Wow, was this episode craptacular or what? Seriously, WHAT THE HELL are they thinking?

"Unleashed" brought us the novel idea of a werewolf dealing with the transition from regular gal to mad dog!

Sure, there were nice moments. There was a Buffy reference -- sadly a season four reference, but still. I enjoyed Wes's jealousy of Knox (if only because my 'shipper heart told me it was displaced because he can no longer pine for Lilah). That time Spike disappeared was cool. The new love of the steadycam is also cool. I like the group interaction, however tense. That said, pretty much everything else was balls-out terrible.

The plot was yet another quick trip down Inner Demon Lane, while the dialogue was stilted and cold.

Was this my favorite show for the last two years? The show I couldn't wait to see last season in spite of the fact that two of my great loves (Buffy and Dawson) were going to live on only in repeats? I couldn't stand Conner or Cordelia but damn if every week didn't have a new nugget of something unexpected -- and sometimes it didn't involve Lilah at all! Like that time Wes got that false prophecy from an animated cheeseburger!

The cast looks bloody (TM Spike!) bored and with good reason! What is Spike even doing there? He has nothing to add. I'm looking forward to next week because it appears he will be beaten and bloody. Bloody good! Spike bad!

I did have one moment where I liked that the show is suddenly so God-awful because it finally irked my husband. Mr. Is has been calling me every Wednesday to tell me how excited he is to watch a new episode of Spike! with me. He loves to kid, that one! Heh. Anyway, he goofed on me as I garrumphed and blahed throughout the show but it was when the werewolf comes home to nest -- and the John Mayer-esqe music began to swell -- that Mr. Is started shouting, "WHOAWHOAWHOA! What the hell is this? All of a sudden I'm watching Dawson's Creek! They've never done this before!"

It had to get Creek bad before he noticed! Hee.