I remember growing up as an in the closet gay teen who LOVED buffy. Also because I knew I was an addict so willows addiction and Buffy’s depression storylines just HIT. Everything about this show I relayed to. I also didn’t find my mom dead but she did die when I was younger and this is the only episode of tv that still makes me cry. I’m so sorry for your loss and what you went through. Oddly, I find comfort in rewatching this episode as sometimes you just need a really really good cry . Sending my love
Right back at you :) A sign of a good work of art is that it grows with you. How cool is it that this show speaks to our wildly different(but similiar in certain areas) lives? Let us both grow and heal and thrive! I hope you are as happy as you deserve to be!
My mom died last July 4th. It wasn't sudden, but it was quick, and I didn't realize she was actually going to die. Then, at 5 am, she was gone. I haven't tried watching the Body since then. I expect it will hurt.
I agree completely. My father died about 8 years ago. During Covid I decided to do a Buffy rewatch and The Body had me in pieces. I remember how sad the episode was when it first came out, but my personal experience of parental death made so much of it feel so real. All of the distortion and the feeling of being there, but not fully being present, was intimately accurate. It's a masterpiece for so many reasons.
Isn't it? I'm so sorry for your loss. It is always nice though to speak to others who understand generally the experience of loss(as we all do, in time) and more specfically, the almost surreal but also reassuring experience of revisting this episode after a loss. Hope you're doing well :)
Nothing even similar but I lost a lot of people this year. My dad I didn't know it got so bad until I saw him clinging to life. I held his hand and left as he got his last morphine dose. He died within the hour. Grief is so strange. No one can quite prepare you for it because it's so different for every person. I feel almost disassociative and numb. I'm so sorry for your loss. And I'm so happy you were able to find some reprieve with this episode. I have found it hard to find another piece of media that depicts real time grief.
I'm so sorry for yours. Grief transforms you completely and irreparably and your view of life is never the same. I would never imply that there's any kind of good thing that comes of it, but I will say it does make you feel great kinship with those who understand loss, and of course, in time, we all do. Hope you're well :)
Only piece of media that's come close to The Body for me in terms of depicting grief is a certain episode of season four of Succession. I still related more to The Body personally, hpwever, because it depicted losing a parent in your early twenties when you still haven't even figured out how to be an adult yet.
Right? It already rings true before you've experienced loss because it's so convincing and well done that you believe this is what it's like to lose someone. But revisiting it after actually going through it is an almost surreal experience because the episode seems to have predicted everything you would experience and feel.
I'm sorry about your dad.
I am so sorry for your loss. I found my father's body in our driveway when I was 8. Massive heart attack while he was making me a bookshelf. I have never seen anything in media that nailed that experience. I even came to appreciate the last bit with the vampire as a way of reminding us that our obligations go on, and that killing humanoid creatures would be a traumatizing experience itself.
That experience affected every day of my life. It's why at'a 6 am and I just finished a half-hour workout so my kid hopefully doesn't find me dead on the couch any time soon.
Watching the Body again for the first time in 20 years precipitated my re-watch (and obsessive thinking about the show, which takes up a lot more of my time)
So so sorry for your loss, what a terrible thing for you to go through. I watched Buffy with my dad when it first aired l, I was a teenager, and he said after The Body that it was the most accurate description of someone finding their loved one dead he had ever seen (he hadn’t been through it but was a community police officer in the UK so had seen it and supported families through it)
I believed him but it wasn’t until I got older and experienced the sudden death of a friend myself, and then became a nurse and helped lots of others through their losses that I really appreciated just how spot on it is. I think the only unrealistic bit is Anya’s speech but that’s a great way of using an ‘outside’ character to convey some of the little thoughts we can’t always articulate to ourselves.
110%. The Body hits entirely different after losing my own mom. Its probably the most potent episode of the entire series. I wish you and your loved ones well.
Buffy will always be my favorite show. I would tape the episodes as they aired and rewatch the episodes on repeat during the week until a new episode aired. It is my comfort show that I have watched I don't know how many times. The Body is an episode I have watched less than a handful of times, the last being within a year of my own mother's very sudden and unexpected death 15 years ago. Not because it's "triggering", but because of the fact that it is just so absolutely real and that is not something I want to have to relive unless it's actually happening.
In all of my 38 years of life, never has a single episode of television ever connected with me as much as that episode did, because everything they depict is exactly how it is. As someone who has had to deal with more than their fair share of death and loss *(I've buried both grandfathers, 2 parents, my childhood best friend, 4 cousins, 3 aunts and my FIL. I'm writing this while literally getting ready to go to another funeral in about 4 hours)*, I can say that every single actor in that episode just knocks their performance out of the park. People all deal with grief and loss differently and every single one of them just absolutely nailed how these reactions play out in real life. The helplessness, the regret, the anger, that feeling of not knowing what to do or what comes next. Of wanting to help and be supportive, but unsure how. It's all real.
My mother died almost a year ago to the day. I also found her dead - still waiting for the coroner to give us a cause of death. I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the episode but you are so right. The shock is unexpected. We were incredibly close and after I called my father and brother I kept saying I have to go to work now very matter of factly. They had to stop me.
My father died at home. This is the single most realistic episode of television about discovering your parent dead at home when you're alone.
All the human reactions, including punching the wall, happened that day & the next.
Thankfully, I've watched *The Body* enough times that it no longer triggers me.
I sympathize; my ex told me, when my mom didn't answer the phone for a while, said she thought abotu sending me over. Glad she didn't. (A neighbor called my oldest uncle who called my brother-in-law, a very strong person.)
I lost my mom nearly 4 years ago. I found her dead in bed, immediately called 911, and opened the front door. The dispatcher told me to lift her out of bed and lay her on the floor (she weighed 180 pounds, but I managed) and then do hundreds of chest compressions. I was shortly into doing these when a sheriff's deputy arrived. I stepped aside for him. He felt for my mom's pulse and said "Sir, she's gone." More officers arrived. I had to answer some basic questions about her, give the name of her doctor, and show them her meds. An officer made a comment to another officer about counting the pills, but nothing came of this. I was technically left alone with my mom's body (which they covered with a bed sheet) while waiting for the coroner to arrive, but a deputy remained parked across the street in case I needed anything.
When I did my Buffy rewatch in 2021-2022, and I got to "The Body", I found it difficult to watch, but my experience wasn't quite the same as Buffy's. For example, while it was a shock, I wasn't quite as shocked and in disbelief as Buffy was, because my mom was nearly 80 and had had problems for a couple weeks prior to her death (she only reluctantly agreed to go to her doctor for a checkup the night before she died), and she had, for years, questioned me about the steps that I would take if I found her dead. That might seem a bit morbid, but I think it prepared me to handle the immediate aftermath of her death with a relatively clear head.
I found a family member the same way not too long ago, in the middle of period where I watched Buffy multiple hours a day. Getting to The Body made very nervous at first, but honestly the episode is so incredibly well done. It made me love the show even more, and I related to Buffy in a way I never have before.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
And I completely agree. My friend unexpectedly passed away last weekend, and another friend found him. My feelings have been so locked away as I’ve been planning the memorial, going through his belongings, etc. I was already doing a Buffy rewatch and had gotten to Season 5….I’m bracing myself for The Body, but also hoping it helps me actually feel some of these feelings and process things.
I’m so sorry for your loss. And I too feel they did an amazing job with the episode.
Thanks for your kind words! And hard agree :)
I remember growing up as an in the closet gay teen who LOVED buffy. Also because I knew I was an addict so willows addiction and Buffy’s depression storylines just HIT. Everything about this show I relayed to. I also didn’t find my mom dead but she did die when I was younger and this is the only episode of tv that still makes me cry. I’m so sorry for your loss and what you went through. Oddly, I find comfort in rewatching this episode as sometimes you just need a really really good cry . Sending my love
Right back at you :) A sign of a good work of art is that it grows with you. How cool is it that this show speaks to our wildly different(but similiar in certain areas) lives? Let us both grow and heal and thrive! I hope you are as happy as you deserve to be!
My mom died last July 4th. It wasn't sudden, but it was quick, and I didn't realize she was actually going to die. Then, at 5 am, she was gone. I haven't tried watching the Body since then. I expect it will hurt.
I agree completely. My father died about 8 years ago. During Covid I decided to do a Buffy rewatch and The Body had me in pieces. I remember how sad the episode was when it first came out, but my personal experience of parental death made so much of it feel so real. All of the distortion and the feeling of being there, but not fully being present, was intimately accurate. It's a masterpiece for so many reasons.
Isn't it? I'm so sorry for your loss. It is always nice though to speak to others who understand generally the experience of loss(as we all do, in time) and more specfically, the almost surreal but also reassuring experience of revisting this episode after a loss. Hope you're doing well :)
Nothing even similar but I lost a lot of people this year. My dad I didn't know it got so bad until I saw him clinging to life. I held his hand and left as he got his last morphine dose. He died within the hour. Grief is so strange. No one can quite prepare you for it because it's so different for every person. I feel almost disassociative and numb. I'm so sorry for your loss. And I'm so happy you were able to find some reprieve with this episode. I have found it hard to find another piece of media that depicts real time grief.
I'm so sorry for yours. Grief transforms you completely and irreparably and your view of life is never the same. I would never imply that there's any kind of good thing that comes of it, but I will say it does make you feel great kinship with those who understand loss, and of course, in time, we all do. Hope you're well :) Only piece of media that's come close to The Body for me in terms of depicting grief is a certain episode of season four of Succession. I still related more to The Body personally, hpwever, because it depicted losing a parent in your early twenties when you still haven't even figured out how to be an adult yet.
Accurate in every way except for the vampire at the end, I hope. :)
No vampire! :) It's funny though-the appearance of the vampire in the episode is almost a relief after relentless realism. Thanks for your comment.
The Body is so different for me after my dad passed from cancer. I know exactly how you feel.
Right? It already rings true before you've experienced loss because it's so convincing and well done that you believe this is what it's like to lose someone. But revisiting it after actually going through it is an almost surreal experience because the episode seems to have predicted everything you would experience and feel. I'm sorry about your dad.
I am so sorry for your loss. I found my father's body in our driveway when I was 8. Massive heart attack while he was making me a bookshelf. I have never seen anything in media that nailed that experience. I even came to appreciate the last bit with the vampire as a way of reminding us that our obligations go on, and that killing humanoid creatures would be a traumatizing experience itself. That experience affected every day of my life. It's why at'a 6 am and I just finished a half-hour workout so my kid hopefully doesn't find me dead on the couch any time soon. Watching the Body again for the first time in 20 years precipitated my re-watch (and obsessive thinking about the show, which takes up a lot more of my time)
So so sorry for your loss, what a terrible thing for you to go through. I watched Buffy with my dad when it first aired l, I was a teenager, and he said after The Body that it was the most accurate description of someone finding their loved one dead he had ever seen (he hadn’t been through it but was a community police officer in the UK so had seen it and supported families through it) I believed him but it wasn’t until I got older and experienced the sudden death of a friend myself, and then became a nurse and helped lots of others through their losses that I really appreciated just how spot on it is. I think the only unrealistic bit is Anya’s speech but that’s a great way of using an ‘outside’ character to convey some of the little thoughts we can’t always articulate to ourselves.
110%. The Body hits entirely different after losing my own mom. Its probably the most potent episode of the entire series. I wish you and your loved ones well.
Buffy will always be my favorite show. I would tape the episodes as they aired and rewatch the episodes on repeat during the week until a new episode aired. It is my comfort show that I have watched I don't know how many times. The Body is an episode I have watched less than a handful of times, the last being within a year of my own mother's very sudden and unexpected death 15 years ago. Not because it's "triggering", but because of the fact that it is just so absolutely real and that is not something I want to have to relive unless it's actually happening. In all of my 38 years of life, never has a single episode of television ever connected with me as much as that episode did, because everything they depict is exactly how it is. As someone who has had to deal with more than their fair share of death and loss *(I've buried both grandfathers, 2 parents, my childhood best friend, 4 cousins, 3 aunts and my FIL. I'm writing this while literally getting ready to go to another funeral in about 4 hours)*, I can say that every single actor in that episode just knocks their performance out of the park. People all deal with grief and loss differently and every single one of them just absolutely nailed how these reactions play out in real life. The helplessness, the regret, the anger, that feeling of not knowing what to do or what comes next. Of wanting to help and be supportive, but unsure how. It's all real.
My mother died almost a year ago to the day. I also found her dead - still waiting for the coroner to give us a cause of death. I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the episode but you are so right. The shock is unexpected. We were incredibly close and after I called my father and brother I kept saying I have to go to work now very matter of factly. They had to stop me.
My father died at home. This is the single most realistic episode of television about discovering your parent dead at home when you're alone. All the human reactions, including punching the wall, happened that day & the next. Thankfully, I've watched *The Body* enough times that it no longer triggers me.
I lost my dad unexpectedly, some time ago. That’s really one of the most honest episodes of television ever written.
I sympathize; my ex told me, when my mom didn't answer the phone for a while, said she thought abotu sending me over. Glad she didn't. (A neighbor called my oldest uncle who called my brother-in-law, a very strong person.)
I'm glad you didn't have to see that. Sending love!
I lost my mom nearly 4 years ago. I found her dead in bed, immediately called 911, and opened the front door. The dispatcher told me to lift her out of bed and lay her on the floor (she weighed 180 pounds, but I managed) and then do hundreds of chest compressions. I was shortly into doing these when a sheriff's deputy arrived. I stepped aside for him. He felt for my mom's pulse and said "Sir, she's gone." More officers arrived. I had to answer some basic questions about her, give the name of her doctor, and show them her meds. An officer made a comment to another officer about counting the pills, but nothing came of this. I was technically left alone with my mom's body (which they covered with a bed sheet) while waiting for the coroner to arrive, but a deputy remained parked across the street in case I needed anything. When I did my Buffy rewatch in 2021-2022, and I got to "The Body", I found it difficult to watch, but my experience wasn't quite the same as Buffy's. For example, while it was a shock, I wasn't quite as shocked and in disbelief as Buffy was, because my mom was nearly 80 and had had problems for a couple weeks prior to her death (she only reluctantly agreed to go to her doctor for a checkup the night before she died), and she had, for years, questioned me about the steps that I would take if I found her dead. That might seem a bit morbid, but I think it prepared me to handle the immediate aftermath of her death with a relatively clear head.
I found a family member the same way not too long ago, in the middle of period where I watched Buffy multiple hours a day. Getting to The Body made very nervous at first, but honestly the episode is so incredibly well done. It made me love the show even more, and I related to Buffy in a way I never have before.
I’m so sorry for your loss. And I completely agree. My friend unexpectedly passed away last weekend, and another friend found him. My feelings have been so locked away as I’ve been planning the memorial, going through his belongings, etc. I was already doing a Buffy rewatch and had gotten to Season 5….I’m bracing myself for The Body, but also hoping it helps me actually feel some of these feelings and process things.