Buffy Mom To Stay Dead

From SciFiWire - March 9th, 2001

Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon told TV Guide Online that Buffy's mom really died in the recent episode "The Body," despite fan speculation that Dawn's touch might bring her back. "Dawn's special energy will not bring Joyce back," Whedon told the site. "Some people thought that at the beginning of the next episode, she was going to touch her and heal her with her Dawn powers. I'm like, 'People! Missing the point!'"

The episode dealt with the death of Joyce Summers (played by Kristine Sutherland) and the aftermath among Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her friends. The episode included the long-awaited kiss between Buffy regulars Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara (Amber Benson)--but without any advance promotion and in an unexpected context.

"They are basically living together, so they're probably already kissing," Whedon said. "[Therefore,] to make a big deal of the kiss would have been totally wrong. It belongs somewhere where you least expect it, where it is completely organic, and you breeze by it." Still, executives at The WB initially asked Whedon to remove it from the episode. "The WB sort of balked, but they got over it really quickly," Whedon told TV Guide. "I was like, 'The kiss is in, or I'm walking.' But not in the sense of, 'Let's get into a fight,' [but] actually to avert one. ... Just to say, there is no middle ground here. This belongs in the show. ... There was one discussion, and there was only one."