Lizbet's Synopsis

Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn meeting outside of the Hyperion, holding their desks in boxes. We are picking up five minutes after the events of the previous week, and they have just been fired... let go... axed... etc, etc. Cordelia cuts them off before they offer any more slang terms for the end of their employment. Wesley tries to rationalize Angel's behavior, but Cordelia blames it on Darla. [Well, duh.] At least the boy is consistent -- little blondes drive him crazy. Gunn isn't terribly freaked, since this was just a sideline for him anyway, but Cordelia and Wesley are hurt and angry and disappointed. They each pick up their box-o'-desk and take off in three different directions.

Meanwhile, Angels is immolating the drawings he's made of Darla for the first half of the season. Prepping for burning the real thing?

[Credits]

Angel is pumping himself up, and VO-ing all over the place. He's gotten soft, he has to be tough, yadda, yadda, yadda.

At Holland's house, a face moves in the pile of corpses that was Darla and Drusilla's buffet of humans. Lindsey's eyes pop open. He extracts himself from the dump o' death. A cop tries to convince him to go to the hospital, but Lindsey murmurs, "She saved me... why am I the only one left?" Um, surprise, Lindsey, you're not, as Lilah is pulled out alive.

Virginia is appalled that Angel fired Wesley, but Wes seems to be stiff-upper-lipping it. Virginia flatters Wesley's abilities, then suggests he should join a union, like all the guys her father's hired. Wes reminds her of the less-than-perfect things her father has done (like, try to sacrifice her), but she's healing thanks to therapy and a healthy trust fund. Unfortunately, Wesley's jobhunt is complicated by the fact that the only thing he's good at is demon hunting.

Back to Angel working out and talking over. It's time to kill, ya ya ya. (Trust me, the voice overs aren't that interesting.) He strides purposefully through the sewers. (Well, wouldn't you? I mean, it's not like you are going to meander through the sewers, you know. Although they have been known to have relationship discussions in sewers... right, synopsis, carrying on.)

Lindsey and Lilah aren't happy to see each other -- alive -- at the offices, and bicker about how no one seems to care that they are still breathing. Lindsey is lacking in subtlety, quietude and fear (which is likely going to end up with him lacking in aliveness). Dru coming in to vamp Darla was W&H's idea, not his. Lilah and Lindsey walk into his office to find Darla and Dru waiting. Dru comments that Lindsey has cow eyes, "Moooooooooooo." Darla tells Lindsey that she spared him because she loves him, then bursts out laughing. Dru and Lilah join her, and Darla snaps, "Shut up, Lilah." Darla starts filling in for Lindsey the advantages of being alive after Holland was lunch (actually, more of a pre-dinner hors d'ourve... or the snack you have to clean your palate while at a wine tasting... right, synopsising, got it.) Darla wants power, big shock. Whoever W&H doesn't blame -- and kill -- will be Darla and Dru's liaison with the firm. Lindsey asks if the power she wants is to bring down Angel. Before he can even get the name out, Darla denies it.

Angels waits to drop in on a group of stupid vampires in the sewer. After some punchy-fighty (and way too many Matrix-y wire tricks), Angel kills them all and declares himself ready. (In a voice over. Angel does not open his mouth this entire episode.) Meanwhile, at Caritas, the Host is singing, "Voulez-vous chocher avec moi c'est soir?" and Wesley comes in and orders a Bloody Mary, hold the blood. Daaaaamn, but the Host can sing. Wesley steadies himself as the Host invites someone up on the stage to sing next, muttering, "Perhaps something by Cat Stevens..." He and Cordelia startle each other. She accused him of coming to Caritas to sing... and he calls her on the same thing. She hasn't decided between Shania Twain or Madonna. They are both at loose ends now that Angel has lost it. Gunn appears behind them, claiming that his casual attitude after the firing was to protect his brusque and macho exterior (Gunn spends some time reading in his spare time, because no one uses the word "brusque" in normal conversation). Cordelia takes it on herself to point out their mutual and collective patheticeness, and blames everything no Angel, although she seems rather sorry for him, all alone in his demon world with no one to talk to.

Except Merle, who Angel is torturing for information. The canary squeals that Drusilla and Darla have been looking for flunkies and minions, and that they will be at a bar at La Cienaga and Washington. Wordlessly, Angel leaves him hanging -- literally.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Demons whail on each other, while a crowd circles them and cheers them on. One of them taps out, as Drusilla claps slowly. Darla comes forward, mocking them (do what you do best...). The camera pans over a bent head with a sweatshirt hood pulled over it. Gee, wonder who that is. However, we're distracted from Angel as Drusilla pulls a back-talking demon's ears off. And then plays with them. Eeeew. Darla continues with her proposition. They're looking for the best, the meanest, the cruelest. Drusilla senses Angel in the crowd and distracts Darla from her pitch, and warns her that Angel is watching. Darla seems a bit edgy about Drusilla's conviction that Angel keeps thinking of Darla the way she was when she was alive. Darla tries to get back on track and sets up a minion audition. (Only in LA...) She storms out with Drusilla in tow. Angel is outside, and voice-overs that he's not ready, he can still feel Darla's pain, need, and hope. They are too close.

Back at The Black Tower of Dastardly Doings (also known as Wolfram and Hart's offices), Lindsey is packing up for the night. Lilah is in his doorway, and claims she can't do it anymore. She can't handle the waiting. She's on a serious freakout edge. A fifty-fifty chance of surviving to get her promotion isn't good enough, and she offers a deal. If she and Lindsey stick together and leave tonight (with various blackmail files) they can get clean away. Lilah offers to take all the risk, if Lindsey tells her what files to steal, and keeps using the word "together." How dumb does she think Lindsey is? Apparently, very, as Lindsey runs his hand (singular) down her body and pulls out a bug. Speaking into it, he mimes being the perfect Wolfram and Hart employee, sounding like an idiot schoolboy who would never, ever do anything wrong. Lindsey is awfully fatalistic about his fifty-fifty chances.

Back at Caritas, the three newest members of Los Angeles' unemployment statistic are chilling out over their drinks. Cordy blames Wes for making Angel feel guilty and *making* him fire them. Gunn is sick of listening them fight. The three of them snark around the table. The Host offers them another round and Gunn launches into it's-Cordelia's-turn-to-be-blamed. The three of them all start arguing at once. Smash cut to the three of them with their arms around each other, singing We Are the Champions -- badly. It ends with a cute group hug. Cut to Cordelia with her head on the table, moaning about the evils of tequila. The Host comes over and snarks at them. Cordelia asks for guidance. The Host claims that he can't tell them, and prepares for Cordelia to fling her head back in a vision. Random demon, random girl, random street.

At they Hyperion, Angel ignores a ringing phone to get an ax.

Alone in an alley, Gunn, Wes and Cordy bemoan the fact that they don't have a clue where the innocent victim is, where the spiny demon is, or where Angel and any weapons are. Wesley sharply says that they are just going to have to carry on without Angel, and they track a blood trail *up* a wall.

Angel shows up outside of an abandoned-looking industrial building with a satchal of weapons. He opens the doors and confronts the horde of demons inside.

Gunn helps Cordy through a window in the building, and they are jumped bay the demon. Cordy tries to get the girl out of there while Gunn and Wesley beat up the spiny demon. The flannel-dressed spiny demon. That's odd. Gunn stabs it in the head with a two-by-four. Wesley has been bitten, so it's time to go to the hospital.

Darla wants to get in quick, weed out the losers, and get out. But it looks like Angel has done that already, reducing the crowd of demons to dog chow. Angel is leaning against a junked car smoking. Without a word (of course), he flings his cigarette down into a pool of gasoline, one that is puddled at Darla and Dru's feet. They go up like torches and run outside. Smashing a hydrant, they put themselves out. Dru is sobbing hysterically that he's gone, he's gone. Darla says he wasn't Angel, and wasn't Angelus either, as Dru sobs for "Father."

Back at Wolfram and Hart, Lindsey and Lilah recap the last couple of minutes: fire, Dru and Darla alive, Angel killed a dozen demons. They go into a meeting, and are told that neither one of them is qualified to take Holland's place, so they both are -- for the moment.

Angel does target practice as Wesley comes down the stairs into the basement. Wesley says that they are keeping the agency open with or without Angel. Wesley says that they will fight the good fight. Angel voiceovers that someone has to fight the war.

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