Plot
Buffy arrives home and sees the flowers sent from Joyce's suitor. She calls out to her mother and hears no answer. Buffy sees Joyce lying lifeless on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.
The credits appear over a flashback to a Christmas dinner where all the Scoobies are present, having a typical lighthearted conversation as Joyce and Buffy discuss a pie that drops on the floor. The scene snaps back to Buffy in the living room, shaking Joyce and screaming at her. She calls for an ambulance and attempts CPR, to no avail. Buffy calls Giles. The paramedics arrive and work on Joyce and she revives, the paramedics declare it a miracle in the ambulance, and Joyce, Buffy, and Dawn rejoice in the hospital. The scene snaps back to the living room where the paramedics continue to work on Joyce until they stop and tell Buffy that Joyce is dead. They leave, and Buffy goes into the hall and vomits. Giles arrives and Buffy tells him not to move the body, shocking herself by using that word.
At school, Dawn is crying in the bathroom upset that a boy may not like her. In art class she talks with him as they sketch, and the two share a moment of understanding about being troubled. Buffy arrives and pulls Dawn out of class into the hall. Through the windows of the art room, the class watches Buffy tell her that Joyce has had an accident. The rest of the conversation is muffled. Dawn collapses in the hall, wailing.
In Willow's dormitory room, Tara tries to help Willow find a shirt to wear. Xander and Anya arrive and double-park. Willow panics, rejecting shirt after shirt, not knowing how to appear for Buffy and Dawn. She asks why her clothes are stupid and she is childish, weeping until Tara kisses and calms her. Anya asks Xander what she is supposed to do; he cannot answer. Willow changes her shirt again and Xander expresses his desire to find Glory and exact justice, then complains about Joyce's negligent doctors. Anya asks if they will see the body, then if the body will be cut open, and Willow responds angrily. Anya tearfully says she does not understand how to behave, or why Joyce cannot go back into her own body, complaining that it is all "stupid and mortal", and no one will tell her why things are happening. Xander puts his fist through the wall. As they leave to go to Buffy, Xander gets a parking ticket.
In the waiting room outside the morgue, the doctor tells Buffy that Joyce died of an aneurysm suddenly and painlessly. Left alone with Buffy, Tara tells her that her own mother died when she was 17 and she went through something similar. Dawn goes alone to the morgue to see Joyce's body. While she is there, one of the bodies, now a vampire, gets up. After noticing Dawn has not come back, Buffy goes to look for her and finds her in the morgue, being attacked by the vampire. As Buffy fights and kills the vampire, the sheet falls from Joyce's face. Looking at her mother, Dawn asks where she went, as she reaches out to touch her cheek.
Read more about this topic: The Body (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
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“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
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