Wesley and Faith try to find Angelus, who in turn wishes to find out more about The Beast's mysterious master, who for their part is determined to bring Angelus under control.

Increasingly, the horror in this show comes purely from the characters. It's something to swing a relationship round so much that Faith is convincingly weak and incapable of defending herself, while Wesley is seriously nasty, yet that's exactly what happens here. The years of pain and suffering have reached the point where Wes is determined to simply wage war on evil however he needs to, here stabbing a drugged-up girl in the shoulder in order to make her talk when Faith is incapable of doing it. While he has a point in his reasoning – that the girl was barely living anyway and he missed all the major arteries – it's a terrifying scene made even more so by what follows. When Faith questions his methods, his bitter retort about how she used to like torture is simply incredibly powerful, demonstrating the fact that he's still leaving with a lot of pain he isn't able to let go, and nor should he. His desire to see Faith unleash the animal within her bares the darkest part of him, and the pitch blackness he's mired in has never been more obvious. It really sends a shiver down the spine.

I thought losing The Beast would be a problem, but while I'm still a little puzzled by Cordelia's role in events and exactly what is planned, the higher profile of Angelus in this episode really allows him to be his nastiest. He's vicious, sadistic, maybe a little too keen on talking when he could be murdering Faith, but he certainly seizes every miniscule chance he gets to beat the odds and win through in some great fight scenes that use an entire warehouse as a backdrop. The violence is extreme even for Angel, with some painful beatings for both parties and a really nasty fall for Wes. The fact that Faith keeps giving Angelus an opening when they fight shows how far she's fallen as well as how good Angelus is at what he does, as proved by yet another jaw-dropping cliffhanger ending just when you think everything will be fine.

Meanwhile, the retrieval of the Gunn/Fred relationship is welcome, even if it seems a little odd that Fred manages to forget what Gunn did, an act many would find unforgivable even in their exceptional circumstances. The Connor and Cordelia relationship still seems to be moving very slowly, but there are a few nice little twists in the story, firstly in the way Cordelia suggests her baby is far from natural, and secondly because Connor is revealed as in some way a demon. While this is hardly a shock bearing in mind his parents, it'll be interesting to see just who or what he really is. Once again, another great episode with plenty of fantastic moments.

****

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