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.

The Trial

• Angel tells Wes and Cordelia that he’s letting go of his search for Darla.
• But then Gunn bursts into the hotel letting Angel know he’s tracked her down to a hotel that Wolfram & Hart don’t yet know about.
• Angel admits he lied. He figured Cordelia and Wes would nag him about it.
• Darla receives a visitor at her hotel room. But it’s not Angel.
• It’s Lindsey, Wolfram & Hart’s favorite stooge.
• He brings her back to the law office where Holland explains that she’s not their prisoner.
• He claims she’s their moral responsibility. Then he shows her a file.
• Angel and Gunn check out Darla’s room, but they find nothing useful.
• In a flashback to France, 1875, Angelus and Darla are on the run from a vampire hunter named Holtz.
• He’s relentless and he keeps finding the vampire duo, no matter where in Europe they go.
• Back in the present, Darla is chatting up a vampire in a bar. Looks like she’s trying to talk someone into turning her a vampire.
• She’s less than impressed with the fact that he’s only been undead since 1992.
• He takes her out to the alley and she has to explain to him how to sire her.
• But then Angel dusts him before he can start to drain her.
• Angel tries to talk Darla out of becoming a vampire again, that she should give her humanity a chance for more than just a few months.
• But she drops the bomb that she’s dying. That’s what Holland’s file revealed.
• Back in 1875, Darla hits Angelus and steals the horse so she can get away while Holtz and his posse focus on him.
• Meanwhile, Angel doesn’t believe that Darla’s really dying. He thinks it’s a Wolfram & Hart trick.
• He brings Darla to the hotel and asks Wes and Cordelia to watch over her while he goes to do something.
• Angel goes to Lindsey’s to get info. He invites Angel in and shares everything about Darla’s diagnosis.
• She’s dying of the same thing that was killing her the first time she was human.
• Lindsey tries to convince Angel to turn Darla, but he says he’ll find another way to save her.
• Angel takes Darla to the karaoke bar to let the Host read her.
• The Host gives him an address. Angel will face a pretty substantial quest.
• And it could kill him.
• Angel must face three trials. If he fails (or is killed), Darla dies instantly. If he succeeds, she will be made whole.
• In the first trial, Angel fights a demon, who he cuts in half with his own sword.
• But that doesn’t kill him. The demon can pull himself back together.
• Angel figures out that he has to cut the demon in half, then separate the halves, making it impossible for him to rejoin.
• In the second trial, Angel has to get through corridor with crosses everywhere: on the walls, the floor… and he’s barefoot.
• It’s like when Hans got his henchman to shoot the glass because John McClain had no shoes.
• Oh, and then he had to retrieve a key from the bottom of a bucket of holy water.
• But he did it.
• In trial three, Angel is bound by chains while a wall of wooden stakes comes at him.
• The third trial is death. For Darla to live, Angel must die.
• Angel is willing to die.
• But in the final split second, he’s saved.
• And then it’s explained that Darla can’t be saved. Because Wolfram & Hart gave her new life by supernatural means before, she can’t be saved again.
• Angel’s pissed.
• He takes her back to her hotel room and he’s reasoning that, maybe since he has a soul, if he were to turn her…
• But she stops him from that train of thought. Because while he was going through the trials, she experienced it all.
• She accepts her fate.
• They share a nice moment…
• Which is ruined when Wolfram & Hart’s goons bust in and incapacitate Angel.
• Lindsey strolls in, just ahead of Drusilla, who is all too happy to turn Darla back into a vampire.
• Body count: Vampires – 1; Humans – 1