This summary is the intellectual property of Loey

Several small children have been hospitalized after watching a popular TV show called Smile Time, which features singing, dancing puppets...who lure the kids close to the set when Mommy and Daddy aren't looking, then proceed to literally drain the life out of them. Angel gets a heads-up about this phenomenon, and goes to check out the show's production facility. He discovers a secret room, where a man is apparently being held prisoner. A big, smiley-faced orb opens up and zaps Angel with a light. When he comes to, he has the cutest little cloth hands.

Yes, he's a puppet.

This puts him in an even fouler mood than usual, and really complicates things when Nina Ash shows up. She's the pretty werewolf chick from "Unleashed," and she's apparently been staying in a specially outfitted cage at Wolfram & Hart during her bouts of full moon madness. She's also got a major jones for Angel, and decides to tell him about it. Like, right now.

He finally lets her see what he looks like, but as they're having a heart to heart, she wolfs out and attacks him through the bars of her cage. We next see Angel staggering down a hallway, covered in stuffing, looking for a medic. Or a good seamstress.

The research-o-rama reveals that Smile Time's creator, one Gregor Framkin, made a deal with the devil to get higher ratings for his show. That would be devils, actually, as in a troupe of four demons who have inhabited puppets and taken over the show. They even control Gregor, who is now a sort of gross flesh puppet, and his staff, who are zombies. The demons are harvesting children's essences to sell on the street in their hell dimension. Their next broadcast will take out all those sweet, innocent little darlings at once.

After getting sewn back up, Angel leads the team to the studio, where he and Gunn beat the stuffing out of the puppets, and Fred and Wesley disable the big orb thing. They destroy the demons and free the kids.

And where does all this valuable information about Smile Time come from? Fred and Wesley? Their researched helps, yes. But most of it comes from Gunn. He's been gradually losing his legal knowledge over the past couple of weeks, so he goes back to that doctor and demans a re-upgrade. The doctor agrees to do it, but only if Gunn will help him smuggle a rare artifact into the country. Cut through the red tape and all that. Gunn agrees.

Yikes.

After things settle down a bit, Angel goes back to see Nina (he's still in puppet form, but should get better soon). Wesley has encouraged him to take a chance with her, pointing out that it might be nice, and a moment of perfect happiness isn't likely to occur in most relationships, anyway. So, Angel asks her out, and she accepts, little cloth fangs and all.

Later, Fred comes to see Wesley. She's been dropping not-so-subtle hints all episode, but he's not paying attention. So, she just ups and kisses him. Knox may not be happy about this (and believe me, he's not), but Wes seems pretty pleased.

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