After their ineffective encounter with The Beast, the Angel team regroups back at the hotel. However, when Connor goes to Wolfram & Hart seeking answers about his connection to the creature, The Beast pops by and starts wiping out every living thing in the building.

As if to show just how high the stakes have been raised this season, by the end of this episode there's only one member of Wolfram & Hart left alive, aside, possibly, from the senior partners themselves. And Lilah only escapes thanks to a spot of help from Wesley. Here's a show that is really demonstrating its horror credentials in a way that Buffy rarely has: this episode is bloody, violent, uncompromising and sadistic, with copious blood everywhere, slashings and beheadings. However, it's not great.

Of course, endless violence doesn't necessarily mean excellence, and the main failing of this episode is simply going over old ground. Yes, killing the Wolfram & Hart staff isn't enough when you can give them a real send-off as zombies. While these creatures have been used a few times in Buffy, this is the nastiest effort, with the traditional moaning and shambling but more violent deaths, as Angel explains you have to smash their brains in or behead them to stop them for good. As such, the episode becomes simply a zombie-fest for the second half; not necessarily a bad thing, but they aren't the smart, exciting villains we've come to expect, and thus the team never feels in a great deal of danger, even surrounded by the creatures.

More interesting is the ongoing restructuring of the team dynamics. Wesley may dump Lilah and pick a definite side at last in an electric scene where Lilah describes the difference between their lives, but he cares enough to go back for her, and she to at least treat him with a degree of respect when she is home and dry. Their relationship isn't really over, it's clear, as there is more between these two not dealt with. Elsewhere, of course, Wesley's return to the fold creates tension between him and Gunn, as Fred's current feelings lead her closer to the more honest Wes and away from the man she knows murdered someone. For his part, Wes doesn't seem to be fighting Fred's changing affections, but there will eventually be a reckoning when things will come out into the open.

Then there's Angel, who catches Cordelia and Connor smack in the middle of sex and has his own feelings to deal with. His confrontation with Cordelia at the end of the episode is flawlessly played by the increasingly adept David Boreanaz, and says so much with so little. Of course, the rifts in the group seek to unravel their efforts to fight The Beast, who now may have the power to resurrect the dead; either that or it was something the Wolfram & Hart building did. Either way, there are more unanswered questions, and the danger is very much alive. The only question now is whether Angel will take after its forerunner and move into a mediocre run of time-killing mid-season episodes in an attempt to stretch things out. I have more faith in this show, but I still have some concerns.

***

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