"Soulless"
Written by: Sarah Fain & Elizabeth Craft
Directed by: Sean Astin
Connor battles alone with three vampires and puts his dad's ratchet stake to good use as he disposes of them all. At the hotel, the gang carefully put Angel's contained soul away in the safe. They talk about their choice in freeing Angelus and the great risk they all face in dealing with Angelus. Meanwhile, an unchained Angelus sits alone in the basement cage. Wesley cautiously approaches the cage and starts up a discussion with Angelus. Angelus plays games with Wesley, avoiding the important information about the Beast in favor of taunting Wesley with knowledge about Angel's "perfect" fantasy and Wesley's interest in Fred. All the while, the rest of the gang watch the conversation from the lobby via video feed. Wesley continues to pry about Angelus's connection with the Beast, but only gets a lot of brain teasers and distracting comments in return. Angelus continues to be difficult, raising issues of Wesley's failure with Faith and Connor. Angelus raises the issue of Cordelia sleeping with Connor, informing the rest of the gang, who were out of the loop, about the event. Connor returns to receive strange looks in the aftermath of Angelus's news, but misinterprets the looks as everyone thinking he's still connected to the Beast.
Gunn and Fred bring Angelus a glass of blood and Angelus happily takes advantage of the opportunity to taunt the couple about the sounds Angel could hear coming from Fred's room at night. Fred pushes a cart towards the cage and Angel takes the glass, but also shoves the cart into Fred and grabs her when she falls towards the cage. Gunn moves in to rescue Fred, but it's Wesley who shoots Angelus with tranquilizer darts, freeing Fred and knocking Angelus out cold. Cordelia brings Connor one of Angel's shirts to change into and explains the real reason for the strange reception Connor received when he arrived. Fred goes to thank Wesley for saving her, but the conversation takes a turn for the romantic as Wesley kisses Fred. Gunn walks in and after realizing what just happened between them, he gets furious. Gunn hits Wesley and the two begin to fight until Gunn accidentally hits Fred when she tries to stop them. Cordy turns and sees on the monitor that Connor has snuck downstairs to visit Angelus.
Angelus talks to Connor about Darla and Holtz and their eagerness to get away from Connor. The teasing doesn't get to Connor who reveals that he knows Angelus is his real father. Angelus thinks he can take advantage of this and encourages Connor to approach, but Cordelia stops Connor before he can get too close to Angelus and sends him upstairs. She then turns off the video camera and offers herself in exchange for all of Angelus's information on the Beast. Angelus is reluctant to take her offer, but later Cordelia informs the gang that Angelus is willing to talk, although she refuses to tell them what she did to get Angelus to talk. Wesley goes downstairs and begins to ask questions. Angelus explains that in 1789, the Beast tried to bribe Angelus into help him kill three Svea Priestesses that were attempting to banish the Beast. Angelus refused to help and then the priestesses appeared and supposedly banished the Beast while Angelus passed out from one of the Beast's powerful punches. The gang research the priestesses and Gunn finds that the women live nearby.
Wesley, Cordelia and Connor go to the house where the priestesses live, but they find the priestesses and their families have already been murdered by the Beast. After seeing a "Daddy's Birthday" reminder on the family's calendar, Connor runs outside to be sick. Cordelia chases after him and she tries to talk to him about the scene, not realizing Connor was upset by the reminder of family. A group of vampires interrupt the moment, sending the gang into battle mode. Connor disposes of one and Wesley gets the car for them to escape in. They return to the hotel and everyone realizes that without useful information from Angelus, they need to turn him back into Angel. Cordelia goes downstairs and despite Angelus's enthusiasm to have her, Cordelia tells him the deal is off since they didn't get to save the world and that they're putting his soul back. Angelus doesn't seem too worried about that as he's confident he'll get to see the apocalypse come to life. Cordelia returns to the office only to find that there's very bad news: the container with Angel's soul is gone.
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