Lilah Morgan: “Look, I've been doing this a long damn time. I've had to be better and smarter and quicker than every man at Wolfram & Hart.”
Angel: “So it's a feminist thing. [...]”
Lilah Morgan: “It's a survival thing. I made a lot of devil's bargains and I stuck to them. As a result I live somewhat dangerously and quite comfortably. And my mother, who no longer recognizes me, has the best room in the clinic. I get up every morning, put on my game face and do what I have to.”
Lilah Morgan was a lawyer at Wolfram & Hart. Along with Lindsey McDonald, Lilah was under Holland Manners' supervision before his death, and part of the Special Projects Division. In 2001, Lilah was promoted as its Vice President after Lindsey unexpectedly left the firm. After her further promotion to the Head of the Special Projects Division and a series of ploys against the en-souled vampire Angel, she teamed up with his detective agency when the Beast emerged before being killed by his master Jasmine in the guise of Cordelia Chase. Due to the mystical privileges of Wolfram & Hart, Lilah was kept in an undead state, still working within the firm.
Biography
Wolfram & Hart
Lilah graduated from Mortonson University School of Law in 1994 with high honors. She then joined the Los Angeles branch of the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart in that year. She went from Junior Associate in her first year before becoming a Senior Associate in 1997.[1]
Lilah greets Angel
In 2000, as a Junior Partner, Lilah visited and placed bets at a demon fight ring where she first saw the en-souled vampire Angel fighting in the ring as a captive. She then made vigorous efforts to make the owner, Darin MacNamara, sell Angel's contract. Successful, she had Angel captured by a couple of guards with cattle prods after he attempted to get his freedom by threatening MacNamara's brother's. Taking him to her office at Wolfram & Hart and treating him to champagne, she tried to persuade Angel to work for her employers. She offered him his freedom if he agreed to look the other way and "pick the battles [he] could win." Angel informed her that there were far too many reasons they couldn't work together and that he preferred to gain his freedom in the ring.
Lilah, Lindsey and Lee
He returned to the ring and managed to close down it down and free all captive demons while she was in the audience witnessing the event.[2]
Lilah later conspired with fellow lawyers Lindsey McDonald and Lee Mercer to defeat Angel by hiring the renegade SlayerFaith Lehane to assassinate him, though this plan was also unsuccessful,[3] forcing them to hire an assassin on her.[4] When Lindsey worked with Angel to save a group of blind children being killed, breaking into Wolfram & Hart to uncover secret information to use against them, Lilah was along the line of suspicion and was telepathically read along with Lindsay and Lee where she witnessed Lee's death after he was found having consulted with another law firm.[5]
Competition with Lindsey
“Nathan, I'm so proud that you chose me. Charlie! If I would have been in your shoes - I would have chosen Lilah. Let me tell you why. Do you have any idea of the hours this chick has logged in? Huh? The files she has on you guys? - Deep stuff. Ronnie, your stock manipulations, Nathan's little offshore accounts... Can you imagine if something were to happen to this girl and those files got back to the senior partners? - They'd eat you alive! She's been working overtime, boys. She's everything you ever dreamed off. Lilah is your guy.”
Lilah continued to work with Lindsey and their supervisor Holland Manners in attempting to corrupt Angel by summoning the demon Vocah to resurrect Angel's former vampire lover Darla as a human.
Lilah also used a telekinetic young woman named Bethany Chaulk and groomed her abilities so that she could work for the form. Lilah did this by talking at her school and befriending Bethany so that she would stay at her apartment whilst hiring men to try to rape her so that she would be forced to use her powers and thusly learn from her experience. Bethany eventually saw through her lies after she allied herself with Angel and confronted her father (who sexually abused Bethany) thanks to Wolfram & Hart.[7] After Darla was re-sired by Drusilla, Lilah and Lindsey were praised for the work they did for the past months at a wine tasting party at Holland's manor. By which time later, a hostile Darla and Drusilla arrived. Angel came and Lilah pleaded that he save them. Rejecting them and any form of negotiation, the two female vampires killed everyone at the cellar, leaving Lindsay and Lilah as the only survivors.[8]
Lilah became paranoid as she deeply believed that what happened would put them under suspicion from their employers and endanger both her and Lindsey's lives.
Lilah asks for Lindsey's help
Thinking back to Lindsey's previous blackmail of Wolfram & Hart, Lilah approached him asking for what files to take and what they could use to hold against the firm, promising they could leave together alive, even somewhat seducing him in the offer. She, however, was carrying a hidden microphone in hopes of exchanging his life for her's which he quickly discovered. Because of Lindsey's past betrayals and Lilah's lose of Bethany, neither of the two lawyers were qualified in becoming Vice President of the Special Projects Division, instead were appointed as co-vice presidents, working together until it would be decided who would be promoted.[9]
Lilah at Wolfram & Hart's fundraiser
Together Lindsay and Lilah tried to improve Wolfram & Hart's image by hosting a fundraiser in alliance with Anne Steele who ran a teen shelter and was made unaware of the firm's true intentions of embezzling the money. Even though Angel threatened Lilah from within her own car, she disagreed with having the demon Boone kill him as it went against the plans of the Senior Partners, though came to see through when Lindsey reminded her that Angel wouldn't play by any rules anymore, and so they shouldn't either. While thinking Angel had incriminating evidence against them, he actually embarrassed them with footage of Cordelia and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce messing around which he played at the fundraiser, allowing Angel to take all the stolen money and give it to Anne. Upon learning that Angel was essential to the Senior Partners, while Lindsey and Lilah where expendable,[10] Lilah collected as much information as she could to ready herself and Lindsey two days before the Review. After her experience with Angel, Lilah employed a group of hired muscle to protect her but he easily took them out and then forced Lilah to give him access to the Review where a Senior Partner in the form of a Kleynach Demon would be summoned.
Lindsey rants on, frightening Lilah before giving her the promotion
When Darla was revealed among the crowd, Lilah encouraged the guards to stake her but Lilah was then knocked unconscious when Lindsey punched her in the face.[11]
Lilah grew even more worried when she noticed Lindsey's growing efficiency, helped by a new hand that was given to him by Wolfram & Hart. As it became obvious that he would be the one promoted, Lilah spent hours of her time to piece together files against her clients and Nathan Reed so that she might show them to the Senior Partners if she were to be let go. As Lindsey was elected, he rejected as he had enough of the extent of Wolfram & Hart's evil, revealing the amount of incriminating information Lilah possessed. He instead chose to leave the firm and allowed Lilah to have the promotion.[1]
Vice President of the Special Projects Division
Lilah kills Billy
Following her promotion, Lilah was moved into Lindsey's old office. While her newest rival Gavin Park used building code violations to weaken Angel, Lilah instead made a more personal attack on him by hiring a psychic demon to torture Cordelia by causing her to endure the injuries of the victims in her visions that he broadcasted into her brain. Lilah used this to blackmail Angel into freeing a congressman's nephew, Billy Blim, from a Hell dimension. She originally planned to use this as a constant means of manipulation towards Angel, only for him to kill the demon she hired after rescuing Billy.[12] Lilah's actions would later come back to haunt her.
Lilah with her new rival Gavin Park and new boss Linwood Murrow
Billy was a half-demon misogynist with the ability to bring out primordial violence in men simply by touching them. He was left in Wolfram & Hart's care for some time and irritated Lilah by going missing for three days, pulling her out during a meeting when he returned and was acquainted with Gavin who he touched before his uncle returned to get him. Gavin then brutally beat Lilah. Heavily bruised, Lilah hid herself at her apartment, all alone where she was left crying and feeling fearful. She refused to help Angel but was convinced by Cordelia to reveal Billy's location when she confronted her and compared the feeling of helplessness she felt under Lilah's torture to the feeling Lilah's felt from her beating. Lilah later killed Billy in the middle of a fight with Angel at the runaway of an airport by shooting him with a handgun from afar, thus regaining her self-worth.[13]
Lilah and Holtz discuss Angel
Weeks later, Lilah noticed a pregnant Darla on one of the surveillance tapes from one of various cameras that Gavin had installed at the Hyperion Hotel (the head quarters of Angel Investigations). Her new boss, Linwood Murrow, wanted to capture Darla and Angel's child and have it dissected so Lilah hired a paranormal specialist, Dr. Fetvanovich, to preform the dissection though he was killed along with a Special Ops team by the minions of Angel's old enemy Daniel Holtz.[14] Having been given no word from the Special Ops team, Lilah arrived at Angel Investigations while Holtz had Angel in his grasp. In the encounter Lilah informed Holtz that Angel had a soul and after Angel blew himself out, Lilah ordered that the hotel would be cleaned before she discovered the Nyazian scrolls which claimed Angel's child would not be born, only later to discover that Darla staked dusted herself during childbirth which left their son alive; a technicality since it wouldn't have been considered a birth at the times the scrolls were written.[15]
Lilah packs heavy heat against Holtz
Lilah herself investigated the return of Holtz, an old enemy of Angel's. She thoroughly looked over the Files and Records of Angel's history which consisted of an entire column.[16] Holtz had broken away from his partnership with the demon Sahjhan, who wished to eliminate Angel for his own reasons and he sought out Wolfram & Hart. He brokered a deal with Lilah who agreed despite her company's policy that Angel had to live. When Holtz tried to escape L.A. with Angel's son, named Connor, Lilah attempted to stop him and retrieve Connor with a SWAT team at her disposal. However, Angel managed to get his hands on one of their machine guns and pointed it at Lilah when she threatened to kill Connor when Holtz promised to raise him as his own. Sahjhan then appeared and opened a portal to a hell dimension, Quor'toth, threatening to suck everyone in if they didn't kill the baby. Holtz then went into the portal with Connor, leaving Angel to suffer but leaving Lilah with a whole lot of paper work to do.[17]
Lilah and Angel in the White Room
With her boss held hostage, Lilah was later forced to escort Angel to the White Room where they met Mesektet to find out how to get Connor back. Lilah then assisted Angel in recorporalizing Sahjhan.[18] Since Lilah was involved in Connor's departure from this dimension — which led Angel to nearly suffocate his own friend Wesley — who betrayed him by giving Connor to Holtz having believed Angel would kill him due to false prophecies, Lilah was put in good stead by her employers because it was thought it was bringing him to the dark side. Though this quickly ended upon learning that the ritual to recorporialize Sahjhan also made a swarm of parasitic demons native to Quor'toth travel into Angel Investigations via thaumogensis, which would endanger Angel's life and thus go against company policy. Lilah quickly hired a SWAT team to clear them out but canceled when Linwood, recovering from the torture put to him by Angel, wanted Angel dead.[19]
Lilah goes to Wesley, hoping to turn him to the dark side
Lilah then tried to persuade Wesley to turn sides to Wolfram & Hart after being ejected from Angel Investigations. She gave him a copy of the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy wherein Judas Iscariot was placed in the center mouth of the devil which was reserved for the worst of sinners. Lilah used Judas' betrayal to make Wesley think he wasn't too good to work with Wolfram & Hart.[20] She then arranged that Justine Cooper, Holtz's trusted minion, get killed by a vampire attack at a nightclub for Wesley's viewing pleasure because she slit his throat. However, this was actually a test to see if Wesley would leave Justine to her death or warn her. Angel and his now teenaged son Connor then arrived and rescued Justine.[21] Lilah then met with Wesley at a bar where he was drinking away his sorrows before the two ending up sleeping together.[22]
Head of the Special Projects Division
Lilah takes over Linwood after executing him
For months Lilah had an sexual affair with Wesley while Angel was trapped in a box in the sea, being deprived of blood. Eventually, thanks to Gavin's snooping, her relationship with Wesley was soon discovered by Wolfram & Hart. Linwood held a meeting where he claimed, due to Lilah's recent shortcomings, that she would be moved to a "less central office" or a "third-world dimension" according to Gavin. Lilah, however, secretly spoke to a Senior Partner named Mr. Suvarta who agreed with her on Linwood's incompetence. During the meeting, Lilah activated a trap located in Linwood's chair, releasing a blade that decapitated him. After which, she took his position.[23]
Lilah begins a relationship with Welsey
When she found out that Angel had been saved and rejected Connor who locked him up in the first place, Lilah was interested in getting a homeless and lonely Connor into Wolfram & Hart[24] and hired an extraction team to forcibly kidnap him and Cordelia (who was recently released from her stint as a higher being and lost her memory). When the team failed due to Angel's intervention, Lilah told her men to pull out. This was actually a distraction so that they could extract information from Lorne, a psychic demon and ally of Angel Investigations who read Cordelia's aura.[25]
Connor threatens Lilah
When a nearly invincible demon known as The Beast arose and started what seemed to be the apocalypse, Lilah was ordered to make a deal with him as his interests were the same as Wolfram & Hart. Connor busted into her office and demanded answers. She tried to seize him but he easily took out her guards. Before they could talk peacefully, the Beast broke into Wolfram & Hart and began massacring every employee. Lilah tried to defend herself with a gun though this did nothing and she pleaded for her life, asking if he wanted anything before he drove his finger into her torso, wounding her. Fortunately for her, Connor arrived and fought the Beast while Lilah met up with Wesley who helped her escape out of a secret tunnel.[26]
Lilah spent weeks in the sewers hiding from the Beast as well as doing research on him with books from another dimension because any knowledge or reference of the Beast was erased from any text in this dimension. After sensing that Angel had lost his soul, she came to him, still injured and armed with crowbar, promising to release him from his cage if he would kill the Beast. This confrontation was noticed by Angel Investigations via a surveillance camera and she was allowed to stay in the protection of the gang who used her books for research.
Death and Afterlife
Lilah: “He's gonna kill us!”
Cordelia: “I know. Why'd you think I let him out, you stupid bitch?”
— Lilah being killed by Cordelia who was possessed by Jasmine[src]
Jasmine kills Lilah
Failing to re-ensoul him, Angelus broke out of his cage and attacked Lilah. Lilah
managed to escape him and bump into Cordelia who then killed her, since Cordelia was actually possessed by the higher being later known as Jasmine. She stabbed her in the neck with one of the Beast's bones and left her for Angelus to drink from.[27] Wesley was forced to behead Lilah, since he believed she could rise again as a vampire. When Wesley prepared to decapitate her body, a haunting vision of Lilah appeared. Wesley lamented that he was unable to save Lilah from herself. Lilah suggested that she loved Wesley, but Wesley refused to believe it and with the decapitating swing of his axe, the vision was gone.[28]
Wesley imagines Lilah after she dies
An employment contract with Wolfram & Hart did not terminate with death and Lilah returned from Hell wearing a scarf around her neck to hide the scar from Wesley's axe. She presented Angel and his team with a tempting offer: full control of the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart with all its resources. During a tour of the facilities intended to seduce Angel Investigations into accepting the offer, Wesley attempted to burn Lilah's contract in order to give her peace. Though the contract could not be destroyed, Lilah was touched by the act.[29]
Angel took Lilah's offer in an attempt to save his son Connor from a life of misery and Lilah returned to the Hell division of Wolfram & Hart. Eve took over as liaison for the Senior Partners and Cordelia referred to her as "Lilah Junior." During a later encounter between Angel and the Conduit to the Senior Partners, it manifested as Lilah. Angel commented that he missed Lilah because he had always known exactly where he stood with her.
Lilah evacuates Wolfram & Hart
A while later, Lilah returned to Earth to carry out an evaluation of the Wolfram & Hart Las Vegas branch after their failure to recruit or corrupt a recently-relocated Spike, subsequently executing most of the branch staff before informing the survivors that upcoming events would necessitate an evacuation of this dimension, showing them a picture of the ship they would use for that purpose.[30]
Lilah later confronted Spike and told him about the Universal Recreation prophecy that would destroy the Earth dimension and create the Twilight dimension in its place. Wolfram & Hart believed that they would play a crucial role in the prophecy and actively helped to bring it about, but, having discovered the truth, were making plans to evacuate the Earth. The Senior Partners promised to let her out of her contract if she successfully evacuated them; the Partners succeeded in fleeing in the ship.
Three years later, Lilah appeared at the Wolfram & HartAnharran branch. When Dawn Summers and Alexander Harris are trapped in the hell dimension, she proposes to help them. Although they refuse her proposition, knowing the sinister reputation of the law firm, they are unaware that she has planted some kind of tracker on them, with their rejection part of Lilah's plan with an unspecified other party.
Later, when the Slayer Buffy Summers reformed a third magical council, she tried vainly to offer to represent Count Dracula, since Archduchess Venobia.
Personality
Like her fellow Wolfram & Hart employees, Lilah had virtually no sense of morality. In Lilah's case, her ruthlessness was attributed to the corporate glass ceiling. Her gender forced her to be "quicker, smarter, faster than any man at Wolfram & Hart."
Lilah was notable witty, snarky, and very sarcastic. However, she did show some levels of empathy, usually around Wesley, and was implied to have genuinely loved him. Additionally, Lilah's mother had a degenerative mental condition and Lilah seemed to show some devotion to her when she remarked to Angel that her high salary ensured that her mother could have "the best room at the clinic".[17]
Lilah was a heavy drinker with 30 year old Scotch on ice as a preference [17] and professed to enjoy folding her laundry as she finds such a pedestrian task relaxing (though she could have just been making it up to suck up to Bethany).[7] After Angel's numerous surprise visits to her, she appeared to have developed a sixth sense for him and could sense whenever he was around.[17] She kept a pistol in her desk after her beating from Gavin [13] and was a fan of demon arena fighting.[2]
Lilah's favorite color was green, believed she looked good with diamonds and loved riding in limousines.[3]
Powers and Abilities
As an attorney at Wolfram & Hart, Lilah possessed an intricate knowledge of legal procedures and of supernatural beings and rituals. Her job and position provided her with several assets such as personal body guards, command over SWAT teams and connections to mystical experts. Due to the danger of her work, Lilah was usually always one step ahead of everyone and knew how to work her way around her dissenting superiors.
Lilah was also a fairly skilled marksman as she shot and killed Billy with a handgun from a far distance while he was fighting Angel. However, Lilah's marksmanship wasn't enough to get a decent shot in when firing at Angelus whose speed helped outmaneuver her bullets.
Relationships
Romantic/Sexual
Marcus Roscoe/Angel — Lilah visited Angel to clear all of the building code violations put on him by her rival Gavin. Unbeknownst to her, he was currently possessed by an elderly magic user, Marcus Roscoe. Unsure of what she was coming for, but assumed she was somewhat involved with or interested in him as she claimed an incident with Cordelia was just business (referring to the time she tortured her, though he instead perceived this differently), Marcus poured her champagne before making his move on her. Resisting at first, she gave in and nearly had sex on what was at the time Wesley's desk. Before consummating the act, Marcus vamped out and sunk Angel's teeth into her (this being something of a sex act among vampires). Lilah quickly retaliated and left fending herself with a cross, thinking it was a trap against her while Marcus assumed she was just "born again".[31]
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce — Lilah approached him after his betrayal of Angel, seeing him as an asset to the firm. He saw through her ploy though nevertheless they were seduced by each other and started a relationship consisting of several one-night stands over the course of several months. They intended to keep it hidden from their familiars but still continued to when both Angel and Lilah's clients found out where Lilah claimed sleeping with Wesley was not to obtain information. They eventually began to develop stronger feelings for each other beyond a physical level, Lilah even bet with Wesley that he would be the first to say they were in a relationship, and she won. When Lilah bought Wesley a medieval knight's helmet and took the evening off work to spend the night with him, Wesley declined her offer so that he could see a presentation by Winifred Burkle. Lilah noticed his feelings towards Fred and even dressed as a southern school girl to meet his attraction. The two ended up genuinely caring for each other as Lilah showed concern for Wesley after the Beast first arrived. Wesley eventually broke it off and when forced to decapitate her corpse, he claimed she was not capable of love.
Colleagues
Lindsey McDonald — Lindsey and Lilah both proved to be competent team
Lindsey and Lilah
workers that exchanged the occasional snark and snide remarks. Lilah has shown to be supportive, giving him a pat on the back as a sign of good luck after the termination of an employee yet secretly going through his office's desk.[32] The decision of who would be promoted to the vice-president of the Special Projects Division while who would be killed off spiraled them into competition, though also forcing them to work together. Lilah was willing to trade Lindsey for her own safety while Lindsey held little concern for his or her own life in the events that came. However, unlike most of Lilah's fellow co-workers, she did show to have some respect for Lindsey as she compared his actions of losing his own hand and attempting to take on the firm while working at Wolfram & Hart to Gavin's methods against Angel. Although there was no overt attraction between the two, Lindsey's last act whilst resigning from Wolfram & Hart was slapping Lilah on the bottom as he walked out the droom, though claimed it was because of his 'evil' hand.
Lee Mercer — Another budding, young lawyer among the firm's rat race, Lilah and Lee shared a relationship similar to hers and Lindsey's though she seemed to have even less regard for Lee. When discussing the plan to have Faith kill Angel, Lilah volunteered to make contact with her opposed to Lee who she claimed it was about his people skills—specifically how he lacked any. He responded by calling her a bitch which she just used to prove her claim. She made no efforts to stop Faith beating Lee's head against a table, joyfully watching the act alongside Lindsey and seeing this as a show of Faith's initiative. After witnessing his death, Lilah was filled with fear more than remorse.
Gavin Park — After Lindsey's leave, Lilah was struck with a new rival, Gavin, who annoyed her by freely going into her office and using her printer without even asking. Initially Gavin wanted to get onto Lilah's good side but she quickly rejected him. Gavin then made direct yet sneaky attempts to attack her such as showing her the footage of the time she was romanced by a possessed Angel and by telling Linwood about the demons Lilah helped release that posed a danger to Angel while she hoped to discreetly kill them. Still, when Gavin beat her, making her fearfully hide, she didn't take anything against him, instead placing it on the demon that infected him. When she became his boss after killing Linwood, Gavin became obedient from fear, even giving her threats to say on the phone while making her coffee. When he refused to check out the damage the Beast caused, Lilah asked him "what are you more afraid of, a giant murderous demon or me?". Gavin quickly complied. Upon discovering his dead body, Lilah pitifully remarked "Gavin. Poor bastard".
Linwood Murrow — As her superior, Linwood demanded her complete respect and efficiency while having no problem with disposing of her as a scapegoat if the Senior Partners were not pleased and their plans against Angel failed. Unlike her reputation to put down those who showed antagonism to her, due to his position she remained largely unspoken and gave into his orders, knowing it would endanger her life if she disappointed him too much. Overtime, Lilah became tired of Linwood and his feeble attempts at detaining Connor and spoke to a Senior Partner which agreed and gave her permission to kill him. Linwood took great joy in demoting her after finding out she was sleeping with Wesley, though during the meeting Lilah mocked him, claiming that the fact he hadn't detained Connor or tracked Angel's location yet was because he was afraid of them. She then killed him and had Gavin clean up his decapitated body and head.
Romanov has stated that prior to her audition she had a boyfriend who was a huge fan of Angel whilst she had never seen it. She received a call audition for the role the day after she first watched the series.[33]
Lilah was a recurring character in the Buffy the Vampire Slayerspin off Angel, having guest star appearances in the first four seasons of Angel. Overall, she appears in 36 episodes (5 in season one, 7 in season two, 14 in season 3 and 10 in season 4), making her the most frequent recurring character in the entire series.
Lilah is very similar to Emma Frost, Hellfire Club's White Queen and arch-nemesis of X-Men whom the measure where they seem to be seemingly businesswomen with irreproachable functions but which show themselves sinister and calculators. Because of their social and professional status, their enemies cannot stop them by the strength, at the risk of showing themselves too in the eyes of the majority of people. Also, Lilah's involvement with Bethany Chaulks is similar to Frost with The Hellions, her class of young mutants.
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