampire that attacks Dawn in the morgue was a bear on many viewers took to be out of identify for the episode. This scene contrasts the more fantasy-related deaths common in the series with Joyce's realistic death.^[fourteen] Furthermore, similar to Xander's parking ticket and the sounds of life outside Buffy's house, in Sunnydale vampires are a normal feel, and it was intended to show that life for Buffy continues.^[15]

Themes [edit]

Grief [edit]

But I don't understand! I don't empathise how this all happens. How we go through this. I knew her, and then she'south—there'due south merely a body, and I don't understand why she merely can't get dorsum in information technology and not be dead ... anymore! It'southward stupid! It's mortal and stupid! And ... and Xander's crying and not talking, and ... and I was having fruit punch, and I idea, well, Joyce will never have whatever more fruit dial, ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn, or brush her hair, not always, and no one will explain to me why!

Anya, "The Body"^[6]

In Nikki Stafford'southward analysis, the reactions of Buffy, Dawn, Xander, Willow, Anya, and Tara represent stages of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' five stages of grief in different parts.^[sixteen] Joss Whedon stated on the DVD commentary how surprised he was at the response from viewers who wrote to say that the episode allowed them to take the death of a close family member, fifty-fifty if they had not acknowledged it for months or years.^[2] Joyce's death was the first by natural causes in the series.^[4]

In The Psychology of Joss Whedon, two academic psychologists place the source of Buffy's strength as her mother, paired with Giles' mentorship.^[17] Joyce did not know all along that Buffy was a Slayer and had difficulty accepting what her daughter was called to do. She was nonetheless always attentive and available when Buffy's conviction was shaken, and both Joyce's and Giles' devotion to her "gave her the self-balls to wield her power to its full potential".^[17] Joyce served as a parent figure to all of Buffy'south friends, whose home lives were often unstable or unloving, thus making her expiry more than poignant to all of them. Willow mentions her parents several times throughout the series, but her father is never seen. Her mother is portrayed just once in "Gingerbread", at first as an bookish so preoccupied with her career that she is unable to communicate with Willow, and and so—with Joyce—under the spell of a demon and in the throes of moral panic, attempting to burn her own daughter at the stake for being involved in witchcraft.^[18] Xander'due south parents are described by him and those who have been to his house as alcoholic and verbally abusive. Fifty-fifty Anya, severely wanting in social graces, has lost someone she admires and trusts. Giles too grieves for the loss of a friend and—in one episode when the adults autumn nether a spell making them retreat into an adolescent country—a lover.^[19] Lorna Jowett in Sexual practice and the Slayer writes that Joyce represents stability and normality. For the Scoobies, her death destroys the illusion that normal life is trouble-free; it is just every bit challenging as encountering supernatural forces.^[xx]

Finding her mother's body, Buffy at first denies what she sees, to the point of imagining alternate realities. Whedon stated that these mini dream sequences were similar documentaries; people who find their loved ones dead are desperate to imagine a different, ameliorate outcome, and they create fantasies that cause much more pain when they are forced to render to the harshness of reality.^[nine] Later in the hospital, Buffy imagines what she might have been able to do to save Joyce, although the dr. tells her there was zippo to be done. Willow and Xander limited anger and helplessness. Anya, new to mortality and human connections, is childlike in her innocence and questions. Xander'southward anger and Anya's confusion allow them to be mothered somewhat by Willow, who needs to take care of someone. Dawn is securely in denial, unable to understand that the woman she thought she had known all her life was gone. Tara, who has gone through the ordeal before, represents the acceptance phase, soothing and helping the others to work through what they are experiencing. Buffy toward the cease also begins to see acceptance when she tells Dawn that the torso in the morgue is not their mother; Joyce is gone.^[16]

The episode besides emphasizes some other theme of the season: Buffy's response to forces that she cannot fight. Throughout the season she encounters the much more powerful goddess Glory, but Joyce's death leaves her feeling the almost helpless. In Joyce's death there is no evil force to combat; she simply dies, and Buffy, with all her power, is ill-equipped to grasp the enormity of her situation.^{[9] [21]} In her shock, Buffy retreats to a artless land of confusion, calling to her mother when she does not answer: "Mom? ... Mom? ... Mommy?" Emma Caulfield was likewise given the direction for her voice to rise to a childlike pitch at the terminate of her speech to give the same effect. According to Buffy scholar Rhonda Wilcox, the themes of maturation and facing adult responsibilities begin with the departure of Buffy's boyfriend Riley Finn six episodes earlier, and crystallize in the preceding episode in which Buffy realizes she does not need a young man to be fulfilled. At the end of that episode she is confronted with Joyce's death, which is fully explored in "The Body". Facing responsibilities became the major theme of the sixth season.^[22] One critic writes, "Drastic equally it was, killing off Joyce was the logical way to bring Buffy and Dawn closer together, sever Buffy's concluding ties to girlhood and emphasize Buffy's inability to accept the limits of her ability, a recurring theme this season."^[23]

Reality [edit]

Whedon uses several disorienting effects to heighten the reality of the situations in the episode to the point that they seem surreal. The long opening shot of Buffy coming home and finding Joyce was filmed with one hand-held photographic camera in abiding movement every bit she walks through the firm to the telephone and back to her female parent again. The buttons on Buffy's phone are abnormally large, an upshot that Whedon added considering he experienced information technology when his mother died. Buffy is so bewildered by the paramedic telling her that Joyce is dead that she tin merely focus on his oral cavity in an attempt to understand what he is saying. The camera uses her perspective and only the bottom part of the paramedic's confront is in view. Instead of a normal "over-the-shoulder" view, Buffy is shot at the same height equally the paramedic's shoulder, barely squeezed into the frame as if to portray her, according to Whedon, equally trapped by reality.^{[2] [24]} Kristine Sutherland stated that the script was "astonishing", specifically at capturing the detachment: "It's not something y'all tin procedure. I mean mortality is just not office of your vocabulary when you lot're that age."^[ix]

In the infirmary, every bit Buffy listens to the doctor confirm how Joyce died, the physician says something, simply the words "I accept to lie to you to make y'all experience better" are spoken discordantly, as though, co-ordinate to movie theatre scholar Katy Stevens, Buffy "constructs what she believes to exist an unmentionable truth—her culpability in her mother's expiry".^[25] In the aforementioned scene, Dawn is shot with a mitt-held camera that drifts, giving her a slightly unreal moment as she struggles to believe, unlike what Buffy already knows, that her mother's trunk is down the hall on a steel tabular array.^[2] The scene with Buffy and Tara sitting in the waiting room was noted by Rhonda Wilcox for its reality in showing Gellar as ragged and distinctly unglamorous, particularly because she had been presented in a specific mode to concenter male person viewers and was a spokeswoman for Maybelline while Buffy aired. Buffy sits with circles under her eyes, unflattering hair, and slumped posture adjacent to Tara, who had been criticized for being also heavy, despite her body type existence more typical of women her age.^[22]

Small details in sounds are made significant in this scene as Buffy, afterwards being told that her female parent is dead, vomits on the floor and stands at her back door where life in her neighborhood carries on.

Foremost of the disorienting effects, to critics and scholars, is Whedon's utilize of sound and silence. While Buffy performs CPR, she cracks ane of Joyce's ribs with a startling snap. Afterward Buffy vomits on the floor, she stands in the back doorway listening to life conveying on: children playing, someone practicing a trumpet, and birds singing. Long pauses between dialogue create gaps that plough bad-mannered equally the characters endeavor to think of what to say, fabricated peculiarly notable in a series famous for its rapid barrack.^[26] The transition between the Christmas dinner scene and the living room scene is abrupt, and the sound of Buffy and Joyce shouting considering they dropped a pie on the flooring carries over into the silence of Joyce's lifeless face up and Buffy continuing solitary in the living room. This consequence is also used when shifting between Buffy'south alternate version of her female parent being "skilful as new" in the hospital and the paramedics trying to revive her. In the car on the mode to Willow's dormitory, Anya is shot by a camera mounted on the front bumper, separated from the audience by the windshield. Xander, driving, faces the other way; neither of them speak and merely the sound of the car can be heard.^[27] Joyce Millman at Salon.com writes of the sound issues, "The effect was almost Bergmanesque in its starkness. The chilling stillness and the long, spacey pauses in conversation as characters struggled to articulate their feelings exaggerated the sense of fourth dimension elongating and standing still."^[23]

Katy Stevens notes that the dialogue in "The Body" was recorded with microphones very close to the actors, making variations in their voices—cracks, rises, and whispers—more than prominent to the audience, to close the distance betwixt the actors and the viewer. Conversely, the scene in which Dawn is told of Joyce'south death was shot through a large classroom window, muffling Dawn'due south emotional reaction, to isolate Buffy and Dawn from the class and the audience. Several moments of silence follow this scene.^[25] Whedon shot the conversation upwardly close several times, filming over-the-shoulder and reaction shots, just eventually went with a more distanced point of view.^[2] Michelle Trachtenberg later on said of this effect, "obviously y'all know in the stop result at that place was no sound and I thought that was really i of the most vivid ideas [he'south] ever had because it allows anybody to sort of attach their own emotional plug into whatsoever might take happened in your life. I think it allowed the audience to really connect with Dawn for the first time."^[7]

Presenting the episode without whatever non-diegetic music was Whedon'southward way of denying the audition any condolement, forcing them to discern their ain meanings from the characters' actions and words.^[nine] Every bit two musicologists write near this absence, "Without music's audio-visual lotion, all our empathetic attention is on the characters and their state of bewilderment ... Music would provide a conceptualization and a catharsis ... but a catharsis at this point would in some measure out trivialize the loss."^[28] Television critic Gareth McLean writes that this determination is "a move that makes information technology more courageous than, for instance, ER. There were no soaring strings or plaintive pianoforte to trigger an emotional response. Instead the soundtrack took in the ambient noises of current of air chimes, doors squeaking, footsteps on carpets. Conversations were stilted and awkward, just the spaces in between always mattered."^[29]

Reception [edit]

Any sneerer of Buffy in particular or genre work should but be sat downward in front of a television and told to shut up for three-quarters of an 60 minutes while they are shown "The Body"; their awestruck silence later may exist taken as recantation or apology.

Ian Shuttleworth, 2004^[30]

Critics praised the episode, and have continued to count it as one of the finest episodes of television always broadcast. David Bianculli in the New York Daily News commends the acting abilities of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Michelle Trachtenberg, Alyson Hannigan, and Amber Benson. "The Body", according to Bianculli is "Emmy-worthy ... It besides will haunt you lot—merely not in the normal way associated with this withal-evolving, still-achieving serial."^[31] Television critic Alesia Redding and editor Joe Vince of the South Curve Tribune write, "I was riveted by this show ... This isn't just one of the all-time Buffy episodes of all fourth dimension. It's 1 of the all-time episodes of Goggle box of all time." Redding adds, "If you watch this incredible episode and don't recognize information technology equally great Television, you're hopeless ... A 'fantasy' testify delivers the virtually stark and realistic take on death I've ever seen, deftly depicting how a loved ane who dies of a sudden becomes 'the body'."^[32]

Gareth McLean in The Guardian rejects the notion that Buffy is similar to other "schmaltzy American teen bear witness(s)" similar Dawson's Creek: "This episode was a brave, honest and wrenching portrayal of death and loss. The mode this was handled past Joss Whedon ... was ingenious. Time slowed downwards and the feeling of numbness was palpable as Buffy and her gang tried to come to terms with Joyce's death." McLean specially appreciated the small-scale details of Buffy protecting Joyce's dignity and the confusion shown by the characters. He concludes, "Joyce may exist dead but long alive Buffy the Vampire Slayer."^[29] Joe Gross in the Austin American-Statesman calls the episode "devastatingly calm" and states that "the unabridged bandage and crew should have received some sort of Emmy for 'The Body'".^[33]

At Salon.com, Joyce Millman writes, "in that location hasn't been a finer hour of drama on TV this twelvemonth than ... 'The Torso' ... You have to hand information technology to the writers; Joyce's demise came as a consummate surprise. In that instant, Buffy'southward childhood officially ends. Fifty-fifty if Buffy gets stiffed in every other Emmy category this yr, 'The Body' should convince the nominating commission that Gellar is for real ... I can't remember the last time I saw a more wrenching portrayal of the stupor of loss."^[23] Andrew Gilstrap at PopMatters declares information technology "peradventure the finest hour of television receiver I've seen, bar none ... It is an incredibly moving episode, i that finally admits that yous don't walk away from death unscathed. It also shows that, for all the group's slaying experience, they really weren't prepared for death when it stole a loved one." Gilstrap went on to say the series did not once more address death and grief of this magnitude until, in another shocking turn of events, Tara dies of a devious gunshot in the sixth season.^[34] Jerry McCormick in The San Diego Union-Tribune agrees, rating Joyce'south death as having the same emotional impact as Tara's in "Seeing Scarlet", both of which he listed as the saddest in the serial.^[35]

Kira Schlechter in The Patriot-News declares "The Torso" "one of the finest episodes of any serial e'er", stating that the silence and novel cinematography are "remarkable and the writing is brilliant". Buffy and Dawn's conversation at her school, Schlechter says, is "positively wrenching".^[36] When the series ended in 2003, Amy Antangelo in the Boston Herald and Siona LaFrance of the New Orleans Times-Picayune both rated the best Buffy episodes giving "The Body" equal billing at the acme with "Hush" and "Once more, with Feeling",^[37] LaFrance designating the episode an "instant classic".^[38] Jonathan Last in The Weekly Standard lists "The Trunk" 8th out of the x best Buffy episodes, writing that information technology is "the series' most difficult episode because information technology's real—and not existent in the mode ER or The Practice or Constabulary & Order, all hyper-versions of reality, are real. At some betoken, most of u.s. will experience a twenty-four hours like Buffy has in 'The Body' and nosotros sense that the writers have gotten almost every detail of that twenty-four hours—right downwards to the absence of a musical score—right."^[39] In the A.5. Guild, Noel Murray too finds small details compelling, such every bit the camera'south focus on the paper towel Buffy uses to cover the vomit on the carpeting. He does, however, write that some of the shots "come off a little gimmicky, but the ones that work are so effective that it seems petty to complain that Whedon overdoes it at times. (Besides, unlike moments are likely to motility different people.)"^[thirteen]

In improver to praising Gellar'southward often under-appreciated acting, Buffy scholar Ian Shuttleworth comments on the bandage and the nuanced numbness and confusion of the characters, paired with the moments of silence in the episode: "It is but i of the finest pieces of television drama, and the single finest depiction of bereavement in any medium, that I have ever seen."^[30] Nikki Stafford, writer of Seize with teeth Me! The Unofficial Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, calls "The Trunk" "an absolute masterpiece", explaining that it is "hands down the single almost terrifying, heart-breaking, painful, and astonishing hour of tv I take ever seen". She praises the entire cast every bit, but highlights Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, and Emma Caulfield. Stafford too praised Kristine Sutherland—as did Whedon—for having to lie motionless with her eyes open up for hours upon hours over eight days of filming.^{[2] [sixteen]}

In 2015, Gavin Hetherington of SpoilerTV looked back at the episode fourteen years later. Upon reviewing the episode, he called it "1 of the best hours of goggle box" he had e'er seen and went on to say "I don't think any other supernatural testify has ever had a more beautiful episode than The Torso".^[40]

When the episode was originally circulate in the U.s.a. on the WB network on February 27, 2001, information technology received a Nielsen rating of 3.v and a share of 5, and was watched by 6 million viewers.^[41] The episode placed 5th in its timeslot, and 82nd amid broadcast television receiver for the week of Feb 26 – March 4, 2001. It was the most watched program on the WB that night, and the 2d most watched program that calendar week, trailing 7th Sky.^[42] This was a slight increase from a 3.4 rating and 87th position achieved by the previous episode.^[43] The episode was released on DVD on Oct 28, 2002 in Region ii, and Dec nine, 2003 in Region ane.^{[44] [45]} Although the episode received positive reviews, it was not nominated for whatever Emmy awards. Rhonda Wilcox attributes this to the Emmys existence a "bastion of conservative popular gustatory modality", automatically rejecting television shows in the fantasy/science fiction genres.^[46] The script was nominated for a Nebula Accolade, given for excellence in scientific discipline fiction/fantasy writing.^[47]

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b} Kaveney, pp. 13–31.
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Whedon, Joss (2008). Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Fifth Season; DVD commentary for the episode "The Torso". [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
3. ^ Wilcox, pp. 17–18.
4. ^ ^{a b} Stevenson, p. 162.
5. ^ ^{a b c} Kaveney, pp. 78–79.
6. ^ ^{a b} Ruditis, p. 59.
7. ^ ^{a b c} Sullivan, Brian Ford (March 21, 2008). Live at the Paley Festival: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reunion, The Futon Critic. Retrieved on June fourteen, 2010.
8. ^ Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Fifth Season; "Flavor Overview" Featurette. (2008) [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
9. ^ ^{a b c d eastward} Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Consummate Fifth Season; "Natural Causes" Featurette. (2008) [DVD]. 20th Century Play tricks.
10. ^ Byrnes, Lyndsey (June 8, 2010). An interview with Bister Benson Archived June 12, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Afterellen.com. Retrieved on June 13, 2010.
11. ^ Whedon, Joss (May 21, 2001). "Interview", The Hollywood Reporter, 368 (nineteen), p. S8.
12. ^ Tropiano, p. 184.
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Bibliography [edit]

• Attinello, Paul; Halfyard, Janet; Knights, Vanessa (eds.) (2010). Music, Audio, and Silence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7546-6042-2
• Davidson, Joy (ed.) (2007). The Psychology of Joss Whedon: An Unauthorized Exploration of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, Benbella Books. ISBN 978-1-933771-25-0
• Jowett, Lorna (2005). Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan, Wesleyan University Printing. ISBN 978-0-8195-6758-i
• Kaveney, Roz (ed.) (2004). Reading the Vampire Slayer: The New, Updated, Unofficial Guide to Buffy and Affections, Tauris Parke Paperbacks. ISBN one-4175-2192-9
• Ruditis, Paul (2004). Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher's Guide, Volume 3, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-689-86984-3
• Stafford, Nikki (2007). Seize with teeth Me! The Unofficial Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ECW Press. ISBN 978-ane-55022-807-6
• Stevenson, Gregory (2004). Televised Morality; The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hamilton Books. ISBN 0-7618-2833-8
• Tropiano, Stephen (2002). Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV, Applause Theater and Movie theatre Books. ISBN i-55783-557-8
• Wilcox, Rhonda (2005). Why Buffy Matters: The Art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I. B. Tauris. ISBN 1-84511-029-3

Further reading [edit]

• Pateman, Matthew (2006). The Aesthetics of Civilization in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, McFarland and Visitor. ISBN 0-7864-2249-ane

External links [edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Torso .

• "The Body" at IMDb
• "The Body" at BBC.co.uk
• "The Body" at BuffyGuide.com

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_%28Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer%29

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