Template:Angelepisode
"Long Day's Journey" is the ninth episode of the fourth season of Angel and the seventy-fifth episode overall. Written by Mere Smith and directed by Terrence O'Hara, it was originally broadcast on January 22, 2003 on the WB network.
The electro-kinetic cat burglar-for-hire, Gwen Raiden, returns and reluctantly helps Angel and the group after they discover that the Beast is searching for five mystical beings in order to block out sunlight from Los Angeles so that all demons and vampires can roam freely.
Synopsis
Lorne tries to cheer up Angel who is making sketches of the Beast and sulking in his room after previously discovering that Cordelia and Connor had slept together by bringing a warm glass of type O blood to his room but fails to do so. Meanwhile, Gwen Raiden meets with her client, an African dressed in native costume, late at night in a deserted oil pumping station to tell him that she has decided against accepting his job offer to find some powerful amulets for him and that 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 her 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 Connor 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 in the White Room as Mesektet, one of the totems of the mystical order of the Ra-Tet and that the earthly contingent of Wolfram and 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 female 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 when Gwen walks in. She tells them about meeting the Beast and what he did to her client, skipping the fact that he pulled an object out of his chest cavity. Fred identifies her 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 he had been torn apart by the Beast. Manjet, the last totem of the Ra-Tet, appears as a short, old man dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt and hat to tell 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 and demons 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 finally admits 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 pieces 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. He attempts to fight the Beast but 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 as Angelus. 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".
Body Count
- Ashet, killed by The Beast
- Ma'at, killed by The Beast (only mentionned)
- Semkhet, killed by The Beast
- Manjet, killed by Jasmine (in Cordelia's possession)
Behind the Scenes
Production
- This episode is dedicated in loving memory to Glenn Quinn, one of Angel's original co-stars, who tragically died on December 3rd, 2002. This episode was the first made after his death.
Music
- Robert J. Kral - original score