A slimmed-down Daphne returns from the spa and blames Niles for her initial weight gain.
Tropes:
- Brutal Honesty: After most of the episode deals with how Niles has been Loving a Shadow for seven years, he and Daphne are bluntly honest about each other's flaws (Niles stating that he hates Daphne's cooking, Daphne claiming Niles would eat a worm if she called it French cuisine, etc.). They then check to make sure they haven't hurt each other's feelings too badly, admit that it's for the best that they're being honest with each other now, and end up making love.
- Call-Back: Daphne originally left for the spa to rehabilitate from her eating disorder a few episodes ago, in addition to the second half of the episode having clips of Niles first meeting Daphne, the time Niles and Daphne danced in a ballroom, and the time they sang while cutting vegetables together (which Frasier doesn't believe was real).
- Clip Show: An interesting variant, in that the second half of the episode inserts the present Frasier and Niles into clips from the past when they discuss Niles' series-long infatuation with Daphne.
- Cordon Bleugh Chef: The climax of the episode has Niles decide to see Daphne for who she truly is, and the very first flaw he points out is how much he hates her cooking.
- It's Been Done: A sub-plot in the episode has Roz trying to publish a children's book based on a bedtime story her mother told her, only for her and her young publisher to learn afterwards that the bedtime story was Heidi.
- Loving a Shadow: Daphne's therapist advised her that Niles continuing to see an ideal version of her when she started putting on weight might have been a contributing factor as to why her eating disorder wasn't noted in its early stages. When this information is relayed to Niles, he doesn't take it well, first acting like he's The Scapegoat before Frasier confronts him and makes Niles face that he's loved "at" Daphne more than he has been in love "with" her.
- Neat Freak: At the episode's midpoint, Niles is comforting a patient by saying they're not being overly germophobic, and then gives him the number of the man that cleans his telephone.
- Perpetual Smiler: In The Tag, Niles is having difficulty counseling a distressed client because he can't stop smiling while thinking about his and Daphne's first time.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Roz and the young publisher have no idea about Heidi, Roz is even surprised that it was a movie.
- Snooty Haute Cuisine: When Niles and Daphne lay into each other with Brutal Honesty, he insults her cooking, and she retorts, "you'd eat a worm if I gave it a French name!"
- The Bus Came Back: As the title indicates, Daphne returns from the spa having lost all her weight.
- Their First Time: The episode begins with Niles planning to consummate his relationship with Daphne after she returns from the spa. They do so following a moment of Brutal Honesty towards each other, and when Niles talks with Frasier at Café Nervosa afterwards, he states with a smile that it wasn't at all like how he imagined it.
