Spike, hangin' in his crib. Er, crypt. Someone on the telly screams, "Look at all the blood!" In a nice show of continuity, someone actually remembers that Spike is a vampire, because his tummy rumbles and he shambles over to the fridge to get a cuppa. Huh. Spike drinks blood straight out of the mason jar. My mom gets so ticked off at me when I do that. Not so much because I'm drinking the blood of innocents, but because I'm not using a glass. Even in front of company. It's so unseemly, you know. The door to Spike's crypt bursts open, but there's nothing to be seen. The television is shut off as Spike vaguely threatens his phantom visitor. Suddenly he's thrown up against the wall, arms pinned against it, and Obvious Voice-Over Buffy's second pair of arms rips open his shirt. The music gets a little suggestive, and Spike queries, "Buffy?" as he gets all gaspy-faced. "I told you," Obvious Voice-Over Buffy chirps. "Stop trying to see me."

Der Zauber Kasten. Xanya pore over books, the pylon on the table between them. And jeez, the props department isn't even trying here. This pylon is the normal orange color and not the spray-painted red color that we saw not even a minute ago. Suddenly, Anya has a breakthrough, but it's about the wedding, so pardon me if I ignore it. Anya reaches out to fondle the traffic cone, but her fingers sort of smoosh through it. Xander tries it too. They both agree that it's like lumpy pudding. Xander is suddenly worried what that could mean for Buffy.

Commercials. Maybelline wants me to know that they have a new mascara product that gets to those tiny lashes that, if I used another inferior mascara product, may be left behind. Because with all that's happened to me today, I don't think I could BEAR it if one or two of my lashes were not uniformly covered with black goop.

Warren tinkers with the invisiray, and the trio discusses Buffy's impending descent into pudding -- something to do with the extra radiation given off by the gun's accidental firing. "But, wouldn't that kill her?" inquires Andrew anxiously, looking up from his comic book. Warren nonchalantly agrees that it would. Jonathan and Andrew seem upset at this. Jonathan insists that they're "not killing anybody. 'Specially not Buffy!" Apparently, zapping her into pudding is somehow cheating, but metaphorically snapping at the Slayer's ankles with one's ineffective, petty evil to the point where she longs for the sweet release of death is fair game. As is forcing her to work retail for all eternity. Which, in my opinion, is a fate much worse than death. They hadn't invented retail at the time the gods were doling out punishment to Prometheus. Otherwise, instead of having his liver continually eaten by eagles, he'd be stuck toiling ceaselessly at a TJ Maxx return counter. Warren loses his temper as he explains the concept of being a villain to Jonathan. Jonathan squeaks, "We're not killers, we're crime lords!" "Like Lex Luthor!" pipes up Andrew. "He's always trying to take over Metropolis but he doesn't kill Superman!" "Because it's Superman's book, you moron!" sputters Warren. And this is Buffy's show, and -- ooof. I need to lie down. I'm on a strict low-carb, low-meta diet and the bag of freezer rolls I ate to distract myself from having to think too much about the show, combined with this scene, used up my allowance for all of next week. Jonathan lays down the law on Warren, ordering him to repair the invisiray immediately and then turn Buffy back. Warren stands up and towers over Jonathan, which is to say that Warren is approximately five apples high to Jonathan's three, but he agrees to the plan. Andrew shoots Jonathan a "we showed him!" glance as Warren sits back down to work on the invisible ray some more. So. Everyone on the same page here? Warren? Double-Stuf Eeeevil. Jonathan and Andrew? Snackwell Light Evil.