Hyperion Hotel

File:Hyperion.gif

Hyperion Hotel Exterior

The Hyperion Hotel was home base for Angel in the television series Angel during the middle seasons of the show. The gang moved into the Hyperion at the beginning of the second season, following the destruction of their offices in the finale of season one, "To Shanshu in L.A.".

HIstory

The Hotel was built in 1928 in what was then the heart of Hollywood. Before the building was even completed, it was clamed by a Thesulac demon, a generally incorporeal entity that feeds on paranoia. A legacy of suspicious deaths began amost immediately, beginning near the end of construction when a roofer went mad and jumped to his death, taking two coworkers with him.

More deaths followed. In 1952 a candle salesman was shot in the head in the room next door to the one in which Angel was staying, the third apparent suicide in the hotel in as many months. Fearing police involvement, the manager ordered that it be covered up and the body be stored in the meat locker.

The salesman's death and the whispers of the demon fed a wave of paranoia among the remaining guests, culminating a few days later in the formation of a lynch mob that strung Angel up from the second floor balcony. Angel, who had been about to attempt a ritual to rid the hotel of the demonic presence, waited until the mob had dispersed before freeing himself and leaving them to the demon.

At some point afterwards, the police were called in, and in 1954 the bellhop was executed for murdering the salesman and hiding his body.

The hotel finally closed on December 16 1979 when the concierge "made his morning wake-up call with a 12-gauge shotgun, room to room." It remained empty until Angel investigations took it over in the fall of 2000.

Angel Investigations

In "Judgment", the first episode of season two, Angel rediscovers the dilapidated hotel while fleeing demons. In an attempt to attone for his actions 50 years before, Angel and his team kill the Thesulac and free the lone remaining inhabitant, a fugitive named Judy whom the demon had been feasting off of for fifty years. His unfinished business finally closed, Angel decides to clean up the Hyperion and make it the new home of "Angel Investigations", concluding that they will redeem the building like Angel seeks to redeem himself.

Angel Investigations was based in the hotel until the final episode of season four, "Home"- although the group moved to temporary new offices in the middle of Season Two when Angel fired the others, Angel remaining in the hotel while they attempted to operate independently until they came back together in "Epiphany"-, after which they moved into the headquarters of Wolfram & Hart's Los Angeles branch. The hotel was also home for Angel, Lorne, Gunn, Fred & Connor, and occasionally harbored the group's other members and people they helped.

The Hyperion was last mentioned in season five, during the show's final episode, "Not Fade Away", in which Angel and his friends regroup in the alley north of the hotel for one final battle.

In the 9th issue of Angel: After the Fall, Angel and friends move back into the Hyperion hotel and make it their base of operations, remaining there after the temporal fold which undid Los Angeles's return to Earth.

In the possible future shown in "The Wolf, the Ram, and the Heart," the Hyperion has been converted into a museum in honor of Angel's memory, complete with a statue of the vampire.

Gallery

Hyperion Hotel Interior

Hyperion.jpg

Courtyard and Gate Detail.

Hyperion detail.jpg

Corner Window Detail.

Behind the scenes

• The name Hyperion comes from Greek mythology and is sometimes considered synonymous with Helios, the god of the Sun. There is no doubt some deliberate irony in having a vampire live inside a building associated with the Sun.

• In the episode "Carpe Noctem", we can clearly see Angel's business card, showing the address 1481 Hyperion Avenue.

• Exterior shots of the hotel were taken at the Los Altos Hotel & Apartments, at 4121 Wilshire Blvd. Some interior shots were done in The Ambassador Hotel, according to DVD commentary about "Billy".

• Years before it served as his base of operations, Angel was a resident at the hotel in the 1950s in room 217.

• During the run of the remaining seasons, Angel's apartment number was 312.

• In 1928 a roofer and two co-workers died building the Hyperion.

• Several residents were killed by the concierge in 1979.

• On December 16, 1979 the Hyperion closed.

• The Courtyard setting for Melissa Burns' apartment in "I Fall to Pieces" is clearly the same set for the Courtyard of the Hyperion.

• Angel Production Designer Stuart Blatt described the new base: "An old hotel, something [the writers] could use to evoke the past of Los Angeles and some of Angel's history, something kind of creepy and spooky but not too dark because they didn't want something depressing, it's called the Hyperion Hotel. It's based on many hotels in Los Angeles...Angel lived in a larger suite in the hotel, like a honeymoon suite, the producers wanted Angel to have enough room to relax and get away from it all, do a little pondering, a little brooding, a little research. Every once in a while someone will come up to have a little conversation."

• A Hyperion Hotel is mentioned in "The Girl with the Curl", a second season episode of Bones, a show starring the actor who plays the Angel's titular character, David Boreanaz.

• The Hyperion is mentioned in "Stop Loss", a second season episode of Joss Whedon's series Dollhouse. While a room in this show's "Hyperion" is seen later in the episode, it does not resemble the rooms shown in the Buffyverse's Hyperion.