Previously: Terrible Wig Flashbacks and Kate’s dad got nommed by vampires.
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The Ring
Sweeney: The episode begins with Cordelia and Wesley bickering about all the things. First it’s the name of the demon database Cordelia is using (Demons! Demons! Demons!) which is a thing whose existence I love and approve of. As all three Snark Ladies are students who get their research on occasionally, it’s amusing to watch the Buffyverse acquire technology. I just hope that nobody scanned any old demonic texts in the making of this database, because that was an awful moment in Buffyverse history that I’d rather not revisit.
K: I recently sat in a class where a lecturer told us about how when online database searching first started, you got charged by the SECOND for using it. And on top of that, it required an international phone call to connect to the database. So you’d have to spend somewhere between 2 and 5 hours with a librarian developing a search query and then the librarian would execute it as quickly as possible, and give you the results. Let’s just all take a moment to hug Google, shall we?
Sweeney: Angel enters and asks if they need to seek counseling. A man whose face looks pretty bruised comes in because he heard that Angel had a reputation for solving unusual problems. Bruised Man introduces himself as Darin McNamara, and has to sit down to avoid fainting before he can begin explaining that his brother Jack has gone missing and he recently got a finger in the mail (EW). Angel asks who did this, and Darin answers that he came to Angel because they weren’t people. Roll electric cellos!
Darin is a few years older, though they fell out of touch, due to Darin being a responsible person who doesn’t get abducted and Jack being a smarmy gambler. LA sidebar: the bookie Jack was in over his head with works at a bar in Silver Lake, which was a murdertastic area when this episode aired, but is now basically home to hipsters galore.
K: So is likely to get murdertastic again soon when hipsters finally get so obnoxious that we can’t handle it any more?
Lorraine: No one let Kirsti near Silver Lake, yeah?
Sweeney: Word. Or me, apparently, because I like Silver Lake. So much for that trip to Australia.
Jack went to Darin for money, but Darin refused and told him he needed to “suffer the consequences,” of being a big irresponsible gambler. Then Darin felt bad, so he went over to Jack’s place and saw some creatures dragging him away. Angel promises to look into it and hands him a notepad to start writing things down.
In probably-Silver-Lake, some random dudes and a lady are playing a shady game of poker. I don’t know that they’re up to anything shady, but my youth taught me that people who play poker on TV shows and movies are not to be trusted. (L: A+) Angel interrupts their game to ask some guy about Jack. Angel and the bookie go outside, and Angel says that Darin will make good on Jack’s debts, but Bookie insists that it’s past that and they need to make an example out of Jack. After the Bookie dodges Angel’s questions, he finally pays him off and Bookie directs Angel to a place not-exactly-in-but-under Beachwood Canyon.
Back at Brooding HQ, Wesley is reading off Darin’s description of the demons to Cordelia. “Bald, ultra-white skin, slime.” “There’s always slime,” adds Cordelia. There does seem to be a higher instance of slime, as a percentage thing, here on Angel than on Buffy. Anyway, Cordelia types everything in and hits search. Wesley starts to give a speech about how this database is going to take 4eva and he’s going to get his traditional research on way faster, but this is interrupted by Cordelia’s database yielding a successful result. Sometimes I imagine what being a graduate student would have been like in the days before the internet. Aside from the fact that none of the things I wrote papers on would exist, I mostly just come to a, “NO FUCKING WAY,” conclusion about the whole thing.
K: It was bad enough when I was in undergrad and you actually had to go to the library and browse the shelves for things that might be useful and then photocopy stuff and highlight it and UGH. I think it says a lot about how much things have changed in the past ten years that I’m doing a Masters in librarianship and haven’t set foot in the library for study purposes once.
Sweeney: Anyway, as they check out their howler demon, Angel is climbing down a sewer ladder. At the bottom he finds what looks like a dead body trapped in mulch of some sort. I don’t know how else to explain it. Weird blueish dudes in what look like red satin pajamas appear and they fight. Unsurprisingly, the blue Hugh Hefner demons are easily defeated by Angel. He asks one where Jack McNamara is and he says that they sold him.
K: Hugh Hefner demons is a much better name than the one in my notes – the offspring of Gollum and the Blue Man Group.
Lor: It’s a shame we won’t see these guys much. Lesser nicknames have been created for greater characters.
Sweeney: It’s true. So far I’m two for two with coming up with nicknames I like on this show, only to find the demons are not actually relevant to the rest of the episode.
Angel goes to a club of some sort, using a sketchy Angel-like entrance. He passes a lady on his way and I probably would have glossed over the exchange, except I have seen it giffed, and it’s such a nothing encounter that I can’t see why the show would have included it if not to introduce this woman. And because, you know, Tumblr, I know that her name is Lilah Morgan. I don’t know why any of this matters, but here:
K: As the sole member of our intrepid trio to have seen this show before, allow me to say UUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.
Sweeney: Welp, that’s a bummer.
After that whateverness, Angel finds himself among people cheering as they look down into a pit with demons fighting. A green demon defeats a red demon and someone tosses him a knife so he can slit the red demon’s throat. The crowd cheers, and Angel spots a guy walking through the crowd and checks the pictures in his pockets because it looks like Jack. Because Angel clearly can’t smell all the TRAP that this scene is oozing, he follows the guy without making any attempt to alert Cordelia and Wesley of where he is.
Angel walks into a room where Jack, Darrin, and other randoms shine a light in his face for no reason that is ever really made clear in the scene. Angel realizes, too late, that he was set up and tries to fight Jack, but is promptly tased. Womp. Jack adds that Angel’s attitude will make him a crowd-pleaser.
Angel wakes up inside a cell and tries to make banter with another demon, but gets no response. He then verifies that he does, in fact, spend his lonely broody nights with a whole lot of Rosetta Stone as he cycles through other language options. Awesome. I love these random, weird details about Angel..
K: YES. Although I did find it hilarious that the list of languages other than English that Angel can speak is now up to Korean, Spanish, Italian, and Russian. Meanwhile, Spike speaks Fyarl demon…
Sweeney: Jack arrives and opens the gate to explain the rules of Battle Royale/The Hunger Games: they all have snazzy wristbands that kind of work like Invisible Fence dog collars, keeping them inside their Fight Club-esque prison. The only way out is reaching their 21st kill, at which point, the wristband will be removed. Except probably not because they would be fucking ridiculous to actually let any of these demons go after all that.
K: SERIOUSLY. The whole time he was making that speech, I was like “AND THEN THEY KILL YOU, BECAUSE DUH.” Also, this whole underground fighting ring thing reminded me of that episode of Dark Angel in which a very young Jensen Ackles had to cage fight a very young Jessica Alba and hilarity insued. Man, that show was amazingly terrible…
Lor: As long as we’re mentioning random stuff this reminds us of, I’m ashamed to say: Death Race. YEAH, I WATCHED THAT.
Sweeney: At Brooding HQ, it is now the next day and Cordelia and Wes are trying to figure out what happened to Angel. Wes tries to downplay the severity, but Cordelia points out that he was supposed to check in and also their client is nowhere to be found, which is added weirdness. Wes decides to go after the Bookie, but Cordelia isn’t a fan of this plan, as he might be the kind of person who mails people fingers.
Green Demon steals food from another demon using his creepy frog tongue skill. Angel tells Green-but-now-I’m-naming-him Frog Demon to give it back, and they have a stare-off. Before it progresses into an actual fight, we hear what I assume is one of their fancy demon tasers turning on in the background.
K: I’m pretty sure they borrowed/stole them from The Initiative because they make EXACTLY THE SAME SOUND as the Initiative blasters.
Sweeney: Frog Demon stops and Angel slides the food back over.
In case anyone doubts that I have serious problems, this is a thing that I did at 2am:
Lor: Seriously, though. How could you expect this to be proof of “serious problems” and not “SERIOUS AWESOME?”
Sweeney: This is why we’re friends. Thank you for supporting the inappropriate ways I use my time!
Later, the bullied demon tells Angel he can fight his own battles, since he’s got two successful kills already and Angel’s all, “LOL only 19 to go!” as Frog Demon watches in the shadows. Jack enter-nounces the fighting lineup for the night. Bullied Demon is going up against someone who is said be the main event for the evening; a guy who we previously saw smirking through the Angel/Frog exchange.
Bullied Demon tries to tell Main Event that he’ll be the one walking out of there. In the background, we see another demon try to make a break for it. Angel tries to stop him, but he’s too late, and escaping demon is promptly electrocuted and disintegrates. Jack’s bummed that it’s going to mess up their lineup, but then he suggests that Angel (he calls him “Captain America” — Avengers shots!) fill the slot.
Lor: Counting is hard when you’re drinking.
Sweeney: Boo counting! Yay drinking games!
Smarmy Bookie from earlier is icing his hand so that he can go back to pummeling a guy who looks like he’s about 60. Wesley interrupts that he needs to find Angel. Smarmy Bookie said that Angel gave him $200 to answer his questions and that Wesley should make him an offer. Wesley then adorably tells Smarmy Bookie that Angel means a great deal to him and he’ll beat it out of him if he has to. SQUISH. Smarmy Bookie lolz at Wesley’s accent and calls him Robin Hood when he pulls a crossbow, but Wes shoots Smarmy Bookie’s hand as soon as he grabs his gun, and manages to get his hands and the gun and point it at the minions before they can properly draw their weapons. I mean, it ends up being three of them with guns to the one of him, but it was pretty BAMF of WWP, so they all put their weapons down as ordered. SQUISH! BAMF! If that’s Wesley’s on-going routine, I approve.
Lor: Fantastic. And I hate that it’s weird that he’s suddenly so coordinated and awesome, when other times he’s tripping over his feet for the lols. BAMF WESLEY ALL THE TIME, PLEASE.
Sweeney: Wesley then uses the arrow in Smarmy Bookie’s hand as a means of torture. “Now where is my employer?” Also, Employee of the Month stuff right there, Wes.
This question segue magics us to the ring where the night’s fights are being announced. Contextless-Lilah tells Darin that she hears the vampire has a soul and wonders if that’ll be useful in a fight. Darin tells her it depends on what he’s fighting for. Deep. I think. I’m not really sure what the point of this scene was either, except, again, to tell us that Lilah is a character who will exist.
In the basement, Angel is doing some prime brooding while everyone else is warming up. Bullied Demon tries to give him helpful advice in that his opponent’s left eye was messed up in a fight recently. Sorry, I can only think of this now:
RIP, Lisa Left Eye Lopes.
Lor: May there be a lack of scrubs forever and always.
Sweeney: Anyway, Mr. McBroodySoul Pants insists that he’s not killing anyone. IDK, bro, killing demons is kind of a big part of what you do, like, professionally. This would also be a really shitty way for you to go, after everything else. I’m really glad, for your sake, that it’s only episode 16.
Angel enters the ring against Not Left Eye, and puts up a half assed defensive fight. Frog Demon is way pissed that he’s not fighting and Contextless-Lilah looks on in a way that suggests she’s trying to play it cool even though she’s actually super interested.
Outside, Cordelia and Wesley are arriving at Fight Club, and she spots a wealthy looking couple and tells Wesley that they’re perfect. She forgot the badge, though, so they have to wing it. She says they are detectives and tells WWP to show them his badge and take down their plates. He does this ridiculous waving motion with his wallet to hide his complete lack of badge. She demands to see their tickets and Rich Guy sasses that he’s friends with their boss. Cordelia then BRILLIANTLY tells them that they have purchased tickets to an unlicensed sporting event and implies that she is basically saving them from a raid. Rich Guy thanks her and scurries off with his date. GOLD, guys. This scene is gold. 1430 for you, Cordelia Chase. You too, Wesley.
K: Agreed. This scene was solid gold. I’m so glad this show is finally hitting its stride. Although I still miss Doyle… *sniff tear sob*
Lor: They are getting so good at their jobs, in a way we haven’t quite seen from the Scoobies. I’ve said it before, but I love that they all have their roles and strengths.
Sweeney: Inside, Angel is mostly just allowing himself to be beaten up. Frog Demon is getting super pissed, the crowd is booing, and Contextless-Lilay is bored. Cordy and Wesley arrive and see Angel in the ring. Cordelia is confused, but Wesley explains Fight Club, in direct violation of the first rule of Fight Club. He also already knows (for the same unexplained reason that Angel seemed to?) that the bracelets cause them to disintegrate.
Darin casually sets one of the cuffs on the ledge and also has a knife placed within Not Left Eye’s reach. Once he successfully draws blood from Angel, he finally vamps out and the fight continues until Angel is finally forced to fight for reals and he kills Not Left Eye pretty quickly. Wesley and Cordelia look on in horror, because they can sense his feels.
Angel goes back to staging area and Main Event and Bullied Demon are up. Angel tells them that if nobody fights, nobody dies. Frog Demon tells him to stop his brooding whining, because he’s alive. LOL, you’re new. He says one lucky kill doesn’t make Angel an expert, and Angel’s all, “Psh. That was neither the 1st nor 21st life I’ve taken.”
Bullied Demon looks like he’s about to shit himself. Angel tells Main Event that they can fight them, as in their keepers, if they stop fighting each other. He’s offering him another way out. Main Event’s not having that. He kills Bullied Demon in about 2 seconds.
Outside, Cordelia suggests calling the cops, which is a suggestion so ridiculous I’m tempted to retract her 1430. Wesley shuts that down, though, so I’ll let her keep it. For now. They need to get Angel out of there, but the wristcuffs, Wesley knows because of reasons, were forged by ancient sorcerers. He could make a key if he could get his hands on one. Cordelia gets to keep her 1430 because she stole one, probably the one Darin left sitting around.
Sweeney: In the staging area, Jack is taunting Angel for his recent kill. They chat right up at the line, and Angel reaches through and grabs Jack. His arm electrocutes a bit, but does not disintegrate. I’m a little unclear on the rules here, but OK. Whatever. I’m guessing it’s that the red line is quite large, and Angel waited until Jack was standing right on it? The line is an electrocution zone as crossing it is disintegration? Sorry, I should just stick to “Whatever” and stop there.
He wakes up in Contextless-Lilah’s office. She introduces herself as Lilah Morgan. He recognizes her from their throwaway scene and deduces from her books that she’s a lawyer, correctly guessing Wolfram & Hart. She bought his contract from Darin McNamara, because keeping him around would be more trouble than it’s worth. Somebody should have told her that her current efforts to get laid will probably be more trouble than it’s worth.
She goes on about how sometimes you have to look the other way and choose battles you can win and it’s all sorts of ominous-but-vague Wolfram & Hart stuff. Lilah says there’s no reason that they can’t work together. And have sex. That last part is mostly just implied with eye wiggles and champagne. Angel says she’s right. Sort of. “There are about a thousand reasons we can’t work together.” Angel has Lilah’s taser guys escort him back to Fight Club.
Lor: That’s gotta be a blow to her self-esteem, right, when a guy rather be carted off to near-certain-death than notice your eyebrow wiggles. Sorry, girl.
Sweeney: Back in the Brooding Basement, Wesley is trying to make his magical key, which has been taking a while and Cordelia’s contributions are mostly of the, “Bored now!” variety. Wesley accidentally electrocutes himself.
K: Poor Wes. He was doing so well on getting rid of the bumbling idiot routine the writers kept putting him through…
Lor: I’m less offended by this. It’s the uncoordinated, doofy stuff that gets to me. This was at least a legit, “I’m playing with electricity” thing.
Sweeney: Fight Club. Darin tells Angel that the demons still won’t help him so he was an idiot for returning. Darin adds that Angel will have to fight Main Event that night, and he probably won’t survive because Angel would be Main Event’s 21st kill. They have a demonic stare down as Darin leaves and we go to the Not Commercial Break.
In the Brooding Basement, Cordelia happens to come up with horse hair, from her bracelet, as the magic last piece to Riley’s magic electricity problem. I don’t know. We’re combining Buffyverse magic, which defies all logic, with science, which I was always convinced was a subject designed solely to destroy my GPA. I can’t begin to make this make sense.
K: Meanwhile, I’m all “Uhhhhhh, why does Cordy carry a piece of hair from her former horse (whose name, it seems, was KEANU. LOL WHUT) on her bracelet??”
Lor: Once upon a time I was a biology major which doesn’t help. Plus, I quit, so that REALLY doesn’t help.
Sweeney: In the ring, Angel makes one last attempt at getting Main Event to join him on Team Pacifist Demon, which obviously does not work. They fight. Elsewhere, Cordelia is playing dumb about the location of the lady’s room to distract a guard so that Wesley can sneak by. He encounters Frog Demon and asks to see Angel. Frog Demon says Angel’s about to be dead. Wesley idiotically holds out the key and says that if Frog helps him find Angel, then he’ll get them all out. Frog uses his crazy creepy tongue power to steal the key.
In the ring, things are not looking good for Angel, and Lilah’s looking anxious. IDK why I’m recapping all of her facial reactions. (Lor: SERIOUS AWESOME.) Darin tosses two giant wooden sticks into the ring, as Wesley appears beside Cordelia, confessing that a demon stole his key BECAUSE DUH. But then he spots Darin in the crowd and figures he’ll be part of the solution.
The fight finally turns around for Angel and just as he’s poised to kill Main Event, we see Frog Demon successfully use the key. He goes to watch the fight and sees Angel toss his weapon aside. As soon as Angel turns around, Main Event gets up and resumes the fight, again, BECAUSE DUH.
The fight continues and it looks like Main Event might go for the kill, because Angel’s just about done, and Main Event looks into Angel’s dreamy eyes and just can’t do it. Or something like that. Mostly we’re to believe he acquired last minute feels.
K: Maybe some of Faith’s feels acquiring over in Sunnydale rubbed off somehow.
Lor: Crossover magic!
Sweeney: Darin orders the men to tase them both. Then Wesley points a gun in Darin’s face, ordering him to call the men off. Darin continues to give zero fucks about everything. And then! In more last-minute-feels, the other demons come bursting through the doors, presumably with their wristbands unlocked by Frog Demon.
In the middle of the fighting, Frog Demon begrudgingly frees Angel. Lilah, in case you were wondering, makes, “Hmm. Interesting.” face as she flees. Everyone runs away, until it’s just Darin, pointing a gun at Main Event, sassing him about blowing his victory. Angel slaps his gun away and Frog Demon slaps a disintegration cuff on Darin’s hand before tossing him at Main Event, who promptly hurtles him out of the ring. He disintegrates and Frog Demon releases Main Event’s cuff. Angel stumbles out of the ring, helped by Main Event.
Outside, Wesley and Cordelia are helping Angel out, because he is still not well. Wesley and Cordelia are complimenting each other. Angel says that he thinks that they did a good thing and Wesley agrees, since they set the captives free. Cordelia points out that they actually set a bunch of demons free. “Well, technically, yes.” says Wesley. Roll credits. WOMP.
Not the first time you’ve set a bunch of demons free, and I doubt it’ll be the last. This episode had its WTF moments, and in spite of the Fang Gang being separated for much of it, had some fantastic moments from them. Wesley with the Bookie is one such example. I like this show a little more with each episode. Which is good, since we’ve already agreed to watch five seasons of it, and you all already know we lack the ability to abandon train wrecks in progress.
Next time on Angel: My rough understanding of the description is that a Twihard actress wants to live 4eva. Maybe I spoke too soon. Find out on S01 E17 – Eternity.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
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