Slouching Toward Bethlehem

I tried like hell to get this done yesterday. Oh well. Happy Halloween(ish), and happy birthday(ish), Johanna. Previously on Angel, Angel went swimming, Lilah went slumming, and Cordy trod so sweetly proud as 'twere on a cloud. Um, and then she reappeared mysteriously.

An SUV is on the side of the road. Dad fiddles under the hood while Mom tries to start the engine. Junior sits in the back, being a surly teen. Junior looks up and sees Connor staring at him. Connor's probably thinking, "I'm so much surlier than he is." Connor asks if they're okay, and then tells Dad, "You're in trouble." Dad doesn't think so, and Connor looks at Junior again and compliments him on his baseball cap. Dad says they've called for help, and we see a tow-truck screech onto the road and race toward them. Dad turns back and realizes that Connor has vanished. As the truck pulls up, Dad calls to the driver, "I'm not sure if we need a jump or a tow!" A vamp hops out of the truck and hurries toward them, quipping, "I vote jump!" Another vamp runs for the car, and Mom quickly locks the door. The vamp just smashes the window and tries to pull Mom out. Dad gets his head smashed into the truck's hood. Mom screams as the vamp drags on her arms, and then poof, there's just dust and Connor, who asks if she's okay. He reaches into the SUV and pushes in the lighter. Connor goes for the other vamp, gets flipped for his trouble, and suddenly the soundtrack goes all James Horner for a second. It's weird. Took me ages to figure out why it sounded familiar, too, but eventually I decided it sounded a little like Aliens. Just for a few seconds. Anyway, they keep fighting, and Connor gets thrown into the back of the tow truck. He starts clobbering the vampire with a plastic gas pitcher, splattering the vampire with gasoline in the process. Which is the part I missed the first time I watched this. What follows makes so much more sense now. Connor does a Gymkata flip out of the truck and vanishes. The vamp goes back to Dad, and is just about ready to dig in when Connor says, "Hey." The vamp turns, and Connor tosses something which the vamp catches. It turns out to the be lighter. The vamp quickly explodes into flames and sparks, which looks awfully pretty. Gee, Connor plans ahead. He goes to help Dad up, and calmly asks, "Is that your family?" The wigged-out Dad doesn't respond, and rushes back to the SUV. Connor watches the family as they hug and reassure each other, for the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

Connor lands on one of the Hyperion's balconies and quickly enters the building. He sneaks down the hall and peaks into the lobby just in time to catch the final minute of last week's episode.

Cue Cordy's "Who are you people?" Angel rushes toward Cordy exclaiming, "You're back!" Cordy backs away, frightened. Angel puts the pieces together and realizes that when Cordy asked who they were, it implied that she didn't remember them. He turns and asks Gunn and Fred, "You see her, too, right? I'm not just --?" Heh. It's just like that time with Darla. He's gonna develop a complex! Gunn reassures Angel. Cordy maintains her deer-in-the-headlights expression and finally asks, "So we know each other?" Angel says yes. Cordy has another question: "Who am I?" Credits.

When we return, Angel tries to remind Cordelia who she is, and who her friends are. Connor is still lurking upstairs, and Cordy looks up just in time to not-quite-see him duck behind a corner. Fred tells Cordy, "I think you might have some kind of amnesia." Fred's thing is that she's smart, right? Are we sure about that? Gunn suggests taking Cordy to a hospital, but Cordy isn't keen on that idea. Fred agrees, "I don't think seeing a doctor will solve her problems." Angel spots Cary approaching through the courtyard and hisses, "Neither will seeing green!" What the hell is Cary doing outside? He went in ahead of them last week. Or is there a bathroom in another wing that's closer to the courtyard? Does that even make sense? And I thought the layout of their old place was confusing. Angel quickly says that seeing some of her old possessions might jog Cordy's memory, and shoves Gunn toward the door while suggesting that he look for some of her stuff out in the garden. Gunn catches on and hurries out. There's a funny shot of Gunn shoving Cary away from the door in the background while Cordy stares curiously at Angel. Angel asks Fred to help him look in the office, and Cordy is left alone in the lobby.

While pretending to search, Fred quietly points out that Cordy's bound to notice their unusual lifestyle soon. Angel explains, "I want her to remember who I am before I freak her out with the whole 'undead, drinks blood' part of my résumé." Fred asks whether Angel is curious about why Cordy's back. Angel boggles and says, "I hadn't even -- I was just so happy to see her. Why is she back?" Fred doesn't know. Angel and Fred turn to look out at Cordy, who's staring back at them. They wave a little.

Out in the lobby, Cordy sees Fred and Angel wave and whispers to herself, "Okay. That's creepy." Heh. She looks down and notices a broken pointy weapon of some kind on the floor. "So's that," she notes. Angel and Fred return and say that they didn't find anything helpful in the office. The phone rings, and an increasingly nervous Cordelia backs away toward the door. Angel says the machine will get it, and I wait for Cordy to ask if they have a robot that answers the phone, but I guess they aren't going for that kind of wacky amnesia comedy. Angel tells Cordy not to be afraid, but strangely that doesn't help. But then the answering machine picks up, and Cordy hears herself saying, "Hi, you've reached Angel Investigations." She recognizes her voice, which impresses me, because your voice sounds different to yourself what with all the great acoustics in your skull, but whatever. After the beep, a man starts leaving a message: "This is Murray, down at the spa. Listen, it's after midnight and you'd better get down here. That demon broad came back, and it looks like --" Angel fakes a cough, and Fred rushes to pick up the phone before Cordy hears any more. After finishing the call, Fred tries to explain that it's a divorce case. She tells Angel, "I should get Charles and terminate it before the situation multiplies." Angel perkily agrees, saying that he'll stay and help Cordy get settled. Exit Fred. Cordelia keeps giving Angel startled looks and finally blurts, "I wanna go home. Know where I live?"

We see a dark room full of boxes, and, because I'm in denial, I manage to convince myself that it's Cordy's apartment. But then the door opens, and a light comes on, and we can see that it's a room in the Hyperion. Full of the boxes of Cordy's stuff. They abandoned Phantom Dennis! The poor little guy! That sucks. Maybe later this season they'll do an episode where Dennis goes looking for Cordelia, and so there are random bursts of poltergeist activity throughout Los Angeles, and the MoG figure out what's going on and Cordy talks to Dennis and lures him back to the Hyperion and he moves in there. And then maybe he makes friends with some other ghosts, because that hotel certainly should have some ghost action. Please? DeKnight? Minear? Somebody? You can't just get rid of Dennis. He's the bestest non-existent character ever. Sniff. I guess I got a little distracted there. Let me start again.

Blah blah boxes, door opening, Hyperion-cakes. Cordy looks around and picks up a golden shoe from one of the open boxes. Angel says that's what she wore to the ballet. Oh, sure, Angel finally pays attention to Cordy's shoes, and she can't appreciate it. Cordy's suprised to hear about their cultural excursions, and Angel starts moaning that it's too bad she doesn't remember that night, because they had "a really good time." And suddenly Cordy's amnesia is explained. I'd tried to block that evening out my mind, too, and I didn't have to live through it. Angel says he wants to help Cordy to regain her memories, and she softly says, "Great. But not tonight." Angel nods and backs toward the door, reminding her that she's safe and so on. Well, he could help her make up a bed, at least. She's just got a bare mattress covered with boxes. I bet Dennis would have helped her unpack. Sigh.

Time passes. Cordy has finally gotten out of that godawful white outfit, and the whole world rejoices. She's staring into a mirror and practicing different ways of introducing herself. Hey, does this mean Faith is in Cordy's body? I hope not; "Fordelia" sounds like an automobile fetish. Cordy gets up and notices a copy of her yearbook. She says, "Sunnydale," and the captioning says, "'99," so I guess that covers it pretty well. She flips through it and finds a picture of herself cheerleading. "Okay, popular -- no real surprise there," she says. She reviews the messages scrawled inside the cover. "Homeroom was fun! Too bad it burned to the ground." She blinks and moves on. "Hey, how 'bout that giant snake?" She's a bit perplexed now. I can't help thinking that the students would have signed yearbooks before graduation, but it's a fun gag, so who cares? Cordy gives up on the yearbook and spies a box of photos. Most of them are of herself. Johanna thought that it was a little odd for someone to have so many pictures of herself, but then again, this is Cordelia. As she reviews her many looks, she comments, "Cute. Cute. Hot. Yikes!" This last is of a particularly bushy version of the short dark cut. After processing her changing appearance, she suddenly wonders, "Was I a spy?" Ha! Then she finds a picture of herself holding baby Connor while Angel hovers protectively.

Cordy wanders down the hallway and hears faint singing. She follows the sound, and we gradually realize that someone's singing "Sugar, Sugar." I assume that it's Angel singing, and giggle for a while. As Cordy approaches the source of the crooning, we hear Cary call a halt. Cary tells the singer, "You have an addiction. You know it and I know it." Cary warns his visitor to stop "snackin' on you-know-whos." He stops and moves toward the door, and Cordy runs away. Cary opens the door and looks around curiously. He goes back inside, and we see his guest is a mild-looking man. Who is sniffing the air frantically and drooling. A lot. Ew.

Cordy heads downstairs into the lobby, asking if anyone's there. The camera pans down, and we see that Angel is cleaning up his jars of blood and stashing them out of sight. These hijinks are more like lojinks. As soon as Angel walks off-camera, Cordy appears, looks at the front desk, and spots a teeny drop of blood. I'm amazed that she not only spots the droplet, but apparently recognizes it as blood. I'm just sayin', I'd assume a dark-colored drop of liquid was coffee or soda and not give it another thought. Cordy calls, "Hello?" and walks into the office. Angel scurries by in the foreground. Cordy reappears, "omigod"s, and heads for the door. But then Gunn and Fred enter the hotel off-camera, so Cordy ducks behind the desk.

Gunn and Fred are griping about work. "How much do I hate those nasty little babies?" Gunn says. See? We're soulmates, I tell you! Fred agrees, "I couldn't squish-squash fast enough." Cordy moves further back, and looks up as Gunn sets his hubcap-axe down on the desk above her. It's coated with purple goo. Fred says, "I'm gonna be washing their teeny brains out of my hair for a week!" Hee. Gunn tells Fred to turn around, and when she asks why, he says, "You don't even wanna know." See, all their stuff is funny, but the music and direction is all serious and scary, like we got amnesia along with Cordy. I think the director should have gone with the wacky-misunderstandings angle in this scene; it would have played so much better. You know; play up the dramatic irony, instead of shooting it as if it's supposed to be scary when it totally isn't because we know what's going on. Plus, we're supposed to identify with Cordy, but given the memory loss, even Cordy can't identify with Cordy. Anyway, purple goo starts dripping off of the axe, and instead of just backing up another foot, Cordy watches in horror. The drop finally falls, and she jumps up with a gasp and startles Gunn and Fred. She quickly backs further away from them, crashing into the weapons cabinet in the process. It somehow falls open, and various implements of destruction spill out across the floor. Cordy shrieks and runs for the door, but is stopped by Angel, who has reappeared in that way of his. Cordy jumps again, then runs for the other doors and exits, stage right.

Cordy races through the courtyard, with Angel in hot pursuit. Suddenly, a couple of ninja attack her, and she goes crazy with the kicking and punching before Angel joins the battle. Rock! The ninjas are quickly unconscious. See, again, I think that would have been cooler if the last scene had been a comedy of errors, and then, when we expected more hilarity, suddenly there's fighting. It would have been more unexpected. I don't think the director did a bad job; it's just a mood thing. Plus, all of that may have been in the script. I'll move on with my life now. The battle over, Cordy gasps, "How did I...? I am a spy!" I would totally watch Cordelia the Spy. Angel folds his arms uncomfortably as Cordy guesses, "You're all spies. Probably Russian. And you've brainwashed me, and want me to believe we're friends, so I'll spill the beans about some nano-techno-thingy that you want." You have to admit, it sounds plausible. Gunn asks, "I look Russian to you?" Cordy snaps, "Black Russian." Angel says that's a drink, and Cordy sneers, "Says the head spy." I love this whole bit. It should have started sooner. Angel explains, "Those two guys are lawyers, weird as that may seem, from Wolfram & Hart." He tells Gunn and Fred to keep Cordy in the hotel, "where she's safe." Cordy isn't buying it, and rants about the baby-killing and the singing and the implements of destruction. She demands, "What's going on here, Angie?" "Angel," says Angel. "Whatever," Cordy whatevers. Angel spews platitudes at Cordy in the hopes of knocking her unconscious. He's being all sincere, and not awkward, and it's not funny, so let's skip it. He reassures her for a while, and Cordy buys it, and Boreanaz makes this expression like he's just about to make a dumb joke because he's bored by all the sincerity, and that's when the scene ends because the director screamed, "He's gonna improvise! Cut! For the love of God, cut!"

Cordy's back in her room at the Hyperion. Angel leans in the doorway. She asks, "So I'm not a spy?" He shakes his head. She then asks if she's a mom, and shows him a picture of baby Connor. Angel rasps, "That's my son, that's Connor. But no, you're not his mother." Oh boy, I can't wait until he explains who Connor's mother is. I miss Darla. She'd be so proud of her kid, with the box in the ocean and everything. Angel sits down to Cordy on the bed as she asks, "And you and me? We weren't...together?" Uh oh. They start looking at each other meaningfully and lean in as Angel whispers, "Not exactly." Just in time, Cordy jerks back and asks, "Was I a nun?" Angel is perplexed. Again. Cordy reaches into a box as she explain that she "found all these." She sits up with a handful of rosaries, and drops them cross-first into Angel's hands. Angel jumps and vamps out. Cordy screams. Commercial.

Ha ha ha! Whoops, sorry. I was too busy watching to recap what happened. Let me rewind. Okay, here we go: Cordy runs down the hall and into the lobby -- and I just realized that they gave her a room on the first floor. Everyone else is upstairs. Oh. They didn't want to bother carrying all the boxes up when they didn't expect her back. Okay. Right, so she runs into the lobby and crashes right into Cary. They both fall down, Cary on top of Cordy. They look at each other and scream. I'm not entirely sure why Cary's screaming, unless he's just surprised. Cordy ineffectively pummels Cary until he moves, and apparently her automatic ninja-fighting skills only kick in when she's being attacked by actual ninjas. Cary rolls off and whines at her to "stop clobbering!" And that's when I said "Ha ha ha!" As Cordy untangles herself, Angel appears and tries to calm her down. Cary stands up and says, "Hey, if this is about that missing lingerie, that was for a friend!" Fred and Gunn rush in, and Fred assures Cordy that Cary's a friend of hers. Cordy demands to know what's going on, and Angel slowly admits, "Maybe we haven't been a hundred percent honest, because...well, we were afraid the truth would scare you." Cordy sneers, "And the lying and deceit have been so comforting!" and gives Cary a disgusted look. Angel agrees that it's time to come clean.

Cut to Cordy, post-explanation. She says it all makes sense now: "I was a cheerleader, a princess, and a warrior, and I have visions and superpowers, and I'm the target of an evil law firm because I've spent the last three months living on a higher plane fighting for the forces of good to wage a battle against demons and evilies and squishy-bug-babies 'cause all that stuff is real and that's the world I live in, and I think I know why I don't remember any of this, 'cause, hey, who'd want to?" Cary offers the only comfort he can by holding out his glass and saying, "Um, Sea Breeze?" Hee. Cordy describes the group as "a vampire with a soul and his wacky gang of sidekicks," whereupon Gunn insists that he isn't a sidekick. Angel suggests that Cordy should sing, so that Cary can read Cordy's future and maybe get a hint as to how to restore her memory. Cordy wonders if she's musical, and what she should sing. Cordy ponders and hesitantly starts to wail "The Greatest Love of All." Oh, poor girl. Cary twitches a bit as he listens, although so did I, honestly. He finally jumps up and tells her to stop. "You were great," he insists, and starts moving toward the door. He turns and says, "I see a very, very...um..." and then ducks out and closes the door behind him. Cordy wonders if she was really that bad. Angel assures her that she wasn't, and starts after Cary. In the doorway, Angel explains, "It was the song! It reminds him of...um." And out he goes, closing the door behind him. I love a running gag. Cordy tells Gunn and Fred, "You guys aren't even good liars!" She sounds so disappointed, too. As she prepares to make her own exit, Fred says it isn't safe for Cordy to wander around unattended. Cordy swings around and says, "Right, because of evil ninja law firm." Gunn suggests that they all go together. Cordy snaps, "You keep telling me I was a higher being. Don't make me turn you into a rat!" And out she goes.

Cordy marches down the hall, with Gunn and Fred still trailing behind her. Fred tries to tempt her with a sandwich, and I bet she just wants to try out the taser again. Gunn chimes in, "We have cookies!" Hee. Cordy says that she wants to talk to Angel, "sans sidekicks." Gunn calls after her, "I am not a sidekick." Two running gags in one episode! Whee!

Angel knocks on Cary's door. Cary tells him to go away. Angel says, "If it's that bad, I need to know!" Cary opens the door and says, "It's that bad. G'night!" Angel wants details, and Cary whines that whatever he saw made him puke and he'd rather not think about it anymore. Cary finally asks, "Do the words 'Slouching Toward Bethlehem' ring a bell?" Ding ding ding! Gosh, Cary's gotten two titles in a row. He continues, "Or how about, 'despair, torment, terror.' And I'm not referring to little missy's choice of song, either, although that horrifying in its own right." He's such an unappeasable Host. Cary says he just saw details and flashes, but he didn't like it much. "Evil's coming, Angel, and it's planning on staying."

Blipvert to Wesley and Lilah, full of passionate intensity. And suddenly I think I know what Cary saw horrible flashes of. No wonder he felt sick. Lilah tells Wesley that Wolfram & Hart know about the two of them, and so does Angel. Wesley says, "I could care less what he thinks." By which he means that he couldn't care less. I hate that so much. Lilah points out that Wesley said the same thing about Angel's submersion, and it turns out he did care a little after all. So maybe he did really mean that he could care less before, but I doubt it. Wesley ends the discussion by saying, "So Angel knows about our relationship. Big deal." Lilah gloats, "A dollar! You owe me a dollar!" She also straddles Wesley, aaiiee, and we see that she's wearing a red neglige. Wesley curses, and we learn that his mistake was using the word "relationship." Lilah teases, "You lost the bet! You said it first!" Wesley pulls his wallet off the nightstand and holds out a dollar for Lilah. She tells him to sign it, "as proof." They start kissing as we cut away. I can't tell if it's more disturbing when they're cutsey or when they're kinky. They're just different kinds of disturbing, I suppose.

Cordy's wandering around the Hyperion, still looking for Angel. She hears a noise, assumes that Gunn and Fred are following her, and turns to yell at them. But it turns out that it's Cary's drooly client from earlier. He tells Cordy, "You smell good," and then his mouth splits open into four tooth-encrusted flaps. Hey, that isn't bad. I mean, it is bad, but the special effect isn't.

Angel walks down a different hallway. Suddenly we zoom in on his ear, to demonstrate that he can hear the demon hissing and slavering at Cordy. That was dopey. He turns and runs to the rescue. Wouldn't you think he'd also hear Cordy scream or something? It figures that the first time she's actually in danger in this episode, she stays quiet.

Cordy races into the lobby, but the demon jumps down from the second floor and lands in front of her. And then Connor lands on top of the demon and throws him across the room. Connor tells Cordy, "You're not safe here." Cordy sniffs, "Ya think?" The demon starts to get up, and Connor tosses a stake into its side. The demon falls down with a perforated liver. Or whatever it has in the place of a liver. Cordy asks Connor to get her out of there. Connor looks surprised, but holds out his hand to Cordy. She takes it, and off they scamper.

After the ads, Angel, Gunn, and Fred stare down at the dead demon while Angel gently lectures them for allowing Cordy to run away. Then he gradually freaks himself out and backs away babbling, "What if there were hundreds of those things? What if this is the way it starts?" Angel starts locking the doors, and the rest of his monologue was clearly looped, and while I'm sure that's hard to do, it really shows in Boreanaz's reading. He stiffly says, "I mean, the slouching, and the Bethlehem? And they've taken her because of what she knows, even if she can't remember [that] she knows it?" Fred wonders if Angel's been caffeinating his blood again. How would he go about doing that, given her implication that he's done it before? Hm. Cary enters and explains that the demon was a client of his. Gunn asks what Cary saw when Cordy sang, and Cary says, "I haven't read the Book of Revelations [sic] lately, but if I were searching for adjectives, I'd probably start there." Cary goes on portending doom while Angel starts grabbing weapons. Angel gets to make yet another speech about how they absolutely, positively have to find Cordelia. And he really means it this time!

Cordy and Connor are looking at a stuffed bear. That is, a real bear, which has been stuffed. The bear appears to be sitting in an abandoned...well, your guess is as good as mine. Museum? That seems likely. I'm going to say it's a museum. They walk past more displays of taxidermy as Cordy asks if Connor lives at the Hyperion. He says no, and semi-explains, "I saw you were back." Cordy asks if they were friends. He says she was nice to him once. She asks if Connor is friends with the rest of the MoG, and he avoids answering, so she settles for his name. Upon hearing that he's Connor, she marvels at the coincidence that he has the same name as Angel's baby. Luckily, that only goes on for a few seconds before she figures it out.

Cordy and Connor climb up a ladder and enter a loft-attic-type-space that is heavily decorated with more animal bits. What the hell is this place? Cordy says, "You're Angel's son," and Connor sniffs, "It's not like I got to choose." Okay, with all the dusty attic space and the chipper questioning of broody boys, this is giving me major Gormenghast flashbacks. The Q&A session continues, and Connor explains that he submerged Angel and tried to kill Cordelia. He apologizes for that last thing. Cordelia is briefly startled by that news, but then thanks Connor for being honest with her.

Lilah's cell phone rings. She sneaks out of bed and into the living room to answer it. Wesley creeps up to the door to eavesdrop and overhears Lilah discussing Cordelia's return. Lilah pauses and looks back in the bedroom, but Wesley's back in bed by the time she opens the door. She finishes the call by ordering an "extraction team," and hangs up. Lilah returns to the bedroom and starts getting dressed as Wesley fakes waking up. Lilah quips, "No rest for the wicked." She gives Wesley a kiss goodbye, grabs her purse, and exits. Something falls off the table as she picks up her bag.

Cordelia is in bed, and Connor's fussing with something at the window. He moves to the door, and Cordy quickly asks, "You're not leaving?" Turns out he's just rigging up some kind of security system made of fishing line. Cordy sits up and whines about her amnesia: "Do I have brothers and sisters? What's my favorite food?" She starts crying, and Connor tries to help: "You like shoes, and doughnuts. And you're very brave." Cordy skeptically asks when she was brave, and Connor says she's being brave now. Cordy insistently whispers that she feels as if something bad is going to happen. She says, "I don't know what to do, or who to trust. Except you." She says that she thinks Connor's lost everything, just like she has. Connor sniffs, "I have nothing to lose." My inner teenager is all over this kid. He's exactly the sort you have a crush on because he's so gloomy and cynical, and you can just tell that he's really a very sweet boy who's just sad and lonely, so you pine over him for awhile and then after about six months you discover, no, he's just a moody jerk who can get away with things because he's cute. And that's why it's important to remember that your inner teenager is not very bright. Connor heads back over to his Window Seat of Broodiness.

Fred and Gunn wonder where Cordelia could be. Angel returns from somewhere and announces that he didn't find anything; he suggests trying hospitals and police stations. He insists, "She couldn't have just disappeared! Okay, once, but not again." Heh. Angel says that someone must know where Cordy is. "I do," says Wesley. "Shut up, Wesley," I shout. I really do. Every time I see him. Wesley makes a snide remark about how careless it is of the MoG to lose Cordelia so soon after finding her. Angel quickly explains that she just reappeared, and that she's lost her memory. Wesley sniffs, "A fresh start. Doesn't sound so bad." Gunn and I glare at Wesley. Wesley says that Cordy's with Connor, and that Wolfram & Hart are after her in the hopes of getting information about The Powers That Be. Angel asks significantly, "You have that on good authority?" Wesley doesn't really answer, but wonders why Angel isn't more worried about Connor. Angel cheerily says, "He's my son. I'm sure he's taking excellent care of her."

We have the set-up, and...here's the punchline. Cordy's asleep. Connor's curled up to her. She rolls over, and Connor's hand falls onto her breast. Cordy's eyes open wide. I just roll mine. Doesn't this joke belong on Firefly? Suddenly, Connor sits up and covers Cordy's mouth with his hand. He whispers, "Someone's here." Sure enough, the door opens and another ninja enters the room. The ninja walks in, steps into a trip-wire, and is suddenly hanging upside down from a snare. He's not a very good ninja. Connor runs over and slams a two-by-four into the ninja a few times. Hey, it's a homemade piñata! Connor asks Cordy if she remembers how to fight, adding, "They're coming!" He hands Cordy a sword as another ninja crashes through the window. Cordy strikes an action pose as we go to commercial.

Cordy and Connor make with the swordplay while the ninja are also dodging the various traps Connor has rigged. While they're distracted, one ninja sticks one of those wondrous spy-cams on a wall.

On top of a building, Lilah watches the action with a little portable monitor and smirks.

More fighting. Nifty. Connor and Cordy both seem good at the defensive stuff, but I don't think they're actually killing anyone. Connor takes a nasty knee-clubbing and goes down, and Cordy is also overwhelmed. They're dragged toward the door, which bursts open as Angel continues his ongoing battle against closed entrances. Angel immediately kicks a ninja and grabs Cordy while Gunn joins the fray.

Lilah grins and says, "Aren't you the stud?" as she watches. A ninja tells her, "It's done," and Lilah shuts the monitor off. She says, "I'm going home. Tell the boys it's fourth and ten." She leaves as the ninja speaks into a microphone, "All units, punt. I repeat, punt." Uh oh. This is one of those sports things, isn't it?

Back at Connor's, Angel and Gunn stop fighting as the ninjas abruptly give up and run for the door. Gunn calls the ninja "monkey-boys" and makes another defensive "sidekick" joke. Connor explains, "I didn't expect so many." Angel thanks him for protecting Cordy, and looks around the room as he hesitantly says, "I really like what you've, um, done with the...nice." I bet that Connor goes in search of an even more run-down place tomorrow, in the hopes that Angel won't approve. Angel offers to take Cordy home, but Cordy wants to stay with Connor. Angel doesn't like that. He admits, "Connor's a great fighter. I helped train him. For one afternoon. I guess that, technically, his adoptive father, who his mother and I slaughtered, did most of the work." Or something like that. Cordy insists, "I need someone who won't lie to me like you did." Whoops. She says that she knows that the MoG meant well, but Connor's the only one who told her the truth. Connor walks over to stand beside Cordy, and summons untold reserves of self-control to keep from making "Nyah, nyah" faces at Angel. The MoG look sad, and leave.

Wesley strolls around his bedroom with a drink, possibly planning some more home decorating innovations. "There's room for an iron maiden in this corner," he thinks. He looks down at the floor, and spots the paper that fell when Lilah left. It's his autographed dollar.

The MoG return to the Hyperion. Angel admits that maybe they should have been honest with Cordelia from the beginning. Gunn and Fred try to reassure him, and drop the C-word before a noise interrupts them. Weapons at the ready, they approach the office.

Cary! He's tied to a chair, gagged, and looks unconscious. I suddenly realize how much I like Cary, because I feel bad for him. As Fred removes the gag, we get a close-up of a little wound on his forehead. Cary starts to wake up as they untie him and begin pelting him with questions. Cary gets as far as "Wuh --" and Gunn asks, "Wesley? Not again!" Ha! Cary shakes his head and Angel guesses, "Wolfram & Hart?" I wish they'd done some kind of A Fish Called Wanda thing here with charades. Oh well. Angel realizes that Wolfram & Hart were trying to find out what Cary saw when Cordy sang. Gunn asks whether the attack at Connor's was a distraction, and Angel grumps, "And we fell for it like a bunch of rookies." Yeah, but what else is new? Cary gasps, "They had a demon. I wouldn't talk. The thing burrowed inside and took Cordy out." Ew. Gunn blames Wesley: "He's the one who showed up with the hot tip about Junior. How do we know he's not the one playin' us?" Angel isn't sure, but he sums thing up by nothing that Wolfram & Hart know more about what's going to happen than they do. Just in time for sweeps! And they'll probably tell TV Guide! Gasp!

Lilah answers a knock at her door. It's Wesley. Don't any of these people ever sleep? Lilah says his visit a surprise, and Wesley snaps, "Is it?" Lilah's expression changes, and she concedes, "That it took you so long, yeah." Wesley says, "You played me," and guesses that Lilah meant for him to overhear her phone conversation so that he'd tell Angel. Lilah shrugs, "Free will. Look it up." She says it was his choice, and adds, "Before you go all righteous fury, figure out who you're really mad at here." Wesley leans back and sighs, then asks what the real plan was. Lilah says she could have had Cary's brain in jar: "But I left it in his head 'cause he's a friend of yours." Well, that's...nice of her? Wesley asks if she's trying to lull him into trusting her again. Uh, Wesley? You really need to sort out this whole trust-and-betrayal thing, because you seem to have some real problems comprehending it. Lilah sums it up a little faster by saying, "If I'd thought you'd ever trust me, I never would have played you like that." I don't know that I buy that, but I think that just shows I've got more sense than Wesley does. Of course there are goldfish with more sense than Wesley has. Wesley whispers, "It's never simple, is it?" Sure it is, Wesley. You're very simple.

Cordy sleeps. Connor lurks in the window.

Angel lurks in his own window, all pale brows, still hands, and dim hair. Hee. I'll bet he's wishing that he was creepily watching a girl sleep. He always likes that.

time, Connor asks if Cordy wants to train some more, if you know what I mean. He really did learn a lot from his dad.