Because I kept timelining it and was all 'For it to be true, there must be Dru.'.

Yup. I was wondering if they were just working around a lack of Juliet Landau. But it left me with the conviction that Spike wouldn't do that sort of thing without Dru. Playing with the food is her and Angel. Spike would have seen a shiny thing, whacked her, and charged off to eat it.

Healing yes, growing apendages seems less believeable. Humans can heal from cuts, bruises, etc, but not regrow limbs. I'd think that vampire physiology wouldn't stray too much from that, other than accelerated healing.

Exactly, ita. And he pretty much says as that in the hospital scene. He's all about the 'rush, the crunch, never much looked at the victims'; Angel was the one who 'couldn't take my eyes off them'.

Yes, Dru was much more about the pain and torture than Spike.

Have they ever discussed the limits of vampire healing? Because Spike recovered from his spinal injury.

I thought it was lovely timing coming off your discussion with JohnSweden.

Megan -- I wondered that myself. I think I grossed myself out to the point of believing they'd not come back.

Well, it would have been very Wolfram and Hart to leave Spike handless for a few days to see if he grew some new (evil) hands.

I also wanted Spike to tell Angel at the end about the guy named Doyle who got him to help the helpless.

Oh, absolutely! Spike should have told Angel about that when Angel was ribbing him about his newfound sense of helping the helpless.

ita, it was interesting timing, wasn't it?

Sure was. I absolutely swear I was and remain unspoiled (always been a spoiler phobe). Fun discussion though, and the timing gave it a cool twist. I maintain that Spike is not only about the crunch (his name, frex) and he does come out and say in the ep (the things we done).