Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans are pretty tough - and many built up a tolerance to death after hero Buffy Summers took down one vampire after the next from 1997 to 2003. However, one death is still haunting viewers 25 years after it aired. The surprise passing of Buffy's (Sarah Michelle Gellar) mom, Joyce Summers (Kristine Sutherland), during season 5, episode 16, "The Body," shook fans - and the entire Sunnydale Scooby Gang. The episode aired in February 2001, bringing grief to the forefront of mainstream TV and rocking the Buffy universe for decades to come.