The text being written on the Tara's back is a love poem by Sappho of Lesbos, the Greek lyric poet and archetype for homosexual love. The word "lesbian" is derived of her birthplace.
It was rumored this episode was to guest star many past recurring characters. Willow's classroom dream was to feature Larry, Cordelia and Amy. Jenny was to be pushing the baby carriage instead of Olivia, followed by having Olivia crying in Spike's crypt. Faith was going to appear in Buffy's bedroom telling her to "be back before Dawn," while Angel was to have appeared in the desert as the voice of the First Slayer. Unfortunately Joss Whedon was only able to recruit Seth Green, Mercedes McNab and Armin Shimerman to return for this episode.
All of the many elements in the dream sequences have meaning, with the exception of the Cheese Man. Joss Whedon explains: "...the Cheese Man-meaningless. Why? Because I needed something in the show that was meaningless, because there is always something in the dream that doesn't make any sense at all. In this case it was the Cheese Man. He confounds everybody because of that, and people ascribe him meaning. This to me means that we're being successful, because this means they're not worried about everything else, which means they sort of did understand most other things."
The translation of the French segment:
- Giles: (in French) "... the house where we're all sleeping. All your friends are there having a wonderful time and getting on with their lives. The creature can't hurt you there."
- Xander: (in English) "What? Go where? I don't understand."
- Giles: (in French) "Oh for God's sake, this is no time for your idiotic games!"
- Anya: (in French) "Xander! You have to come with us now! Everybody's waiting for you!"
- Giles: (in French) "That's what I've been trying to tell him."
- Xander: (in English) "Honey, I don't... I can't hear you..."
- Anya: (in French) "It's not important. I'll take you there."
- Xander: (in English) "Well, wait. Where are we going?"
Final appearance of Principal Snyder. He quotes Apocalypse Now (1979), as he did before in S3's Gingerbread (1999), and Xander finally tells him what he thinks of him as he promised to do in S2's Halloween (1997).