Brain-suck

Glory’s brain-sucking effect was achieved by Clare Kramer pushing her fingers into a dummy head covered in blue material. In post-production, the blue head was digitally removed by computer and replaced by the victim’s head.

Anne Betancourt

Anne Betancourt, who played Principal Stevens in Tough Love, has also been in The Job, Fools Rush In, Sliver, Beaches, Passions, Friends, Party of Five and Babylon 5.

Leland Crooke

Leland Crooke, who played Professor Lillian in Buffy’s Tough Love, also played Archduke Sebassis in Angel’s season five. He has also appeared in Dead Man Walking, Enterprise, The Lone Gunmen, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and ER.

Principal Stevens

Ms. Stevens was the Principal at Dawn’s school, before she moved to the new Sunnydale High. She told Buffy Dawn may be taken into care if Buffy couldn’t get the teenager to attend school in Tough Love.

Bruised Spike

The massive amount of bruising seen on Spike’s face in Tough Love is from when Glory beat him up to try and get information on the Key in Intervention.

Buffster

Xander calls Buffy “Buffster” in the episodes Dead Man’s Party, Revelations, Buffy vs Dracula and Tough Love.

Drop-out

Buffy drops out of college officially in Tough Love, so she can take care of Dawn. She says in that episode that she hopes to be back next semester.

Evil government scientist

In Tough Love, Willow reminds Tara that she took Psych 101 from an evil government scientist (Professor Maggie Walsh) who was skewered by her Frankenstein-like creation (Adam, in The I in Team).

Green energy

Glory says the Key is pure green energy in Blood Ties. In Tough Love, Tara reveals to Glory that Dawn is the Key by saying she’s a beautiful green light.

Petrified hamsters

In Tough Love, Giles says people keep trying to return petrified hamsters to the Magic Box. In Life Serial, Buffy discovers a jar of petrified hamsters in the basement of the magic shop.

World Cultural Fair

In Tough Love, Tara was attacked by Glory at the World Cultural Fair in Sunnydale.
There was previously a cultural exchange programme at Sunnydale High in Inca Mummy Girl, the highlight of which was a dance where students dressed in the costumes of different countries.

Black magic effects

In Two to Go, Willow’s eyes and hair went black from the dark power she had gained. She also gets weird veiny skin. The first time we saw a witch draw on dark powers was in The Witch when Catherine Madison’s eyes also went black. Catherine’s daughter Amy introduced Willow to Rack, from whom Willow gets power in this episode. Willow’s eyes previously turned black in Tough Love and The Gift when she used powerful magics on Glory after she brain-sucked Tara.

Darkest Magick

Darkest Magick was a book from which Willow got the magical power to attack Glory in Tough Love.

Hold my victim as in tar

In her spell on Glory in Tough Love, Willow says, “Kali, Hera, Kronos, Tonic. Air like nectar, thick as onyx. Cassiel by your second star, hold my victim as in tar!” Kali is the Hindu goddess of destruction and death, Hera is the Queen of the Greek gods and wife of King Zeus, Kronos is the father of Zeus, and Cassiel is the angel of temperence and good fortune. Willow gets her spell from the book Darkest Magick.

A Little Princess

In Tough Love, Willow mentions Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for Girls, which was a strict Victorian school in the book A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

American Pie

In Life Serial, Tara says, “One time, when me and Willow were watching…” This may be a nod towards Alyson Hannigan’s character Michelle in American Pie who kept repeating, “And this one time, at band camp…”
In Tough Love, after Willow explains to Buffy that she was teaching Dawn about Geometry with a human triangle, she says “You know me, I’m aways like ‘Go school, It’s your birthday!’”. This is probably a reference to American Pie: “Go Trig-Boy, it’s your birthday!”

Don Giovanni

In Tough Love, Xander calls Dawn “Dawn Giovanni”, this is a reference to Don Giovanni, an opera composed by Mozart which was first performed in 1787.

Haiku

Buffy and Professor Lillian discuss Haiku in Tough Love. Haiku are short Japanese poems, consisting of 17-syllable verses of three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables.

Twinkie Defence

In Tough Love, Ben’s (now former) boss is talking to him about the excuses Ben could give for not being at work for two days:

This is a reference to the shootings of Harvey Milk (San Francisco City Supervisor) and Mayor George Moscone. The perpetrator Dan White’s attorney said that the shooting was in part a result of a depressive state brought on by (among other things) eating too many Twinkies. It became known as the ‘Twinkie Defense’.
In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Cordelia says about Shylock from The Merchant of Venice, “That is such a Twinkie defense. Shylock should get over himself.”

X-Men

Buffy creator Joss Whedon is a huge comics fan, particularly the Marvel comic X-Men. His dream came true when, post-Buffy, Joss wrote the Astonishing X-Men comics. The comic has been referenced numerous times in Buffy:

• In No Place Like Home, Riley says, “Giles, you got that Danger Room set up out back?” The Danger Room was a training room in the X-Men.
• In Tough Love, Xander reads an X-Men comic while in the Magic Box.
• In Two to Go, Jonathan says Willow is like the “Dark Phoenix” who was a character in the X-Men comics.
• In Him, Xander calls Spike a “nimrod”. Xander himself was called this by a soldier in Innocence, and Spike called Warren a nimrod in Smashed. Nimrod was a figure in ancient Babylon, and was also an X-Men character.
• In Bring on the Night, Andrew mentions Apocalypse, who was also an X-Men character (”Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Andrew, bad guy. You think I’m a super-villain like Dr. Doom or Apocalypse or The Riddler.”)
• Gwen Raiden in Angel’s season four appears to have been inspired by Rogue from the X Men - the two had great powers which could harm other humans by touch, and had to wear gloves to protect others.
• Joss Whedon has said that the X-Men character Kitty Pryde (AKA Shadowcat) was a large influence for the character of Buffy.

Seen at 19.59 minutes:

When Glory’s minions spy at an open window at Buffy’s house, we see Dawn talking to Buffy about how school is useless since she’s a Key. Why didn’t they hear this?

Seen at 25.20 minutes:

When Glory crushes Tara’s hand, blood drips onto the bench, but later shots show a clean bench.