Sanctuary

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"Sanctuary" is the nineteenth episode of the first season of Angel and the nineteenth episode overall. Co-written by Tim Minear and series creator Joss Whedon and directed by Michael Lange, it was originally broadcast on May 2, 2000 on the WB network.

Convinced that Faith is capable of changing her ways, Angel continues to try to help her even as Buffy, the Watchers Council, Wolfram & Hart, and the L.A.P.D. all try to hunt her down. Meanwhile, Wesley faces a crisis of loyalties when the Watchers Council Special Operations Team offers to reinstate him if he helps them capture Faith.

Synopsis

Picking up where "Five by Five" left off, Angel takes Faith to his apartment. In a brief, violent vision, Faith charges at Angel with a knife and cuts up his face. When Angel comes up for food to feed Faith, Wesley argues about giving Faith another chance, and Cordelia gets Angel to sign several checks to fund her vacation, so she can be gone for as long as Faith is around.

Downstairs, Faith confesses to Angel that she is haunted by visions of her violent past in Sunnydale. Angel talks to Faith about redemption, saying she has to make amends for her crimes, no matter how hard it is. Meanwhile, Wesley plays darts at a bar, and encounters Weatherby, a member of the Watchers' Council's Special Operations Team on the hunt for Faith. The council members give Wesley an opportunity to come back to the Council if he's willing to turn in Faith. They give him a syringe that, if injected, will sedate Faith and let them take her back to England. Wesley agrees to the plan on the condition that Angel remains unharmed, and Weatherby reluctantly agrees.

Lindsay, Lilah and Lee, upset that Faith has teamed up with Angel, hire a demon to have her killed. The demon sneaks into Angel's apartment and attacks. Faith kills it with a knife, and then is frightened by the sight of the demon's blood on her hands. Without warning, Buffy arrives at Angel's place and is shocked to find Angel hugging Faith.

Buffy is determined to turn Faith in to the police, but Angel objects and the two come to blows. Buffy hits Angel and when he hits her back, both she and Angel are in utter shock. He immediately apologizes to her. Wesley arrives with the news that the Council is looking for Faith. The two Slayers escape to the roof, where they argue about everything that has happened. Though Faith is genuinely sorry for what she has done, Buffy is unsurprisingly unwilling to forgive her. Collins attacks Buffy and Faith as Smith hovers above the roof in a helicopter. Inside the apartment, Wesley stabs Weatherby with the syringe while Angel runs upstairs and as the two Slayers seek cover against their attackers, Angel bursts through the roof skylight and gets inside the helicopter.

Detective Kate Lockley - guided by Lindsey McDonald's information - arrests Angel for harboring the fugitive Faith. When Angel and Kate, with Wesley and Buffy in tow, arrive at the police station, they are surprised to see Faith is voluntarily confessing to her crimes. Later, Buffy admits to Angel how hard it was for her to see Faith with him. Angel counters by saying it was not about Buffy, it was about saving Faith's soul. Buffy proceeds to explain that she had come because he was in danger, but Angel is not fooled and accuses her of looking for revenge on Faith, which she does not deny. Buffy lashes out by telling Angel she has someone else in her life, and unlike her relationship with Angel, she can trust her new boyfriend. In response, a hurt and furious Angel launches a tirade against Buffy, reminding her that, while it's great that she has moved on, he himself cannot and that when he sees her it tears him up inside, climaxing when he informs Buffy that they lead their own separate lives now and that she has no right to just show up with her "great new life" and tell him how to do things before harshly ordering her to go back to Sunnydale. Buffy complies after a slight hesitation, complaining that "Faith wins again." As soon as she is gone Angel regrets his harsh words and decides to head to Sunnydale to make his own amends. Meanwhile, Faith manages to find peace in her jail cell.

Continuity

• This is first time that Angel sees Buffy after the events of "I Will Remember You", which probably contributes to his reaction to her presence.

• This also marks the first time that Angel learns that Buffy has actually moved on from him, showing genuine surprise and pain when Faith mentions that Buffy has a new boyfriend. His visible hurt is also seen again when Buffy confirms she has a new boyfriend and she can actually trust him.

• This is the last time that Buffy and Wesley meet and interact onscreen as well as the only episode of Angel in which both characters appears. It is also the first time they have been onscreen together since the Buffy Season Three finale "Graduation Day, Part Two".

• This is also the last episode in which both Buffy and Cordelia appear, although they do not actually meet in the episode. The last time that they interact is "I Will Remember You".

• Crossover with Buffy: Buffy comes to LA to help Angel deal with Faith in this episode. After this episode, Angel visits Sunnydale in "The Yoko Factor" to sort things out with Buffy.

• This episode has the largest amount of crossover characters in a single episode of Buffy or Angel at five: Buffy, Faith, Collins, Smith and Weatherby. In total, eight characters in this episode made their first appearances in Buffy, namely Angel, Cordelia, Wesley and the aforementioned five crossovers characters.

• This is the last time that Sarah Michelle Gellar appears on the show; though Angel and Spike glimpse a girl whom they believe to be Buffy in "The Girl in Question", it is revealed in the canonical Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comics that the person they saw was a decoy. She was supposed to appear in the season 5 episode "You're Welcome" to help Angel back on track, but since she was unable to, the episode was re-written and Charisma Carpenter was used instead.

• At the beginning of the episode, as Angel leaves Faith to rest, she calls out his name as if to thank him, but when he turns back she changes her mind and simply says "Nothing." This echoes a scene between Faith and Buffy in Revelations in which Faith seems ready to thank Buffy, calls her name and then changes her mind, saying "Nothing."

• Wesley and Angel's argument about protecting Faith mirrors elements of Giles and Buffy's conversation regarding Angel in Revelations. Buffy was attempting to shield Angel from harm, just as Angel is now attempting to protect Faith. In both cases, the person opposed to the action issues a reminder that they were tortured by the person being protected — Angelus tortured Giles, and Faith tortured Wesley. This parallel strengthens the connection between Angel and Faith in their rediscovery of humanity, which was a focus of the previous episode in the flashbacks to Romania.

• Angel references his attempt to rehabilitate Faith in "Consequences", reminding her he told her she didn't have to go into the darkness.

• The Watchers special ops team sent to retrieve Faith is the same team that tried to capture her in "This Year's Girl" and "Who Are You". Wesley correctly surmises that Faith defeated an earlier attempt to capture her, but is not aware that at that time it was actually Buffy in Faith's body who escaped.

Body Count

• demon assassin, killed by Faith with a knife

Behind the Scenes

Production

• Production designer Stuart Blatt says that filming this episode was challenging due to scheduling problems with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Just a few days before shooting, they learned Gellar would not be available to work outside on the night the scene was supposed to be filmed. "We had to take our rooftop setting and split it into two and shoot everything on the rooftop looking out towards the city in one direction with the real helicopter on the rooftop. Then on the stage, recreate the exact rooftop looking the other direction, shoot everything there, and marry them seamlessly," he explains. "It was one of the more impressive things we ever pulled off."

• Usually, Joss Whedon's name is listed first in episodes he has co-written and is credited for. In this episode, Tim Minear's name is listed first because he approached the editor and (jokingly) told him that his name comes first.

• Writer Tim Minear says the script for this episode was difficult, because "it was Faith as we had never seen her before. It was sort of easy when it was evil Faith, which was a lot of fun. The problem was trying to make her turn realistic." He admitted to being nervous about writing Buffy's scenes because of the challenge of writing to her character and tone. He convinced Whedon to come in and write all of Buffy's scenes.

• Joss Whedon made this comment on the confrontation between Buffy and Angel: "The last scene between Buffy and Angel in the crossover where she comes to Angel, that stumped us for a long time. And I finally realized when I was working on it that it's because they need to fight now. They can't be just like, 'Oh, we're swell pals and we get along.' They really are at very different places in their lives and it's very difficult for them to see each other. So it really helped define how the shows are different and it ends up with Angel laying into Buffy a little bit and saying, 'I've got my own show now, and it's different from your show, so get off my show!' That's basically what he's saying. And the moment I wrote that scene, I got very excited and I said, 'I get it now. I understand what Angel is and it's not Buffy,' and I felt like the training wheels came off."

Pop Culture References

• The X-Files: When Kate investigates the apartment where Angel and Faith fought, an officer accuses Kate of being "Scully" from X-Files. She corrects him: she is the "Mulder". Unlike the skeptical Scully, she believes.
• The Lost Weekend: Appears on the TV in Angel's apartment.
• Superman: Appears on the TV in Angel's apartment.