Buffy: The perfect episode....but...

[Recoil]

So there has been a lot of talk these days on the Whedon blog site about what many refer to as one of the best TV episodes ever: Buffy the Vampire Slayers Season 5 episode "The Body."

I'll admit, I think its extremely well done, and haven't seen anything like it in a very very long time. In my opinion it was the perfect episode....right up until the end. They had to have her sister wander off to the morgue part of the hospital and have a random and un-important encounter with a Vampire just so Buffy could slay it (there must have been a law that she has to dust a Vampire per episode). There was no reason for this in there at all. It was an episode that shouldn't have dealt with any of the mythos and all about the human condition. That part felt extremely out of place, and IMO kept it from being a perfect episode.

Anyone else feel this?

 

[snockit]

True, it did seem strange.

But just recalling the scene now, I think it was to show the cross between the normal/Mudan and supernatural. Through the whole episode, it is about the normal aspects of grief and dying, than at the end, we are reminded of the supernatural world Buffy lives in. To almost give a brief disconnect of the truth that Joy is really dead. What sells the scene for me is when here sister goes to touch Joy, to see if she is really gone after all this ... a set up with such a more highten awareness of how tragic the loss really is. And how it is just a body, nothing more...

At least, that is how that made me feel, If he didn't put in that last shot, it wouldn't have worked ...

S.

 

[vacantlook]

I'm not sure I would call it perfect, but I would call it great. The scene of Anya's breakdown really gets me. I can see the benefit of going both ways when it comes to the vampire at the end. If they had had no supernatural threats at all in the episode, it would have marked the episode with even more of a difference from the rest of the series, much like the lack of music in the episode (not counting the background holiday music of the Christmas flashback scene during the guest credits). But having Buffy have to fight the vampire continues to show that every part of Buffy's life is affected by her being the Slayer. She can't even have time to grieve over her mother before the presence of evil requires her to put herself and her life aside to fight again.

 

[KoshFan]

VL's got most of it. (Joss explained why he did it in the commentary on that ep., I believe.) Buffy has to get back on the horse immediately, there's no peace for her. Also, note the difference between that fight scene and all the rest. No heroic music, no elegant choreography, just a gruesome grapple with a naked thing, overcome not by virtuoso stratagems, acrobatic grace, or selfless sacrifice, but by raw, crude force... it's practically unique among the Buffy fights as showing what battle really is.

But really, if you want to know why the vampire's there, watch the commentary.

 

[Recoil]

OK I'll do that. It never sat right with me, which is why I asked.

 

[KoshFan]

Well, his explanations may still not satisfy you, but you'll have it from the horse's mouth.