Angel Video Showcase

Season One
At the start of the series, Angel has just moved to Los Angeles in an effort to earn redemption for the evil deeds he committed as an un-souled vampire. He is soon visited by Doyle, a messenger sent to him on behalf of The Powers That Be. Doyle receives visions that can guide Angel on his mission. Angel also bumps into Cordelia Chase, who is trying to break into stardom. The three group together to form Angel Investigations, a detective agency that hopes to "help the helpless." When Doyle dies, he passes on his 'visions' to Cordelia. Shortly thereafter, the ex-Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, joins the group. Meanwhile, the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart pay increasing attention to Angel. They tempt him toward darkness when they resurrect Darla, Angel's ex-lover and sire - killed by Angel in the first season of Buffy in the episode "Angel."

Season Two
Charles Gunn, a street-tough leader of a gang of vampire hunters, is initially determined to kill Angel, but slowly comes to accept him and join his cause. Wolfram & Hart's star lawyer Lindsey McDonald primes Darla as its weapon to bring down Angel. However, Darla is brought back as a human, not a vampire. But as a human, she suffers from a terminal case of syphilis - which she had contracted in her original life before being sired. Lindsey brings in Drusilla, a vampire originally sired by Angelus, to restore Darla to the cause of evil. Enraged by this, Angel begins to grow darker. He cuts himself off from his staff and attempts to go after the pair himself. In despair, Angel sleeps with Darla (cf. "Reprise"), but the next morning, he has an epiphany; seeing the error of his ways, he banishes Darla and reunites with his group. Lorne, the flamboyant demon owner of Caritas, reluctantly takes Angel and his crew to his home dimension, Pylea, to rescue Cordelia. They return with Winifred "Fred" Burkle, a former physics student who has been trapped in the dimension for five long years.

Season Three
To get over news of the death of his ex-girlfriend, Buffy, Angel spends three months in a Sri Lankan monastery, where he encounters some demon monks and goes home frustrated. He returns to Los Angeles, as does Darla - now bearing his child. The group is puzzled by what might be the first vampire birth. Darla sacrifices her life to save the life of her child, Connor. The gang is eager to care for the infant, but Wesley soon learns of a frightening prophecy that suggests that Angel will murder his son. Feeling disconnected from the group, Wesley does not share this information, and quietly kidnaps Connor. This backfires as he is attacked and the child is seized by an old enemy, Daniel Holtz, whose family Angelus and Darla slaughtered two hundred years ago. Holtz escapes through a rip in the fabric of space to the dimension of quor'toth, and raises the boy as his own. Angel feels that his son is lost forever, and tries to murder Wesley. Though he survives, Wesley is banished from the group. Weeks later, Connor returns, but because time moves faster in Quor'toth, and he is now a teenage boy, having been raised by Holtz. Realizing that Angel needs to be the one to take Connor in, Holtz gives Angel a letter letting Connor know that he will be leaving and to trust Angel. Holtz gets Justine to kill him but ends up making it look like a vampire attack so Connor will assume the worst. Connor imprisons his birth father in a casket and drops it to the bottom of the ocean.

Season Four
Despite his exile from his old friends, Wesley locates and frees Angel. A hellish Beast emerges and blocks out the sun over L.A. He then proceeds to kill the staff at Wolfram & Heart. Although the city survives, the sunlight seems to be blotted out permanently. In a desperate attempt to confront the Beast, the team removes Angel's soul, releasing Angelus, but manage to restore it thanks to help from Willow. Their efforts, however, do not prevent the coming of Jasmine, who was indirectly responsible for the work of the Beast. Jasmine, it turns out, was one of the Powers That Be and plans to solve all the world's problems by giving humanity total happiness through spiritual enslavement to her. She arrives in our world through manipulation of Cordeila and Connor, using them as a conduit into our world. Fred is accidentally inoculated against Jasmine's spell by contact with her blood and frees the rest of the gang though they remain hopelessly outnumbered by thousands already entranced by Jasmine. Angel travels through a magic portal into a world previously visited by Jasmine to find a way of breaking her power over L.A.'s populace. By revealing her true name, they are able to break Jasmine's spell over everyone. Jasmine confronts Angel but is then killed by Connor, revealing to have never been under Jasmine's influence and just went along for the sake of having a semblance of family and happiness. In the season finale, they are met by Lilah Morgan, the resurrected Head of Wolfram & Hart's Special Project Division, who congratulates them on preventing world peace, and says that as a token of their appreciation, Wolfram & Hart would like to give them the Los Angeles branch. To help save Cordelia and Connor, who has gone mad with confusion over losing everything, Angel reluctantly agrees.

Season Five
The gang begins to settle into their new lives at Wolfram & Hart. Gunn undergoes a special cognitive procedure that transforms him into a brilliant lawyer. The group receives an amulet that resurrects a past companion of Angelus, the souled vampire Spike. Angel is briefly reunited with his son Connor, now in a new identity thanks to the agreement between Angel and Wolfram & Hart at the end of season 4. He later reveals that he remembers his previous life as Angel's son. Fred finally declares her affections to Wesley, but shortly after is possessed by an ancient and powerful demon called Illyria. Wesley is devastated by the loss of Fred, but agrees to help Illyria adjust to her new form and the unfamiliar world she's in. Angel infiltrates the Circle of the Black Thorn, a secret society responsible for engineering the Apocalypse, and plans to take them all out in a simultaneous, hard-hitting strike. Because this is probably a suicide mission, he tells each of his friends to spend the day as if it were their last. That night, the team launches its attack on the Circle, dividing up their targets. When Wesley is fatally stabbed, Illyria, concerned for his safety, arrives at his side after killing her targets but is powerless to help him, and grieves for Wesley. Lorne leaves and disappears into the night, his innocence destroyed, after fulfilling Angel's last order to kill Lindsey, the former Wolfram & Hart lawyer who had turned his back on the firm. Angel confronts Wolfram & Hart's new liaison Marcus Hamilton, and defeats him with some minor help from Connor.

Once the Circle has been dismantled, Angel and the surviving members of his gang rendezvous in the alley behind the Hyperion Hotel. Illyria arrives with news of Wesley's death and feeling the need to fight as a result of it. Gunn emerges, staggering from a serious stomach wound. The survivors wait as the Senior Partners' army of warriors, giants, and a dragon approaches. The series ends with Angel and his crew preparing for battle, with Angel expressing interest about fighting the dragon and saying, "Let's go to work."

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The series focuses around Angel (David Boreanaz), a vampire over two hundred years old. Prevampire (before Darla got her teeth into him) Angel was named Liam. Angel is known as Angelus during his rampages across Europe, he was cursed with a soul, which gave him a conscience and guilt for centuries of murder and torture. He left Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the end of the third season to move to Los Angeles in search of redemption.

He soon finds himself assisted by Allen Francis Doyle (Glenn Quinn), an Irish half-human, half-demon. Although he comes across as a ne'er-do-well hustler, he has a heroic side. He serves to pass along the cryptic visions from The Powers That Be to Angel. They are joined by Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), also an old cast member of Buffy. Formerly a popular high school cheerleader, Cordelia starts her tenure on the show as a vapid and shallow personality, but grows over the course of the series into a hero.

With the death of Doyle in the early episodes of the show's first season, another character from the Buffy series makes the jump to its spin-off. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof) joins the team under the brave guise of "rogue demon hunter", acting as comic relief, and is initially not well-accepted. Over the course of the series Wesley grows into a leader and anti-hero.

In the show's second season they are joined by Charles Gunn (J. August Richards), a young demon hunter who must initially adjust to working with and for a vampire. At the end of the second season they travel to the world Pylea, where they save Winifred "Fred" Burkle (Amy Acker), a young Texan physicist whose social skills have become stunted due to her captivity. She later grows to become one of the more outspoken members of the team.

The third season saw the introduction of Connor (Vincent Kartheiser), the "miracle" human child of two vampires, Angel and Darla. Thrown into a Hell dimension as a baby, he is raised by Angel's enemy Daniel Holtz, and only a few months after he left comes back as a teenager. Connor reluctantly comes to accept his lineage. Although introduced during the show's second season, Lorne (Andy Hallett) joins the team during its fourth season. An outgoing and pacifistic demon, Lorne's role is predominantly to support the team.

The show's fifth and final season introduces several new cast members, chief amongst them Spike (James Marsters), an old vampire companion of Angel's who also starred in Buffy. In that series, Spike reluctantly fights beside Angel as their rivalry continues, now tinged with Spike existing as another vampire with a soul. One of the legendary Old Ones, Illyria (Amy Acker) starts off as an adversary of the team after taking over the body of Fred but comes to join the team as she must learn to cope with the changed world and the new emotions she feels as a result of her taking over Fred.

Finally, there is Harmony Kendall (Mercedes McNab), also a Buffy alumna, and former friend of Cordelia who was turned into a vampire. Resembling the old personality of Cordelia, Harmony is grudgingly accepted by Angel as his secretary when he takes over the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart. Harmony is also the only character (other than Angel) to appear in the first episode of Buffy and the last episode of Angel.

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Liam and Angelus
Liam in his infancy, as seen by the time-jumping demon Illyria.
Angel was born as Liam in Galway, Ireland in 1727. In his twenties, he developed a taste for alcohol, women, and sloth; though not a bad man, Liam was a hedonist whose only real ambition lay in seeing the world. For the lazy Irishman, that seemed a laughable dream, especially after he was expelled from home by his father, who labelled him a "terrible disappointment". One night in 1753, the drunken Liam caught the eye of an affluent woman named Darla. She lured him into an alley, and, promising him a world full of excitement and travel, transformed him into a vampire. The price was the loss of his human soul, along with his conscience, freeing Liam to act upon his darker impulses.

On the night he rose from his grave, and in response to Darla's claim that he could have anyone in the village, he set about slaughtering the entire community. When he came to murder his own family, he found no problem in entering, his little sister Kathy inviting him in without hesitation or suspicion; according to Liam, "She thought that I'd returned to her. An angel. She was wrong." Upon killing his father, Liam told him how he had made something of himself after all. However, when he gloated over his victory, Darla cruelly deflated him, claiming that it was in fact his father who had won because his disapproval would follow Liam for the rest of his life.

Liam took the name "Angelus", presumably inspired by his sister's mistaken belief that he was an angel. He was later described in historical volumes as "the demon with the face of an angel". After leaving Ireland, Angelus and Darla cut a bloody swath through Wales and northern England, before finally reaching London in 1760. During Angelus's first meeting with Darla's sire, the Master, he openly mocked the older vampire despite his power and authority, showing no fear despite his greater age, and confronted Darla about her decision to remain underground when she could be travelling the world with him. Won over by his words, Darla chose to live with Angelus, abandoning the Master's leadership.[4] In May 1764, Angelus and Darla killed the family of vampire hunter Daniel Holtz. Holtz devoted himself to capturing Angelus and Darla, chasing them across Europe. Angelus and Darla had a near miss in France, after making too much noise by ordering room service and eating the waiters. Darla fled to Austria, abandoning Angelus in a burning barn and riding off on their only horse. After meeting again in Vienna, Angelus and Darla sired the vampires James and Elisabeth. In Marseilles, 1767, Holtz tracked them down and managed to put numerous arrows in Angelus. Holtz briefly lost them in northern Africa, only to track Angelus to Rome in 1771. Instead of killing Holtz, Angelus and Darla realized they had come to view him "like family" and made a sport of ruining his life. Holtz abandoned his hunt and retired to York, England, until in 1773 a demon named Sahjhan offered to take him to the future where he could continue his revenge.

In 1789, a lone Angelus encountered The Beast in Prussia, standing in a field of bodies, who sought Angelus's aid in killing the Svear Priestesses, a group who wish to banish the Beast and who could only be killed by a vampire. When he declined to join with the Beast, Angelus was met with violent reprisal, but a group of Svear priestesses banished the Beast while he was passing out.[8] In the late 1700s, Angelus sired a Puritan by the name of Penn, who mimicked Angelus by wreaking havoc on his father and killing his family. Over time he began copying Angelus' "signature" of carving a cross-shaped mark on the face of his victims in order to spite God. In 1860, a young woman called Drusilla from London, England, caught the attention of Angelus. Drusilla was "cursed" with the "sight," something her mother saw as "an affront to the Lord". Drusilla and her sisters were all noted to be virgins, and Drusilla was described as having been "sweet, pure and chaste." While posing as her priest to torment her, Angelus killed her family, which caused Drusilla to flee to a convent. On the day she was to take her holy orders, Angelus massacred the convent. After having sex with Darla right in front of Drusilla, Angelus finally pushed her over the edge, driving her insane before he finally sired her. Drusilla was Angelus' "masterpiece," an everlasting example of his finest cruelty, as her immortality meant that her torment would never end.

Drusilla, in turn, sired a poet named William, for whom Angelus largely served as a mentor and role model. William, who later became known as "Spike," went so far as to consider the elder vampire his sire. Angelus taught William about the art of mass slaughter, including an incident during a wedding party where Angelus beat the groom to death with his own arm. When he realised how much Spike cared for Drusilla, Angleus had sex with her just to hurt him, an action Spike would never forgive. In 1890, Angelus attended a production of Giselle by the Blinnikov, a Russian ballet troupe run by Count Kurskov. Despite being evil, he was moved to tears during the performance. In 1894, Angelus and Spike were captured in Rome, Italy by henchmen of the Immortal, a mysterious and seductive being with whom they both had a fierce rivalry. The two vampires were tortured while the Immortal had a threesome with Darla and Drusilla, something that, incidentally, they never allowed Angelus and Spike to do. Angelus and Spike attempted to take revenge on the Immortal, but failed miserably.

Cursed
In 1898, Angelus slew the favorite daughter of a tribe of Gypsies, the Kalderash Clan. To avenge her death, the Kalderash cursed him by restoring his human soul, thus afflicting him with a conscience and condemning him to an eternity of remorse for the crimes he'd committed as the soulless Angelus. During the Boxer Rebellion, the vampire - now known as "Angel" - tried and failed to resume his life with Darla, finding himself unable to eat a baby to prove himself to his sire. Angel fled (presumably to the United States) and lived in self-imposed isolation, controlling the temptation to feed by avoiding humans altogether.
Angel arrived in New York via Ellis Island in 1902. Aside from one mention of the unspecified interval he spent in Missoula during the Depression, Angel didn't surface for the next four decades. During World War II, Angel was coerced to undertake a secret mission by the The Demon Research Initiative, who sank him to the bottom of the ocean to rescue an American submarine crew from three Nazi-captured vampires (including Spike). After the American crew captured the German submarine, the vampires had escaped their bonds, and murdered most of the crew; a remnant survived behind a locked hatch. After the submarine suffered damage from a depth charge Angel was forced to sire a mortally wounded Ensign Sam Lawson, as he was the only person who was able to repair the damage.

In 1952, Los Angeles, Angel was a resident at the Hyperion Hotel, the building which would one day become the future base of Angel Investigations. During this time, Angel attempted to stay to himself, avoiding interaction with other residents and patrons. Despite the numerous strange incidents, murders and suicides running rampant throughout the hotel, he looked the other way when his help would have made a difference. After finding a young woman named Judy hiding in his room, Angel tried to preserve his isolation, first by disarming and removing the man chasing her, then by immediately ejecting Judy herself. However, her repeated attempts to interact with him allowed the two to build a lukewarm -- very surprising and rare for Angel -- relationship. Meanwhile, hotel staff and residents (including Judy) continued to become corrupted and, although he didn't understand why, Angel felt compelled to help. He discovered the presence of the Thesulac, a paranoia demon affecting the humans in the hotel, but by the time Angel learned how to defeat it and obtained the items required, the entire hotel was overcome with pathological paranoia. Mad with demon-induced fear, the hotel residents and staff turned on Judy as their exemplar of The Outsider. To save herself, Angel's new friend betrayed him to the mob. With rabid fury, they ambushed Angel, beat him, and then hanged him. Crushed and embittered by the consequences of becoming close to a human, Angel abandoned Judy and everyone else. Instead of destroying the Thesulac as it was in his power to do, he allowed the vicious demon to prey upon and ravage them unhindered. Upon Angel's return to the Hyperion many decades later, he found Judy there, an old woman, still trapped, still consumed with guilt for causing her new friend and protector to be lynched in her stead. Telling Judy he'd forgiven her, Angel allowed them both to find some sort of peace. However, at the time of his bitter departure from the Hyperion, he disappeared again and little is known of his activities for the next twenty years.

In New York during the 1970s, Angel witnessed a robbery at a doughnut shop. After the robber shot the employee and fled, Angel stayed with the man as he died. Unable to resist the sight and smell of the clerk's still-warm blood, Angel helplessly succumbed to the overwhelming urge and fed on the body. Deeply disgusted by his own weakness, Angel fled the shop, and then exiled himself to a life of homelessness, living in alleyways and feeding on rats. Two decades later, a shadow of his former self, the reclusive and emotionally tortured Angel was sought out in 1996 by a demon named Whistler, who persuaded him to join the fight against the evil that had corrupted him and to help the newly-called Slayer, Buffy Summers. The following year, when he and Buffy finally met in Sunnydale, he introduced himself, not as Angelus, but as Angel.

Sunnydale
Angel fell in love with Buffy the first time he saw her on that fateful day in L.A. when she first was called. However, Angel didn't show himself until after her move to Sunnydale, and after her first day at Sunnydale High. Buffy did not realize Angel was a vampire until several weeks later, but by then the damage was done - she had fallen in love with him in turn. Though they tried to deny their feelings, they could not resist the passion growing between them. When they finally consummated their relationship, Angel experienced one moment of pure happiness, which broke the Gypsy curse and lost him his soul. Without the compassion and conscience instilled by his human soul, Angel instantly reverted to his former evil self, Angelus.

Angel, now Angelus, allied himself once again with Spike and Drusilla, who had recently settled in Sunnydale. Resenting the humiliation he felt because Buffy had made Angel feel like a human being, Angelus took immense pleasure in tormenting the Slayer and her friends. First, he helped Spike and Dru deploy a powerful demon known as the Judge. After Buffy destroyed the Judge, Angelus embarked on a guerrilla campaign, lurking in the shadows, preying on Buffy's classmates, sending her gruesome messages, even drawing pictures of her as she slept and leaving them in her bedroom.

Angelus's reign of terror culminated in his murder of Jenny Calendar, which served him in two ways. First, he eliminated an enemy (Jenny was born Janna of the Kalderash clan) and destroyed her work just as she managed to successfully decipher the lost Gypsy curse which could be used to restore Angel's soul. Second, Angelus used Jenny's death to viciously torment Giles, Jenny's paramour and the person on whom Buffy depended most. After Angelus orchestrated this masterpiece of terror, Drusilla drew his attention to a new opportunity for destruction and chaos. Angelus widened his focus and began a scheme to awaken the demon Acathla and bring about the end of the world. Buffy was determined to stop him despite their history. Fighting him one-on-one, the Slayer was able to overcome Angelus, but just as Acathla opened the vortex into his hell dimension, Buffy's friend and comrade, Willow Rosenberg, used the ritual Jenny had rediscovered and preserved to restore Angel's soul. Since Acathla could only be stopped by the blood of the individual who activated him, Buffy was forced to sacrifice her beloved Angel rather than the demon Angelus to save the world. Impaled on the Slayer's enchanted sword, Angel appeared to shrink into the distance until Acathla's vortex suddenly snapped closed.
Less than a year later (by Sunnydale reckoning), Angel was unexpectedly released from Acathla's hell, reappearing in his mansion in a feral state. Buffy aided him in secret, fostering his rehabilitation. Once he regained his senses, Angel began to suspect that his return from Hell was not accidental, that he must be meant to serve some unknown purpose. That fear -- that this purpose was not for the cause of good -- grew in Angel's mind as he began to experience what he believed to be hallucinations. However, he was actually being haunted by the First Evil. The First, able to adopt the appearances of Angelus' victims, drove Angel ever closer to the brink of madness by lashing him with guilt and, ultimately, tempting him to end it all by losing his soul once again and killing Buffy in the throes of passion. In despair, Angel chose to kill himself rather than risk his beloved Slayer. To Angel's shock and consternation, it snowed that Christmas morning as he waited under the open sky for the sun to rise. From that moment, he began to entertain the hope that his return might have some purpose for good after all.

After that miraculous snowy day in southern California, Angel and Buffy tried to build an actual relationship, taking in the occasional movie, getting away on more scenic patrols, enjoying moonlit picnics in the cemetery. But it was not to be. Even before their one and only night together, Angel had worried about Buffy's future with him, his inability to give her a family, or even a remotely normal human life. Upon hearing his own concerns reflected back to him from such disparate sources as Mayor Wilkins and Joyce Summers, Angel at last made the difficult decision to leave Sunnydale, to leave Buffy.

Angel Investigationsm
Angel promised Buffy he would stay until Sunnydale High's Graduation Day, to help avert the Mayor's Ascension. He also warned her that, if they survived the ordeal, he would leave without saying goodbye. They survived, and Angel, with a last, long look at the Slayer, kept his final promise. In L.A., Angel spends a few months alone, patrolling dives and dark alleys, battling vampires who hunt there. Soon enough, he receives support in his attempts to redeem himself in the service of others. First, Doyle, a half-demon and fellow Irishman, is sent by The Powers That Be. Almost immediately thereafter, Angel runs into Cordelia Chase, a former classmate of Buffy's who has moved to L.A. to find wealth and fame. The trio form Angel Investigations, a shoestring operation whose mission statement is to "Help the Helpless."

Doyle, Angel's trusted friend and sole connection to the Powers, sacrifices himself to save others, leading Angel to become even more protective of those few he holds dear. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who had briefly served as Watcher to both Buffy and Faith Lehane in Sunnydale, arrives in L.A. claiming to be a "rogue demon hunter," a lone wolf sort who only works solo. After their first case, however, Wesley is eager to stay and assist Angel and Cordelia in their mission. A few months later, they are joined by lifelong demon fighter, Charles Gunn. The Angel Investigations team also enlists the help of demon karaoke bar-owner Lorne, known initially only as The Host. Both prescient and empathic, Lorne can sense the futures of humans and demons when they sing. During this time, three young Wolfram and Hart associates, Lindsey McDonald, Lee Mercer, and Lilah Morgan, attempt to have Angel killed by the rogue
vampire slayer, Faith. Under Angel's influence, the deeply troubled Faith starts along her own path to redemption, ultimately turning herself in to the police as the first step toward making amends for her crimes.

As Angel continues to help the helpless in Los Angeles, his good deeds begin seriously to disrupt the plans of the evil inter-dimensional law firm, Wolfram and Hart. In an attempt to control him, the firm resurrects his sire and former lover, Darla, who comes back as a human rather than as a vampire. Wolfram and Hart then summons Drusilla, who turns Darla into a vampire again. Angel feels such deep anguish at his failure to save Darla, and such intense fury at Wolfram and Hart for their machinations, that he fires his crew and embarks on a bitter, ruthless vendetta against both the law firm and the newly reunited Darla and Drusilla. In a dark moment, Angel refuses to prevent the slaughter of a very large group of Wolfram & Hart employees at the fangs of their own creations, Dru and Darla. In spiritual agony beyond even his endurance, Angel attempts to shed his soul by having sex with Darla, but instead of happiness, finds despair. A moment of clarity follows the desperate act, and Angel realizes that his purpose is still to do all the good he can, even if he can't do all the good he wants. Having hoped to get her boy Angelus back, Darla is horrified and infuriated by Angel's epiphany, and flees Los Angeles. After a difficult reconciliation that involves Wesley taking over the official position of leader of the group, the Angel Investigations team find themselves transported to Lorne's home dimension, Pylea. Eventually, after Angel defeats the undefeated Champion of Pylea, the Groosalugg, they return with a new team member, Fred Burkle, in tow, and to the news that the love of Angel's life, Buffy, has died.

Fatherhood
Despite Buffy's miraculous resurrection a few months later, Angel finds that his previously platonic love for Cordelia has grown to be romantic. Before he has a chance to confess his feelings, however, Darla returns, pregnant with his son, to be named Connor. False prophecies, time travelers and betrayal lead to Angel losing his infant son to an old enemy, Holtz, who abducts Connor soon after his birth, taking him to the hell dimension Quor-Toth, where time passes differently. When Connor returns days later, he is a young man who has been raised by Holtz to believe that Angel is still a soulless monster. Holtz takes his own life in such a way that Connor is led to believe he was killed by Angel and vows to make Angel pay for the suffering he had caused Holtz. That same night, Connor sinks his father to the bottom of the ocean in a steel coffin and Cordelia ascends to a higher plane, the feelings shared between her and Angel still left unspoken.

Rescued by Wesley from his watery prison, Angel's relationship with Connor is strained. It is complicated further by the return of an amnesiac Cordelia, who prefers to stay with Connor because he told her the truth while the others lied to her (albeit because they thought it was for her own good). When a very powerful demon known only as the Beast arrives and begins an attempt to bring forth an apocalypse, Angel's worst fears are realized when he has to strip himself of his soul and revert to his evil alter ego in order to defeat it. Angelus does indeed overcome the Beast, and is also deft enough to realize that the Beast was a mere "flunkie" serving an even deeper evil; the Beast he knew was only interested in smashing and slaughter, and it was unlikely that the Beast would have become smarter since Angelus fought him.

Although he is momentarily free to wreak a little havoc of his own, Angelus is recaptured and re-ensouled with the help of Faith (who almost dies in her quest to capture Angelus) and Willow, culminating in a brief but violent mental battle between Angel and Angelus. After his soul is restored, Angel figures out that the enemy he has been battling is a little closer to home than the group had previously considered, realizing that whatever the Beast's "boss" is, it is using Cordelia's body to carry out its plans. After battling and defeating the divine being known as Jasmine, Angel is offered the L.A. branch of Wolfram & Hart on the grounds that he ended world peace. Angel acts against all of his instincts and makes a deal with his sworn enemy, in exchange for Wolfram & Hart erasing Connor's memories and giving him a normal life, and trying to find a way to cure Cordelia.

Wolfram & Hart
Angel's year spent running Wolfram & Hart is one marred with challenge and self-doubt. Trying to battle evil from within the belly of the beast proves to be more difficult than even he imagined, with the lines of good and evil becoming ever more gray with every action taken. Shortly after Angel assumes control of the law firm, matters are further complicated when Spike appears as a ghost, emerging from a familiar amulet sent to Angel in the mail. Sharing a complicated history of murder and mayhem, they had spent more than a century as rivals in everything. Now both possessing souls, and both still in love with Buffy, they had evolved into very different heroes in the war against evil. Forced to co-exist, they wage a protracted, insidious battle of wits, ending when they finally come to an understanding and acceptance of their unique brotherhood on their journey to redemption.

In the episode "Destiny," when they prepare to do battle over the Cup of Perpetual Torment, Spike tells Angel "You had a soul forced on you. As a curse. Make you suffer for all the horrible things you've done. Me, I fought for my soul, went through the demon trials, almost did me in a dozen times over, but I kept fighting. Because I knew it was the right thing to do. It's my destiny." Then Spike defeats Angel for the first time in their century plus association. Despite this, Spike and Angel come to an understanding that lets the two of them operate as a lethal team when the two end up fighting side-by-side, using their long experience of each other's skills to operate in near-perfect tandem. While investigating sinister children's programme Smile Time, Angel was turned into a puppet. Puppet Angel managed to stop Smile Times plans and save the children of Los Angeles. He remained a puppet for several days until the spell wore off. It was around this time that he realised werewolf Nina Ash was attracted to him, and the pair started dating.

Angel finally understands that he will never be able to completely stop the forces of evil, but that he can temporarily sever the Senior Partners' hold on Earth. Together with his comrades, Angel prepares to suicidally incur the apocalyptic wrath of the Senior Partners as a way of going out in a blaze of glory. They assassinate the members of the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Senior Partners' instruments on Earth for pulling all the political and economic strings. In this effort, Gunn is badly wounded, and Wesley is killed. Gunn manages to make it to the meeting point, the alley behind the Hyperion Hotel, where he, Angel, Spike and Illyria engage in battle with the dark armies that the Senior Partners have sent against them. The last words spoken on screen are, "Let's go to work."

Season Six is kicked off showing an overall loss for Team Angel after the battle. In retaliation to Angel's stance Wolfram & Hart has seemingly moved the city of Los Angeles to a hell dimension, turning it into a Post-Apocalyptic territory filled with demons. Angel is still based at the demolished Wolfram and Hart building and is under the watch of the Senior Partner's newest liaison, Wesley. Angel is however planning to take the fight to the Senior Partners and free Los Angeles, first by destroying all of the demon lords of Los Angeles (Spike appears to be one of these, but it is later revealed that this is a cover to allow him to move humans to safety). While preparing for the war, though, he rescues citizens in peril and sends them, anonymously, to his son Connor who has set up a safehouse with Nina and Gwen. Angel is not alone however. With him is his newest friend and compani

Cordelia Chase (born December 1980, in Sunnydale, California, died in 2004 in Los Angeles) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the cult television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff series Angel, portrayed by Charisma Carpenter. Cordelia started out as a pompous, wealthy, self-centered and airheaded dramatic foil for the character of Buffy Summers, but as the character progressed through the first three seasons of Buffy and five seasons of Angel, she gradually developed into a strong moral character.

Sunnydale
Rich and beautiful, Cordelia leads her clique, the "Cordettes," at Sunnydale High and enjoys ridiculing her inferiors. She first appears in "Welcome to the Hellmouth," sharing a textbook with Buffy Summers on her first day at the school and showing her to the library. Cordelia soon reveals herself to be a mean, popular cheerleader as she mocks Willow Rosenberg. That night, Buffy mistakes her for a vampire and almost impales her with a stake. Cordelia turns on Buffy and makes sure Buffy becomes a social outcast at the school.

Cordelia finds herself in life-threatening situations in the first season, but often comes out untouched - she is almost killed by The Master's vessel, blinded by witchcraft, and targeted by a psychotic girl she helped snub into invisibility. Cordelia is elected May Queen in her sophomore year.

Cordelia grows to accept the existence of dark forces in Sunnydale and becomes a member of the Scooby Gang. Her social status reaches a low with her publicized romance with Xander Harris. Their relationship ends during their Senior year when she finds him kissing Willow.

Cordelia struggles to revive her popularity when her father's "little mistake on his taxes... for the last twelve years" costs her family everything, including their house and her car, cell phone, and wardrobe. She takes a job at an expensive local boutique, April Fools, to pay for a prom dress on layaway. Cordelia does not earn enough in time, but Xander finds out and pays it off for her. Her brief, mutual infatuation with Wesley Wyndam-Pryce ends with two bad kisses before graduation. Cordelia courageously slays a vampire and helps the other students of Class of '99 during the Mayor's ascension in the final episode of Season Three.

Los Angeles
Despite her intelligence and having been accepted to the likes of Columbia, Cordelia is unable to afford college, and therefore, she moves to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Meeting Angel at a Hollywood party, she pretends to be successful, when she is, in fact, nearly penniless, renting a dilapidated apartment, and stealing food from such parties. Her agent is ignoring her calls, and she has no family to turn to, having severed ties. Desperate, Cordelia meets with a producer who turns out to be a vampire.

After being rescued by Angel and talking to Allen Francis Doyle, Cordelia charms Angel into turning his fight against evil into a business. She becomes Angel Investigations's office manager while pursuing her acting career, but never breaks out of commercials and plays. She reaches a turning point mid-season when her budding romance with Doyle ends with his sudden death. Visibly devastated, Cordelia attempts to carry on, but during an audition for a commercial, she receives her first vision, a gift transferred to her by Doyle during their first and last kiss. It gives her a powerful ability to help others, and over the course of the next few years, she comes to consider them her reason for being.

As Angel's link to the Powers That Be, Cordelia grows more sensitive to the feelings of others as she experiences the pain of the subjects of each vision. The visions become increasingly frequent and intense, and begin to physically damage her brain. For months, she secretly takes powerful painkillers and undergoes CAT scans that indicate the slow deterioration of her brain tissues. Yet when presented with the opportunity to pass her visions to the heroic Groosalugg during a short trip to the alternate demonic dimension Pylea, Cordelia refuses, stating that the visions are a part of her and make her who she is, a hero.

But as the visions are intended for demons only, Cordelia struggles to hide the effects from her friends. This continues until her 21st birthday, when she is rocked by a vision that sends her spirit into an astral plane. This opportunity is seized upon by Skip, a mercenary demon who sells his expertise to the highest bidder; in this case, a fallen member of The Powers That Be waiting to manifest on Earth.

Skip masquerades as Cordelia's guide from The Powers That Be. Through a series of manipulative events, such as selectively showing her excerpts of Angel calling her nothing but a rich girl from Sunnydale and giving her the "perfect" life as a successful actress that she has always wanted (knowing she would eventually look for a loophole), he transforms Cordelia into a part-demon. Cordelia can then harbor the visions without pain, but mystical side-effects come as well, including temporary physical manifestations of the subject and being able to re-enter the vision at a later point.

Possession
Unbeknownst to everyone, Cordelia's transformation also sets in motion a major chain of events - her body becomes suitable for use by the forces of evil. Cordelia's transformation gives her the power, not entirely under her control, to cleanse evil influence with a white glowing light. In the third season finale, Skip reappears to Cordelia, who is on her way to meet with and declare her love for Angel. Skip tells her that she has done so much good on Earth, she is ready to ascend to a higher plane to do more good as a higher being there. It is a ruse to get her onto the fallen power's plane, in order for it to enter Cordelia. Having been convinced by all she had seen and heard, Cordelia accepts the call to the higher plane, ascending into the sky surrounded by twinkling lights, eventually winking out of this dimension.

During the four months she lives on the higher plane, Cordelia is bored. Unable to talk to her friends and not doing any good, Cordelia finally returns to Earth from the higher plane, but the descent wipes out her personal memories and forces a fallen power with plans for the entire human race into hibernation. Angel hides the truth from Cordelia, fearing it would be too much for her to handle. Confused and suspicious of Angel Investigations and those who work there, Cordelia seeks the truth and is horrified by what she discovers. After being attacked by a violent demon and several Wolfram & Hart operatives, Cordelia is rescued by Connor, Angel's teenage human son and, feeling safe with him, decides to live in his loft. She appreciates Connor's honesty about the supernatural.

During her stay, Cordelia feels lost and alone, becoming frustrated with her inability to remember her past. She realizes that she needs to learn to defend herself again. As his father did a year earlier, Connor offers to train Cordelia in combat. Cordelia's natural athleticism and warrior's heart make her a natural fighter, and during one session, a jubilant victory hug from Cordelia to Connor becomes a stolen kiss. To Connor's dismay, Cordelia cannot let anything happen until she knows who she really was.

Cordelia's memories are finally restored through a spell by Lorne in the episode "Spin the Bottle", but the spell awakens the fallen power, too. The entity later known as Jasmine had merged itself with every cell and fiber in her body; now it completely submerges her consciousness. Jasmine's possession of Cordelia becomes apparent as she uses Cordelia's body to have sex with Connor, to become pregnant and create a separate body for herself.

While pregnant and under Jasmine's possession, she butchers the last sun totem Manjet, Lilah Morgan, and the Svear family to serve Jasmine's plans. She convinces Angel and his team to bring back Angelus to distract them and to keep her plans secret. Cordelia steals Angel's soul so Angel cannot return, and continually tells Connor that they are special, deceiving him into believing that the rest of the group hate them and would kill their baby.

Eventually, Cordelia is discovered and Angel's team interrogate Skip, who reveals Jasmine's plan. He says that all the events of the last four years had been carefully nudged into place. Jasmine may have simply seized on Cordelia's knock from her body, but whether that was the case will never be known. Skip also says that Jasmine cannot be removed from Cordelia without killing her or putting her into a permanent, vegetative state. Before Angel can kill the woman he loves, Cordelia performs a ritual with Connor's help to bring Jasmine out and manifest on this plane at last. Afterwards, Cordelia falls into a coma, her life-force having been drained. After Angel joins Wolfram & Hart, Cordelia is transferred to their hospital in an effort to revive her.

Death
Cordelia wakes in the episode "You're Welcome," helping a disillusioned Angel get back on track. However, she is merely an astral projection facilitated by The Powers That Be, who are repaying a debt to her. After kissing Angel and giving him a vision that points him in the direction of the major players in the upcoming apocalypse, it is reported that Cordelia had 'died' in her sleep, never having woken.

Like many characters in the Buffyverse, Cordelia evolved dramatically throughout the many series. She changed from an egocentric fashion plate to a person whose life was increasingly dedicated to helping others. When first introduced, Cordelia felt no burning desire to become a better person, but suffered rejection and mockery from her original friends as she outgrew their shallowness. She last appeared showing a grounded confidence and compassion for those in need, which replaced the arrogance and vanity of her adole

Powers and abilities
Originally a normal human, Cordelia began receiving prophetic visions from The Powers That Be in the Angel episode, "Parting Gifts." The visions usually consist of ambiguous imagery of forthcoming attacks on innocents or various demonic disasters. Cordelia used this imagery to help Angel prevent them from happening.

Cordelia was the mother of a brood of Haxil Beast spawn in the episode "Expecting." When pregnant with them, she gained a telepathic connection with the children and their father, who used it to control her. In the episode "Epiphany," Cordelia was forced to be the host of an unborn Skilosh demon, which granted her a working third eye in the back of her skull until it was removed.

In the episode "Billy," Cordelia claims that as a cheerleader, she need only be shown a move once before being able to mimic it, and demonstrates this by successfully copying a series of combat moves Angel is teaching her, and manages to corner him as a result. In the episode "Supersymmetry," she continues to learn how to fight under the instruction of Connor.

To combat the pain and trauma the visions give her (which would eventually kill a human), Cordelia became part-demon in the episode "Birthday," giving her resistance to their harmful effects and other powers including levitation and the ability to purify ("heal") the souls of those affected by demons and light related powers, which she has on one occasion used as a nightlight. Her visions were now less ambiguous and more surreal. Because of this action of accepting demonhood, Cordelia was deemed a higher being and ascended to a higher realm. There she was able to wage the war on evil in a new way as a higher being in paradise with The Powers That Be, as seen in the episode "Tomorrow."

When she returned to this world, however, there was a hitchhiker that came along. This came in the form of Jasmine, a former higher being that would possess Cordelia early on in Season Four. At first, only slight irrational differences were seen in "Cordelia", such as sleeping with Connor (in the episode "Apocalypse, Nowish"). Eventually, this night of passion between the two would result in a new body formed for Jasmine after an incubating period. Jasmine could also cast spells while possessing Cordelia, and was able to hold up against (post-"Grave") Willow in a magical battle, at least for a short time before Willow silenced her and restored Angel's soul, something Jasmine had been desperately trying to prevent.

In the final season, Cordelia apparently creates a solid astral projection of herself to help Angel in the episode "You're Welcome," likely aided by the Powers That Be.

Romantic relationships
Angel - Cordelia noticed Angel before she found out he was a vampire (her exact words on seeing him were "Hello, salty goodness!"), but he was interested in Buffy then. After moving to Los Angeles, she saw what a kind, good-hearted man Angel was, that would fight for good no matter what, and fell in love with him. However, various events (particularly Cordelia's possession by Jasmine) kept them from admitting their feelings to each other, although shortly before Cordelia died, the two shared a single kiss, and she died loving Angel, knowing that Angel loved her back.

Mitch Fargo - Cordelia's popular boyfriend in the Buffy episode "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" was to reign beside Cordelia as May King before he suffered a brutal beating from the invisible and psychotic Marcie Ross.

Kevin Benedict - Unlike many of her conquests, Cordelia seemed to genuinely adore this popular boyfriend in the episode "Prophecy Girl." Unfortunately, he was murdered by vampires on school grounds on the day of the prom.

Richard Anderson - A rich ("Anderson Farms, Anderson Aeronautics and Anderson Cosmetics!") member of Delta Zeta Kappa, a fraternity cult at Cresswood College that sacrificed girls to the demon Machida in exchange for worldly success. Cordelia dated him briefly in the episode "Reptile Boy" (where she believed that fake laughter would sustain the relationship) before he attempted to offer her as a sacrifice.

Jonathan Levinson - After the traumatic experience with Richard Anderson, Cordelia is seen in the Bronze with Jonathan, who presents her with her drink. The only problem was that he forgot to ask for the extra foam. This probably only lasted this one time, although Harmony did tease Cordelia, after her breakup with Xander, by pointing out Jonathan as a potential "boyfriend".

Devon MacLeish - The charismatic lead singer of Oz's band, Dingoes Ate My Baby, was unhappily dating Cordelia in Season Two's "Halloween."

Xander Harris - After repeatedly being thrown into life-or-death situations together, Cordelia and Xander began a physical relationship that eventually became a real romantic attachment. Cordelia briefly broke up with him in the episode "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" because of the negative effect that their relationship was having on her social standing, but after he showed how much he cared about her, she agreed to date him again. Their relationship was permanently ended roughly a year after it began, when she caught him kissing Willow Rosenberg (although they later became friends again, as seen by Xander secretly buying her prom dress).

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce - Cordelia was attracted to him during Season 3 of Buffy, and constantly flirted with him, likening him to James Bond. In the Season 3 Buffy finale "Graduation Day", they shared an awkward kiss in the High School library.

Allen Francis Doyle - Cordelia first dismissed him as a badly-dressed loser, but as they spent more time together, she began to consider the possibility of a relationship; she was even prepared to date Doyle after learning about his half-demon nature, despite her typical disdain of demons. Cordelia and Doyle kissed shortly before his death, which gave her his visions from The Powers That Be.

Wilson Christopher - A trendy L.A. photographer who impregnated Cordelia with demon spawn in the episode "Expecting"; he and his associates were subsequently beaten up by Angel.

The Groosalugg - He met Cordelia in the alternate dimension Pylea when she was made a Princess because of her visions. "Groo" (as she affectionately called him) was meant to mate with her and receive her visions, but Cordelia refused, because she didn't want to lose the visions and risk being useless to Angel Investigations. Cordelia and Groo fell for one another and when the Pylean government collapsed, Groo found a portal to Los Angeles and sought his Princess out again. They carried on their relationship and were able to become intimate once Cordelia bought a "mystical prophylactic" from a demon bordello that prevented her from losing the visions with intercourse. At first, it seemed as if this really could be happily ever after, but Groo chivalrously stepped aside and left town when he realized that Cordelia's heart lay with Angel.

Connor - A being who would later be known as Jasmine seduced Connor while possessing Cordelia's body. This resulted in the "birth" of the true Jasmine.

Doyle was born to a human mother and a Brachen demon father. Doyle never knew his father or anyone on that side of his family, and his own demonic genes didn't physically manifest themselves until he was 21 years-old. At that time, Doyle was a third grade teacher and a soup kitchen volunteer married to a lovely woman named Harriet, the love of his life. He didn't take the news of his demonic heritage very well, in spite of Harriet's acceptance of his other side, his marriage ultimately disintegrated. Doyle hid behind the flimsy veneer of a ne'er-do-well hustler and con artist, seemingly more interested in where his next drink was coming from than helping others.

Later, he was approached by a fellow Brachen demon, Lucas, who told Doyle that the Scourge, a militant group of pure blood demons, was after all half-breeds and begged for Doyle's help. Doyle turned Lucas away, believing that this wasn't his problem. Soon after he received a vision, which he described as "splittin' migraines that come with pictures," in the throes of which he thought he was having a stroke. The vision showed him a group of massacred Brachen demons. Doyle searched the city to find out if what he had seen was real--it was. These visions, which come from The Powers That Be, are what led Doyle to Angel. As Doyle says, "We all got something to atone for," and therefore the two join forces to fight evil in Los Angeles. Once Cordelia Chase joins the team, Angel Investigations is officially formed.

Doyle soon falls in love with Cordelia, but is afraid she will reject him upon finding out about his demonic heritage. He also forms a close, brotherly bond with Angel. Despite Doyle's reluctance to discuss his past, Angel and Cordelia learn about him when Harriet returns to his life, wanting a divorce so she can marry an Ano-Movic demon named Richard (the marriage is called off due to a ritual blessing of the clan that would require Richard to kill Doyle by eating his brain). Doyle's past again comes back to haunt him when the Scourge returns, threatening the Listers, another tribe of human/demon hybrids. During the battle, Doyle sacrifices his own life to save his friends, the Listers, and the city of Los Angeles. In doing so, Doyle fulfills the Listers' prophecy of the "Promised One," the bringer purported to save them from the Scourge in the last days of the 20th century. Before Doyle dies, he shares a passionate kiss with Cordelia (who had only recently learned of -- and accepted -- Doyle's demonic heritage); this is his way of not only saying goodbye to Cordelia, but also passing his visions on to her.

After Doyle's death, he briefly appears in the third season episode "Birthday" and the fifth season episode "You're Welcome" -- both times courtesy of re-used footage from the episode in which he died, "Hero."

In the fifth season of Angel, Lindsey McDonald assumes Doyle's identity in an attempt to convince Angel, Spike, and others that Spike, not Angel, is the subject of the Shanshu Prophecy.

[edit] Powers and abilities
Doyle is a seer who receives prophetic visions from The Powers That Be, usually of people in peril. His half-Brachen demon physiology grants him the ability to shift from normal human to demonic appearance (red eyes and green skin adorned with blue spikes), in which he has heightened sense of smell and superior strength.

[edit] Romantic relationships
Harriet "Harry" Doyle - Doyle's ex-wife, who finally divorced him in the episode "The Bachelor Party" after a period of separation.
Cordelia Chase - Doyle fancied Cordelia since the first episode of the Angel series, and nursed a crush on her from then on. Their relationship never really developed until the last episode, where she discovered that he was half-demon and subsequently told him to ask her out to dinner; one of the last things he did before sacrificing himself to save the Lister demons was kiss Cordelia, which also had the effect of passing his visions on to her.

Wesley matures significantly over the course of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel; in his early appearances he was largely cowardly and incompetent. Alexis Denisof claims that his initial goal in playing the character was to be as annoying as possible for the other characters. He explains, "I thought that an irritating version of Giles would be annoying for [Giles] and also for Buffy. Wesley's purpose was to come there and point the finger and get things shipshape. He's a by-the-book school teacher. Considering what kind of person it would be who would have dedicated his life to this peculiar task of being a Watcher, and what would be the unique characteristics of somebody who had made those decisions, and then was taken out of that environment and put into Sunnydale. To Wesley that was a completely new and bizarre place." During this time, Denisof came up with a background story for Wesley regarding his father to explain "why he was so repressed." The writers used this story in the show, alluding to it in early Angel episodes such as "I've Got You Under My Skin", and "Belonging". While discussing Wesley's character development over the course of Angel, Denisof explains: "I decided that Wesley was internally confronting his father and that released him a little bit and made him less repressed."

When Wesley is introduced in Angel, having been fired from the Watcher's Council, Denisof says this experience gave the character "a little shake". He elaborates, "When he arrived in Sunnydale, he was straight out of Watcher grad school; he lacked practical experience. He was living in the ideal of the perfect way to execute his duties. I think that losing his job and going out alone roughened him up a little, lopped off some of his sharper corners. It made him more approachable and more personable, less sure of himself all the time." Coming into the show immediately following the death of Doyle, Wesley serves as a partial replacement for that character. Comparing the two characters, Denisof states, "Wesley is a clearer counterpart to Angel, whereas Doyle had more street smarts. Although [Doyle] was struggling with his demon nature, he had seen a lot more of the world in the same way Angel had." Nonetheless Denisof believes that in this period, his character "was so anxious to be a tough rogue demon hunter but was clearly a kind of soft puppy dog."

Denisof complimented the season three Angel episode "Billy", in which Wesley tries to murder Fred after becoming supernaturally misogynistic, "because it was the first real dark change in Wesley to experiment with". Discussing Wesley's betrayal of his friends to protect Angel's baby, Denisof explains, "It isn't that he's purely bad or purely good, we're discovering a deeper and more complicated area of the character where good and bad aren't as clear, where Wesley does something motivated, he thinks, for the good of all - i.e. saving Connor and relieving Angel of the responsibility of murdering his son - and in doing so creates the situation in which the baby could be kidnapped, Angel loses his son and Wesley has his throat slit for the trouble. So it's grey rather than black or white." Science fiction magazine Starburst said that "somber, subdued, bearded Wesley is worlds away from the foolish, pompous Wesley". Denisof says of the period, "It was a great opportunity to explore some of the character's darker layers. You couldn't have predicted it when he arrived in Sunnydale. This was an important element to introduce and explore, to be consistent with the show and to continue the organic exploration of all the characters." Whilst the character spent less time with his old friends, Denisof was "more or less isolated from the [main cast], barring one or two scenes of mild confrontation when they would come to visit me and we'd chew each other out. There's definitely a cold war going on with Wesley versus the world." Wesley's dark attitude is alleviated somewhat when the gang decide to take over Wolfram & Hart. The tension between Wesley and his co-workers did not go away because of the mind-wipe but because "we decided we were better off as a team than as separate entities. And we had to put our differences behind us and build our trust again as a group." Discussing the way Wesley's English accent softens over the course of Angel, Denisof says, "[The modified accent] just sits on him better. As an actor, it just felt that organically the way he was changing, and it also seemed to be accurate when you consider the amount of time he's spent in L.A. that the accent could have softened. And since he isn't surrounded by upper-crust academics as he was as a young Watcher in the Academy in England, it's understandable that he is changing the way he speaks and changing his voice, his delivery, as a result of his environment."

Denisof had earlier stated that he thought "it's better for the father [of Wesley] to be kept in the background and not become part of the story." When Wesley's father finally did appear in Angel season five, he said:

"I had mixed feelings [at first]. It was a lot of pressure to have to define something that had been speculated about for many years. I was worried that by making it specific, it would lose its power, both in the mind of the character and in the minds of the audience. All my concerns disappeared as soon as I read it. There are responses to powerful figures in your life, like your parents, that you can't necessarily control. Wesley's a very controlled person on the exterior and presents a very collected persona to the people around him, being with his father he would no longer be able to control his responses. That's one of the things I wanted to explore with this, the subtle ways in which you respond to the conditioning of your parents. Wesley has difficulty around his father on a physical level, on an emotional scale, and on an intellectual scale. He is extremely intimidated by his father, and at the same time, still seeking the approval that we all essentially want from our parents when we're children. The shooting [of the cyborg Wesley believed to be his father] was an exhilarating moment in which there was the most dangerous person in his life on every level, and there is a woman he is obsessed with. And to have the woman jeopardized by something as dangerous as his father - I played that moment as a moment of pure instinct. Wesley is centered in his intellect and is more uncertain in his emotional life, but in that moment, he becomes pure instinct because he has to choose between the woman he loves and his father."

Wesley undergoes yet another drastic personality change in Angel's fifth season following the death of his love, Fred. Denisof believes that the loss of Fred caused Wesley to become understandably "unbalanced". "By the time we get to the last few episodes, he's got a handle on the grief and is functioning in a more level-headed way," says Denisof. "But underlying it is a huge hole in his heart and it makes it possible for the decision that they make in the final episode. For him emotionally, the stage is set for a life or death battle, possibly for the last time, because at this point, there's nothing more for him to lose."[15] Denisof talked with Whedon about what storylines would have been in place had the television series received another seasons; Wesley would not have died, and he and Illyria would have featured in an arc in which the transformation of Illyria to Fred would have been extended over many episodes and taken to a "much deeper, darker place" than it briefly was in the late fifth season episode, "The Girl in Question". Denisof continues, "They would have progressed the relationship between Wesley and Illyria in such a way it would conflict with his own feelings for Fred, in a much more profound way. And then we would have gone into the switching of Fred and Illyria and having these two people that he was having these strong feelings about. That was going to be a fairly long journey in the following season, all of which got abbreviated tremendously when [the WB] decided to cancel the show." The cancellation of the show was the inspiration for Wesley's death; Whedon gave Denisof the option of keeping the character alive, but Denisof believed killing the character was right for the story, "It was very upsetting to read. It's too good a story because it hurts."

Source

Angel was supposed to be a one-time character until David Boreanaz was found.

In the Angel season three episode "Carpe Noctem", in which Angel was victim of a bodyswitch, he was played by Rance Howard.

Angel has a tattoo on his shoulder-blade of a griffin from The Book of Kells, with the addition of the letter 'A' beneath it.

The first time it was planned that Angel would lose his soul, Joss Whedon was doubtful of David Boreanaz being capable of portraying the cruelty of Angelus.

Angel is a "Fanilow" (a fan of Barry Manilow), particularly loving the song "Mandy". As he quotes, "I think it's kinda pretty."

Angel has appeared in by far the most episodes in Buffyverse, for a total of 166 episodes. Buffy and Willow are next, with 146 and 147 episodes respectively. He has also appeared in the most seasons of Buffyverse (All seasons of Buffy and Angel except for Buffy season 6) for a total of 11. He is also the only character to appear in the pilots and finales of both Buffy and Angel.

Angel is a fan of ice hockey (we see him watching the game in "Life of the Party") and he hoped Connor would grow up playing ice hockey, one of the reasons being that it is a sport where most games are played indoors, and at night (allowing for vampires to spectate).