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Welcome to the Hellmouth, where even outerwear isn't safe.

• All Guys Want Cheerleaders / All Men Are Perverts: RJ's friend hears about the cheerleader tryouts and asks if the girls are going to be jumping up and down a lot. And later...
  Buffy: You shredded my outfit.
  Dawn: I'll buy you a new one.
  Buffy: That's not the point. I don't want a new cheerleading outfit.
  Xander: Now, now, let's not be hasty...
• An Axe to Grind: Buffy vs. the demon that D'Hoffryn sent to kill Anya.
• Bare Your Midriff: Dawn, the Pushy Queen of Slut Town.
• Blatant Lies: Anya claiming she wrote an epic poem, when actually she robbed several banks.
• Buffy Speak: Soul-having. Rant Girl. No more with the talky.
• Breather Episode
• Call Back
  • Dawn asks Buffy if she loves Spike, just as Tara did in "Dead Things". This time Buffy is able to answer the question, saying that she doesn't, but she does have feelings for him.
  • Dawn fears she can't compete with her cooler, more assertive and sexually-experienced sister, just as teenaged Buffy once worried about losing Angel to girls like Cordelia or Faith.
  • Xander walking in on Buffy straddling RJ is like when he came across the Buffybot straddling Spike in "Intervention".
  • Spike turning the angel statuettes so they couldn't face him resembles Drusilla bandaging the eyes of her dolls.
  • Spike moving in with Xander, and Lance living in his mother's basement and working dead-end jobs, is a call back to Xander in Season 4.
  • Willow trying to sort out a relationship problem by immediately resorting to magic.
• Cat Fight: Dawn and another of RJ's paramours get into a hair-pulling contest outside the Bronze.
• Chekhovs's Bazooka: The rocket launcher Buffy used to dust The Judge is used again to try and kill Wood.
  • Also the cheerleader outfit that Buffy last wore in Season One ("The Wish").
• Coincidental Broadcast
• Continuity Nod
  • Buffy follows up on her insistence that Spike move out of the Sunnydale High basement, making him room with a reluctant Xander.
  • Buffy startles when Spike touches her unexpectedly; his attempted rape still leaves its scars.
  • Buffy's poor driving skills in her mother's SUV, as seen in "Band Candy".
  • Buffy insisting everyone but her is affected by the spell, as she did in "Somthing Blue".
  • Dawn brings up Buffy's taste for rough sex — according to a deleted line on the shooting script, she found this out from Anya who would have got the information during her drinking session with Spike in "Entropy".
  • Xander identifying the effects of a love spell is due to his experiences in "Something Blue" and "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" — the latter also showed how the spell can affect a person's sense of right and wrong, with the affected girls all trying to murder Xander as shown in the flashback.
• Dawson Casting: Thad Luckinbill, who portrays RJ is actually TEN years older than Michelle Trachtenberg and two years older than Sarah Michelle Gellar.
• Department of Redundancy Department
  Willow: Damn love spell. I have tried every anti-love spell spell I could find.
  Anya: Even if you find the right one, the guy would probably just do an anti-anti-love spell spell... spell. (Willow looks confused)
• Distracted by the Sexy: Dawn slides along the bleachers to keep RJ in sight until she falls off the end.
• Foreshadowing: Anya discusses the feelings a gay Willow has for RJ.
  Anya: His physical form has a penis!
  Willow: I can work around that.
• Don't Sneak Up On Me Like That!: After saying Spike is OK now he's got a soul, Buffy jumps a mile when he touches her unexpectedly.
• Driven to Suicide: Dawn lies across the railway tracks, and is only saved at the last minute by her sister.
• Flashback Echo: To "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered".
• Funny Background Event: Buffy trying to kill Wood with a rocket launcher, and Spike stopping her, is turned into a Crowning Moment of Funny due to taking place entirely in the background while Wood remains oblivious.
• Gender Bender: Willow's solution to RJ is to turn him into a girl, thus eliminating her competition so she can him...err, her all to herself. It's the less extreme of the bids for his attention.
• Hot For Teacher
  RJ: (after Buffy's "Shut Up" Kiss) You're like a teacher.
  Buffy: Not really. (sweetly) But, I mean, does it bother you?
  RJ: (smiling) Not so much.
• I Believe That You Believe It: Buffy trying to convince Dawn that her crush on RJ isn't real.
• Incest Is Relative: Willow and Xander ogling a girl, who turns out to be their surrogate little sister Dawn.
• Insane Troll Logic: Plenty of this as each love-struck Scooby tries to explain why their love is the real deal.
• Interrupted Intimacy: Xander walks in on a half-(un)dressed Buffy in a plaid skirt, making-out cowgirl-position with RJ on a school desk.
• Kill It with Fire: The letterman jacket is burnt.
• Lampshaded Double Entendre: Buffy tells RJ that she's pretty much the same age as him, "but with the sexual experience and stuff."
  RJ: I think I hear what you're saying.
• Leitmotif: "Theme From A Summer Place" by Percy Faith is heard every time someone falls in love with RJ.
• Love Makes You Crazy: At the end Dawn is moaning how stupid she acted over a love spell. Buffy tells her to prepare to feel even stupider when it's the real thing.
• Love Potion / Kissing Under the Influence
• Love at First Sight
• Love Makes You Evil / Staircase Tumble: When another jock gets RJ's position on the football team, Dawn pushes him down the stairs.
• Manipulative Bitch: Buffy tells Dawn that RJ likes her, but thought she was coming on too strong. Buffy The Vamp then swoops in on RJ while little sis is taking it slow.
• Mating Dance: Dawn in her very tight jeans and painted-on shirt wildly gyrating with RJ on the Bronze dance floor.
• Meaningful Echo: When Willow and Anya fall in love with RJ too, they start mimicing the words of the Dawn/Buffy spat.
• Mood Whiplash: Buffy is getting Overly-Protective Big Sis on RJ when he slips into his jacket — suddenly it's the return of Puppy-Dog Eyes!
• Mundane Solution: Xander and Spike's 'plan' consists of them running up to RJ, ripping off his letterman jacket and fleeing with it.
• Never Say That Again: That guy in the jacket.
• Non Answer
  Dawn: Last night, you said you weren't helping Spike out of pity. What is it [if not that]?
  Buffy: It's a good question. (sips her drink through a straw)
  Dawn: Is sitting there drinking soda some kind of a Zen non-answer?
• Oblivious Mockery: Spike gives Lance a dirty look when he starts ragging RJ's poetry-writing.
• Putting a Hand Over His Mouth: Xander to Willow just as she's about to complete her spell.
• Songs Of Solace: After her tryout disaster Dawn lies on her bed listening to "School Blood" by King Black Acid.
• Split Screen
• Suspiciously Specific Denial
  • Anya: "It was a spell. We're not responsible for anything we did morally or, you know, legally..."
  • Buffy asks Xander if he thought of trying on the jacket.
  Xander: I refuse to answer that on the grounds that it didn't fit.
• Relative Button: Dawn trying to kill herself shocks Buffy out of the effects of the spell. Mostly.
• Riddle For The Ages: Where did RJ's father get the magic jacket?
• Rule of Three / The Last of These Is Not Like the Others
  Buffy: (to Slut!Dawn) Where do I start with the bad? First, you told me you were going to the library. Second, you do not go out on a date without informing me first. Third, Anna Nicole Smith thinks you look tacky.
• Running Gag: Buffy insisting she's just slightly older than RJ.
• Slow Motion
• Serious Business
• She's All Grown Up: Xander became way too aware of this when they see Dawn dancing with RJ. Willow...well let's use her words.
  Willow: "Right there with ya".
• Tantrum Throwing: Dawn shredding the cheerleader outfit after her disastrous tryout.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!
  Lori: I'll never let you have him, bitch. R.J. is mine. I mean it! Stay away from him!
  Buffy: (to Dawn) Well, at least someone agrees you shouldn't be dating this guy.