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There's a blipverty soirée going on at Cordelia's when the show starts. Apparently she's suddenly made a whole new pack of friends in the big city. Among all the dancing couples, Wesley is getting down with his bad self. Cordy greets two newcomers, Laura and Diego, and asks Diego if he's going to behave himself. "Have you ever seen me at a party?" is his noncommittal response, as he hands her a bag of ice. Wesley tries to take a bite of some snack food while jerking his body about in an approximation of dancing, and ends up spilling food on the floor. Angel is standing by a bucket of ice, looking uncomfortable. Cordy asks if he's having fun. "Sure," he says unconvincingly, "this is, um..." "Your idea of hell?" Cordy finishes. Angel says, "Actually, in hell you tend to know a lot of the people." Cordy looks peeved, so Angel claims he's having a great time. She asks, "Can I get you some blood or anything?" "I'm good," Angel insists. Cordy goes off to chat with someone she identifies as, "David Paymer's brother, Steve." You can look David Paymer up at IMDb if you care, but no, you shouldn't recognize his name. ["Uh. I do. But then, I catalogue Hey! It's That Guy!s for a living." -- Wing Chun] Wesley boogies some more, and Angel watches with a wonderful expression of amused fascination as Wesley manages to fall over while doing some sort of shadow-boxing dance step. Cordy must be hanging out with a kinder group of people than she did in high school, because none of the other guests are staring and laughing at the astoundingly geeky Wesley, which is very nice of them. Wesley picks himself up and bops over toward Angel, who stares at him the way Mr. Spock would sometimes stare at Checkov. Wesley rubs some ice on his forehead, explaining that he needs to cool off, and then expounds on the appetizers: "These mini-reubens, with the little sauerkraut, the little Swiss -- what mad genius brought these into the world?" He gobbles one down, and says, "What say a couple of brooding demon-hunters start chatting up some of the fillies?" While Angel tries to formulate a response, a dark-haired starlet approaches them. She admires Wesley's sweater, which looks really heavy and warm and uncomfortable for a party in Los Angeles, and asks if it's hand-knit. "Certainly not by me!" Wesley blurts out, while Angel studies the floor intently to keep from laughing. The starlet insists that she just thinks it's an attractive sweater. Wesley says, "I'll pass that on, then. To the person who knit it. I mean, I would, if I knew who did it. But I don't. So I won't pass it on to anyone, will I?" Suitably bewildered, the girl leaves. I take it that Wesley knits?

Later, Cordy runs by shouting, "Diego! Pants on!" Heh. Laura seems to be telling Angel her life story: "So with my Masters degree in Fine Arts, I was able to launch my very own business selling sandwiches downtown from a little cart." She goes on, fairly charmingly, and Angel fills in the awkward pauses...awkwardly. As a new tune starts, Laura asks Angel if he'd like to dance. And then we see the funniest ten seconds of Angel ever. Yes, even funnier than the time that guy's jaw jumped out of his mouth. It's just a few quick shots of Angel dancing. Badly. With lots of exaggerated facial expressions, and finger-pointing, and shimmying, and in every shot Laura is standing nearby, watching in utter horror. When it ends, we flash back to real-time as Angel tells Laura, "I don't dance." She goes to find someone who does, and Angel slinks off to the kitchen. A chair slides out from the table toward him. Angel says, "Hi, Dennis," and sits down. "How you doing? Still dead?" he asks. A can of non-product-placement beer opens and slides into his hand. Angel has a sip and says, "I know the feeling."

Elsewhere, some guy is picking up a beer of his own. From the ominous music, we know that either he's about to do something bad, or else something bad is about to happen to him. He is examining a large box covered with labels indicating "Hazardous materials -- do not open," leading me to suspect that the second option is more likely. He walks into an outer office, smashes his beer can flat, hides it inside a newspaper, and suddenly hears a wailing, moaning, creepy noise. Naturally, his reaction is to go right back in and open up that mysterious box. Dust and light fill the room as he looks down and says, "Holy God." So that's where the Arc of the Covenant ended up. And it contains the credits!

There's a blipvert of party highlights, which includes a close-up of the appetizers. I like it when they put strange shots in the blipverts; I think it's my reward for bothering to freeze-frame through the stupid things. Angel strolls into the office asking for his morning coffee. Cordy says, "They're still in bean form. I thought I ordered ground." She hands him the bag of coffee beans and suggests that he "crush the beans with [his] vampire strength." She encourages him to "Mush 'em!" and Angel seems to consider the idea for a moment before putting the bag down. He says that the party was fun, and Cordy responds, "I was so glad you came! You know how parties are; you're always worried that no one's gonna suck the energy out of the room like a giant black hole of boring despair, but there you were in the clinch!" The fashion police should be alerted that Cordelia is wearing a denim skirt with some kind of flowered panels at the bottom, and a blouse that's okay from the front, but ties like a halter around the middle of her back. Angel tries to defend himself, and mentions that he talked to Laura. "Laura thought you hated her. I had to tell her you were challenged," Cordy says. Angel explains, "I've got two modes with people: Bite, and avoid. Hard to shift. Plus, I can't get too close. I mean, with women --" "You can be nice," Cordy interrupts. Angel says he'll try harder, then asks, "Still, I mean, the quiet, reserved thing...don't you think it makes me kind of...I don't know, cool?" Cordelia points at Wesley, who enters just then, and says, "He was cooler." Ouch. Angel sits down with a sigh and says, "Now I'm depressed." Wesley compliments Cordy on the party and the food, asking if there are any leftovers. After Wesley hints for food a few more times, Angel asks Wesley if he's broke. Wesley tries to avoid the question until Angel asks, "Do you want a job?" "Oh yes, please," Wesley says. "I don't have much," Angel claims, despite all the evidence to the contrary, "but as long as you make yourself useful around here, you're entitled to a cut." Wesley tries to give Angel a hug, but Angel fends him off. Wesley then turns away, claiming that there's something in his eye. Cordy tells Wesley not to get "all sappy," and then suddenly tells Angel, "Hold me!" Angel gets as far as "Why don't we all just --" before Cordelia begins to collapse with one of her visions. We see the guy from the teaser with his personal Pandora's box. Then he gets rather red-faced. Not in an embarrassed way; more in a bloody-skin-peeling way. Then his eyeballs explode. Cordelia accurately summarizes, "Gross! Oh! Ew, is all! Ugh!" After recovering, she directs them to an ice factory downtown. Angel asks what they're looking for, and Cordy says, "A corpse."

Wesley and Angel check a map and determine that they can't get to the factory via the tunnels, so Angel will have to drive. Wesley insists on coming along to "earn his keep," and then starts to ask about the details of his salary. "There's no dental," Angel instantly says, aware that Wesley is English. Wesley nods and says that he'll floss. Cordelia, rubbing a glass of ice water on her head, tells them to be careful. Have you noticed a little motif with the ice yet? Like big, icy anvils? Duck and cover now, because there's a lot more of them looming overhead.

Angel's convertible pulls up in the shadow of the ice factory. You know those indoor/outdoor sunglasses that darken in bright light? I think the windows of this car are made out of the same stuff, because the tinting looks a lot darker here then it has in other episodes. Angel enters the building and finds the charred body. He pulls out the guy's wallet, and maybe this is how Angel makes his money! Oh, nope, he just pulls out a business card for "Peter Wilkers' Private Security" and puts the wallet back. , he explores the back room, which contains bags of ice, and the now-open box. Which is full of, that's right: ice. A figure scurries past in the background, and Angel, alerted by the sudden crash of music on the soundtrack, turns around and walks back onto the warehouse floor. A guy in black with a ridge on his forehead skulks around and is suddenly confronted by Angel, who says, "Captain Inferno, I presume?" Angel grabs a crowbar and starts to threaten the skulker, until he notices a hole burned in the skulker's shirt. "You didn't burn him, did you? Who are you?" The skulker seems disinclined to talk until Angel threatens him with the crowbar a bit. "I am called Tay," he finally admits. Tay says he's from another dimension, and explains, "I was sent by my people to stop it." When Angel asks what Tay is supposed to stop, Tay says, "The bringer of chaos." Angel asks if it's a demon. Tay says, "More than a demon -- it is a vessel of pure rage." Angel lowers his crowbar and asks how to kill this chaos-bringer, but Tay says Angel can't kill it, and advises him to stay away.

Back at the office, Angel shows off a sketch he made of Tay, and tells Cordelia and Wesley what he's learned. Upon hearing that Tay's people are from another dimension, Wesley is unfazed and says that they must have traveled through portals. Cordy demands, "When did they put in portals? Don't we have enough on our hands without burning monster fiends coming here?" Wesley assures Angel that they'll put a stop to the extradimensional terror, and calls Angel "Boss" for good measure. Cordelia tells Wesley, "Stop kissing butt! It's not like we get overtime." Then she tells Angel that she'll look for any other incidents of people being incinerated lately. Angel goes off to find out who hired the security guy. He pulls his car up beside a building. Since it's after sundown, he's got the top down and the windows set to "untinted." The building's front door is locked, so Angel strolls around to the side and readies his twin grappling hooks. It's only one storey, and I'm pretty sure we've seen him jump at least that high, but if he wants to play with his Batman toys, I guess that's his choice. After getting that out of his system, he enters Peter Wilkers' office and pulls a file out of a cabinet. Then he jimmies open a locked desk drawer and finds an envelope containing a wad of cash and a shipping order. It seems that the Jericho Ice Company is supposed to make a delivery to the Palm Ridge Spa. Angel pockets the shipping order and replaces the envelope as the office door begins to open. Angel looks up as a sizzling blast throws him to the floor. He looks up to see our guest star, Ms. Bai Ling. She doesn't look like a vessel of pure rage, unless maybe it's all directed at her agent.

After the commercials, Angel and She Who Must Be Refrigerated try to interrogate each other. SWMBR guesses that he's working for "them," and asks, "How much do they pay you to hunt us?" Angel says he works for himself, and asks if she knows how Mr. Wilkers got burned to a crisp. She starts to rush him, and Angel swings a chair up to block her. But she whirls around and under his arm so that she's right in front of him, and then does something that seems to make him unhappy. So far, I like her. Cut to Angel crashing through the office door. As he picks himself up, a cell phone starts ringing. SWMBR pulls out a phone, asks a few questions like "Where?" and "How soon?" and quickly leaves. As she hurries down the street, we can all admire her outfit. She's wearing big clunky shoes, leather pants and a leather halter-top with a great big round cutout to show off her wonderbra cleavage. She's also got a long, thin, jacket with red trim which for some reason makes the rest of it slightly more acceptable to me. I guess if I looked like Bai Ling, I might dress that way, because she does look ready to kick some ass. Or maybe Cordy's outfits have increased my tolerance for fashion risks. She also has little ridges above her cheekbones, and a black zigzag mark accenting her left eye, and unnerving violet contact lenses. Anyway, she gets into a car and drives off, while behind her we see Angel climb out onto the rooftop and jump down to the ground.

I've noticed that they never seem to have car chases on television anymore -- especially ones where cars hurtle through the air and crash into each other and innocent commuters are casually killed in giant exploding pile-ups. And this episode of Angel doesn't have most of that either, but at least there's a car chase. As Angel goes into hot pursuit mode, he pulls out a cell phone and dials. He gets a message saying his call did not go through. He redials, and this time he gets a low battery alarm. Rummaging through the glove compartment, he pulls out a cigarette-lighter adapter and hooks it up to the phone. He looks up in time to make a sudden turn, cutting off someone, but still avoiding an actual collision. At Angel's office, the phone rings, and Cordy answers. Angel declares, "I hate this cell phone that you gave me. Any luck?" Cordy tells him that they've found four other cases of men being burned to death "from the inside out," all of which occurred in the past eleven months. ["Man, they should hook up with the crew at Now and Again. -- Wing Chun] She asks if Angel found the chaos-bringing thing, and Angel says that he did: "And it's not an it. It's a she." The phone begins cutting out, so that it sounds as if Cordy asks, "Did she care you?" "Did she care about me?" Angel asks. Cordy repeats, "Did she Carrie you? Carrie, the movie, you know?" The phone cuts in and out some more, and Angel finally says, "These things were definitely cooked up by a bored warlock." He tells Cordy and Wesley to keep trying to find Tay, and describes SWMBR, adding that "She seemed intelligent; she was very attractive, for a demon." Cordelia comments, "A hottie, huh? I guess she's that, all right, what with the sizzle." The phone begins going out again, sparing Angel from hearing Cordy's joke. He finally hangs up and throws the phone into the back seat. Apparently some people found the phone bit tiresome, but I like it when they inject a few real-world annoyances into the stream of fantasy, so it worked for me.

SWMBR pulls up at a museum and enters, putting on a dark hood and some sunglasses to disguise herself as a rock star. She tells a security guard that a man is following her, and points out Angel, identifying him by his black coat. As Angel follows her past the Impressionist paintings, he pulls off his jacket and buttons the top button of his shirt. I guess that's his version of a disguise. Guards begin to converge on Angel, so he suddenly stops by a painting and starts playing tour guide: "And this brings us to Manet's incomparable 'La Musique Aux Tuilières,' first exhibited in 1863." The guards are, naturally, taken in by this and cannot figure out where the mysterious stalker could be. Meanwhile, SWMBR makes her way to an art restoration room. Angel eyes the guards as he goes on lecturing, pointing out Baudelaire among the crowd of people in the painting. He says, "Baudelaire -- interesting fellow. In his poem 'Le Vampire,' he wrote, 'Thou who abruptly as a knife didst come into my heart.' He strongly believed that evil forces surrounded mankind, and some even speculated that the poem was about a real vampire." Angel chuckles with the crowd, then as the guards disperse, adds, "Oh, and Baudelaire was actually a little taller, and a lot drunker, than he's depicted here." The crowd applauds as Angel exits, I guess because he finally shut his pretentious mouth.

"Aha!" says Wesley, causing Cordelia to suddenly wake up from the nap she was taking at her desk. "That better be an 'aha' of triumph!" she complains. "I was dreaming there was a going-out-of-business sale at Neiman's!" Wesley says he's identified Tay as one of the Vigories of Oden Tal. He says that the Vigories "are said to be fierce warriors, and the women live enslaved to them." Cordelia asks if there's anything that would help them track down Tay. Wesley looks in his book and tells her, "It says that the man are herbivores. They eat a thick stew made from rotting plants and flowers. And they need to consume half their body-weight a day." Cordy asks, "So, we're looking for, like, the biggest compost heap in L.A.?"

SWMBR turns around to find Angel entering the art restoration room. She says, "You? How? A human would have been unconscious for hours." This somehow leads her to conclude that Angel is a vampire. Angel asks who Tay is, and what he wants, and who killed the security guy, and who put the tribbles in the quadrotriticale, and what was in the grain that killed them. All right, he doesn't ask those last two. I've been taking cold medication for three days, don't expect me to be coherent. SWMBR asks why Angel thinks she'll answer his questions. Angel says "Gotta risk it. Call me old-fashioned, but I can't allow tourists to go around torching locals." Yeah, only natives get to set fire to each other around here, missy! SWMBR tells him, rather insistently, to leave. "Why, what's going to happen?" Angel asks.

There's a screeching noise and a wall starts warping, and it looks like John Rhys-Davies and the rest of the Sliders are going to pop in any second. A wind blows, lights flash, and SWMBR holds out her hands as a blob forms and drops to the ground. The blob turns out to be a naked, ridged chick. Angel, ever the gentleman, grabs a dropcloth and wraps it around the girl. SWMBR helps the girl up as Angel asks, "What are you running from?" "It is not your concern," SWMBR says. "You are not one of us." Just then Tay and a bunch of his friend enter the room. Angel says, "No, but I think I'll stick around anyway." Tay tells Angel to leave, and adds, "The traitor it, and the other, are ours." Forced to pick sides, Angel naturally decides to defend the women, even SWMBR attacked him earlier. I hope someday he decides to help a woman just because she's female, and it turns out to be a bad decision. Anyway, he starts fighting the Vigories, but a couple of them manage to grab the new arrival and run out of the room. SWMBR shoves her palm out and throws one of the Vigories across the room. She takes out another the same way, and then looks up to see a car racing away. Angel asks what will happen to the girl. SWMBR says, "She will be unmade."

The wailing girl is dragged through a large flower shop. The girl says, "I'll be good, I promise. You don't have to do this to me." "Why does it speak when no one listens?" Tay wonders as they step onto a freight elevator. Underground, the girl is pulled into a room where another Vigory is holding a nasty-looking gadget. "It will now be restored," Tay says. The girl is held in place, and Tay tells her, "You'll feel so much better after this." The nasty gadget is hooked over the top of the ridge running down the girl's back. There's a snapping sound, and the girl screams.

SWMBR strolls around Angel's apartment. She takes off her coat, allowing us to see that she has black cords tied around her arms, and that her pants have some kind of red fishnet pattern of seams. She asks why a vampire would help her, and Angel explains about the kooky gypsies and their curse. While SWMBR dresses an invisible scratch on her arm, Angel asks her what's going on. SWMBR says, "In Oden Tal, what you call personality -- our passions -- these impulses sit in an area of the body we call the ko." She turns around and displays her back ridge to Angel. Angel stands very close, leaning over to examine her ko, and whispers, "And your pursuers, they want to take this from you?" She turns around and says, "Once females come of age, ko controls our physical and sexual power. It even signals when we're...aroused, and have met desirable mates. But when it's removed --" Angel concludes, "You're more easily controlled." SWMBR slowly walks around Angel in a tight circle as she says, "We obey their every command, serve without questioning. We leave behind dreaming." Angel points out that SWMBR escaped, and she says, "I was the first. I am Jhiera." Which is pronounced "Zheera," which sounds an awful lot like "She-Ra." But I'm just glad I can stop referring to her as SWMBR. When Angel doesn't seem to recognize the name, she clarifies, "Jhiera of Oden Tal! My family rules the dimension." Oh, that Jhiera.

I think this whole scene is meant to be full of sexual tension, but it comes off as plain old everyday tension to me, to the point that I really wish they'd both sit down and have a beer or something to relax. Angel whispers, "I'm guessing the royal family isn't loving the portal-jumping, refugee-aiding duties you've assigned yourself." Jhiera admits that her family claims that she's dead, "But the women know. Here, we have a name. We have a chance to become. But it's difficult. When the ko first matures, the girls can't manage it, our physical energy. We come to your world in a fever." "That's why -- the ice," Angel pants. Jhiera says that when she escaped to this world, "I thought I would die from the heat under my skin." The camera pans to reveal that her ko is glowing red as she adds, "And your people, the men, some respond to the ko involuntarily. They try to force themselves. It wasn't safe for me, until I found the frozen water. As long as I could stay cool, the worst of it passed in a few months time. Then I started to learn to control my power." "Like last night, when you burned me," Angel says, sounding kind of bitter about the whole thing. Jhiera grins as she says, "I intended to hurt you." Angel asks who killed the guard, and she explains, "He tried to touch one of my girls. It was his own fault." Angel says that the guard probably meant no harm, and Jhiera points out that the girl's reaction was involuntary. So, it's all just a big crazy misunderstanding! I bet they'll all have a good chuckle about this later. Angel asks about the other four men who've been barbecued and says, "I understand what you're trying to do, and I'll help you if I can. But you can't go around hurting men in my world." Jhiera gets uppity, and says, "I'm daughter to a king, sir. A king who promised happiness, and a better life for everyone. I didn't denounce him and escape for my good alone. I did it to see his promise come true for all the women in Oden Tal. If a few have to die in order to protect my people --" Angel interrupts, "They're my people who are dying, and it's my promise to protect them." "Then tell them to stay out of my way," Jhiera snaps, and heads for the door. Angel tries to stop her, and she puts a glowing hand on his chest. She shakes for a minute, bows her head, and then pulls away from him. She says, "You, too; I don't need your help," and leaves.

Cordelia and Wesley visit the generically named, "California Flower Mart." Something strange is going on with Cordy's hair; it looks particularly shaggy for some reason, but at least her clothing isn't too insane. Cordy is nervous about trying to find the Vigories without Angel, but Wesley says something about initiative and drive, which translates to brown-nosing, and then is briefly distracted by a flower called Nancy's Petticoat before they set off in search of a big pile of compost. They enter a storage area, and Cordelia hisses, "I'm sure we shouldn't have come here; it smells like flower poop." Flower poop? They duck behind some canisters when they hear Tay saying, "The portal will open soon, and only for a short while." He tells his troops to take the girl they caught to the "entry point" and send it home. He asks the zombified girl if she'd like to go home, and she stares blankly at him and says, "It is happy to go, as soon as you say." Apparently the ko also controls their ability to use first person pronouns. The girl is led away, and Tay declares, "This won't stop until we find Jhiera."

A short blipvert whisks us away to the Palm Ridge Spa. Which appears to have moved into the little hacienda that served as Russell's home in the series premiere. A lanky guy, who's got some kind of smarmy-yet-attractive James Spader look going for him, is raking a rock garden. Jhiera enters, and the guy greets her by saying, "Just when I needed the artistic eye of a goddess." Jhiera demands to know where the girls are. He responds, "And namaste to you, too. Apparently 'namaste' translates as 'you're welcome' although it is used as a greeting in, among other places, Nepal. They're right where you left them." As Jhiera strides off into the courtyard, the holistic boy asks, "Are you okay? You look spun." Jhiera and Holistic Bboy enter a small room which has three octagonal tubs in it, each of which contains a lot of ice and a half-naked girl. Jhiera asks Holistic Boy how they girls are, and he says, "They're chillin'!" All right: heh. Jhiera tells him that the Vigories recaptured one of the girls, and he says, "Man, that's lame!" I know he sounds like a stupid Bill & Ted clone, but he is pretty funny. Jhiera goes on to say that the Vigories are on her trail, and that they'll have to relocate. Holistic Boy says, "The girls aren't ready. They need serious isolation and temperature adjustment before they mellow out enough to deal with the world." When Jhiera insists that the girls have to be moved, he suggests, "My shaman has a place in the desert. He never could turn away scantily-clad women in distress -- from any dimension." Jhiera stares at him. He says, "I wish you'd let me work on your mirth chakra." I'm dying to know how these two hooked up. Jhiera asks if the shaman is trustworthy, and is told, "He's good people." Jhiera decides they'll move to the shaman's place in the morning, and scoops up a handful of ice to rub on herself.

Meanwhile, back at the compost heap...Wesley listens to his cell phone ring and complains, "Still no answer." Cordy grumbles, "I bet he forgot to turn that thing on again. You'd think a guy who knows how to use an ancient Scythian short bow could figure out how to use a cell phone." Wesley suggests that they go in search of Angel. They start to leave, but then duck back as another Vigory marches in. He tells Tay that he may have found the women: "A worker at an ice plant tells me [that] he recently started shipping two tons of ice a week to this address." Tay readies his troops. Cordy and Wesley hurry into Angel's apartment. Angel wanders out, toweling off his bare chest. Shudder. At least he's wearing pants. And shoes. And his hair looks dry. Is this some guy thing I don't know about, where you get half-dressed before you finish drying yourself off? Anyway, Cordy snaps, "We nearly got burned from the inside out, and you're here getting all April-fresh?" Wesley explains that they tried to call him, and Angel looks embarrassed as he explains, "I had to take a shower." Again, shudder. Cordy tells Angel what they overheard, and Angel quickly pulls on a sweater, much to my relief. Cordy says, "The demon guy said something about a lot of ice being delivered somewhere. No one said where." Angel digs out the shipping order he found earlier, and gets the address from it.

It's evening, so they drive up to the spa with the convertible's top down. As they all start to get out of the car, Angel tells Wesley and Cordy to stay there and keep an eye out for the Vigories. Wesley nods, tries to leap out of the backseat, and ends up falling on his face. I wonder if the French like Wesley? Angel walks in through the front door. I guess maybe the spa doesn't qualify as a house, so he doesn't need an invitation? Or something? Holistic Boy greets him with a hearty, "Welcome, bro!" as Angel demands to see Jhiera. Holistic Boy says "I'm sorry, no Jhiera here, but I already see [that] I can help you. First, let's talk about the clothes vibe..." Angel grabs him and says that there are men coming after Jhiera. Holistic Boy asks which dimension Angel is from, and Angel growls, "You don't want to know." Uh, isn't he from this dimension? He had that pit stop in hell (get it?) but he's not really from there. Maybe Angel realizes his comeback didn't make any sense, because he pushes Holistic Boy out of the way and goes in search of Jhiera himself. He quickly finds her in the ice room. She turns and says, "What are you doing here? I thought I made it clear!" She speaks in rhyming couplets! Angel says the Vigories are coming, and Jhiera tells him that she's moving her operation in the morning. Angel tells her that's not soon enough: "They're on their way, they'll be here --" "Now!" says Cordy, running in with Wesley. Angel tells Wesley and Cordy to help pack up the girls for travel, and sends out Holistic Boy to stall the Vigories. Which is a pretty damn unfair thing to do. I mean, why didn't Angel send Jhiera out, or go himself, instead of sending the guy who seems least able to fend off a pack of demons? But I guess Angel only believes in keeping the womenfolk out of danger. Wesley starts introducing himself as he helps a girl out of her icebed, presumably because he's affected by her ko. Or maybe by her bikini.

Holistic Boy offers Tay and his troops a red clay massage, adding, "We have hands that heal, brothers." Tay punches him, apparently snapping Holistic Boy's neck in the process. Damn, I liked that guy. Tay's troops move into the now-empty ice room. Angel and Jhiera suddenly drop from the ceiling and start busting heads. Wesley and Cordy pack the girls into crates on a truck. Wesley holds a girl's hand as he helps her climb into her box, and says, "My, what a firm grip. Very healthy." Then, much to my dismay, he says, "Suprisingly firm myself under the jacket. Have a feel?" From the way he's holding his arm out, I believe he's asking her to feel his biceps. At least, I hope and pray that's what he means. Cordy points out, "You're pathetic, and about to get your eyeballs fried!" and packs up the last girl. Jhiera and Angel are still battling when Wesley and Cordy run back in and join the fray. They are, naturally, grabbed by Vigories pretty quickly. Tay tells Angel to return Jhiera and the other girls to him, or he'll kill Wesley and Cordelia. Jhiera takes in the situation, responds, "Then they die," and leaves. Cordy and Wesley suddenly whack their elbows backward into their captors, and the struggle resumes. Wesley actually manages to do some kicking and look reasonably competent, and soon the Vigories run away.

Jhiera is hurrying to the truck when another Vigory grabs her from behind. Tay pops up with his Ronco brand ko-slicer, and prepares to do some snipping as Jhiera struggles to escape. Then Angel grabs Tay from behind. These people have got to learn to watch their backs. Angel tells the other Vigory, "Unless you want to see your leader dead, let her go." Jhiera is released, and stares at Angel for a moment until he shouts at her to go. Angel waits until the truck has a solid fifty-yard head start and then lets go of Tay. Angel tells Tay, "I don't want you bringing your war here again." Tay says, "I have no choice. If this enemy persists, our whole society crumbles." Angel responds, "And if it persists on my turf, you're gonna have another enemy." Tay says, "You don't understand our ways, human." Angel concedes that he doesn't, then vamps out and adds, "And I'm not human. Now if I were you, I'd grab the portal out of here, got it?" Tay, rather inexplicably cowed by this, quietly turns to leave. Maybe his people don't have stakes.

The morning, Angel picks up the still-sealed bag of coffee beans. He shakes it a little, then squeezes it experimentally. The bag explodes, spilling coffee beans all over the floor. Just then, Cordy and Wesley walk in, and Wesley promptly steps onto the beans and falls down. Did he get onto the Watchers' council through some sort of outreach program? Cordy observes, "Mushing didn't work out so great, huh?" Wesley apologizes and starts trying to scoop up the beans, muttering, "Cagey little brutes, aren't they? I'll wash them if you like. Individually. They'll be just as good as new. Better!" Angel helps him up and tells him to stop. Cordy tells Wesley, "Wow, groveling isn't just a way of life for you -- it's an art." Wesley tells her that he doesn't grovel, and then turns back to Angel and begs, "Please don't fire me. What happened yesterday was an anomaly. I'm very rarely taken hostage." Angel says that's good to know, and that Wesley isn't fired. "It wasn't your fault, and you know what? You handled yourself very well." Wesley is overwhelmed, and declares himself to be Angel's "faithful servant." Why couldn't Wesley have been killed, and then they could have taken in Holistic Boy, who was much more likable and entertaining? Then Jhiera appears at the door. Cordy greets her by saying, "Can I get you something? Knife to our throat? You can run away?" Angel invites Jhiera into his office. She tells him that the girls are safe. He says, "I'm glad. But you nearly got Cordelia and Wesley killed." As far as I'm concerned, only part of that is a problem. Jhiera claims she had no choice, but Angel is having none of that. "If you vowed to protect the innocent, Jhiera, it shouldn't matter what dimension they're from." One problem with SF/fantasy shows is that lines like that make me giggle. Jhiera responds, "An easy sentiment, when your people are free." Angel says, "I'm not saying you shouldn't fight. Just know [that] I'll be there to stop you if you cross the line." Jhiera says, "I don't need an extra conscience. I'll do what I think is right," which translates to, "Whatever." Angel responds, "And I'll do the same." Jhiera says that they understand each other, and turns to go. She walks out the door, and we see her ko glowing as Angel stares after her. As a bonus, the closing credits featured some more geeky dancing from Angel and Wesley, and I'm really bummed that I didn't get it on tape.