Loyalty
Written by Mere Smith
Directed by James A. Contner
Lizbet's Synopsis | Lizbet's Review
Lizbet's Synopsis
Gunn and Fred walk into the office to find Wesley asleep on the desk. Gunn says that he admires Wesley's loyalty (thus getting the episode title out in the episode really early) and that Wesley needs a life. Wesley wakes when Fred reaches for some papers on his desk. He blinks blearily at Fred and Gunn and Angel comes in carrying Connor, cheerfully calling out "Wakey wakey!" Wesley starts gathering papers and asks if they have heard from Cordelia recently. Angel shows everyone a new trick Connor has learned -- how to die, as he morphs into game face and bends down to Connor's neck. The book under Wesley's hands starts seeping blood. Gunn and Fred beam at Wesley, and Gunn's voice gets deep and funky as he starts warning Wes that he's running out of time. Angel straightens, blood on his mouth, and Wesley lifts his hands, blood dripping off his palms.
Mercifully, he wakes from his nightmare, to Angel walking in, carrying Connor, asking if Wesley had been there all night. Life is way too much like his nightmares.
Angel and Wesley are at the pediatrician's office waiting room with Connor, as another woman holding a crying baby says that it's as though she was killing him. The woman she is talking to sympathizes about colic, and Angel suggests using a vacuum as white noise, and the woman praises Angel for his dad skills. She's up next, and Angel frets over Wesley looking horrible. Wesley doesn't give Angel any information about the translation except that he's still working on it, and Angel's name ("Mr. Angel?") is called. Wesley accompanies Angel into the examining room, apparently afraid to let Angel out of his sight alone with Connor. Angel worries over a strange noise he heard from Connor, and the doctor reassures him that it is just digestion. Standard blood tests will be done in a week, and Connor is a normal, perfectly healthy baby. After they leave, another woman with a baby comes in and swaps one vial of blood marked "Angel, Connor" for another.
Back at the Hyperion, Angel is unpacking baby hockey equipment. Desperately bored (since Cordelia left they haven't had a client and she has not called with a vision or, well, at all), Gunn and Angel start a hockey game while Angel mushes about wanting to watch Connor grow up, not being able to wait to see what kind of person he'll be. He sips from a glass of blood that will show up a lot in this episode. Angel manages to shatter a window with a puck as a client walks in, asking for help.
The woman, Aubrey, describes something that is all-to-familiar to the staff at Angel Investigations. Her son snuck out, and came back just before dawn, his face distorted and screaming to be let into the house. As the sun came up, she watched her little boy burn. Wes sends Gunn to the pier where the boy hang out to do some recon. Gunn says that he and Fred will check it out. Aubrey says that if she could, she would have killed whoever did that to her son with her bare hands.
Apparently, Aubrey has some sort of goal, because she is back at Holtz's headquarters, reporting to a small circle the details about Angel Investigations. Holtz compliments her on a job well done. Justine can't understand how these people can work for a vampire. Holtz points out that he made a pact with a demon. They equally must think they are doing the right thing. He reminds her that nothing is black or white, good or evil. Oh, except Angel, who's evil. Justine is distracted into taking care of a vampire who has escaped from it's chains while some of the other members of the little band where training on it. She gets it chained up again and returns to Holtz as Sahjhan appears, complaining of how slow Holtz is going. Justine, who has nothing resembling impulse control, tries to cut Sahjhan in half, but her sword passes right through him. Holtz blandly refuses to let Justine be sent away, so she is privy to their conversation as they discuss Angel's culpability in the murder of Holtz's family, the general lack of a dead vampire named Angel, and the Resikhian urn that Holtz has that will trap Sahjhan for all eternity if Holtz deems it necessary. Sahjhan delivers a fairly lame threat that it isn't over, considering that he's usually incredibly smartmouthed, and shivers away.
Wesley is talking on the phone with a wizard, claiming he doesn't care how dangerous it is, he needs him to do it. As he argues, he stares down at the pad of paper that has the translated prophesy on it: The Father will kill The Son. Fred cheerfully enters the office and suggests that Wesley needs to take care of himself better, get out, maybe call Aubrey and ask her out for coffee. Wesley snaps that they aren't here to date, they are here to do their jobs, and he suggests that she do hers. Fred's smile fades and she turns and walks out of the office.
Lilah, in her office, is talking to her mother on the phone. Her mom is confused and doesn't seem to remember that it is Lilah that she's talking to, and Lilah implores her not to cry. Sahjhan appears in her office, and Lilah tells her mother that she'll have to call back. Sahjhan marvels that Lilah doesn't even blink when a demon materializes in his office, and Lilah rattles off everything that she knows about him. The file clerk robot girl downstairs (the data-entry clerk from an episode that Mere wrote but I can't remember which one!) keeps Lilah up to date and informed. Sahjhan is familiar with Wolfram and Hart in this and other dimensions, and wants their help to kill Angel. Lilah mouths the company line about Angel being kept alive until he can be useful to W&H, while scribbling on a sheet of paper, "Count Me In." (Lilah's extreme hatred of Angel seems to date from Carpe Noctem. Even after he terrorized her in Blood Money she didn't seem to hate him. The irony, of course, is that she thought Angel tried to kill her, when it was really Marcus-in-Angel's-body.) Out loud, Lilah asks if there is anything else Wolfram and Hart can do for Sahjhan, and he says he needs something rare and difficult to obtain: Connor's blood. "Got it," Lilah smugs. There's nothing unusual about it, though, but Sahjhan says they are looking for the wrong thing.
Out on the Santa Monica Pier, Fred is trying to be a good little employee while Gunn having a good time. Fred admits that Wesley said something about dating on the job, and that she didn't stand up to him and say she and Gunn could do whatever they wanted. Fred is worried that Wesley is right, but Gunn says that he wants everything, the perfect job and the great girl. That reassures Fred.
Angel is playing with Connor and drinking a glass of blood as Wesley says he has to leave the office. Angel again expresses worry over Wesley's state of mind, and Wesley deflects him again, saying that he just wants to make sure everything is absolutely okay. Angel teases that Connor didn't mean to give Uncle Wesley a headache, and then sincerely thanks him for being a good friend. Wesley, who is squashed about flat under the unbearable burden of what he knows, leaves.
Night has fallen (thud) at the pier and Fred and Gunn are still investigating. Fred spots someone trying to break into the closed carousel and they go to investigate. They see someone climbing a ladder in the middle of the carousel and can't tell if it's a vampire. Gunn is all for going out and doing some empirical testing, and says that he didn't come out here today just to go back to the office and file a report for Wesley. The carousel begins to move and the vampire starts weaving through the horses. Two more emerge and attack Gunn and Fred.
Justine and another one of Holtz's band are filming all of this with a camcorder. Gunn tells Fred to run, and starts fighting three vampires alone. The man with Justine asks if they shouldn't stop this, or at least help Gunn, just Justine hisses that that's not what they are here to do right now. Fred refuses to run and tosses Gunn a broken stick from the railing. He's pinned between two vamps, but she stakes one and he stakes the other. Justine and the other guy leave as Gunn and Fred embrace.
Wesley is plotting coordinates with an electronic devise. They fetch him up outside of a burger joint. Specifically, in front of the drive-through speaker set in a plastic statue of an extremely goofy-looking hamburger. Uncomfortably, Wesley sprinkles powder over the statue and recites an invocation. Apparently, the wizard he called got the information right because the hamburger statue becomes a bigger talking moving hamburger statue. Wesley asks if it is true that Angel will kill his son as related in the prophecies. The Loa says that Angel will indeed devour his son, and nothing can be done to stop it, and tells Wesley that his true question is "when." "Your pain is just beginning. Betrayal and agony lie in wait, and time is running out, yet still you ignore the question." Wesley askes "When will this happen?" (without respecifying that "this" means "When will Angel kill his son?") and the Loa tells him it will happen after the earth shakes, the air burns and the sky turns to blood. The Loa returns to being a speaker for a fast food joint.
Lilah orders a drink at a bar, and brushes off a guy. Sahjhan appears and Lilah tells them their plan is on. Sahjhan complains that she's not one for small talk, and Lilah asks him why he wants Angel killed. Sahjhan refuses to answer and, when she pushes him, disappears.
Wesley is babysitting (read: brooding over) Connor when Aubrey walks in. She thanks him for clearing out the monsters that killed her son and hands Wesley a check. Wesley points out that he never told her there were more than one, and she tries to cover. She asks him out for a cup of coffee, saying she knows it can be lonely. Wesley compliments her on her approach, and Angel agrees, popping up behind her. Aubrey pulls a stake out of her bag and attempts to kill Angel, but he backs her up against a wall and disarms her. Angel tells Aubrey that he understands why she and Holtz and the rest are doing what they are doing, but her little sob story sent Gunn and Fred into a trap. If anything happens to his friends, or if Holtz touches Connor, Angel will kill him. As she runs out of the Hyperion, a small, short earthquake rattles everything. Angel coos over Connor's first earthquake.
Holtz is reviewing with the class the recording Justine made of the attack on Fred and Gunn. He points out that she is small, frail, and yet she prevailed against vampires -- because she was willing to die to do it. They must all do the same, but with even more of a "nos morituri te salutant" attitude. He turns as Aubrey, and deduces that she was found out. He's only really annoyed that she was followed, as everyone turns to see Wesley in the doorway. One of Holtz's gang threatens to cut Wesley's tongue out and send it to Angelus, but Wesley puts him on the ground with one blow. Wesley tells them that they are fighting the wrong man, that Angel's soul makes him different. Holtz points out that the soul was restored to him not to make him a good person, but to make him suffer for what he had done. "Gypsies do have a knack for creative vengeance. Where they fail, however, is in the execution of justice." And Holtz wants justice, for his wife and children. In the same quiet, level tone, he says that Wesley is afraid that Angel will attack his own child, and that's why he came here. Holtz tries to convince Wesley to join with him, but Wesley refuses.
Fred and Gunn are having their daily diner breakfast, and Gunn is now the one fretting about dating in the workplace, in part because Fred was in danger the night before. Fred is afraid that means he wants to break up with her, but Gunn assures her that as important as fighting the good fight is to him, she is more important. If Wesley makes them choose, he chooses her. But he is sure that Wesley will do the right thing, he always does.
Wesley walks down a long hallway to Room 312. Angel is putting Connor in his crib as Wesley comes in, and starts preparing Connor's bottle on an old gas stove. Wesley is haggard beyond belief, and finally admits to Angel he's not doing well. (Duh.) Angel says that he understands Aubrey's joining Holtz because he would do anything, hurt anyone, sell his soul to protect Connor. The love that he has for his son is better than any romantic love he's known. It's beautiful.
Wesley breaks down into hysterical laughter, relieved beyond measure to realize that Angel would never harm Connor. Of course. It was silly to think it. Before he can confess to Angel the details of the prophesy and how worried he was, a stronger earthquake rocks the Hyperion. The stove rattles loose from the wall and fire fills the room. In Holtz's headquarters, he knocks Justine out of the way of a falling bureau and they share a Look as he lies on top of her. Lilah sits in her office with a smug smile on her face. Back at the Hyperion, Angel scoops up Connor and jumps the flames to get him out while Wesley stands stupefied watching the Loa's portents come true. Angel grabs Wesley by the collar and yanks him out of the room into the hallway.
Standing in the hallway, Angel checks over Connor, bleeding profusely from a cut on his forehead. Wesley breathes, "Earthquake. Fire. Blood," as Angel's blood saturates the sky-blue blanket Connor is wrapped in. Angel grins at Wesley and says, "At least I have something to snack on."
Crowded back against the wall, Wesley stares at Angel in horror.
END
Four synopsises in four days. My brain hurts. :)
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This page last updated June 13, 2002.