LORNE: Hey, uh, who wants some mu shu? I got beaucoup mu shu here.

FRED: I'll take some, thanks. Angel, this little picnic was such a good idea.

GUNN: Yeah, man. Why haven't we done this before?

ANGEL: Well, you know, you've all been working so hard...

WESLEY: Has anyone seen the plum sauce?

(Fred finishes scanning for bugs. Everyone drops the friendly chit-chat act)

FRED: We're clean. Nobody's listening.

ANGEL: You were late.

WESLEY: Thought I was being followed.

GUNN: I get that we have to be careful, but feels weird hiding from the company we're supposed to be running.

ANGEL: We're not hiding, we're being safe. There are factions at Wolfram & Hart, people who want to see us destroyed.

FRED: But still, it's not like everyone there's evil. I mean, we work with these people. Some of 'em I see more than I see you guys, at least lately, anyway.

WESLEY: And you think you can trust him? Them.

FRED: What?

WESLEY: These...people, the ones you're spending so much time with lately. Knox, for example.

FRED: (flustered) Um, we're, you know, friendly, but he's under me— or I'm on top of him. Professionally! All I'm saying is, he's not evil.

ANGEL: I think we're all agreed that the senior partners *are*. They put us in charge for a reason. What we need to know is...why?

GUNN: We've only been there a month.

FRED: Turns out running a company doesn't leave a lot of time for, you know, covert ops.

LORNE: Yeah, I'm up to my horns in schmoozin' starlets and boozin' hipsters, Angel.

WESLEY: What about Gunn?

GUNN: What *about* Gunn?

FRED: It's...well, what they put in your head. All that law knowledge and whatever. Maybe you know something, more than the rest of us.

WESLEY: The alteration to your mental capacity—

GUNN: My capacity's the same as it's always been. The good doctor just revved up some idlin' brain cells, set 'em in motion.

ANGEL: It's a legitimate concern. You gave them access ...

GUNN: I made a deal. We all did. Seems like I'm the only one who's willing to accept that. Everybody here got something out of this.

ANGEL: Fear, mistrust, a great motor pool.

LORNE: I got the Nancy Sinatra collection. Original 45s.

WESLEY: I did get a rather nice pen. Sterling. Has my name on it. Which is not the point at all.

GUNN: No, the point is what, that I'm some spy for the senior partners?

ANGEL: Nobody's saying that.

GUNN: Just thinking it.

FRED: No. Charles...

ANGEL: The point is, the senior partners have a plan for us, and if we're not prepared—

FRED: Angel, it's not like we don't want to be ready. We just have, you know, plates...big, heaping, full plates!

WESLEY: Between running our departments, handling clients, dealing with Spike—

ANGEL: Spike is a distraction. As soon as he's released from his ties from Wolfram & Hart—

WESLEY: That could take years.

FRED: Using the amulet to destroy the hellmouth, it turned Spike into—

LORNE: A spook?

FRED: Well, he's more than a ghost. He's something... unique.

WESLEY: Regardless, whatever binds him—

ANGEL: (focussing elsewhere, to Wesley) Can I borrow your pen?

WESLEY: Uhh, sure.

(a young woman, Nina, is being attacked by a werewolf. Angel stabs the werewolf with Wesley's silver pen. When he turns to look for Nina, she's already gone)

ANGEL: Damn it.

• Fred & Knox
• Gunn's instant lawyerhood
• Wolfram & Hart

written by: Elizabeth Craft & Sarah Fain; Original transcript by CariCranberry. Edited, formatted & checked against source by me.. Full transcript at:
http://www.buffyworld.com/angel/season5/transcripts/5x03_tran.php