We open in the hotel lobby: Wesley's looking through a book, Gunn's playing a Gameboy, and Cordelia's leafing idly through a magazine. Fred descends, in her usual silent manner, and her soft "Hi!" elicits a shriek from Cordy, a yelp from Wesley... and a casual, not-even-looking-up "Hey, Fred" from Gunn.

They are, as Fred notes, just all hanging out. Cordy kindly offers that Angel's upstairs... and Fred goes all dreamy. This is a serious crush, and she's got it bad. She's just sure he's reading something deep and meaningful..., but isn't at all disappointed when he shows up with the newspaper movie listings in hand excitedly announcing a Charleton Heston double feature down the street.

Fred is the only one sharing his enthusiasm (and clearly would be so even if he were announcing a reading of the phone book in Javanese), and so -- with a jab at the others for calling him the "quiet, stay-at-home, sulky one" -- Angel offers her his arm and off they go. 

Cut to a posh hotel room where a studly guy has apparently just exhausted both of the hookers in his bed. As he makes martinis while they recover ("So, ready for round four?"), he starts to collapse.

Muttering "It's been fun," he spooks the hookers by muttering a spell, ["Alii permutat anima kimota." -- looks Latin to me.. "permuting the spirit" and such. -D] and zapping as some sort of bright-light energy out of the eyes and mouth, and then collapsing in a pile of steaming skin (yes, just skin) on the floor. Ew.

<credits> 

We're back the next day and Fred is in Wesley's office babbling like a hyperactive teenager about how wonderful last night was with Angel. It would be painfully pathetic if she weren't so completely oblivious. Westley is markedly subdued as he dutifully listens.

In the lobby, Cordelia is confronting Angel, insisting he talk to Fred and clear things up. She points out all the reasons Fred would naturally fall for Angel, then (when she sees Angel's head swelling) all the reasons he's a no-no. After another round in the "I'm not a eunuch!" debate, Angel agrees, but tries to pass off the "talk" duty to Cordelia. But she's having none of that, and hauls him bodily into Wesley's office.

Put on the spot, Angel ducks it by bringing up an odd death (of Teaser Stud) in the newspaper he's holding. Wesley remembers another similar case recently -- young guy acting out-of-character, living it up in a hotel room with hookers, then dying as a lump of steaming flesh -- and, ignoring Cordelia's protests that no one is paying them for this, Angel's off and running on an "important new case"

Cut to W&H, where Gavin is following Lilah into her office. She's still mocking him for his "building code violations" approach to Angel-harassment, but he maintains he'll win her respect in time. His newest tack? Angel doesn't exist in a legal sense -- no tax I.D., SS#, last name -- which would give him much grief dealing with any type of officialdom. [I gotta say, the guy is good, even if not as flashy and cool in his approach. I can see Angel being tangled up in something mundane at some horribly inconvenient moment due to this guy. -D]  

When Lilah refuses to be impressed and suggests Angel might just rip out Gavin's throat for it, he cooly suggests that -- if she really thinks that -- he might just know Angel better than she does. As he walks away Lilah is obviously not pleased by that thought. She tells her assistant to get her a specific "graphic artist" ("Look under 'F' for "forger'!") on the line. 

Back at the hotel, Wesley's found a third matching victim five weeks back. Cordelia's traced them all to the same health club, so she and Angel will check there. Wesley's meeting the coroner to look at the bodies and Gunn's off to interview hotel staff... leaving Fred standing at the desk, where she decides her job will be to "just stay here."

At the health club [I'm pretty sure that's the same one they broke the mirror in at the start of last season. -D] Cordelia's lecturing Angel about not letting the misunderstanding with Fred continue. Of course, in the middle of her talk on keeping work and social life separate, she gets distracted by some of the clients and strps off her jacket to go interview herself a couple of hotties pronto.

 After dodging an enthusiastic offer for a special introductory trial membership ("6 months for just $350!"), Angel gets one of the staff to confirm that all three guys were members. Angel then smoothly insinuates that steroid use was involved and might implicate the club, getting himself instant access to their records with a promise to keep it quiet. [Angel's getting good at this! -D]

 Cordelia, OTOH, seems to have lost her knack for impressing hot guys -- of course having to ask them demon-related questions doesn't exactly help.

 Angel and GymGuy determine that the only thing the three had in common was an evening Pilates class. Angel walks through said class... and spots the glint of binoculars from a darkened window across the street, at the Monserrat Retirement Community.

 Cordelia, meanwhile, seems to have recovered and is busy taking names and numbers (for follow up purposes, of course!) from her circle of interviewees when Angel shows up to tell her he's checking out the retirement home. After a big-brother moment of teasing her about her interview style, he tells her to pick him up afterward.

 Angel, meanwhile, walks across and is soon knocking on the door of "316 - Marcus Roscoe". An elderly man answers, and agrees to answer some questions. After an awkward pause at the door while Angel waits for an actual invitation, he asks the guy about his vouyeristic habits. The guy shrugs it off, and seems to be a nice guy, asking about the pictures of the dead guys, what killed them, who Angel is, what he does....

 Angel spots a Nothian Herb Jar on the shelf and asks Marcus if he's into the occult. Marcus claims to just have picked up a lot of 'junk' while traveling over the years. Then Angel spots current issues of X-Treme Sports-type magazines on the table and calls him on it. Marcus promtly removes his glasses and starts reciting his spell. Mid-chuckle over how it won't work on him, Angel is promptly body-switched.

 Head butting Old-GuyAngel into immediate unconsciousness, MarcusAngel heads out to the street. A heads up from Cordy, waiting in the convertible, a couple of quietly smarmy comments, and they're heading back to the hotel.

***

As they enter the hotel Cordy is distracted enough to brush off I'm-gonna-call-him-"Mangel"'s efforts to get someone to the front desk to help get them a room as just Angel joking around. She mentions Wes and Gunn, and Mangel spots everyone's business cards on the desk and figures it out.

 Cordelia laughs off what turns out to be Mangel's one pick-up line, and insists that he talk to Fred about the inapporpriateness of an office romance. Mangel, not unreasonably, takes from this that Angel's gay.

Cut to OldGuyAngel (OGangel) waking up in Marcus' room with a headache, having trouble getting up out of the chair, and only being able to see himself in the mirror with his glasses on.

Next we see, OGangel is sneaking downstairs in the home [I thought it was the hotel at first. -D] And places a call to AI. The machine picks up next to Mangel, who is tearing the office apart and pawing through everything. He picks up and taunts OGangel a bit, ending with a warning about Ryan... the orderly who breaks the connection and hauls OGangel back to Marcus' room. Meanwhile, Mangel bashes the answering machine tape with the base of a handy candlestick.

After taking away his phone privileges for a month, Ryan is lecturing OGangel about being out of his room again. Apparently this happens a lot, and often "Marcus" is delusional and confused, having "episodes" where he thinks he's a "young stud" or "a famous snowboarder". Thanks to Mangel's help with Ryan's name though, OGangel manages to fake normalcy enough to avoid being put in restraints.

Next morning at the hotel, Cordelia walks in to find Mangel asleep in the trashed office, face-first at Wesley's desk. Mangel manages to cover for the fact that he didn't actually know where he lived by claiming he fell asleep while working. [Marcus is good at this, he's obviously had practice. More luck to him that Angel can be a bit odd at the best of times, especially when he's hiding amongst people who _would_ actually consider body-switching a viable explanation. -D]

 Cordelia insists upon him having The Fred Talk, and leaves, just as Wesley comes in the office to fetch something, musing on the niceties of tea-brewing. Mangel draws the obvious wrong conclusion, and manages an awkward, ambiguous, uncomfortable talk with Wesley, who starting to get seriously concerned.

 Mangel ends it with a hug... then heard Cordelia call out to Wesley that breakfast has arrived. Getting Fred's location (and gender) from Wesley, Mangel then decends on the breakfast burrito, tucking a tip in Gunn's pocket as he does so. Gunn shrugs it off and within a few lines Mangel's figured out who he is. [I have to say that they do a _really_ nice job of running through all the expected (and even cliched) misunderstandings quite believably. No one looks stupid, and they're all cleared up quickly, before they become a strained plotlet of their own. -D]

 Gunn discovered that all the guys called the same 'escort' service from their rooms. While Wes and Gunn fight over who gets to interview the hookers, Cordelia steps in and takes the job, making an unflattering comment on the male gender. Mangel, improbably, backs her up with a "I'm a sensitive guy" approach. Wes gets paged by his contact at the coroner's office and they're all off, leaving Mangle to hold the fort. [Damn! And I wanted to see him fry his @$$ off trying a burrito run at noon. -D]

Meanwhile OGangel is keeping an eye on the front door of the home. Just as the guard is distrated helping someone and he's about to make a break for it, a friend of Marcus' comes up to show off his newest granddaughter. Cornered with a baby thrust into his arms, OGangel can hardly make a break for it and the moment is gone.

Mangel is happily shredding evidence and drinking martinis back at the office when Fred walks in. He takes one look at her and dumps any idea of a talk. After trying out his one pickup line again (to much greater success), he tells her to go get dressed and he'll take her out on the town. She so thrilled she nearly explodes as she runs off to do just that.

 Fred's barely gone when Lilah arrives. Mangel (of course) smarms at her too. She drops off all the building permits he'll ever need as a favor... and a way to trip up Gavin. Mangel mixes up martinis and tries his line on her as well.

 OGangel's getting desperate and finally pulls the fire alarm to effect his escape... only he suffers a heart attack and collapses as he tries to leave.

Lilah's cautious about Mangel, but she's definitely intrigued.... and a few martinis the worse for wear. So when he pushes the issue and kisses her... she pauses, then they go straight for the mutual knocking-everything-aside grapple on the desk.

They're seriously in dishabille and oblivious to the world when Fred walks in on them, all dressed up to go out. Fred leaves unobserved, but another few kisses to the neck and Mangel's fangs end up in Lilah's neck.

***

Lilah manages to throw him off, swear, and pull a cross from her purse. She leaves, swearing that whatever sick game Angel's pulling this time, he'll never get that close to her again.

Mangel is busy examining his bumpy new face and pricking his own finger on his sharp pointy teeth. Deciding he likes the taste of the bloodied finger, he's a bit disconcerted to find he can't check his face in the mirror.

OGangel, meanwhile, is in Marcus' room, hooked up to an IV and recovering from his fourth heart attack.

Cordelia returns from hooker-interviews to find the place deserted and Fred sobbing in the elevator. Thinking it's a reaction to The Talk, Cordelia tries to comfort her. Fred, thankfully, spills the whole thing.

Mangel is hanging out at some club, eyeing a woman who's there with someone else. He gets her alone, outside, and excited at the thought of a quickie on the car hood with the possibility of being interrupted by her boyfriend at any moment. Then the fangs come out.

Luckily, so does the boyfriend and two of his buds. Three seriously beat-up guys later, Mangel taunts them with his immortaility and then gets a thrill jumping off a second story-balcony. He's obviously done his research.

Back at the ranch, the gang's all assembled around Wesley's much-the-worse-for-wear desk. Wesley argues this isn't like Angel. Cordelia (once she learns the woman was a brunette) agrees, and assumes he's become Angelus again. Gunn argues that there's no body. Picking up the strewn books, however, Wesley wants to know why either Angel or Angelus would need to read about vampires. Comparing the weird behavior of the dead gym guys just before they died, he's on to the infected/possessed/body switched idea. And the only time Angel was alone in the gym trip was on his visit to...

The retirement home, where OGangel is out of bed and making a break for it again. Marcus' friend catches him and tells him that "his kid" is at reception looking for him. At the reception desk, of course: none other than Mangel.

OGangel tries to hide, but Mangel not only knows the place better, he's got vampire senses. OGangel tries to talk Mangel out of killing him, but Mangel's not having it. He thinks Angel wasted his chance at immortality. ("Vampires don't help people, you moron! They kill them. Here, let me show you.")

But the gang shows up, and has no trouble figuring out who's who. They wail on Mangel with sticks until Cordy can stun-gun him unconscious. Wesley asks about a "small Algurian conjuring orb", and OGangel tells them it's on a shrine in Marcus' room. To OGangel's dismay Fred gives into the urge to whack the unconscious Mangel once more on the head with a stick for good measure.

Back in Marcus' room, Mangel is tied to a chair. Wesley gives OGangel the spell to read. He does so and wham -- light-show body re-switching occurs. Angel [Wow, that's nice and easy to type now! -D] assures them that it worked ["And they didn't think to doublecheck that?" -Lizbet] and they untie him and hand him the orb... which he promptly crushes (over Marcus' protest).

[You know, Lizbet's right... Marcus was sneaky enough to have done that, then crushed the orb to prevent ever being returned to his body. Nasty chance they took there. -D]

They leave Marcus there cursing, spluttering, and mid-fifth (and probably final) heart attack.

Back at the hotel, Angel comes out to the back patio to Talk with Fred... and ends up immediately in an awkward silence. Fred lets him off the hook by letting him know that Cordelia explained it to her (figuring he's make a mess of it) and she understands.

In fact, she can see how being without love can actually help him avoid heartache and disappointment... [Oh no, he does those too! -D]

When Cordelia comes running out to announce Willow's called and Buffy's alive. Angel freezes for a second, then heads inside, leaving Fred alone to wonder, "'Buffy'?"

 <end>