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"Long Day's Journey" is the ninth episode of the fourth season of Angel and the seventy-fifth episode in the series. Written by Mere Smith and directed by Terrence O'Hara, it was originally broadcast on January 22, 2003, on The WB network.

Synopsis[]

When the gang learns that the answer to stopping the Beast is among them, everyone suspects Connor, until Cordelia begins to receive visions from the Powers That Be. Meanwhile, Angel and Gwen discover that the Beast is preparing a device that will blot out the sun permanently and turn the world into a demon playground.[1]

Summary[]

Lorne tries to cheer up Angel, who is making sketches of the Beast and sulking in his room, by bringing a warm glass of type O blood to his room.

Meanwhile, Gwen Raiden meets with her client late at night in a deserted oil pumping station. She tells him that she has decided against accepting his job offer to find some powerful amulets for him, and instead she was moving to Tahiti to escape the recent apocalyptic events in Los Angeles. Suddenly, the Beast appears behind them and punches his fist through her client's back and out of his chest while knocking Gwen out of the way. When she gets up, she sees light coming out of her dead client's chest and the Beast pulling out a metal object out of his chest before disappearing.

Cordelia wakes up after sleeping on the floor of Connor's loft and finds him unable to sleep without her on his bed. She gets a vision of the Beast talking to her but can't remember the words, so she leaves Connor to see Angel.

At the Hyperion Hotel, Fred, Gunn, and Wesley are not making any progress ascertaining the Beast's motives and how to kill it. Gunn believes that the little girl in the White Room was referring to Connor with her cryptic message, "The answer is among you," and that Connor is connected somehow to the Beast. Wesley identifies the little girl as Mesektet, one of the totems of the mystical order of the Ra-Tet and that the earthly contingent of Wolfram & Hart are cut off from the Senior Partners with her gone. Lorne arrives with the news that the Beast recently tore the heart out of a powerful white magic shaman. Fred identifies her as Ma'at, another member of the Ra-Tet.

Cordelia arrives and sees Angel to tell him about her recent vision of the Beast. She also tells him to get over his snit over the fact that she slept with Connor and to start acting like a leader. Angel assembles his demoralized team in the lobby and gives a speech about taking the battle to the Beast, and Gwen walks in. She tells them about meeting the Beast and how he killed her client. Fred identifies the client from a book as Ashet, another member of the Ra-Tet, so Angel takes Gwen to Death Valley to search for and protect the fourth totem Semkhet, a saber toothed tiger-like being in one of the illustrations in the book.

When they arrive at Semkhet's cave, they discover that they were too late and that Semkhet had been torn apart by the Beast. Manjet, the last totem of the Ra-Tet, appears as a man dressed in vacation clothes. He tells them that the Beast is taking things from each of the totems in order to permanently blot the sun out of the sky, which will bring out all of the vampires in the eternal night. Angel convinces Manjet to come with them so that they can protect him from the Beast.

Angel and Gwen arrive with Manjet back at the hotel, where they try to figure out with the rest of the team where to hide Manjet. Gwen volunteers her place, and Angel, Cordelia, Gunn, and Manjet go with her while Fred and Wesley stay behind with Lorne. Gwen's home turns out to be a lavishly decorated and opulent unit inside a decrepit building, and she hides Manjet in her panic room, a steel vault that could only be opened by her touch. Angel mentions to Cordelia that the Axis of Pythia, which he borrowed from Gwen to locate Cordelia in her higher plane, was worth $33 million. Gwen and Gunn take the first four hour shift guarding the panic room, and Gwen detects from Gunn that he is worried about losing Fred to Wesley.

Cordelia and Angel take the next shift. She says to him that it might be a good time to talk about their problems, but Angel refuses while drinking a glass of blood. The next thing he knows, he is being awakened by Gwen. Apparently both he and Cordelia had fallen asleep during their watch. When they open the vault, they find blood everywhere and that an orb was taken out of Manjet's head. Gwen confesses that the Beast had also taken something out of her client's chest as well. She finds that security tapes that might have shown what had happened were erased and that the system log indicated that the failure occurred 10 minutes before Angel and Cordelia began their watch, suggesting an inside job.

When they go back to the hotel, Lorne tells them that the Beast is assembling a winged-like object out of the talismans removed from the totems. Wesley and Fred tell them that opening a portal may be the only way of getting rid of the Beast. Angel decides to involve Connor and all of them head out to his loft. Meanwhile, Connor hears a knock at his door and opens it, only to find the Beast standing outside. Connor attempts to fight him, but he is thrown out through the window and lands in front of Angel's car just as the whole team arrives. Cordelia stays behind with the injured Connor while Angel and the others rush inside to fight the Beast.

They burst inside the room just as the Beast is reciting a chant in front of the assembled pieces taken from the totems of the Ra-Tet. They manage to toss the Beast into a portal opened up by Fred and Wesley, however, it is too late; the sun turns black and darkness descends upon Los Angeles. The Beast reappears and calls Angel "Angelus" before swallowing the orb and disappearing again. Cordelia finally fully remembers her vision and realizes that the Beast was talking to Angelus. Angel denies having ever talked to the Beast. Wesley tells them that the only way to fight the Beast is to bring back Angelus to find out what he knows.

Continuity[]

  • Connor's super-hearing ability, which he mentions in this episode, was first seen in "Benediction."
  • In "Offspring," the Nyazian prophecies foretold that Connor's creation would lead mankind "into darkness." Here, it does exactly that.

Appearances[]

Individuals[]

Organizations and titles[]

Species[]

Events[]

Locations[]

Objects[]

Death count[]

  • Ashet, killed by the Beast.
  • Ma'at, killed by the Beast (only mentioned).
  • Semkhet, killed by the Beast.
  • Manjet, killed by Jasmine (in Cordelia's possession).

Behind the scenes[]

Production[]

  • The episode's title is presumably intended to evoke Long Day's Journey into Night, the classic drama by Eugene O'Neill.
  • This episode is dedicated in loving memory to Glenn Quinn, one of Angel's original stars, who tragically died on December 3, 2002.[2] This episode was the first aired after his death.

Broadcast[]

  • "Long Day's Journey" had an audience of 2.3 million households upon its original airing.[3]

Pop culture references[]

  • Gwen calls Gunn "Denzel," who appreciates the comparison with the actor Denzel Washington.
  • Manny asks for "Skinemax," the nickname of the cable network Cinemax due to its nights programs with nudity and sexual content.
  • Gunn refers to Mesektet as "Creepilocks," a reference to Goldilocks of the well known fairy tale.

Music[]

International titles[]

  • Czech: "Cesta dlouhým dnem" (Long Day's Journey)
  • Finnish: "Pitkän päivän matka" (Long Day's Journey)
  • French: "La course au soleil" (The Race for the Sun)
  • German: "Kampf um die Sonne" (Fight for the Sun)
  • Hungarian: "Az utazás hosszú napja" (The Long Day's Journey)
  • Italian: "Un viaggio lungo un giorno" (A Long Day's Journey)
  • Portuguese (Brazil): "A Longa Jornada" (The Long Journey)
  • Russian: "Долгое путешествие" (Long Journey)
  • Spanish (Latin America): "La Sorpresa del Juego" (The Surprise of the Game)
  • Spanish (Spain): "El Largo Viaje" (The Long Journey)
  • Turkish: "Uzun Günün Seyri" (Long Day's Journey)

Gallery[]

Promotional stills[]

Behind the scenes[]

[]

References[]

  1. "angel: Long Day's Journey." TheWB.com. Archived from the original on August 15, 2004.
  2. "Glenn Quinn." Variety, December 11, 2002. Archived from the original March 13, 2018.
  3. "Nielsen Ratings for Angel's Fourth Season." Nielsen Ratings for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, & Firefly. Archived from the original on July 6, 2008.
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