Airdate: April 2nd, 2003.

Guest Starring:
Gina Torres
David Denman
Stephi Linebur
Julie Benz as Darla

Written & Directed by: Steven S. DeKnight


Teaser

Picking up where we left off in “Players” the Angel Investigations team (minus Gunn and Connor) have surrounded Cordelia as she was lured to their trap. She really isn’t impressed that it took them this long to figure out it was her behind it. What tipped Angel off was her use of “my sweet” when she talked about her baby, the same thing the macho booming voice called Angelus. Wes also points out that all the circumstantial evidence pointed to her, they just needed to be sure. And while Angel believes that what they are talking to isn’t Cordelia, she insinuates it is. He grabs her by the throat and asks her where Cordy is. It’s about now that Connor decides to drop from the skylight. He makes short work of the rest of the gang, including deflecting an arrow onto Angel. He grabs Cordy’s hand and they run. As Angel collapses to the ground he asks, “what …are….you?” she turns and smiles knowingly. The 8-Ball rolls to the unconscious Angel, reading “Ask Again Later”

Act I

Gunn comes back to the hotel, fresh from his Gwencapade (still in the suit) and see the bruised team. They recount what happened, that Cordelia is the Beastmaster, and Connor is with her, her confused champion. They start pondering on when it happened and how. They surmise that Lorne’s memory spell released it from the inside, and that she was perfectly placed to kill Manny, Lizzy Borden style, and that while the AI crew was busy tracking down the beast, she had ample time to slaughter the priestesses. She also had time to steal Angel’s soul and could of made the misdirection for Angel’s re-souling with a mystical light show and put a spell on Lorne so he couldn’t read Angelus right. They realize also that Cordelia killed Lilah. Now the question they have is, what’s baking in Cordy’s oven?

Connor’s taken Cordy to a warehouse/packinghouse and made sure that Angel couldn’t follow them. He’s shaken that the A.I. crew tried to hurt Cordy, and she adds to his fears by saying that they’re afraid of Connor and her, and the baby. She keeps going on that they would of killed her if he hadn’t come, that Angel hates him for having her, that Angel will never be able to feel her. They kiss. She tells him that he was right about Angel, he’s an animal who turned everyone against them. He vows to kill them all before he’d let them hurt her.

Angel’s back from searching for Connor and Cordy, but no luck and plenty of misdirection. Angel chastises himself for not having seen the Cordelia demon for what it was. Wesley tells him that it knew how to play him, kept Angel distracted, so it could further its plans. Wesley, however, sees no excuse for his own error of judgement. He’s also doubtful that they’ll find any reference to the beastmaster if it obliterated any mention of the Beast in this dimension, he suggest asking the Powers That Be for information. Angel shoots that down as they’ve made it clear to him they’d rather sit and watch. Wes points out the last time he asked them for anything was to spare Darla’s life, kind of hard to weigh the scales. Angel is sure that the PTBs saw what Cordy was up to but didn’t stop it because they didn’t want to get their hands dirty. But he has an idea who might help.

Back at the packinghouse Cordy is barely satisfied with the accommodations. Connor doesn’t want to believe it’s Angel behind that, it must be Angelus. She quickly rebuffs it and begins muddying the lines between good and evil, talking about how they used morality play to manipulate him. Cordelia reminds him that they’re special, they don’t have to live with their rules and their baby will be extraordinary.

At the hotel, they haven’t found anything out of the ordinary in Cordelia’s room. Angel finds the necessary spinning key for his journey into the demon dimension. Cut to Angel battling some minion in the demon dimension and knocking it unconscious. He goes deeper into the dungeon and nearly chops Skip’s head off with his sword. Skip was Cordy’s guide for visions and might have the info Angel seeks. Skip breaks the news that Cordelia ascended into a higher dimension, Angel already know this and tells him she’s back. “back? No one comes back from paradise!” skip intones. Angel quickly ascertains that it was in that dimension the demon entered Cordelia, and that either Skip was duped like the rest of them, or in on it from the start, Skip extend a blade from his armour and exclaims “not a dupe!”

ACT II

Angel and Skip sword fighting, duelling, Angel quickly loses his sword, is tossed around. Skip tells Angel about taking a dive when he rescued Billy from that Box of Fire, especially for a demon built like him. He continues to pound Angel.

Connor is standing guard, on the lookout, Cordy intones that Angel won’t stop looking for them. Cordy has him feel the baby moving around, she tells him that the baby will change everything. But it’s still 1-2 weeks away, and there’s a way to speed the process.

Angel is on the losing side of this fight, but refusing to give up, demanding to know what happened, keeps fighting, keeps getting pounded. Angel takes a chain, throws it around Skip’s blade and breaks it off. He wraps the chain around his hand and punches, chain-whips, Skip repeatedly, rips off a protruding piece of the demon, and then punches him until he falls. A bit later, Angel warps in the middle of the Hyperion lobby, with Skip, and has his team bind the armour-plated demon to this dimension.

In a dark alley a vamp is terrorizing a young blonde, virgin, schoolgirl before Connor dusts him. She cries her thanks before she’s punched unconscious by her saviour. She’s brought to Cordy, she’s perfect for their needs. She keeps manipulating Connor, as she tells him that she’s but one of the masses, the normal people and what they’re about to do is above that. Her blood for their baby is more than fair.

Skip tests the mystical barrier set around him in the hotel lobby, frankly unimpressed. When they show him what they have in store for him if he doesn’t cooperate (the sphere of agony), he spills. He is, after all, just a mercenary. He confirms that it is Cordy but that she had been chosen by the beastmaster for the ascension and took control of her body after.

Cordelia is chanting in the middle of a circle of candles while the virgin sacrifice wakes up to a staring Connor. He hears a woman’s voice, calling his name, and Darla, his mother, appears to him, dressed in white.

ACT III

Darla, or her memories and feelings, is visible only to Connor. She’s been sent by the PTBs. Connor refuses to believe what he’s seeing, but she’s a part of him, he shared his soul with her as he was growing inside her. He gave her light in her darkness. She loved him more than anyone else. He asks her why she left him. She replies that did what she had to, her life for his, and it was the one good thing she ever did. Darla looks at him nearly distraught “and this is how you repay me?” (pointing at the weeping innocent virgin). He’ll do what he has to do when the safety of his child is at stake “by anointing it with the blood of the innocent?!” she’s incredulous, keeping a child safe with an evil deed. Connor brings out Cordy’s statements about good and evil just being words. She asks him not to do this, not to cheapen her own sacrifice.

Skip says the demon doesn’t have a name. Angel catches on that Cordelia was manoeuvred into getting the visions. Skip points that the scope is much larger an points an incident in each of their lives, especially the birth of Angel and Darla’s son, and while they do have free will for the little things, it’s the big choices that count. Connor’s birth was engineered so that he could impregnate Cordelia so that the demon possessing her could give birth to itself, and it’s still vulnerable in human form. But to kill it, Cordelia must die. And if Cordelia gives birth then she’ll likely die or end up comatose. When Skip mentions the rare item they need to find Cordy, it turns out the real Cordy had such an item in the drawer.

Connor is still arguing with Darla about why the others hate him, Darla argues that they don’t hate him, it’s his actions they hate, not who he is. Darla says that he has a choice, it’s more important than he can ever know. She reminds him that when she was a vampire she killed without mercy because she didn’t have a soul, what’s his excuse? And she still feels the good in him, despite all that’s happened to him.

Fred and Gunn are pondering what Angel’s going to do, she’s despairing about being a pawn. Gunn gives his big speech about how the final score can’t be rigged, no matter how many players you got, because that last shot always comes up question mark. And to live every moment like the world was on the balance, because it very well might. Lorne and Wes enter the room, they’ve found Cordy using the spell. Angel is with the gang at that moment, grabs his sword and goes to find Cordy alone. He’s really going to do what’s necessary.

Connor begins untying the virgin’s bonds, when Cordy shows up with a hatchet. It’s time to take the girl in the other room. Darla tells him to listen to his heart. Connor tells Cordy that their baby shouldn’t be anointed with innocent blood. Cordy is surprised, who’s been filling that boy’ s head with such confusing words? She begins looking around, suspecting, telling Connor that whatever he’s seeing, it’s not real, a cheap trick by Angel. She probes his mind and sees Darla standing next to him. Both begin tugging at him, Cordy finally winning by telling him this is how much his father hates him. He drags the innocent girl into the next room. Cordy follows him smugly, hatchet in hand. She raises the killing blow, Darla, now in the virgin’s place, pleads with Connor not to let this happen, the hatchet bears down slicing her neck. Cordy asks him “there now, that wasn’t so hard was it?”

ACT IV

Connor, specks of blood dotting his face, stares at the dead girl, still looking like Darla. Cordy assumes a labour position in the centre of the circle of candles. Connor is still staring at the dead girl, no longer Darla, just the very dead and very real girl. Cordy yells at Connor to take the blood while it’s still fresh. He smears his hand in the forming pool of blood, while Cordy chants. He goes to her and presses his bloodied hand on her swollen belly. The blood mark, immediately disappears and triggers an earthquake.

At A.I. the falling debris from the earthquake knocks out Lorne and breaks the circle that kept Skip inside the barrier. End of the world he says.

Connor says they should stop the procedure, Cordy says it’s coming, the beginning of a “new world.” Angel is right behind them. “or not” he adds. The earthquake subsides.

Skip is much more powerful than the rest can handle, they’re attacks not even coming close to stopping him. Both Gunn and Wesley a thrown back.

Angel barely has time to say it’s not Cordelia before Connor attacks him, Cordy screaming at Connor to kill Angel. They fight, Angel loses his sword pretty quickly, and they fight hand-to-hand.

Skip lifts Fred up by her throat, intending to show her “Infinite Agony” as she called it. Gunn hit’s him twice with a sword to no effect, and is thrown back, again. Wesley comes out firing, single gun, his shots all deflected by skip’s armour. The last shot removes the gun from his hand, do those firearms ever work? Skip turns back to Fred and reveals the exposed skin and hole in his head where Angel ripped off some armour. Wes dives for the gun, aims, and fires straight into it. Skip is a bit surprised, and falls forward, dead.

Aftershocks keep rocking the place as Connor and Angel keep fighting, eventually Connor is knocked out. He picks up his sword, raises it, and says “I’m so sorry.” But as he arrives to give the killing blow, Cordelia has her final push, producing a pool of light and a shockwave knocking Angel and Connor (who just got up) off their feet. The multicoloured light reveals many tentacles before coalescing into a nude woman, emanating light. Angel rushes to kill her, and then looks at her face. He and Connor fall to their knees, “you’re beautiful,” exclaims Angel. She smiles and says his name.