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.

Double or Nothing

• Fred, Gunn, and Lorne go through files to see what all Wesley left behind.
• They’re worried about Angel.
• Cordelia returns in a great mood… ’til she sees everyone’s faces.
• She goes up to see Angel and can pretty much just hug him.
• At a demon casino, a demon in a tux hands a demon in shades a business card for Angel Investigations.
• Tux Demon tells Shades that it’s time to collect his soul.
• Now, I know that with the card being for Angel Investigations, the show wants us to think this is about Angel’s soul.
• But I think that’s misdirection.
• And with Wesley recovering from a slashed throat, that leaves Lorne and Gunn.
• Ten bucks says this soul business is about Gunn.
• I’m honestly not sure… been a long time since I’ve seen this episode.
• The next day, Angel is still mopey in his room.
• Cordelia comes in and just tells him that she’s here, and she just sits with him.
• Gunn and Fred talk with an elderly demon couple that Wesley had been working with in regards to a Sketch demon squatting in their lair.
• Gunn should be able to take care of the squatter before the day’s over.
• Fred takes a box of Wesley’s things to him at the hospital.
• He still can’t speak.
• Fred tells him she understands what he did based on the notes they found.
• But she also tells him that he should have come to them and trusted them with what he’d discovered.
• She warns him never to come back to the hotel.
• Groo greets Shades, who mistakes Groo for Angel.
• Gunn fights the Sketch demon, killing it good.
• In walks Shades… and Gunn is aware this isn’t a good thing.
• Told you it was Gunn.
• We flashback to seven years ago and a young Charles Gunn visits the demon casino.
• He meets with Tux Demon about something he needs… something he’s willing to trade his soul for.
• At the time, Gunn didn’t think he had any future to speak of, so he was willing to trade it all for whatever it was he needed at the time.
• Back in the present, Shades points out that it’s time to pay up.
• Especially since they’re aware that Gunn is ready to give his soul to another… meaning Fred.
• Shades gives Gunn 24 hours to get his affairs in order, warning him that if he tries to run, they’ll find him and take his soul and Fred’s.
• Gunn returns to the Hyperion and Cordelia reads the misery all over his face.
• She assumes it’s because he feels guilty for being happy with Fred while so much bad is happening around him.
• Cordelia does give some good advice, though… you never know when this day could be your last.
• She tells Gunn that he and Fred should take the next day off.
• Gunn brings Fred breakfast in bed.
• And he breaks the news that they are going to spend the entire day together.
• Wesley’s doctor tells him that he’ll be released later in the day and asks if there’s someone who can pick him up.
• That would be a no.
• Angel finally speaks… talking to Cordelia about little things he’d already started to notice about Connor.
• Midway through the day, Fred starts to notice that they’re having too much fun.
• Gunn realizes he tried too hard.
• She asks if he’s sick, but he just laughs… he isn’t sick.
• Then Fred thinks that there’s something wrong with their relationship.
• And so he publicly breaks her heart.
• Cordelia’s turn to talk… but she doesn’t want to provide him with empty platitudes.
• Fred interrupts with the news that Gunn is in danger.
• Gunn heads back to the demon casino to settle up, where we see Tux Demon collecting a different human soul.
• Fred explains to the others that the only reason Gunn would hurt her would be to protect her from something horrible.
• While trying to figure out where Gunn could be, Groo reveals that Shades had come by looking for him.
• Shades left a business card for the demon casino.
• Just as Tux Demon is about to suck out Gunn’s soul, Angel and the crew burst in and fight their way over to where Gunn is.
• Angel demands that he release Gunn and he’ll let Tux Demon live.
• Then he offers his own soul…
• Angel picks the game… if he wins, they all walk out of there and Gunn’s debt is wiped clean… if Tux Demon wins, he gets both souls.
• Angel hands Cordelia a stake, just in case he loses.
• Because, you know, Angel without a soul… not a good thing.
• Angel suggests a simple cut of the deck, high card wins.
• Tux pulls the nine of clubs.
• Angel draws the three of hearts.
• As Tux begins to gloat, Cordelia uses the stake to pin his hand to the table and Angel beheads him.
• Angel asks Gunn if he’s ready to go, but Gunn says that if it were that easy to kill that guy, he’d have done it himself.
• Because then Tux grows a new grotesque head that starts screaming horribly.
• So Angel asks the crowd if anyone else owes this guy.
• The good guys make a break for it while the mob takes out Tux Demon.
• Fred later makes Gunn apologize for how he handled the situation with her.
• Then she forces him to confess what he sold his soul for.
• It was his truck…
• Uh… good trade…?
• Back in his room, Angel decides to take apart Connor’s crib.
• Body count: Sketch demons – 1; Humans – 1; Tux demons – 1