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Billy (episode)

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⤷ Note: This article is about the episode. For other uses, see Billy.

"Billy" is the sixth episode of the third season of Angel and the fiftieth episode in the series. Written by Tim Minear with Jeffrey Bell and directed by David Grossman, it was originally broadcast on October 29, 2001, on The WB network.

Synopsis[]

Violence erupts within Angel's gang as a demonic boy brings primal rage to the surface of men, turning them hateful and murderous towards women. As Wesley and Gunn turn on a frightened Fred, Cordelia fears the onslaught of Angel's dark side.[1]

Summary[]

At the Hyperion Hotel, Angel tutors Cordelia on sword fighting techniques. They have a disagreement as Angel teaches her only defensive maneuvers to use until he can "swoop in to save her," while Cordelia wants to learn how to finish off her opponent. She also mentions that Angel may be the one she must fight.

Billy Lane is in Lilah's office at Wolfram & Hart. He is the nephew of Congressman Nathan Blim and part of one of the most distinguished political families in the United States. He has been missing for three days, and Wolfram & Hart has just recovered him. Lilah finds him in her office, talking to Gavin. Once Billy is returned to his uncle, Lilah starts arguing with Gavin for coming into her office and "sniffing around" one of her clients. She accuses him of trying to take credit for returning Billy even though he was not involved. Gavin abruptly turns on Lilah and starts punching and strangling her. Billy hears this and smiles as he walks away.

The Angel Investigations team hangs at Wesley's apartment. Wesley talks with Cordy in the kitchen as Angel and Gunn play video games with Fred on the couch. Wesley is attracted to Fred and invited her over for dinner, but he also invited everyone else over so he wouldn't be alone with her. Cordelia suddenly has visions of a man beating his wife to death in a convenience store. However, the events from the visions occurred one week earlier. They find out the man had no history of violence, and his only explanation for attacking his wife was that she wouldn't stop talking. Reviewing the security tape, the team notices Billy was in the store during the attack. Cordelia blames herself because Billy was freed by Angel to save her. Angel says she shouldn't feel guilty, as he was the one who freed Billy and would do it again.

Angel goes to confront Lilah about Billy in her apartment and finds her drinking with a badly beaten face. She explains Billy can never be caught because he never lays a hand on the women he's responsible for hurting. Lilah also reveals that Billy is extremely rich and his powerfully connected family protects him. She points out that Angel's chivalric concern is misplaced because she knows he wants to kill her; she then slams the door in his face without inviting him in.

Angel sneaks onto the Blim estate and confronts Billy. He walks into the house without needing an invitation, proving his suspicions; Billy is not fully human. The police arrive, and Angel raises his hands, but Billy explains they are there to arrest him. He asks the police if they have discovered a body where he indicated it would be. As they lead him away, Billy touches the male officer on the arm, and a brief glow appears on his skin where he was touched.

On the route to the police station, the officer whom Billy touched attacks the female cop driving the car, forcing her to shoot him in self-defense. Billy escapes when the car crashes during the fight. At the crime scene, Angel smells that Billy's blood is not fully human. Wesley takes some blood samples, accidentally touching Billy's blood in the process and getting infected. As Angel tracks Billy, he comes across some non-demonic misogyny on the path, as he meets men who speculate that the women just had it coming, or were nagging and "deserved it."

Back at the hotel, Cordelia arms herself with weapons, telling Fred she has no choice but to try and stop Billy. Cordelia visits Lilah and connects with her despite their animosity, mentioning Lilah's battered face and the fact that she's been crying. Cordelia uses Lilah's pride and ruthlessness to go against Wolfram & Hart and assist in stopping Billy. Lilah reveals Billy has some kind of demonic power; when he touches males, he awakens "primordial misogyny" in them, prompting them to attack and possibly kill nearby women. She explains that the length of time it takes for Billy's touch to take effect varies according to the man.

Billy has made his way to a party where he meets his cousin Dylan, who is very uneasy around him. After he leaves, Angel arrives and has a talk with Dylan who is more than obliging with information once Angel states that he's looking to kill Billy. He explains that the entire family has a set of rules for dealing with Billy, the most important being to never touch him under any circumstances. Billy is heading to Santa Monica to get away on a private plane. Dylan also reveals that Cordelia visited earlier and he gave her the same information.

Back at the Hyperion, Wesley and Fred do some sleuthing. They figure out that Billy's misogyny is transmitted by blood. Wesley, already infected from handling Billy's blood sample, slowly starts to treat Fred with hostility. He tells her that she has been dressing too provocatively, that men are wired a certain way, and accuses her of secretly mocking men. He suddenly slaps her across the face, knocking her down. Fred runs upstairs, and Wesley goes to retrieve an axe before going after her. He taunts her with misogynistic comments as he searches various rooms for Fred. When Gunn arrives and helps her hide, she tells him that the blood has infected Wesley. Gunn panics when he realizes he has also touched the blood Wesley was examining. He hands Fred a chair leg and asks her to knock him out before the effect can take place. She initially refuses, but when Gunn's attitude worsens, she knocks him out cold. Using a trap she set, Fred then knocks Wesley through the floor.

Cordelia, armed with a crossbow, finds Billy at the airport waiting to get onto his private plane. She confronts him, and he berates her with insulting comments about women. Angel arrives as she points the crossbow at Billy's throat, reassuring her that he will handle the situation. Billy grabs Angel's face, and his skin glows with his touch. Angel turns and attacks him, much to Billy's surprise, but Billy easily overpowers him during the fight. Cordelia picks up the crossbow and prepares to shoot, but she can't get a clear shot of Billy. Suddenly, gunshots ring out, and Billy falls to the ground dead; Lilah has shot him. As Angel and Cordelia stare, Lilah turns and walks away.

Later, when the AI team decides to take a few days off, Angel continues his training with Cordelia, and they consider why Billy's touch did not affect him. Angel believes that the men's anger was triggered by a primordial hatred that Angel had lost a long time ago; Angelus never killed out of hatred but for the sheer pleasure of it. Cordelia notes that, strangely, the demon inside of him is less petty than humans.

Wesley has isolated himself in his darkened apartment. Fred visits him and tries to coax him to come back to work. He is ashamed, feeling that Billy brought out a hatred that he didn't know he had. She argues that what he did was not his fault; it was something that was put there rather than let out. Wesley agrees to return to work, but, as Fred leaves, he starts to cry. Fred, hearing this, considers returning but decides to leave him be.

Continuity[]

  • Cordelia mentions being in cheer squad for three years; she entered Sunnydale High cheerleading squad in 1996 ("Witch") and cheered until her graduation in 1999 ("Earshot").
  • Lilah compares being colleague with Park and Lindsey, who left Wolfram & Hart in "Dead End."
  • Angel recognizes Billy as the man he was forced to rescue from a fiery hell dimension by the lawyers of Wolfram & Hart in "That Vision-Thing."
  • Fred listens to a police scanner, the same that Angel stole in "Somnambulist."
  • When Fred springs her trap on Wesley, she tells him she "likes to build things." Fred has also built a contraption in the previous episode, "Fredless," and will become head of Wolfram & Hart's Practical Science Department in season 5.
  • The crisis Wesley faces at the end of this episode is similar to the one Xander will face in "Hell's Bells." Both characters catch glimpses of themselves as not necessarily how they are, but how they could be, and what that would mean for the women they love.

Appearances[]

Individuals[]

Organizations and titles[]

Species[]

Locations[]

Objects[]

Death count[]

  • Sanchez, shot by his partner.
  • Billy Blim, shot by Lilah Morgan.

Behind the scenes[]

Production[]

  • This is the 50th episode of Angel. David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter and Alexis Denisof all also appeared in the 50th episode of Buffy, namely "Doppelgängland."
  • Tim Minear and Jeffrey Bell had originally written the scene in which Wesley menaces Fred then slaps her to come right at the very end of act 2 and then cut to a break. Joss Whedon rewrote the scene to have Wesley say, "Lie to me again and we're going to have a problem," at the end of act 2 and then, after the break, menace and slap her. Both Minear and Bell agreed that this sequence worked better for the thrills and scares.[2]
  • The upstairs levels of the Hyperion Hotel, where Fred runs from Wesley and where Fred hides with Gunn, were shot at the condemned Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
  • According to Minear, he was working on his share of the script when a friend called him to tell him about the attacks on the World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001. Minear was horrified, but he had to return to writing "Billy" because he was under deadline.[2]
  • According to Minear and Bell, the early fight scene between Lilah and Gavin was written to be much more vicious, with lots of punching and blood. The scene was revised to show Gavin throwing her against a shelf and attempting to strangle her, though, in a later scene, it is clear that Lilah took some heavy blows to the face.[2]
  • Minear and Bell explain Billy's backstory: his father raped a "good" demon, and the result was Billy.[2]
  • Wesley chopping a hole in the hotel room door to get to Fred is reminiscent from the film The Shining.

Broadcast[]

  • "Billy" had an audience of 2.6 million households upon its original airing.[3]

Deleted scenes[]

  • As the episode's credits indicate, a deleted scene involved a character named Amber portrayed by the actress Joy Lang.

Pop culture references[]

  • Cordelia describes her visions as the THX of a crime report, referring to the developer of high fidelity audio/visual reproduction standards.
  • Cordelia says Angel can't "go all Terminator."

Music[]

International titles[]

  • Czech: "Billy"
  • Finnish: "Pahan kosketus" (Evil Touch)
  • French: "Billy"
  • German: "Billy"
  • Hungarian: "Billy"
  • Italian: "Billy"
  • Portuguese (Brazil): "Billy"
  • Russian: "Билли" (Billy)
  • Spanish (Latin America): "Billy"
  • Spanish (Spain): "Billy"
  • Turkish: "Billy"

Adaptations[]

References[]

  1. ↑ "angel: Billy." TheWB.com. Archived from the original on February 13, 2004.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Tim Minear and Jeffrey Bell. Angel Season Three on DVD: audio commentaries for "Billy." 20th Century Studios, February 10, 2004.
  3. ↑ "Nielsen Ratings for Angel's Third Season." Nielsen Ratings for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, & Firefly. Archived from the original on July 5, 2008.
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