Top 10 Episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer

6. The Body (5×16)

“The Body” is a monumental episode for BtVS.  It deals with Buffy’s mom suddenly dying and how different people react to death.  It’s also the first time that a character has died from natural causes on the show, which Buffy hates because the anger she feels cannot be channelled.  It’s the rare episode where there isn’t a ‘baddie’ until she kills a vampire at the very end of the episode.  The most emotional scene for me was seeing how her friends reacted.  Willow obsesses over a shirt, Xander is angry, and Anya simply cannot comprehend  death and mortality.  The scene comes to an emotional end when Xander puts his fist in a wall.  For  a show like BtVS, which is grandiose with its plotting, seeing the characters do these mundane things gives you a whole new level to connect with them.   Whedon has gone on to say that he wrote this episode to show how mundane death really is.  It’s a very dark notion but if you think about it we never realize it because of our emotions.  If any episode deserved an Emmy, it should’ve been this one.