It's been nearly 30 years since "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" staked its claim on television history. The show was a smash hit, made a pop-culture icon of fierce lead Sarah Michelle Gellar and turned the teen drama genre on its head with its nuanced, long-arc storytelling, formidable but flawed characters, and fang-sharp wit, all while kicking serious undead ass.
One of the best supernatural series of all time, "Buffy" ran for seven seasons on The WB and later UPN — a kind of redo for series creator Josh Whedon, who penned the campy 1992 film of the same name but to far less acclaimed effect. Along the way, it produced some of the medium's most iconic episodes, from season 4's near-silent "Hush" to the season 6 mini-musical "Once More, with Feeling."
But there's one episode above all others that remains truly haunting all these years later, with a devastating twist that changed the beloved vampire show forever. Here's why, 25 years later, I'm still not over "The Body."
What is 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' about?
If you've never watched it before, here are the "Buffy" basics: If you hadn't tuned into the groundbreaking series during its original run or in the decades since, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" follows titular California teen Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) whose normal adolescent existence is reluctantly upended when it's revealed that she's a one-in-a-generation "Chosen One" destined to defeat vampire, demons and other supernatural evils.
Helping her along the perilous way are her "Scooby Gang" best friends Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) — and later Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) and Daniel "Oz" Osbourne (Seth Green) — as well as her designated trainer-slash-mentor Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head). And, of course, it's not a teen drama without an angsty love triangle, and "Buffy" features one of the best, with the Slayer regularly conflicted by her feelings for two brooding vampires, Angel (David Boreanaz) and Spike (James Marsters).
Why this 'Buffy' twist was a game-changer for the show
Spoilers ahead for season 5 episode 16, "The Body"
For much of its 144-episode run, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was plagued by menacing threats of the otherworldly kind, with Buffy ruthlessly taking down the series' Big Bads in a classic "monster of the week" format. But the biggest danger was one that the Summers girl could have never seen coming: The natural death of her own mother.
Arguably the show's finest hour, season 5's "The Body" (written and directed by Whedon) sees Buffy arrive at the Sunnydale home she shares with her mother Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) and younger sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), only to find the former silent and still on the couch. She is horrified and heartbroken to find that her mother has died and, markedly, not by one of the show's usual supernatural forces but by an ordinary brain aneurysm.
"The Body" fittingly tributes the first loss of one of the drama's main characters — and a beloved maternal figure at that — by doing away with the musical score, creating an unsettling and stark atmosphere that befits the brutal realism of Buffy's grief. As she navigates this unconscionable loss, it might be the most human we get to see the young woman, whose everyday world is so frequently wrapped up in fantasy and foes. The deeply emotional installment marks a turning point in the series, but it also acts as a painful reminder that no one, not even the all-mighty Slayer, can outrun death.
Watch "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on Hulu now
