Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been

Season 2, Episode 2
Written by Tim Minear
Directed by David Semel
Original Airdate: 3 October 2000

“I’ve been accused of a great many things in my time but paranoid has never been one of them. Unless people have been saying it behind my back.”
Wesley

REGULAR CAST

David Boreanaz as Angel
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
J. August Richards as Charles Gunn

GUEST CAST

Melissa Marsala as Judy Kovacs
John Kapelos as Ronald Meeks
Tommy Hinkley as Private Investigator
Brett Rickaby as Denver
Scott Thompson Baker as Actor
J.P. Manoux as Frank Gilnitz

CO-STARRING

David Kagen as Salesman
Terrence Beasor as Older Man
Julie Araskog as Over the Hill Whore
Tom Beyer as Blacklisted Writer
Eve Sigall as Old Judy

SYNOPSIS

Angel asks that Cordelia and Wesley to research the history of an old Hollywood hotel, but doesn’t give them any reason for the research. Cordelia and Wesley do research and later discover that Angel once stayed at this hotel. Angel walks though the hotel and his memories resurface as he views the now abandoned Hyperion hotel. Using old newspaper clippings and photographs, Cordelia and Wesley put together the pieces of what happened in 1952 at the Hyperion hotel.

Back in 1952 at the Hollywood hotel was incredibly active. A bellhop reluctantly takes a bill to room 217. After dropping the bill at the door, the bellhop runs before the door is opened by…Angel. While staying in the hotel in 1952, Angel finds a woman hiding in his room from another man. The man, who later turns out to be a private investigator, threatens Angel with a gun and Angel is forced to beat him up. In room 215, a man listens to whispers coming from the walls that instruct him to kill himself with a gun.

The hotel manager instructs the bellhop to hide the body after the two find the man dead in his hotel room. While Angel is outside smoking, the woman from his room, Judy confronts him and tries to start up a conversation. They talk about the man who killed himself and Angel blows her off when she tries to thank him for saving her. She later invites him into her hotel room after rumours of the suicide turn into rumours of murder. She confesses that she used to work at a bank and after they fired her, she stole a large amount of money from the bank.

Judy tells Angel that she is from a coloured mother but a white father. While she does look white, her “impurity” makes her the target of racism every time someone discovers her mixed background. Angel helps Judy hide the money she stole in the basement, and informs her that something is in the hotel that is making everyone crazy. The hotel guests argue about who is to blame for the murder until the private investigator that Angel beat up returns in search of Judy. The whispers reach Judy and attempt to convince her that she has no where else to hide.

Angel goes to a bookstore and forces the store owner to provide him with information regarding the paranoia demon haunting the hotel. The owner gives Angel all the information and supplies he’ll need. In an attempt to save herself from persecution, Judy blames Angel for the hotel murder. He is beaten and then hung from the hotel ceiling. Everyone assumes Angel is dead and after the leave, Angel releases himself from the noose. The demon haunting the hotel–a Thesulac demon–reveals himself to Angel and Angel leaves, allowing the demon to have his way with the people.

Back in the present, Angel discovers the bag of money he hid in the hotel basement. He calls on Cordelia and Wesley to get Gunn and help him perform a Raising ritual that will force the Thesulac demon to corporeal. The Thesulac demon is a paranoia demon that feeds on people’s paranoid thoughts. At the hotel, Wesley performs a spell with an Orb of Ramjarin that makes the demon apparent to them all. Angel destroys the demon by attaching one of the demon’s tentacles to an electrical box.

Angel goes upstairs and enters room 214. He finds Judy, many years older upstairs. She recognizes Angel and expresses her guilt for allowing the hotel guests to kill him. Judy informs Angel that the Thesulac demon kept her safe in her room for all those years. She lies down for a rest, and after getting Angel’s forgiveness, she dies peacefully. Angel returns downstairs where Cordelia and Gunn express their distaste for the hotel, but Angel announces that they’re moving in.

TRIVIA

This is writer Tim Minear’s favourite episode, and Alexis Denisof also cites this episode as one of the best.

The exterior of the Hyperion is the same location used as Melissa Burns’ apartment in I Fall to Pieces.

CONTINUITY

Angel asks Cordelia and Wesley to investigate the Hyperion Hotel, which he discovered in the previous episode. The Hotel becomes Angel Investigations’ primary base until season five.

Angel mentions that he was younger than 30 when he was sired. In actual fact, he was 26, which we learned in The Prodigal.

GOOFS

In the 1952 flashback, you can see the Hollywood Walk of Fame outside Denver’s bookstore, with a star or two. However, the first star wasn’t put down until February of 1960.

The newspaper clipping on Judy Kovacs says she worked at the Union National Bank, but later she tells Angel she worked at the City Trust Bank.

The photo Cordelia has in her hand is a little different then the close-up one she ends up handing Wesley. In the far shot Angel is to the right of two men. When the camera goes in for the close-up the photo shows Angel in-between the same two men.

In the flashback when we see the embezzled $11,000, several of the bills are the new 1996 $100 bills.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

EPISODE
Judgement / First Impressions

STORY ORDER
Buffy vs. Dracula / Real Me