Airdate: January 22nd, 2003

Special Guest Star: Andy Hallett

Guest Starring: Alexa Davalos
Jack Kehler
Michael Chinyamurindi
Vladimir Kulich


Written by: Mere Smith
Directed by: Terence O’Hara


Teaser

Angel is drawing a very good rendering of the Beast when Lorne comes in apartment, bringing food. Angel’s not in a mood to talk. Lorne sees that Angel’s in hyper-brood, he says he’s researching. Lorne points that all of the others, including Wes, are doing the same downstairs. Lorne tells him that he’s a champion, he’s in the big leagues, he doesn’t get personal days. Angel’s got nothing on the Beast, it nearly decapitated him, killed hundreds and keeps showing up around Connor. When Lorne says something about Connor and Cordy, Angel tells him to shut it, but Lorne already knows about it, he has a vibe. Angel tells him to leave, Lorne does so but reminds him that while he may not find perfect happiness with Cordy, there are other fish in the seas.

In an oil field, Gwen Rayden meets with one of her employers, Mr. Oshet. She can’t offer him good news. He agrees that the amulets he require are very rare, but they are powerful and protective With all that’s been going on she can understand and as he goes into the problem he removes his sunglasses revealing the very white eyes and tiny pupils. She tells him she’s going on vacation and while she may not know what’s going on she know enough to be far away. The Beast tears through Mr. Oshet’s stomach and throws Gwen aside. A while light escapes Mr. Oshet and the Beast collects a box from inside the man, and notices Gwen. She takes off her glove, ready to fight, but the Beast has vanished.

ACT I

Cordelia wakes up on Connor’s floor, he’s over at the window, watching the world. All night long they heard sirens and screams, happening more often. Things are falling apart. Connor wants to go to the hotel, see if there’s new intel, Cordy says it’s safer to stay where they are, they’ll call if they have anything. Had she known he’d stay up all night she would have taken the bed. He wouldn’t have wanted to sleep there without her. Cordy’s not up for another round of that again and goes for a shower, Connor rushes and gives her a towel. They’ve been cooped in his place for two days because she hasn’t taken him to the hotel,. He thinks they don’t want him there, they think he’s connected to the Beast, Angel in particular. She tells him Angel knows they slept together and he’s extremely upset with both of them, they hurt him. She suddenly has a vision of the Beast, and only tells Connor she has to see Angel. He asks her if she’s isn’t afraid that he’ll run off and join the Beast, she says, quite irritably, that she trusts him.

Meanwhile Gunn plainly says he doesn’t trust Connor, even if eh hasn’t’ done anything wrong as of late. He mulls over what the little ancient girl demon said: “The answer is among you.” Who else could she be talking about? Fred dismisses it as a delaying tactic from the ancient girl to save herself. But Connor was born where the Beast burst out of. Wes’ sources tell him that without the girl the L.A. contingent of Wolfram & Hart is cut off from the Senior Partners. He found an entry in Reinhart’s companion for the little girl. Her name is Mezekteth, she’s one of five ancient powerful beings linked to the god Ra. Totems that form the Ra-Teth order, meaning W&H was only her day job. Their origin are shrouded in mystery since the dawn of time, only the totems themselves know their true purpose. Gunn still says that they’re looking in the wrong direction, if the answer is among them. Lorne comes in with the news that the Beast has killed another powerful being, a white magic shaman, and removed her heart. Her name was Ma’at, and it’s another member of the Ra-Teth. And while the Beast has killed hundreds, it’s not a pattern, yet. Cordy comes in, looking very agitated, she came to see Angel.

Angel, still brooding, is in his apartment when Cordelia knocks. He doesn’t want to see her. she comes in anyway. Angel still ignores her. She says he hasn’t asked about Connor, he says he doesn’t need a progress report. She tells him Connor’s scared that Angel thinks he’s connected to the Beast, Angel points to the fact that it does tend to show up when he’s around. She’s angry, they’re both acting like teenage snits. He’s angrier and tells her to stop pretending she cares about his feelings. But she does care, that’s why she’s here, she tells him to get over it. He cuts her off, “get over it”? He’s sarcastic, it’s so simple! She’s sorry she hurt him, but there are bigger things at stake, it’s not fair but people, his son included, need him. He asks about her vision. She had one different than any other, she was inside someone, listening to the Beast. But she couldn’t tell when, where or who. She felt she was only scratching the surface, she didn’t even hear what the Beast said. Angel says it’s not much to go on, but Cordy insists that it’s at least something, it means the line to the Powers That Be is still open. Angel doesn’t believe someone’s watching, but she tells him she watched him when she was a higher being. But she’s back now and he’s going to have to suck it up because things are going to hell and he needs to lead.

Angel rallies his troops in a bit of a half-hearted speech that boils down to that it’s time to bring down the Beast. Fred says they’re behind him, but how can they prepare if they have nothing on the Beast? Gunn says that they can’t do much until they find its Achilles Heel. Angel looks at the entrance and Electro-Gwen’s there, still in her formfitting clothes. Cordy curiously looks at Angel, Gwen looks at Gunn: she remembers him. Fred becomes protective of him, Gwen she does try to avoid direct contact. Cordy already knows who Gwen is, caught that show too in the higher plane. Gwen looks at them and jokes that he must be so happy that Cordelia’s back, he says he is but he’s not having the best week. She asks him, freak to freak, if the world is going to end. She recounts on how she met a client the night before, who never wanted to meet her prior to this, while Cordy says that they’re dealing with much bigger things: apocalypse, end of the world. Gwen drops that her client got his chest punched out by a demon made of rock. Wes asks if the Best removed anything from her client, she says she didn’t see. But since Angel is the weirdest person she knows, she figured she’d ask him what the score was. She confirms to Fred that light came out of her client, which means it’s another of the Ra-Teth. Wes explains to Gwen that the Ra-Teth are a mystical order, each totem representing a stage of Ra as he travel across the sky. Of the two totems left, Semket, the skinless sabre-tooth lion, lives in a cave in Death Valley, while Manjet was last rumoured to be in Belize two years ago. Angel takes Gwen and Cordy starts to object but he says they can handle it.

Death Valley: Angel and Gwen slide down inside the cave, rather noisily. They arrive inside a chamber filled with Candle and with Semket ripped apart. It’s the Beast’s handy work, but he doesn’t why. A short stocky guy wearing a Hawaiian shirt and hat does. The Beast is planning to turn out the sun.

ACT II

The man in question is Manjet, Sacred Guardian of the Shen, Keeper of the Orb of Ma’at, devotee of light, and off hours goes by Manny. He was in Belize until he heard of Mezekteth’s death. He didn’t like her but she was still family. Angel asks if he was speaking metaphorically when he said that the Beast was planning to turn out the sun. But Manny was literal, the Beast is planning to blot out the sun, permanently. Manny alludes to some chanting involved, rituals, props. And the Ra-Teth were powerful but now that he’s the only totem still standing, he’s not banking on retiring quietly. Gwen asks what happens next, Manny tells her that the city sinks into never ending darkness; L.A. turns into a demon playground. After that it’ll spread to the rest of the globe. Angel is determined to stop that, but Manny leaves, there are better places for him to spend his last remaining hours before the Beast catches up to him. Angel says they can protect him, Manny doesn’t buy it, but there’s no one else lined up for the job. Manny wonders if Gwen would give him a lap dance.

The crew hasn’t found any way to kill the Beast and Angel introduces them to Manny, the last totem of the Ra-Teth. Wes seriously doubts that it’s a supreme power while Lorne asks what happened to the other one. Manny answers that Semket is dead and Gwen adds that “someone already took out the toy surprise.” Lorne tells them about the Beast’s plan to blot out the sun and goes to the bathroom. Angel elaborates that there’s a ritual to turn day into night forever, using members of the Ra-Teth. Angel’s plan is to keep Manny safe and daylight on long enough for them to find a way to defeat the Beast. Angel suggests keeping Manny at the hotel, but Wes rejects that as he’s sure the Beast already knows their location. Gwen has a place. Cordy says as long as it’s not a nondescript tenement downtown with peeling plaster and discarded boxes.

And it’s precisely that and Cordelia complains about it loudly. Angel tells her she didn’t have to come, She says she should be with Angel in case another vision comes. Gunn’s glad to be away from the books, Manny tells him never to trust the books or the bookies. The Beast is too powerful, that’s why he’s not in any of the books. Manny’s tired of climbing stairs and explains that the midday totem is man, the neutral totem, the potential of every human soul. But he’s a bit more than meets the eye, he’s immortal, unless he’s ritually murdered. Gwen opens the door with her electro-hand to a luxurious apartment. She opens up a secret panel to the panic room, with 12 inches of steel and separate ventilation system. They split in shifts of four hours, Gwen and Gunn take first shift. Almost four hours later Gwen’s finished telling her origin story to Gunn and apologizes, again, for killing him. She can see he’s been thinking about Fred and Wes, she’s seen how Wes looks at her. She wonders what happened between Fred and Gunn since last she saw him. Angel and Cordy arrive for the shift change with their respective drinks in hand. After Gunn and Gwen have gone to rest Cordy says she and Angel should talk, he says they shouldn’t. They sit in silence and suddenly Angel is jolted out of slumber by Gwen, Cordy’s out too. They open the panic room and there’s blood everywhere, they failed.

ACT III

Angel says that it was the Beast, it came looking for something and emptied out Manny’s head to find it. Gwen remembers that Manny was an orb keeper; maybe it was in his head. Angel says Gwen’s right and that she said earlier “someone took out the toy surprise.” She reveals that she saw the Beast take something out of her client’s chest; she didn’t reveal it because she was scared and she thought it might be of value. She is after all, still a thief. And while it’s possible the Beast could have taken something out of Semket earlier it’s impossible that it could have come in there, spiked the drinks they made themselves and scurried about on the tippy-toes of its cloven feet. Unless Connor did it, but Cordy didn’t tell him where she was and Angel isn’t picking up his scent. Gwen goes to check the security tapes while Gunn calls the hotel and updates them, but not about Connor. The tapes are blank for the period of the murder. Cordy says to Angel that he should talk to Connor and stop pushing her buttons. Gwen tells them the power feed for those cameras went a ten minutes before the shift change. Combine that with the spiked drinks and it looks like an inside job.

At the hotel, Lorne has part of the ritual figured out: three of the pieces that were inside the totems fore a bird with the orb on top. But he doesn’t know how the heart and the energy fit in. Gwen says that if those wings are metal she can melt them, assuming they can find it in time. Fred and Wes have done a lot of research and devised a way to get rid of the Beast: opening a portal. If they can corner it long enough they can send it away. Gunn’s not happy with the plan, thinking she would have learned. But it’s their only option. Cordy has another vision, dead people littering a field, the Beast nodding. But it felt familiar to her, like someone she knows. Angel assumes it’s Connor. She thinks it’s time to bring him in this; it’s their best chance at finding the Beast.

There’s a knock on Connor’s door. He opens it and it’s the Beast. It addresses him by name, again. he’s shocked.

ACT IV

Connor runs away, uses a pillar to help him launch himself in a drop kick, it doesn’t slow the Beast. He attacks again, without success. He’s thrown and dragged and thrown out the window, crashing several stories below on the pavement just as the A.I. crew pulls up. Angel runs with a blanket to the shade, Connor tells him it’s here; Angel says they’ll figure it out later. Angel lays down the plan of action: He and Gunn will keep the beast occupied while Gwen tries to fry the mechanism while Fred and Wes will work the portal, Cordy will keep Connor safe.

Upstairs, the beast has assembled the device and filled the orb with the black energy. He chants as he draws blood from the heart of the totem on the orb, it flashes as the crew arrives. On the street, Connor feels he should be up there but Cordy assures him they’re doing all right. Inside, Gunn and Angel are battling the Beast, Wes and Fred are Chanting, and Gwen is knocked away from the device, the orb rolling to the Beast’s feet.

Cordy gets another piece of the vision: The Beast saying to someone “You are a worthy adversary.” She knows who it is.

The Beast is now chanting and outside tendrils of darkness are covering the sun. Angel, Gunn and Gwen, now seeing the portal forming behind the Beast rush it, fight it and push it. It stumbles in the portal and the portal promptly closes. But it’s still getting darker, the tendrils having covered the sun. Meanwhile, Cordy gets yet another piece, the Beast saying “Our strength is useless divided.” The Beast reappears in front of the Gang, the Beast saying that he needs not be his enemy. Cordy gets the final part of the vision the Beast is talking to Angelus, the Beast asking him to join him. Cordy whispers Angelus’ name and realizes what “the answer is among you” is. Upstairs the Beast takes the blackened orb, swallows it, tells Angel that’s they’ll meet again soon, and jumps out the window. They look outside, the sun is completely dark, it’s dark as night.

They meet outside and Cordy confirms it knew Angelus. She wasn’t having a vision, she was having a memory. As a higher being she experienced everything Angelus had done, the powers must have jogged that memory. She saw him, long ago, standing in a field of bodies with the Beast. Connor is furious he didn’t tell them, but Angel is sure come across something like that, he’d remember. Cordy points out that just like he’d remember falling asleep when Manny got killed. Was bluntly says Angel’s a suspect and if Cordelia’s right, the Beast may have power over him, make him do things and then forget. Cordy believes that the rain of fire, taking out Wolfram & Hart and blotting out the sun are only the first steps to something bigger. Angel doesn’t know what. Wes says that Angelus might, and it may be the only way to defeat the Beast. They need Angelus.

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Summary By Dannyboy