At the Hyperion Hotel, the gang carefully put Angel's contained soul away in the safe, discussing the great risk they all face in dealing with Angelus. Meanwhile, an unchained Angelus sits alone in the basement cage. Wesley cautiously approaches the cage and starts up a discussion with Angelus. Angelus plays games with Wesley, avoiding the important information about The Beast in favor of taunting Wesley about his romantic interest in Fred while the rest of the gang watch the conversation from the lobby via video feed. Angelus continues to be difficult, raising issues of Wesley's failure with Faith and Connor. Connor returns to receive strange looks in the aftermath of Angelus's news, but misinterprets the looks as everyone thinking he's still connected to the Beast.
Gunn and Fred bring Angelus a glass of blood and Angelus happily takes advantage of the opportunity to taunt the couple about the sounds Angel could hear coming from Fred's room at night. Fred pushes a cart towards the cage and Angelus takes the glass, but also shoves the cart into Fred and grabs her when she falls towards the cage. Gunn moves in to rescue Fred, but it's Wesley who shoots Angelus with tranquilizer darts, freeing Fred and knocking Angelus out cold. In Wesley's office, Fred thanks him for saving her, but the conversation takes a turn for the romantic as Wesley kisses Fred. Gunn walks in and, after realizing what just happened between them, he gets furious. The two men begin to fight until Gunn accidentally hits Fred when she tries to stop them. Angelus is pleased with the discord he has created.
Connor approaches Angelus, who tells Connor that his mother Darla and his adoptive father Holtz were eager to get away from Connor. Connor calmly replies that he knows that Angelus is his real father. Angelus thinks he can take advantage of this and encourages Connor to approach, but Cordelia interrupts and sends Connor away. She then turns off the video camera and makes him an offer he can't refuse; give them the information to help them save the world, and she will exchange herself. Angelus is reluctant to take her offer, but later Cordelia informs the gang that Angelus is willing to talk, although she refuses to tell them what she did to get Angelus to talk. Wesley goes downstairs and begins to ask questions. Angelus explains that in 1789, the Beast tried to bribe Angelus into helping him kill three priestesses who were attempting to banish the Beast. Angelus refused to help, and then the priestesses appeared and banished the Beast. Gunn finds that the women live nearby.
Wesley, Cordelia, and Connor find the priestesses and their families have already been murdered by the Beast. After seeing a "Daddy's Birthday" reminder on the family's calendar, Connor runs outside to be sick. Cordelia chases after him and she tries to talk to him, but some vampires interrupt the moment, sending the gang into battle mode. Connor disposes of one and Wesley gets the car for them to escape in. They return to the hotel and since Angelus doesn't have any more information on the Beast, it's time to turn him back into Angel. Cordelia goes downstairs and, despite Angelus's enthusiasm to have her, Cordelia tells him the deal is off since they didn't get to save the world and that they're putting his soul back. Angelus doesn't seem too worried about that, as he's confident he'll escape the cage and collect on his debt before getting to see the apocalypse come to life. Cordelia returns to the office only to find bad news: the container holding Angel's soul is gone.
Tropes
- Bottle Episode: The episode takes place almost entirely in the hotel lobby and basement, with the majority of action being just characters talking.
- Buffy Speak: Angel's soul is all floaty.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Angelus notes that Cordelia has "a rack to write home about".
- Car Fu: Wesley drives over a vampire. It doesn't kill him.
- Characterization Marches On: Angelus Lampshades that Angel can no longer fulfill the conditions of his curse just by being happy himself. He can only be truly happy if his whole family is also happy, hence the previous episode's Fantasy Sequence had to solve everyone's problems.
- Cliffhanger: The gang open the safe to find that Angel's Soul Jar has been stolen.
- Cock Fight: Wesley and Gunn get into a fist fight over Fred. Unfortunately, she tries to intervene and Gunn accidentally hits her.
- Concealing Canvas: Hiding the safe with the Soul Jar.
- Consulting a Convicted Killer: Well he hasn't been convinced but the episode is played entirely in this fashion, even down to Angelus being behind bars.
- Continuity Nod:
- We get a two-fer in Connor's opening fight. 1) Connor fights like Angel, even using Angel's signature wrist-strapped-stake-gadgets. 2) Connor is fighting vampires from out of town, drawn in by the permanent nighttime engendered by the Beast.
- Lorne brings up that Cordelia has told them about Angelus nailing a puppy to a wall, which was first mentioned in the Buffy episode "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered".
- We see Angelus in Prussia in 1789 making his way to Austria. This places him just after Darla abandoned him to Holtz in the barn — they'd agreed to meet in Vienna.
- Covert Pervert:Angelus: Ah, Fred. You look all fresh and sweet, but I hear you at night in your room with Gunn. The things you say. I'm lying there, listening, hands under the covers... I can't help myself. It's so... gripping.
- Death of a Child: Played straight, right down to a bloody teddy bear.
- Double Entendre: LoadsAngelus: (seeing Connor is wearing his shirt) Looks good on you, son.Connor: (smirking) So did Cordy.Angelus: She looks good on everyone.
- Angelus re Wes/Fred."You want to impress the girl. Move in, get her to love you, and after a couple days of flowers and chocolate-covered cherries, you'll bend her over the kitchen counter."
- After Wes pretends to give up and walk out.."Nice stamina, Wes. No wonder Fred's not interested."
- Angelus to Gunn/Fred."So much for stand by your man. Then again, you probably like her on her knees."
- Angelus re Wes/Fred.
- Empathy Doll Shot: In the Svear house massacre.
- Eyes Never Lie:Cordelia: Look in my eyes. Angel knows me. You know me. Better than anyone. So, when you look at me, you know I'm not lying.
- Foreshadowing: Angelus bringing up Wesley's poor performance as Watcher to Faith.
- Freudian ExcuseAngelus: I guess you just can't understand that special bond between dad and son, given that your own father's ashamed of you...Wesley: And Connor's ashamed of you. The universe's way of maintaining order, I guess.
- Hannibal Lecture: Par for the course when an intelligent evil guy is locked in a cage. Using Half-Truth to dispirit and divide them.
- A House Divided: Angelus does his best to sow discord in the Fang Gang, helped by the fact that he already knows (or has guessed) everyone's dark secrets.
- I Did What I Had to Do: After the members of Investigations ask Cordelia how she managed to convince Angelus to reveal what he knows about the Beast:I did what I had to.
- Innocent Fanservice Guy: Connor is implied to be naked when Cordelia hands him the shirt.
- Ironic Nursery Tune: Angelus sitting in a cage creepily singing "Teddy Bear's Picnic" to himself.
- Improvised Weapon: The Teaser opens with a shot of a bound stack of newspapers about the crime wave sweeping LA. Suddenly Connor grabs it to slug a vampire with, then when he's knocked into a gas cylinder he turns it on to spray the vampires.
- Interrupted Intimacy: Gunn walking in just after Wes kisses Fred. He's smart enough to realise what happened though.
- Nothing Up My Sleeve: Connor is using Angel's stake-wrist device.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Angelus taunts Connor about the fact Connor wants to kill his father (Angel) and sleep with his mother figure (Cordelia) and compares the situation to Oedipus the King. Since Connor was raised in a Hell dimension for most of his life, he has no idea what he's talking about and ignores it.
- Power Perversion Potential: Angel's super-hearing causing him to hear Fred and Gunn having sex rooms away.
- Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Connor fighting some out-of-town vampires."Welcome to L.A. (hurls the stake at the vampire, dusting him) Tourists."
- Scare Chord: Angelus makes a grab for Cordy, missing her by inches. She doesn't even flinch.Cordelia: Not even close.
- Scarpia Ultimatum: Cordelia offers to give herself to Angelus in exchange for the information.
- Series Continuity Error: For some reasons, Wesley acts like he's seeing Angelus for the first time despite facing him earlier in "Etenity".
- Since Angelus's appearance in that episode was artificially induced and Wesley knew it was temporary, it's possible that he thinks of this as meeting the real Angelus.
- Shout-Out: "Bodies, bodies, everywhere, and not a drop to drink" is a reference to Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner".
- Shout-Out to Shakespeare: Angelus refers to the tragedy of Othello and Desdemona with regard to the Fred-Gunn-Wesley Love Triangle.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Cordelia to Angelus when the gang is about to put his soul back.
- Special Edition Title: The promo modified the usual Angel logo to spell Angelus.
- This Is the Part Where...: Angelus calling Wes' interrogation tactics.
- Tranquillizer Dart: Instant Sedation is averted when it takes a couple of hits to make Angelus keel over.
- The Triple:Angelus: The "perfect day" fantasy [Angel] came up with. Caves, booby traps, the requisite phallic sword.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Connor after seeing the massacred family.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?Cordelia: Dead demons are just a big blob of oozing mess. Vampires turn into dust like they were never anything at all. But humans— (sighs) it's different.
- Where da White Women At?: When Angelus greets Gunn and Fred as 'Othello and Desdemona'."Oh, wait. Desdemona wasn't in love with the other guy."
- Wicked Cultured: While taunting, Angelus makes references to Othello and Oedipus the King.
- Word, Schmord!: Angelus quips "Angel Schmangel".
- You Do Not Want To Know: Lorne listens to Angelus sing and gives this response to what he read. Cordy's response when the others try to find out how she got Angelus to talk.
