I just finished watching this one and I have no words ! Every time I see it I feel empty, sad, frightened and a little angry. The fact is sometimes I forget that death exists and when I remember it I'm scared because I know that death could take me or people I love at any times without warning and it makes me melancholy. I lost my grandparents lasts years and I recall having terrible thoughts. I was wondering
"Why them ? Why not criminals ? Why not bad people ?" It's a bit unfair ! Is it horrible to think that ?
The Body is a dramatic, shocking episode, in every sense of the words. I watched it today and I could see it twenty years later and it will always have the same impact on me. I would feel the same emotions, with the same intensity, same depth as if it were the first time I saw it. Why ? Because Death is the theme of the episode, and this is a phenomenon which is timeless, affects everyone in a often sudden way, and it puts us face the harsh reality of the life !
A bereavement has several stages. All are illustrated by the different characters :
Step 1 : Denial : The refusal to see the reality. At the beginning, Buffy is completely devastated, she doesn't admit the situation and she doesn't express her feelings immediatly. She imagines her mother breathe again, in the ambulance, and alive at the hospital. Unfortunatly, she is shocked and all of this is only the representation of her denial. She doesn't want confront reality so she denies it. Another example is the fact she shows respect and she is polite towards the doctors whereas, normally, if she would be truly conscious of the situation she coudn't be as civilized and say
"goodbye" "good luck" even
"thank you" , she coudn't be so calm, she would be more expressive ! It's only when Giles arrives and rushes to the body of Joyce that Buffy reacts by saying "
"we are not supposed to move the body" and it's the element that takes/gets her out of her reflection and she finally aggrees to see things as they are. She collapses in the arm of Giles, who acts like a father for her, exteriorizing all her pain.
When Buffy announces the terrible new to Dawn, she doesn't believe her :
"It's not true". She cries and all her classmates look her through the window. I think that it's a way to show that people sympathize to pain but they don't feel it in the same way and they can't totally understand, it's like two different worlds ! Throughout the episode, Dawn seems to not believe at Joyce's death and she wants to see the body to be persuaded. When she finally sees it, it's the moment where she face up to reality !
Step 2 : Anger : Alex who initially contains himself, but who gradually leaves everything out. He throws the fault on the doctors, which is normal from my point of view, because we often tend to find someone to blame. But of course, medicine is not an infallible science, and doctors are human, and so in this kind of case, as they say
"error is human", although if it is hardly forgivable in some cases. Another sign of anger is when Alex evacuate his frustration by punching the wall, a way to provoke and feel something other than he already feels, even if it is for a short time.
Step 3 : Bargaining : Anya faces a situation she doesn't know and she doesn't know how to deal with it. When she was a demon she had eternity so she certainly didn't feel concerned by death. Now, she realizes that she is human and vulnerable, she can die and that afraid her. I would also say that as a demon she gave death and as human she confronts it, really not the same thing ! For her, die it's a human's thing, a human's weakness and she does not understand the reasons. She asks the right questions, that we all ask ourselves :
"Why" she tries to bargain with fate :
"Why she can not get back in it and not be dead" she doesn't comprehend human's reality and why we submit. It is a speech full of truthful questions, but unfortunately there are no real answers.
Step 4 : Depression : Willow expresses great sadness. She constantly puts her choices in question, she is really nervous ! She can't decide which sweater she wants to wear, not the purple because that symbolize royalty, not the pink because it's too happy, she finds all she have inapropriate for such circumstances, she doesn't know what to wear, she is undecided and a little in distress. It's only when Tara kisses her (first kiss between them) that she finally surpasses this state.
Step 5 : Acceptance : Tara is the representation. I find her more calm than all the others, more
"posed", she supports all of them, she really shows a great strength, as if she had already accepted the death of Joyce. I found it very touching, the scene where she confides to Buffy. We understand that if Tara reacts in a healthier way, it is because she has already passed through this test/event (i'm not sure about what word I should use) and that's why she knows what Buffy and Dawn and even all the others endure, even if as she says it's an experience that everyone lives a little diferently !
I also notice all the details of the life that I would describe as insignificant like Alex's fine or Dawn crying for a boy. It proves that we give too much importance to things which are not worth it !
And about the vampire in the end, it's only a way to say
"Life continue, World is still moving outside" !
And of course the episode ends with a phrase from Dawn, a question that probably haunts all of us:
"Where'd she go?"
"The Body" is a complete episode which shows all the phases of bereavement and there is no music and it's more realistic like that. The actors are all, without exception, excellent !
