While mourning Joyce's death, Giles goes to his home and has a drink while listening to "Tales of Brave Ulysses" by Cream. This is the same song that he and Joyce listened to in Band Candy (1998) from Season 3, before having sex together. This is significant to show Giles, no longer around Buffy and needing to be strong, remembering Joyce and illustrates the loving father-figure he is to Buffy, as opposed to the usual Watcher.
The melody that Doc hums while gathering ingredients for Dawn and Spike is the motif associated with "Peter" from Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf."
Spike is able to enter Doc's home without an invitation. This hints at the fact that Doc isn't human - later confirmed when Dawn notices that Doc has a tail.
Marti Noxon says: "To me, the idea of wanting to defy death is just an inherent, almost mythological, iconic notion. It's something we can relate to... a universal longing." She says the idea for this episode arose from the idea that Dawn would be in the bargaining stage of mourning, and "if you were in Sunnydale and someone you loved died, you would absolutely call on the forces of darkness to resurrect them."
Spike says that Joyce didn't treat him like a freak and always had a nice "cuppa" for him, as they have bonded in Lovers Walk (1998) and Crush (2001).