Spivey, a black-clad man carrying a black duffel bag, runs breathlessly down dark Los Angeles streets, chased by a mysterious and quickly-gaining pursuer. As he reaches his car and starts to get inside, Spivey is overtaken by Detective Kate Lockley, whose flying kick smashes him back against the open car door. Kate seems pleased that the uncooperative thug gives her no choice but to arrest him. In an interrogation room down at the precinct, Kate has Spivey look at photos showing himself in the company of mob boss Anthony Papazian, also known as "Little Tony." Kate informs Spivey that the photos were taken the same day a County Supervisor with ties to Little Tony was murdered, but Spivey denies any knowledge of the hit and claims he hasn't seen Little Tony since that day. Through the one-way mirror, her fellow police officers, including her office mate Harlan, watch the interrogation and wonder at Kate's persistence and stamina. At that moment, Kate changes tactics and slams Spivey back against the wall in a choke hold, demanding to know Little Tony's whereabouts. The observing policemen rush in and pull Kate away from her stonewalling informant. Harlan accompanies Kate out into the hall, while the other two cops keep tabs on her now rattled detainee. When Kate admits that she can't get Spivey to talk, Harlan bemoans the department's lack of any other way to locate Papazian.
Meanwhile, Angel battles a gargantuan squid-like demon deep in the sewers, where Doyle and Cordelia bring him an enchanted sword just in the nick of time. Angel hacks and stabs the monster, then leaves Doyle and Cordelia to dismember it and strides off down the tunnel to find and destroy the monster's nest. After Angel disappears, Cordelia loudly complains to Doyle that their boss didn't once say "please" or "thank you," and therefore must think that being a creature of the night gives him "license to be rude and insensitive." While the moribund monster wraps an enormous tentacle around Doyle's throat, Cordelia, still gazing wrathfully down the tunnel after the departed Angel, snarks "Can you say 'clueless'?"
When Cordelia and Doyle get back to the office covered in green goo, Cordelia refuses to take any orders from Angel unless he asks them how their dismembering went. Just then, Kate arrives. Angel shows her into his office at once, while Cordelia quips, "Mr. and Mrs. Spock need to mind meld now." Angel sits at his desk and looks through Kate's photos of Little Tony. He agrees to return Kate's past favors by finding Little Tony for her, but Kate tells him he'll get paid for the job because it's not a favor. Angel speculates that Kate doesn't want to get a reputation for going outside the department, but Kate replies "I don't want to get a reputation for getting you killed." Kate writes her phone number on a card and instructs him to withdraw to safety after he calls her with Little Tony's location.
While Cordelia and Doyle help Angel search for information on the mob boss, Doyle encourages Angel to express appreciation for Cordelia's efforts. At first seeming to spurn Angel's sincere but exceedingly awkward attempt, Cordelia, secretly pleased, resumes her normal demeanor almost immediately. When Doyle finds police reports of victims washing up at various points along the coast, Angel wonders if they're all originating from the same place and asks Doyle to check relevant tidal charts.
At the police station, Kate's father, Trevor Lockley, enters the open office area and seems surprised and uncomfortable when Kate hails him. Asking why he didn't let her know he was coming down, Kate listens a little grimly as Lockley dismisses his errand to bring in completed retirement paperwork as too unimportant to bother her with. Clearly uncomfortable, Kate nevertheless takes advantage of the opening to let her father know that she's aware of the party his friends are throwing at the Blue Bar in a couple of days and that, in fact, she's been asked to say a few words. As their stilted conversation winds to a close, they both look around when someone calls "Detective, you got a call on two-two-nine." Trevor, the ex-detective, escapes, and Kate takes the call. It's Angel, letting her know he has located Little Tony on a pier in San Pedro. Kate says she's on her way and tells Angel to get out of there. The moment Kate disconnects, Angel hears a motor and spots a yacht approaching the pier at a fair clip. Donning a hat and a Hawaiian shirt, Angel introduces himself as a tourist to Little Tony and his goon Benny, pretending that he thinks the yacht is the boat to Catalina. Benny tries to get rid of "the mook," but Angel knocks him out with one punch. Papazian's other goon, who had spun around at the first sound of Angel's voice, manages to throw a few punches before going down himself. Bereft of his "muscle," Little Tony tries to make a run for it when Kate arrives with the cavalry and takes the crime boss into custody. After Little Tony is cuffed and in the back of a squad car, Kate berates Angel for not only not leaving, but for actively putting himself in danger, as well as giving her something she'll need to explain to her lieutenant. Angel protests that Little Tony was getting away, but Kate remains unmollified. She elects to ride shotgun in the squad car transporting her quarry, and as it pulls away from the pier, Papazian and Angel exchange a long, intense glare.
At the station, Papazian demands his phone call and discovers his Wolfram & Hart lawyer, Lee Mercer, has already arranged for the "thorn in his side" to be removed. Arriving at the precinct sometime later, Mercer petitions to have Little Tony transferred to another facility, claiming that his client was mistreated and abused by the police and an "as yet unnamed assailant" possibly working with Kate. Nonchalantly denying any such knowledge, Kate then reverts to her usual "bad cop" interrogation tactics, giving Mercer and Papazian all the ammunition they need for their counter-attack. Mercer threatens to expose the department's brutality and callousness to the "court of public opinion" unless all his client's demands are met.
Back at Angel Investigations, Cordelia congratulates Angel on completing such a straight-forward job, but Angel thinks Little Tony is planning something. Cordelia complains that Angel's intuition is highly attuned to "boring old evil," but he doesn't even notice something as obvious as her new shoes. Angel's harried attempt to explain that men simply don't pay attention to women's shoes is completely undercut when Doyle breezes in and brightly comments on Cordelia's new shoes. He then segues into his report that Angel's intuition for evil is spot on. According to his source, Little Tony is planning something.
Kate heads to the Blue Bar after work, where a number of fellow officers congratulate her on finally apprehending Little Tony. To her surprise, even her father buys her a celebratory beer and Kate brings it over and sits across from him in his booth. Not long after, her co-worker Harlan comes by their table to show her a memo about a mandatory "sensitivity training" seminar that everyone at the precinct is required to attend because of the way she treated Little Tony. The next day, a group of officers including Kate, Heath, Dave, Mary, and George gathered at the station. The seminar begins when its leader, Allen Lloyd, candidly admits that no one else in the room actually wants to be there, and then earnestly describes how he will make these sessions worth their time. Lloyd introduces them to the concept of a "talking stick", which allows whoever holds it to speak freely and openly, without judgment. He asks a cop named Heath to start and, after initial reluctance, Heath actually begins to open up a little. At this point, Kate violates talking stick protocol by interjecting a sarcastic comment. Lloyd offers the stick to Kate and manipulates her into taking it by speculating that Kate must have been badly hurt in the past and, therefore, resists opening up because she's afraid of being hurt again.
Meanwhile, Angel and Doyle meet with Doyle's informant, Johnny Red, who overheard a conversation between Izzy Erancato's boys and Little Tony's boys that "LT" is planning a hit on Kate. Angel goes immediately to the precinct, where Kate apologizes for being angry with him at the pier, then asks him to accompany her to her father's retirement party the following night. When Angel is finally able to warn her of the danger, Kate speculates that Papazian must really be hurting if he needs to "lash out" like that. She realizes that she's psychobabbling and promises that she'll be back to her "usual level of cynicism" soon. Allen Lloyd meets with Lee Mercer and reports their plan will yield results after just one more session.
Kate and Angel arrive at the retirement party the next night and Kate admits that she's nervous but glad Angel came with her. Angel assumes that she's worried about Little Tony, but she apparently forgot all about "that death threat hanging overhead" due to the stress of having to speak in public. Angel fields inappropriate remarks after unsettling comments from both Kate and, after introductions, her father. Both men seem relieved to sit quietly when Kate gets called up to make her speech. Starting out with a deeply touching blend of humor and candor, Kate soon transitions into storms and gales of raw emotion, broaching subjects far too personal and potentially damaging for the venue or for the occasion. Aghast but unsure how to help, Angel overhears Trevor mutter, "What'd they do to her in that class?" When Harlan encourages Kate to keep talking and congratulates her for being brave enough to come clean, their lieutenant reprimands both of them, but it becomes clear that he has taken a personal, not a professional, stance. When Harlan starts to pummel his boss, Angel hauls him off and Trevor grabs the openly weeping lieutenant to escort him back to the precinct "to sleep it off with the drunks." Angel collects a now speechless Kate and takes her back to his office.
A grouchy Cordelia responds to Angel's late-night summons and finds a totally uninhibited Kate with Angel and Doyle in the inner office, where Angel has been trying to ask the detective for the name of the sensitivity trainer. After telling Angel that she believes he's an "old soul" who can't possibly be posing as enigmatic just to attract women, Kate finally hands Angel the original memo. Angel saddles his co-workers with the task of watching Kate while he goes hunting for Lloyd. He inspects the paraphernalia in Lloyd's lair for a clue to what's happening with Kate and her fellow cops. Back at Angel Investigations, Kate laments that her father walked out on her, then decides that she needs to find him. Cordelia and Doyle try to convince her to stay, but she pulls a gun from her purse and waves it wildly, sincerely apologizing for coming off as insensitive but promising to "blow them the crap away" if they try to stop her. Meanwhile, Angel interrogates Allen, who immediately launches his standard new-age riff about Angel's rage being a mask for his fear. Just as he asks "How were your parents?", Lloyd snatches the talking stick from the altar and smashes Angel across the temple with it. Recovering quickly, Angel says "My parents were great." then snarls and vamps and slams him up against the wall... "[They] tasted a lot like chicken."
Running into the precinct, Kate calls forlornly for her father, who is no longer there, then stares around at her co-workers, all pacing, gesticulating, shouting, weeping. Kind-hearted Heath, wishing to establish parity among the inmates, throws the switch that opens all the cell doors. As Angel runs across the intersection toward the precinct, he sees a traffic cop remonstrating with two drivers in a fender bender, then a beat cop attempting to get a purse-snatching victim to see the perp's point of view. He joins Cordelia and Doyle on the precinct steps. They are relieved to see him and immediately begin to report the situation about Kate and her cohorts. Sensing their distress, Angel smiles a big smile, holds open his arms and sing-songs "Okay, I think someone needs a hug," then firmly embraces them both. Realizing that Angel is ensorcelled, Cordelia says, "He put the whammy on you! You stink with whammy!" Angel warmly agrees, telling Cordelia and Doyle that Allen's talking stick is cursed. Angel reveals that Allen was hired by Wolfram & Hart to cause chaos in the police station so that Little Tony could escape. Disgusted at Angel's inappropriate sympathy for the mobster, Cordelia orders her boss to get "all vampy" so they can rescue Kate, but Angel refuses. As the three of them try to get into the locked station, Kate awaits a response to the message she left on her father's answering machine, begging him to talk to her.
Now out of his cell, Little Tony collects an impromptu gang and breaks into the precinct armory. Selecting a shotgun for himself, he chambers a shell and coolly shoots a cop coming around the corner, then leads the way toward the front offices to find Kate. Just as the two face off, Angel's team arrives. While Angel and Kate try to "reach" Little Tony, Cordelia and Doyle urge Angel to stop talking and fight. Angel has a plan, however, and slowly moves closer and closer as Little Tony gloats over the effectiveness of the "sensitivity training" he paid for. Suddenly, Angel swings the chair he's leaning on, knocking Little Tony's shotgun from his hands and throws the chair like a missile, sending the skinny thug standing directly behind "LT" crashing into the wall. Kate shoots the other thug as he switches aim from her to Angel, while Doyle and Cordelia disarm the fallen henchmen. Still trading emotional observations with Kate, Angel knocks the mobster unconscious, then shares a comforting hug with Kate. Later, Little Tony calls Mercer, who tells him that the Senior Partners will no longer represent his interests. When Little Tony argues that they set everything up, Mercer tells him that they set things up so he could escape; however, instead, he chose to try and murder Kate in full view of witnesses. While they talk, Mercer views a precinct surveillance tape and freezes it on Angel, unmistakable in his black leather coat. Mercer tells Little Tony that the firm has "more pressing matters" to attend to and that Papazian's client status is terminated.
At the precinct the next morning, the cops resume their normal taciturn demeanor with a vengeance, and Angel checks in with Kate. At her hesitant inquiry, he tells her he doesn't remember much about events of the night before. Relieved, she goes on to report that Internal Affairs is investigating the Blue Bar to determine whether someone spiked the punch at the retirement party. Agreeing that they both need to get back to work, Angel takes his leave. He turns in the doorway, however, hearing Trevor greet Kate and say that he got her messages on his machine. Hardly daring to believe her father has come down to the station just to see her, Kate starts to explain. The hope in her eyes dies as Trevor stops her, and says that she should never bring up the humiliating subject again. As far as Trevor is concerned, events of the night before never happened, given that she embarrassed both herself and him in front of all his friends. Trevor walks away and Kate sits carefully in her chair, holding herself stiffly against the pain.
Tropes in this episode:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Where Angel and Doyle face the tentacled demon.
- Action Girl: Kate in the Batman Cold Open.
- Actor Allusion: Steve Schirripa plays the right-hand-man of a girthy mob boss called Tony.
- Ambiguous Syntax: The "talking stick", as in a stick used in group therapy sessions to signify when it's someone's turn to speak - when Cordelia hears about this, she asks "there's a stick that talks?"
- Amoral Attorney: Lee Mercer
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Sensitive!Harlan to Kate.
- Apologetic Attacker: Played for Laughs. Angel is affected by a spell that makes him extremely emotionally sensitive and disinclined towards violence. When he realises he needs to resort to violence to rectify the situation, he very apologetically beats up several people.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:Cordy: I don't care what horrible thing is about to happen. Asteroids are hurtling towards Earth. Unspeakable evil is rising in the San Fernando Valley. Jar Jar is getting his own talk show.
- Bar Brawl
- Big Fancy House: Belonging to the sensitivity trainer. Angel sneaks in without difficulty, hinting that the man may not be human.
- Black Comedy: Kate shoots a mook in the head. "How do you think that makes me feel?!"
- Buffy Speak: "He put the whammy on you! You stink with whammy!"
- Calling the Old Man Out: During a lighthearted speech at her father's retirement party, Kate segues into a stormy tirade of raw emotion, reminding him of how he "shut down all emotion" following her mother's death, and has treated her coldly her entire life.
- Chairman of the Brawl: Sensitive!Angel pulls out a chair and advises a shotgun-toting Tony to sit down and discuss his issues. Then Angel hits Tony across the face with it.
- Combat Tentacles: The demon faced by Angel and Doyle in the sewers.
- Comically Missing the Point: On the day following Little Tony's arrest, Angel meets with Doyle’s informant, who claims he overhead that "LT" is planning a hit on Det. Lockely.Angel: [to Doyle] You know what that means?
Doyle: "LT" stands for Little Tony, yeah? - The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Kate grills an informant over the whereabouts of Little Tony, who shot a county supervisor execution-style. The informant begs to differ.Spivey: I heard it was a suicide.Lockley: Supervisor Caffrey shot himself?Spivey: It happens.Lockley: In the back of the head, wrapped himself in plastic, and then locked himself in the trunk of his car?Spivey: He'd been depressed.
- Covered in Gunge: Cordelia and Doyle after dismembering the demon.Cordy to Doyle: "Do you think that tentacle spew comes out with dry cleaning?"
- Deadpan Snarker: Inappropriate sarcasm; it masks anger and a fear of rejection.
- Everyone Can See It: Sensitive!Kate points out that Doyle is hiding a crush on Cordelia, and that Cordy responds with sarcasm because she doesn't know how to deal with it.
- Failed Attempt at Drama: The cop yanking down the window blind on our heroes, only for it to shoot up again.
- Foreshadowing: Wolfram & Hart lawyer Lee Mercer studies a CCTV tape of Angel.
- Funny Background Event/Shut Up and Save Me!: Doyle gets throttled by a not-yet-dead demon tentacle while Cordelia complains about how clueless Angel is to his friends' needs.
- Game Face: Cordy and Doyle urge Sensitive!Angel to Get A Hold Of Yourself Man and go all GRRR! and vampy.Angel: I don't want to. You both withdraw when I go vamp. I feel you judge me.Cordelia: We won't judge you! Give it a try.Angel: Closeness is too important to me right now.
- Golden Moment: Averted and arguably even subverted; at the end of the episode it looks like Kate's father is going to finally open up to her. Instead he just says she embarrassed him and made an idiot of herself, and that they'll never mention it again.
- Good Is Not Nice: Little Tony (along with Cordy and Doyle) think that Angel is easy prey now that he's gone all touchy-feely, but that just means he's able to get close enough to hit Tony with a chair.
- Group Hug: Not Himself!Angel to Doyle and Cordy.
- Grumpy Old Man: Trevor Lockley. "In my day we didn't need any damn sensitivity."
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist/Obfuscating Stupidity: Angel pretends to be a tourist who's lost his way before punching it out with Little Tony's mooks.
- Hollywood Law: After Tony gets arrested, his lawyer starts pulling shenanigans, as expected. This trope comes into play, however, with all his "I want that stricken from the record" and "I want that on the record". Unless it's an official court proceeding like a deposition, there is no record. There might be a recording (audio or video), but not "the record". Given that there's only the one lawyer present, this isn't a deposition, just a police interrogation with a lawyer present.
- Hypocritical Humor: Lampshaded by Doyle regarding Cordy calling Angel insensitive.Doyle: Well, she thinks that you're insensitive, and not to bring up the irony, but consider the source.
- Imagine the Audience Naked: Kate is nervous about giving a speech for her father's retirement party. Angel suggests she try "that old saw about imagining people in their underwear." Kate's eyes flick downward to check out Angel's body and she mutters "Way ahead of you."
- I Resemble That Remark!:Angel: So I'm a little reserved, that doesn't mean I don't care.
Cordy: It's like you don't have a pulse.
Angel: I don't. - Last-Second Word SwapCordelia: Why I ever thought it was a nifty idea to work for a vam—[Sees Kate]—trilloquist...
- Miranda Rights: "You have the right to remain silent—but I wouldn't recommend it."
- Mistaken for Gay: When Kate Lockley's father mistakes Angel for her boyfriend, he says he's glad because he was beginning to wonder "if she didn't lean into another direction altogether."
- Mood Dissonance:Kate: Yeah, we could do that, but you see I have this...Cordy: Personal problem that you're going to share until dawn?Kate: [smiles, draws her pistol] ...gun, and I don't want to come off as insensitive, but if either of you tries to stop me I'm gonna have to blow you the crap away, because I got to go find my Daddy.
- Moral Myopia: Kate shoots a mook. "How do you think that makes me feel?!"
- Not Herself: Angel realizes what Tony's lawyer's play is when he sees Kate being emotional and vulnerable.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Heath lets the prisoners out of their cells.Heath: Remember this, brothers. An act of kindness is just as manly as— [prisoners beat him up]
- "Open!" Says Me: Angel & Co are breaking into the precinct through a window.Angel: Wow. That's vandalism.
Doyle: Ah, we'll take care of it later.
Angel: We should leave a note." - Parental Abandonment: Kate calls her father out on this while under Lloyd's curse, accusing him of having shut down emotionally after her mother died.
- Perp Sweating: Kate on Spivey; Angel on Allen.
- Police Brutality Gambit: Wolfram & Hart raises this to force LAPD Metro Precinct to undergo "sensitivity training."
- Political Overcorrectness A sorcerer working for Wolfram & Hart uses a demonic version of this to take over Kate's police station.
- Pragmatic Villainy: After Little Tony shoots up a police station, Wolfram & Hart drop him as a client, deeming him Too Dumb to Live and defending a Cop Killer isn't worth the exposure.
- Revenge Before Reason: Despite having the opportunity to escape, Little Tony tries to get revenge. Lee Mercer cites this as why Wolfram & Hart won't help him.Lee: We opened the door for you. The point was for you to walk through it, not blast your way out.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Averted by Angel on the one occasion it was called for. Then again it's difficult to fade away when you're wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
- Talking to Plants: Tony tells one of his mooks to water his plants while he's gone. "And talk to them; they like that.
- Tastes Like Chicken: When confronting Allen Lloyd, Angel comments that his parents tasted like chicken.
- Testosterone Poisoning: The police department is an aggressively masculine place, where everyone responds to Sensitivity Training as a politically correct, touchy feely annoyance, and crack uncomfortable, sarcastic, insulting jokes the whole time (until they get the Talking Stick). Kate's father is even worse about this.
- Tuckerization: A second assistant director named Robert Papazian Jr. was probably the influence for the name of the character Little Tony Papazian.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Kate became a cop to gain the approval of her emotionally distant father.
