Props to Johanna, for introducing me to Dawson's Wrap way back when, and to Wing and Sars, who make it look easy.
The show begins with Angel's monotone -- er...monologue. "Los Angeles. You see it at night and it shines. A beacon. People are drawn to it. People...and other things." Ooo, scary. During this there's a little montage of sights in the City of Angels (geddit? geddit?). There are also some super-annoying blipvert-style cuts and double-exposed shots and overexposed shots, which recur throughout the episode. At normal speed these appear to be random meaningless images but if you look at them frame-by-frame, you'll discover that they are actually...random meaningless images. Although some of them are kinda pretty.
Angel is sitting in a bar, burbling drunkenly about Buffy, who he describes as "a hottie girl." When it was announced that Angel was getting his own show, Johanna said "I hope [the show] is just him getting drunk and falling down every week, because that would hold my interest a lot longer than the constant moping thing." Needless to say, Johanna and I were very excited to see her wish was granted so quickly. He even falls down a few minutes later! While Angel continues to blither, the three guys and two girls playing pool (huh?) finish their game and leave the bar. As the flute of tension toots, Angel prepares to follow them, and we realize he was only pretending to be drunk. Golly. Angel strides out of the bar after them in slo-mo. Well, it's either slow motion or he's taking his own sweet time going off to battle evil, so I choose to believe it was slo-mo.
In a shocking development, the three guys are vamps preparing to dine on the girls. Angel wanders up and does his drunk act again to get close to them. Then they fight, and there's the usual kicking and blocking and throwing vamps into car windshields. Angel does this stretching move which causes stakes to drop/slide/shoot out from his jacket sleeves, and he then dusts two of the vamps. That was very James Bond and all, but...um...why do that? If he can wear the coat, he can carry the stakes in a pocket. If he can't wear the coat, people will see stakes strapped to his arms. But Angel has had a lot of time on his hands; maybe he's taken up gadget-making as a hobby. The girls try to thank Angel, but he's got his game face on (and the prosthetic eyebrows look particularly awful throughout this episode). In his vampire aspect, Angel is a little tempted by the fact that one of the girls is bleeding. It seems to me that he must have been around the gang on Buffy when one or more of them was bleeding, but whatever. Anyway he dispatches the last vamp and walks away, down the clean, graffiti-free alley of downtown Vancouver. Er, I mean, Los Angeles.
Credits. Angsty cello. Shots of Angel brooding. Cue the drums as Angel breaks through a door. Angel is pensive, angsty, worried, briefly happy, and then pensive again. Costarring Cordelia's hair and that guy from Roseanne.
After a good night's work, Angel returns to his home. He apparently lives in the basement of a building that has lofts available for rent. He also goes through some abandoned but attractively furnished offices on his way to the elevator, and the whole setup seems odd to me. Is he renting the basement? Or does he own the building? I hope they explain the mechanics of Angel's life at some point. Anyway a stranger has somehow gained entry to Angel's secret hideaway! Hey, it's Becky Conner's husband! With an Irish accent! He introduces himself as Doyle, and since he doesn't have a last name we know he's some sort of supernatural being. He insists he is human, though, and then sneezes, which causes little blue spikes to briefly pop out all over his face. This is the strangest adaptation of Pinocchio I've ever seen. Doyle clarifies that he's human on his mother's side, which I mention on the off-chance that it's a plot point eventually.
Doyle says he was sent, and it turns out he was sent to recap the entire Buffy and Angel saga for those who didn't watch Buffy. I do, so I'm not going into it, except to repeat Doyle's description of Buffy as "young miss puppy thighs." Point is that Angel came to L.A. to fight evil, rescue the innocent, blah blah blah. Doyle says Angel needs to stop being a recluse. He also says that because Angel drank Buffy's blood back in last season's finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel has a renewed craving for human blood, and eventually he will feed off one of the people he was trying to rescue. So, if I'm still following this, if Angel gets to know people a little better, then he won't be so tempted to drink their blood because he'll care about them. Y'know, there are some people that you care less and less about the more you get to know them, and I can't help thinking that Cordelia Chase would fall into that category. On the other hand, Angel was in love with Buffy, so we know he's not too discriminating. Then Doyle says he needs a drink.
Blipvert. As Angel and Doyle leave a liquor store, Doyle continues his Jiminy Cricket act. He tells Angel, "It's about reaching out to people, showing them that there's love and hope still left in this world." In the midst of this, an old woman asks Doyle for spare change and without missing a beat he responds, "Get a job, you lazy sow." Okay, that did make me giggle. Doyle also points out that Angel is very attractive. ["Not." -- Wing Chun] Angel asks who sent Doyle, but Doyle isn't sure. Doyle explains that he sometimes gets headaches during which he sees images, and that whoever sends him these visions is just trying to make things right. After his latest vision, he wrote, "Tina, Coffee Spot, S.M." on the back of a scrap of paper. Doyle asks, "You game?" Without answering, Angel channels a blipvert and then drives off in his black convertible to handle his first mission. (Okay, how'd he get a car? Is there a twenty-four-hour MVA?) I think the poor guy really missed having someone to boss him around the way Buffy used to do.
As they step out of the elevator to the hotel parking garage, two men grab Angel and pull him back into the elevator before the doors close. Another man grabs Tina as Stacy comes out of the other elevator. Stacy tells Tina that "he" (Russell, one assumes) just wants to see her. Tina seems to calm down, makes a break for it, and is caught again just in time for the commercial. Gee, lucky thing she had that mace.
Having dispatched (killed or KO'd, it's hard to tell) the two henchmen, Angel races to the rescue, leaping into his black convertible, trying the key, pausing, and then realizing that he is actually in the wrong black convertible; his is a few spaces over to the right. Heh. Stacy, Tina and henchman #3 speed off toward the exit. I'm not sure why they're speeding, since they have no reason to think they're being chased at this point. Having found his car, Angel races after them. Oh wait, somehow he got in front of them, because now they're driving toward each other. Maybe Stacy parked his car in a far corner of the garage or something. I don't know. Anyway, they play chicken, and henchman #3 loses, crashing into a parked car. A few punches are exchanged, and Tina is rescued. Hooray!
Cut to Cordy, who is living in a crappy efficiency apartment and has no jobs and no food. That was the entire point of this scene. The end.
Angel makes tea for Tina back at his swinging bachelor pad. Angel: "Do you take milk and sugar?" Tina: "Yeah." Angel: (with a nice tone of embarrassment) "...'Cause I don't have those things." Heh. Tina notices Angel's decorating style, which consists mainly of swords and battle-axes hanging on the walls, and Angel explains that he has some relationship issues himself. Tina asks if this is the part where he "comforts" her, since he's earned it. I thought that was a nice way of showing that Tina was accustomed to being used, but Johanna thought she was just being a whore. Tina starts crying, and Angel offers her a dishtowel, which I also liked, because Angel's even less likely than most men to buy tissues. Angel asks if Russell has a last name because he too realizes that having just one name means you're a demon, and Tina says yes but won't say what it is. Tina does say that Russell likes pain, and implies he may have killed a girl she knew named Denise.
Blipvert. While Tina sleeps, Angel looks through her phone book, finds Denise's last name, and goes down to the library. Using Find-A-Loved-One.com, he is able to pull up her headshot and aliases. A search of news archives pulls up some more blipverts, as well as articles about female murder victims. (If you have freeze-frame, you can look at the text of these news articles and learn some interesting facts about restraining orders, recycling, and rhino horns. You can also see Angel sticking his tongue out.) Then a search of missing persons reports finds a girl with a rose tattoo just like the one Denise has. Well, had. Also, Denise looks suspiciously like Cordelia in bad makeup.
At a big ol' mansion, Russell is talking to his lawyer while watching the videotape of Tina from the party. I will not make any of the obvious jokes about lawyers and vampires. Russell spies Cordelia on the videotape, and decides she looks tasty.
Blipvert. We see the window of "Stacy's Gym Supplies," and then Angel smashes the window and begins beating up Stacy and demanding information. Cordelia is meditating when she gets a phone call from the party's hostess. Russell Winters wants to meet her. Tonight. Ruh-roh! Angel is packing up his bag o' weapons while Doyle makes chit-chat. Cordy rides in a limo, on her way to Russell and CERTAIN DEATH! Angel tells Doyle he has to drive. Doyle protests. Angel is having none of it. Why does he want Doyle with him? Cordy admires the Russell mansion as the butler escorts her through it toward...RUSSELL. Who will KILL HER. Then she walks into the room Russell is in, and he dismisses the butler. The tension is just indescribable. Thank god there's a commercial here so I can catch my breath.
Back at Casa de Vampire, Cordy admires the heavy curtains on the windows, and provides her backstory for those coming in late. (Her parents were rich, they didn't pay taxes, the IRS got 'em, now she's broke.) Then she pretends to be doing very well with her acting career but gradually reveals the shocking truth that she isn't. Charisma Carpenter still tends to look, well, a lot older than 18, but in this scene I thought she was very good at imitating the mannerisms of a nervous teenager here, and that helped a lot.
Angel drives up to the mansion's gate with Doyle in shotgun position. For some reason, Angel does his version of an Irish accent while performing the old "we're lost and need directions" bit for the guard. Then he loses the accent and asks about the football game the guard is watching. Then he punches the guard and pulls the wire out of the security camera. Angel instructs Doyle to tie up the guard, and says "I'm out in ten minutes or I'm not coming out." Angel then leaps to the top of a very high wall.
Meanwhile, Cordy is still revealing her deepest insecurities to Russell. She starts to cry, but pulls herself together suddenly and apologizes. This bit is pretty amusing, so I shall transcribe:
Cordelia: I probably look really scary. I finally get invited to a nice place...with no mirrors and...lots of curtains...Hey -- you're a vampire!
Russell: What? No I'm not.
Cordelia: Are too!
Russell: I don't know what you're talking about.
Cordelia: I'm from Sunnydale; we had our own Hellmouth! I think I know a vampire when I...am alone with him...in his fortress-like home...and you know, I think I'm just feeling a little light-headed from hunger. I'm just wacky. And kidding! Ha ha!