Airdate: January 25, 2000.

Guest Starring:
Daphnee Duplaix
Ken Marino
Josh Randall

Written by: Howard Gordon
Directed by: David Seimel


Teaser

The Angel Investigations office: A glamorous Cordelia is looking at her reflection in a window, applying lipstick when Angel strolls by, scaring her. Would it kill him to be less skulking? Angel is trying to sort through Cordy’s odd filing system when Wesley pops by with his new Bavarian fighting adze. But A.I. seems to be evil-free; Wes brought Word Puzzle 3-D, just in case. Cordy’s not impressed and when her friends show up, he’s sick with envy. Serena introduces herself and Wes accidentally lodges his axe in the wall. Cordy has a date with Wilson Christopher, the fashion photographer. Angel’s curious why he hasn’t met him, Cordy says she’s embarrassed that he’d give Wilson the Third Degree, though that wouldn’t bother one of the girls. Cordy drops and has a vision, Wes and Angel cover it up and try awkwardly to make conversation. Cordy sees something hatching out of an egg, and gives Angel the location of this hatching baby and leaves with her friends to the club. Wes asks if he can help, Angel gives him the address, time to take that axe out for a spin.

23 Cabrillo: Wes kicks down the door and bursts in. Angel is blocked, he’s not invited in. Wes screams at the old couple to know where the demon egg is when Angel sees it next door. They ramble about being exterminators before going after it, Wes apologizes for the door.

ACT I

Angel and Wes are battling the baby creature, affecting much damage on the property before killing it. They come out covered in its blood and brains, lucky that it had just hatched, even if they were sent to the wrong address. Wes has noticed that Cordelia hasn’t been paying much attention to her duties lately, Angel says that she’s had a lot to deal with Doyle’s death and inheriting his visions, she’s young. Wesley points out that they don’t have such luxuries in their line of work. At least her friends liked Wesley, despite the axe thing and thinking that he and Angel were gay.

At the club, Serena and Cordy are enjoying themselves with their beaus, Cordy talking to Wilson on how she ended up in L.A. They’re flirting, getting along, and being with him is the fist time that she likes L.A.; she knew her place in high school, but not here. Wilson says that’s the point of L.A., to make them feel as insecure as possible. Cordy doesn’t believe that’s the case for Wilson, after all he’s living his dream, where the insecurity? He says he’s the guy behind the camera, not living the life he’s portraying and he tells her that she’s living life; Cordy’s surprised and happy. Wilson later drives her home; she thanks him for listening to her prattle on, he says he enjoyed himself and that she didn’t prattle on. They kiss and she tells him he doesn’t have to leave right away. He looks at the apartment as phantom Dennis turns the lights on, she tells Wilson she’s the only one who’s alive that’s living there. She’s a bit rusty in the dating game, he suggests some music, which Dennis promptly messes around with. Wilson takes it in stride as she goes to the kitchen and pleads with Dennis to knock it off: it’s the one guy she’s really liked in a long time. She threatens him when Wilson comes in; she says she’s talking to her ghost, the thing she complains to when things break down. He kisses her and they move to the bedroom. Come morning and she’s sleeping alone and late. She struggles up only to look at her very pregnant self.

ACT II

Angel and Wes arrive by midday to Cordy’s apartment, concerned about her; Cordy hasn’t returned Angel’s calls. Angel forces his way in and they look around, finally entering her room. Cordy is still in bed and very much pregnant. She’s cried and she’s ready to wake up from this nightmare. She recounts what happened with Wilson, saying that it was normal and safe. But she hasn’t talked to him since, besides what would she say? Angel has her dial his number and he’ll talk to him, but the number’s been disconnected, he doesn’t tell her that. Both Wes and Angel assure her they’ll get to the bottom of this. She asks to be left alone for a moment, they leave. Dennis comforts her in the meantime. Angel hits a dead end for Wilson: no forwarding address, no unlisted number and no criminal record. Angel guesses Wilson infected Cordy with a parasite offspring and they both know that the human mother rarely survives labour and that those that do wish they hadn’t. Angel will go look for the father while Wes and Cordy go for a prenatal exam.

Angel goes to the club and gets info from the bartender that Serena rules the girls, while the guys have the money and they all travel in packs, deciding what club is the flavour of the month. The bartender asks if he’s Cordy’s boyfriend; Angel’s replies he’s family.
At the clinic, Wes and Cordy get seen on an urgent basis, the doctor guesses that she’s 8_ months pregnant. The doctor would need more info from their previous one, Wes covers by saying that he’s the only doctor they’ve seen since moving from England. Cordy says it’s just a nightmare, Wes assures the doctor that it’s hormones. The doctor does the ultrasound and sees 6 heartbeats. Now the doctor’s really concerned and decides to remove some amniotic fluid, to make sure everything is shipshape.

Angel knocks on Serena’s door and she invites him in. The apartment I darkened except for the lit candles: The light hurts her eyes. She’s drinking, a lot, in hopes of hurting the baby. She’s as pregnant as Cordy.

Meanwhile, they’re removing the fluid in a syringe and as soon as it’s out, it cracks the glass. The nurse drops it, and the syringe shatters. The fluid eats through the floor and both the doctor and the nurse flee. Cordy asks Wes in genuine concern, if the babies look healthy.

ACT III

Serena can’t believe it’s real, Angel confirms that it’s happening to Cordelia too. She can’t reach Jason, but she knew something might happen when the boys wanted to meet Cordelia, but nothing like this. She says their money smelled and sometimes the guys were jumpy, but in L.A. everything’s fake, things are weird and she stopped asking questions. She doesn’t have anyone to call and the guys asked the same about Cordy. Both Serena and Cordelia have contractions at the same time.

Wes has brought Cordy back to Angel’s pad, She knows everything will be fine; he gets her comfortable. She sees that he’s afraid of what’s inside of her, that if she finds out she’ll do something bad, he says he hasn’t formulated a theory, he needs to analyse and compare what data he’s got. She knows that there are seven of “his” children growing inside of her, talking to her all at once, she can’t understand. She tells Wes that he can’t understand what it’s like to be a partner in creation, and she says with some dread that they’re not human, but she hopes they’ll be okay. After all, Angel’s not human and Doyle wasn’t either, not entirely, and he was good. She calms down and Angel, behind Wes, takes him aside. He tells Wes about Serena and with multiple pregnancies, someone’s raising an army. Angel looks at gun club listing, Serena told him that they hang out at a gun and cigars club. If they can narrow down the species they can terminate the pregnancy without hurting Cordy, or know what to do once the demons are born. Wes begins to remind him the odds of survival when they see Cordy, drinking blood (rather greedily) from Angel’s fridge, to the disgust of both men. She was hungry.

Wilson’s at the gun club, practicing on the range, when Angel sneaks up on him. Wilson says he knows all about him, Angel doubts Cordy told him everything about him and grabs Wilson, then tosses him aside. Wilson’s human, which means he can’t be the father, he’s just a surrogate. Wilson’s not telling him anything, Angel punches him a few times when the other surrogates show up.

Wes compares the ultrasound to an old engraving, they match and they’re not pretty. Cordy’s sneaked up on him, and looks at the engraving. Wes tells her that now that they’ve identified the species, there’s every change they can stop the pregnancy. Cordy knocks him out with the book, no one is going to harm her babies.

ACT IV

Angel gets the big picture: they’re proxies for the demon, who implants them with its life-force and they get fame, money and success in return. How else would losers like them get ahead? Wilson tells him that there are worse things to be in business with, and won’t tell Angel where they worship this demon. One of them throws Wilson a gun and he shoots Angel several times. He reels back and vamps out: he really hates it when he gets shout. He fights off all of them with relative ease and throws Wilson through a window. Now he’ll talk, considering that Angel’s got his boot on his face.

Cordy, Serena and other very pregnant women have assembled at an abandoned factory/warehouse all waiting expectantly.

Angel, while removing bullets from his chest, calls Wes. Wes is awakened by that call and tells Angel that it’s a Haxil-beast demon, an inner earth creature, which has impregnated Cordy. He continues, saying that Cordy ran off, probably to meet with the Haxil. Angel gives him the address of the shrine and tells him that they’re all connected telepathically through the unborn children, that’s how Cordelia’s controlled. If they slay the demon, then the telepathic link is severed and the pregnancy terminated. But neither fire nor decapitation will kill it, and it’s huge. Angel has an idea.

The women have now dressed themselves in white robes and step into a pool. Wes goes to them orders them all out of the foul-smelling pool, but they don’t expect him to understand. He understands that they’ll die unless they come with him, they say they serve their master. They ground shakes as the big Haxil (2-3 stories high) comes through a hole in the wall. The Haxil asks him who he is to think he could disturb the birth of his children? Wes responds promptly: “Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, Rogue Demon Hunter, and I’m here to fight you sir, to the death.” He assumes a fighting stance. The big drooling horned beast snarls. Wes tells him that David and Goliath has much relevance at the moment, the Haxil wants to get the fight over with. Wes stalls, he wants to know his opponent, does he have any hobbies? The Haxil has had enough when Angel comes in kicking a large canister: he brought a gift for the baby shower. He takes it, spins it and throws the tank of liquid nitrogen to the Haxil. The demon catches it, and Wes digs out a pistol and shots the tank. It burst open, venting on the beast causing it tremendous pain. The women’s bellies deflates, quite painfully. The demon is frozen and all of the girls step out of the pool. Cordy throws a pulley/Chain rig at the Haxil, the beast breaks apart. She really hates dating.

Wes and Angel are making the office environment nice for Cordy as she comes in and they compliment her, even pamper her. She teases them about a new date with a guy that will give her movie part if she brings forth his demon spawn. Se tells them she’s fine, she’s stronger that those loser-surrogates thought. And she learned that she has two people she trusts absolutely with her life. Wesley sniffs, allergies he says.


Summary by Dannyboy