I think it gets over pooed on, and people miss the underlying emotional depth of the episode because it's so easy to get lost in the mostly middling to poor singing.

But the musical episode did a great job at inverting musical tropes and conventions. And it did so while staying true to the Buffy "vibe". It was dark and ugly and an emotional roller coaster.

Like, the off key stinger of "I was in heaven", the way her voice broke and the droning behind that. Fucking genius.

Musicals tend to err on the side of pleasing the ear more than telling a story. OMWF does the opposite in a lot of ways, and that's why it sticks out in my memory more than all but a small handful of episodes.