

Season 4, Episode 3
Written by David Fury
Directed by Marita Grabiak
Original Airdate: 20 October 2002
“This place was so much friendlier when the mob ran it.”
Angel
REGULAR CAST
- David Boreanaz as Angel
- Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
- J. August Richards as Charles Gunn
- Amy Acker as Winifred ‘Fred’ Burkle
- Vincent Kartheiser as Connor Angel
- Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
SPECIAL GUEST STAR
- Andy Hallett as Lorne
GUEST CAST
- Clayton Rohner as Lee DeMarco
CO-STARRING
- Morocco Omari as Spencer
- Jennifer Autry as Lornette #2
- Matt Bushell as Security Guard #3
- Tom Scmidt as Well Dressed Man
- Holmberg as Delivery Guy
- Brittany Ishibashi as Vivian
- Diana Saunders as Bejeweled Woman
- Gloria Alexandra as Lornette #1
- John Colella as Croupier
- Rod Tate as Bruiser
- Beyondka Fields as Dancer
- Tara Archuleta as Dancer
- Jill Landless as Dancer
- Olga Shalyganova as Dancer
- Kristine L. Lenmark as Dancer
- Maria Vantskous as Dancer
- Natalya Filatova as Dancer
- Suzanne Brasington as Dancer
- Nicole Covacevich as Dancer
- Krisanne Malloy as Dancer
- Kristin Hiller as Dancer
- Tiffany Deal as Dancer
SYNOPSIS
A wounded man runs from a building only to run into his pursuer, Connor. The man reveals himself to be a vampire and while Angel secretly watches from the roof of a nearby building, Connor fights with and ultimately stakes the vampire. Meanwhile, from high above and unbeknownst to Angel, Cordelia makes several not so subtle suggestions that he should be focusing more on how to rescue her. After Connor runs off into the night, Fred and Gunn make their presence known on the roof and confront Angel on the issues of Connor and Cordelia. Angel realizes that he been making life difficult for his friends and to make up for that, he decides to take them away on a trip to Vegas!
As they drive down the strip, Angel muses about how he remembers Vegas. They arrive at the Tropicana where Lorne is headlining and check out his show. The rest of the audience seems to believe Lorne’s appearance is due to make-up, making his high-profile performances all the less out of the ordinary. Lorne puts on quite a show complete with scantily clad Lornettes to back him up. He goes through the audience, letting various people sing along to a song, but ignores Angel and the others as if he never saw them. After the show, Angel, Gunn and Fred wait for Lorne to exit backstage, but he brushes them off again.
As Lorne recovers from the show in his private suite guarded heavily by security guards, he receives a visit from a man named Lee and his assistant Spencer. Lorne is shown a map of the theater where he just preformed and is forced to identify the people who sang in the audience and their futures he read when they sang. Meanwhile, back in L.A., Wesley talks on the phone with Lilah, while simultaneously conducting business with his men and clients. At the casino, Gunn and Fred play Blackjack while Angel worries about Lorne. One of the Lornettes offers one of the singing audience members from Lorne’s show, Vivian, a special chip to play in a Spin to Win game and maybe win a million dollars. Angel later approaches the Lornette and asks her to give Lorne a note. Angel continues to wander around the casino, noting the strange behavior of some of the gamblers. Fred continues to worry about Angel and Lorne so Gunn decides they should investigate Lorne’s situation to help ease Fred’s mind.
A couple of security guards throw Angel outside and assault him, but ultimately, Angel knocks them out. Desperate for more quarters, Vivian walks in a trance-like state across the casino’s driveway and is nearly run over by a taxi, but Angel rescues her. Fred and Gunn find Lorne’s room and Gunn figures out a plan to get past the security. Fred dresses up as one of the Lornettes and the security guards let her get inside. Lorne takes a minute to recognize her, but he’s grateful to see her and that they finally came to rescue him. He informs her that Lee DeMarco is blackmailing him for his psychic abilities.
Angel sneaks back into the special Spin to Win game area and although he’s not there to play, Lee tosses him a chip. Angel tosses it away, but it slides onto a place on the table and when the house wins, Angel loses his destiny. He’s given a cup of quarters and sent out to the casino to play. Fred runs from Lorne’s room and hysterically convinces the guards outside to go into the room. Lorne manages to escape and the three run out into the casino to find Angel. They find him sitting at one of the slot machines playing in a zombie-like state and ask him to pose a distraction while they get Lorne out. Angel’s too entranced with his gambling to really understand the plan. DeMarco receives information from Spencer about Angel and his souled vampire status. Lee is very pleased and realizes how profitable Angel will be for them.
While on the run from security outside the casino, Lorne reveals that the people he’s been reading from his shows with bright futures have been lured into the Spin and Win game and then their destines and futures sucked into the chip they played. Those chips are stored near a magical glass ball and later sold on the black market while the people are destined to live depressing lives gambling with no future. A couple of guards spot them and to pose a distraction, Lorne sings a high-pitch noise into a microphone. After they escaped, Gunn blows up at Lorne and quickly assumes that Lorne told Lee about Angel. Lorne correct him by revealing that he’s being blackmailed and if he refuses to cooperate, people will be killed. Gunn backs off at that and after realizing that Angel’s destiny has been taken away, he runs back to the casino to rescue him.
Gunn finds Angel at one of the slot machines and tries to convince him to leave the slot machine, but before that can happen, Spencer shows up with Lorne and Fred held in the custody of his security guards. Angel returns to gambling and the rest of the group is brought before Lee. He orders Fred and Gunn killed and Lorne to return to his work. Meanwhile, Cordelia wonders from high above how she can save her friends from certain death. Somehow, she manipulates the slot machine Angel’s at to win a jackpot so he can be brought into the back room with the others. Lee is angered that someone actually won but Angel doesn’t have an explanation for his winning.
Lee lets Angel return to playing and Gunn tries to break free, triggering the violence. One of the men pulls a gun on Fred and it brings out the demon in Angel, who starts to beat up on Lee’s men. Lorne spots the glass ball with the chips and despite Lee’s protests and attempts to stand in the way, the ball is broken and all of the destinies are returned to their rightful bodies. Back to his normal self, Angel talks about another memory from Vegas, but his friends don’t pay much attention to the story. Back in L.A., the gang is all glad to be home, although Angel questions what caused his jackpot winning at the casino. Lorne sneaks away to find a bathroom while the others head inside the hotel. They all freeze once they see Cordelia standing in the middle of the lobby. She doesn’t know who they are, though.
TRIVIA
From this episode onward, Andy Hallett appears in every episode of Angel.
Angel recalls he was in the fictional Tropicana before for Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s wedding reception. In reality, the couple had their 1967 wedding and reception at the Aladdin hotel and casino.
During the first shot into Lorne’s audience, the episode’s writer David Fury and the script supervisor Petra Jorgensen are sitting in the first row, holding a miniature bobblehead of the producer Kelly A. Manners. Fury also portrays the first worshiper in Reprise, the Mustard Man in Once More, with Feeling/Selfless, and Gregor Framkin in Smile Time.
When Fury first wrote the episode, its running time was a few minutes short, so Joss Whedon wrote the scene with Wesley in his apartment. Had the scene not been added, Alexis Denisof would not have appeared in the episode.
One of the scrolling banners in the soul-trading room reads, “Deal with Disney to run new ABC series.” Co-creator David Greenwalt left Angel earlier that year to produce Miracles.
CONTINUITY
Fred and Gunn question if Angel will take them to a spiritual journey in a monastery like the one he visited in Heartthrob. Instead, they go to Las Vegas, which Gunn and Angel believed would be a better choice to visit.
This episode reveals what Lorne’s use of “Fluffy” meant in Deep Down: that he was in trouble and needed rescuing.
When Fred and Gunn are gambling at the card table, Fred has a large pile of chips in front of her which she has won, providing an explanation as to why Angel Investigations’ financial problems (Provider) appear to be over following this episode. She previously suggested that she could go to Las Vegas and count cards in Fredless.
GOOFS
Gunn mentions a monastery Angel visited in Tibet, but in Heartthrob it was instead identified as in Sri Lanka.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
EPISODE
Ground State / Slouching Towards Bethlehem
STORY ORDER
Bring on the Night / Slouching Towards Bethlehem









