Airdate: September 30, 2002

Season Credits: David Boreanaz Angel
Charisma Carpenter Cordelia Chase
J. August Richards Charles Gunn
Amy Acker Winnifred “Fred” Burkle
Vincent Kartheiser Connor
Alexis Denisof Wesley Windam-Pryce

Special Guest Star: Andy Hallett
Guest Starring: John Rubinstein
Laurel Holloman
Stephanie Romanov
Daniel Dae Kim

Written by: Steven S. DeKnight
Directed by: Terrence O’Hara

Teaser

A sumptuous dinner is going on with Connor, Cordy, Lorne, Gunn, Fred and Angel. Angel wants to freeze the moment: Cordy and Connor, all of them, safe and together, considering what they’ve been through this summer. Wesley will drink to that, to family. Glasses cling together. Cordy fills up Angel’s glass, he should toast with an empty glass. She assures him that things are the way they should be and nothing will break them apart, and if anything tries, she’ll kick its ass. Connor pokes fun at them as they’re about to kiss, he doesn’t want to watch them make out. The food gets passed around, all except to Angel, who wants some too. When the plate finally gets to him, it’s empty. He’s a bit anxious, calls out to Cordy and knocks over his glass. She tells him “look what you’ve done silly” the room fills up with water and Angel’s skin is now cracked. Connor, now alone with Angel, tells him to freeze the moment, it’ll last forever.

In his grave at the bottom of the ocean, Angel gets agitated.

ACT I

Fred and Gunn are running to his truck and drive off, scared. A vampire lands on the hood and punches through the windshield. Gunn stops the truck and the vamp rolls off, as more arrive in a mustang. The lead vamp doesn’t take kindly to warm-bloods hassling his gang. Gunn and Fred are just looking for Marissa. He tells them that she’s on an abandoned building on Figueroa and attacks them anyway. Fred’s crossbow shot is deflected by the lead vamp, who jumps on her, she stakes him with the wrist-worn stake. She grabs the crossbow and shoots another vamp to dust and Gunn dusts one. The last one knocks Gunn out and throws his axe at Fred. Connor, out of nowhere, grabs it, and throws it back at the vamp, decapitating him. Connor’s happy with himself.

Back at the hotel, they drill in Connor’s head that he can’t run off when they’re working and being responsible. But it still was cool what he did with the axe; Gunn says that now he gets to clean it. Later in the office, Fred and Gunn don’t want to tell Connor about their latest lead, after three months of chasing dead ends, they’re closing in on an eviction. It would help if they had Lorne around, but he’s too busy playing Mr. Big Shot down in Vegas. Gunn says they need some paying clients, Fred believes they will after they find Marissa. That vamp’s feeding grounds were by the bluffs where Angel’s car was found. Connor, in the doorway, asks about who they’re trying to find.

At the bluffs, Angel is waiting, and turns around to find Cordy next to his car. He didn’t think se was coming. She says he knows her better than that, better than anybody. She moves to him. She finds it so beautiful there; he says it’s the way it should be. But he has a flash of rolling down the cliff; it isn’t the way it happened. More flashes of what happened, Cordy thought that this version was better. He panics, on how Connor was there, she caresses his face and calms him down; she can’t remember what it was like, not knowing him, not being close to him. She’s in love with him; she has been for a long while. She needed him to know that. They kiss. He needed her. But then he vamps out; he’s sorry and feeds on her. Angel wakes up from he latest hallucination.

Connor is upset with Fred and Gunn: they should have told him. Fred says they wanted to be sure, Gunn doesn’t even know if Marissa saw anything, Fred assures him they’re just going to talk to her to find out. Connor want s to come with them, Fred tells him to grab his weapon. After Connor rushes out, Gunn wonders if it’s a good idea: Connor isn’t exactly delicate with vamps. She didn’t want to hurt the boy’s feelings, but his feelings will be hurt anyway if Marissa knows nothing. They have no other leads: Justine’s vanished, and it’s not like they can stroll in Wolfram & Hart and ask what happened. Without Angel, they can’t risk pissing them off. And Gunn rejects out of hand asking Wesley for help, they’ve already asked him twice. He doesn’t care about them anymore. Fred asks him if they’ve given him a reason to, Gunn says he made his choice and now he’s got to live with it.

At Wesley’s apartment, he and Lilah have just finished having very sweaty sex. They keep teasing each other until she gets up to leave to work. She keeps prodding him about the fallout between him and Angel, on how Wes thought he was doing the right thing by stealing baby Connor. It can be confusing, she adds, maybe he ought to ask Angel when he gets back. Wes chuckles and tells her he has no idea where Angel is or what happened to him, nor does he care. Lilah’s impressed my him coldness. He doesn’t even care to know why, that part of his life is dead. She agrees that it doesn’t concern him now, and kisses him goodbye. After she’s gone he gets dressed and opens his closet to reveal a caged, chained and gagged Justine. It’s time for them to go for a boat ride.

ACT III

Wes’s fishing Trawler. Justine’s teasing him: what will they find tonight? She asks if he thinks brining Angel back will change anything, he says everything changes. Better than to sit in her cage all day filling her bucket, Wes says she should have considered that before slitting his throat. She laughs, Wesley, the former beacon of all that’s good and pure, now banging the enemy and keeping a slave girl. He says she was always a slave, she just didn’t see the chains, and wonders if her sister would be proud of her. Wes tells her it was easy to figure out which door to kick down when Angel disappeared. She picks up a wrench and creeps up on him as he says it was easy to get her to give up what Holtz held dear. As she’s ready to strike him he threatens to take away her bucket. She stops and throws the wrench away.

Marissa’s place. Connor kicks the door down, flanked by Gunn and Fred. The apartment is empty but Connor finds her Discman still running under her bead. She jumps on Fred and Gunn; Connor fights her and brings his sword to her throat. Fred tells her they just want to talk, she say she doesn’t know anything. They know her feeding grounds used to be in the bluffs, they want to know about Angel. She gives a good description of him, but adds that she sees a lot of things, what does Connor care. He says it’s his father and backs off. She knocks them out and dives out the window, Connor follows. Gunn’s pissed off at Connor’s mistake. Meanwhile, Marissa runs down an alley, scales a building, and Connor’s waiting for her on the rooftop. He’s only got one question for her: what did she see? She says that whatever she saw or not, it doesn’t matter. She un-vamps to reveal a pleasant looking face; she says it would be their little secret. He stakes her and tears his shirt and skin to make it look like she slashed him. When Gunn and Fred arrive he says he had no choice. Gunn snaps: maybe he would have if he hadn’t run off playing hero. Connor stalks off. Their only lead is gone.

Angel meets Connor on another rooftop, a beautiful night as it should be. Connor wants this over with, Angel asks him what’s the rush, he isn’t going anywhere, a vamp behind them agrees. There are several of vamps behind them now, Connor and Angel fight them. Connor actually saves Angel’s life and after all the vamps are taking care of, Angel breaks Connor’s neck. Angel screams in his grave.

Vegas. Lorne gets a call from Fred, the manager’s only given him two minutes to talk. She needs his help, they had a lead but it died. Lorne says he hasn’t heard a peep from his connection, but he’ll signal them if he hears anything. His next show is about to start and tells Fred to “Make sure Fluffy’s getting enough love” which thoroughly confuses here Fred still thinks it’s going to be all right, they’ll find Angel and Cordy, no matter what.

Wolfram & Hart. Linwood, head honcho of the L.A. Firm, is pleased with Gavin and his psychics who have been able to determine that Angel is safely away and out of play, which suits their purposes just fine. Lilah says they shouldn’t be, they’ll be caught with their pants down with the firm’s upcoming apocalypse. Linwood tells her that Gavin’s work has uncovered information in a variety of unexpected areas. She says that what she does on her own time is none of Gavin’s business; but everything is Linwood’s business. She’s not sleeping with Wesley for information and he knows nothing, there’s nothing to take advantage of. Except her. Linwood calls a staff meeting in a hour, she can’t be late to it.

Wes gets a sonar contact, a metallic object. It’s time for Justine to take a swim. She goes down in scuba gear, and finds the coffin. It’s raised out and dropped on the boat. He breaks it open and he and Justine remove the cover. Wes breaks the restraints, Angel’s arm shoots up and grabs Wes by the throat.

ACT III

Wes gently removes himself from Angel’s grip, Angel closes his eyes. Angel’s moved to a table, and Wes gets out jars of pig blood. He explains to her that while vampires can exist indefinitely without feeding, the damage to higher brain functions can be catastrophic. He has Angel drink some of the blood. She wonders why he’s doing this: he isn’t going to get a happy ending, they all hate him and will never take him back.

Connor comes back to the hotel, Fred and Gunn are waiting, wanting to talk to him. They just want to know where he was, they were worried. Connor’s sorry, he shouldn’t run off alone. Gunn jokes around that he’s got a thick head just like his dad, flying off and getting himself into trouble. Connor says he’s nothing like his father and doesn’t care what Gunn thinks. That sets Gunn off again, but Fred intervenes, Connor goes to his room. Gunn tells her that he tried to be nice, but Connor’s pushing. Fred thinks that with Angel gone, Gunn’s the “Alpha Male” the phone rings as they kiss.

Angel, on the boat, hallucinates about Lorne. He ask him why it’s like this, Lorne tells him it’s the age-old question Angel, weak, says that life should be beautiful and bright, but no matter how hard he tries, everything he touches turns to ashes. Lorne tells him to snap to; the only thing turning to ash is his son, he’d take him out himself if he wasn’t a hallucination. Wes comes down, Justine complains that Angel won’t shut up. Wes tries to calm him down, Lorne sings softly and Angel can only see Connor where Wes is standing, telling him “I should have killed you”. Justine laughs, Wes says he’s been down there too long, he need more substantive blood. He gets out a knife and cuts his arm, telling her that her blood is too thin. Angel feeds on Wes.

Lilah waits in the boardroom as Linwood, Gavin, and other lawyers come in. First order of business is Lilah. Everyone’s reviewed her file, Linwood telling her that her failures far outweigh her successes. She’d fare better in a less central office in a third world dimension. She says she’s sorry, she’s made mistakes, but fear wasn’t one of them. She asks bluntly why they haven’t contained Connor, a vampire offspring, for study. Linwood says they’re assessing the situation, she says it’s just like their assessing Angel’s whereabouts. But this is his corner of the sky, what he says goes, and a lack of long-term vision has been one of her flaws. She says lack of courage has been one of his, he’s afraid of Angel and Connor, it’s the reason behind Linwood’s “wait-and-see” strategy. He feigns being hurt, but both her and Mr Zuvartho agree on this. Now he’s pissed that she went over her head and talked with a Senior Partner. She presses her stylus on the touch screen of her pad, a blade comes out of Linwood’s chair and chops his head off, it rolls on the table. Mr Zuvartho wasn’t pleased with Linwood’s performance, they all report to her now. She tells them to leave, except Gavin, who has to pick up the severed head.

Fred brings a snack in Connor’s room, his favourite sandwich. He asks if Gunn is still mad, and he is, Connor’s sorry. She can’t imagine what he’s been through in Quor’Toht, it’s horrible and she knows he’s still hurting. But it’s not nearly as much as he’s going to hurt for what he did to his father. She fries him with a tazer.

ACT IV

Connor’s tied up to a chair in the office. Connor asks why they’re doing this, but Gunn and Fred aren’t falling for it, they got a call from Wes about Angel, and he’s on his way back. Fred’s disgusted: Angel’s been down there fro three moths, and he knew it. Gunn wonders if he did the same to Cordy. Fred says they took him in, how could he do that? She zaps him again, Gunn pulls her back. Fred cries on Gunn

Wes sets Angel in his SUV while Justine’s tied to a post. She says he’ll turn on all of them. Wes throws her the keys: she can continue to be a slave or she can live her life, it’s her choice. He drives off.

Fred says she would have done anything for Connor, now she just wants to hurt him Connor teases her “hurt me some more Fred.” She asks how he could do that to his father, he says he’s not his father and got what he deserved. But how soon before they deserved it? Wes comes in, bringing a weakened Angel, but he’ll be okay in time. Wes get ready to leave, Gunn ask him why it took him so long to tell them about Connor; Wes didn’t think he’d hurt them and they were safer not knowing. Fred says he really doesn’t care anymore. Wes tells them that Angel will need more blood, and leaves. They hear movement from the inner office and rush in, Connor is up and defeats them both, but Angel’s blocking his exit. He tells Connor to sit down. Connor backs away, he thinks Angel’s too weak to take him on, but sits down anyway. Angel takes as eat, and asks about his summer, talking about his: fish watching, starvation, hallucinations. Connor says he deserved worse, Angel replies that he didn’t and tells him the whole truth about how Holtz and Justine kill him with an ice pick to make it look like a vamp bite. Connor says he still deserved it, Angel says that’s up for debate but there’s a difference between wishing vengeance on someone and enacting it. He tries to run, Angel shoves him to the ground, he’s not done yet. What he deserves rests on one question: did he do something to Cordy? He swears he didn’t and Angel believes him. Angel has Connor get up. What his son has done to him is unbelievable, but then, eh got stuck in a hell dimension for hundreds of years by his girlfriend so a few months in the ocean has given him a new perspective, a M.C. Escher perspective. He got time to think about the world “Nothing in the world is as it ought to be. It’s harsh and it’s cruel, but that’s why there’s us. Champions. Doesn’t matter where they come from or what they’ve done, or suffered, or even if you make a difference. You live as though the world should be, to show it what it can be.” And Connor’s not a part of that yet, but hopes that he will. Angel finishes that he loves his son and tells him to get out of his house. After Connor’s gone, Angel collapses, the speech having drained him. He needs Cordy, now.

In the higher planes, we find Cordy, naked, enveloped by tendrils of light “I am so bored.”


Summary by Dannyboy