Template:Angelepisode 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.
After killing four, the fifth Totem, a charismatic man named Manny, is found and Gwen leads them to her fortified loft to hide out. But when Manny is found dead, it is discovered that Angel and Cordelia Chase, who were watching Manny, were drugged, an inside job is suspected and it falls on Connor, to whom the Beast has appeared on a number of occasions.
Plot
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.
Quotes and trivia
- 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.
- Connor's super-hearing ability, which he mentions in this episode, was first seen in "Benediction".