"Are You Now or Have You Ever Been"
Written by: Tim Minear
Directed by: David Semel
This episode flashes back beteween the present and past quite frequently, so I wrote the summary with the story of the past and the story of the present in chunks. This isn't the exact order that it appears in the episode, but this the only way it could be written so it wouldn't be confusing.
Angel asks that Cordelia and Wesley to research the history of an old Hollywood hotel, but doesn't give them any reason for the research. Cordelia and Wesley do research and later discover that Angel once stayed at this hotel. Angel walks though the hotel and his memories resurface as he views the now abandoned Hyperion hotel. Using old newspaper clippings and photographs, Cordelia and Wesley put together the pieces of what happened in 1952 at the Hyperion hotel.
Back in 1952 at the Hollywood hotel was incredibly active. A bellhop reluctantly takes a bill to room 217. After dropping the bill at the door, the bellhop runs before the door is opened by…Angel. While staying in the hotel in 1952, Angel finds a woman hiding in his room from another man. The man, who later turns out to be a private investigator, threatens Angel with a gun and Angel is forced to beat him up. In room 215, a man listens to whispers coming from the walls that instruct him to kill himself with a gun.
The hotel manager instructs the bellhop to hide the body after the two find the man dead in his hotel room. While Angel is outside smoking, the woman from his room, Judy confronts him and tries to start up a conversation. They talk about the man who killed himself and Angel blows her off when she tries to thank him for saving her. She later invites him into her hotel room after rumors of the suicide turn into rumors of murder. She confesses that she used to work at a bank and after they fired her, she stole a large amount of money from the bank.
Judy tells Angel that she is from a colored mother but a white father. While she does look white, her "impurity" makes her the target of racism every time someone discovers her mixed background. Angel helps Judy hide the money she stole in the basement, and informs her that something is in the hotel that is making everyone crazy. The hotel guests argue about who is to blame for the murder until the private investigator that Angel beat up returns in search of Judy. The whispers reach Judy and attempt to convince her that she has no where else to hide.
Angel goes to a bookstore and forces the store owner to provide him with information regarding the paranoia demon haunting the hotel. The owner gives Angel all the information and supplies he'll need. In an attempt to save herself from persecution, Judy blames Angel for the hotel murder. He is beaten and then hung from the hotel ceiling. Everyone assumes Angel is dead and after the leave, Angel releases himself from the noose. The demon haunting the hotel--a Thesulac demon--reveals himself to Angel and Angel leaves, allowing the demon to have his way with the people.
Back in the present, Angel discovers the bag of money he hid in the hotel basement. He calls on Cordelia and Wesley to get Gunn and help him perform a Raising ritual that will force the Thesulac demon to corporeal. The Thesulac demon is a paranoia demon that feeds on people's paranoid thoughts. At the hotel, Wesley performs a spell with an Orb of Ramjarin that makes the demon apparent to them all. Angel destroys the demon by attaching one of the demon's tentacles to an electrical box.
Angel goes upstairs and enters room 214. He finds Judy, many years older upstairs. She recognizes Angel and expresses her guilt for allowing the hotel guests to kill him. Judy informs Angel that the Thesulac demon kept her safe in her room for all those years. She lies down for a rest, and after getting Angel's forgiveness, she dies peacefully. Angel returns downstairs where Cordelia and Gunn express their distaste for the hotel, but Angel announces that they're moving in.
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