Starring: David Boreanaz as Angel, Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia, Amy Acker as Fred, Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, J. August Richards as Gunn

Guest starring: Andy Hallet as Lorne, Mark Lutz as Groo (“Groosalugg”), Vincent Kartheiser as Connor (Steven), Stephanie Romanov as Lilah, Erika Thormahlen as Sunny, Anthony Starke as Tyke, Deborah Zoe as Mistress Myrna, Keith Szarabajka as Holtz

Original air date: May 6, 2002

Written by: Jeffrey Bell
Directed by: Tim Minear

The teenage boy who emerged from the portal points a wrist-based stake launcher at Angel and fires. As Angel yells at everyone to wait, Gunn runs towards the weapons cabinet and Groo hurls his axe at the boy. Angel takes one stake in his shoulder, the second in his hand. The boy quickly deflects Groo’s axe. As Angel and the boy both recover, the boy points the stake launcher at Angel again and says, “Interesting.” Angel realizes that the boy standing in front of him is Connor then Connor quickly fires three more stakes at Angel’s chest. Angel avoids all the stakes and, as he stands up in front of Connor, Cordy throws a sword to Angel. The launcher is now empty so Connor disposes of it and attacks Angel with a wicked, curved blade attached to his left arm.

Angel’s trying to avoid hitting Connor without being disemboweled. Connor make a quick move and takes out both Groo and Gunn who were behind him. Angel and Connor exchange quite a few blows. Groo and Gunn recover and, with Angel, surround Connor. Connor manages to take on all three men at the same time and does well. Connor can really fight! Eventually, while Connor is busy trying to pummel Gunn, Angel hits Connor on his back. Connor goes down and Angel gives him a few quick punches. Connor tries to take the offensive by using his glade against Angel, but Angel turns the blade on Connor and holds the tip at Connor’s throat. Angel’s really mad, but comes to his senses. He backs off, throws Connor’s blade away, and offers his hand to Connor to help him up. Connor looks shocked and more than a little scared. He gets up and runs out of the hotel. Angel follows him into the sunlight with Groo and Gunn close behind. Gunn convinces Angel to go back into the shade and Groo and Gunn follow Connor.

As Connor is standing in the middle of a busy street cars are passing by in both directions. Connor can’t move and Gunn and Groo can’t get to him. A bus passes Connor and he chases it, grabs on, and manages to get to the top of the bus. In the hotel lobby everyone launches into action. Fred checks out the number of the bus online to find out where it’s headed. Cordy tells Angel that the fight he just had was the fight she saw in her vision the day before. She didn’t know about Connor because she only saw Angel in her vision. Gunn’s not sure that the teenager they saw was Connor - a few days ago Connor was wearing diapers. Angel, on the other hand, is sure - that was Connor. Lorne’s more worried about why Connor came back, perhaps to kill Angel. Fred finally finds out where the bus is headed and Angel takes off via the sewers. He tells the rest of the AI team to follow on the streets.

After Angel leaves the portal that Connor came through starts sparking and crackling. It looks like the portal to Qortoth is still open and there’s the possibility that something might come through. Groo suggests that Cordy’s new powers can shut the portal. She “commands” the portal to close, but no dice. It’s still crackling and sparking. Fred barely starts to suggest that they contact Wesley but Gunn stops her. He tells the crew that he contacted Wes for help curing Fred of her über-shrimp infection (see AtS 3.19, “The Price”) and that Wes made it absolutely clear that no one from AI should contact him in the future. Lorne thinks he might know someone who knows someone, but it’ll take some time to track down. So Lorne goes to look for his source, Gunn and Fred track Connor on the surface streets, and Cordy and Groo stay behind to guard the portal.

Speaking of Wes, Lilah is knocking on his door. After some chit chat, Lilah gets to the point. She wants to hire Wes to work at Wolfram & Hart. Wes tells her “no,” but Lilah stays around long enough to give Wes a get well gift - a copy of Dante’s “Inferno” in the original Tuscan. Lilah makes a point of bringing up Dante’s description of the ninth level of hell. There the Devil has three heads, three mouths, and the middle mouth is busy munching on the greatest sinner ever - Judas Iscariot, the betrayer. Right before she leaves, Lilah tells Wes, “don’t pretend you’re too good to work for us.”

As Connor is riding the bus his senses are assaulted by the noise and chaos that is LA. He jumps off the bus and starts running through the streets. Gunn and Fred have been tracking Connor’s movement and keep Angel informed. Angel wants Gunn and Fred to keep tracking Connor until/if the trail goes cold, then contact him.

Connor sees a teenage girl (Sunny) trying to sell some CDs to a pusher (Tyke) for some drugs. When Sunny hits Tyke he goes nuts and roughly shoves her in the back seat of a broken down car. Connor watches until Tyke sees him. Tyke calls out his muscle who knock Connor unconscious. Connor doesn’t stay down long, though. He single-handedly takes out the two of the three guys that are Tyke’s muscle. When Tyke pulls a gun Sunny knocks him off balance so Connor isn’t hit (but one of Tyke’s muscle men is). Then Connor takes out Tyke. Before Connor can slit Tyke’s throat, Sunny grabs Connor and Tyke’s coat (with money and drugs) and the two of them take off. Connor stops after a few steps, goes back to Tyke and slices off one of Tyke’s ears so that Tyke doesn’t forget him.

Meanwhile Cordy and Groo are guarding the portal back at the hotel. Somehow their topic of conversation turns to Angel. Groo is visibly concerned that Cordy is always talking about Angel but Cordy tries to soothe some ruffled feathers by telling Groo that she’s talking about Angel because he’s had a hard couple of weeks. She tries to reassure Groo that he is a very important part of her life. As Cordy and Groo kiss there is a massive surge of lightning from the portal that hits both of them and knocks them on their butts.

The police, Gunn, Fred, and Angel are at the site where Connor took on Tyke. Gunn and Fred start to piece together what happened. It’s close to dark so Angel goes off to find Connor by himself and sends Gunn and Fred back to the hotel. In the meantime Connor and Sunny crash in an abandoned motel. Sunny used some of Tyke’s money to buy food, which she shares with Connor, and some drugs, which she tells Connor is ‘medicine’ and keeps for herself. She also gives Connor some clothes that were left behind by other squatters. At the hotel Gunn and Fred return and find Groo and Cordy still unconscious on the lobby floor.

After Sunny and Connor finish their meal of ice cream bars, chips, and applesauce, Sunny asks Connor why he came to L.A. Connor replied that he wanted to find his father. Sunny thinks this is a little funny as most people go to L.A. to escape their parents. Sunny makes a comment that people should have to take a test and, if they don’t pass or are evil, they should be sterilized. Connor responds that, if someone is evil, they should be killed. Sunny must like something about Connor because she kisses him and he responds - enthusiastically. Before anything serious can happen, Sunny leaves the room.

Across town Wes is working on his computer but stops long enough to pick up the copy of “The Inferno” which Lilah gave him. He looks at the drawing of the Devil chewing up Judas Iscariot then snaps the book shut. Back at the abandoned motel a fire engine horn wakes Connor up. He can’t find Sunny so he looks in the room for her. Connor finds Sunny in the bathroom with a syringe still in her arm. She’s dead from an overdose. Angel shows up, sees Sunny, and becomes frantic. He’s worried that she shared some of her drugs with Connor. Angel tells Connor that the two of them can take care of this (a dead girl in a bathroom). Angel wants to talk but Connor is ignoring him and smelling the leather jacket Sunny took from Tyke. Angel figures out that Connor is trying to pick up Tyke’s scent so that Connor can track down and kill Tyke. Angel tries to reason with Connor but Connor just responds with violence. Connor and Angel trade blows until Angel finally gets Connor to agree to talk. It’s a bluff so when Connor bolts for the door Angel has to knock him down again. Eventually Connor yells at Angel to stop “calling me that. My name is Steven.” Angel is more than a little hurt by that.

At the Hyperion Cordy, Gunn, Fred, and Groo are trying to figure out what happened and what they should do next. No one’s sure that something else came through the portal but Fred discovers that the demon Connor killed usually travels in pairs. Yikes. That means another demon could be loose in the hotel. Cordy wants to know where Lorne is with his expert and Fred mentions there is another expert they could contact (meaning Wes). Cordy doesn’t think Angel would like the idea of contacting Wes. Very sarcastically Groo says that they must always consider Angel’s feelings because he is their leader. Lorne finally shows up with Mistress Myrna, a woman who specializes in dimensional magic. Mistress Myrna has the unfortunate tendency to disappear then reappear instantly in another location. She’s been keeping Lorne busy trying to keep track of her.

At the abandoned motel Angel is talking with Steven and trying to reason with him and stop him from bolting out the door. Angel wants to find out all about Steven’s life in Qortoth and apologizes for not trying harder to get to Qortoth. Angel asks Steven if he has any questions about Angel, but Steven doesn’t. Steven tells Angel that his father told him everything about Angel: that Angel is a vampire and Steven knows how to kill vampires, that Angel has a second face he uses when he kills. Steven demands that Angel show him the face that he used when he killed his father’s (Holtz’s) other family, so Angel shows him. Angel tells Steven that he hopes that Steven can come to accept the vampire part of Angel, but Steven says Angel would have to kill him first. At that moment Tyke shows up with two goons looking to go all retributiony on Connor/Steven’s head. Angel tries to reason with Tyke but Tyke just hits Angel. All of a sudden a third goon comes in and tells Tyke that the police are there.

Back at the hotel Mistress Myrna tells everyone that she can close the opening, but it’s not a portal, it’s a rip in reality which is “a big cosmic no-no.” Mistress Myrna tells everyone that something punched it’s way through to this reality from Qortoth. Mistress Myrna dons some protective gear so she doesn’t get schmutz in her eyes and works her mojo. The rip in reality is now fixed and Mistress Myrna bails cause she doesn’t want to know if something else came through from Qortoth.

Meanwhile, the police are crawling all over the abandoned motel looking for Tyke and his minions. Angel and Steven fight with Tyke and his goons to get out of the motel but Tyke manages to grab Steven and put a gun to his head. Angel offers to be Tyke’s shield but, before Tyke can make a decision, the police open fire. Angel drops down to the floor and hauls Steven down beside him. Tyke has a pretty poor gunfight with the cops. There’s one of him (with a six-shot revolver) and a lot of them with very big guns. Angel points Steven to a window so that Steven can get away. A police officer busts down the door and points a shotgun at Steven. Angel steps in front of the gun and gets a load of buckshot in his back but, despite the pain, manages to get Steven and himself out the window. Angel and Steven run down the street to avoid the police. They take a breather so that Angel can recover. Angel tells Steven that he can come back to the Hyperion, if he’d like. Steven simply tells Angel that he has to go and he runs off down the street. Steven runs down an alley and pauses. Holtz steps out of the shadows.