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Angel Season V Episode #93: "Life Of The Party" Episode Guide

This summary is the intellectual property of Loey

Lorne needs to get some sleep. Seriously, he's hallucinating and stuff. He's been stressing out over his role as head of the Entertainment Division, especially now that the annual company Halloween party is coming up. It's the biggest event of the year, with ritual sacrifices and wicker effigies (you mean you don't have those things at your Halloween parties?). Unfortunately, Lorne can't get anyone too enthused about it. Angel and Spike both think it's ludicrous, while Fred, Gunn, and Wesley are too busy with work. Only Harmony is excited, naturally.

Lorne finally convinces Angel to cooperate, pointing out (with Eve's help) that the employees need a morale boost and everyone needs to know that the new regime is at least keeping up the company's image. At Lorne's urging, Angel even goes to butter up some big demon poobah whose presence will guarantee the attendance of everybody who's anybody. With the guest list finally in place, it's showtime.

Things start out slow, but Lorne is determined to work the room, and he starts making suggestions. And people start following them. Literally. When he tells Fred and Wesley to get drunk, they get drunk - even though they haven't actually had any alcohol. When he tells Spike to think positively, he gets all cheerful and fun-loving. When he tells Angel and Eve to cut the sexual tension and just do it already, they head for Angel's office and get jiggy with it on the floor. When he tells Gunn to stake out his territory, he....pees all over everything.

Apparently, Lorne has had his ability to sleep removed, presumably by the same fine folks who filled Gunn's head with legal knowledge. It's helping him get more work done, but it's also 1) making him crazy, and 2) causing his empathic abilities to go all wonky. Basically, all he has to do is suggest something, and people immediately do it. The gang figures this out, and Fred and Wesley go to look for a way to give Lorne his snoozer back.

Meanwhile, bigger things are afoot, as one of the demon prince's bodyguards has been slaughtered in the men's room. This causes Big Guy to assume that Angel has brought them all there to kill them, and he busts into the office, leading everyone out into the lobby at gunpoint (or arrowpoint, actually). When they get there, they discover that another demon guest has also been brutally murdered.

Upstairs, Wesley discovers that Lorne's loss of sleep is even worse than they realized. When an empath is severed from his/her/its subconscious for too long, the subconscious can manifest itself physically. With this knowledge, and the newly discovered container with Lorne's sleep in it, they go back to the party.

And not a moment too soon, as Lorne's subconscious has manifested itself in a major way. Here's a hint: It turns into another green creature from fantasy fiction.

That's right, it's The Incredible LorneHulk! He's big, he's bad, he's wearing an enormous suit! He's also kicking the crap out of everyone in the place, including the "real" Lorne, who is very confused.

Fred and Wes arrive with a gun-shaped device that she points at Lorne's head. She shoots his sleep back into him, and he drops to the floor, taking an immediate and much-needed nap. As he nods off, LorneHulk disappears.

Later, after the party winds down, Knox shows up to say hello to Fred. He's finished some work he was doing for her, and wonders if she'd like to have coffee. She settles for a drink (a real one this time), and they head for what's left of the bar.

In Angel's office, Lorne is sound asleep, and everyone is back to relative normal. Wesley theorizes that LorneHulk represented all of Lorne's pent-up negative feelings and internal conflicts, the kinds of things he would normally work out by dreaming.

Eve dismisses Angel's suggestion that they need to talk ("This isn't the first time I've had sex under a mystical influence. I went to U.C. Santa Cruz."). As she leaves, Wesley sees Fred and Knox having a good time in the lobby, and decides that he's not feeling any better.

Gunn arrives and assures them that the party was actually a success - no one was angry and several people (and demons) even thought it was a good time. Angel reminds Gunn that Wolfram & Hart is trying to change them, and they need to be on their guard.

Before he leaves, Gunn advises Angel not to sit in his chair until janitorial has a chance to clean it up (ewwww!).

After everyone is gone, Angel leans over Lorne, who is talking in his sleep. "I'm sorry," Lorne mumbles. "It's hard being the host of the party."

"Then stop trying to be," Angel replies.

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