I caught GG last night as well. I didn't know Jane Espenson wrote the episode, but for the first time since the beginning of this season, it felt like GG had its pep back. I especially loved Lorelai having a meltdown at Luke's diner. As for Taylor--he's always been a power-tripping little prat. But, instead of laughing at his puny manipulative tactics as I used to, I seriously wanted reach into the screen and rip his head off last night. My GOD, he was unbearable.
As for the whole Spuffy violence in "Dead Things".... hmm, I kind of thought that the writers crossed the line from cartoonish superhero/kung-fu violence to something really dark and disturbing there. I mean, I used to laugh at Buffy slapping Spike around, and enjoy the stylized fights they used to have before Spike got the pesky chip. But that alley scene felt different. Not because 'Buffy the bee-a-tch hurt my woobie Spike' (Oy. Also, no mere words can possibly explain how much I loath the infantile term, "woobie"), but because they *were* in a relationship when that happened. Sick and twisted and wrong relationship, but a relationship nonetheless. It was a cycle of abuse all right, just not the one-sided thing the rabid Spikoholics made it into. Spike manipulated her emotionally, and Buffy used him and hurt him physically, and everything came to head in that alley scene--Buffy's self-loathing projected onto Spike, and Spike engaged in a sick attempt to bind Buffy to him emotionally, even at the expense of getting himself pummelled to pulp. I found the scene extraordinarily disturbing, and brilliant as well in the way it highlighted the pathology of their relationship, and in the way it harkened back to the B/F church scene in "Who Are You?".
Anyway, that was my long-winded way to say, those folks at Usenet sure do have the gift of one-way interpretation, but I didn't think the violence, at least in the context of "Dead Things", was at all cartoonish. But then, I love "Dead Things". It's probably my favorite episode of season 6, second only to OM,WF. It cut me up, and I loved it.
Edited to add: TVTome has Amanda Fuller as Eve.