Our story begins with Cordelia talking about all the utility and rent bills they need to pay. Cordy again mentions that Angel needs to start charging for his help. Doyle agrees. First of all, if paying the bills is a problem, maybe they should ask Angel how he's handled them in the past, since he seemed to manage okay in Sunnydale and here in Los Angeles before they showed up. Second, when did Doyle go from being Jiminy Cricket to Jacob Marley? Doyle says Angel hates asking his clients for money, and prefers "playing the hero, walking off into the dark, his long coat flying behind him in a mysterious and attractive way..." We join Cordy in marveling at a new record for working some homoeroticism into an episode of the show, but Doyle denies he is personally attracted to the great poof (tm Spike). While Angel clunks his way upstairs, and Cordy suggests that they take a stand on charging a fee with Angel, "just as soon as he's had his coffee." (For those tracking inconsistencies, Fox1013 notes that Angel said coffee made him jittery back on BtVS.) Angel comes in, fills his mug, takes a sip and is disgusted by the week-old sludge, in a bit of comedic business as stale as the coffee. Another dreary argument about money starts up, but this time Doyle gets the headache before I do. Plus, he has a blipverty vision. As Doyle recovers, he demands a pen, paper, and a single-malt scotch. Doyle introduces the victim of the week: Melissa Burns, employed at Pardell Paper Products. Then he chugs the drink Angel hands him, only to discover it's actually polymalt. Angel goes off in search of the guest star, walking off in slow motion with his coat billowing behind him, and Doyle confesses, "Maybe I'm a little attracted."
The score as we go to credits is Attempted Jokes: 4, Actual Jokes: 0.
Melissa at work. Birthday cake for co-worker has the wrong name. Good-natured office joshing. Flowers arrive for Melissa with a card signed "My undying love, Ronald." Melissa nervously pops into the bathroom, where she gulps down three pills at once, washing them down with a splash of water from the sink. Yum. , she enters the parking garage, where she is menaced by a shadowy figure who turns out to be Angel. Angel offers her one of his cards, saying that he thinks she may need his help. She says she can't afford him; he says he doesn't charge. Melissa winds up suspicious and nervous and so she gets into her car and leaves.
Back at the office, Angel asks if he's intimidating. Cordy offers, "As vampires go, you're pretty cuddly. Maybe you should think about mixing up the black-on-black look." Doyle has apparently spent the interval thinking up new rationales for charging clients: "People get attached to a mysterious savior, and can you blame them? But as long as you're just a man who's doing a job, and getting paid, they can feel like they've paid their debt to you and they can move on." Cordy says Doyle is smarter than he looks, "of course, you look like a retard." A blipvert gives us a chance to release our pent-up gales of laughter.
Melissa's at an ATM. Her PIN number doesn't work. Enter creepy guy, to be identified as Ronald. Ronald changed her number to 3-5-99, the anniversary of their meeting. Melissa tells him to leave her alone. Ronald says, "I just want you to be happy and healthy, silly." Then Ronald suggests that Melissa ease up on the tranquilizers, asking "How many did you take today in the bathroom at work today -- three?" We learn that Ronald and Melissa only had one date, and that Ronald is a doctor. Summoned by his pager, Ronald leaves, but mentions, "I'll see you tonight." Cordy gets a call back at "Angel Investigations" and hangs up to announce that Melissa's on her way over. Angel greets this news by saying, "I gotta change my shirt."
Melissa tells her story to Angel, who is now wearing an off-white shirt. Dr. Ronald Meltzer, a neurosurgeon, fixed Melissa's eyesight seven months ago, took her out for a drink, and has been stalking her ever since. She adds that she can feel him watching her constantly, and that he knows about everything she does. She also offers that those pills we saw her take were "Xanitab." With another "joke" about the bad coffee, Melissa prepares to head home, escorted by Doyle. Melissa stops to ask Angel how he knew she needed help, and Angel answers, "I have a friend in the police department." Melissa acts as if this explains things and leaves, although if she had actually reported any of this to the police, I think she should have mentioned that. Angel wonders how Ronald could see everything Melissa does. "Is he invisible, or some kind of ghost? Maybe he can astral project [sic]." Cordy suggests that Ronald could have "an accomplice or a hidden camera. Not everything has to be creepy and supernatural, you know." Angel reminds Cordy of Doyle's vision, which apparently is an omen of creepiness. As Cordy exits, Angel strives in vain to look as if he's thinking.
As night falls, Melissa closes her curtains to block out a stray bit of high-speed footage from the Ray of Light video. As she prepares for bed, Ronald sits in his office, squeezing the bridge of his nose. When he moves his hand out of the way, we can see that his right eyeball has gone missing. Oh, there it is, floating in midair back at Melissa's apartment, watching her undress. Strega giggles hysterically at the idea that Melissa is being stalked by William James' transparent eyeball.
Angel discusses his case with Kate at the police station. Kate tells him that Ronald's lawyers are Wolfram and Hart, "the law firm that Johnnie Cochran is too ethical to join." I believe this is the same team that worked for the big bad vamp in the first episode. Anyhow, apparently they've filed a restraining order against Melissa on Ronald's behalf. Kate adds that Ronald hasn't done anything violent, and asks Angel, "Do you think he's gonna blow?" Isn't a gradual escalation to violence typical of stalking behavior, and shouldn't a police detective know that? Anyway, Angel says that he does expect the problem to get worse, and Kate says she'll "put a uniform on her building." That's gotta be a big uniform. [Insert rimshot.] Kate says that Melissa needs to get mad, and points out that even if they put Ronald in jail, "he's still winning, and she's still afraid. He took this girl's power away from her and nobody can get it back for her but her."
Angel makes his way into Ronald's office. Perusing the bookshelves, he picks out a slim volume called Anything's Possible, by Dr. Vinpir Natpudan signed, "To Ronald, Thanks for having the 'nerve' to believe. Fondly, Vin." Recognizing the value of a signed first edition of this rare work, Angel slips it into his pocket just as Ronald himself enters, demanding to know what he's doing. So that's how he's been paying the bills; Angel's an antiquarian! Angel introduces himself as "Jenson," and says he needs the doctor to remove a malignant tumor his wife has. Ronald says he could lose his license (guess Ronald's with an HMO) and that he's not interested, so Angel grabs the picture of Melissa on Ronald's desk and questions him as to who she is. Ronald says that Melissa is his fiancée. Angel asks, "Do you know what it's like to be so much a part of someone that you don't know where they [sic] end and you begin?" I dunno, do you think every Dawson has a Joey? Angel says he won't let his wife die, "while the law catches up with science. What I am willing to do is pay you whatever it takes."
Cordy's at Good Samaritan Hospital, claiming to be working on an article about Ronald. The female doctor she interviews says that Ronald has found ways of extending the amount of time doctors have to reattach severed nerves. Cordy probes, "So he's good at the cutting and the sewing...Did he ever strike you as a big, dangerous creep?" When the doctor is startled by this line of questioning, Cordy explains that she doesn't like the way Ronald treats women, and asks if the doctor wants to contribute any comments about him anonymously. The doctor hesitates, but then offers that Ronald doesn't like to share his techniques, and has made some unusual claims about his abilities.
Back at the office, while Angel surfs the net Cordy tells him that Ronald can reattach eyes to patients. Cordy then asks, "What is stalking, nowadays -- like, the third most popular sport among men?" Angel responds "Fourth, after luge," and we pray that the comic relief is over for this scene. Cordy wonders, "What it is about Melissa that has got him going all O.J. here?" Johanna points out that this is the second oh-so-timely O.J. reference for the episode. Angel answers, "It's about rage. This guy is too messed up to deal with a real woman, and he can't stand that, so he creates a fantasy about a girl he barely knows. But eventually even she fails him, and he has to hurt her because when he looks at her all he sees is how useless he is and how damaged --" You may want to clip and save this handy summary of Angel's relationship with Buffy. Oddly, the writers don't let Cordy make a humorous comment along those lines, perhaps worried that it might actually be funny. Turning to the question of how Ronald keeps track of Melissa's activities, Angel mentions that the book he stole claims that "we are everywhere at once, since we're all made up of the same molecules." Cordy takes the book and claims to remember that Vinpir, the author, "made a big noise a few years back on public televison." Cordy. Learned about New Age gurus. On public television. Oooookay. According to the article Angel pulls up on his computer, Vinpir had a nervous breakdown after conducting "an exclusive retreat for a group of well-known yogis and doctors," including our pal Ronald. Since then, Vinpir has been a recluse...so Angel sends him an email: "I hope you'll have the 'nerve' to believe that I need help with Ronald Meltzer." Because even a recluse has an email address, in case anyone wants to get in touch with him. Why, that's the very definition of recluse! I'm going to search for aspirin during the blipvert.
Angel visits Swami Vinpir in his ornate, pillowy hideaway. Angel asks for help understanding Ronald. Vinpir agrees that Ronald is not like most people. Vinpir says that when he met Ronald, Vinpir was trying to learn how to use all of the untapped resources in the brain. He says, "I introduced Dr. Meltzer to psychic surgeons -- yogis who are able to shut down their somatic systems for days at a time. But he eclipsed us all." Vinpir goes on to explain that his research had been based on theories, but after meeting Ronald, he quit teaching. "Because you stopped believing?" asks Angel. "No. Because I began to believe completely." Fearing that a discussion of James Randi and psychic surgery will start in the forums at any moment, Strega hurries to the scene.
Ronald lurks outside of Melissa's apartment complex, as she tosses fitfully in her sleep. A cop pulls up outside and tells Ronald to turn around and put his hands up. Ronald turns, hands in pockets, and insists he is just taking a walk. The cop, who I'm pretty sure should have a partner with him, repeats his order for Ronald to raise his hands. Ronald reveals that his arms end in stumps, and we cut inside, where his hands are clawing their way onto Melissa's bed. Ew. The cop apologizes and holsters his gun. So the handicapped can't be stalkers? That seems discriminatory. As the hands grope under the covers, we cut to a commercial.
We now return to Cops, already in progress. Our man in blue hears screams from inside an apartment, and races into the complex, where he breaks open a door to gain entry. He then races upstairs to burst into Melissa's apartment, gun drawn, where she is gasping for breath. "Did someone break in? Lady, I can't help you, you don't tell me what's wrong." Melissa points to the bedroom and says, "In there." The cop walks into the bedroom, and peers through the open bathroom door. The cop does not actually open the closet door in plain sight in the bedroom, or look in any other possible hiding places. So it serves him right when, as he starts to tell Melissa that no one else is there, the hands jump onto his neck and start to strangle him. How did the hands know where the cop was to jump on him like that? Ronald didn't send an eye in there with them. Am I trying to find sense where there is none? Yes. Okay, so Ronald smirks as the poor cop has to act like the two rubber hands attached to his uniform are hurting him. Melissa runs screaming out of the building, right into Angel's waiting arms. Nearby, Ronald watches Angel comfort Melissa, while his hands climb up his trouser legs and reattach themselves. If his hands have to crawl around like spiders, how come his eye could just float in midair like that? Oh, because an eye oozing around on the floor would be even sillier. Gotcha.
The police are cleaning up the scene while Doyle gives Melissa a cup of something he pours out of his flask. Nearby, Kate asks Angel how Ronald could have gotten past the locks and security cameras in the building. Kate also says she found fingerprints, which they will compare to Ronald's. Angel passes this information on to Doyle, who comments "At least it was just his hands down there [in Melissa's bed]...I wish I hadn't even thought that." Yeah, me too. And: ew. They discuss the situation, and Angel says that if Ronald's bits and pieces are separated from him for too long, they will begin to deteriorate and he won't be able to reattach them.
Doyle and Cordy are Ronald-proofing Angel's pad with duct tape while Melissa talks to Angel. Angel tells Melissa "He's the weak one. You're the strong one." Cordy offers that Angel "knows what he's talking about; he has stalked plenty of...books on the subject." I still think that observation would have been more appropriate, not to mention funnier, earlier. Cordy and Angel wander upstairs, where Angel begins looking through the yellow pages for somewhere he can get steel boxes. I think I saw this movie with Sherilyn Fenn. The phone rings, and Cordy says "It's the special line." Commissioner Gordon? Oh, no; it's Ronald calling for Mr. Jenson. Angel answers, and Ronald says he'll do the operation but he'll need one hundred thousand dollars to start setting things up. Angel says he'll head right over with the money.
Angel comes into Ronald's office carrying a safe deposit box. I don't think you can take those out of the bank, but I wouldn't really know. Ronald says he knows Angel didn't bring the money, and that his name isn't really Jenson. Then Ronald shoots Angel in the neck with a dart. Ronald says, "You'll feel a slight sinking sensation. That's your heart slowing down as the paralytic takes effect. Eventually it'll stop altogether." While Angel gasps, pants, and collapses on the floor, Ronald raves a bit about Melissa and then leaves. I kept expecting Angel to suddenly reveal that he was only pretending to be affected by the dart, considering that just last week on Buffy another vampire noted that she didn't have a heartbeat or pulse, which suggests that Ronald's drug shouldn't affect Angel at all. But then I keep expecting consistency or something, which we all know is a silly thing to do.
Doyle finishes taping up Angel's place as Cordy tells him that Melissa has fallen asleep with the aid of the whiskey he added to her tea. Cordy notes that dating is difficult. Doyle offers, "Not every relationship leads to disaster." This discussion continues off-screen while the camera reveals little fingers poking through the duct tape. A slightly amusing bit of dialogue was apparently snipped, but is still in the captioning, as Cordy asks Doyle, "You ever had one that didn't?" He answers, "Not me, personally, but I read...." We resume their chit-chat with Cordy worrying about Angel, while Doyle continues to go wild with the duct tape. They hear a mysterious scraping and move to investigate. Doyle grabs some weapons from the walls and doesn't see the eyeball floating above them. They track the noise down to Angel's handy trapdoor to the sewers, which is rattling as a hand tries to push it open. The other hand, meanwhile, opens the front door for Ronald who enters and pops his eye back in. Ronald knows where Angel lives how, exactly? As the hand in the sewer opens the latch, Doyle demonstrates exactly how dumb he is by opening the trapdoor and peering down inside. Ronald grabs Cordy and knocks her unconscious while his free hand (heh) pulls Doyle down into the sewers.
Ronald turns to Melissa, who has been awakened by all the turmoil, and reattaches his hand. Ronald accuses Melissa of leading him on, "until you could find yourself a vacuous L.A. pretty-boy." At the mere idea of dating Angel, Melissa panics and tries to run away, but Ronald grabs her and pulls out a scalpel. Melissa changes tacks, and tells Ronald that he knows she'd have to be crazy to get involved with him, and that he's a "vile, repulsive freak, and I am done being afraid of you." Ronald's throat morphs a little here, for some unknown reason. Melissa concludes by telling Ronald, "Angel was right, you're weak." Ronald's snappy retort is "I'm weak? Then how is it I killed him?" Which is of course when Angel enters with the answer, "Inefficiently." For all the work that went into that setup, I kind of expected a better payoff. Well, at least we're heading for the big showdown.
I don't know the words to describe this bit adequately. Okay, deep breaths. I can do this. Ronald starts to run away, with Angel right behind him. Then Ronald turns and...all right, here goes: Ronald's jaw jumps out of his mouth and bites Angel's arm. It's not even really his jaw, it's like one of those little chattering teeth sets, only a little bloodier. And it's not his whole lower jaw, but it's more than just his teeth. All I can say is, it is darn amusing to watch when it hurtles through the air and bites Angel. So, Angel smashes his arm against a wall, shattering Ronald's jaw-or-whatever-the-hell-it-is. Ronald tries stabbing Angel with the scalpel, and tosses one of his hands around Angel's throat for good measure. Angel ends up stabbing the hand to the floor with the scalpel. While Ronald tells Melissa how happy they could have been together, one of his ears sorta falls off, which has got to be embarrassing for him. Angel calls Ronald's name, and when Ronald turns Angel throws a mighty punch which causes a styrofoam head to fall to the floor nearby. I'm not sure what happened to Ronald's own head, maybe it got knocked off as well. Angel gives Melissa a nice hug to pay her back for enduring the kind of climactic fight scene you don't normally find outside of anime.
Some time later, Cordy adds fresh grounds to the gross old coffee filter. So they can afford coffee, but not filters? Huh? Angel wanders in having sealed Ronald away in a bunch of separate boxes and buried them. Melissa enters and presents Angel with a plant, causing Angel to comment, "Hope it doesn't need light." Because that stuff streaming in through the windows and illuminating the office is darkness. Cordy and Doyle cough and carry on until Angel mentions that there's a bill for his services. Melissa pulls out a check without even asking how much she owes, and Cordy grabs it and scurries away. Angel insists he didn't do it for the money, but Melissa tells him that he earned it. Exit Melissa. Doyle and Cordy prepare to head to the bank to deposit the check, but Angel says "I think I'll stay here and not burst into flames." I'll refrain from more comments about his ability to handle sunlight and instead mention that the captioning says "I think I'll stay here and, uh, burst into flames." Cordy and Doyle leave, while Cordy insists that Doyle needs to have more visions so that they can earn more money. Cordy goes on to ask, "If I hit you in the head, would you have a vision?" Doyle says, "Get away from me; you're insane." Angel puts his plant down on a desk and wanders off-camera to talk to his agent.