Attempting to fix her earlier problems despite promising Tara she won't do any magic for a week, Willow casts a spell that makes not just Tara and Buffy but everyone lose their memories.

Obviously this episode is meant as a comedy and it works very well, with multiple confusions that leave Spike thinking he's Giles' son, Anya thinking she's engaged to Giles, Xander believing Willow is his girlfriend and Willow and Tara finding a strong attraction they don't quite understand. We know how it will all end, of course. After Willow's promise you know this means the end of her and Tara's relationship, and it seems it's another step on the road to pushing Willow towards a darker and darker place.

The problem really lies in there not being much plot to go round. The mistaken identity thing only holds so much comedy value, and after a while you realize there's not a lot going on. The main gang end up holed up in the sewers hiding from vampires, while Buffy and Spike take on the ones outside. On the one hand it doesn't really deal with many of the issues raised in last week's episode, but as a brief comic sidestep it works well enough.

Luckily there is some time for some of the more emotional material. Giles's talk with Buffy about the fact that he's going back to England for good is a very strong scene, with Giles making excellent points about Buffy always deferring to him rather than standing on her own two feet. It's home truth time for Willow as well as Tara explains that things just aren't going to work while Willow is going through her heavily Wiccan phase and leaving at last.

Finally, there's Spike, trying to find out what's going through Buffy's head when she kissed him and wanting more, when she's not happy about what happened. However, when the episode closes out on the pair in a deep kiss again, it's clear there's something going on that isn't going to be so resolved...

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