| abstract
| - The Scoobie girls fall for Dawn's classmate RJ, thanks to his magical letterman jacket.
* 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...
* 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 for BJ, when actually she robbed several banks to get him money.
* Buffy-Speak: Soul-having. Rant Girl. No more with the talky.
* Xander re Spike: "Crazy-Basement-Guy is better than Stalking-Buffy-Guy."
* 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 -- no, 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, like 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: Quickly turned off by Anya when the radio starts talking about the masked gunman who held up a number of businesses--
* 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
* 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.
* 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.
* Eating the Eye Candy: Xander and Willow checking out Dawn, before they realise who she is.
* 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
* 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."
* 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 / Love At First Sight / Kissing Under the Influence
* Love Makes You Evil: 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 Twerp Sweating 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: Dawn is crying after seeing RJ making out with her sister.
* 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.
* 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
* 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.
* Tantrum Throwing: Dawn shredding the cheerleader outfit after her disastrous tryout.
* This Is for Emphasis, Bitch
* Verbal Backspace
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