Props to everyone struggling to make sense of the Buffy/Angel timeline, and (just because I can) congrats to Lee & Theresa on their marriage.
Hey, there's no "previously on Angel" montage! This can only mean one thing... we're done with the crossovers for a while! Hallelujah!
A twenty-something black girl strolls along under a bridge. Which looks like the very same bridge we saw Marquez walk by in last week's teaser. Make use of the filming permit while you've got it, I guess. Three young hoodlums follow her as she becomes increasingly nervous. So, the stalkers are meeting their racial quotas, I guess. When she reaches a little dead-end alley of some kind, she finally turns to face her pursuers, and we see that they're vampires. A grungy vamp with shoulder-length dark hair, who will eventually be identified as Ty, turns away from his victim-to-be suddenly and says, "You!" Dramatic chord the camera reveals a man's shoes, then pans up slowly to reveal black pants, a black trench coat, and... a sweatshirt that says "New York." Hey, that's not Angel! In fact, it's a rather charismatic black guy who asks, "You were expecting somebody else?" He has a companion holding a crossbow, and there's a truck full of other guys pulling up behind them. Credits already? Wow.
A throbbing bass line whisks us to a party in a spacious loft apartment. Are we gonna get to see Angel dance again? Please? Cordy, Wesley, and Angel stroll in, and Cordy comments that she's missed that smell. Wesley thinks she means the appetizers, but Cordy says that she means something else: "I like to smell a little money once in a while." As she goes to check out the partiers, Angel clarifies, "She's not just saying that. Hide some in the office sometime and watch her. It's uncanny." Then he chuckles! Really! Cordy comes back to drag them over to a nerdy man-child sitting by the television, and greets him as Mr. Nabbit, their host. Eventually we'll find out that his first name is David. It turns out he's also their new client. Cordy spots some old gent in the crowd and asks, "Oh my god, is that Welland Harding?" David is forced to admit that he doesn't actually know most of his guests. He stammers, "They come to the party and I -- I think they have fun." Angel offers to come back later, but David explains that Cordy suggested that meeting at the party would be "less conspicuous." Angel gives her a "that's so conniving" look, and Cordy responds with an "ain't I a stinker" grin that is actually pretty cute. David says, "I always said I'd make a billion dollars in the software market and learn to talk to girls. Still working on step two."
They sit down as David prepares to explain his problem. He says it involves blackmail, and asks, "You're familiar with Dungeons & Dragons?" Angel says, "Yeah, I've seen a few," before Wesley helpfully explains, "You mean the role-playing game." Angel processes this and after a moment, plays along, "Game! Right!" David explains what a role-playing game is, as if anyone who'd watch this show wouldn't know already. He claims that the game involves "fighting troglodytes and romancing exotic demon princesses." Troglodytes? They must have been in one of the supplements. Cordelia, concerned, asks, "Did someone find out [that] you're a big nerd?" David chuckles and says, "No, that's actually public record." I don't care for gratuitous geek-slams, unless I'm the one making them, but okay: heh. David goes on to say that some of his friends got very, shall we say, enthusiastic about the game, "Especially the demon-romance part." For some reason they cut to Angel here, so I speculate that he's thinking, "Well, people do seem to find me more attractive when I'm evil, so I guess it makes sense." David comes perilously close to a point: "The guys were joking about getting some tail..." Not to suggest that geeks can't be crude, but given how nervous this one is, I can't help thinking that this character would have found a different way to phrase that. Wesley says, "You went to Madam Dorion's." David insists that he only went once, while Wesley explains to Angel, "It's a demon brothel." Any speculation on how Wesley knows about this place? While David admits that he actually went twice, Wesley goes on to say, "In Bel Air, I believe. The Watcher's Council is rife with stories about it." Yeah, sure it is, Wesley; good cover story. Angel asks, "How many --" and then David gives the final total as "Twelve...times..." before Angel can finish, "-- people knew about you going?" David says that his security team has already identified the blackmailer as one Lenny Edwards, as he hands Angel a photo of the guy, but adds that his team can't track Lenny down. David does his best to sell this little MacGuffin by saying, "If my stockholders see these pictures..." Oh, please. Stockholders only care about profits. Not to mention: Who the hell will believe those are actually demon prostitutes? Tell them it was a Halloween party that got a little crazy. Sheesh. Cordelia comforts David by offering to hang around at the party for a few more hours so that no one suspects anything. There's another "check out the geek" joke, but I'll spare you.
Cut to some live-action roleplaying, as the vamps and street kids duke it out. One kid is aiming a gizmo on the back of the truck that appears to be a modified gun that fires stakes. Interesting idea, but it only holds six stakes, and it's not exactly portable, and it looks hard to aim, and -- oh, the hell with it: it looks cool. Other people are armed with spears and stakes, including the girl from the teaser, who's pointing her spear in the direction of the melee while hiding behind the truck. Lots of choreographed combat. One vamp gets staked by the stake-gun as he leaps to attack, resulting in a nice mid-air dusting. Ty kills one of the kids and then races toward the truck. Little Miss Totally-Useless shouts, "Bobby!" as Ty rushes to attack the stake-gun operator. The leader runs toward them as Ty slams Bobby's head into the side of the truck, and Totally-Useless shrieks, "No!" Then she swipes at Ty with the side of her spear instead of, oh, plunging it through his heart. Ty and the other vamps scamper off. The leader orders his crossbow-toting sidekick to "dog 'em," as Totally-Useless asks for help pulling Bobby back up into the truck. She also identifies him as "Gunn," so that we won't confuse him with any other African-American vamp-fighting tough guys named after weapons. They all pile into the truck as it pulls away into a major melee-blipvert.
The truck pulls up at an old abandoned building as people rush out to help the wounded Bobby into the building. I see a blonde girl in the group, and think about how neat it would be if Chantel turned up among them. She doesn't, of course. Bobby is dragged through a guarded hallway, then down a metal staircase, so that he can rest comfortably on the bare floor of the basement. Bobby grips Gunn's hands and groans, "He picked me up like I was a baby." I, myself, don't usually pick babies up by the head and swing them into truck fenders, but that's me. Gunn tries to comfort him, but Bobby insists, "I'm not a baby." Totally-Useless says that Bobby needs a doctor. Or a good therapist. Bobby stops muttering, and Gunn says, "Not anymore." Because Bobby's dead, you see. Then he calls another sidekick named James, and asks, "How are we fixed for tonight?" James says, "Beck and me lifted some can stuff. Wasn't much in the bins behind Mel's." No, I don't know what he's talking about. But I like picturing Beck slaying vampires. James adds, "And we got that." Gunn turns to look, and apparently "that" is some other kids lurking in a stairwell. James complains that "We don't take squatters," but Gunn insists, "Everybody eats!" and James hustles off to do Gunn's will.
Cut to Madam Dorion's. Various pointy-eared, funky looking girls are exchanging smooches with some visitors as Angel strolls in and steps up to the corner bar. Apparently Madam Dorion thinks that an erotic, decadent atmosphere can best be created by decorating the main room as if it's an office lobby. Lots of neutrals, lots of little lamps, all the furniture is available at your nearest Scan. Of course, Madam Dorion herself is wearing a gray business suit as she approaches and tells Angel, "We don't do vampires." Angel pulls out a picture of Lenny but Madam Dorion won't answer his questions. As she tries to hustle him out the door, Angel notes that she's discreet, and asks, "How discreet would you say it is for one of your clients to be secretly photographed and then blackmailed?" Well, if he's secretly photographed, that's still fairly discreet. Angel says that if he can find Lenny, then maybe he keep word from getting out and ruining Madam Dorion's business. She asks which girl was involved, and Angel says that his client is David Nabbit. Madam Dorion calls, "Lina!" A busty young lady in a teddy and pink feathery hair strolls out and begins toying with Angel's jacket collar as she says, "He's a pretty one." Maybe by demon standards. Madam Dorion says that Angel is a vampire, and Lina tells him, "Just don't do that face thing, and we'll get along great!" Then she turns around to face Madam Dorion and says, "Look ma! No hands!" We hear a scratching sound, and Angel suddenly looks down and makes what I have decided to interpret as a noise of surprise. Then Lina's tail suddenly flips up into view. Listen to me very carefully, now, for the sake of your sanity. She was tickling his feet with her tail. That's all that happened. Nothing else. Are we all clear on that? I'm not responsible for what happens to anyone who allows himself to ponder the Lovecraftian horrors of any other explanation. She tickled his feet. The end. Anyway, Angel shows Lina the photo and says, "I'm looking for him. I think your boss here would like you to cooperate." Lina says, "Vampires," rather sneeringly, causing a blipvert.
Totally-Useless goes looking for her brother, who, we will not be surprised to learn, is Gunn. She finds him and says they have to talk about Bobby's death. Gunn says, "We don't talk about that. That's done." Totally-Useless says that they're dying, and Gunn says, "Everybody dies. I'm just trying to make sure that when we die, we stay dead." You know, when he puts it that way, it sounds really stupid. Totally-Useless thinks Gunn is being reckless and then says, "Three weeks, and no teeth, and you had to ring the dinner bell like that." No teeth? Well, that's what the captioning said. She continues, "You just couldn't go another day without getting a little death in, could you?" Given the juxtaposition of this scene with the whorehouse, perhaps using the phrase "little death" was ill-advised.
Totally-Useless thinks that Gunn won't be happy until he gets "as close to death as [he] possibly can." Gunn is too busy denying this to notice when a large anvil smashes to the floor behind him. The hand-held camera begins shaking nervously as Gunn holds Totally-Useless's hand and reassures her. A door opens, and the cameraman walks away from Gunn and Totally-Useless and toward the stairs, as one of the sidekicks descends the staircase. That shot did not justify having the camera wobbling around making me feel queasy. I hate the director. Gunn asks if the sidekick, "Chain," had any luck, and Chain says, "Dead boy lead me right to its nest." Hey, "Dead Boy" was Xander's pet name for Angel! Chain tells Gunn that the vamps have a nest just a few blocks away, "under the old blue jean factory." Another sidekick hurries in and announces, "Incoming! Moving this way, fast! Jumping rooftop to rooftop!" Gunn is annoyed and asks Chain, "You were followed?" He and Chain hurry upstairs.
Back at ground level, Lenny the blackmailer steps out of his car and turns to see Angel beside him. Lenny asks, "What do you want?" Angel replies thoughtfully, "Love, family, a place on this planet I can call my own. But you know what? I'm never gonna have any of those things. And unless these few minutes go exactly the way I want them to, neither are you. Where are the pictures of David Nabbit?" Lenny denies knowing who David is, and Angel chortles, "Ho ho! You only get one lie, I probably should have mentioned that first." Angel, there's a fine line between cool and affected, and you've broken some distance records by leaping over it that way. Lenny says, "You're obviously not from around here," and puts his hand on Angel's shoulder. Angel gives the hand a little glance, which was probably meant to suggest "barely contained righteous anger," but which comes off more as "mildly irritated." From behind a fence, Gunn and Chain watch the conversation. Lenny tells Angel, "You do not want to see my bad side." Angel raises his eyebrows while he still has them, and says, "You show me yours --" before vamping out and concluding, "I'll show you mine." He pushes Lenny against the car and tells him, "So now I'm from around here. In fact, I'm moving in, I'm taking over, you understand me? I will dog you every night, for the rest of your very short life, until you bring me what I want. Are we clear?" Lenny nods, and Angel says, "See you tomorrow," before releasing him and vanishing. Um, couldn't he have at least tried to get the pictures immediately? Oh, but all this is just the MacGuffin. I forgot. Lenny gets into his car and leaves. Chain asks Gunn, "He's moving in, huh?" Gunn glares straight ahead and answers, "Yeah, well he ain't gonna stay too long."
Cordelia and Wesley accept a check from David to cover their "expenses to date." David adds that he appreciates what they did at the party. Wesley and Cordy are confused until David clarifies, "We talked, we had some good times. It meant a lot to me." Wesley points out that they were paid to be there, and David says that's true, but "I do that all the time. You guys actually hung with me. It was special." Cordy snatches the check before Wesley can take it, and is clearly stunned by its amount. She shows it to Wesley, who says, "I think there must be some mistake." David says he believes in rewarding good work. Wesley says it's very generous, but they haven't even completed the job yet. David says, "It's only money. And I've got sackfulls," before ordering them to call him David, and not "Mr. Nabbit," as they have been doing. Cordy says, "I like David. It's such a strong, masculine name. It just feels good in your mouth." David chuckles blissfully. Wesley thanks David again and pulls Cordy toward the door, whispering, "Feels good in your mouth?" Cordy whimpers, "I was flustered!"
Nighttime cityscape. Cut to Lenny sitting on his car, holding a manila envelope. Angel materializes, startling Lenny. Angel asks for the pictures, and Lenny hands over the envelope before mentioning that he also brought "a little something extra." Of course, the something extra is a demon who suddenly punches Angel with enough force to send him flying through the air. The demon throws Angel onto a car and begins trying to squish his big head into a more normal shape. Angel makes with the kicking and tripping, then knocks Lenny down and grabs the photos. As the demon comes after him, Angel races to a "No parking any time" sign and does a full Xena, swinging around on the pole and smashing his feet into the demon. Because street signs are on round poles like that. Punches are exchanged. Wrestling occurs. Angel finally snaps the demon's neck, and Lenny runs away. Angel kneels down, panting for breath, and suddenly falls forward when a stake shoots through his left shoulder. Those darn kids!
Angel turns to see the truckload of vampire vigilantes behind him, and after pulling the stake out, starts to run away. He pulls a trash bin out in front of the truck, forcing it to swerve. Then his path is blocked by a chain-link fence, which he couldn't possibly climb, much less jump over with his bionic vamp-powers. He rolls under a partially open garage door and into a warehouse. As he pauses to catch his non-breath, one of the large spikes tied to the front of the truck crashes through the door behind him. He starts running again, and it's kind of like the cave at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, only an inner-city version. Metal grates lined with spikes fall toward him, trip-wires set of torrents of arrows; they've got everything but the rolling boulder of doom in there. A vigilante attacks with a stake, and Angel wrestles it away and throws the boy to the ground, almost stabbing his attacker with the stake before stopping himself. He drops it instead, and continues running.
A few more guys attack, including Totally-Useless. Angel kicks her away, but she picks herself back up and runs at him again. This time Angel grabs her just as Gunn enters, armed with a crossbow, and shouts, "Alonna!" As the rest of the group surrounds him, Angel holds Alonna as a human shield. "You're gonna get yourselves killed," Angel says. "We gonna get you killed first," is Gunn's response. Angel releases Alonna, and she collapses to the ground, right on a trip-wire. Angel puts his hand out to block the arrow that shoots out toward Alonna's head. "Ow!" he says, as the arrow punctures his palm. He tells Gunn, "I'm getting the impression you don't like me too much." He pulls the arrow out of his hand and grumbles, "Maybe I'm just overreacting." Gunn asks if Angel is going to pretend to be different from other vampires. Angel answers, "Yeah, then I'll just pretend I just saved her life. You put a lot of work into this. There's some clever stuff, really. I'm impressed. But I have a few suggestions." Gunn says they aren't interested, and Angel tosses the arrow across the floor and asks, "Who do you think that would have killed? We're fighting on the same side." Angel adds that he isn't there to kill them, but Gunn doesn't care, saying, "If you ever show your face down here again, don't count on any long goodbyes." Gunn's gang slowly leaves the room, leaving Angel a blipvert.
Back at the office, Wesley says that David will be happy to get the pictures back while Cordelia -- aiieee! -- is bandaging Angel's chest. Wesley flips through the photos and says, "Oh my." Angel looks over Wesley's shoulder and explains, "It's upside down." Cordy tapes a bandage down just above Angel's nipple. There's no way she's getting paid enough for this. Cordy asks, "How's that feel?" and Wesley, occupied with the photos, says, "I can't possibly imagine it was pleasant." Cordy explains that she was talking to Angel. "Feels better," he says, as he pulls his shirt on, and I certainly feel better now that he's clothed. She suggests that he should rest, "You look --" "Like I've been beaten and stabbed?" Angel asks. Cordy offers to show him David's check again, but Angel says he should go find Gunn's gang. Cordy is inexplicably moved: "Twenty minutes ride from billionaires and crab-puffs, kids going to war." Angel theorizes, "They've been pushed to this," and again says that they'll get themselves killed. Figuring there must be a vampire nest in the area, he asks Wesley to figure out where the kids live while Angel looks for the vamps. He painfully pulls on his coat, steps into the elevator, and then looks back and asks, "Can I just see that check again?" Since when did Angel care about money? If it'd been a funny joke, I wouldn't mind, but it wasn't, and it was way out of character. So there.
A vamped-out skinhead grumbles, "Street trash, that's what they are." He sits, surrounded by the rest of the vampires, in a big room with a lot of fluorescent lighting. He's kind of like the Master's long-lost nephew, who never amounted to anything. Anyway, he begins lecturing the others: "For seventy years, we ruled this neighborhood. It was our neighborhood. Used to be, decent people lived here. Working people. And now? Can't even finish one without wanting to puke!" Ty and the others look duly chagrined at this sad state of affairs. Master-lite declares, "It's our fault. We let this happen. We got lazy, we dropped our guard." He asks Ty if he's even been lured into an ambush before, and Ty shakes his head. Master-lite says, "Ty's been around for almost as long as me. He survived, like me, 'cause he's smart. But they did this to him, and that means they could do it to any one of us. And why? Because this street trash ain't afraid to go for the heart." Master-lite whips out a stake and dusts Ty. Master-lite declares that they have to do the same: "No more picking them off one by one. We concentrate on the heart." Wolfram & Hart?
Cut to Gunn's gang. Alonna is arguing that Angel could be useful to them. "I'm just thinking, he knows stuff that we don't, and he didn't have to do what he did." Gunn says that Angel bugs him, and Alonna says, "Everybody bugs you." "You bug me the most," he retorts. Aw. Gunn wonders what Angel wants if he's not hunting, "And why the hell would he come to a place like this?" For the blipverts, maybe?
Angel exits the sewers into the apparently empty vamp hide-out. His shoes appear to be freshly polished. He strolls about, holding a stake, and we see that a vampire is watching from a perch in the ceiling. Angel stops, and then slowly steps to one side as the vampire crashes to the floor to him. If he'd moved faster, I'd have bought it, but as it was that just made him look lucky to have such a stupid opponent. Angel grabs the vamp and shoves him against a wall, asking where the others are.
Gunn is loading his stupid stake-gun. Alonna approaches and offers him food, he isn't hungry, she nags him about eating, time slows to a crawl. Gunn suddenly looks around, perhaps alerted to danger approaching by the soundtrack. He stands and orders her to get everyone out of the building. She does this by wailing, "Everybody out, c'mon, go!" Seems as if he could have done that just as easily. A small canister suddenly flies through a window, letting sunlight stream in, and then smoke fills the room. One of the gang, I think Chain, asks, "They're coming in? Don't they have to be invited?" Gunn calls for Chain as everyone else runs for the door. Chain says that he doesn't see anything, and Gunn finally gets a clue and, horrified, runs upstairs screaming for Alonna. A van pulls up outside, and some vamps covered head-to-toe in coats, hats, and gas masks grab Alonna. They pull her into the van and drive away as Gunn leaps out and gives chase. He pulls himself onto the back of the van and peers through the window. He sees Alonna screaming as the vamps begin sinking their teeth into her arms. One of the vamps looks up and, seeing Gunn, smashes a fist through the window, knocking Gunn off the van. That was pretty effective, and would have been even more effective if it hadn't been so reminiscent of Angel watching Kate's dad get attacked. And it might have helped if Alonna hadn't been so totally useless.
Wesley and Cordy pull up in Angel's convertible. Cordy babbles about sun and salt air, pretending that they aren't actually parked in Los Angeles' famous "abandoned warehouse" district. Wesley wonders if the kids have tapped into a power line to get electricity, and says, "If I can spot the tap, that would tell us where their hide-out is." Is looking for a tapped power line somehow easier than looking for a group of kids? Wesley tells Cordy to ask the nearby homeless man about the kids, while he checks the power line.
One of the kids is toying with his crossbow when an arm grabs him and pulls him around the corner. "Ask me in," Angel orders. Gunn's gang is arming for battle as Angel strides in with the kid, saying for the third time that they're going to get people killed. Gunn glares at the kid, who says defensively, "I suck, okay?" Angel says that the vampires are expecting an attack. Gunn says, "I don't need advice from some middle-class white dude that's dead." Angel says he can help, "unless, of course, death is what you're after. Then you're on your own." Gunn says he's always on his own, Angel says it doesn't have to be that way and asks, "Why can't we do this together?" Gunn reaches up and pulls a cord, opening the curtain so light streams in on Angel's face. He recoils, and Gunn pushes him into a small room, suggesting, "You figure it out," as the door slams shut. The gang heads out as Angel pounds on the door.
The truck pulls up in an alley. Hey, Chain's got a homemade blowtorch! Neat. Gunn says he wants ten minutes to check out the building. Chain asks, "What if you're not back in ten?" Gunn says, "Come on down, kill anything that moves." He heads inside, holding stake at the ready. He walks down a winding passage and pushes a door open, entering a large room. We hear a woman humming, and Gunn calls out, "Alonna?" She steps out from behind a corner and asks, "Hey big brother, what took you so long?" He smiles, relieved to see her, and also very stupid. He approaches her, and then stops when his brain starts working again. Alonna tells him not to be sad, asking, "Do I look dead to you? I'm stronger, faster, and better than ever." Then she asks, "Wanna see?" and giggles before shoving him across the room.
After the commercials, Angel is still pounding on the door. He examines the wooden wall panels, and decides to pound on them for a while. He manages to break through, but there's a grating behind the panels.
Alonna tells Gunn, "We were on the right track, just the wrong team. All that rage and hatred we got, get to keep all that. Except on this side, there's no guilt, there's no grief. Just the hunt and the kill. And the fun." Gunn looks at her sadly as she adds, "Come on, how often did we go out in the daylight anyway?" He says, "I was never gonna let anything happen to you." He has really lovely eyes. Alonna says she's still his sister, but Gunn shakes his head. "Then why don't you kill me?" she asks. When he doesn't move, she says, "You can't! 'Cause you got the guilt." She offers to free him from guilt, so they can be together forever.
Angel's bloody hand stretches out through the hole he's made toward the door handle, but he can't reach it. Another hand reaches to the handle, and the door swings open, revealing Cordelia and Wesley. "They locked you in, huh?" Cordelia asks. Angel, defying my protests against quipping, says, "I just love old meat lockers." Wesley asks why Angel didn't just call them on the cell phone. Angel steps out silently, and Wesley suggests, "You probably forgot you had it." Although the closed captioning reads, "You probably forgot to bring it." Angel reaches into his coat pocket and grumbles, "Those things hardly ever work," as he pulls out the phone. He continues awkwardly, "Besides, it was a lot easier and quicker to just..." Cordy and Wesley look at him condescendingly, and Angel finally snaps, "Look, I'm the boss here! I say when we use the cell phones, and people are gonna die, and I have to go." His head bowed, he exits quickly. See? Stupid Angel is funny. Quipping Angel is not funny.
Alonna reminisces about the good old days, living in a rotting shelter, and how Gunn was so brave, Gunn looked after her, now she can look out for him, ho hum. She says she'll fix it, and vamps out and hisses, "Say goodbye to everything you ever knew," which isn't really a very enticing offer. She reaches up to bite his neck as Gunn stares straight ahead and finally says, "Goodbye." Then, of course, he stakes her. As she crumbles away, we see Angel standing in the shadows behind her. "Let's get out of here," Angel says. The rest of Gunn's gang runs in. Upon seeing Angel, Chain asks, "How'd he get out?" Chain steps toward Angel, but Gunn stops him and says, "We're leaving." "I don't think so," says Master-lite. The vampires surround them. The captioning reveals that Master-lite's name is actually Knox as he says, "She was so sweet, your sister. So smooth going down, if you know what I mean." As the two groups face off, Knox says, "You wanted a war? Well, this is it." Angel interrupts and says, "Here's the deal. You can go. If you go now, and I never see any of you again, you get to live." Knox is amused. Angel goes on to say that Los Angeles is his territory and that "you'll want to stay out of it for the rest of your eternal lives. These kids, my town, off-limits from now on." Knox steps up to Angel and asks, "Who the hell are you? You know who you're talking to, fool?" Angel says, "Name's Angelus," and quickly stakes Knox before adding, "I wasn't actually talking to you." He steps forward and addresses the other vamps: "Do we have a truce? Or do you want to die?" Chain wants to fight, but Angel rephrases his argument that this will result in the death of some of the kids. Chain asks Gunn, "You came all this way, you're not gonna kill any vamps?" All this way? Wasn't it just a couple of blocks? Or is Chain speaking metaphorically? Gunn responds, "I already did," and turns to leave. The kids and the really easily intimidated vampires all clear out. Angel is once again alone with his blipverts.
At a park, Wesley takes a cup piled high with whipped cream from a street vender and walks back to Cordelia. He pokes at the whipped cream with a straw and says, "I asked for a coffee. I know it must be in here someplace." He asks Cordy if she's okay, since she's unusually quiet. Cordy, who has apparently forgotten what her character is like, says she's still thinking about the kids. "I thought my first apartment was bad," she says. They take seats on a bench, and Wesley says it "gives one a sense of perspective," as he scrapes the whipped cream off onto the ground. Cordy says it does, and then confesses, "I might want to prostitute myself to billionaire David Nabbit." She explains to Wesley that David is a nice guy who needs companionship, and she wants security, "So when I say prostitute, what I mean is --" "Prostitute," Wesley suggests. He asks if she thinks she could do that, and Cordy squints thoughtfully and answers, "I could probably learn to love him. Looks aren't everything. Or chemistry." She adds, "Personality. That's important. That makes up for a lot of other... It's not what's on the outside that... Never mind." After a moment, she insists, "I'm fine here! Poor. Alone." What the hell was all of that about?
Gunn lurks on a city rooftop as Angel approaches him. Gunn asks what Angel's doing, and Angel says, "Skulking. Professionally." Gunn says he appreciates the help, "but I don't need no guardian angel." Oh. Look. A pun. Gunn says, "They are gonna keep coming, and we are gonna keep fighting." Angel says he knows that. Gunn, surprised, asks, "That's it? You ain't gonna talk at me? Be all daddy-figure?" Angel asks, "What am I gonna tell you that you haven't already learned?" Gunn says, "I killed her," and when Angel disagrees, adds, "Near enough. She was the reason, man." Gunn asks why Angel battles vampires, and Angel's answer is, "What else are we gonna do?" After a moment of communal brooding, Angel says he'll be around. Gunn says he doesn't need help, and Angel says, "I might," before leaving.