Written by: David Greenwalt & Joss Whedon
Directed by: Joss Whedon

Cast: David Boreanaz as Angel, Charisma Carpenter, as Cordelia Chase, Glenn Quinn as Doyle.

Guest stars: Tracy Middendor as Tina, Vyto Ruginis as Russell Winters, Jon Ingrassia as Stacy, Renee Ridgeley, as Margo, Christian Kane as Lindsey McDonald.

Original broadcast date: October 5, 1999

Los Angeles. You see it at night and it shines. A beacon. People are drawn to it. People and other things. They come for all sorts of reasons. My reason? No surprise there. It started with a girl.

“She was a really, really pretty girl.” Sitting inside a local bar, a seemingly drunken Angel talks about “the girl” to a man sitting next to him while people play pool in the background. The man, who is completely bald, simply ignores Angel when he says his hair reminds him of her. As Angel rambles, a guy comes up to the bar and tells the bartender he wants to cash out and then he, his two friends and the two girls they are with leave. Angel, who we now see was only pretending to be drunk, senses something isn’t right and slides off his stool to follow the group out into the alley. Finding the guys vamped out, ready to attack the girls, Angel pretends to be drunk again to get close to them. After they exchange a few words, a fight begins and Angel dusts two of the vamps before vamping out himself and throwing the third one onto a nearby car. The girls try to thank him, but he turns, sees blood on one of the girl’s foreheads and tells them to get away from him. He walks away, dusting the vamp on the car as he continues down the alley alone.

Arriving back at his apartment, which is in the basement of a large office building, Angel realizes he isn’t alone. His visitor is a half-human, half-demon named Doyle, who tells Angel he’s been sent by The Powers That Be. When Angel asks “The powers that be what”, Doyle decides to tell him a little bedtime story.

The story is about a vampire who was the meanest in all the land. It seems other vampires were afraid of him he was so bad. Then one day, the vampire’s cursed - by gypsies. They restore his human soul and all of a sudden he’s mad with guilt over everything he’s done. Eventually, a girl enters the picture, a vampire slayer by trade, and the vampire falls madly in love with her. But when he achieves what Doyle calls “perfect happiness”, he loses his soul and goes bad again and kills again. When he gets his soul back for a second time, he figures he can’t be anywhere near the girl without endangering them both, so he takes off to L.A., to fight evil and atone for his crimes.

An annoyed Angel tells him he already knows the story of his life and wonders why he isn’t kicking Doyle out. Doyle says it’s because he’s going to tell him what happens next.

He says the vampire thinks he’s helping by fighting the demons and staying away from humans so he won’t be tempted, but in staying away from the people he’s trying to help, they’ll remain faceless. One day his craving for blood may be too much him to take and he’ll decide to drink from one of those faceless victims. After all, what’s one person after all he’s saved? Angel stands in silence, but Doyle, who says he’s parched from all the talking, decides they should go out to find him a drink.

As they walk through the streets, Doyle explains to Angel that it’s about more than just fighting and saving lives. It’s about saving souls, possibly his own in the process. Angel still wants to know who sent him, but Doyle doesn’t know because they don’t speak to him directly. He has visions, in the form of migraines, with pictures, a name or a face. He hands Angel a piece of paper with “Tina, Coffee Spot, S.M.” on it and says this is what came to him in the vision he had that morning. A confused Angel questions Doyle on how he’s suppose to help when he doesn’t know what’s wrong, but Doyle says it’s part of his job to get involved in her life and find out.

At the Coffee Spot, Angel tries to strike up a conversation with Tina a couple of times before he finally gets her attention. Once he does, he awkwardly asks her if she’s happy. At first she is taken aback by his question, but as Angel stumbles over his words trying to explain, she begins to smile and says he must not hit on girls very often. He informs her that it’s been a while and says he’s new in town. She says he shouldn’t stay and begins to walk away, but Angel reminds her that she never answered his question. She jokingly asks if he has three hours, and Angel convinces her isn’t too busy to listen. Believing him, she tells him she’s off work at ten.

Waiting outside by his car, Angel feels under-dressed when Tina appears wearing a little black dress. Thinking she wants to go out and have a drink, he’s surprised to see she’s approaching with a can of mace in her hand. Saying she knows who he is and what he’s doing there, she tells him to tell Russell to leave her alone. Angel assures her he doesn’t know anyone named Russell, and eventually she realizes she misunderstood his intentions. They continue to talk and Tina explains that she came to L.A. to be a movie star, but now she just wants to go home. Angel then offers to give her a lift to a party, where’s she hoping to collect some money a friend owes her.

At the party, Tina slips off to talk to her friend Margo, leaving Angel to mill through the crowd of people while he waits for her. After receiving a card from a manager intent on making him an actor, Angel spots someone he knew in Sunnydale, Cordelia Chase. Cordelia brags about how well things are going for her (she’s acting now and living in a beach-front condo in Malibu), but their conversation ends quickly because she needs to get back to mingling. Angel makes his way back through the crowd and sees a creep named Stacy harassing Tina. Tina finds Angel and they decide to leave the party, but four guys attack them as they exit the elevators in the parking garage. Angel manages to break free from the two guys holding him in the elevator, but not before the other two start to drive away with Tina. Thinking quickly, Angel jumps into his car and drives straight at the other car, causing them to crash. Angel knocks out one of the guys and holds the other one at gunpoint while Tina gets into his car and then they drive away.

In a small, dingy apartment, Cordelia hangs a dress in her closet as she listens to a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” message from her talent agency. Grabbing a sandwich she brought back from the party, she goes to sit on the couch in the silent room.

Back at Angel’s apartment, he makes tea for the two of them. Because of the kindness he’s shown her since they met, Tina assumes Angel wants to “comfort her”, but he assures her he just wants to give her a safe place to stay until they get things sorted out. He asks her about Russell and she describes him as the kind of guy who can get away with murder. She tells him about a girl, Denise, who disappeared after trying to get away from Russell. After Tina falls asleep, Angel makes his way to the library, via the sewers, to see if he can find any information about Denise. He returns home and finds Tina thrashing about in the midst of a nightmare. Waking her, he tells her he thinks Russell murdered Denise, along with several other girls. Tina glances over and sees the note Doyle gave him on the table and begins to panic. Assuming he’s been lying the whole time, she grabs her stuff and heads upstairs to leave. Angel follows her and grabs her arm to stop her, but she tries to pull away and brings his hand into the sunlight. He vamps out, pulling his hand back as it begins to burn, giving Tina the opportunity to run.

Across town, Tina is hastily packing her things to leave, but Russell appears and tries to explain everything. He says he only wants to help her, but all Tina wants is to go home. She tells him about Angel, saying he turned into something, the most horrible thing she’d ever seen. “You’re young”, he replies before he vamps out and bites her neck. Angel rushes in and finds her lying on the floor. He reaches down to check for a pulse, but there is none. She’s dead. From a nearby rooftop, he watches as the police come in and take her away.

Arriving back at his apartment with Doyle in tow, Angel starts throwing out ideas on how they can find Russell. Angel, upset about Tina, tells Doyle he doesn’t want to share his feelings or open up when Doyle says he couldn’t have known she’d run out on him. All he wants to do is get to work and find the guy that did this to Tina. Doyle asks, “then what?” “And then I’m going to share my feelings,” Angel replies.

Meanwhile, Russell is at his mansion reviewing the tape from Margo’s party, while an attorney tells him about a successful negotiation. Russell mentions being sorry he killed Tina so soon, but his attorney, saying Wolfram & Hart is a full service law firm, reads an alibi they’ve concocted for him for the time of the murder. Just then, a fresh face on the screen appeals to Russell and he says he wants something to eat. It’s Cordelia.

At the gym, Angel interrogates Stacy to find out where Russell lives and how much security he has. Stacy tells Angel he doesn’t know what he’s dealing with and Russell will kill everyone he cares about, so he should just let it go. Angel, keeping the pressure on, says there’s nobody left he cares about.

Mediating at her apartment, Cordelia is delighted to receive a call from Margo, who tells her that Russell wants to meet her and he’ll send a limo to pick her up at eight o’clock tonight. As Cordelia makes her way to Russell’s in the limo, Angel and Doyle gather weapons to prepare for the upcoming attack.

Inside the mansion, Cordelia tells Russell about her family losing everything because her parents didn't pay their taxes and how her plans of becoming an actor in L.A. aren’t working out as well as she’d hoped. As they continue to talk, Cordelia notices that he has no mirrors and all the windows are covered in heavy drapes. Realizing he’s a vampire and she’s alone with him, she starts running, looking for a way to escape. Luckily for her, Angel’s found a way into the mansion and he steps out of the shadows when she and Russell make their way to the second floor landing. Angel and Russell begin to fight and although Angel has the upper hand, he’s forced to grab Cordelia and make a run for it when two of Russell’s security guys start shooting him. Jumping off the landing with Cordelia in his arms, Angel goes back to the front gate, where Doyle is waiting in the car. Dodging a few bullets in the process, the trio makes their way back to Angel’s apartment. Helping Doyle tend to Angel’s wounds, Cordelia wonders whether Russell will come looking for her now.

The next day, Russell’s attends a meeting with his lawyers and they fill him in on the information they have on his unexpected visitor from the night before. It seems the local police don’t have any information on him, but the law firm has private investigators trying to find out where he is. Just then, Angel walks in the room and makes his way to the head of the table where Russell is sitting. Russell smugly explains to Angel that they do things differently in L.A. and he can do anything he wants. Angel steps up, props his foot on Russell’s chair and asks him if he can fly. Giving his chair a shove, Russell goes flying through the window, bursting into flames as he falls. Angel walks out of the room and Russell’s empty chair hits the ground.

Later, Angel sits on his bed and calls Buffy, but he decides to hang up when he hears her voice. Doyle comes in and they talk for a minute before heading upstairs to the office, where Cordelia is busy organizing things. It seems Doyle filled her in on Angel’s little mission and she’s developed a plan. She’ll organize things and then they’ll start charging a small fee for their services so they can pay for things like rent, an exterminator and of course, her salary. Cordelia says, “That is, if you can use me” and Angel, seeing that she needs this, says they can. A happy Cordelia heads off with a box in her arms, leaving Angel and Doyle to talk. Doyle tells Angel there are a lot of people in this city who need help and asks Angel if he’s game, to which he replies “I’m game.”




DVD Guide

Episode 1
City Of
Original Air Date: October 5, 1999

Features commentary by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt

Chapter 1: New Vampire In Town
Chapter 2: Main Titles
Chapter 3: Bedtime Story
Chapter 4: Visionary
Chapter 5: You Never Know Who You’ll Run Into
Chapter 6: A Safe Place
Chapter 7: Burning Suspicions
Chapter 8: Living & Dying Outside the Box
Chapter 9: Illegally Yours
Chapter 10: Positive Energy
Chapter 11: When You’ve Seen One Vampire…
Chapter 12: Round One
Chapter 13: Freefalling
Chapter 14: Business Plan
Chapter 15: End Credits