Jonathan, Andrew and Warren are in a new basement lair. Jonathan flips through a box of records and touches Andrew's "Frampton Comes Alive" record, which causes all sorts of bickering and magic bone-shaking between the two beta nerds. Alpha nerd Warren bitches at them and then calls them over to charge the "cerebral dampener" that he's been working on. All three guys don red sunglasses, and Andrew pulls out a musk gland from some Not-Going-To-Transcribe-The-Name demon that's needed to complete the dampener. Jonathan sprinkles powder over the gland and chants a spell, which causes orange energy to zap out of his hand and into a small chrome sphere sitting on the desk. Jonathan sulks about his sore hand as Warren gloats that the cerebral dampener gives them the power to make "any woman [they] desire [their] willing sex slave"; Andrew and Jonathan look a little blank, but Warren crows, "I know just where to start!"

Doublemeat Palace. Daytime. Buffy is working the counter with Gina and trying out new lines on the customers. Tara pops up in front of the counter, and she and Buffy head to the break room for a chat. We see a close-up of the "Dedication" poster from last week, and I'm sorry to report that what Ace thought was a pothole appears to actually be an alligator or Gila monster in the road. Still strange. There's another poster next to "Dedication" that says "Productivity" and has a picture of an ostrich and some zebras. Tara cracks a joke about the posters, and Buffy thanks her for coming. We then get a little misdirection, as Tara asks, "Is it bad?" (talking about Willow) and Buffy replies, "I was sort of hoping you could tell me" (talking about her coming back wrong). Tara continues, "What did Willow do wrong now? Did she -- she hurt anyone?" and OUCH! She doesn't have much faith in her ex, does she? Buffy assures Tara that Willow has been doing well, and confesses that she asked Tara to the restaurant to talk about something else. Buffy has a hard time getting the words out, but she finally tells Tara that Spike can hit her without feeling any pain. As she says this, she wraps one hand around her other wrist and then hides both hands in her lap. I guess she let him put the handcuffs on her, then? Tara is panicked that Spike's chip has stopped working, but Buffy assures her that the chip works on everyone but her (Buffy). Buffy wants Tara to look into the spell that Willow used to raise her (Buffy again) from the dead. Too many feminine pronouns in these sentences. "I think maybe I came back wrong," says Buffy sadly, skirting the sex-related reasons she has for thinking so. Tara stutters out an immediate denial of Buffy's wrongness, but Buffy isn't convinced. She wants Tara to check the spell anyway.