"Bicker, bicker," says Cordy at the start of the show. "Bicker, bicker, bicker," replies Wesley. He also says something about a "single entendre," which seems like a big shout-out to MBTV. It seems that Cordy is looking at a website called, "Demons, Demons, Demons: The Demon Database." Cordy wonders why good ol' Wolfram & Hart aren't in the database. Wesley points out that they're lawyers, not demons. Cordy makes the obvious joke. Wesley asks if the Vigories of Oden Tal are listed, which I can only assume is meant to remind us of Jhiera's existence so that we're less confused when she turns up again someday. They aren't. Cordy says that someone should create "an intra-demon dating base, y'know, like Archfiend.org: where the lonely and the slimy connect." Dating base? When Wesley is unamused, she clarifies that she was joking, and asks, "When was the last time you had a dating base?" Again I ask, dating base? Wesley sniffs that he has a rich social life. Cordy responds, "Oh, I know. Every night it's Jeopardy followed by Wheel of Fortune and a cup of hot cocoa. Look out girls, this one can't be tamed." Wesley admits that "It may not be as intoxicating as a life erected on high-fashion pumps and a push-up bra..." Cordy says "If anyone around here is wearing a push-up bra, it's --" whereupon Angel enters, so she finishes the sentence with, "Angel!" Presumably she was going to finish the sentence by implying Wesley wears a push-up bra, right? That's the only thing that makes sense, right? Only that doesn't make sense, right? Just checking. Angel asks if the Bickersons need to see a counselor. They start to argue some more when a man with some major facial bruising enters, and Angel quiets his employees by saying, "Children, we have company." The man introduces himself as Darin MacNamera, and says he's heard Angel can handle unusual situations, then begins wobbling as if he's about to faint. Angel and Wesley help the dazed Darin to a seat. Darin says that his brother, Jack, was kidnapped last night, and that this morning he found a small white box in his mail. Angel opens the box to reveal a severed finger, and asks if Darin knows who the people responsible are. Darin says, "That's why I came to you. They weren't people." Let's watch the credits while we try to recover from the shock.
Angel looks at photos of Jack, played by Scott William Winters, who looks enough like Brad Pitt for me to feel that Fight Club jokes are being encouraged by the producers. Johanna tells me he played a no-good brother on Oz. I'm more interested in the fact that he played a character identified as "Blow Dried Jerk" in The People vs. Larry Flynt. Darin goes on with his tale of woe. He says that he's been successful, and Jack is a bad boy with a gambling problem. Jack was in debt to his bookie, Ernie Nellins, and asked Darin to help him out. Darin refused, but went to visit and got there just in time to see "creatures" dragging his brother away. Darin says that Ernie can usually be found at a local sports bar. Angel directs Darin to write down a description of the creatures while he checks out an important blipvert. And suddenly, it's dusk. There's a poker game going on with Ernie and his pals, and the players are all drinking things like wheat grass and kiwi coolers. Oh, those Angelinos, they're so wacky.
Angel enters. He throws down a few pictures of Darin's brother and says, "I think my Jacks beat your pair." He made a little pun there. Ernie starts to pull out a gun, but Angel non-chalantly grabs it. Ernie stands, and he and Angel step out into the -- what the hell is that? I mean, I know it's the warehouse/alley set they use in every episode, but what is it meant to be this time? Anyway, Angel says that Darin will pay off Jack's debts, but Ernie says "It's not about the money anymore; it's about making Jack an example." Ernie pulls out a cigarette, and Angel makes as if he's pulling out a lighter and instead flips up some folded bills. Oooo, suave. Ernie carefully glances from side to side, in case there might be a random passer-by in this abandoned warehouse, and takes the money. He says, "There's a place... in Beachwood Canyon. Well, not exactly in Beachwood Canyon. Under it, actually." Angel drives along a deserted mountainside road, finds a manhole in a ravine, and opens it.
Wesley and Cordy are feeding Darin's description of the creatures into the demon database. Did I mention that it's nighttime, now? So it's taken them at least eight hours to get around to doing this. Wesley reads the description: "Bald, ultra-white skin, slime." Cordy asks if they had claws or hands, and Wesley says, "Claw-like hands." He adds that they smelled "sulfuric." Cordy says, "Add a Porsche and hair-plugs and I've dated this guy. A lot." The abductors also emitted "an eerie high-pitched howl or wail." Maybe Darin spent eight hours finding adjectives for his description. Cordelia clicks on "Search" and Wesley heads for his reference books, saying that "By the time you finish entering all this in your fancy-shmancy database, I could have located--" "Got it," Cordy interrupts. According to the database, Jack was taken by Howler demons. Incidentally, Cordy seems to be wearing Faith's leftover blue eye shadow. I know they still haven't taken me up on my "The Perils of Cordy" suggestion, but while I was desperately trying to stay awake during this episode, I had another idea. Angel's a private investigator in Los Angeles, for goodness' sake. Why haven't they done a little film noir detective story? Cordy could dress decently for once, Angel could wear a fedora and talk out of the side of his mouth about dames, and Wesley could act like Peter Lorre.
Angel descends into the sewer system. Shining his flashlight around, he discovers a grate on the floor has been pulled up, and under it there appears to be a body encased in cement, with only the face and bloody hand-stumps visible. Then he's attacked by the Howlers, who are in fact blue, not ultra-white. They also wail like a car alarm at random intervals. They fight for a bit, and Angel pins one of them against a wall and demands to know where Jack MacNamera is. The Howler says, "We sold him," and Angel asks who the buyer was. Suddenly, Angel is watching a snazzy sports car pull up to the valet parking in front of a building. While the bouncer checks everyone's tickets, Angel ambles over and starts tugging on the bars over one of the building's windows.
Inside, people are stepping up to the bar. A woman toys with her glass of red wine and, in picking it up, manages to knock a piece of paper off the table. Angel grabs the paper out of the air with the same "swish" noise that his axes and swords emit when he moves them. The paper reads "Amount: $5000; To win: Cribb." The woman takes it back and thanks Angel. He moves on, and enters a large room where people are yelling and cheering. The camera pulls back to reveal a sunken pit in the room's center, where two demons are fighting while everyone watches. While the green demon pummels the orange demon, the crowd chants, "Killing blow! Killing blow!" A guard tosses the green demon a dagger, and he slits the orange demon's throat. The emcee steps into the arena and announces that the winner is Tom Cribb -- demons have first names? He goes on to introduce the fighter as Val Trepkos, "The menace of Venice." Angel starts looking over his photos of Jack again, and looks up to see the man himself walking away through some curtains. Angel follows and enters a dark hallway. Suddenly a spotlight blinds him, Jack steps out to say, "You made it. Most don't." Darin, his bruises gone, steps up and warns Jack to be careful. "You set me up," Angel notes. Jack steps closer and asks if he can have a look at Angel's teeth, saying "Teeth tell a lot about the bones." Angel tosses Jack aside, and then some other men step in with cattle prods or something and Angel falls to the ground, unconscious. Jack says that Angel will be "a crowd-pleaser." At least till he wakes up and starts talking again.
The day, Angel awakes in a cell. For reasons known only to the sadistic scriptwriters, they've taken away his shirt and jacket so he's wearing only a white T-shirt. And he's got a new metal bracelet, which he's unable to remove. In the background we can see other cells, with other prisoners, a central area, and a thick red line painted on the floor. Angel starts spouting quips at his cellmate, who does not respond, possibly because all of the prosthetic makeup keeps him from opening his mouth. Angel tries to communicate in Spanish, Russian, and Italian before giving up. Then Jack enters and starts talking to the Angel and the rest of the Differently Human prisoners. As the cell doors slide open, Jack says, "There's only one rule here, and it's real simple so you demons can remember." Let me guess -- does it involve not talking about something? Angel starts toward Jack, but before he reaches the red line Jack says, "Stay inside the red. That wristband will make sure you do." Jack goes on to explain that the bracelet is removed after a demon's twenty-first kill in the arena. Angel says he won't kill anyone. Because he's not the kind of guy who runs around killing demons. Right.
At the office, Wesley hangs up the phone after saying, "Let us know if you hear from him." He tells Cordelia that Kate hasn't seen Angel, and "She seemed like she didn't much care, either." I guess Angel didn't mention how he watched vampires kill Kate's dad. Cordy says they should file a missing persons report. Wesley theorizes that Angel is "holed up in a tunnel somewhere, waiting for nightfall." No one brings up that, if that were the case, Angel could call them on his cell phone. No one wonders why they haven't tried to call him on his cell phone. Wait, that's not quite true; I wondered about that. Cordy mentions that "Our client, who should be waiting by the phone, is nowhere to be found." Wesley decides to go speak with Ernie the bookie. In arming himself for the confrontation, he indulges in some obligatory non-physical non-humor.
It's mealtime backstage at the UWF (Underworld Wrestling Federation). Angel takes a seat and tries to make conversation by saying, "Looks like good gruel." Cribb, the green demon we saw fighting earlier, hereafter identified as Froggy, asks Angel who he is. After Angel introduces himself, Froggy says, "What you are is a soon-to-be-dead slave." Speaking for us all, Froggy adds: "Shut up." A runty little barbarian starts to take a bite of bread, and Froggy shoots out his very long tongue and gobbles the bread up. The Runt complains. Froggy grabs the Runt's bowl of gruel as well. Angel tells Froggy to return the gruel. While tension grows at the dinner table, the guards begin powering up their cattle prods. Angel pulls the bowl back over to the Runt. Froggy stomps off in a huff. I bet Froggy just wanted to make the Runt go tell the guards, "Please sir, I want some more." Later, the Runt tells Angel, "I can fight my own battles." Angel implies that the Runt can't, leading the Runt to ask, "You want a piece of me?" In an effort to revive myself, I bang my head against a wall for a few minutes. The Runt goes on to tell Angel, "Don't be rockin' the boat; this is life and death in here." Apparently the Runt is from a race of demons that can speak only in cliche. Jack and Darin enter, and Jack begins addressing the prisoners as "ladies" in a way that makes me feel very tired. He announces the pairings for this evening's fights. Trepkos, who has yet to say a word, which we all know means he's the fiercest fighter, will be fighting Mellish, the Runt. Darin whispers to Jack that "After [Trepkos] kills Mellish, we'll put him up against Kafka for Saturday's fight." I'm guessing that Kafka is a big cockroach, and therefore is too expensive to actually appear in this episode. The Runt tries to talk tough to Trepkos, and then Angel's cellmate suddenly makes a break for it. As he starts to dive at Jack and Darin, Angel shouts "Nooooooo!" and tries to intervene. Unfortunately, Angel is moving in slow motion, and therefore is powerless to stop his cellmate from jumping over the red line and instantly dissolving into dust and blue lightening. Darin complains that they'll have to find a replacement for the dusted demon. Jack looks at Angel and says, "How about Captain America here?" Snicker.
Ernie and his poker pals are pummeling some guy in the back room of the bar. "Stop that," Wesley insists as he enters. Wesley explains that he's looking for Angel. Ernie says that Angel paid him to get answers, and Wesley will have to do the same. Wesley says, "I will not give you a single red cent. What I will do, sir, is beat it out of you if I have to." Ernie, his friends, and most of the viewers have a nice chuckle. Wesley pulls out a small, shiny metal crossbow, and Ernie asks, "What are you, Robin Hood?" Ernie starts to pull out his gun, and Wesley shoots, pinning Ernie's hand to the wall and causing the gun to bump into the wall and rebound across the floor so that Wesley can scoop it up. He aims the gun at the flunkies before they are able to get to their own weapons, and tells the pummelee to go. Then Wesley walks over to Ernie and begins wiggling the dart-like arrow around in Ernie's hand. Owie. "And where is my employer?" Wesley asks while Ernie moans.
The emcee welcomes the crowd, and above the arena, the red-wine drinking woman talks with Darin. "I heard the vampire has a soul," she says. She asks if that would be a plus or a minus to his fighting ability. "Probably depends on what he's fighting for," Darin speculates. She asks what odds Darin will give her, and Darin offers her even money. "I'll take that bet," she responds. Darin chuckles and walks away from the crazy lady before she tries to hurt him. Meanwhile, Angel has decided that the best way to get out of this situation is to brood as he's never brooded before. The Runt tells Angel that Baker, Angel's opponent, has an injury to his left eye. "I'm not gonna kill anyone," Angel mumbles. Jack comes in, calls the demons "girls" for a change of pace, and tells them it's showtime. Everyone starts putting on their pasties. Cut to Angel entering the ring as the emcee introduces him by calling him "Aaaaaaaaayngel!" I wait for the crowd to chant, "Two men enter, one man leaves!" but am disappointed. There's some fighting for a while. The demon Angel's fighting is only slightly more impressive than the Runt. Froggy, Trepkos, and the Runt watch the battle.
Outside, Cordelia and Wesley approach the valet parking line. Cordelia is wearing a matching gold zebra-striped jacket and skirt. The skirt has some kind of fuzzy fringe. I am in awe. She spots a well-dressed couple getting out of their car and tells Wesley, "These two are perfect." Wesley asks if she brought "the badge," and Cordy admits she didn't. Before Wesley can start bickering again, Cordy steps up to the couple and says "I'm Detective Andrews and this is Detective... Yelsew." She directs Wesley to show them his badge, and Wesley quickly flips his wallet past their line of vision and then proceeds to write down the couple's license plate number. The man says, "My name is Matthew Winslow, as in Winslow Multimedia. I happen to be a personal friend of your boss, Chief Tylor." Cordy asks to see their tickets, and after looking them over, asks, "Are you aware that you've purchased tickets to an unlicensed sporting event?" Winslow hesitates, and Wesley leans forward and snaps, "Answer the detective!" Cordy says, "We're trying to do you a favor, Mr. Winslow." Wesley can't leave well enough alone, and adds, "Something's going down tonight. Something with the man!" Wesley suddenly grunts as Cordelia presumably kicks him in the shin. Winslow asks if there's going to be a raid, and Cordelia says she can't confirm that. Winslow asks if he and his date can leave, and Cordelia says, "I think that would be a wise thing to do, sir." Exit the couple, as Cordy hits Wesley for nearly blowing it.
The slightly less runty demon is pounding on Angel. Froggy makes fun of Angel. The crowd boos. Cordy and Wesley enter and spot Darin near the edge of the pit. Darin is toying with the dusted demon's bracelet. Then they see Angel, getting the undead crap beat out of him. Wesley explains that there's been a recent revival of "these Octavian matches," which is all just setup for Cordy to ask, "Couldn't they have just done West Side Story?" Wesley goes on to explain about the bracelets to Cordy, and point out the red line on the fence circling the pit, in case we hadn't put those pieces together yet. One of the guards throws a knife to the less runty demon. Darin puts the bracelet he's been holding down on the top of the fence. (At the time I wondered why they were wasting all this camera time showing Darin putting down the bracelet. Well, actually, I figured it was a nice break from wasting camera time with the so-called plot, but you know what I mean. Anyway, it turns out that there is a reason for it.) The less runty demon lashes out, and a cut is opened up on Angel's arm. Angel vamps out. The crowd chants "Killing blow!" For my own entertainment, I substitute, "Kill the pig, slit his throat, spill his blood!" Actually, the demon does have a rather pig-like nose. The demon attacks, and Angel twists the demon's arm around so that he stabs himself. While the crowd chants his name, Angel exits the arena. Speaking of arenas, I wish they could have gotten a Gorn in there. I always loved the Gorns.
While Angel heads back to his cell, Trepkos and the Runt go out for their match. Angel pauses to tell Trepkos, "No one fights, no one dies." Way to lead by example there, hypocrite. Froggy interjects something, but I'm too busy begging them all to shut up to hear him clearly. Angel insists, "We can fight them, but only if we stop fighting each other." Trepkos finally speaks, only to say, "I'll kill him quick [sic]." The match starts. Trepkos keeps his word. The match ends. Cordy suggests that they should call the police. Wesley says that Darin would kill the demons if there was a police raid. He goes to say that they need to rescue Angel, which means getting the bracelets off, and then claims that the bracelets "were forged by ancient sorcerers." But alas, Wesley will need one of the bracelets in order to figure out how to open them. Luckily, it turns out that Cordelia swiped the bracelet that Darin was toying with during the fight. See, there was a reason for us to see all that. If only I could say the same for this episode in general.
I spent at least half of the show on the phone with Johanna, because that was really the only way I could retain my tenuous grip on sanity. This scene will demonstrate why. Jack enters and jabbers away at Angel about something unimportant. Angel stands just inches from the red line on the ground. Jack approaches until he is just barely on the "safe" side of the line. Johanna pointed out that, since the bracelet triggers disintegration, the prisoners could presumably step across the red line as long as they kept their braceleted wrist on the other side. Upon realizing she was correct, I pounded my forehead against the wall some more and had visions of Angel teaching all of the other demons to do the hokey pokey. Then I speculated that Angel would reach out with his unbracleted arm and grab Jack. Johanna said he wouldn't, he'd just lure Jack a little closer to the line and then grab him, because that would be much more stupid. Turns out Johanna was closer to being right.
Angel reaches out so that his bracelet is exactly above the line, and beginning to shoot off sparks, and grabs Jack by the throat. Then he pulls Jack across and into the demon zone. What an incredibly stupid security system. What incredibly stupid bad guys. Where's my beer? While the guards look on helplessly, and I roll my eyes until I'm dizzy, Angel demands to know how he can get the bracelet off. He asks the other demons to search Jack's pockets for a key, but they join the guards in taking a passive role. Angel shouts at the guards to go get Darin, and they do, as if it never would have occurred to them to do that without Angel's advice. These idiots all deserve each other. Angel asks Jack, "How does it feel to be a slave?" Over on NBC, Rutger Hauer takes a break from The Tenth Kingdom to shout something about how it's quite an experience to live in fear, and that's what it is to be a slave. Angel says he'll release Jack when Darin lets all of the prisoners go. Darin asks, "Who do you think you are, Moses?" Heh. Angel says he's "someone you'll listen to if you want your brother back alive." At which point I begin telling Johanna that Darin will shoot Jack. Angel reminds Darin, "He's your brother." Darin shoots Jack, saying, "Now he's my dead brother." Guards rush in a zap Angel with cattle prods until he falls unconscious. I wish I had a cattle prod.
When Angel awakes, he's got his jacket on over his blood-stained T-shirt, which is a slight improvement. He's in an office with the red-wine drinking lady, and a couple of guards. The woman introduces herself as Lilah Morgan. Did anyone not know she works for Wolfram & Hart at this point? Even Angel manages to guess that. She says, "I convinced MacNamera to sell your contract to the partners." She tells Angel he's free. Angel says, "As long as I pretend it never happened. That MacNamera and his circus don't exist. That is the deal, isn't it?" Lilah says there are a lot of people Angel can help. Angel clarifies that he'll be expected to avoid interfering in cases where Wolfram & Hart are involved. Lilah claims this is Angel's only chance to survive. Angel turns and tells the guards to take him back to the blipvert. If Angel had agreed to Lilah's deal, is there some way they could have actually held him to it? Once he's free, what can they do? Sue? I'm sure they explained all that, and I missed it because I was too busy playing with my home trepanning kit.
The day, Wesley is attaching some alligator clips to the bracelet. He tells Cordelia, "I need something that conducts electricity, but not too much of it. This cuff is half magic, half medieval technology." He carefully touches something to the bracelet and is blown back to the floor by a powerful surge of electricity. And another blipvert. Angel marches back toward the gladiators' prison. "He was free," Trepkos tells Froggy. If by "free" you mean surrounded by armed guards, sure. Angel steps back over the red line and allows Darin to reattach his bracelet. Darin asks if Angel thinks he's proving something by returning. Just that he's very, very stupid, Darin. Darin adds that tonight Angel will fight Trepkos. If Trepkos wins, it will be his twenty-first kill, and he'll be free. Angel turns around so that he and Trepkos can exchange deep, meaningful, soulful looks. Before they kiss, we cut to Wesley, who is carefully holding a wire in an alligator clip while he gingerly moves it toward the bracelet. "Too thick," he says before actually touching the wire to the bracelet. I leave it to you to decide whether he's describing the wire, himself, Angel, or the writers. Cordelia says, "Tick, tick" by way of indicating that he should hurry. Wesley says, "We need something supple enough to thread the locking mechanism, but strong enough to spring the release." "Horsehair," suggests Cordelia, and begins fiddling with one of her bracelets. She removes a strand from one bracelet and explains the hair is from "Keanu, my palomino, before the IRS took him away." Wesley touches the horsehair to the bracelet, and zap, it opens. Horsehair. Well, isn't that convenient?
Lilah bets ten thousand dollars on Trepkos at the arena. The emcee introduces Angel and Trepkos. Angel looks bored as he asks Trepkos, "Is this how you want to pay for your freedom? With twenty-one bodies?" Trepkos tells Angel, "I'll kill you quick [sic]." Angel waggles his eyebrows and says, "I won't let you." Well, you sure told him. They start punching and kicking in that way they always do. The fight goes into slow motion to intensify the deep hurting. Ours, I mean, not Angel's. Cordelia roams about backstage and tells a guard that she's looking for the bathroom, distracting him so that Wesley can scamper by. Wesley, blocked from the cells by a gate, calls Froggy over. Wesley says, "I need to see Angel. Tall fellow, prominent brow?" Froggy says that Angel is dead, then clarifies, "[In] about twenty seconds, he will be." Wesley pulls out his homemade horsehair key, explains that it will release the bracelets, and says, "Help me save Angel, and I'll get you out." Froggy snatches the key with his tongue and smirks before walking away. Back at the arena, Darin directs one of the guards to toss a sharpened wooden pole to Trepkos. You know, these fights aren't exactly fair since Darin provides weapons to some of the participants; I'm amazed the audience doesn't complain about that. Another pole is tossed in for Angel, but still, I think a big pointy stick is a little more dangerous for Angel than for Trepkos. They whirl their sticks around for a while. Wesley finds Cordelia back in the audience and tells her that one of the prisoners took his key. Cordy says they have to help Angel. Trepkos manages to spear Angel through the stomach. Angel breaks the stick off and then knocks Trepkos off his feet. He pulls out the broken end and puts it to Trepkos' throat. The crowd starts their "Killing blow!" chant again. I wait eagerly for Angel to shout, "I won't kill him! D'ya hear me? I won't!" a la Captain Kirk.
Froggy gets his bracelet off and then turns in time to see Angel toss the stick away and turn his back on Trepkos. Froggy's little amphibious heart is, no doubt, warmed by this display of nonviolence. Those of us higher on the evolutionary ladder remain bored to tears. Trepkos jumps up and knees Angel in the back. He does some more slow-motion punching and then stops, fist raised, so that he and Angel can exchange another long, tender look. Trepkos lowers his fist and looks up at the crowd. (I originally typed, "lowers his fish," and I think the show would have been a lot more interesting if that had been an accurate description.) Angel looks at Trepkos again and then collapses. Darin watches the scene for a moment and then finally tells the guards, "Both of them." The guards circle around Trepkos with their cattle prods when Wesley, having made his way through the crowd, points a gun at Darin and says, "Call them off." Darin responds, "Screw you." Then there's a bellow and Froggy and all of the other demons suddenly rush into the arena. While they attack the guards, Darin tries to wrestle the gun away from Wesley. The demons climb the walls of the pit and begin pulling crowd members down into the arena. Froggy uses the key to remove Angel's bracelet. Having finished their melee, the crowd of demons exits as quickly as it entered. Darin finally gets the gun, and is aiming at Wesley when Cordelia uses some unidentifiable metal pole to shove Darin into the pit. He aims at Trepkos and starts yelling at him, but Angel grabs the gun away before Darin can fire. I forsee that they will put one of the bracelets on Darin and then throw him over the red line. They do. However, I did not forsee that they would toss him at Wesley and Cordelia, so that they are showered with bits of Darin-dust. Cordy looks appropriately disgusted. Froggy removes Trepkos' bracelet. Angel starts to leave, but just "happens" to fall over so that Trepkos is forced to help "support" him. Trepkos tells Angel, "It was a good fight." Angel agrees, and keeps leaning on Trepkos as they leave the arena. Then Angel adds, "I could have taken you." I bet they exchange phone numbers backstage.
Cordy and Wesley help Angel walk out of the building, giving a whole new meaning to the term "supporting actor." Cordy tells Angel that they wouldn't have let anything happen to him. As another demon exits behind them, she adds, "Beyond the slavery and the severe beatings and stuff." Angel stops to look at the many demons walking along before them, and says, "I think we did a good thing here tonight." Wesley agrees, "We set the captives free," as some of the demons look back and chortle. Cordelia wonders, "Didn't we set a bunch of demons free?" Angel looks sad as Wesley is forced to admit, "Technically, yes." Ladies and gentlemen, that was the longest shaggy-dog story ever.