Welcome to Rewatching Angel, the part of the blog where I rewatch the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off: Angel. Each Tuesday evening, you’re invited to join me as I attempt to rediscover what made me love these shows so many years ago.

Dear Boy

• Angel is still sleeping all the time but not getting any rest.
• Cordelia has a vision a mushy demon growing out of a wall inside an underground water tank.
• The demon is worshiped by two factions of followers who are fighting each other.
• They sneak in planning to kill the thrall demon, hoping that’ll break the thrall and the followers will stop killing each other.
• But then they’re spotted and the demon sends both factions after Team Angel.
• Gunn manages to kill the demon while Angel just keeps wailing on one of the followers.
• It’s like he was beating the guy uncontrollably.
• Angel decides to go for a walk and sees Darla walking through a crowded promenade.
• He’s used to seeing her in his dreams… but he’s pretty sure that he’s awake this time.
• Back in the day, we see Angelus and Darla stalking Drusilla.
• Back in the present, Angel loses sight of Darla.
• At the office, a potential client whose wife is most likely cheating on him, has deluded himself into believing that she’s being regularly abducted by aliens.
• That’s hard for Wes and Cordy to swallow, but demons and vampires make sense?
• Angel comes back and confesses that he’s been dreaming about Darla. A lot. And that he saw her.
• In Lindsey’s office, he and Darla talk shop. Wolfram & Hart doesn’t want Angel dead. They want him to turn to the Dark Side.
• A fellow police detective visits Kate. She’s been transferred to a less popular precinct.
• He lets her know that Angel has moved to the Hyperion.
• Team Angel has taken the case of the abducted wife and they’re following her as she meets the guys she’s having an affair with.
• But Angel just comes out with what they’re doing. Tells her that her husband knows and to go home, confront him, fix things or leave.
• He doesn’t like these P.I. cases following cheating spouses. He thinks it’s crass.
• But then, in that same hotel lobby, he spots Darla.
• He confronts her, but she insists her name is DeEtta Kramer and her husband Stephen is waiting for her outside.
• Angel gets close to violent with her and she runs away in a panic. Into direct sunlight… so she’s clearly not a vampire.
• Maybe she really is this DeEtta Kramer.
• Angel goes to Caritas to sing Wang Chung and the Host tells him to let her go.
• He tells Angel that his job is to set people on their paths and chasing Darla is way off his path.
• So he calls the hotel and gets the Kramers’ address in Studio City.
• Then Angel plays stalker.
• Inside the house, it’s clear that “Stephen” is an actor that Wolfram & Hart have hired to play “DeEtta’s” husband.
• Darla can’t stand him. Lindsey is listening in.
• Wes calls Gunn to help in case Angel goes completely crazy. He and Cordelia explain to Gunn how bad Angelus was before he got his soul.
• In another flashback, Angelus has killed Drusilla’s family and the entire convent of nuns where Dru was about to take her vows.
• He tells Darla that he wants to turn her into a vampire. She complains that Dru is a lunatic. Angelus smiles and says, “Eternal torment… Am I learning?”
• Darla has created a monster. Pretty much the worst of the vampires.
• In the present, Darla calls the police and screams that someone broke into her house and attacked her and her husband.
• Then a Wolfram & Hart vampire flunky kills “Stephen” and Darla screams at the top of her lungs.
• This causes Angel to come to the rescue, but he just walks into their trap as the police arrive.
• Angel escapes the house and gets away.
• Kate arrives and interviews “DeEtta”.
• She spins a story about how Angel has been following her for weeks, told her he “helps the helpless.”
• As soon as Kate turns to talk to other officers, Angel grabs Darla.
• Kate and a SWAT team storm the hotel looking for Angel, but he’s back in that underground water tank from earlier. With Darla.
• Darla continues to play the role of DeEtta, until Angel vamps out and is about to feed on her.
• Then she kisses him and says, “There’s my boy.”
• This is what she and Wolfram & Hart wanted. Angel to turn to the Dark Side.
• I guess being willing to turn Darla so he could talk to the real her counts as crossing that line.
• When Kate explains what Angel allegedly did, she says that Angel knocked down the door and killed Stephen.
• How could he do that if the owners of the house were still alive? Did they just invite him in?
• Back in the water tank, Angel is on to Darla and Lindsey’s plan. She says it’s trite, but they’re only human.
• He comes back at her with the fact that she is, too. Which means she has a soul now.
• And all those horrible things they did together, those things are gonna come back to eat her alive.
• Darla insists that she just needs to show her one moment of happiness. Angel says that she showed him all kinds of incredible things, but she never made him happy.
• He couldn’t feel happiness with her because he didn’t have a soul. But then he got a second chance.
• And now she does, too.
• But she’s not buying into it yet.
• Once the sun rises, Darla leaves the tank.
• Angel returns to the hotel after nightfall. Wes warns Angel to be careful, that there are a lot of forces arrayed against him.
• Angel says bring it on.
• Body count: Humans – 1