It occurred to me partway through the final segment of this week’s Buffy that perhaps, for a watchers’ council planning to have dinner during the first segment of the episode, linguini hadn’t been the best menu choice.

Eeeyugh.

I’ll skip the jokes about “That episode was Narly” and go straight on to say: cool full-body demon makeup! And whoever was inside it did a great job of fighting nails-first. Which makes my shout of “DUMBASS!” upon Buffy’s final attack even more appropriate. I mean, I’m all for exploiting weaknesses, but Anya didn’t appear to have any idea that the venom would wear off when it died, and do you really think that if the eyeballs had been toxic, she would have volunteered that info?

Score another one for the Willow Does Magic With Unexpected Results cliché. I would have liked to see a resolution regarding exactly how the spell worked, though. It seemed for most of the show as though the involved parties were phased with respect to each other, but seeing the reunion of reality only as Willow crossing over complicated that just a bit. That, and the selectiveness of the background noises, and the fact that we didn’t see Willow interacting with anybody not in the gang who also wasn’t a demon.

Speaking of which, the repeated scene was extra cool. I’m really liking what they’re doing with insane Spike. This came off as sort of a cousin to the hospital scene in The Sixth Sense, only the audience already knew what the deal was. Same kind of dancing along the edges of clarity, same “whoa!” moment when you figure out what’s going on. I’m mainly surprised Willow didn’t pick up on anything, her being the smart one and all.

What I really want to see regarding Willow is how they’re going to handle the Xander issue. Emotional breakthroughs on the level of last season’s finale are most certainly not a dime a dozen, even in Buffyland. This episode avoided the question nicely, but there’s going to have to be some soul-baring later on. It wouldn’t be serving the characters not to. Now that Willow’s been symbolically stripped of some outer defenses, and been unequivocally accepted back into the gang, the climate is at least favorable.

And what happened to this week’s chased young thing? Will there be one next week? Will I get next week’s column out on time? Find out next week, same time, same . . . . . ergh.