Directed by David Boreanaz
Written by David Greenwalt & Brent Fletcher
Angel has lost his fight against Spike, who is to drink from the Cup of Perpetual Torment. However this time, the cup isn't a fake, and radiance shines down on Spike as he achieves the Shanshu Prophecy and is restored to life. The same light then incinerates Angel. This is revealed to be Angel's dream, as he wakes up in his office shaken.
Lindsey approaches Spike at a strip club, implying he was responsible for Spike's return from the dead and his subsequent return to corporeality. Introducing himself as Doyle, Lindsey claims he has visions of people in trouble and that he had a vision of a girl who's about to get attacked in an alley. Spike tells him to go to Angel instead, but "Doyle" says that Angel is "working the other side of the tracks" now. Spike saves the girl, after which Lindsey suggests that Spike may be the new champion of The Powers That Be. The next night, Spike saves a couple from vampires, telling them, "I'm the hero."
Meanwhile at Wolfram & Hart, Wesley and Gunn present Angel with possible solutions to deal with an evil warlock, but Angel — weary of the "gray area" of morality in which he constantly finds himself — announces: "Let's kill them all." He then says that he's just tired and the others tell him to go get some sleep.
In Angel's dream, Fred says, "Let's take a look under the hood." She cuts open Angel's chest and starts pulling out his internal organs, including his "dried-up little walnut" of a heart. Fred also pulls out a strand of beads (which she puts on), some raisins (which she eats), and a license plate. She pulls out a fishbowl, calling the dead goldfish inside Angel's soul, and says that they'll have to flush it and hands it to the bear standing next to her. Fred turns back to Angel and tells him that she can't find anything wrong with him except that he's empty.
The next morning, Eve gives Wesley a fragment of a relic, saying the Senior Partners want to know what it is. Gunn arrives and announces that a vampire matching Spike's description has been out on the streets, saving people.
Meanwhile, Angel is dreaming that Spike and Buffy are having sex on his bed. He wakes up and goes downstairs, where Gunn tells him to hurry or he will "miss it." Angel joins the group of people in his office, staring out the windows at Los Angeles as it burns. Angel realizes what's going on and heads towards the windows. "You're blocking the apocalypse," Harmony tells him. Wesley assures Angel that Spike will take care of it. Lorne suggests that Angel change his clothes, since there's something on his shirt. Angel looks down to see a bloody stake sticking out of his heart. As Angel dreams in his room, a blue creature feeds off of his chest in the same spot as the stake in his dream. Fred holds out a cake with a picture of Los Angeles burning and the words "Way to go Spike!" written on it. Everyone sings, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and yells for Spike to give a speech. He talks about fulfilling his destiny to turn Los Angeles into utopia. A blue fairy floats in and sprinkles gold dust on Spike, making his heart beat again. As everyone cheers for Spike, Angel is suddenly a man staffing the mail cart.
In reality, Spike is at the spartan basement apartment that Lindsey provided for him, when Gunn and Wesley stop by. They tell him that if he wants to rescue people, Wolfram & Hart has resources that can help him. Spike declines the offer, saying Wolfram & Hart is the same evil law firm it has always been. At Eve's apartment, Lindsey reminds Eve if the Senior Partners find out what they're up to, they'll kill him. Eve assures him that thanks to his tattoos, they won't find him. Wesley and Gunn head back to Wolfram & Hart and tell Fred that Spike thinks they have sold out. Fred starts to go up to check on Angel, until Eve arrives, reminding her she is supposed to be testing the relic.
Angel is dreaming of Lorne dressed Old West-style, playing "My Darling Clementine" on a piano in Angel's room. As Harmony (dressed like a Copacabana waitress) serves him a drink, Angel tells Lorne that everything hurts. "That's life," Lorne says, "everything hurts, and then we die," though in Angel's case, everything hurts and he lives forever. Lorne tells Angel to sing, but Angel could not. Nearby, Fred, who was at a table with Wesley and Gunn, says, "I told you he was empty." Lorne tells Angel that the crowd is turning on him as Gunn snarls and hisses at Angel. Eve appears, noting that Angel is suffering. Lorne says that Angel still has something on his shirt, and Angel looks down to see the blue creature on his chest. He pulls it off, wakes up, and kills it. Eve tells him that he's still dreaming but it's almost over. She pulls a bigger blue creature out of the box she's holding and puts it on him. She watches while he struggles against it, then leaves. At Spike's apartment, Lindsey pretends to have a vision and tells Spike that he should take care of it.
Angel sits in a chair in the middle of a sunny field as the gang approach him. "You can stay as long as you like," Wesley says. "Stay forever." Angel says he's not done with his job, but Wesley says that he can be if he wants to. Fred says that he'll be fine — he just has to stop caring. Suddenly, the four of them throw their heads back and scream. In Angel's room, Spike grabs the blue creature and kills it. "No need to thank me," he tells Angel. "Just helping the helpless."
Later, the gang and Eve gather in Angel's room and Wesley explains that the creature was a parasite which makes the host oblivious to its presence and causes hallucinations. If Spike had not killed it, Angel might have been trapped in a vegetative state. Angel says Eve put the parasite on him — after Eve put the second parasite on him, she changed her clothes so that Angel wouldn't remember her being there for real, but she didn't change her earrings. He notes that Eve is playing her own game and wonders what the Senior Partners would say if they knew. Eve says that they're all just blaming her for their problems when they should really be looking within the group. The group glares at her until she leaves.
Tropes
- Anxiety Dreams: Angel's dreams play on his fear after the events of "Destiny" that Spike is better than him.
- Bait-and-Switch: The Teaser appears to feature Angel in trouble again, but it's actually a replay of the fight in "Destiny" shot from a different angle.
- Bears Are Bad News: Angel's nightmares include a
Squick-filled dissection scene involving, amongst other things, a completely random bear. - Book Dumb:Wesley: What is your plan?Gunn: We open a can of Machiavelli on his ass.Harmony: (rolls her eyes) It's Matchabelli
, Einstein; and it doesn't come in a can. - Brick Joke: Angel's heart really is a dried-up walnut ("The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco").
- Call-Back: Plenty to "City of...", plus...
- Spike adopts the Crucified Hero Shot he had in "Chosen", only this time Angel burns up instead.
- Spike hitting on chicks while vampire-hunting resembles his Not a Date with Buffy in "Crush".
- In Angel's dream world he becomes the Wolfram and Hart mailman, just like Numero Cinco.
- Fred treats Spike like he's the hero from a fairy tale, just like she did Angel after her rescue from Pylea.
- When dream Fred pulls out Angel's heart, she says, "What do you know? It really is a dried up little walnut.", hearkening back to the Running Gag from The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco.
- Catapult Nightmare: Angel waking up from his first dream, in which he burns up after Spike wins the Cup of Perpetual Torment.
- Cryptic Conversation: Spike quickly loses patience with 'Doyle' doing this."Enough with the cryptic, butch. I want to know who...or what you are... what you want, and how fast I can snap your forearm before you answer."
- Daydream Surprise: Angel's problems, emotional, personal or supernatural, turn out to be a fantasy constructed by a couple of spelled...bug demon parasite things.
- Description Cut: From Lindsey telling Spike he won't be sharing his bed with anyone, to Angel's dream where Spike and Buffy are bonking away in bed next to him.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Lindsey finds Spike hanging out in a strip club, getting drunk.
- Divide and Conquer: Gunn's plan for the demon cult — which appears to reflect Lindsey/Eve's plan for Team Angel and the Senior Partners.
- Dreaming of Things to Come:
- "There's nothing left, just a shell". Although mainly referring to Angel it was likely also a reference to Fred becoming a host for Illyria several episodes later in "Shells".
- Gunn growls like a cat in another dream scene. In "A Hole in the World", the White Room's panther conduit takes the form of an evil Gunn Doppelgänger.
- Everything but the Girl: Lampshaded by Lindsey when he points out that the spartan life of The Hero doesn't leave much room for romance.Spike: (points to the old-fashioned single bed) You call that a bed?Lindsey: Well, it's not like you're gonna be sharing it with anyone any time soon.
- Exact Words:Eve: I'm getting a lot of heat on this. And when I say heat, I mean actual flames under my feet. The Senior Partners are a tad impatient.
- Emerging from the Shadows: Spike doing his first Big Damn Heroes.
- Fake Shemp: Angel has a nightmare involving Spike having sex with Buffy. It was actually a blonde stand-in with her face away from the camera and some of Sarah Michelle Gellar's lines from "The Prom" looped in.
- Family-Friendly Stripper: Spike celebrates being made corporeal by going to a strip club where he is approached by Lindsey posing as "Doyle". We see absolutely nothing but lingerie clad dancers. In the DVD commentary the writer comments that the way to make yourself popular with the cast and crew is to set scenes in a strip club.
- Fever Dream Episode: Angel spends the episode stuck in a fever dream thanks to a demonic parasite.
- Good Is Not Nice: Spike's treatment of a Damsel in Distress could use some work.Woman in alley: Thank you! Thank you! That thing was going to kill me!Spike: Well, what did you expect? Out alone in this neighborhood — I've got half a mind to kill you myself, you half-wit.Woman in alley: What?Spike: I mean honestly, what kind of retard wears heels like that in a dark alley? Take two steps and break your bloody ankle.Woman in alley: [annoyed] I was just trying to get home.Spike: Well, get a cab, you moron, and on the way, if a stranger offers you candy, don't get in the van!
- Grey-and-Gray Morality / Never Say That AgainGunn: See, a cult this big has alliances, connections. If we confront them directly, it could be very bad for business.Wesley: But if we eliminate their leader covertly...Gunn: ...then they spend the next billing cycle fighting among themselves to hack out the new pecking order.Angel: Uh-huh... So are we doing this because it's right... or because it's cost-effective?Gunn: Uh, well, a little of both actually.Wesley: Yes, oddly, once again we find ourselves in a bit of a gray—Angel: Don't...Wesley: ...area.Angel: ...say that! Can we just get through one damn day without saying that?
- Heroic Self-Deprecation:Team Spike: Speech, speech, speech, speech!Spike: (smiling modestly) Well, this is, uh... Thank you, everyone. Um...I don't know what to say. (laughter all around) I'm just a... working-class bloke fulfilling his destiny. It was nothing, really.Fred: Nothing? Spike, you single-handedly ended Armageddon and turned the world into a beautiful, happily-ever-after, candy mountain place where all our dreams come true!
- Hospital Hottie: All right — who didn't think Fred was going to do something kinky when she snapped on those latex gloves?
- A House Divided: Wesley and Gunn are starting to act behind Angel's back. At first this is presented as simply allowing their boss to get some much-needed rest, but then they approach Spike about working for them as a Champion, and he quickly realises that Angel didn't send them.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Dream!Angel slinks off crestfallen when Spike becomes a "real boy" instead of him.
- Inherent in the System:Fred: We didn't sell out. We're changing the system from the inside.
Gunn: You know, when you say it out loud, it sounds really naive. - Kill Sat: The heroes are surprised and disturbed to find they have such a thing at their command (in the form of microwave laser satellites) after taking over Wolfram and Hart. Angel considers using them to wipe out all the bad guys rather than continue to live as a corporate drone.Fred: Well, we do have an orbital-range microwave cannon up there. Focuses the satellite's communications signals into a pinpoint beam. It can raise the temperature of the targeted area 1,000 degrees in less than 5 seconds. So, yeah, in theory, we could. That is, if we did that sort of thing. (to Angel) Do we do that sort of thing?Wesley: It might be the thing to do.Gunn: Think someone won't notice us firing a sci-fi death ray from outer space?Fred: Well, actually, the beam reads like cell phone static on most atmospheric scanning equipment.
- Last-Second Word Swap: Lindsey tells Spike that he's not the man he used to be — Spike just saved someone's life when it didn't benefit him, as opposed to the Anti-Hero who only started doing good deeds to impress (Death Glare from Spike) ...women.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: In the final dream Team Angel encourage him to rest and give up his struggle.
- Mistaken for Gay: Lindsey when he first approaches Spike.
- Nothing Up My Sleeve / Dual Wielding: Spike uses Angel's wrist-stakes and quite likes them.
- Real Dreams are Weirder: Angel has a number of Anxiety Dreams reflecting his current fears, but is rather puzzled by the presence in one dream of a man in a bear suit.
- Reference Overdosed: Loads of cultural references (see Wikipedia for details).
- Rescue Sex: Team Angel receive a report of a certain ensouled vampire saving damsels in alleys, and then asking if they'd like to "have a few drinks and listen to some Sex Pistols?"
- Rule of Symbolism: Angel's dreams.
- Wesley pretends friendship then stabs Angel with a stake, showing Angel still has lingering resentment over Wesley's betrayal in the Connor affair.
- Fred doing surgery on Angel, removing all his internal organs (plus a goldfish bowl and a car license plate). She tells him "There's nothing left, just a shell", an allusion to what Wolfram and Hart are doing to Angel.
- Spike gets to become human, while Angel becomes the W&H mailman like Number 5.
- Rule of Threes: Spike's final Big Damn Heroes moment is saving Angel.
- Schrödinger's Butterfly: Angel is under the influence of a parasite the makes him go through his worst fears and insecurities; while under its effect each time it seems like he's finally woken up it turns out he's still under the effects of the parasite and is dreaming.
- Shout-Out:
- Fred pulls out a car's license plate from Angel's belly.
- In the dream, Spike is made human by a blue fairy.
- When Wesley and Gunn try to recruit Spike to work for Wolfram & Hart to use their resources to fight for good, Spike calls Wesley "Mr. Vader", a reference to Darth Vader, who made a similar pitch in The Empire Strikes Back.
- When Wesley and Gunn visit Spike, he refers to them as Crocket and Tubbs.
- "He hasn't sewn a big red 's' on his chest yet".
- Sick Episode: Angel spends the episode in bed hallucinating after being attacked by a parasitic demon, as David Boreanaz was recovering from surgery at the time.
- Slow Motion / Spin Attack: Spike's cool spinning kicks in his second Big Damn Heroes moment.
- Talking in Your Dreams: When Angel appears to fight off the effects of the bug, Eve appears holding an even bigger one. After being saved by Spike, Angel accuses her of being behind it all, citing the fact that Eve is wearing the same earrings as in his dream. Eve scoffs at this until Fred points out this is the first time she's been seen wearing them.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Angel is tempted to use their corporate Death Ray to just wipe out the bad guys rather than continue with all this moral ambiguity foreshadowing The Purge of the Circle of the Black Thorn in "Not Fade Away".
- Think Nothing of It: Angel has a dream in which Spike saves the world, and does this as Heroic Self-Deprecation. In ironic contrast, the episode shows the real Spike is more likely to give women he saves a lecture on not wearing high heels in a dark alley.
- Twisted Echo Cut:Lindsey: (to Spike) You got your life back now. What are you gonna do about it?(Cut to Wesley and Gunn are having a heated discussion.)Wesley: I say we make a pre-emptive strike.
- And later
Angel: (to Wes and Gunn) OK. Explain it to me again.Spike: (walking out on Lindsey) I've heard enough. - Vampires Are Rich: Averted — Spike gripes about becoming a Basement-Dweller again. Lindsey pointed says that an eternal being like him would surely have put some money aside...
- Waxing Lyrical: In the "Honky-Tonk" dream sequence Lorne tells Angel, "Sing out, Louise." The line comes from Gypsy.
- Who Are You?: Spike saves a couple from vampires.Woman: Wait. Who are you?Spike: (without turning to face them, hangs his head, then softly) I'm The Hero.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: The parasite would have put Angel in a permanent coma if Lindsey hadn't tipped off Spike — he's just as interested in humiliating his rival as deposing him.
