My name's Angel. I was born 244 years ago in Ireland. Small town, good family. Twenty-seven years into an unremarkable life, I met a woman. She told me she could show me a world I'd never seen... She wasn't kidding.
— Angel
A Spin-Off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel debuted in 1999, running for five seasons on the WB network (1999-2004). Part horror, part melodrama, part neo-noir and with a helping of comedy (a given for Whedon), Angel spent its run in the popular shadow of its parent show. Center to everything is the vampire named Angel, cursed by Gypsies into regaining his human soul and living with the guilt of the misery he caused. On Buffy he learned that he could make amends for it and he left Sunnydale to pursue this course on his own. He soon gathered a close group of friends and formed an Occult Detective agency to aid him as he challenges the forces of evil.Over the course of the run, the show started with Monster of the Week episodes with a heavy dose of a Detective Film Noir atmosphere, only to evolve into something more akin to modern fantasy mixed with Ancient Conspiracy. Throughout the series it dealt with a complex meditation on the nature of good and evil, with Angel himself being an enigma of both sides. Switching directions on a semi-regular basis, by the fifth season, of the original cast of three, only David Boreanaz as the title character remained. However, the show picked up three main characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, followed by two semi-frequent characters, and featured numerous crossovers.Highly arc-driven and not especially accessible to the casual viewer, Angel nevertheless gained a devoted, if small, following that included many television critics.The show was canceled abruptly in the fifth season, but still with enough time to give a respectable Grand Finale. It was especially frustrating for the fans, because at the same time another announcement was made that Angel had made a respectable increase in viewership. In fact the final episode of Angel beat out the intentional finale for Buffy in viewers.Like Buffy, Angel now continues in a canon comic book form, giving fans a chance to see what was planned for future seasons.Sometimes called Angel: The Series (AtS) by fans in order to distinguish the series from its parent show, BtVS. Not to be confused with angels in general.Has, to one degree or another, greatly influenced Torchwood, which could be said to be its British equivalent. Just compare the page images.Has a recap page.Note:Angel and Faith is covered on the Buffy page, as it's integral to Season 9.
20% More Awesome: When he shows up in season 5, Andrew boasts that he's become "82% more manly" than the last time Spike saw him.
2 + Torture = 5: After valiantly fending off Marcus' torture in "In the Dark", Angel casually admits to Doyle that he was an inch away from spilling everything.
"I mean, one more hot poker, and I was giving him the ring, your mom, everything. — How is your mom?"
Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Angel's main mode of transport. They look more like medical catacombs.
Lampshaded in "Fredless" when Fred states "I could build a condo in these sewers."
Up to Eleven in Season Four, when Angel and co. flee into the sewers to escape Jasmine. Not only is there already a cadre of survivors living there, but the interior more resembles Cheyenne Mountain.
Abuse Is Okay When It's Female On Male: In the episode Sanctuary Buffy is hunting Faith and intending to kill her, however Angel is protecting her so Buffy punches her ex. After he ignores the first blow Buffy tries to punch him again, but Angel blocks and punches her. Buffy is almost too shocked to speak, but he points out she threw the first punch, and she is stronger than him.
Wesley's father used to lock him in a room "under the stairs" as punishment.
Lorne's mother hates him, along with the rest of his family.
Averted when we meet Fred's "very normal" parents.
Though Angel's father isn't quite as abusive as his son sees him, he traumatized Angel so much that he turned into the cruelest vampire in history and even now still has a lot of father issues.
To be fair though, as Liam, Angel was pretty much a disgrace of a son. He whored around and was drunk all the time, he pretty much deserved all the criticism his father gave him. And considering that his father seemed nearly on the verge of tears as Liam left home, he probably still had some love toward him.
According to Word of Joss, Doyle was intended to come back as a villain. Glenn Quinn's death scrapped the potential plot.
The story creators are allowing this to apply to Lorne even in the comic books, effectively retiring the character in print (from 2010 onwards) following Andy Hallett's death.
Adaptation Decay: An in-universe example occurs in 'After the Fall'', after a filmmaker decides to base a movie on Angel's recent exploits. The movie features an actual Satan (Hell A had no such thing); Angel is a human being as well as Cowboy Cop; Spike is a woman (and Angel's Love Interest, to boot); Wesley bites the dust early on as Angel's Dead Partner; Betta George is a dog (rather then a Splenden Beast); Lorne is the evil Overlorne; and Gunn has been racelifted and played by Lost's Jose Garcia. Lastly, Illyria is merged with Gwen — and is also a blaxploitation character.
Adorkable: The entire team at one point or another.
Aerosol Flamethrower: Faith menaces Wesley with a can of cooking oil and a flame wand in "Five By Five".
Affably Evil: Richard Straley, a chipper, suburban-dwelling restauranteur who just happens to be a shapeshifting demon. He convinces Doyle to sign divorce papers allowing Richard to marry Harriet — failing to mention that in doing so, Doyle consents to having his brains devoured in a ritual ceremony.
Allen Lloyd, a New Age psychologist hired by Wolfram & Hart to conduct "Sensitivity Training" classes within Kate's precinct.
The Alcoholic: The term is never overtly used but while all the characters have a reason to drown their sorrows mid-series, Wesley is the one who doesn't stop. The latter half of series 5 has the gang mentioning with increasing frequency just how heavily Wesley is drinking. It's also implied that Wesley's fully aware it's becoming a problem.
Alien Sky: Pylea has twin suns, both of them purple. Angel is unaffected by sunlight in this dimension. (thankfully, because otherwise he's burn up twice as fast.)
All for Nothing: Angel severing his ties to his friends and embarking on a one-man war against Wolfram & Hart. He actually succeeds, destroying a Senior Partner's (temporary) body and summoning an elevator to take him to the root of their evil. The elevator just deposits him back on Earth.
All Just a Dream: Brilliantly done in "Awakening", where the entire episode is inside the mind of Angel, as the spell is being done that will (temporarily) remove his soul, turning him into Angelus.
Ancient Conspiracy: The law firm Wolfram & Hart is in effect the distilled evil of society, has been since humanity first achieved sentience, and is maneuvering the world toward the apocolypse.
Ancient Grome: The toga-clad "Oracles" dress in purple togas, albeit with bronze body paint.
Connor tries to do this to Angel: Locking him in a metal coffin and dropping him to the bottom of the ocean. While it's true that vampires cannot die, prolonged blood deprivation will result in hallucinations and even brain damage.
In "Dead End", Angel and Lindsey find the place where Wolfram & Hart keeps "donors" for its employees who need body parts. The "donors" are kept sedated but fully awake. One of them was Lindsey's co-worker when he was starting out. He begged Lindsey to kill him.
Anyone Can Die: One of the best examples of the trope among TV shows. Doyle, Cordelia, Fred, Wesley bite the dust during the course of the series, as do a number of smaller characters.
Arc Welding: The entire series up until Season 4 was preparatory to Jasmine's birth.
Angel: [to Spike] I spent a hundreds years trying to cope with infinite remorse! You sat sniveling in a basement for three weeks, AND THEN YOU WERE FINE!! What's fair about that?!
In "Blood Money", an attendee at the charity ball asks one of the television celebrities why her TV character had suddenly turned gay and whether it was a ratings stunt. This is a reference to Willow Rosenberg, who came out in the previous year's season of Buffy.
Several digs at Angelus' leather pants, which David Boreanaz notoriously wore on Buffy.
As soon as Buffy jumped to another network, the Buffy/Angel romance got the treatment.
Cordelia: Oh, Angel! I know that I am a Slayer, and you are a Vampire, and it is impossible for us to be together, but —
Wesley: But my gypsy curse, and our hot little loins, sometimes prevent us from seeing the truth. Oh, Buffy...
Cordelia: Yes, Angel?
Wesley: I love you so much I almost forgot to brood!
Cordelia: Gasp! No! We mustn't! You'll lose your soul!
Wesley: To HELL with my soul! Again! Kiss me!
Cordelia: Bite me!
Angel: [offscreen] How about you both bite me?
The sanitarium doctor warns that someone should stop Spike, because if he goes after Dana, he'll wind up dead. Angel mutters, "He'll just end up coming back."
The IDW writers behind After the Fall weren't thrilled at the people responsible for Dark Horse's Buffy comic for their revelation that Angel is Twilight. So much so, they've created promo pictures for their new Spike series wherein Spike burns a Twilight mask with a caption reading, "He definitely isn't Twilight."
Armor-Piercing Question: Marcus deliberately and repeatedly asks Angel, "What do you want?" while torturing him with sunlight and hot pokers. Because he is a Living Lie Detector, Marcus is unfazed by Angel's false answers. (The real answer, of course, turns out to be: Forgiveness.)
Attack Hello: Spike makes his presence known to Angel via a wooden plank to the face. Lampshaded in that Spike confesses he had intended to remain in the shadows, spinning an elaborate web of plans, but got bored.
Connor starts out this way. Granted he was kidnapped by Holtz and raised in an alternate, Hell-like dimension and taught what a monster Angel was. Indeed he was raised by Holtz for the sole purpose of being his final revenge against Angel. Then Holtz stages his own death to look like Angel had murdered him and manipulated by Justine into dumping Angel into the ocean for three months.
Back from the Dead: First season finale, Darla, fourth season finale, Lilah, fifth season premiere, Spike, kinda-sorta in the comics, thought to be Fred, instead it's just Illyria reverted to Fred's personality at random as well as Gunn, from his previous unliving state.
Cordelia: (to Doyle) You're a lot smarter than you look. ..Of course, you look like a retard.
Badass Boast: Angel tries out some diplomacy on Doyle's debt-collecting demon friend.
"It's a good offer. You should take it. On the other hand you're making me want to fight some more. You get lucky, you might last ten minutes. Really lucky, and you're unconscious for the last five."
Badass Normal: Wesley, Gunn, Fred and Cordelia. Although they all have some sort of power by the end of the show - Wesley with his magical knowledge, Gunn with his lawyer implant, Fred being an Eldritch Abomination and Cordy having a mental connection to the Powers That Be - the human cast consistently proves throughout the series that superpowers are no match for flamethrowers, high-powered crossbows, shotguns and double pistols.
Also, Daniel Holtz, who almost manages to destroy Team Angel by using time travel, bombs, crossbow bolts, stakes, knives, vampires, swords, demons, members of the team and Angel's own son, just because Angel pissed him off over two hundred years ago.
If by "pissed him off" one means "slaughtered his entire family, leaving only his youngest daughter (turned into a vampire) to greet him when he arrived home", then yes, he was very pissed off!
Bad Bad Acting: Cordelia's screechingly awful performance in A Doll's House.
Sort of understandable in that case, considering he and all the main characters are trying to save Fred from being consumed by Illyria, and have the entire office working on it. Said toady had the audacity to suggest they do otherwise.
Batman Grabs a Gun: Angel siring Sam Lawson, an engineer, after a stab wound prevents him from finishing his repairs to the sub's engine. Once a vampire, he completes his repairs. This is the only time Angel ever sired someone after gaining a soul. (He even refused to re-sire Darla, who was going to die anyway).
Battle Discretion Shot: Angel and Wesley battling a newly-hatched demon in a strip of apartments. We see yellow blood splattering the windows, followed by Wesley getting thrown out the window and then charging back inside.
Be Careful What You Wish For: As Rebecca's drug takes effect on Angel, he realizes she's trying to make him turn into Angelus so he'll turn around and sire her. Furious, Angel grabs a blood pack from his fridge and sprays it into her mouth to give her "a taste" of what she's in for. Naturally, once Angelus is in control, Rebecca flees in terror from the murderous nutcase she just let loose.
Bearer of Bad News: Wesley finds himself put in the agonizing position of reporting Fred's death to her parents, who were blissfully unaware of it. Wes is stymied, however, by Illyria shape-shifting in order to resemble her dead host.
Beauty is Never Tarnished: (Refreshingly) Averted with Faith as she claws her way from the bottom of the barrel. Over the course of three years, we see her strung out, imprisoned, beaten to a pulp, and quasi-suicidal. Fun times.
Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: When the team suspects a little boy of being possessed by an Ethros demon, Wesley mentions Lizzie Borden, the famous Massachusetts woman accused of butchering her parents with an axe. She, too, was possessed by an Ethros. Angel notes ominously that the demon possessing Borden was only an adolescent.
During the chase through an art gallery in "She", Angel shake off his pursuit by briefly pausing to lecture on a painting of the French poet Baudelaire, suggesting that Baudelaire's poem "The Vampire" was based on an encounter with a real vampire (possibly Angel himself, as he tells his audience that Baudelaire was actually "a little taller and a lot drunker" than he appears here).
Roger Burkle correctly guesses that Spiro T. Agnew was a demon, to Angel's surprise. "I thought only I knew that."
In "The House Always Wins", Angel corrects Fred and Gunn's misconception that the members of Blue Man Group are demons (only two of them are).
Doyle laments that he and his ex-wife were too young to break things off amicably, instead fighting each othr non-stop until one of them broke; in doing so, he inadvertantly forecasts what will happen to Angel and Buffy later on.
Best Served Cold: Once Holtz learns Angel has a soul and Darla killed herself to save her unborn child, his roaring red-hot desire for revenge cools down to... icy.
Beware the Nice Ones: Every single member of Team Angel. Jasmine also qualifies (kind of.)
Holtz is something of a subversion as well. Angelus was his Big Bad first, and Holtz is arguably a Big Good whose most evil act (committing suicide in such a way as to make Connor think his father, Angel, is responsible) is morally correct from Holtz's view: Angel must suffer for the crimes he committed as Angelus, chief among them killing Holtz's wife and turning his daughter into a vampire, thus forcing Holtz to kill her. An apt metaphor for Holtz would be to think of him as a living embodiment of Angelus' past victims.
Season Five has the Senior Partners, operating on Earth through their Dragons, the Circle of the Black Thorn.
Bizarre Alien Biology: Lorne's heart is in his ass, as he will be quick to tell you. Chopping off his head has no effect, so God only knows where his brain's located.
In his head. But he's from the Deathwalk clan: he can have someone put him back together.
Some demons, such as the Haxil, procreate by implanting human women with their seed. When one such fate befalls Cordelia, she and Wesley head for the prenatal clinic, where a doctor extracts some amniotic fluid. The syringe containing the fluid cracks, disintegrates, and then eats a hole through the subflooring.
The females of the Oden-Tal species have ridges along their spines that glow red when they are sexually aroused. (see "Horny Devils").
Their male counterparts, the Vigories have a ko of their own, but it doesn't do anything. On the other hand, they're reported to be herbivores who eat half their body weight a day.
Gunn and Wesley are trapped in a sewer, preparing to launch an attack an unseen goliath. Wesley notes that this species is known for breathing fire. Gunn peeks around a corner and reports that its back is turned — right before flames erupt in his direction.
A group of Nahdrah demons plot to remove Fred's head and place it on the shoulder of their dying Prince. They want her for her mind.
Not to mention the demons that require large amounts of salt, need to be buried separately once dead, emerge every other full moon...
Lampshaded at one point by Wesley and Gunn: Wesley gives a long exposition about the demon they will be facing, noting how it emerges every other full moon to mate and feed (at the same time) and communicates through facial ticks. Gunn, bored, asks how they kill it. "Oh, standard slice and dice."
Blackmail: The client in "War Zone" is a D&D fanatic who went a little to deep into character - specifically, the 'demon seductresses' part - and ended up being photographed at a demon brothel.
BLAM Episode: Some viewers consider "The Girl In Question" to be this - in the middle of a tense, tragic story arc leading up to the heavily depressing series finale, we get an episode revolving around Spike and Angel gallivanting off to Italy to have wacky, HoYay-tastic adventures while trying to rescue Buffy from the mistake of dating an unseen, vampiric sexual predator with whom they apparently have a never-before-mentioned complex history; this unapologetically farcical storyline is played against a bitter, tragic Los Angeles subplot in which Illyria assumes Fred's form in order to deceive her parents into believing that their daughter is alive and well, a state of affairs which nearly breaks Wesley and is difficult to watch even for the viewers. The episode feels fragmented and out of place at best, and at worst features an incredibly tactless and offensive juxtaposition of storylines.
Blessed with Suck: Vampires in general, especially if they can feel remorse. Sam Lawson is unable gain any pleasure from his violence, a fact which he attributes to Angel having a soul when he sired him. Unfortunately for Lawson, he didn't absorb enough of Angel's soul to suppress his dark impulses. He's kind of irritated.
The visions from the PTB are shown to be excruciatingly painful to half-demons and humans alike. Doyle refers to them as "great, splittin' migraines that come with pictures", while Cordelia compares it to having molten lava poured onto your brain.
Cordelia: If that was my gift, I'd return it.
Blindfolded Vision: Hilariously parodied. The Blindfolded Psychic Ninja in Quickening looks awesome... and gets swarmed and chump killed by vamps.
Bodyguard Crush: In Guise Will Be Guise, Wesley impersonates Angel in order to avoid conflict but finds himself involved with Magnus Bryce and forced to be bodyguard to Bryce's daughter Virginia and, let's just say, the two hit it off.
Bond One-Liner: Inverted in "Sense & Sensitivity", after Angel is cursed with the same touchy-feely emotions that have consumed the police station. Angel continues to espouse his new, positive attitude while pummeling the villain of the week.
Angel: You know, Anthony, you can be a rainbow. And not a— [punches Tony's lights out] —Painbow.
Book Ends: "Hero" starts with Doyle rehearsing a television ad for Angel Investigations. Following his death, the episode finishes with Doyle saying to the camera, "Is that it? Am I done?"
Brass Balls: Lindsay calls Angel a vampire "with big brass testes" after he reveals his plan to go after The Circle of the Black Thorn.
Breather Episode: Most prominent in Seasons 3 & 4, which are heavily arc-focused. These include "Provider" (a series of lighthearted vignettes about side jobs), "Waiting in the Wings" (a trip to the ballet) immediately afterward, "Spin the Bottle" (the return of dysfunctional, Buffy-era Cordelia and Wesley) and "The Girl in Question".
Uncle John: Let's see... (examines schedule) First we greet the man of the hour. Then we drink. We bring out the food. Then we drink. Then comes the stripper, darts, and then we have the ritual eating of the first husband's brains, and then charades.
An alarmed Cordelia confides to Wesley that his client, Rebecca, has been "real gabby, asking questions about Angel". Wesley asks what sort of questions?
"Oh, you know, where does Angel hail from, whats his favorite color, what kind of aftershave he wears, the exact specific details on how someone could make themselves into a vampire."
Break the Cutie: Fred. Somewhat inverted in that she comes to the show when she's already thoroughly broken and spends the next three seasons becoming a capable, confident and occasionally badass woman. Then she dies horribly. Worse, her soul is turned to ash in the fires of rebirth to bring forth Illyria. Yup, there's no Afterlife for her. Even for a Whedon show that's harsh.
Well, the "no afterlife" part is debatable, given that in the series finale, Illyria tells Wesley as he's dying that he'll be with Fred again soon.
Illyria You'll be dead within minutes. Would you like me to lie to you now?
Wesley Yes... Thank you, yes.
In an interview, Amy Acker claimed Whedon would have brought Fred back or had Illyria regain more of Fred's memories if the series had a sixth season.
Also revealed to be the process by which Angelus made Drusilla lose her mind.
Bribe Backfire: Angel attempts to bribe the barkeep in "Expecting", only to find it's the last thing in the world that will gain this guy's confidence.
Brick Joke: In Season 5, Illyria mentions the universe of all shrimp that was used as a brick joke throughout Buffy.
In season two Angel has a fear of singing, but left with no other options he butchers the power ballad Mandy at a karaoke club so the owner will help him. When Faith drugs Angelus in season four he is forced to watch a flashback of him listening to the song on a jukebox. He can't stand it, while Faith finds it hilarious that he has a jonsing for the song. Then lets slip about attending concerts.
Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Good job defeating Jasmine, Angel! Now you have to deal with your insane son, your comatose girlfriend, the elimination of any possibility of world peace and the return of Wolfram & Hart.
Broken Aesop: Lampshaded spectacularly by Cordelia at the end of "Expecting".
Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Fred played "Gentle Girl" to both Gunn and Wesley. In season 5, Angel's "Gentle Girl" was a werewolf. No, it never worked out happily.
Faith becomes this to Angel in the comics. Yep, that Faith.
Bound and Gagged: Cordelia in "Parting Gifts". The gag has less to do with restraint than making her shut up.
The infamous gypsy girl who indirectly caused Angel's curse. We later learn in a flashback that it's really all Darla's fault, as she "looked everywhere" for a suitable present for Angelus. Whoops.
The above example is paralleled in the same episode ("Five By Five") by Faith tying up and gagging her old buddy Wesley.
Buffy Speak: Multiple examples, naturally. Extends even to the actors themselves, like Julie Benz's response to her vampire character being resurrected. ""I was shocked. I just thought once you poof'd, you poof'd! I thought that was it."
Most notable is Lorne's flummoxed response to his club blowing up (again).
Lorne: I do! It's a thing with the door— and the stairs and the world and the thing. Never mind!
Gunn: Apparently you can be outside and shove stuff in.
Lorne: ..I just said that.
Burn Baby Burn: Wesley, in one last sentimental gesture, attempts this on Lilah's employee contract (which binds her to the firm for eternity). A duplicate contract immediately appears in the drawer.
Calling Card: Before being cursed with a soul, Angelus enjoyed 'signing' each of his victims by slicing a Christian cross on their cheek. Its purpose was twofold: To keep score, and to spite God. Penn, having been sired and mentored by Angelus, adopted this trademark as his own.
Calling the Old Man Out: Angel (under his human name, "Liam") became a vampire as a result of a noisy confrontation with his father, which resulted in him getting kicked out. As Angelus, he later "triumphed" by killing his family, saving his father for last.
Penn has daddy issues of his own, even to the point of considering Angelus his "real" father after being sired. Similar to Angelus, Penn evened the score by slaughtering his entire family. Over the next two centuries, Penn deliberately sought out victims who resembled his family, killing them in order to reenact his past murders (later redirected toward Angel himself).
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.
Wesley finally vents some bile toward his father, Roger, as the pair engage in some Gunpoint Banter ("Lineage"). Roger blasts Wesley for working for Angel when he knows what he's done. Wesley, in turn, taunts his father, insinuating that Roger always belittled him because he feared that Wesley would outshine him.
The Cameo: Blink and you'll miss Zakk Wylde free-styling with Lorne in "The Magic Bullet".
Can You Hear Me Now?: Angel can't work a cellphone to save his life, much to Cordelia's exasperation.
Can't Stay Normal: In "I Will Remember You", Angel's humanity is restored when his blood mixes with that of a powerful demon. After spending a blissful night together with Buffy, Angel continues to fight demons at her side — and loses, badly. During a conference with the Oracles, Angel learns the full consequences of being human: he can no longer avert the coming apocalypse, in which Buffy will surely die. Faced with little choice, he implores the Oracles to rewind time and negate the past 24 hours' events; Angel will have to earn his humanity the hard way.
Angel's son ends up fitting this trope nicely. To make a very long story short, Angel agrees to a devil's bargain with Wolfram & Hart to rewrite Connor's entire life, brainwashing him so he can live happily with a human family. Not long afterward, however, Angel is blackmailed by Cyvus Vail, the sorcerer responsible for Connor's new memories. Vail announces that he needs the old Connor back, since it is only he who can kill Vail's nemesis, Sahjhan. Hoping to preserve Connor's new life, Angel attempts to re-train his son from scratch in the art of fighting — only to be waylaid by Wesley, who restores Connor's memories by shattering Vail's Orlon Window. Wesley, who suspected Angel of involvement in Fred's death, hoped to rewind time by undermining the basis on which Angel joined the firm.
Which is why he gets very, very angry whenever anybody asks him a question. He is sick of always having to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Barney: First off, you should know — right away, before there's any misunderstanding — I'm a demon.
Angel:(glances at horns, hooked nose, pointy ears, and blotched skin) I appreciate your candor.
Later in that same episode, Barney the Empath demon overhears Cordy struggling to decipher a cryptic vision and grunting angrily.
Barney: You're frustrated.
Cordelia:(glares) That's one spooky talent you got there.
Angel and Wesley nab their suspect, a wounded Kungai demon, only to discover he's dying. Angel points out that it wasn't Wesley's arrow which injured him; his horn's been broken off. Wesley leans over and starts translating the Kungai's dialect.
Wesley:(looks up) I think he's telling us his horn was taken.
Angel: We got that!
A rare inanimate example of this occurs with Cordy's newly-installed security system ("The Prodigal"). When a demon bursts though the doors of Angel's office, the digitized voice alerts helpfully that the "Door is open".
Even the Powers That Be aren't immune to this trope. When Cordelia drives over to a client's home to collect a fee, she is hit with a vision of herself being surrounded by cyclopean demons — at the precise moment when she's surrounded by cyclopean demons.
Car Meets House: Oz uses his band's tour van as a battering ram in Spike's lair.
Angel 'borrows' Lindsay's pickup to plow through someone's living room ("Epiphany").
Card-Carrying Villain: Literally. Every member of Wolfram & Hart seems to have business cards.
Cardboard Prison: Pretty much any prison where Wolfram & Hart's clients are involved.
The Cast Showoff: Christian Kane, who played Lindsey, is in a Country/Southern rock band in real life. In "Dead End," Lindsey sings so well at Caritas that not just Cordelia, but also Gunn and Wesley are impressed.
Darla also gets a turn at the mic.
Cat Scare: Played straight in "I've Got You Under My Skin", with an actual cat.
In "Parting Gifts", Angel trails his quarry into a sauna room. A towel-wearing demon surprises Angel by exiting one of the stalls, asking where he can get the shiatsa massage.
Ceiling Cling: Subverted in "War Zone". Angel, seemingly able to sense that there's a vampire about to pounce, casually steps out of the way, letting the mook fall flat on his face.
Cement Shoes: How Angel disposes of Dr. Ronald Meltzer, after disassembling him.
Cerebus Callback: In "A Hole In The World", there is a Running Gag early on about the characters arguing on who would win in a fight — cavemen or astronauts. Towards the end of the episode as Fred lies dying, infected with the spirit of an ancient demon, she whispers "cavemen win, cavemen always win" as a reference to the plot parallel of their modern technologies being unable to stop the ancient demon.
Chain Link Fence: Subverted in an early episode ("In the Dark"). Spike, in a rare demonstration of competence, pretends to accidentally run down a blind alley - when really, it's Angel who's just been trapped.
The Chain Of Harm: Holtz's quest for revenge against Angel has a terrible impact on Connor's health and sanity.
Chained to a Bed: When Angel starts having dreams of the hunt — dreams that match a string of real-life murders those same nights — he, Wesley and Cordelia test the theory that he might be somehow sleep-killing by chaining him to his bed.
Following Angel's short-lived rampage as Angelus ("In the Dark"), the episode concludes with Wes and Cordy confining him to the bed again. Perhaps understandably, Cordy hints she's not untieing him anytime soon.
Chekhov's Gag: In "That Old Gang of Mine", Cordelia mentions Fred laughing at something a shrub said. Later in Season Five when she becomes Illyria, one of her powers is talking to plants.
Chekhov's Gunman: The mailman at Wolfram and Hart, who wears a Mexican wrestling mask. He later turns out to be a former member of a team of demon-hunting luchadores.
Clipboard of Authority: Angel follows Jhiera into an art gallery, but she makes him and sics museum security after him. As cover, Angel quickly removes his coat and proceeds to lecture on an Édouard Manet painting to a group of people, who stand rapt at his expert dissertation.
"War Zone" begins with a Close Up On Feet. The camera pans up to reveal our hero, a black-clad, Badass Longcoat wearing Ang—er, Gunn.
"You were expecting someone else?"
In the same episode, Cordelia wears a glamorous scarf while sunning herself in Angel's convertible. Wesley breaks the mood by reminding Cordy that she's on a stakeout, and the car is parked in a smelly alleyway.
Spike, cornered against a wall, menaces his opponent with a Badass Boast....until the shot pans, revealing that he's yelling at a video game.
Done a whole bunch of times. More examples include Gunn and Wesley intimidating each other in a Serious Business type way (they turned out to be playing Risk), and Angel giving a heartfelt speech to someone off-camera (turns out he was reading from a pre-prepared card, trying to apologize to Merl).
Combat Clairvoyance: Gunn is seemingly able to sense a vampire attack on his base, despite there being no preemptive noise. ("War Zone")
Comically Missing the Point: Harrie Doyle seems more less upset about her fiancée's intention to eat Doyle's brains than about being kept in the dark about it.
Harrie: You were going to start our life out together with deceit?
Doyle:(to Angel) Sorta missing the point, isn't she?
On the day following Little Tony's arrest, Angel meets with Doyles informant, who claims he overhead that "LT" is planning a hit on Det. Lockely.
Darla invokes this in a flashback to the late-1800s when she comes across a soul-stricken Angelus ("Five By Five"). When Angelus sorrowfully reflects on the children he's murdered, Darla gets excited and asks if he's brought her some.
Guard: Yeah, see, this isn't so much a 'bribe' as it is a 'tip', and since I'm not parking your car there's really no way—
[Angel punches him]
Cold-Blooded Torture: Spike tortures Angel to learn the location of the Gem of Amarra in "In the Dark". Later that season, Faith ties Wesley to chair and tortures him with an entire kitchen's-worth of implements.
Holtz with Angel, repeatedly.
Lindsey (and later Gunn) suffer this at the hands of Wolfram & Heart.
Conditioned To Accept Horror: Because he was raised in Quor'toth, this happened to Connor to the extent that he was the only person who could look upon Jasmine's true face and still think her beautiful.
When Buffy and Faith confront each other atop Angel's building, Faith asks, "Whaddya wanna do? You're gonna throw me off the roof?Again?"
In a Season One throwaway gag, Wesley prophesies that a demon is due to arise in Reseda. ("To Shanshu In L.A.") In Cordelia's glimpse into her alternate life ("Birthday"), she drives to Reseda and discovers the root cause of the demon's summoning - a teenage girl pouring diet soda on a black magic tome.
Convenient Coma: Somewhat subverted, however, in that it's revealed Cordelia never came out of her coma when she died and it was probably her spirit (or something) that helped Angel.
Cool Gate: Two gates to hell dimensions appear in the series, one to Pylea and the other to Quor'Toth. The former is discussed as very cool by the main cast whe nthey go through, the latter can be described as punching a burning hole through reality like it was paper.
Cool Mask: The Vocah wears one, symbolizing his sway over the lower demons. When Angel pries it off, it opens to reveal not a face, but a gaping hole full of maggots.
The Comedy and Tragedy demons from "Waiting in the Wings" certainly qualify.
Cooldown Hug: When Angel refuses to kill Faith, she reacts by flying into what the script literally dubs a "I'm-Gonna-Get-You-Motherfucker-If-It's-The-Last-Thing-I-Do" rage, clawing at the air and screaming. Finally, her body gives out, and she ends up sobbing in Angel's arms as the rain pours.
Coolest Club Ever: D'Oblique. Subverted by Doyle, who describes it as "one of those 'terminally-stuck in The Eighties' places".
The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Kate grills an informant over the whereabouts of Little Tony, who shot a country supervisor execution-style. The informant begs to differ.
Spivey: I heard it was a suicide.
Kate: 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?
Corrupt Politician: Several senators are shown on screen. More are implied.
Cosmic Horror Story: As bad and powerful and nearly omnipresent as Wolfram & Hart are, the only reason they are in the running to get their apocalypse is that many things that are more powerful either are sleeping or can't be bothered. The firm gets throttled hard three times by such beings. While W&H isn't particularly sensitive to the damage done to its offices and personnel, think about it from Angel's perspective. Beating Wolfram & Hart is hopeless enough and now something is surprised that "the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart" are this important these days because they really are a bunch of self-promoting yard trash who used to be like vampires. Nice world to try to save.
Costume Copycat: The Groosalugg in Season 3. In addition to possessing all of Angel's strengths (and none of his weaknesses), Cordelia starts dressing him up in Angel's old clothes. One spiky haircut later, and they're practically interchangeable.
Couldn't Find A Pen: This trope is invoked for ghosts. In season one, a malevolent spirit writes bleeding messages on the walls of Cordelia's apartment. In season five, phantasm-Spike writes a message in the condensation of Fred's shower door.
Subverted in "Eternity", when Angel instantly recognizes the bloody lettering as prop blood. How does he do that??
In the series finale, when Angel is offered a fountain pen by another executive — who abruptly jams it into Angel's hand. Wolfram & Hart isn't big on ink signatures.
Crapsack World: Lindsey talks of Earth being Hell itself, which is how Wolfram & Hart works and thrives.
Create Your Own Villain: Angel's spawned quite a number of them, just by virtue of being a vampire; Penn, Drusilla, and Sam Lawson are all vampires whom he has personally sired — and later return to kick his ass.
The guy who eclipses them all, however, is Holtz. who wants Angel dead for what he did as Angelus, killing the man's family and forcing him to dust his own daughter.
Creepy Souvenir: After returning from a Hell dimension, Connor carries around bits of demons he's killed. When he later fights a drug dealer, he takes an ear to add to his collection.
Cross Over: With Buffy. Later Comics do ones with Peter David's Fallen Angel and Frankenstein. The secondary writer of the first run of canon comics included so many Shout Outs and Cross Overs that listing them would require its own page (he thankfully notes them in the notes of the collected volumes).
Creator Cameo: That's Joss Whedon in the green make-up doing the Dance of Joy. David Fury, the producer, also makes an appearance as the eerily cheerful puppeteer in "Smile Time."
Crooked Contractor: Lorne is aggravated by one during the rebuilding of Caritas. "I've got mouths to feed. Plus a family. Some of them got mouths, too."
Crusading Widower: Holtz, who takes out 378 vampires in 9 years after Angelus and Darla kill his family before travelling to the 21st century and turning a bunch of grieving vampire-haters into a team of vampire hunters to help him take out Angel.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Pretty much any run-in with The Beast or Hamilton.
Wesley channels his inner badassitude whilst being tortured by his one-time prodigy, Faith:
Wesley: I was your watcher Faith, I know the real you. But even if you kill me there is just one thing I want you to remember.
Faith:(visibly moved) What's that, love?
Wesley: You...are a piece of shi—
Curse Escape Clause: One moment of pure happiness will break the curse Angel bears. Since that curse is his soul, and his soul is what keeps him acting like a civilized being, he would prefer, most of the time, that this escape clause not be invoked.
Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: As Angelus is pondering a variety of creative deaths for Rebecca, he finally settles on doing it old school: Carrying around her head on a stick!
Angel and Eve in the last season, although they were under a magical compulsion at the time.
Dawson Casting: Cordelia. This worked fairly well on Buffy, but by the second season of Angel, Charisma Carpenter was in her 30s, while Cordelia was supposed to be 20, and it showed. This is all the more noticeable after Fred joined the cast. If you do the math, Fred should be four or five years older than Cordelia, yet Amy Acker was six years younger than Carpenter.
Deadpan Snarker: Gunn and Cordy tend towards this, although since this is a Whedon show there's enough snark to go around.
Death by Irony: Darin McNamara gets mobbed by his captive fighters and shackled with one of his own electric bracelets. Trepkos then hurls Darin's body through the boundry zone, disintegrating him.
Death Seeker: Sam Lawson's revealed motive in "Why We Fight".
Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Lampshaded yet played straight with Spike, and then averted to hell and back with Fred.
Death World: In "Peace Out", Angel is the only one who can survive the journey to Jasmine's homeworld, as the atmosphere is poisonous to anyone who breathes it. For obvious reasons, Angel doesn't share that handicap.
Decapitation Presentation: Angelus jokingly (?) suggests doing this to an actress. "In all my years, I never killed a famous person before. But with no witnesses, who's gonna believe me?"
Decoy Damsel: "Parting Gifts" and "The Ring" have male variations on this trope. In both instances, Angel is duped by a client into chasing down the wrong culprit.
Lampshaded in a later episode ("Five By Five") following Angel's rescue of an eyewitness. "You Marquez? ..Good. I hate saving the wrong guy."
Inverted with Rebecca in "Eternity". She truly believes she's being stalked, but it's a publicity stunt staged by her amoral agent.
Defiant to the End: In another Call Back to Buffy, a Watcher (Giles:Wesley) ends up tied to a chair and sadistically tortured by a maniac (Angelus:Faith) to the point of almost breaking — only to reply with a pithy insult.
Demonic Possession: Several times, but most memorably when a little soulless boy imprisons a demon inside his body.
"This is getting ridiculous. The first assassin kills the second assassin - sent to kill the first assassin - who didn't assassinate anyone until we hired the second assassin to assassinate her!"
Depower: Twice, with ascended Cordelia and Illyria, who got hit a second time.
Description Cut: Angel's father chews him out in a flashback to 18th century Ireland, shouting, "You're a layabout and a scoundrel, and you'll never amount to anything more than that!" Flash-forward to Angel kicking demon ass in a subway tunnel 200 years later.
On the subject of Angel's celebrity client, Rebecca Lowell, Cordy pines, "I'd give anything to be in her world!" Cut to Lowell getting a painful eyebrow wax.
Deus ex Machina: Literally in the episode "You're Welcome"; Cordelia, before she dies, uses her god powers for the last time to help Angel and the gang.
Dirty Cop: Untwisted with Trevor Lockley, who thought he was helping his associates smuggle auto parts — not push drugs. As irony would have it, Trevor was feathering his nest precisely so Kate would never find herself in a position where she needed to take bribes.
Disproportionate Retribution: Ryan Anderson sets fire to his little sister's room as revenge for the unequal amount of marshmallows in his hot cocoa. Beat that.
The Doll Episode: "Smile Time'', written and directed by Ben Edlund (best known for creating The Tick)
Door of Doom: Angel creates one to journey to the previous world Jasmine conquered (See "Death World").
Don't Look At Me: A traumatized Angel says this after glimpsing his "true" vampiric face in Pylea.
Don't Sneak Up On Me Like That!: Doyle is busy duct-taping Angel's basement to protect against Dr. Meltzer's disassembling body parts. A pair of hands skitter up Doyle's neck — whoops, it's just Cordelia, who picked a fine time to fix Doyle's collar. This makes so little sense that it must be a wink on Joss's part.
Doyle: Yeah, well, what say we leave it crooked until this thing is resolved?!
Double Entendre: Lindsey promises to "get [Faith] off" of her criminal charges. Oh really, now?
Faith: You don't know how many man have promised me that.
Lilah: I'm certain you won't be disappointed in our performance.
Dressing as the Enemy: Angel totes a briefcase in order to sneak into Wolfram & Hart. Wesley and Cordelia follow suit in a later episode.
Downer Ending: The Season 3 finale. Angel and Cordelia finally realize they love one another, and Connor has accepted Angel as his father and wants to be part of the family. It Got Worse... Cordelia is called to a Ascend To A Higher Plane by Skip. Connor tracks Angel to where he was to meet Cordelia, tazes him, beats him down, locks him in a coffin and sends him to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Drowning My Sorrows: Cordelia's "friend" Serena, having been impregnated by the same demon as Cordy, has taken to guzzling whiskey by the time Angel darkens her door.
Played for laughs in "Redefinition" after the team is disbanded by Angel. (see "Drunken Song" below).
Takes a serious turn after Wesley's estrangement from the team, whereupon he really starts to hit the sauce. And then there's the death of Fred, which causes everyone to crawl into a bottle, even Spike and Lorne. Spike's drinking is the most hilariously sad, not least due to his vampire constitution, but also because he's attemptingto get drunk on travel-size bottles of Jack Daniels.
Wesley also mixes it up with dual pistols, but they only come in handy once. (Though the beautiful headshot performed on Skip is worth a hundred deflected bullets).
Faith comes at Angel with dual stakes in "Five By Five".
Early Installment Weirdness: In the early episodes, the makeup artists experimented with a new 'bumpy eyebrows' look for vampires. They soon went back to the old prosthetic.
The pilot has Angel breaking into the LA Public Library to do research, something he never does ever again. Joss originally thought up the idea of Angel going to the library every episode (ŕ la Buffy), and compiled a ton of establishing shots that never got used.
Easily Forgiven: Played straight and subverted big time with Wesley. Even after returning to the fold, he is forever cemented as the Manipulative Bastard, careful to never tip his hand to the rest of the group (particularly Angel).
Faith famously gets rewarded with pastries after attempting to kill Wes and Angel.
Angel is forgiven by the next episode after Wes finds out that he wiped everyone's memories of Connor. Probably because Wes realized that Angel was keeping Connor a secret for him, not fromhim - Wesley kidnapped Angel's son and gave him to a man who took the kid to hell with him... My God, What Have I Done?, in spades.
Subverted with Gunn in the final season. Despite making an honest (albeit incredibly stupid) mistake, he has to endure living in a hell dimension in order to atone. Granted, his mistake did help kill Fred....
Eats Babies: The leather-clad demon "That Old Gang of Mine".
Egocentric Team Naming: Angel Investigations, and when he leaves, the group all try to name the group after themselves, but decide to keep the original name.
Barney, a (villainous) precursor to Lorne's character, appears in the first season ep "Parting Gifts".
Empathic Environment: The Hyperion's courtyard is lined with jasmine, a night-blooming plant. The comparison between jasmine flowers and vampires was previously made on Buffy.
Endless Daytime: After the Fall has LA in hell, with both sun and full moon up at the same time, which makes things interesting for werewolves. And vampires. And, well, it's hell.
Enemy Mine: Following repeated failed attempts to kill Angel and Faith, Lindsey comes to the realization that he's not acting like a lawyer; "It's a mistake for us to operate outside of the law." To that end, he approaches Kate Lockley, who just happens to despise Angel marginally more than Wolfram & Hart.
Enemy Within: Angelus, but arguably everyone falls victim to this trope. Even Lorne.
Enfant Terrible: Ryan Anderson. The Ethros demon who inhabited his boy ascribed his psychpathic personality to a lack of a soul; for whatever reason, Ryan was born an empty shell and nothing will ever change him.
Equal-Opportunity Evil: Wolfram & Hart has several minorities working as high-class lawyers (Gavin Park and Gunn are the most prominent examples).
Establishing Series Moment: For anyone who's never seen Buffy, this show looks like a detective story opening with a noir-ish narration. Except it's Angel drunkenly talking to a barfly.
Estranged Soap Family: We know Cordelia's parents are alive when she moves to Los Angeles before the series begins. They are never so much as mentioned when their daughter goes missing at the end of season four, or spends almost a year in a coma in season five.
Everybody Must Get Stoned: Lorne's failed magic spell in "Spin the Bottle" disorients everyone; Lorn passes out, and the others stumble about the lobby as if very high on mushrooms.
Everyone Can See It: Doyle and Cordelia. Even a shit-faced Detective Lockely can sniff them out.
Evil Brit: A limey demon comes calling for Gunn's soul in "Double or Nothing".
The Watcher's Council's "Special Operations Team" (read: wet works). They previously appeared in the Season Four Buffy episode "Who Are You", and are still smarting from that little adventure.
Evil Counterpart: "Gio" is a fanatical demon hunter who corrupted Gunn's old crew while he was gone. ("That Old Gang of Mine")
Rutherford Sirk is an ex-Watcher who defected to Wolfram & Hart long ago. When Wesley castigates him for his lack of ethics, it's clear to see that Sirk is a preview of what Wesley will later turn into. ("Home")
Evil Makeover: The Burrower in "Lonely Hearts" is shown BodySurfing into the bodies of meek, introverted men and women, then switching into a more stylish outfit to seduce new prey.
Evil Pays Better: As explained by Linwood, the lawyers of Wolfram & Hart are perfectly happy to sell their souls and labor for the Senior Partners in Hell for all eternity, all in exchange for a few perks they receive during their fleeting time on Earth.
Although based on Eve's deal in season 5 one of the possible benefits in the W&H package can be immortality, so ...
Collins, front man for the evil Watcher trio, has a voice like Satan.
Holtz. This is actually lampshaded by Wesley when Holtz offers him a deal. ("Could be the low, scary voice that's giving me trouble.") Keith Szarabajka's real-life voice has a high-pitched, nasally sound, one which Tim Minear loves to imitate.
Evil Speech Of Evil: Angelus has this problem. Also Penn, which is appropriate seeing as he was schooled by Angelus (Cordelia lampshades).
Evil Twin: Well, make that Lorne's giant, hulking subconscious.
Evil Virtues: At Wolfram & Hart, the Deal is king — they never break an agreement. Even Wesley concedes as much.
Exact Eavesdropping: Gunn overhears Angel scheduling an exact time and place to meet with a blackmailer. The following night, Angel gets nailed by a stake fired from one of Gunn's truck-mounted cannons. He is then forced to flee down a street and through a gauntlet of vampire-killing Booby Traps.
Executive Veto: The series was originally going to be darker in tone, similar to the oppressive feel of Season 3-5. In the scene where Angel bursts into Tina's apartment and finds her dead, the script called for him to taste her blood. This was actually filmed, but edited out from the finished episode; You can see David Boreanaz about to do it, but the camera fades out just in time.
The following episode, "Lonely Hearts", was scripted to be even darker that that. In David Fury's first draft (then-entitled "Corrupt"), Kate Lockely was written as a drug-addicted cop who worked undercover as a prostitute. The plot would have also involved Cordelia disguising herself as a working girl. For obvious reasons, the network nixed the idea.
Exposition Victim: In "City Of..." Cordelia notices that the house she's in has no reflective surfaces at all. Out loud, she realises that she's in a vampire's house and challenges the owner — until her Sunnydale instincts catch up with her mouth and she tries to pretend that she was joking.
Exotic Entree: The werewolf-eating gourmet club in "Unleashed".
Expecting Someone Taller: Illyria reacts this way when Knox announces that he is her high priest.
Express Delivery: The Haxil Beast offers fame, money and success to human men who are willing impregnate women (Cordy included) with its spawn. The gestation period lasts only a couple days, and according the Wesley, the surrogate mothers usually don't survive labor since the infants are often freaking huge.
Extra Strength Masquerade: After a while, you get the feeling Angel could go on a live CNN broadcast, drink Anderson Cooper's blood, and ride away on a magical demon horse, and most people still wouldn't realize vampires exist.
In the sequel comics, it finally breaks. At least in Los Angeles.
Eye Awaken: Inverted with Doyle, who is able to dislocate his own neck while in demon form. Angel pretends to snap his neck in order to impress The Scourge. Rieff finds Doyle's body, and is startled when he jolts back to life.
A series later, it's inverted again when Cordelia is shown Lorne's severed head. She's understandably shocked when his eyes snap open. It's then played for laughs when Angel, Wesley and Gunn encounter the head and the same thing happens again.
Eye Scream: Following the auctioning off of Cordelia's "seer's eyes" to Wolfram & Hart, Barney and his assistant start fighting over who gets to use the giant, handheld "extractor" to scoop them out
In "She", Cordelia has a vision of a security guard being immolated, complete with exploding eyeballs.
..Followed by another vision of a family man shoving a vegetable knife into his eye socket. SPLOTCH. ("Redefinition")
Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: On three separate occasions, Cordelia's body has been used to grow demons, demon babies and demon messiahs.
This is actually an averted trope since Kate was handed the sketch by Angel, who can draw anyone from memory.
Failed a Spot Check: In "Sonmambulist", Wesley enters Angel Investigations' office with their mail — a transparent pretext for Wesley to start trolling for work. He remarks on how he, Angel, and Cordelia make a great team:
Wesley: Yes, most effective. your cryptic visions, Angel's brawn, my highly developed powers of deduction—
Cordy: This isn't our mail.
Failed Attempt at Drama: Illyria taunting Angel by asking if, since he values humans so much, he's willing to defend Knox — the man responsible for Fred's death. Angel sets his jaw and prepares a Patrick Stewart Speech.
Angel: And if it comes down to a choice between you and him, then yes, I would fight for his life, just like any other human's. Because that's what people do. That's what makes us- [Wesley shoots him] ...Were you even listening?
Wolfram & Hart can't be defeated, because evil will always exist somewhere. Killing their employees is just as fruitless as they continue working for the firm in Hell, and are easily replaced anyway.
By the series finale, the Shanshu Prophecy remains unresolved.
In After the Fall, Angel is revealed to have turned human through an act of spite by the Senior Partners, depriving him of his powers when he needs them most.. Worse yet, Angel receives a vision of the role he will play in the Apocalypse that earns him his Shanshu destiny: It indicates that Angel will be fighting on the side of evil.
Fainting Seer: Cordy and Doyle tend to suffer from this.
Fake Static: Calling his old contacts in order to locate Angel ("In the Dark") has the added consequence of stirring up Doyle's creditors. Eventually, Doyle starts resorting to the 'wrong number' trick.
Fake Defector: Angel earns himself a spiffy S.S. unform by pretending to murder Doyle, thus allowing him to join the ranks of the Scourge.
Wesley is confronted in a bar by his former colleagues from England, who approach him with an offer to rejoin the Watcher's Council — if he helps apprehend Faith. Wesley seems to go along with the plan, but later reveals that he's going to try and undermine their efforts.
Harmony going undercover to infiltrate a motivational seminar for vampires. Subverted when she promptly defects for real.
Fake Irish: Angelus. David Boreanaz never really got the hang of the Irish accent. Whedon states that they chose not to use the accent when Angel was reverted to a teenager in "Spin the Bottle" because there was no way that Boreanaz could do it for a full episode.
Fake Nationality: Americans David Boreanaz, James Marsters and Keith Szarabajka playing Irishman Angel and Brits Spike and Holtz, respectively.
Juliet Landau (Drusilla) may be American by birth, but she spent her entire childhood in London.
Alexis Denisof (Wesley) spent thirteen years in Britain and has developed an excellent British accent that only occasionally slips up (on the usual suspects such as saying 'data' the American way). This makes it a shock to see him play roles in his natural American accent.
Fallen Hero: Oh, how about Angel, Gunn, Wesley, Cordelia, Connor and half of frickin' L.A.
Fantastic Drug: After performing an autopsy on the body of a dead Kwaini, Wesley reports that was on drugs; more specifically, a mystical concoction not unlike street PCP. The drug not only made the normally-peaceful Kwaini demon violent, but also enhanced its strength. Angel is concerned that the drug might have the same effect on an already-powerful battle demon ("The Prodigal").
While combing the city for Angelus, Wesley and Faith enters an opium den where women shoot up a mystical drug, then allow vampires to drink their blood (but not kill them). The drug's influence is a powerful one for both parties. In a Thanatos Gambit twist, when Faith pockets one of the syringes to use on herself, thereby knocking both herself and Angelus unconscious when he tries to feed on her.
Note: Faith purposely overdoses to keep him out long enough (and she's most likely still a bit suicidal).
Fantastic Fragility: The Mohra's regenerative blood ensures that he can never be permanently killed. Unless you smack the jewel in his forehead.
The Beast is a particularly strong demon with a rock-like hide, able to shrug off even shotgun blasts (Angel tries going for the eye, but gets stabbed in the neck with his own stake for the trouble). He doesn't fare as well against Angelus, though; he stabs The Beast in the back with the knife he had carved out of his own bones as a tribute to his master.
Fantastic Racism: Examined with regard to demons throughout the show's run. Best embodied by Lorne, who is living proof that pacifist demons do exist.
Fantasy Kitchen Sink: In L.A., you'll find everything from Egyptian sun deities to vampire lords.
Fate Worse than Death: Dr. Royce who is turned into a werewolf and taken away to be eaten alive. Probably averted though, as the next scene has them discussing how they shut down the restaurant that wanted to do this. They let Royce be taken away because at the time it was just a few of them surrounded by guards. Once they got back to their interdimensional superfirm the power dynamic changed.
Illyria's takeover annihilated Fred's soul. Girl can't even go to Fluffy Cloud Heaven.
Allegedly.
Verified by Illyria in the Season Six comics. There's nothing left no matter how much everybody (including, oddly, the God-King) wishes. Just the memory of who she was.
Fred's personality and memories (which, in a very real sense, is what humans are) are part of Illyria's "shell" as Illyria comments several times. The idea was that the remnants of Fred's would take on a semi-independent life of their own and sometimes control the shared body.
Jossed in the comic series and Only Human mini. Illyria confirmed that no matter how she tried to be Winifred there is nothing left. All she has is the memory of her, everything she was and is, is gone.
Figure It Out Yourself: Cordelia to Angel, when she wakes from her coma to help him get back on track.
Finger in the Mail: Subverted in "The Ring". Darin McNamara implores Angel to save his brother from loan sharks, verifying his story with a severed finger. However, when we finally meet Jack, all ten of his digits are in tip-top shape.
Finish Him: The audience in "The Ring" chants "KILLING BLOW" when a contestant is on the ropes.
Five-Man Band: Lampshaded by Fred in "Fredless", right down to naming Wesley as "the brain", Gun as "the muscle", and Cordy as "the heart". Later deconstructed by an incresingly-embittered Gunn ("Guise Will Be Guise"), who resents being the dumb muscle of the group. This gets inverted in Season Five with Gunn's neural implant, then doubly subverted in the series finale, when he rejects those abilities and returns to his old streetfighting persona.
During the last third of season two, Wesley and Angel tag-team as Hero and Lancer, trading off levels of importance from episode to episode. Wes holds the role throughout the three-part season finale, though.
The Lancer: Originally Doyle, replaced by Wesley who doubled as The Smart Guy. Spike when he showed up in season 5.
Cordelia could also be construed as the Lancer. Her more down-to-earth perspective contrasts nicely to Angel's anguished ideals on several occasions.
Fixing The Game: Angel loses his destiny to a rigged magic gambling thing. Cordy saves him by nudging a slot machine so he wins.
Flashback: Usually to the bad ol' days of Angelus.
Done quite well in the episode "Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been", set in the early 1950s.
Flechette Storm: What happens to people who trespass into Maude's apartment ("Rm w/a Vu").
Foe Cooties: Angel never liked Buffy having new boyfriends but was particularly bothered by her sleeping with his long-time rival Spike. A flashback in the Angel series revealed that The Immortal, a former nemesis of both Angelus and Spikes, had sex with both their girlfriends at the same time.
Foe Yay: Many examples, including Angel and Spike and Drusilla and Lilah. Turned into Dating Catwoman with Lilah and Wesley.
Kate Lockley is implied to have an attraction, as well.
And then there was that time Angel and Eve had sex behind a couch.
Cordelia: And I thought Darla was rock bottom.
Angelus and Faith. He's disappointed when the Slayer he hears about in LA is her, but he quickly gets over it.
Foot Dragging Divorcee: Doyle's wife shows up with her new fiancé so that she can finalize their divorce. Doyle is naturally mopey, since the only reason she left him was because he found out he was half-demon. Except that it turns out the new guy is also a demon, forcing Doyle to confront his own personal problems.
For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Deconstructed in "Hero". An adolescent demon shares with Doyle his memories of being going out on Halloween with his mom — the one night of the year he was permitted to play with other children. He's pretty bitter about it.
Freudian Slip: Still raw from Doyle's death, Angel snaps at Cordelia and Wesley to stop bickering — and achieves total silence by inadvertently calling Wesley "Doyle". ("I've Got You Under My Skin")
Showcased in "That Vision Thing", though the locals are decidedly unfriendly this time around.
Fur Against Fang: Averted. Angel has no problem dating a werewolf in Season 5 (well, no problems with her lycanthropy, at least). Connor lampshades the kinkiness of this arrangement.
And then there was that time it snowed in Sunnydale. Hmmm...
Don't forget that we never got a real answer as to why Angel was allowed to return from hell that one time (Also in Buffy).
Game Face: Vampires and other part-demon creatures tend to have one. Even Puppet!Angel has one.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: Upon discovering that Cordelia has suddenly turned heavily pregnant, Angel instructs Wesley to take her for an ultrasound to see exactly what they're dealing with. Wes misunderstands this.
Angel: I want you to see what's inside her.
Wesley: I BEG YOUR PARDON?"
Cordalia toys with the idea of becoming David Nabbit's wealthy mistress for a while. "I like David. It's such a— strong, masculine name. It just feels good in your mouth."
Wesley provides several synonyms for "private investigator," including dick. Gunn tells him to never use that term again.
Season 4 also has Cordelia's quip in 'Spin the Bottle', upon hearing that teenage Wesley was "Head Boy" at academy.
"Wonder how you got that name."
Gunn shifting uncomfortably in his seat after a kiss with Fred. His face is priceless.
In Waiting in the Wings, while Angel and Cordelia are trying to get out of a mystical room that's making them fool around:
Cordelia: Open the door!
Angel: Kinda hard.
Cordelia: Kinda noticed.
And then when they finally get out:
Cordelia: Good thing it wears off right away, huh?
Angel: Yeah. (Takes off jacket and folds it in front of his pants)
Pretty much every other thing Angelous says is this.
Getting Smilies Painted On Your Soul: Residents of the Oden-Tal dimension live in a patriarchal society where the women are all enslaved. The male warriors, known as Vigories, remove the "ko" from each female to temper their sexual energy and make them more pliable. [insert female circumcision allegory here]
The Gods Must Be Lazy: Lampshaded often. Even Angel is at times unsure about whether the PTB care about his mission, though subtle hints are dropped that this isn't the case.
The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: Lilah ends up joining Angel Investigations (sort of) after the rest of the firm is slaughtered by The Beast. Subverted when Cordy stabs her in the neck. So much for that.
Good Guy Bar / Truce Zone: Caritas caters to good and neutral folks, as well as normal people. Popular for the drinks and the psychic karaoke. If only people would stop finding loopholes to circumvent the wards protecting it.
Good Is Not Nice: Every member of Team Angel proves this time and again.
Good Parents: Roger and Trish Burkle. While they started out seeming menacing - managing to make Fred almost run away from the Hyperion simply by being mentioned - the episode reveals that they're actually kind, caring and wholesome people. The problem is that if they're part of Fred's new world, it's real. All the horrible things that happened to her were real too, when she tried to hard to convince herself it wasn't.
It's very telling that the rest of the group are stunned and jealous when it turns out normal parents (AKA Fred's) do exist.
The Burkles' sheer niceness come sback to bite Wesley int he ass later, when he finds himself unable to tell them that Fred's been killed and re-inhabited by a demon queen.
Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Collins, one of the Watcher's Council operatives sent in to extract to Faith, looks downright sinister as he's puffing on a cig.
Grand Finale: The series finale is arguably a cross between Animal House and Inglourious Basterds, where instead of finding some MacGuffin to stop the Senior Partners and the unstoppable apocalypse, Team Angel decides to piss them off so royally and offering one last really audacious and futile gesture of defiance by assassinating every member of the Circle of the Black Thorn.
Grand Theft Me: Marcus stealing Angel's body. Also, Illyria taking over Fred's body in the fifth season.
While making the rounds of Wolfram & Hart ("Home"), Wesley punches out his tour guide, then latches onto the ceiling using a wrist-mounted grappling hook that was concealed under his sleeve. ZZZIP!
Great Big Book of Everything: Wolfram & Hart's source books. Well, they seemed pretty nifty in 2004, before the Kindle.
Wesley's library of tomes.
Inverted in Season Four, when an exhaustive scan of his books fails to dredge up any mention of The Beast. Later, Lilah forks over a duplicate copy of one of Wesley's books — this one, however, has an entry on The Beast earmarked. Explanation? "I got mine from way out of town." (i.e. an alternate dimension).
Grievous Harm with a Body: After Knox is gunned down, Illyria shows her lack of regard by kicking his corpse at Wesley.
Groin Kick: Cordelia momentarily staves off Barney by grabbing her head in pain, pretending to have a vision which involves him. Barney, now concerned, asks if she's envisioning him in great danger. "Pain." she replies, before kneeing him square in the crotch.
Grumpy Old Man: Trevor Lockley. "In my day we didn't need any damn sensitivity."
Angel veers into this at times, which is understandable given the weird locale he's in.
"I'm not cheap, I'm just old. I remember when a few bob got you a good meal, a bottle, and a tavern wench."
The Guards Must Be Crazy: Exploited by Wesley in "The Ring". Wes dodges a security guard at XXI with the help of Cordy, who pretends to have gotten lost on the way to the Ladies Room.
Guess I Showed Them: An axe-toting Angel leaping out of his Angelmobile to take on a bunch of Skilosh demons by himself. He tells Gunn and Wesley to drive on; he's got this. The Skilosh get one look at him, them suddenly scatter. Phew. Angel turns around, just in time to see Lindsey's pickup truck plow into him. ("Epiphany")
Gunn used this on the Scourge during the "Only Human" Arc of After the Fall. It's as awesome as it sounds.
Wes has some seriously badarse guns-akimbo moments (maybe the best is when he decks Skip the Unstoppable this way); by the end of Season 5, it's in the intro.
Interestingly enough, this tactic rarely works. Illyria drops the bullets Matrix-style, Skip's carapace seems to be bullet proof, and the Beast seemed more amused than hurt.
Half-Human Hybrid: A great number of demons (Doyle included) are some variation of this, causing no small consternation on the part of "purebloods" who wish to preserve the genetic line.
Half Truth: Wesley's myriad of excuses for why he can't return to England.
Angel and Wesley grasping for positive things to say about Cordy's acting debut.
Wesley: Well, your...projection was excellent.
Angel: Yeah. I could hear every word and we were way in the back.
Cordy: Okay, so I was loud. But was I any good?
Wesley: You — took the role and made it your own!
Cordy: Really? Thanks! Angel, was I good?
Angel: I wouldnt say it if I didnt think so.
Cordy: Thanks! [beat] You didnt say it.
Cordelia getting caught out in trying to dupe Angel & Wesley into taking on a divorce case. "According to the husband, the wife's a real witch!"
Hangover Sensitivity: In "In the Dark", Doyle starts wishing for one of those head-cracking, brain-splitting visions to hit him. ..Because it would pale in comparison to his hangover.
Happy Fun Ball: The "Nest Egg", a giant smiling egg containing the souls of Smile Time's young viewers. Angel is transformed into a puppet by the Egg's energy discharge.
Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Lorne. The character encompasses many aspects of a stereotypically gay man; and he smirks upon mentioning Angel in leather pants. However he later says that the reason he never lived up to the expectations of his Proud Warrior Race is because he was "hanging by the well and chatting up the senoritas". Andy Hallet explained Lorne's sexuality as being closer to omnisexual (figuratively speaking), since he "loves all humans."
Have You Tried Not Being A Monster?: Zig-zagged with Doyle, who claims that the awakening of his demonic side caused the collapse of his marriage. In actual fact, his wife Harrie came to accept his demon heritage, even becoming an ethnodemonologist, someone who studies demonic cultures. When Doyle withdrew from their relationship, Harrie became engaged to Richard, another demon-human hybrid.
Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Wesley's reaction to some blackmail photos of his client's antics at a demon brothel. When Angel points out that he's looking at the picture upside-down, Wes almost faints.
Arguably not even a villain per se, but rather simply obedient to whomever had any degree of real power. When Angel is given control of the L.A. branch of W&H, her post-death reaction to "what might have been" is practically face-painted.
Hell-Bent for Leather: Evil Faith looks delicious in her black leather pants ("Five By Five").
The trio of evil Watchers (Collins, Weatherby, and Smith) are each wearing matching leather jackets.
Hell Hotel: The Hyperion from the 1950s until Team Angel moves in.
Hellish Pupils: Tom Cribb, a reptilian cage fighter in "The Ring".
Hero Insurance: Averted hard. Doyle convinces Angel to snoop around his ex-wife's new fiancée, leading to an awkward scene where Angel spots the beau with a knife and tackles him through a plate-glass window. The next day, Angel grudgingly reveals that Richard belongs to a family of a harmless restauraunt owners with some "pretty expensive windows."
Heroic BSOD: Angel suffers from one of these in Pylea upon seeing the true form of his vampiric face (in his normal dimension even vampires as old as the Master haven't manifested the full horror of a vampire's true face).
Then in Season 5, Angel and Spike argue over who gets to be the Heroic Sacrifice.
Heroic Team Revolt: Self-inflicted in the second season. Angel kicks the team out and when he changes his mind has to go to lengths to get them back on his side.
Herr Doktor: Dr. Fetvanovich, from Wolfram & Hart's satellite office in the Balkans.
Hidden Depths: Watch the first few episodes of Buffy, then watch "You're Welcome"—Cordelia's come a long way in the course of seven years.
Anne Steele, the clueless vampire groupie from Buffy, turns up in Angel as an idealistic social worker.
Hit Me Dammit: In the episode "Billy", a Hate Plague-infected Gunn orders Fred to knock him unconscious with a broken chair leg. It takes a couple of tries.
Hobos: The Kwaini are a (supposedly) peaceful species of demons who dress up in wool clothes and hats, causing several passerby to mistake them for hobos ("The Prodigal").
Boretz demons are a species known for their bad odor and poisonous mandibles. They have a habit of dressing up like transients to prey on homeless people ("Power Play").
Hoist by His Own Petard: Wesley tranquilizing one his Watcher associates with the syringe they entrusted him with in the first place.
Hollywood Exorcism: The episodes "Rm w/a View" and "I've Got You Under My Skin" are centered around exorcisms targeted at a ghost and possessed child, respectively.
The latter episode turns out to be a subversion, as the demon in question wasn't responsible for the boy's crimes and in fact held no control at all; the kid was already a psycho from the start.
Honest Advisor: Cordelia is a no-holds barred example. Wesley fills this role in Seasons 4-5 following her departure.
Gunn's sister, Alonna, doesn't mince words when she thinks he's being stupid. ("War Zone")
Honest John's Dealership: The only way to contain an Ethros demon is to trap it in a rare Ethros Box. Angel gives Cordelia the address of a shop he knows downtown, Rick's Magick & Stuff; Rick, however, does not have a box carved by "blind Tibetan monks," so Cordy instead buys a discounted one made by "mute Chinese nuns." Rick warns her it might be a little "tight across the shoulders" for the Ethros (oh boy, this'll be fun). Predictably, the box is reduced to splinters when Angel and Wesley exorcise the demon into it.
Hope Spot: If people are ever smiling on this show, brace yourself.
Hopeless Auditionees: In the wake of Doyle's death, Cordy auditions for a laundry detergent commercial, investing her lines with way more pathos than is called for.
"See? *sniff* Just spray it on, [gulps] ...and rub it in... [chokes back tears] ...and in minutes... [sobs*] ...the stain is gone. IT'S COMPLETELY GONE!!
Horny Devils: When females of the Vigorie come of age, they goes through a period where their "ko" supercharges their sexual urges, which manifests as intense heat and super-strength. At first they can't control this power, and need to be cooled constantly in baths of ice.
The demon hookers in "War Zone" come with fuzzy tails.
Wesley laments that Illyria still thinks she's the god-king of the universe. Gunn, searching for an analogy, ends up on "TV star." Wesley replies, "No, nothing that bad." Zing!
Angel very nearly decapitates a director who is verbally abusing Cordelia during a commercial shoot.
Hot Amazon: Faith is one of the few people who can kick Connor's ass, and he almost seems to like it. Lampshaded by Cordelia that like his father he has a thing for Slayers.
House of Broken Mirrors: One of the first signs that Darla's soul is beginning to destabilise her mental state is when Lindsay returns home and finds she's smashed up his entire apartment. When Angel's team later investigate the place, Angel immediately realises that what she was doing was destroying all the reflective surfaces in the apartment to try and avoid catching a glimpse of her own reflection.
How We Got Here: "Why We Fight" begins with Angel's friends being picked off one-by-one by a well-groomed vampire. The rest of the episode consists of flashbacks to a World War II submarine, where the mystery man (Jack Lawson) first crossed paths with Angel.
Hufflepuff House: Gunn's street gang. Lily's teen shelter can be considered an adjunct.
Human Sacrifice: A common practice at Wolfram & Heart, at least until Team Angel moves in. Minor examples are found everywhere else in this show, from the standard "evil cult" variety to the apocalyptic "oh God the Beast just killed Hollywood" kind.
Humans Are Bastards Or at least the men are, since one episode involved a guy with evil powers that caused the latent murderous misogyny in all men to emerge. Vampires are immune to this since they don't hate women in such a petty manner.
Actually, Angel says that the reason he isn't affected is because he's let go of the rage and hate that Billy brought out. A normal vampire probably would be affected because they wouldn't be as evolved as Angel.
Also the reason why Wolfram & Hart can't be stopped.
The Hunter: Holtz was a genuine vampire hunter even before his fateful meeting with Angelus and Darla.
Cordelia: You know what I think? I think he uses his tortured, creature of the night status as a license to be rude and insensitive. Sure hes polite to the helpless and downtrodden but he ignores the people closest to him! The people who matter the most you know! Can you say clueless? (Meanwhile Doyle is being audibly strangled by a demon about four metres behind her.)
Doyle himself often said one thing and a moment later did the opposite.
Doyle: Just simmer down here, okay? Violence isn't gonna solve a thing, alright? (punches bar patron) On the other hand, it is kinda festive.
In the pilot he tells Angel that the world needs men like them to show that there's still love and compassion left then he tells off a homeless person asking for change.
In "Eternity", Angel plays down the news article reporting on his rescue of Rebecca Lowell. "We ran into an actor. It's Hollywood. It happens." When Wesley remarks that there's no mention of Angel, however, the high-minded vampire suddenly does a double-take. "What?!"
In "Smile Time" Angel says he's paying more attention to what's going on with the people around him. Then he promptly gets clawed by Nina who he failed to notice had just changed into a werewolf.
Tropes I-P
I Always Wanted to Say That: Cordelia, while queen of Pylea, says "Off with their heads!" when asked what to do about her captured friends. She quickly says "Just kidding" and sheepishly admits she's always wanted to say that.
I Don't Like You And You Don't Like Me: At the conclusion of "Shells", Spike admits to Angel that he doesn't really like him. And another two hundred years probably isn't going to change that. Nevertheless, Spike decides to honor Fred by staying on with the crew.
I Don't Like The Sound Of That Place: Point Dume (pronounced DOOM), a real-life promontory on the coast of Malibu. In the Season 3 finale, Angel and Cordelia agree to rendezvous here to confess their feelings for each other, unaware that Connor has some nasty vengeance planned indeed.
I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Angel once sired a vampire after he had a soul - a mortally wounded submarine captain who had to be kept alive to bring his ship back to the surface to save his crew. This apparently left him with just enough of a conscience to take not the slightest pleasure in his slaughter - but not enough to keep him from butchering people just like every other vampire out there. Sixty years later, he showed up and forced Angel to kill him. The trope name itself also sums up Connor and Angel's relationship, though it's not actually an example.
I Just Want to Have Friends: Nerdy software giant David Nabbit is stuck supporting the wall at his own party. He becomes clingy after Angel and his associates render a service, showing up at their offices with a cape and sword.
Gunn fails to stop a gang of vampires from driving away with his sister. By the time Gunn meets her again, she's already been vamp'ed.
Not only does Angel fail to cure Darla's illness, but he's foiled in preventing Drusilla from re-siring Darla as a vampire.
Angel fails to save Cordy in Season Four, partly due to errors stretching all the way back to the previous year.
In the fifth season when Angel learns that the ritual to save Fred will kill thousands, he declares his intention perform the ritual, but can't go through with it.
I Lied: Griff, after promising Doyle another day to cough up the money.
I Surrender, Suckers: Angel chases and corners Spike in an alley blocked by a Chain Link Fence. Spike doesn't even attempt to leap the fence, instead turning around and surrendering with an air of smugness. Angel takes the bait, and is garroted by Spike's henchman, Marcus. Whoops.
Spike: Caught me fair and square, white hat! Guess there's nothin' to do now but go along quietly and pay my debt to society.
I Was Beaten By A Girl: As Wesley and Cordelia compare bruises from the previous night's tangle with Faith, Cordy says, "If it's any consolation, it really does look like you were tortured by a much larger woman."
Ill Kill You: In the Victorian-era flashbacks of "Five By Five", Darla reacts to Angel's newfound soul the same way a human would to a vampire — by recoiling in fear and trying to kill him.
After Wesley conspires with Holtz to steal Angel's son (and gets a slit throat for his trouble) Angel pays him a visit in the hospital. At first it seems like Angel is prepared to reconcile, but then he suddenly grabs a pillow and tries to smother Wesley with it. Angel continues to hurl curses and threats at Wesley as he is dragged away by Gunn and some orderlies.
I'm Cold... So Cold...: A somewhat dumbfounded Wesley asks, "Is anyone else cold?" after getting shot in the gut. ("The Thin Dead Line")
When Cordelia starts fretting over Angel possibly having sex with superstar Rebecca Lowell (and losing his soul), Wesley reminds her that Angel's curse hinges on him experiencing true happiness. Besides," Wes says, "What are the odds he'll find that with an actress? — before realizing his mistake.
Groo's compliment to Cordelia that she is "a goddess":
Cordelia: Well, demonness, anyway. Sure beats horns and a tail.
Lorne: (offended) Hey! I'm standing right here.
"Bachelor Party":
Cordelia: Hi Doyle. Are you gonna become loser pining guy, like, full time? 'Cause we already have one of those around the office.
Angel and Doyle:Hey!
If I Wanted You Dead: Angel often has to remind others of this, particularly when they accuse him of being Angelus in disguise.
Conversely, Holland Manners spells this out for Angel in "Reunion".
In "Underneath", Angel is forced to to free Lindsey from Wolfram & Hart's prison dimension. Lindsey notices Angel's sword and, assuming they've come to kill him, snarls, "Make it quick." Exasperated, Angel replies, "If I was gonna kill you, it wouldn't be quick."
If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him: Gunn is compelled to twist Professor Seidel's neck before tossing his limp corpse down a portal, ostensibly so Fred wouldn't have to do it ("Supersymmetry").
Ignored Epiphany: A couple of cases can be argued, but Lindsey helping Angel save the kids but going back to Wolfram and Heart for a promotion, raise and "ungodly benefits".
The entirety of season 5 consists of Angel rejecting his own from the episode Epiphany in season 2. In the end he essentially retries his suicide mission against the Senior Partners from the second season, he just has better information and the rest of the team with him this time.
Imagine the Audience Naked: Angel's advice to Kate before taking the mic at her father's retirement bash.
"Sanctuary" picks up where the previous story left off, with Angel tucking Faith into bed in his apartment. Faith imagines herself springing up and slashing Angel's face with a knife.
Immortality Immorality: Rebecca Lowell, an actress who hopes to revive her flagging career by becoming an ageless vampire. Only in Hollywood...
Impaled Palm: Wesley interrogates a loan shark by shooting his hand a crossbow bolt, pinning it against a wall. Then Wes reaches for the bolt and twists it. Bear in mind, this is still "Nice Guy Season One" Wesley we're talking about here.
After Angel spares her life, a stunned Alonna Gunn missteps and trips one of her own booby traps. With lightning speed, Angel catches an arrow directed at her with his palm. "Ow."
Holtz drives a nail through Justine's hand to test her loyalty.
Wesley also has this done to him by a booby trap in Season 4, Episode 10.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Angel battles Marcus beneath the shade of an overhanging pier. Angel impales him on a large beam, but the Gem of Amarra renders Marcus invincible — until angel yanks it off his finger.
When Penn puts Angel in a headlock, Angel signals Kate to impale him with an oversized piece of wood. She jabs it though both of them, missing Angel's heart but killing Penn.
Impersonating an Officer: Wesley and Cordelia make a bumbling effort to pass as detectives in "The Ring". Wes rapidly waves his wallet around to imitate a flashed badge.
Angel's masterful performance as a lead detective at a crime scene — using only a styrofoam coffee cup.
Implacable Man: This is Hamilton and Illyria's baseline combat strategy.
Indy Ploy: Angel's preferred strategy. And Gunn's. And Groosalugg's. And Spike's. In fact it's probably safe to say that the only member of the team to ever think a plan through was Wesley, and he still came up with plenty of horrible plans.
Cordelia: Gunn graduated with a major in Dumb Planning from Angel University. He sat at the feet of the master, and learned well, how to plan dumbly.
Informed Attribute : Angel is told that he's quite attractive. Since he can't actually look in the mirror, he takes their word for it. Also, in the episode 'In The Dark', while wearing The Gem of Amarra and walking around in the daylight, Oz claims Angel is paler than most people. This time it's the audience that takes his word for it.
Instant Sedation: The Watcher's Council operatives give Wesley a syringe containing a sedative "powerful enough to bring down a man twice your size - or a Slayer." (i.e. Faith) What's more, all it requires is "a little pressure on the flesh" to work.
Intergenerational Friendship: Angel and Cordelia. Shipping aside, in Spin the Bottle he calls her "his dearest friend".
Interrogation By Vandalism: Gunn grills a wealthy man by juggling a set of priceless conjuring orbs in front of him. He intentionally smashes one to prove his point.
Interrupted Suicide: Played for laughs in "I Will Remember You", the episode following Angel's visit to see Buffy. When Cordelia and Doyle arrive for work, they immediately panic when they spout Angel examining a stake. "Don't do it, Angel!" (Angel's using it to prop up his desk.)
Ironic Echo: "I just can't seem to care." And let's not forget "Is that it? Am I done?" or even (arguably) "I get that now".
Attorney Lee Mercer makes the mistake of getting in Faith's face, warning her not to make him "look bad". Faith immediately starts hammering his head into a table while parroting his line (The next time we see Mercer, he's wearing a neck brace).
"Survival of the fittest, bro. And right now you're not lookin' too fit."
It Got Worse: Connor is seduced by Jasmine-posessed Cordelia during what looks like the end of the world and brainwashed into believing she loves him and that he must protect their love child which is actually Jasmine.
He spends a great deal of time believing The Beast's emergence and the mayhem and slaughter which ensues is his fault because The Beast rose on the exact spot he was born. Jasmine planned it that way, but it wasn't his fault. ** Also at the end of "The Magic Bullet" it is revealed that he was never brain-washed by Jasmine and was following her of his own volition.
In "Home" he holds a store full of people hostage with a bunch of explosive devices, likely in an attempt to make Angel kill him.
It Makes Sense in Context: Many things, but an example from this show is the demonstration article of that page.
It Works Better with Bullets: As a sporting chance, Faith jokingly tosses Angel a revolver, but it shoots blanks. Subverted when Faith reclaims the gun and shoots Angel point-blank; looks like there was a bullet in the chamber.
It's All My Fault: In exchange for being given legal knowledge, Gunn signs off on a document allowing Illyria's sarcophagus to pass through customs, which eventually leads to the death of Fred. Naturally he is devastated and reluctant to tell anyone about it, and is even stabbed by Wesley after he finds out.
It's Been Done: In "Soulless", Angelus finds more humor in his son's dalliances with Cordelia than his alter-ego did.
Angelus: Doing your mom, and trying to kill your Dad. There should be a play.
It's a Long Story: Subverted in "I Will Remember You" as Buffy is busy taking the piss out of Angel.
Angel: It's complicated how this all happened, Buffy, you know? It's kind of a long story.
Buffy: Your new sidekick had a vision, I was in it, you came to Sunnydale?
Angel: [beat] Okay. Maybe not that long.
It's Personal: After Angel telephones Giles to learn what horrors Faith inflicted on Buffy, Wesley notices that Angel is absolutely fuming ("Five By Five").
It's a Wonderful Plot: "Birthday", in which Cordelia witnesses a vision of her life had she never crossed paths with Angel during the pilot episode.
Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Wesley has no qualms about sticking a few blades in people for information. Or if he's pissed off. And this is before his gritty makeover — he's torturing people as early as Season One, which gives us this gem not long after Wesley's dorky, incompetent arrival on the show:
"You should understand that the man I work for means a great deal to me. And I will not give you a single red cent. What I will do, sir, is beat it out of you if I have to." [pins informant's hand to a wall with a small, rather painful-looking crossbow bolt, and proceeds to twist it slowly] "Where is my employer?"
The Juggernaut: Illyria, The Beast, Hamilton and Jasmine, to name a few.
Kick the Son of a Bitch: Angel chooses not to save the Wolfram & Hart lawyers from Darla and Drusilla.
Kitschy Local Commercial: Cordelia makes a commercial for Angel Investigations, but they never have it aired. Doyle is the on-air "talent," and he's very uncomfortable on camera.
Cordelia's Imagine Spot had a bigger budget in mind, with narration from "that bald guy from Star Trek, or one of the cheaper Baldwins."
Contrary to their words, Collins, Weatherby, and Smith are more interested in putting Faith down than in any kind of "rehabilitation". Weatherby is the most fanatical of the lot, and is disgusted Wesley for forming an allegiance with a vampire.
Large and in Charge: Demons and vampires tend to flock around the biggest S.O.B. in the room. Notable examples are "Head Demon" guy (the juiced-up, ponytailed demon in "The Prodigal") and Deevak ("First Impressions").
Last-Second Word Swap: Angel's introduction to Kate, who inquires about what he does for a living ("Lonely Hearts").
"I, uh...well, basically I'm...uh, I help— I'm a veterinarian."
"Sense & Sensitivity":
Cordelia:(grumbling about her late-night hours) "Why I ever thought it was a nifty idea to work for a vamp— (sees Detective Lockley) ...triloquist! Hi!"
"Expecting":
Wesley: If shaking your booty at the latest trendy hot spot is your idea of a life, then call me— (trio of beautiful women walk in) ...sick with envy.
Last Villain Stand: After her brainwashing powers are lost, Jasmine declares that if she can't rule the world she's going to destroy it. She shrugs off everything Angel tries to throw at her, but we don't get to see how she actually intends to accomplish her new goal because Connor, whose immunity to her powers apparently stretch to ignoring her invulnerability, shows up and kills her.
Let Them Die Happy: Illyria turns into Fred and comforts the dying Wesley.
After Wolfram & Hart's Emotion Bomb causes Kate to unleash her pent-up emotions toward her father ("Sense & Sensitivity"), he tells her (rather icily) to never speak of it ever again.
Limited Social Circle: Lampshaded several times by Angel's teammates, including Gunn after a while.
Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Averted. While none of the main characters are magic-users (at least in the way Willow was in Buffy), they all find a way of defeating warlocks like Cyrus Vail. Usually with fire.
Vail himself handles a wizard duel quite well. He doesn't handle being punched though the face by an Eldritch Abomination very well.
Literally Shattered Lives: The Haxil from "Expecting" is killed when Angel throws a container of liquid nitrogen at it, which Wesley then shoots open with a well-placed shot, causing the Haxil to freeze in place. With its dying throes, the Haxil's psychic link with his surrogate mommies (Cordelia included) is broken, erasing his children from their wombs. Cordy climbs out, grabs a block and tackle from the ceiling, and hurls it directly at the frozen Haxil, shattering it to coldly-smoking smithereens.
Little Miss Almighty: The Conduit manifested itself as a little girl for a while.
Living Emotional Crutch: Angel ultimately decides that he's becoming this to Buffy, as she is endangering her life in trying to protect him. This results in Angel choosing to revert back to being a vampire ("I Will Remember You").
Loan Shark: Doyle runs up against a trio of debt collectors in "Rm w/a Vu". Doyle explains it's not so much a matter of clearing his debt (he can't) as performing favors for people until they owe him — a sophisticated system of checks and balances.
Doyle: Well, I don't have the money! You can't get blood from a stone, man.
"Double Or Nothing" has Jenoff, a demonic casino owner who comes to collect Gunn's soul. In his teens, life in the ghetto hardened Gunn to the extent that he traded his soul for a pickup truck, believing that he had no future.
"The Ring features Ernie, a rather nonchalant loan shark. Sadly for him, he's just met his match: a skinny bespectacled British man. With a crossbow.
Looks Like Orlok: The Prince Of Lies. The character's body movements, those little twitches and grimaces, are modeled directly on Max Schrek.
Loony Fan: Subverted in "Eternity". The "stalker" turns out to be a stuntman hired by the actress' overzealous agent, Oliver.
Lonely at the Top: Rebecca Lowell actually engenders sympathy in the first half of "Eternity", which explores the darker side of celebrity. To Angel's disappointment, she later turns out to be just as self-absorbed and superficial as everyone else.
Longing Look: Wes and Gunn catch each other casting such glances on Fred...simultaneously.
Loves the Sound of Screaming: Faith eventually tires of Wesley's calm disposition during his torture. She holds a pocket knife to Wes' throat, saying she wants to hear him scream. He glares icily and whispers, "You never will."
Luxury Prison Suite: Inverted by Angel in "Sanctuary", who chooses to take Faith under his care rather than tie her up (to Cordelia and Wesley's consternation).
MacGuffin Melee: In Season 4 with several different factions want to get their hands on Angel's baby son.
MacGyvering: In "The Ring", Wesley struggles to locate a thread which is fine enough to break Angel's shock handcuffs. Cordy offers to use the horsehair wound around her bracelet - a memento from her IRS-impounded pony, Keanu.
Mad Artist: Penn considers himself to be one, even as he's being taunted by Angel about his lack of creativity. Ultimately, Penn proves incapable of changing his centruries-old MO.
Made of Iron: Despite being able to break through concrete walls like tissue paper, creatures like the Beast seem to have trouble causing similar damage to the human main characters.
Made of Plasticine: If you're a Wolfram & Hart employee or a Hollywood celebrity, odds are that vampires and other beasties can punch straight through you and use your blood to decorate their lairs.
Madness Mantra: Pretty much anything uttered by Dana, the psycho Slayer.
Magnetic Plot Device: Wolfram & Hart, "a multi-dimensional law firm", keep Angel busy with just about anything the plot needs.
Make it Look Like an Accident: Finding Wilson at the shooting range, Angel demands to know the identity and whereabouts of his demon lord. When the rest of his goons show up, Wilson gets to his feet and announces that Angel's "about to have an accident" with a firearm, then promptly shoots Angel three times in the gut. Oh boy, now you pissed him off.
"I really don't like it when people shoot me."
Male Gaze: Lampshaded by Cordelia as she tries on her necklace.
Played straight in "The Magic Bullet". Jasmine explains that everyone is connected by her "love", granting her control over the entire population of L.A.. Fred checks into a motel, where people around her start pursuing her. Fred takes off running, passing a man who is fueling his car. Another driver jumps a curb, hits the first car, then sets off an explosion. The driver calmly gets out of his car, his body wreathed in flames, and resumes his unflinching walk towards Fred.
The Man They Couldn't Hang: "Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been", set in the 1950s, follows Angel's attempts to rid the Hyperion Hotel of a demon who feeds off peoples emotions by causing them to kill each other. Unfortunately, the angry hotel guests mistake Angel for a murderer and form a lynch mob, hanging him from the chandelier. After they leave the lobby, Angel cuts himself down and pretty much gives a big fuck you to the guests, telling the demon he can have them.
Marionette Motion: Illyria initially find her new vessel quite confining.
Masked Luchador: Numero Cinco, who works for Wolfram and Hart in the fifth season.
Master-Apprentice Chain: The Master > Darla > Angelus > Drusilla > Spike. In the last season, however, Spike fights Angel and wipes the floor with him, somewhat subverting this trope by making it clear how, if you're angry enough, the Master-Apprentice Chain doesn't mean jack.
Menacing Stroll: The Beast, and his less rocky counterpart Hamilton.
Angelus does this in his brief first appearance.
Me Love You Long Time: Jhiera and Angel. ..Okay, she's a demon and doesn't technically count, but hey: Bai Ling.
Subverted somewhat with Jhiera and Angel, who resolve to leave their UST...unresolved. According to Bai Ling, David Greenwalt intended to bring her back for another episode, but never got around to it. Jhiera does make a re-appearance in the Buffy/Angel crossover novel Heat.
Meaningful Echo: "You never know your strength until you're tested." ("Hero")
Spike delivers the same quip ("They'll let anyone in here.") in two different time periods — on a German submarine in 1943, and Wolfram & Hart in 2004. Similarly, Jack Lawson parrots the line "Give me a mission." ("Why We Fight").
The whimsical discussion on whether cavemen or astronauts would win is echoed by Fred as she nears death due to an ancient demon, whispering "Cavemen win... of course cavemen win."
In the first and last episodes of the series:
Angel: Let's go to work.
Megacorp: Wolfram & Hart, whose size and influence seems to grow with each season.
Metaphorgotten: Spike invokes this as a way of consoling himself that least he won't be lonely in Hell.
Spike: Least I got company, eh? You and me, together again. Hope and Crosby. Stills and Nash. Chico and the—
Angel: Yeah, we done?
Mind-Control Eyes: Cordelia's eyes turn white while she's under the control of Phantom Dennis, who directs her to demolish down a partition in her apartment, revealing his skeleton moldering behind the wall.
Mirror Scare: Happens a few times in the show but played with as the scare is usually for the audience rather than characters in the show. Characters look into a mirror and it's clear the room's empty behind them, but the camera suddenly reveals (to the audience) that Angel is lurking there. It does a good job of showing just how creepy that kind of situation is. It's also used to reveal the ghost of Pantom Dennis's mother standing behind Cordelia as she's brushing her teeth in the mirror. Again, it's played to surprise the audience rather than Cordelia.
Mistaken for Gay: Angel gets this a lot. Both he and Wesley are mistaken for a gay couple by Cordelia's friends ("Expecting").
Wesley: You don't think sticking the axe in the wall put them off?
Angel gets this, hilariously, by someone possessing him (Looks at his clothes, thinks...) "Of course.").
Cordelia first mistakes Harmony's vampiric tendencies — such as stalking Cordy while she's asleep — for being a latent lesbian.
Kate Lockely is treated to a Backhanded Compliment by her father, who seems relieved that she brought Angel to his retirement party: "I was beginning to wonder if she didn't swing in another direction altogether."
In "Harm's Way" a group of Wolfram & Hart employees are discussing who they think has a crush on Fred. Harmony suggests Wesley but is dismissed by the others,
Office Girl: Mr. Wyndam-Pryce? Everyone knows he's- *distracted* Oooh! Muffins!
Mock Guffin: The Cup Of Eternal Torment in "Soul Purpose".
Moment Killer: Doyle and Cordelia see plenty of these. The pair are just about to ask each other out on a date when Doyle's wife, Harrie, pops in. Doyle also comes close to admitting that he's part-demon in "Hero", only for a crippling vision headache to hit him.
Monster Lord: According to Lorne, Archduke Sebassis is a member of "bona fide royalty" down below. He certainly acts like a pompous aristocrat.
Mood Dissonance: Angel ranges from pants-wettingly funny to pants-shittingly scary at a moment's notice. Either way, they're probably going to need changing.
Mood Whiplash: Switches between comedy and Tearjerker -ness at the drop of a hat. "Smile Time" is immediately followed by "A Hole In The World," which begins with Angel and Spike arguing over who would win in a fight between cavemen and astronauts, and ends with Fred dying in agony in Wesley's arms while an Eldritch Abomination consumes her body and soul.
Monster of the Week: Starts out in the earlier seasons, but gets dropped later in favor of plot-intense story arcs. In season 5, the creators deliberately moved back to more Monster of the Week after the very long story arcs of seasons 3 and 4.
Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Professor Oliver Seidel likes to send his students into other dimensions via portals if he considers them a threat to his prestige.
Wolfram & Hart have their own model, Dr. Sparrow.
Mortality Ensues: According to the Shanshu Prophesy, the Vampire with a Soul will eventually be rewarded by dying - which is to say, he'll be rewarded by becoming human, and thus being allowed to die as a human.
Mouth of Sauron: The Senior Partners pass down their messages through other lawyers at the firm - usually shadowy, menacing types. Holland Manners and Hamilton both get turns at the wheel.
Mugging the Monster: Faith is approached by a hustler the moment she steps off the bus in L.A. He offers her a place to stay - to which she breaks his jaw and steals his wallet, jacket and apartment key.
Multipurpose Tongue: Cribb shoots out his tongue to steal another fighter's lunch and (later) Wesley's handcuff key. ("The Ring")
The Murder After: "Harm's Way". Harmony finds herself in a bit of a predicament.
Muppet Cameo: "Smile Time": You're a wee little puppet man!
My Card: Angel Investigations' business cards. Cordelia designed the logo, a stylized angel which, according to Angel and Doyle, resembles "a lobster".
My God, What Have I Done?: Gunn, after learning that the deal he made to have a permanent brain boost caused Fred's death.
My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: Angel warns Jhiera that while he supports her cause, if she ever crosses the line and endangers the people of his world, she's in for a world of hurt, Sonny Jim. — Angel has a bit of trouble spitting it out, especially since he's reeling from Jhiera's sexual aura. When she turns to leave, Jhiera's "ko" is burning red, signaling that the feeling is mutual.
When Illyria meets Connor for the first time. "Your body warms. This one lusts for me."
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: What the gang quickly concludes when they learn the prophecy that Cordelia must com-shuck with the Groosalugg, a hideous, impure and misshapen Pylean summoned from the scum pits of Ur. Subverted when he's revealed to be a hunk.
Neck Snap: Angel dispatches Griff in this manner ("Rm w/a Vu"). A similar fate awaits the blackmailer's bodyguard demon in "War Zone".
Angel (and Angelus') seeming favourite way of dispatching targets.
Angelus: "I never get tired of doing that"(after just snapping Jennifer Calenders neck)
Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: Episode "I've Got You Under My Skin" implies that sociopaths are people born without souls.
Never Bring a Knife to a Fist Fight: During his first cage match at XXI, Angel refuses to fight his opponent, Baker. The ringside guards toss a knife into the pit, which Baker grabs. During their struggle, Angel ends up stabbing Baker with his own knife, winning the bout by proxy.
Never Recycle a Building: The Hyperion Hotel has been siting abandoned quite a long time until Angel rents it. Of course, the demon in residence there might have had something to do with that...
In the fourth season Connor also moves into what appears to be an abandoned natural history museum, full of dust and stuffed wildlife, complete with working electricity.
New Powers as the Plot Demands: Cordelia in Season 4, and to a lesser extent Angel (due to the vagueness regarding vampire senses).
New York Subway: Not actually in New York, obviously. Played with in "The Prodigal", when Angel fights with a rabid demon on the subway tracks, having yanked it out the hatch of a speeding train car. None of the eyewitnesses questioned by Kate saw anything out of the ordinary. ("Just your average, Joe Stink subway guy.")
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Played for laughs in the final shot of "The Ring". It suddenly dawns on Team Angel that by freeing the prisoners of XXI, they've just set a bunch of demons loose on the streets.
Not played for laughs at the end of "The Shroud of Rahmon" a series later. Angel's been getting increasingly unstable over the Darla situation and Cordelia and Wesley hope that getting him involved with a case will help set him back on track. At the end of the episode, Cordelia and Wesley observe that sending Angel into a situation where he driven half-crazy by a mind-twisting demon-shroud and had his lust for human blood reawakened for the first time in years has made things much, much worse.
Entirely without sarcasm by Lilah in "Home." After all, from her perspective, Angel just prevented world peace and removed Wolfram & Hart's chief opposition.
Since Ben Edlund (of The Tick fame) was involved in the show through most of season 5, one of the characters even refers to themself as being "nigh invulnerable".
The Night That Never Ends: Played straight in Season 4 after the Beast blocks out the sun, allowing vampires to roam with impunity. Cordelia even mentions that all of the trees will wither and die if daylight isn't restored soon.
Jay-Don has this attitude about both his hair and his sunglasses. When Angel stakes him to impersonate him, he gets rid of the glasses as quickly as he reasonably can but he retains the fuss about the hair.
When Fred starts playing with Puppet Angel's hair, he barks, "YOU'RE FIRED."
No Celebrities Were Harmed: Dr. Meltzer honed his telekinetic control over his limbs after being inspired by a book which posits that everyone was connected due to their shared molecules. Angel pays a visit to its author, who is revealed to be a thinly-veiled parody of Deepak Chopra.
To a particularly graphic extent when he confronts weakened Illyria.
It's marginally less sickening when you realize that the 98 pound "girl" who is taking repeated fists and stomps to the face is so Made of Iron that she spends about all of a day recuperating.
Holtz is an Englishman, but speaks with an (albeit upper-class) American accent. Admittedly he's an 18th century Englishman, so speaking with a modern English accent wouldn't have been accurate either.
Lampshaded in "Spin the Bottle" when Angel reverted back into Liam. He blames the Devil for losing his accent.
Not Himself: So frequent in the Whedonverse via body swaps that it's amazing none of the characters ever seem to notice anything.
Not so Different: Angel's Wolfram & Hart and the original WR&H. Both have the often killing of employees (Angel kills the evil ones, the original one killed enemies). They even both make the same termination jokes.
In "Spin the Bottle" while Angel is convinced he's still in the 18th century and therefore doesn't recognise who Connor is, he's ranting to Connor about his relationship with his father. Connor does notice how similar some of Angel's complaints are to some of his own complaints about Angel.
Not so Dire: On several occasions, most memorably with Angel and Spike's extremely heated argument about whether astronauts or cavemen would win in a fight.
Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The Season 5 changeover to Wolfram & Hart. Just as the early seasons parodied the trials of early adulthood, the series is nicely bookended by Team Angel's settling in and gradual acceptance of their newfound corporate roles. Indeed, a major theme of the season is the struggle to stay idealistic within a vast, bureaucratic structure.
Not What It Looks Like: Played for Drama as Buffy catches Angel consoling Faith in his arms. Her overreaction is a lot more understandable if you've seen the preceding Buffy epside, "Who Are You" - not only did Faith temporarily steal her body, but she also shagged Buffy's new boyfriend while in her body.
Nothing Up My Sleeve: Angel has a pair of spring-loaded bracelets under his coat sleeves, allowing him to fight with Stakes Akimbo. Like the grappling hook, however, he eventually loses interest in such gadgets.
Obfuscating Disability: The demon sorcerer Cyvus Vail appeared reliant on a complex intravenous drip, physically vulnerable and weak. However when under genuine attack his IV was broken and he ignored it, he shrugged off being hurled twice into a wall, and gutted his opponent with a kukri.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Angel was known to do this on occasion. Most notably in the very first scene of the pilot.
Occult Blue Eyes: Illyria looks like Fred with her whole body turned blue. Just as Fred has brown hair, light brown skin and brown eyes, so Illyria has blue hair, blue skin...and an unnatural shade of blue for her eyes. Of course, this use of blue eyes has the effect of making her look as eerie as possible.
Occult Detective: The main premise of the series until Season Five, when they became Occult Lawyers.
Off with His Head!: Dr. Meltzer's head goes spinning off like a bowling ball after Angel gives it a solid whack. Meltzer was a psychic surgeon who could detach and reanimate his body parts, so you might consider it poetic justice.
In the Batman Cold Open for "Five By Five", Angel performs a drive-by beheading.
The first zombified cop we meet in "The Thin Dead Line".
Offscreen Teleportation: Upon noticing that Doyle has an injury on his hand and is acting twitchy, Angel calls for him downstairs, saying there's a "big guy" asking for him. Doyle yells back that he'll be there in a minute. A split-second later, he bolts for the back exit — running straight into Angel, who somehow teleported there before him. Angel correctly guessed that Doyle's in deep with loan sharks.
Doyle: You know, it's not nice to trick people!
Offing the Offspring: Angelus turned Holtz's daughter into a vampire and left her behind as a message. Holtz had no choice but to kill her.
Oh Crap: Lindsey, before being sucked into hell by the Senior Partners.
Oh God, Did She Just Hear That?: The morning after Doyle's rescue of Cordelia from a pack of vampires, she catches him reenacting his gallantry in front of a mirror.
Omniscient Council Of Vagueness: Despite being comprised of the most evil of the Senior Partners' employees on Earth and Hillary Clinton, the Circle of the Black Thorn doesn't seem to do anything besides play racquetball.
One-Man Army: Angel, especially when he's miffed about something.
The Grand Finale features Gunn, Spike, and Lindsey fighting alone in separate locations, yet still managing to fend off entire roomfuls of demons/vampires. (Though Lindsey had a little help.)
One Steve Limit: Averted, with three Marcuses throughout the series (Marcus the vampire torturer from "In the Dark", Marcus Roscoe the body stealer from "Carpe Noctem", and Marcus Hamilton from Wolfram & Hart).
Fred and Wesley's fathers are both named Roger.
We can't forget the two Knoxes. (Knoxi?) In addition to the semi-regular character in Season Five, a vampire leader named Knox (name omitted from dialog) appears in the first-season episode "War Zone".
Only Known by Their Nickname: Lorne was originally known as just "The Host". That said, even "Lorne" is a nickname: his real name is Krevlornswath (of the Deathwok Clan).
Also, Fred, who's full first name is Winifred.
Gunn, which is his surname. Only Fred calls him Charles regularly.
Even Angel himself. His real name is Liam. As well as Spike who's name is William.
Darla is so known by the name "Darla" that even SHE doesn't remember her real name anymore.
Doyle. It's his surname. His full name is only revealed when his ex-wife shows up calling him Francis. Even then, that's actually his middle name. His full name is Allen Francis Doyle.
Connor is prophesied to kill Sahjhan, meaning that no one else can. Although he is defeated in season 3 by being trapped in a magical urn. Vail is Genre Savvy enough to realize that "urns break" and insists Connor be brought in to finish him properly.
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Angel affects a somewhat inconsistent Irish accent during flashbacks. Notably, in a later episode ("Spin the Bottle") in which he reverts to his old identity from he was vamped, the writers had him speaking in American dialect so that Borranaz wouldn't have to maintain the brogue for a full hour. This is lampshaded by "Liam's" confusion at his sudden lack of an accent.
Fred on Angel's Texas accent also kind of came and went at random. It seemed by season 4 she had given up on it altogether. While impersonating Fred, however, Illyria went all out with y'alls and aint's.
Irish actor Glenn Quinn was accused of having a poor Irish accent when playing the character of Doyle. In reality, he was asked to affect an American accent on words the editors thought were difficult to understand when spoken in his natural Irish one.
Or so I Heard: After Angel receives the Gem of Amarra, rendering him impervious to sunlight. Doyle suggests they go check out a few strip clubs which offer a fabulous luncheon buffet... or so he's been told.
When Kate shows Angel some photos from murder scenes, he immediately recognizes the killer' work as that of Penn, a vampire he sired in 1786. Angel shows remarkable insight into his MO, even refuting Kate's theory that he carves a cross onto his victims because he believes it's "God's work." Angel says it's just the opposite — this is about mocking God. Then, recovering quickly, Angel mutters "That'd be my guess."
Orphaned Punchline: In "Lineage", Wesley asks where his father's gone to. Fred says she left him back at the Entertainment Division with Lorne. ..And then realizes the horror of that statement. (Cut to Roger Windam-Pryce, facepalming in agony)
Lorne: ...so I am covered in cherries, the police are just pounding on the door, and Judi Dench starts screaming, "Oh, that's way too much to pay for a pair of pants!"
Our Ghosts Are Different: Maude Pearson and her son Dennis. In life, Maude was an Evil Matriarch who walled Dennis' body up in her apartment (while he was still alive) as punishment for trying to run away with a girl (She died of a heart attack immediately afterward).
Our Souls Are Different: Vampires have no souls, yet a human soul can be reinserted into its body and suppress the demon inhabiting it.
If a soulless vampire becomes pregnant, and the fetus has a soul, the vampire will receive some of the effects of having a soul, like a conscience.
Our Vampires Are Different: Ranging from Anne Rice-style pretty boy vamps like Spike and Angel to the grotesque Prince of Lies. Even Dracula-style vampires appear, although Nostroyev's crimes against humanity seem to be confined to the mental images accompanying the line "I was Rasputin's lover!"
Our Zombies Are Different: Depending on the writer, zombies are either puppets of some evil sorcerer ("The Thin Dead Line") or flesh-craving ghouls ("Habeas Corpus"). It's also clearly stated they don't eat brains.
Perfect Poison: Justified (or maybe Hand Waved) by Dr. Meltzer injecting Angel with a paralytic intended for large animals. When used on a human, it induces heart failure. (Good thing he doesn't have one.)
Perp Sweating: Angel's a pro. Contrary to expectation, though, he does not partake in torture. (That's Wesley's department).
Wesley tries interrogating Angel when they're first reunited ("Parting Gifts"). Angel casually swats away his crossbow, leaving Wesley looking rather dejected.
Phony Phony Psychic: Parodied with Lorne's "psychic friend", who works a day job as a psychic hotline operator.
Physical God: Illyria and Jasmine definitely qualify.
Pietŕ Plagiarism: The Teaser for "Salvage" picks up after Faith's final bout with Angelus; Wesley carries Faith's bloodied body into the Hyperion Hotel in slow motion.
The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Angel claims to be a private detective/in private security. When actual detective work is required, he has at least once hired a real private detective to do it for him! He just tells people he's a detective because it's easier to explain than "I go around protecting people from hellspawn."
Kate Lockley:(holds Angel at gunpoint) You're telling me you're an investigator?
Angel: More or less.
Kate Lockley: Where's your license?
Angel: [beat] That's the "less" part.
Pivotal Wake-up: Angelus pulls this move inside of Faith's mind.
Rieff: I thought all Brachen demons had a good sense of direction.
Doyle: Yeah, we're all pretty good at basketball, too.
When Harrie calls out Richard's family for attempting to cannibalize Doyle's brain, his siblings indignantly shout "Racist!" She then calls them out on the hypocrisy of picking and choosing the 'sacred rituals' they want to keep doing and then acting pious when called on it.
"Sense & Sensitivity" is a giant lampooning of this trope. An Emotion Bomb affects Kate's co-workers so deeply that they start letting crooks go free, decrying the justice system for brutalizing the poor prisoners.
When Lilah mistakingly uses the phrase "handshake deal" when bartering with a demon assassin, Linday quickly jumps in to emphasize that she meant metaphorical hands. ("Sanctuary")
Lilah: That was species-ist of me. I apologize.
Played for laughs in "Blind Date". Gunn creates a distraction in Wolfram & Hart's lobby by launching into a militant speech.
Wesley reports of saving a pair of power-walking heath nuts from a Hacklar demon, and getting socked in the face for his trouble. By the health nuts.
Wesley: Apparently she felt I disrespected the Hacklar's culture by killing it.
Cordelia: This town sucks.
Popular Is Dumb: Cordelia in Season One, though she eventually grows out of it. Played straight with Harmony, though.
The Power of Acting: Although Cordelia's skill is usually Bad Bad Acting, it does help her bluff Angelus when the chips are down. Cordelia is fairly consistently shown to be pretty good at improv acting, but horrible at following a script.
Also, when Wesley impersonates Angel he fools a wizard/businessman/mobster and his thugs.
Also, Angel when impersonating both Jay-Don and Herb Sanders
Power Glows When it's about to destroy a few city blocks via involuntarily exploding.
Power Tattoo: Jhiera sports a black facial tattoo over her left eye.
Power Trio: Angel, Cordelia, and Doyle (later replaced by Wesley). Note that this only applies to Season One.
Power Walk: A flashback to 1900 AD shows Angel and his posse (Darla, Spike, and Drusilla) walking amidst the flames of the Chinese Boxer Rebellion.
Joss Whedon loves these. The show (all of his shows, actually) averages at least one per season, and they usually end up featuring prominently in the opening credits.
Prophecy Twist: Spike turns out to be just as eligible for the Shanshu Prophecy as Angel. Or so it seems...
The half-demon clan of "Hero" tell of a prophecy which foretold a "Chosen One" who would save them from The Scourge. The obvious assumption is it's Angel. At the episode's conclusion, though, it's Doyle who sacrifices his life to save them all.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: You wouldn't guess it, but Lorne comes from a dimension full of these.
Psychic Assisted Suicide: The demon-possessed Ryan 'sleepwalks' into the middle of traffic, almost getting killed before Angel tackles him out of a car's path. The demon later confesses that he would have also died had the car struck. By leaping into a body of a remorseless child, the Ethros had unwittingly trapped itself forever, with death as the only escape.
Psychic Link: Vampires and their sires share these, though only when they are in close proximity. Angel goes absolutely off the rails whenever his 'family' is nearby.
The Haxil demon of "Expecting" impregnates human women, then controls them via some sort of psychic umbilical.
Punch A Wall: In the aftermath of Faith's first duel with Angelus (which Faith lost — handedly), the next episode opens with her taking a shower in Wesley's bathroom. Her body is battered, bruised and covered with blood. Without warning, Faith explodes into violence, repeatedly punching the shower tiles until her fists have driven through the wall. Needless to say, this is not played for Fanservice.
Puppeteer Parasite: Talamour, a "Burrower" demon preying on the regulars at a singles bar.
Puppet Permutation: Happens to Angel in "Smile Time." Within the episode, he fights other, demonic puppets. It also contains the line "You're a wee little puppet man!" from Spike. May or may not be a hint that Angel is being turned into a metaphorical puppet.
Spike and Lorne later get the same treatment in the comic Spike: Shadow Puppets when they travel to Japan where Smile Time is still popular.
Purple Eyes: Princess Jhiera, along with the rest of the Oden Tal.
Putting on the Reich: The Scourge is an army of pure-blood demons bent on the extermination of all "half-breeds". They all dress up in faux-S.S. uniforms, making this a not-so-subtle allegory; Their leader even delivers a Hitler-style, genocidal speech to an audience of mooks.
For bonus points, from what we know of demons in general, the Scourge are about as pure-blood as Germans are Aryan.
Now proven In the comics, the Scourge get involved with one of Illyria's former pets named Baticus, who is also an Old One. Baticus incinerates the Scourge but the same attack doesn't scratch Illyira.
Rage Against The Reflection: Shortly after being re-ensouled, Darla is found lying amongst shattered glass in her apartment, having smashed all the mirrors.
Lorne punches his own reflection after it gets mouthy with him.
Written-In Infirmity: David Boreanaz directed "Soul Purpose", in which Angel is rendered immobile for the majority of its running time. Boreanaz suffered a severe knee injury prior to filming, which necessitated a story in which he doesn't move very much.
Real Men Get Shot: And thrown from rooftops, and stabbed in the neck with their own stakes.
Reality Ensues: From "Over the Rainbow" when Team Angel was facing down a whole village.
Wesley: I think we're winning! (cut to Team Angel tied up)
Red Herring: "Lonely Hearts" goes out of its way to mislead viewers as to which character the Burrower demon has BodySurfed into. The opening half of "I've Got You Under My Skin" uses a similar trick to make Angel suspect the wrong man of being possessed.
Redemption Equals Death: Used straight and played with in a few instances. Angel refused to fight Faith when she wanted to be killed, Connor was "killed" and given a new life. Played completely straight when Doyle died, elevating himself from "weasel" to hero.
Redemption in the Rain: Faith's complete breakdown at the end of "Five by Five". Also, Darla staking herself in the episode "Lullaby" to allow Connor to be born.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Spike is the Red Oni by being... Spike. Where as Angel is known for his brooding thus qualifying him as a Blue Oni. One could argue that this dated back to their days with Darla and Drusilla.
Reformed, But Rejected: Faith's supposed reformation doesn't track with Buffy, who arrives in town with the sole purpose of killing her. Angel think she's acting like a spoiled brat, causing the former lovers to part on bad terms.
Regularly Scheduled Evil: The undead warrior Tezcatcatl is damned to return every 50 years. In this case, however, it's a bonus; the curse grants him unlimited chances to find his talisman, which would render him invincible.
Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: The first mate on the ship ferrying the Brachen clan out of the country decides to rat them all out for money. The Scourge repay his help by testing their human-disintegrating Beacon on him.
Revenge Before Reason: Despite hating demons and knowing they couldn't be trusted, Holtz jumps at the chance to travel over 200 years into the future to kill Angelus and Darla despite knowing he's making a deal with a demon who isn't sharing his own motives for wanting Angel and Darla dead.
Right Behind Me: Cordy's wild fantasies about how rich they're going to get working for Rebecca Lowell — at the exact moment the star walks in ("Eternity").
Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Used twice with Angel: First, erasing Buffy's memories of their time together ("I Will Remember You"), and again when signing a deal with Wolfram & Hart, giving Connor a brand new family ("Home").
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Holtz takes out 378 vampires during his hunt across Europe for Angelus and Darla.
Rooftop Confrontation: Buffy's face-off with Faith on the roof of Angel's building. The throwdown gets postponed when the rifle-toting Watcher's Special Ops Team arrives in helicopters and tries to pick off both Slayers at once.
The entire team facing off against The Beast in a sky lounge.
Wesley and Robo-Dad in a Mexican Standoff on Wolfram & Hart's roof.
Room Full of Crazy: Lampshaded in "Somnambulist": Angel deflates one of Penn's evil rants by accurately describing the layout of his "killer shrine" wall, right down to the news clippings and candles — without ever having seen it with his own eyes. "Oh, you are so prosaic."
Angel's suite temporarily turns into one these in "Darla": Wesley appears in the doorway and expresses his concern that Angel isn't exactly well. Angel, who is busily sketching Darla in various poses, brushes him off. Wesley steps inside, revealing pages upon pages of drawings blanketing the entire floor.
While imprisoned in Pylea, Fred wrote on the walls of her cave to stay sane. It didn't take. Once back in L.A., she immediately starts scribbling on the walls of her room in the Hyperion.
Even after her supposed 'rehabilitation' later in the series, Fred continues to cope with trauma or stress by writing on walls. Wesley and Gunn lampshade it in the fifth season.
Wesley:(at Fred writing on the windows)That's never good.
Fred: What? Oh, no, I— I just ran out of white board. I'm not crazy. Again.
Wesley's office after Illyria's arrival becomes one of these due to his obsession with learning everything he can about her. Lampshaded by Lorne when Gunn mentions having gone in there.
"Oh, God! Don't go in there! That's where he keeps his full-strength crazy!"
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Jhiera is princess of another dimension, where she is fighting an ongoing battle to liberate the females of her species.
Rubber Forehead Aliens: Prevalent throughout the first season, though the makeup effects improved dramatically by Season Two.
Run For The Border: The Brachen demons in "Hero" charter a cargo ship to take them to Equador, where others of their kind are living peacefully.
Likewise with Spike in "Why We Fight." He becomes so taken with a Nazi captain's leather trenchcoat, he kills him for it.
Sand In My Eyes: Wesley tearfully blots his eyes after officially being hired at Angel Investigations, complaining of "allergies". Invoked again at the end of "Expecting".
Scary Black Man: Griff, the debt collector ("Rm v/a Vu"). Technically a Scary Black Demon but you get the idea.
Screw The Rules, I Have Connections!: Wes and Cordy pose as a police detectives in order to intimidate a wealthy couple outside the XXI fight club. The man counters by dropping the name of their "boss", the police chief - and a close personal friend of his. Cordy swoops in and improvises by pretending they're about to raid the club, and are giving the rich couple an opportunity to scram. They do.
Scully Box: In her scenes with Lindsey (Christian Kane), Lilah (Stephanie Romanov) wears high heels to accentuate her height. Kane laughingly referred to the duo as "Boris and Natasha."
Hamilton (Adam Baldwin) utterly towers over David Boreanaz in his introductory scene, rendering his feel-good personality that much more absurd. As the scene was shot in a parking garage, Baldwin simply stood on the ramped incline.
Selective Condemnation: When a villain hands out fates worse than death, it's seen as awful. When Angel makes a guy immortal, but locked in a room, unable to move or look at something else or speak because he normally takes people to hell but got resurrected (ok, so the guy was evil in life and was only doing the hell thing to stay out of hell, but remember, he was doing it on Wolfram & Hart's property, so most people he did it to probably asked for it), it's never mentioned again.
Plus, Willow mind wiping Tara on Buffy was supposed to be awful, but Angel removing everyone's memories of Conner only is brought up again when Wes finds out, and is quickly dropped again afterwards.
To be fair, the terrible part about Willow's mind wipe was that it was violation of the worst kind; Willow was effectively forcing Tara to remain in a sexual relationship that Tara didn't want to continue, making her actions date rape at best, if not rape rape. Angel, on the other hand, wanted to remove horribly traumatic memories from his friends' minds not for his benefit but for their own; wiping away Wesley's tragic betrayal, Connor's insanity, etc.
Self-Defeating Prophecy: The visions sent to Angel's sidekicks are often of a monster killing a human, which Angel is then able to prevent.
Self-Made Man: One of Angel's richest clients, David Nabbit, made his millions by inventing software which allows blind people surf the internet.
Self Restraint: Faith's prison breakout in the fourth season makes it clear she could have escaped any time she wanted. Alluded to in "Five by Five" and "Sanctuary" where it becomes clear that Angel is helping Faith come round to the idea of wanting to turn herself in because the only way a human prison could ever hold a slayer would be if the slayer 'wanted to be held.
As dismissive, threatening and moderately destructive as Illyria is around the office, that's her being restrained. She kills everyone in about ten seconds flat when she actually decides to fight them in a possible future.
Serial Killer: Penn is nicknamed "The Pope" by the L.A. press, due to his habit of carving crosses onto the faces of his victims (a quirk he adopted from Angel).
Sequel Episode: Billy Blim, the freed prisoner from "That Vision Thing", turns up again to bring mayhem in "Billy."
Show Within a Show: Angel's client in "Eternity" is Rebecca Lowell, former star of the much-adored On Your Own which was recently "canceled by the idiot network!"
Smile Time. And its Japanese counterpart in the comics.
Cordy! is a cheesy Friends-style sitcom in an alternate timeline.
In the comic continuation, Harmony inexplicably stars in her own reality show, Harmony Bites.
Schmuck Bait: The kidnapping of Alonna. Angel warns her brother that if he tries to invade the vampires' nest, it will turn into a bloodbath. Predictably, Gunn doesn't hear him - or car.
Shut Up, Hannibal!: The object of Dr. Meltzer's desire, Melissa Burns, delivers a stinging one when Meltzer comes for her in "I Fall To Pieces". Melissa reaffirms her refusal to be afriad, having been convinced by Angel that she has survived everything Meltzer has done to her so far. This causes Meltzer to (literally) fall apart at the seams.
Kate tracks her father's killers to an auto repair shop, dusting one of them like a pro. Her Roaring Rampage is interrupted by el jefe: a humongous, steroid-injected demon who lectures Kate on how she cannot comprehend the world she's entered into. Enter Angel:
"A big ugly drug-running demon who thinks he's a lot scarier than really he is, maybe? Yeah, she knows."
Angelus tries to get under Cordelia's skin by ridiculing her total lack of acting ability. Cordy gets the last laugh when she bluffs Angelus into believing her thermos is full of holy water, resulting in his defeat.
Slow Motion Drop: Faith breaks a glass upon seeing a TV news report declaring her to be a wanted fugitive.
Skyward Scream: Angel lets one loose after feeding on a murder victim during the 1970s.
Sleep Cute: Angel and Cordy cuddled up with Baby Connor.
Slippery Skid: Angel squeezes a bag of whole coffee beans to test Cordelia's theory that he can effectively grind the coffee with his "vampire strength." The bag bursts, of course, scattering coffee beans everywhere just as Cordelia and Wesley come in the door; Wesley immediately slips and falls.
Slipping a Mickey: In an effort to make Angel lose his soul and turn her into a vampire, Rebecca Lowell drugs his champagne with a bliss-inducing prescription drug.
Smoke Shield: Jasmine, after getting zapped by a downed power line. Turns out once you've endured the Big Bang, electricity isn't a much of a hinderence.
Smug Snake: Eve and Gavin. Also Lilah in the first couple of seasons.
Slow Motion Drop: Wesley's slo-mo knife drop at the end of "Five By Five".
Soaperizing: In interviews before the show's premiere, Joss Whedon said the spin-off Angel would be a "case of the week"-type show, and not a soap opera like Buffy. It ended up becoming a bigger soap opera, with multiple love triangles, Shot Reverse Shots of people standing around in rooms and rehashing old plot points, Angel's son going from a baby to teenager and sleeping with Cordelia, etc.
Lampshaded by Cordy herself: "Tell me we're not living in a soap opera."
Lampshaded by Gunn as well in Partners: "Listen, I spent most of this year trapped in what I can only describe as a turgid supernatural soap-opera."
Softspoken Sadist: Marcus ("In the Dark"). He sounds like the guy who sells you Chakra stones.
Something Else Also Rises: Wesley's, erm, sword shooting out of his coat sleeve in Fred's presence ("Spin the Bottle").
Something They Would Never Say: Subverted. Lorne signals Fred over the phone to send help: "Say hi to Fluffy for me." — "Fluffy" being their nonexistent dog. Fred, who's a bit dense, thinks he's referring to something else.
Somewhere A Mammalogist Is Crying: "Through the Looking Glass". Had Wesley simply used the term "hart" or "stag" in the layman fashion (to refer to any male red deer regardless of its age), it might not have been accurate but it wouldn't have been comment-worthy. Unfortunately, he goes into detail saying a hart is "a male red deer or staggard" indicating the script-writers may have attempted to research the proper naming convention that exists for male red deer (that or they thought a "stag" and "staggard" meant the same thing). A staggard is a male red deer in its fourth year of life. A stag is a male red deer in its fifth year of life. A hart is a male red deer over five years old (i.e., in its sixth year of life). The picture itself shows a 10-point deer (5 tines on each antler) which is a "great hart" (a stag over six years old, i.e., seven years old or older with 10-16 tines). By using generalised layman terms, it all could have been handwaved as an ordinary conversation or at least the "hart" being a contraction of "great hart" where the picture itself was concerned. The attempt to be clever by referring to "staggard" simply emphasised the writers had failed to do their research.
Soul Jar: Angel's soul is imprisoned in one in the fourth season, in order to temporarily release Angelus.
The "Ethros Box".
Justine traps her boss' boss, Sahjan, in a jar.
Sound Only Death: When the youngest runt in XXI is pitted against Trepkos in the next match, Cribb remarks, "That's not a fight, it's an execution." Trepkos ignores Angel's imploring him not to kill the kid, instead promises to "kill him quick." Indeed, the fight has barely begun before Angel hears a telltale Neck Snap sound.
Soundtrack Dissonance: Angel's flashback to a donut shop robbery, in which he witnessed the clerk get fatally shot. Angel drinks the copse's blood as "Mandy" plays on a jukebox.
Fred manages to get one line into "You make me happy", a classic target for this trope, before coughing up blood and collapsing.
Spell My Name with a "The": The Conduit and The Beast. In "Habeas Corpses", the former is killed by the latter.
Spikes of Doom: Angel gets to experience the full extent of Gunn's vampire-proofing in "War Zone". Upon chasing Angel into Gunn's own building, Gunn rams the wall with his spiked truck, narrowly missing Angel's head. Disoriented, Angel stumbles over a tripwire, triggering a hurricane of arrows as well as a falling spike trap.
Spirited Competitor: Trepkos, who warmly congratulates Angel on "a good fight." ("The Ring")
Spoiler Opening: Averted. One episode features Alyson Hannigan as a surprise guest star. The actor's name was removed from the opening credits to hide the surprise; instead they get top billing in the end credits. The same was done to hide Faith's first appearance.
James Marsters is in the opening credits of the first episode of Season 5, though he doesn't turn up 'til the last scene of said episode.
Another sort of aversion: Amy Acker's credit sequence for season five includes shots of Illyria ... but only after Fred dies.
Squee: Cordy keeps giggling like a madwoman after being invited out shopping with TV actress Rebecca Lowell.
Stepford Suburbia: For defying the Senior Partners, Lindsey is incarcerated in a Hell modeled upon this.
Sue Donym: As a reward for rescuing their son from walking into oncoming traffic, Mrs. Anderson invites Angel in for some coffee. When probed about his name, Angel replies "Angel— Jones. Angel Jones."
Sugar Bowl: In Angel's nightmare about being usurped by Spike, the view of Los Angeles is replaced by a matte painting of pink castles and rainbows.
Sunglasses at Night: Jay-Don ("The Shroud of Rahmon"), a Las Vegas vampire who seems to be permanently stuck in the 1960s. Angel assimilates his identity and, in effect, this trope.
Super Dickery: Invoked in "Why We Fight," although it isn't the only time when Angel acts like a colossal tool.
Spike: Bloody brilliant. Turn the poor sod to save the ship, then make him dash to dry land before the sunshine scorches him a new one. You're still a dick.
Type 0: Fred, early-series Wesley and Cordelia, Lorne, Lilah
Type 1: Gunn, later-series Wesley, Holtz, Justine, Lindsey
Type 2: Angel, Spike and other vampires, Groo, Gwen Raiden, Connor, Sajhan
Type 3: The Beast, Jasmine, Marcus Hamilton, Illyria
Type 4: The Senior Partners, The Powers That Be, Illyria in her true form, Cordelia after Ascending.
Supervillain Lair: In an inversion of this trope, Jasmine takes over the Hyperion Hotel, and Wolfram & Hart becomes Angel's base.
Surprise Witness: Angel unexpectedly drops in on a courtroom proceeding with an eyewitness in tow — the same kid who was thought to have been intimidated by Lindsey into silence. His testimony effectively torpedoes Lindsey's murder case ("Five By Five").
Suspect Is Hatless: When interviewing witnesses to a demon assault on the subway, the best Kate can glean from them is suspect is of 'average' height, 'average' build, and 'average' weight. Well, that was helpful.
Brainy, bubbly Fred could pass for Willow. Lampshaded when Willow herself takes an immediate shine to her.
Wesley for Giles. Wes later morphs into an icy-blooded badass, echoing the dramatic shift away from 'mild-mannered' Giles on Buffy.
Connor is an angrier, Y chromosome Dawn. The latter had reality re-written to provide her with a life; conversely, Connor gains a new life by having his previous one erased from existence.
Jasmine is a Physical God like Glory — with the twist that she's not here to destroy the world, but to save it.
Merl is the demonic equivalent to Willy the Snitch — that is, he exists to be clobbered by the heroes until he sings like a canary.
Caritas may well be a bizarro counterpart to The Bronze.
The cell in the Hyperion's basement (built to contain Angelus, though the good guys spend equal time getting trapped in it themselves) is a stand-in for Giles' book cage.
Speaking of which, Nina Ash has to be caged during her time of the month. Sound familiar?
The comics just introduced ex-Watcher Laura Weathermill, who appears to be one of these for Wesley. She might not be entirely trustworthy, however. (But hey, neither was the genuine article.)
In "Bachelor Party", Doyle is invited to a stag party for his old flame's new fiancée — who just so happens to be a demon, too. But something is amiss...
Aunt Martha: Well, they're certainly not going to eat your ex-husband's brains. (Everyone stares) ...For instance.
For such a high-security building, the roof is oddly unguarded.
Sword Fight: Between Angel and Lindsey in the last season.
Sword Over Head: Pressed by Gunn's oncoming gang, Angel ends up violently disarming one of his attackers and almost stabs him with his own stake. He stops when he realizes that his prey is a mere kid.
Untwisted in the Season Four finale ("Home"). Angel finds himself raising a knife over Connor's neck, fulfilling Wesley's prophecy from long ago. Against all expectation, however, Angel brings the knife down with full force.
Take It To The Bridge: Angel tracks the depowered Jasmine to an overpass, where she proceeds to Motive Rant as the city erupts into chaos.
Take That: At Gallagher. Cordelia comments that the comedian has changed his act more times than Penn has in two centuries of ritual killings. (Wesley seems to like him though.)
Angel toys with the idea of finally seeing Les Mis while in England. "Trust me," Spike warns, "halfway through the first act you'll be drinking humans again."
Joss Whedon: I'm usually not that snarky. I don't like to diss things. But Les Mis went down.
Knox's manliness comes into question when Harmony discovers his Rick Springfield screen saver.
Take a Third Option: In "The Ring", Angel implores the other fighters at XXI not to cooperate in the matches. Cribb eventually releases the prisoners, who mob the entire ring and bring the club to a halt.
Taking the Bullet: Doyle sacrfices himself in order to shut down The Scourge's beacon in order to prevent Angel from doing it.
Tattooed Crook: In "Five By Five", Angel mentors a street hoodlum in his own distinctive style. Cordelia snarkily vocalizes her doubt that "a guy with that many tattoos" can be reformed.
Teach Him Anger: While the pair is hunting for Angelus, Wesley devises a number of tests to determine whether Faith has gotten too soft. He goads Faith with memories of how she tortured him, then mocks her apparent reformation, calling her a rabid animal who should have been put down long ago. As expected, Faith lunges for the limey's throat.
Wesley: There, that wasn't so hard was it? ''It's what you'll need to beat him.
Technobabble: Fred's technobabble always comes off as kind of cute.
Fred has made homicidal rage look cute. Technobabble is as nothing.
Tempting Fate: Cordelia and Doyle commiserate over drinks, wondering if they're out of a job now that Angel's human ("I Will Remember You"). Doyle figures that if Angel's no longer working for the PTB, that must he's off the hook, too. Cue another vision, causing poor Doyle's head to slam into the bar top. ..Guess not.
Before departing L.A., Buffy makes a passing laceration at Angel by comparing to her new boyfriend (Riley), whom she "knows" and "trusts" ("Sanctuary"). As we later find out on Buffy, she doesn't know the real Riley very well at all.
10-Minute Retirement: Angel quits the hero business in Season Two (though it lasts considerably longer than ten minutes), firing his team and devoting all his energies toward crushing Wolfram & Hart. Once he finds that the Senior Partners don't exist to be beaten, only fought, he comes to his senses and reunites the team.
Thanatos Gambit: Holtz giving Angel a note to give to Angel's human son Connor. It explains that the two of them should be together. He also tells Angel the same thing, seemingly having finally made peace with Angel for Connor's sake. Then he has his accomplice stab him twice in the neck so it looks like Angel killed Holtz out of spite. This pretty much destroyed the relationship between Angel and his son forever, especially given the vicious cycle that resulted.
Theme Initials: A disproportionate number of Wolfram & Hart lawyers have the initials L.M - Lindsay McDonald, Lilah Morgan, Lee Mercer and Linwood Morrow.
Initially justified; Lindsay McDonald's, Lilah Morgan's, and Lee Mercer's first appearances were all written to be the same person.
Invoked on a mammoth scale in Season Four, when Skip reveals the accidents that brought Team Angel together were no accidents.
There Are No Therapists: The following people did not receive therapy: Gunn, who spent much of his life on the streets fighting for his life, and had to kill his sister. Wesley, whose father was verbally abusive and used to lock him under the stairs. Fred spent five years living feral in a dimension where humans were enslaved, and came back babbling and hiding in her room for weeks. And Connor, who was brought up in a hell dimension by a fanatical vampire hunter from the 18th century who taught Connor that his father was pure evil. The one time Angel went to a guru to talk about his problems, the guy turned out to be an impostor. It might have worth tracking down a psychiatrist who catered to the supernatural, particularly for the last two.
There Was a Door: Gunn isn't too receptive to the idea of a noble vampire at first. When Angel suggests an alliance, Gunn expresses his skepticism by locking him in a meat locker. Angel spends the next few minutes trying to punch his way out, only for Cordelia and Wesley to unlock the door.
Faith goes a little nuts after slaying a demon assassin in Angel's basement. With what she's gone through, the last thing Faith needed to see was her hand holding a bloody knife.
Throw It In: During Angelus' return in season 4, David Boreanaz improvised a lot of his dialogue. Also during the episode "Spin The Bottle" they had to structure a comedic bit so that Angel and Wesley didn't have to look at each other because neither actor could keep a straight face.
Throwing The Distraction: Inverted against the heroes in "War Zone". Gunn issues the evacuation order when vampires firebomb his base. Gunn realizes only too late that it's a distraction, and that he's just sent his little sister outdoors to get chowed down on.
The Thing That Would Not Leave: Cordelia in "Rm w/a Vu". Within a few hours, Angel's basement is covered wall-to-wall with Cordelia's trophies, there's peanut butter on his bed, his leather chair is ruined, and Cordelia is busily cutting up his linoleum floor to examine the hardwood.
This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: In Angel's "Smile Time" episode, from one muppet to another: "I'm gonna tear you a new puppet hole, bitch!"
This Means War!: Kate Lockely in "To Shanshu in L.A". Subverted in that Kate can't quite make up her mind about this; she and Angel share quite a few "This Means War" moments in Season 2, but always manage to bury the hatchet some way or another.
After what Angelus did to his family, the only hatchet Holtz wants to bury is the one he can plant inside Angel's head.
Three-Way Sex: In addition to reportedly having a herculean physique, the Immortal has the stamina of a racehorse, as Darla and Drusilla can attest. (To Spike and Angel's vast annoyance.)
Thou Shalt Not Kill Muggles: Further deconstructed with each passing year. So, butchering hundreds of demons is okay, but a professor who feeds his students to wormholes = the angels weep?
Subverted by Angel leaving a whole pack of Wolfram & Hart lawyers to be fed on by Darla and Dru.
Same goes for Jasmine's pod people. Angel dutifully reminds the viewers at home that these people are under a spell, but it comes down to us vs. them... Gun injects, "Believe me, I'm there."
An interesting footnote to Season Five: Nina winds up deeply disturbed by the lives she took while a werewolf, regardless of how depraved those people were. Angel? He's cool with it. This highlights the differences between them, as well the gradual darkening of Angel's team.
Too Happy to Live: A textbook example with Wesley and Fred, who get to spend approximately ten minutes of one episode as a happy couple after seasons of Will They or Won't They? before Fred is slowly and painfully killed so her body can host Illyria.
Lilah too. It's easy to forget in the later seasons that she was a largely ineffective Smug Snake for the first two and half years of the show, ultimately getting a promotion only because Lindsey turned it down. It's only from season 3 on that she emerges as a genuinely dangerous and capable figure.
Gunn as well via a mental upgrade became the go to guy in court. Able to speak multiple demon languages and knowledgable in Demon diplomacy, while still able to take multiple vampires hand to hand. Cordelia from cheerleader to Katana wielding Seer and Fred from crazy Survivor slave to flame thrower wielding bad ass scientist. Angel Investigations, you didn't need to be a badass to work there, but it helped.
Torture Technician: Marcus the vampire is alleged to have "invented some of the classics", but he's closed-mouthed about which. ("In the Dark")
Faith has a cute system for separating torture into five groups (ŕla the Food Pyramid), which Wesley gets to experience firsthand ("Five By Five").
Angelus was pretty handy with torture devices in his day. By and large, Angel gave that habit up. In "Forgiving", though, he comes very close to torturing a captive Linwood with stuff he finds lying around the office. (This is a special case, as Angel is desperate to recover his son.)
To Serve Man: All part of a balanced breakfast for Jasmine. Gunn lampshades this word-for-word.
Trade Snark: As Wesley is reading aloud from the owner's manual for Cordy's new security system, he actually recites the "TM" at the end.
Transplant: Cordelia originally. Later to be followed by Wesley, whose arc had concluded in Buffy Season 2. Spike, who 'died' in that show's finale, promptly reappeared on Angel in its final season. (Can't keep a good Fonzie down!)
Trash the Set: Angel's Season 1 office gets dynamited, Caritas in season 3 and the Wolfram & Hart offices in seasons 4 and 5.
True Love Is Boring: Outright stated in regards to Fred and Gunn. Possibly the case for Angel himself.
Trying To Catch Me Fighting Dirty: After tracking the Mohra demon to a salt refinery silo, a (now-human) Angel tosses salt in the demon's eyes while Buffy goes for the kill. Justified in that Angel didn't have his typical vampire strength and combat ability to rely on.
Twerp Sweating: Angel giving the third degree to Pierce, a day trader and Cordelia's date ("Bachelor Party").
Cordy refuses to bring her next date to meet Angel, convinced he'll act like a forbidding father. But she didn't count on Phantom Dennis! When Cordy brings Wilson over to her apartment, Dennis kills the mood by slamming the front door, brightening the lights she dims, and adjusting the radio dial to blast jaunty polka ("Expecting").
A flashback to the 18th century shows Darla introducing her beau (Angelus) to the Master. Darla tries impressing him with her boyfriend's killing record, but Angelus doesn't warm to his new father-in-law ("Darla").
Two Guys and a Girl: The original dynamic, with Wesley taking Doyle's place mid-season.
During the S2 Darla arc, Angel tries to redeem Darla out of a misplaced sense of filial loyalty. Eventually, even Lorne warns Angel that he's about to jump the track.
Angel is offered a choice between preventing Darla and Drusilla from killing a roomful of Wolfram & Hart employees, or simply walking away. Angel decides the lawyers made their own bed and leaves them.
UST: Between Cordelia and Doyle. Though they did come close to resolving it. (Stupid demon Nazis.)
Ultimate Evil: The Wolf, Ram and Hart (AKA the "Senior Partners").
Unpredictable Results: A giant egg that apparently might do anything, but... turned Angel into a puppet?
Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Ryan Anderson's reaction to Angel shoving him out of the path of a speeding car. Noticing the bloody scrape on Angel's shoulder, Ryan, who seems completely unfazed by his brush with death, asks Angel if he's going to cry. This is an early sign that this kid belongs in a padded room.
Unwitting Pawn: Pretty much everyone as far as Jasmine's concerned.
Angel inadvertently beats up a few Knight Templars in "That Vision Thing".
Vagueness Is Coming: The Beast's arrival in season 4 of Angel is foreseen in vague implications of blood, and fire from the sky, and all that good stuff.
In Season Five, Lindsey reveals that Wolfram & Hart are laying the groundwork for the upcoming apocalypse by, um...not telling anyone about it.
Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Most prominently seen in "The Old Gang of Mine", in which Gunn's old vampire-hunting crew begins hunting anything non-human.
Villainous Demotivator: The head vampire in "War Zone", Knox, claps his buddy Ty on the shoulder and says its not his fault for getting ambushed by Gunn's crew. Right before he stakes him.
Virgin Sacrifice: Magnus Bryce has this in mind for his daughter, Virginia. It didn't work because he didn't watch her closely enough—she'd lost her "purity" a long time ago.
Connor crosses his Moral Event Horizon when he agrees to slaughter a female virgin, furthering Evil Cordy's goals.
Viva Las Vegas: "The House Always Wins" from Season 4, filmed on location in Sin City.
Voice Changeling: The Ethros demon possessing Ryan displays this ability. It taunts Wesley in a voice identical to his own, reminding him of his unceremonious sacking from the Watcher's Council; then it strikes out at Angel by channeling Doyle's voice, playing on Angel's guilt. And also makes him angry.
Vomit Discretion Shot: During the acid trippy sequence of "Spin the Bottle", the camera cuts to Fred, who is petting a potted fern with fascination. Right before she vomits off to the side.
Following the rooftop showdown in "Lineage", Wesley expresses shock at shooting his father by shambling over to a nearby air conditioning unit. This is followed by the sound of him retching.
Walk In Chime In: When Angel warns his buddies about how Buffy would react if she found out he'd been stalking her in Sunnydale, Buffy pops into his office to finish his thought. "A little upset." Oh boy.
Happens quite a lot in Season 4, when the main arc requires the cast to reunite and spout exposition quickly.
Wall of Weapons: Angel's basement in Season 1. After he joins agrees to run Wolfram & Hart, Angel's office comes furnished with one.
Waxing Lyrical: Cordelia wonders aloud why anyone in their right mind would try dating in L.A. You'll just end up being stalked by a surgeon with anatomic limbs or impregnated with demon spawn.
Doyle: People need people. And people...who need people...are the luckiest peo--(Cordy glares, Doyle shuts up)
A Call Back to this line occurs in "The Magic Bullet", via Connor of all people. Cue incredulous stares from everyone in the room.
Lorne: You been sneakin' peeks at my Streisand collection again, kiddo?
Originally, it was "We help the hopeless", which let Doyle have the hilarious fumble on picking up the phone: "Angel Investigations, we hope you're helpless..."
And on Buffy, when Spike (and everyone) loses his memory, he thinks that "Maybe I'm a good vampire...I help the helpless...on a path of redemption...I'm a vampire with a soul!" (which Buffy, of course, immediately waves aside as being ridiculous and "lame")
Wesley: I have no idea where Angel is, Lilah, or what happened to him. And I really couldn't care.
Lilah: Wow. That was cold. I think we're finally making progress. Come on. Doesn't it bother you just a little bit? The not knowing?
Wesley: That part of my life is dead. Doesn't concern me now.
Weakened By The Light: The "Beacon" is a weapon which emits a light deadly to humans and demi-humans alike. The Scourge intend to use to annihilate every half-breed demon within a quarter-mile radius.
Welcome to My World: Darla's first words to Angel following his 'rebirth' as a vamp.
"Well Done, Son" Guy: Trevor Lockley was always cold to Kate, having shut down all emotion following his wife's death. Despite this, Kate is deeply distraught at the murder of her father. In response to Trevor's death, she begins to hate all paranormal creatures (especially vampires) and turns openly-hostile towards Angel.
"The Prodigal" is interspersed with flashbacks to Angel's upbringing in Ireland, revealing a not-dissimilar relationship with his own father.
Roger Wyndam-Pryce manages to wear down his son's spirit every time he opens his mouth.
WHAM Episode: For starters, "Reunion", "Reprise", "Sleep Tight"/"Forgiving", "Home", A Hole In The World".
Whammy Bid: The item for sale: Cordelia's visions, or more specifically, her eyeballs. To stall for time, Cordelia incites a bidding war by claiming to be able to see the locations of buried treasure. This escalates until one of the two highest bidders kills the other one. Finally, a female attorney for Wolfram & Hart closes the auction with a whopping bid of $30,000.
What the Hell, Hero?: The rest of Angel Investigations calls Angel out after he lets Darla and Drusilla massacre a lot of Wolfram and Hart lawyers.
Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Have fun waiting around for an explanation, because there isn't one. Angel ditches most of his cool accessories in the second season, though a few random ones still pop up now and again.
Gunn's original street crew included one guy who's armed with a flamethrower. Where did they get that?
Wicked Cultured: Most of the high-class baddies on this series are fond of classical music — even Lindsey. In their first scene together, he and Darla shoot the breeze about Frédéric Chopin.
Marcus the vampire plays a Broken Record of Mozart's Symphony #41 to interrogate Angel.
Wife-Basher Basher: The Cold Open for "In the Dark" follows Angel saving a woman from her drug addict boyfriend, who Angel proceeds to pound unconscious. Ouch.
Wilhelm Scream: Heard at the beginning of "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco", when the redshirt is tossed into the air.
Willfully Weak: It's established that Angel is stronger in Game Face, and that he sometimes holds back rather than scare off the people he's trying to save. Occasionally, a character will punch him repeatedly in order to make him vamp out. This happened once with Buffy (in "Graduation Day"), and again with adult Connor.
"Guise Will Be Guise" hints at Angel's inner fear. In a stick-fighting match with a hermit, Angel repeatedly gets beatenback while his opponent asks him why he's holding back. "Because if I let it, it'll kill you."
The Season Two finale puts Angel on Pylea, an alternate dimension where his Game Face manifests as a crazed, spiked monster. He accidentally switches over while trying to protect Fred, and doesn't revert back until he catches his reflection in a pool of water. The sight of it traumatizes Angel so much that he has a nervous breakdown, and refuses to fight anyone else.
Doyle has much the same problem: He's ashamed of his demon half and will even allow himself to be beaten to a pulp rather than transform. This despite Doyle being practically invulnerable in demon form.
Wire Fu: One of the things that made the fights in this show more distinct from Buffy
Worf Had The Flu: Faith's big fight with Angelus in season four. Angel finally wins a fight with a Slayer... who's previously injured and high on magic heroin.
Wins? Try lost. As Faith said, "Kicked his ass."
Somewhat brilliantly applied in-universe by Hamilton. Hamilton completely avoids Illyria until she (partly at Hamilton's instruction) gets zapped with a depowering weapon. He then mocks and unloads on a extremely depressed, Crash Bandicoot-playing "big scary Old One" and chalks it up. Notable here because the last time Illyria was around, she was at least two tiers higher in power, was presumably feeling a hell of a lot better, and would have eaten the Senior Partners themselves.
You Are in Command Now: Lawson is briefly put in charge of a captured German submarine following the murder of his captain by Spike. Once aboard, Angel assumes control of the sub thanks to the command codes provided for him by the U.S. military.
You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With: A skinhead vampire gets in Angel's face for proposing a truce between his pack and Gunn's street gang. Without so much as blinking, Angel jams a stake through him ("I wasn't actually talking to you.") and proceeds with the rest of his speech.
You Are Too Late: Invoked in the very first episode, for cripes' sake.
The same thing happens to Angel again in "The Prodigal": Realizing Kate's father is in danger, Angel rushes over to his apartment, but is unable to convince Trevor to invite him in. Angel is then forced to watch as Trevor is killed by his vampire associates, who were invited inside a mere minute earlier.
The good guys seem to be constantly running late in Season Four. Angel and co. fail to catch The Beast before he blots out the sun, prevent the deaths of the Ra-Tet (one of whom is massacred right under their noses), or stop Cordelia from birthing Jasmine. In the case of the latter, Angel makes it in time to stop Cordelia and raises his sword to kill her, but hesitates for a crucial moment.
You Are What You Hate: In the end, Holtz was engaging in actions that were the reason he hated Angelus and Darla in the first place.
You Can Keep Her: Jack McNamara steps a bit too close to the red line in "The Ring", giving Angel an opportunity to grab him without disintegrating. When Jack's brother (Darin) shows up, Angel demands to be set free or he'll break Jack's neck. Darin casually pulls a gun and shoots his brother, and Angel is knocked out by a barrage of cattle prods.
You Killed My Father: Adopted father in this case, but Holtz kills himself to deliberately set Connor against Angel because of this reasoning.
You Know I'm Black, Right?: Cordelia calls up Willow (from Buffy) to inquire about Harmony's weird behavior... before learning that Harmony's been turned into a vampire during her absence. Along with some other developments.
Cordelia:(on the phone) Oh! Harmony's a vampire! All this time I thought she'd become a great big lesbo! (beat) Oh. Really? ...well, that's great! Good for you!
You Look Familiar: Harriet Doyle's rebond boyfriend, Richard Straley, is played by Carlos Jacott. He previously played Ken, another (seemingly) milquetoast villain on Season 3 of Buffy ("Anne").
The guy who played Knox previously played Holden in Buffy ("Conversations With Dead People") and Kal Penn played an obnoxious college student in "Beer Bad" before appearing in Angel as a guy with an exposed brain.
The "Mustard" guy (executive producer David Fury) from "Once More With Feeling" reappears on "Smile Time" as the human puppet.
You Remind Me of X: Penn selects his victims based on their physical resemblance to his family members. Like Angel says, he's "been getting back at (his) father for over 200 years."
Holland delivers this spiel to Lindsey in "Blind Date", implying that he once had an Ignored Epiphany of his own.
Faith's journey is an obvious parallel to Angel's, even moreso when she becomes The Atoner. Angel's rehabilitation of her is a Call Back to his earlier (thwarted) attempt to do so in the third season of Buffy.
You Said You Would Let Them Go: Wesley's reaction to the Watcher Council's Ops Team after they go back on their word to protect Angel from harm. Ha ha....no. ("Sanctuary")
You Will Be Assimilated: Despite his non-threatening appearance, Barney is an auctioneer of stolen body parts from demons and other empowered beings.
You Taste Delicious: Lorne, after he's obliged to swill down some of Sebassis' favorite beverage.
You Look Familiar: Carlos Jacott, who plays Richard in the Season 1 episode "Bachelor Party", previously appeared as Ken in the Buffy Season 3 opener, "Anne". He would later appear in the first two episodes of Firefly as Lawrence Dobson.
Your Princess Is in Another Castle: This is the gist of Season Four. By episode 16, Angel and co. have bested Wolfram & Hart, the demon hordes, the Beast, and Angelus, and it's looking like the job is finally sewn up. — O hai Preggo Cordy.
As Angel later learns, the heroes didn't really accomplish anything. Jasmine was busy snuffing out every supervillain in L.A., because she wants to be the only game in town.
Your Vampires Suck: Angel's irate reaction to anyone who mentions coffins.
After Angel confesses to being a vampire, Rebecca reacts in true Hollywood fashion: by listing off famous actors who have played vampires (Bela Lugosi and Gary Oldman). Angel remarks under his breath that "Frank Langella was the only performance I believed..."
Zombie Apocalypse: In the fourth season, Wolfram & Hart becomes a Zombie Apocalypse in a single building: Security Voodoo to hit anyone after a major attack.
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