Props to Johanna for the index poll, and to the DC TWoP-folk for luring me out of the house. Turns out there's a great big world out there, and it looks like the background of The West Wing. Weird.Previously onAngel, itrained fire,the sun went away, and Angelusspilled everyone's secrets. Or not quite everyone's, as we discovered when Cordy killed Lilah. Wow, even the previouslys are blipverted now.Angelus strolls down the Hyperion's hall to Lilah's bloody body. "That's no fun," he sniffs. Right there with you, buddy. I wanted to like this episode. I liked parts. But, I dunno: it was eh. I might have expected too much.Gunn and Wesley march through the hotel. Gunn's got a new axe. He's already forgotten the hubcap axe and moved on. Which is sad, but I'm going to hope it's a promising sign about his feelings for Fred. They turn a corner and see Angelus drinking from Lilah. Angelus looks up and chuckles, "This isn't what it looks like." Gunn hurls the axe, but Angelus dodges it and mentions that Lilah is "a little too tart." Heh. As Gunn pulls out a stake, Angelus drops Lilah and quickly jumps out of a window at the end of the hall. Why is that window open? Maybe where that's where he came in. It would have been cooler if there'd been gratuitous breaking glass. I suppose there's enough of that later. Wesley stares at Lilah. Somewhere, Justine is giggling.In the lobby, Connor pulls the arrow out of Cordy's thigh and Fred tends the wound. Gunn arrives and shares the bad news. Although not that bad, because Lilah wasn't exactly their best pal. Yet everyone looks stunned, and Cordy gasps, "Oh, God." Connor races away upstairs as Cordy looks to one side and ambiguously sighs, "It's started." Then she not-at-all-ambiguously smiles for a second.Credits. This week's Boreanaz quote: "I think of myself as a clay pot, and the important people in my life kind of pick me up and paint me and shape me." Here's an odd thing: during that last scene, Scooter went nuts. I've got this wooden chew-toy thing for him that hangs from the top of the cage, and he wasn't so much gnawing it as attacking it. He was holding it with his front paws tearing into it like it had insulted his mother. I think seeing Angelus and Lilah inspired him or something.She's dead. Wrapped in plastic.Gunn and Wesley finish wrapping plastic sheeting around Lilah's body as the others watch. Why are they bothering with the plastic? I mean, yeah, she'll drip blood on stuff. Have they noticed that they live in a barely-inhabitable hotel? It's not as if they've ever been worried about keeping things nice before. Plus, she's got one wound in her neck, so I'm not sure the full-body shroud is necessary. Connor closes the hall window and asks why everyone's just standing around. Wesley quietly says that they don't need to chase after Angelus: "He'll be back." Cordy agrees that Angelus will want to kill them all. Connor suggests that a pre-emptive staking would solve that problem, but Wesley says, "That's just the kind of reckless thinking that gave me the idea for desouling Angel in the first place." Okay, maybe he uses a different example, but the point is the same. Wesley goes back to staring at Lilah. Fred doesn't like the idea of playingAnd Then There Were Nonewith Angelus, and wonders if they should start boarding up the hundreds of windows in the building. Cary suggests using the anti-violence spell that he had at Caritas. That's brilliant, unless Angelus remembers all the ways Cary's magical security systemsdidn'twork. I guess Wesley can't have all the bad ideas. Cary says he'll call the Furies and see if they can tell him how to do the spell. Connor sulks about the MoG's reliance on magic, and Wesley intones, "We use whatever tools we have." Connor sniffs that the magic caused all their trouble: "That's why we're here, isn't it? Why he's loose?" Fred wonders why the resouling spell didn't work, and Cordy shrugs. Gunn asks how Cary could have thought Angelus was souled, and Cordy quickly insists that it's all her fault. Heh. Gunn blames "The Powers That sit on their Be-hinds," and complains about the useless visions until Connor interrupts, "We have to destroy her." He clarifies that he means Lilah, because she may have been vamped. It's still a cutely timed line, though. Gunn insists that there wasn't enough time for Lilah to have been sired, but Wesley pulls the axe out of the wall and says that he'll take care of it.
Blipvert. So, this vampire walks into a bar. It's Angelus, in fact, and the bar is crowded with happy vampires and demons. They spot him and fall quiet. Angelus announces, "The rumors are true. Angel has left the building, and I am back." The crowd applauds as he continues, "I'm no different from the guy; I put my victim's skin on one leg at a time." I kinda like Angelus being a vampire rock star. I can believe it's based on his exploits in Sunnydale, which leads to the amusing idea that he's a hero to vampires in the same way that Buffy is a hero to...um, maybe Andrew? Hey, is there fanfic from the vampires' point of view? Not in an Anne Rice way -- I mean the sort of fanfic vampires would write, like, "In every millennium, there is a Chosen One, and it alone will stand against the Slayers, the Wiccans, and the Council of Watchers." That might almost be amusing. I got a little distracted there, sorry. A blonde runs up to Angelus and asks if he remembers her. He doesn't, and tries to brush past her, but she whines, "A little town outside Tuscany? 1845, give or take? Rosaria!" Angelus finally remembers her, or pretends to, as she explains that she and some friends heard about the sun-impairment, adding, "A bunch of us are gonna raid a pre-school later." Angel grabs a pool cue from a nearby demon in an annoyingly tight shot. Oh, I do wish they'd had one of their usual directors for this episode. This guy isn't bad, but I think a lot of my problems with this episode wouldn't have been as bad if the direction had been different. Rosaria yammers on, and Angelus finally stakes her in mid-sentence. He sighs, "Everybody wants a piece of you," and moves to the bar.
Angelus approaches a blobby demon in a flannel shirt who reminds me of Harry Knowles for some reason. I definitely want to believe it's intentional, though. Angelus wants to know where Satan is. Why? No idea. The demon enthuses about what an honor it is to talk to Angelus, and asks, "Could you sign a little somethin' for my hellspawn? Make it out to Ashley." Angelus stabs the pen through the demon's hand and repeats his question. The demon doesn't know, but another vampire volunteers that he's seen Satan "down by the buildings by the wash." Angelus insists, "Show me."
In the Hyperion's basement, Wesley pulls the sheet back from Lilah's corpse, hefts the axe, and stares at her. He brushes some hair back from her forehead, and she opens her eyes. Since I'll bitch about the direction some more later, I'll mention that I liked the fact that there wasn't a dramatic cue on the soundtrack when that happened. Made it creepier. Lilah asks, "Why so glum? It is kinda what you wanted, isn't it? I mean, deep down. Me, out of the picture." Poor Lilah; she gets a title and it's the wrong one. Wesley denies that he wanted her dead. Lilah sits up, rising out of the plastic, as she continues, "You hated yourself for being with me. And maybe you hated yourself for loving being with me." She walks up and touches his shoulder to prove her non-Firstitude as she says that he knew it would end this way for one of them. Lilah assures Wesley that he's "no longer encumbered by the secret shame of [their] relationship." Wesley refrains from pointing out that it's not really a secret anymore. Although I guess Fred probably won't tell Gunn, all things considered. I wish she would, for the comedy. Anyhow, Wesley doggedly moans, "It wasn't a relationship." Lilah says, "There's a signed dollar bill in your wallet [that] I think proves different [sic]." She tells Wesley that he knew how she felt, and Wesley snaps, "You don't feel!" When Lilah starts to say something else, Wesley turns away and declares, "You didn't love me!" He looks down at Lilah's corpse, still on the table. "You couldn't," he adds. Lilah steps around him, with curlier hair and different clothes, and looks down at herself, observing, "We'll never know, will we?" And then Wesley is alone with the body again. I have to say that Angel's fantasy life is a lot funnier than Wesley's.
Two vampires from the bar lead Angelus under an overpass. Angelus asks where Satan was going, and the dark-haired vamp -- whose name turns out to be Paco -- duhs that he can't remember. Angelus threatens an amusingly craven Paco, snarling, "I don't have time to --" Then he suddenly releases Paco and walks forward. So Angelus is in a big hurry to find Satan, but we still have no idea why. Which would be fine if there turned out to be a reason, but that's not going to happen, so I'm getting in some complaining in advance. As Angelus walks away, Paco calls, "Hey man, you want we should come with?" Angelus leaves, and Paco starts yelling at his buddy, shouting, "Man, you made him nervous!" Heh. I like Paco.
Gunn and Fred carry an assortment of jars into the lobby. Cary's on the phone with the Furies and taking notes about the anti-violence spell. There's some business about ingredients where it turns out that the MoG are using supplies from the kitchen for the spell, and after cloves are substituted for bloodroot everything's fine. This scene. Is. Too. Long. Connor feels the same way, judging by the way he paces around and snaps, "Hurry up and do it!" Oh wait, he's just still whining about the use of magic. Great, now he's making the scene take longer. That's the last time I take your side, Connor. Connor wants to go Angelus-hunting. Fred says, "Wesley says we shouldn't go after him." Fred has changed clothes and hairstyles again. Connor complains that Wesley isn't his boss, and complains about how long Wesley is taking to chop off Lilah's head. Gunn says that they all need to stay together until they've decided what to do. Connor reminds them, "Angel told me, something goes wrong, I kill him." Cary shoots back, "Now you listen to [Angel]?" This argument goes round in circles some more, and while Connor is being annoying I have to say that he's pretty much right. If they're going to go hunt Angelus anyway, the spell is pointless, and they should go hunt Angelus, because it's their fault he's out there. And he's right about how well magic's been working for them lately, too. Connor finally declares, "[Angelus] has to be destroyed. And I'm the Destroyer." He heads for the door without bothering to take any weapons, which is where he loses me again. Cordy stands up and tells him to get back in here, young man. When he doesn't stop, she moans, "You can't..." and collapses. Gunn and Fred rush to help her up, and Connor finally turns back. He insists on taking her upstairs by himself, and I wait eagerly for a freaky shot like the one at the end of "What's My Line?" where Juliet Landau is pushing James Marsters along on a cart or something because she can't really carry him. As it turns out, Connor just supports Cordelia's shoulder and leads her to the stairs, which isn't helping her all that much. As they exit, Gunn tells Cary, "First chance that boy gets, he's gonna kill Angelus." And that's a bad thing because why? What were you trying to do with the axe-hurling before, Gunn? Cary says "We can't keep that boy in check," and Gunn replies, "Angel aside, who could?"
Cut to sunlight. The captions read "Stockton, California. Northern California Women's Facility." Just "Facility"? Shouldn't "Correctional" or "Penal" be in there somewhere? Seems odd. And again, the set-up goes on too long before a door opens and Faith steps out to the surprise of nobody. Again, that would have played better if we'd cut straight to Faith walking outside, because the build-up just made me sigh, "Yes, I saw the ads, Faith, yes, I know."
After the ads, more prison shots. Faith does chin-ups as a woman approaches her and pulls out a Harbinger's knife. The fight starts with a kick and slow-motion flip. Thank goodness that was in slow-motion or I wouldn't have been able to comprehend the fact that Faith did a flip. There's some kicking and punching and the attacker explains, "Nothing personal -- I need the money," and then Faith knocks her out with some handy barbells. The guards haul off Faith's attacker, and one of them asks, "Who'd be crazy enough to try to take you out?"
Wesley's still staring at Lilah's body. Le sigh. Nonexistent Lilah tells Wesley that he's feeling guilty because he couldn't save her. He quickly replies, "Saved you from the Beast. For all the good it did." Lilah says, "You couldn't save me from me." Bleah. Wesley asks if that's what she thought, and Lilah points out that she's a figment of his imagination, so it must be what he thinks. Logical. She rubs his shoulders and talks about redemption. Lilah says, "Angel's influence, I suppose. The whole 'not giving up on someone no matter how far he -- or she -- has fallen.'" Unless he -- or she -- is named Lindsey. I'm fine with this imaginary conversation giving Wesley the idea to see Faith; it's just that it takes so long to get there. Lilah agrees: "Let's just get it over with. That body's not gonna dismember itself, you know." Heh. Wesley apologizes and, as Lilah natters on in the background, chops off the body's head, finally shutting her up. The plaintive flute of chopping off your evil girlfriend's head tweedles. There's a plaintive flute for everything.
Angelus walks through one of those warehouses where they store moody objects and grumbles, "This how you treat an old friend? Kill the chick I was chasing, then lure me here with the scent of her blood." He sees Satan's knife sitting on a box, and Satan finally steps out to insist that they weren't friends. Satan adds, "I didn't bring you here to fight. That wasn't my instruction." He says that his master has "requested" Angelus. Can you order Angelus on an office supply form? I'll have to look into that. He'd keep our programmers in line. Satan says that everything that's happened was part of a plan to bring Angelus back. Angelus asks when he can meet "the big brain behind [his] liberation." I still don't know why he cares. Satan says he'll be giving Angelus orders, but Angelus isn't into that. Angelus says, "I don't like having my strings yanked, and I don't like being kept in the dark. Figuratively, anyway." Angelus calls Satan a lackey, a toady, a lickspittle, and a flunky. Satan is taunted into battle, but Angelus dodges all the blows and finally hops up into the rafters, repeating that he'll only talk to Satan's boss. Why does he care? Maybe he wants to track down his soul-bottle, because I can believe he'd want to make sure he wouldn't get resouled yet again. I'd have no problem believing that. If only he'd actually say something to that effect.
Seconds after Angelus has left, Cordelia steps out to chat with Satan. She yells at him for fighting with Angelus, reminding him, "Angelus is crucial to my plan." After dressing down Satan, she sighs, "Now, give mama some sugar," and steps up to Satan for a kiss. Aw.
Hyperion. Cary does the sanctuary spell. Connor looks really amused by the rhyme-y spell, which, in turn, amuses me. Then he steps away and goes on complaining that he's "pretty much concluded that magic sucks" until Cary rushes over and tries to brain him with a candlestick. Cary is, of course, thrown back by a flash of magic and then gasps, "See, it works sometimes." I think maybe there should have been a line about the fact that if it hadn't worked, Cary might have injured Connor. And then Cary could have said, "True, but at least I would have gotten him to shut up for a second." Wesley enters and asks where Cordy is. Fred says that Cordy's upstairs, sleeping off her evil fainting spell. Wesley puts on his jacket and declares, "We're gonna capture Angelus alive." Connor and Gunn aren't enthusiastic about the change in plans. Wesley says that if they kill Angelus, they'll still have to deal with Satan, and Satan's mysterious boss. He concludes, "We're gonna save Angel, and I know who we need to help us do it."
So does the audience, but we still get another long prison shot as Faith walks out to the visiting room. She sees Wesley waiting for her on the other side of the glass, and there's a nice moment when she looks around the room, like she figures Wesley wouldn't have come on his own to see her. Wesley stonily asks how she is, and Faith says, "Still alive. Never thought I'd live long enough to see you payin' me a visit." Wesley says that a lot has happened, and Faith notes, "Whatever it is suits you. I mean, you're looking...good." She looks confused and surprised by that, which is funny, although it's worth remembering that she not in a situation where she'd see a lot of men who aren't prison guards. Wesley confirms that Faith's heard about the rain of fire and the lack of sunlight in Los Angeles, and says, "We need you." Faith suggests that he check back when she's due for parole, and adds "Angel will come shining through in the end like he always does." Wesley says, "Angel's gone, Faith. Angelus is back." Faith ponders that for a second or two and replies, "Step away from the glass." This I liked. As Faith stands up, Wesley hurriedly backs away, and then she dives through the glass in another damn slow-motion shot. She quickly clobbers a couple of guards and then grabs Wesley and pulls him along as she dives out a third-floor window. They crash onto the roof of a sports car in slow-motion -- or rather, the stuntmen do, and one of the many reasons I don't like the slow-motion is that it makes it that much easier to notice when the stuntmen replace the actors. Ah well. They roll of the car, and Faith asks if Wesley's okay. He says, "Five by five." Shut up, Wesley. They run off, Faith in the lead, which is odd because Wesley's a lot more likely to know where he parked his car.
Wesley drives back into Los Angeles while Faith changes clothes in the back seat. Where she got the clothes remains a mystery. I like to imagine that she said, "Okay, I'll save the world and help catch Angelus, but not in this outfit!" Wesley is finishing the mighty task of filling Faith in on all she missed. Like Connor. And Cordy spending her summer as "a divine being." Faith is a mite critical of the MoG for desouling Angel in order to fight Satan. I wonder if Wesley told her it was his idea. He non sequiturs that the police in Los Angeles are too busy to care about an escaped convict right now. Faith declines pointing out that they didn't exactly catch her last time, and instead says that she won't kill Angelus. She says, "Angel's the only one in my life who never gave up on me. There's no way I'm giving up on --" Wesley interrupts to say, "I know. That's why it had to be you." He suddenly stops the car and wonders if she's up to the challenge. He says that she might be rusty, and Faith calmly says, "Maybe I am." "Maybe we should find out," Wesley suggests, and just when I'm hoping Faith will demonstrate her skills by beating him up, she's dragged out of the car by a vampire.
While Faith faces off against two vamps, Wesley slams open the car door into a third. He fends the vamp off long enough to say, "She's the one you want." The third vamp looks at Faith and exclaims, "Slayer!" before running away. That guy might be the smartest vampire we've ever seen. Faith keeps beating up the vamps, Wesley tosses her a stake, poof, poof. He asks if it felt natural, and Faith tosses the stake back and quips, "Just like riding a biker."
Blipvert to the Hyperion. Connor practices fencing upstairs while Gunn strolls around with a crossbow. Cary sips a drink and assures them that the spell is working. Gunn says that he wants to be ready if Angelus comes back. Wesley enters with Faith and declares, "We are. Now." Fred comes out of the office as Wesley introduces Faith. From the stairs, a vexed Cordelia snaps, "What the hell is she doing here?" Faith smiles and says, "Nice to see you, too, Cor," with a wave. Cordy marches downstairs, and I think the all-black with the black coat is the best pregnancy camouflaging look they've come up with for her. Although I still think all of her coats would be less odd-looking if everyone else was wearing jackets, and maybe complaining that the lack of sunlight was making things chilly. Anyway, Cordy sneers, "So now you brought psycho-Slayer out of retirement to kill Angelus?" Faith says that Cordy is entitled to her feelings, but suggests saving it until after the Angelus problem is solved. Faith asks Gunn if he's a good fighter, and Gunn replies, "I hold my own." Faith says, "That's a shame. You're with me, Wes, and the kid." She instructs Gunn to carry the tranq gun, and says, "In case anyone has any other ideas, this is a salvage mission, not search-and-destroy." She got the title! How nice for her. Cordy looks angry, but Connor's even angrier. He complains about Faith ordering them around, and says he'll kill Angelus if he gets a chance. Faith says that "if Angelus needs puttin' down, [she'll] be the one to do it." Connor is weakened by the power of Faithitude, and Cordy watches him with concern.
A girl runs down a deserted street, pursued by a couple of vamps. She crashes into Angelus, who soothes, "It's all right now; I've got you." The other vamps hesitate, and the girl wonders how she can thank him. Angelus suggests, "Scream for me!" and vamps out. The girl obliges, and just as he's about to bite her. Angelus is distracted by hearing one of the vamps saying, "The Slayer? Are you sure?" The girl takes the opportunity to run away, causing me lose a little more respect for Angelus. Not that I had a lot, but he could at least hold on to her a little bit. He listens as the vampires discuss the fact that the Slayer is in town, and grins as much as he can with the fangs.
Cut to Angelus in a graffitied phone booth. He dials the phone and says, "Hi, Dawn. Yeah, it's me. Is your sister home? She is?" He hangs up and sighs, "It's the other one." Ha! He's so disappointed!
Connor-vert. Faith, Connor, Wesley, and Gunn walk down the street. Whoa, hang on. So they've left Cary, Cordy, and Fred alone at the Hyperion. Sure, this time they've got a crummy spell to protect them, but even so, did they learn nothing about sending all of the fighters away last week? Connor sneaks a few looks at Faith and asks why Slayers are always girls. Faith says, "I dunno. Better at it, I guess." Connor smugs that she hasn't seen what he can do. Faith sniffs, "Let's not." I like the fact that his attitude seems to be "I'm as good as you are, because I've got superpowers, too," not "I'm as good as you are because I’m a boy." They stroll along some more, and Connor looks at an alley and says that Angelus was there recently. They duck under a fence and enter the alley.
Faith warns them to be careful and wait for her instructions. A vampire immediately leaps out at them, probably because it heard Faith and said, "Cool, while they wait for orders I can kill them." Connor quickly slices its head off. As the vamp dissolves, Faith slams Connor against a dumpster and asks, "What did I just say?" She says that if Connor can't obey orders, she'll have to send him home. Gunn says, "The kid's got a history of not doing what he's told." Faith says that Connor will do as she says, Connor blusters, Faith says, "I get it, you're a super-being," and soon they're trading kicks. Gunn and Wesley watch as Faith and Connor duck each other's blows. Faith finally aims the crossbow at Connor and asks, "Are you a murderer? 'Cause I am." Connor gulps. She sneers, "If it comes down to you or Angelus, you haven't shown me a thing to make me want to take your side." Connor grabs his sword, and sulks off. Gunn says, "I like her" -- and well he should -- and then follows after Connor. I can accept that someone had to go along and make sure Connor really went back to the Hyperion and stayed there. And I suppose it makes sense for Gunn to do that, since he has more experience with Connor. But it's still a shame.
Faith and Wesley enter a warehouse, and as Wesley swings the tranq gun around he asks how she'll find Angelus without Connor's help. She insists that something will turn up: "A trail of bodies, a tell-tale clue." They round a corner and she looks up to see "Welcome Faith" painted on a building. Or on something hanging from a building. It's hard to tell. And unimportant. Faith adds, "Maybe a carpet fiber," and Wesley sighs, "So much for the element of surprise." He starts planning an attack from two sides, but Faith is already running off. She calls back, "You take low," as she climbs up to the building's roof and disappears. Then Wesley is suddenly knocked down by Paco, and the tranq gun goes sliding away. Paco shouts, "Pretty ballsy, mister! Creepin' around my buddy, Angelus? Come on, pretty boy!" What? Maybe there's something about being evil that makes Wesley look more attractive. Although he's had no such effect on me. Odd. Wesley pops out his wrist-mounted transforming-sword-blade thingamabob, and am I gonna have to think of a better name for that? Wesley slices Paco's throat, but doesn't manage to sever his head. Paco's blonde friend steps on the blade thingamabob, breaking it, so I guess I won't need a name for it after all. Yay! The blonde vamp corrects Paco: "Our buddy."
Cool shot panning under the rafters of the warehouse. Faith perches for a moment and then drops to the floor. An unseen Angelus cracks open a fresh box of taunting. Faith slowly descends through the layers of moody lighting and taunting. I think this would have been more suspenseful if Angelus would shut the hell up. All the chatter just emphasizes the fact that he's nowhere near her. Watch it with the sound off, see what you think. Alternatively, if the rest of the episode had been fast-paced, slowing things down here might have worked. But as it is, the whole episode is stuttering. Ah well. So: Faith wanders, Angelus taunts. Finally, Faith reaches the ground floor, and Angelus steps out from behind the now-empty giant economy box of taunts. Angelus calls, "Honey, I brought a guest home for dinner!" Satan steps into view behind Faith. Angelus chuckles. Faith looks tense. The music swells. I spend the commercial break getting more coffee.
We return from the ads with the fervent hope that something will happen in this scene. Angelus makes introductions, explains that Faith will try to screw up Satan's evil plans, and asks, "The question is, what do you do, hot shot? What do you do?" Satan advances toward Faith, and she fires the crossbow. You can't tell Slayers anything. I mean, Wesley must have told her about weapons not being too effective against Satan, right? The arrow has the expected effect, so she tries kicks. Great. Satan grabs her, and Angelus steps a little closer for more focused taunting. Faith elbows Angelus and breaks free, and then...just keeps punching Satan. Satan finally gets bored and knocks Faith into a crate. Damn this slow motion! Punching, clobbering, damned slow-motion flipping, blah.
Meanwhile, Wesley's doing pretty much the same thing. But with more success, and less slow motion. Trashcan-lid-fu, chain-fu.
Satan-fu. Faith gets clobbered and kicked and taunted some more. She spits some blood into Satan's face, but he's made of sterner stuff than Notsferatu, so it doesn't bother him. She's spun around, slammed down, and kicked into slow-motion with bonus taunting. "Somebody should break this up," Angelus observes, as Faith clambers out of some rubble. Faith crawls across the floor slowly, too injured to escape. I kinda feel for her. Not so much because of the story, but because this recap is kicking my ass, and the less said about my day job, the better, and...well, I sympathize with feeling beaten down right now. Or am I oversharing? Satan asks, "This is all you are?" Oh great, now Satan's caught the taunting bug. Satan says, "My master's power is beyond all limits, beyond your petty...imagining." "Petty imagining"? What? Satan continues, "You're nothing. You could not even defeat me." "Ain't that the truth?" Angelus chirps, suddenly appearing to Satan. Angelus gloats about how powerful Satan is, saying, "Pretty much the only thing that could do damage to that thick, stony hide is himself. Or maybe, I dunno -- maybe a piece of himself!" With that, he pulls out the stone-bone knife and plunges it into Satan's back. Angelus dives out of the way as Satan groans and struggles to reach around and pull out the knife. Faith shields her eyes as light tears through Satan's hide. Angelus gibbers, "I knew it!" as Satan wails and more light pours out of him.
Light streams out of the building and up toward the sun. A bloodied Wesley looks up as the blackness covering the sun is blasted away. Hooray, I suppose. Paco and his friend look at each other and are quickly coated in flames. Hee. Wesley heads for the warehouse.
Faith watches as a Satan-shaped pile of coal crumbles to the floor. She looks at the sunlit window. Angelus does, too, and sighs, "Aw, crap. Killing the Beast really does bring back the sun? I thought that was Angel's retarded fantasy." Well why the hell did you want to kill Satan, Angelus? Faith grabs some chains hanging from a pulley and hauls herself upright while Angelus goes on blathering about how he wanted Satan to "soften [Faith] up." Whatever. So he killed Satan so he could kill Faith himself. And he couldn't just dart in and grab Faith, because we've all seen how Satan is ever so speedy. Angelus advances toward Faith, and she swings the heavy chains toward him. Angelus easily side-steps the chains and goes on chattering obliviously as the chains swing past him and crash through the window. Okay, I liked that, because I didn't see it coming, and punishing Angelus for his overconfidence is amusing. Sunlight streams into the room, and Angelus darts into the shadows. He looks back at Faith, who has collapsed in the middle of a patch of light on the floor. Angelus says, "I guess we'll just have to take a raincheck on that whole 'eviscerating you' thing. Just you and me now, Faithy." He winks, and heads out. Because there's a whole ten feet of sunlight protecting Faith. And there's nothing in the warehouse he could use to block the sunlight long enough to grab her, in her weakened condition. Like, say, piles of boxes, and crates, and barrels, and oh, why bother.
Cary and Fred stand in the Hyperion's courtyard, staring up at the sun. Connor and Gunn join the party as Fred declares, "I've never seen anything so beautiful in all my life." Gunn looks over at her, and Fred shoots him a quick glance and then goes back to blinding herself. Connor guesses that Faith killed Satan, and runs off to see if Cordy knows.
Cordelia is looking out the window as Connor bursts in. Connor enthuses, and Cordy says, "It's...wonderful." I've had plenty of issues with her delivery lately, but I liked the way she said that line. Just the faintest hint of sarcasm, but not over the top. Connor is all aglow, figuratively, as he burbles about how amazing Faith is. Cordelia says, "A weakness for Slayers. You're definitely his son." She says that she has to tell him something, and they sit together on the bed. After stammering for a while, she declares, "We're having a baby." Cordy pulls up her shirt to show her bulging belly. Connor looks faintly disgusted as Cordy takes his hand and presses it against her stomach. Connor says, "It's impossible -- how could..." Cordy agrees, but insists, "There's a life growing inside of me, and its ours. We're connected now." She strokes his face as the piano of demonic hellspawn tinkles mirthlessly. Cordy leans in and kisses Connor, then says, "You. And me. Forever." They kiss again and fall back onto the bed.
week, Cordelia's love once drove Angel's car, but now it will slash his tires. Or something along those lines. And Angelus points a shotgun at Faith, who is once again cowering on the floor. If they brought Faith back just to beat her up repeatedly, I'm gonna be vexed.