Forgiving

Starring: David Boreanaz as Angel, Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia, Amy Acker as Fred, Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, J. August Richards as Gunn

Guest starring: John Rubenstein as Linwood, Andy Hallet as Lorne, Laurel Holloman as Justine, Stephanie Romanov as Lilah, Jack Conley as Sahjhan

Original air date: April 15, 2002

Written by: Jeffrey Bell Directed by: Turi Meyer

At the hotel Angel stares at Connor’s empty crib. Across town Fred and Gunn are in Wesley’s apartment checking his messages looking for some clue as to Wes’s whereabouts. All she hears on the answering machine are her desperate pleas for Wes to call her. Fred doesn’t believe that Wes is capable of taking Connor away from Angel. She’s also worried about what might happen to Wes if Angel should find him before Gunn and Fred do. Fred wants to stay at the apartment just in case Wes returns but Gunn tells her that all his personal belongings are gone. Wes is not planning on coming back. Fred thinks that Wes’s diaries might contain a clue to his whereabouts but the diaries are missing, too. Fred and Gunn leave the apartment building to look for Wes unaware that Wes is about 50 yards away slowly bleeding to death from a slashed throat. Meanwhile Justine returns to Holtz’s headquarters alone and despondent. She tells the rest of Holtz’s soldiers that Holtz “escaped” with Connor, as he had planned, and that he won’t be returning. Justine also lies to the soldiers and tells them that Holtz wants them to continue his work - killing demons and vampires.

In the lobby of the hotel Lorne fills in Gunn and Fred as to what happened to Angel: Holtz took Connor through a portal. After her experience going to Pylea Fred is devastated to find out that Connor went through a portal. Gunn is still having a hard time believing that Wes simply handed Connor over to Holtz but Lorne reminds him that Wes had met secretly with Holtz at least twice; Lorne read Wes and found out that much. Lorne knows that Wes wasn’t planning on coming back to the hotel - ever. Angel comes down to the lobby and vows that both Wes and Holtz will pay for taking Connor away. Angel asks Lorne to find out as much as he can about the Qortoth dimension - that’s where Holtz took Connor. Angel plans to go to the Qortoth dimension to find Connor and Fred and Gunn want to go with. Gunn does point out, however, that the last time they opened a portal it was Wes who figured out how to do it and how to get them back. Angel tells him that they will find a way to open a portal without Wes. Angel’s plan is to find Sahjhan and have him open the portal. After all Sahjhan was the one who opened the portal in the first place. Angel shows Gunn and Fred a picture of Sahjhan which he drew and tells them that Sahjhan has been behind everything.

At Wolfram & Hart Linwood is “tearing a new one” for Lilah. Linwood’s a little, well, pissed that Lilah conspired with Sahjhan behind his back *and* managed to lose Connor, too. Linwood tells Lilah, point blank, that in the upcoming battle between good and evil she better choose the side that he’s on. Lilah defends herself by telling Linwood that she did have a gun to her head.

Back at the hotel Fred, Gunn, and Wes are poring through texts to find more information on Sahjhan. Fred’s having no luck with the demon database and Gunn’s having no luck with Cordy’s files. Fred tries to call Cordy in Mexico but Angel tells her know what’s going on. Angel’s really upset and tells Fred that, when Cordy comes back she’ll have presents for Connor and Connor will be back home to get them. Angel decides that what they’re doing isn’t working and he leaves. Both Fred and Gunn are worried that Angel will get real retributiony if he finds Wes, so they leave to try to find Wes first. But outside Wes’s apartment building a homeless man finds Wes, still alive, empties his wallet, and drags Wes behind a bush making Wes even harder to find.

Lorne comes back to the hotel and gives Angel some bad news. According to Lorne’s contacts the Qortoth dimension doesn’t have portals. Sahjhan must have ripped through the fabric of reality in order to access Qortoth. While Lorne is talking Angel is looking in his weapons cabinet and going through some drawers. He picks up a staple remover and a metal spike used to hold phone messages. Angel walks upstairs and Lorne follows him imparting more bad news - in order to access Qortoth Angel would have to use some seriously dark power, the kind of dark power that takes centuries to build up. Then, once in Qortoth, Angel’s search for Connor would be a lot like looking for a needle in a haystack the size of China. Basically impossible, even for Angel. Angel’s only response is a mumbled, “Needles. Shoulda thought of that.” He goes into his burned-out shell of his rooms where we find a bruised Linwood tied to a chair.

As Linwood and Lorne have a little chat, Angel appears to be assembling an impressive array of tools to torture Linwood - the staple remover, the memo holder, a meat fork, razor blade, you get the idea. Linwood threatens Angel with what might happen if the Wolfram & Hart senior partners find out about what Angel has planned. Angel’s response to Linwood’s threat is that the senior partners would kill Linwood before they would kill Angel. Lorne tries to talk Angel out of whatever he has planned because Linwood is (marginally) human and not a demon. Angel starts questioning Linwood by asking who Sahjhan is and how to find him. Linwood tells Angel to hit speed dial 3 on Linwood’s cell phone. When Angel does Linwood gives Lilah explicit instructions to give Angel whatever he wants.

Back at Holtz’s headquarters Justine is whittling stakes when Gunn and Fred walk in. Fred and Gunn ask Justine where Wes is but Justine just evades the question. Fred asks Justine if losing more people would make her happy, then Fred realizes that there’s “no happy” for Justine. Gunn threatens Justine that they aren’t leaving until Justine tells them where Wes is. Suddenly the rest of Holtz’s soldiers show up and Justine tells them they aren’t leaving at all. Gunn takes the soldiers on single handedly and nearly gets his butt kicked until one of the soldiers holds a knife to Gunn’s throat. Justine has some flashbacks to when she slashed Wes’s throat and she suddenly yells, “stop!” Justine tells Gunn and Fred to get out and they do.

At Wolfram & Hart Angel and Lilah are headed for the white room. In an elevator Angel has to push several buttons in the right order which makes a larger button materialize. When Angel pushes that button there is a sudden white light which transforms the elevator into a huge, white room. The only thing in the room is a little girl. The little girl tells Angel that he has a taste for revenge, which is much more fun than forgiveness. The little girl tells Angel that Sahjhan is non-corporeal but, in the past, “they were something else.” We see battle scenes as the little girl tells Angel “they were all about torture and death” and they caused chaos, which the little girl didn’t like so “we” changed them and made them immaterial. Angel asks how he can capture Sahjhan and finds out there’s a special urn (the “raskeekian urn”) that will trap the demon. The little girl then tells Angel that “these things always have a price” and tells Angel to kill Lilah. Without hesitation Angel wraps his hands around Lilah’s neck but, before he strangles her the little girl tells him “that’s enough for now.” The little girl tells Angel he can make Sahjhan flesh by following a ritual and gives him a list of instructions. She ends the conversation by saying, “can’t wait to see how it turns out.” The white light intensifies.

Gunn and Fred are outside Wes’s apartment and Fred climbs into the trash dumpster. She digs around for a bit and finds Wes’s diaries. Fred and Gunn go through the diaries looking for some clues. Gunn finds the part of the Nyazian prophecies that indicated that Angel was going to kill Connor. They figure out that Wes took Connor to prevent the prophecy from coming true. Fred thinks that Wes did the right thing to prevent the prophecy, but Gunn is less than convinced that Angel is going to forgive Wes. Fred thinks that Angel might “begin” to forgive.

At the hotel Lorne is trying to convince Angel to give up the ritual, but he’s not successful. Angel has painted a large, red pentagram on the lobby floor. Angel needs some human blood for the next part of the ritual and, in front of Linwood, Lilah cuts her own hand and drips some blood in the middle of the pentagram. Angel recites an incantation which brings forth lightening, but no Sahjhan. Angel has now gone straight past merely pissed to absolutely enraged. At an intersection somewhere in LA a huge bolt of lightening strikes the pavement and Sahjhan materializes and is then hit by a truck. Sahjhan is unfazed and tips the truck over. Sahjhan says, “now this is more like it.”

Angel is going over the deep edge and starts to drag Linwood, still tied to a chair, up the stairs. Lilah interupts Angel and tells him there’s been a “bioplasmic disturbance” in the area and that, whatever it is, flipped over a two-ton truck. Angel let’s go of Linwood’s chair and Linwood bounces down the stairs. On the plus side, though, Linwood is no longer tied up cause the chair is in about a zillion little pieces. Angel tries to leave but Fred and Gunn burst in and tell Angel about the Nyazian prophecy and that Wes was trying to protect Connor. Angel isn’t convinced because he doesn’t believe that he would ever hurt Connor or someone he loves. Angel storms out of the hotel in search of Sahjhan. Lorne fills Gunn and Fred in on the dark magic that Angel performed. Linwood swears that Angel’s going to pay for what he’s done.

Outside the hotel Justine fires a crossbow bolt at Angel but it misses his heart. Angel rips the bolt out of his chest and charges towards two of Holtz’s soldiers, knocking both of them down. As Angel walks out of the courtyard Justine jumps him, but he also knocks her down. Gunn and Fred walk outside just as Justine drives off so they follow her. Angel makes it to the scene where the truck was tipped over and talks to the driver of the truck. Surprisingly Angel comforts the man and tells him that the accident wasn’t his fault. Angel finds blood on the truck and follows the trail.

Justine is at Sahjhan’s hideout reminiscing, in flashbacks, her time with Holtz. Fred and Gunn arrive looking for Wes. Justine responds, “he’s not coming back” but she’s talking about Holtz. She finally figures out that Holtz was only interested in abducting Connor and that everything else was an act. Gunn and Fred tell Justine they just want to find Wes to get his side of the story. Justine tells them that Wes sacrificed everything to save Connor and that Wes wasn’t intending to give Connor over to Holtz. Justine tells them she slit Wes’s throat and Fred really punches her. Justine and Gunn start to fight until Justine finally stays down.

Sahjhan walks in and starts wailing on everyone. Before Sahjhan can do any serious damage Angel walks in. Angel tells Sahjhan to take him to the Qortoff dimension but Sahjhan tells Angel that he can access the Qortoff once and only once, that’s why he chose it. If Sahjhan were to try to access the Qortoff dimension again the whole universe “goes kablooey.” Sahjhan spills the beans and tells everyone that he re-wrote the Nyazian prophecy. Angel wasn’t a threat to Sahjhan, Connor was. Sahjhan did everything to get rid of Connor to preserve his own existence.

Angel vamps out and attacks Sahjhan, but Sahjhan easily deflects Angel. Gunn and Angel both try to take Sahjhan out, but he’s stronger than both Gunn and Angel together. Sahjhan grabs a piece of wood but, before he can stake Angel in the heart Justine shows up with a raseekian urn. She opens the top of the urn and Sahjhan is sucked inside. Apparently Holtz left the urn behind. Justine confesses that she left Wes in the park across from his apartment building.

At the park Angel, Gunn, and Fred try to find Wes. They aren’t having any luck although Angel can smell his blood. Angel leaves because of the imminent sunrise while Gunn and Fred continue to look for Wes.

At the hotel Angel reflects on what’s happened and unloads some guilt with Lorne. Angel was so intent on finding and killing Sahjhan that he nearly got Fred and Gunn hurt and/or killed. Lorne tries to convince Angel that he did the right thing given what he knew. If Sahjhan had been successful Angel probably would have killed Connor. Lorne suggests that the way to start forgiving himself for his single-minded pursuit of revenge is to start to forgive Wes. The phone rings - it’s Fred. They’ve found Wes and he’s in serious condition but will live. Angel arrives at the hospital and goes in to talk to Wes. Angel tells Wes that he understands that Wes thought he was doing the right thing, but that he will never forgive him for taking Connor away from him. Suddenly Angel lunges at the bed, grabs the pillow and begins to smother Wes. The whole time Angel is yelling that he will never forgive Wes for taking Connor away. It takes two large orderlies and Gunn to pull Angel off of Wes while Angel is yelling that Wes is a dead man. Summary by Kirsten.

Quotes

Key: A=Angel C=Cordelia G=Gunn W=Wesley F=Fred L=Lorne LW=Linwood Sj=Sahjhan Js=Justine Li=Lilah

G: “Wesley’s not coming back. No toothbrush, no razor, no Mossberg twelve gauge he kept in the closet.”

G: “I think if he was answering his cell phone he would have the first forty times you called.” F: “You’re telling me to quit trying? [pause] Sorry…” G: “Don’t be. Keep trying.”

Js: “No more training and no more practice. From here out everything is real.”

F: “No. It can’t be. The baby’s not gone.” L: “I’m sorry, sweetie, but he is.” F: “Not like that. Not a portal. There is pulling and there is noise, and there is nothing to hold on to. Nothing at all…” G: “Baby…” F: “He must have been so scared!”

Li: “If it’s any consolation, sir, I did have a gun to my head tonight.” Lw: “Yes, I know. I’m sorry that happened. So, Sahjhan opened a door to the Quortoth and in went Holtz and baby?” Li: “That’s the long and short of it.” Lw: “I know you made every effort to preserve that baby for us.” Li: “Gun. At my head.”

F: “It’s in Gashundi and… I don’t read Gashundi.” A: “Did we check the files?” G: “They’re in English. Cordelia’s filing system isn’t.” A: “She was keeping some kind of list of time- and space-shifting entities.” G: “Okay. Would that be under Time, Space, Shifting, or Entities?”

A: “She’ll be back soon! And when she does she’ll have presents, for Connor…. And he’s gonna be here so she can give them to him! Okay?”

F: “Did he just say to forget about all this?” G: “Yeah, he did.” F: “You don’t suppose he’s decided to skip right to the ‘dealing with those responsible’ part, do you?” G: “I think we need to find Wesley.”

L: “Angel, I know this isn’t easy for you but you got to hear it. If you somehow managed to get in, finding Connor would be like looking for a needle in a haystack… the size of _China_.” A: “Needles. Should have thought of that…”

L: “Angel? Who is this?” Lw: “Linwood Murrow, division president of Special Projects at Wolfram and Hart, and you are?” L: “Ah, deeply troubled.”

Lw: “Once the firm finds out what you’ve done…” A: “…they’d kill you before they kill me.”

L: “Do you even know what you’re doing?” Lw: “At last count the charges were kidnapping, assault and battery and attempt…” [Angel drops tray on table] “…none of which I intend to press. In fact, let’s not press anything, shall we?”

Lw: “Hello Lilah. I’m sending over a client, and I want you to listen very carefully because I have explicit instructions on how to deal with him. Give him anything he wants.”

F: “Oh. There is no happy for you. …You were living in here together, sharing everything… except taking out the trash, I guess. I imagine losing Holtz is like losing a father. Or worse?”

F: “The trash! …I’ll explain that later.”

Girl: “Your fingernails are pretty. I love red. …You have a taste for red, too… and revenge. I know. It’s so much more fun than forgiveness.”

Girl: “They were all about torture and death. You can relate.”

Girl: “Can’t wait to see how it turns out.”

F: “Okay. Throw me away.” G: “You want me to put you in the trash.”

F: “God, somebody *ate* that?”

F: “It says here: ‘It can’t be coming. It can’t be true.’” G: “That’s doomy.”

F: “Wes did the right thing. The only thing he could do under the circumstances. Now we have to find Angel and tell him right away.” G: “And he’ll forgive Wesley for taking his son and giving him to his mortal enemy?” F: “Well, maybe _begin_ to forgive.”

L: “Angel, please do not do this thing. We’ll find some other way.” Li: “There is no other way.” L: “You know, _not speaking_ would be a really good look for you.”

Sj: “Now this is more like it!”

F: “He was trying to _protect_ Connor.” G: “He was trying to protect _you_…same as we’re doing right now.”

F: “Angel, the prophecy…” A: “It’s a lie. I’d never hurt Connor.” F: “How can you know that for sure?” A: “I’d never hurt someone I care about. Now _move_.”

F: “We have to go after him.” G: “We can’t. He lays a finger on you, I’ll have to kill him myself.”

F: “We just wanna hear his side.” Js: “His side? His side’s kinda funny. He sacrificed everything he believed in to save that kid.” G: “By helping Holtz take him to hell? I’d like to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” Js: “Your friend’s innocent.”

F: “Where is he? Will you just tell us?” Js: “Heaven? Hell? I slit his throat.”

Sj: “So. My home. Uninvited guests. This can’t end well.”

Sj: “Can’t tell you how much I missed doing that. I also missed gravity, friction, and smashing things to pieces. Let’s start with your skulls.”

A: “Yeah. Tell you what: you take me to the Quor-toth world, help me find my son, we’ll call it even.” Sj: “Really? You and me? Buddy cop, summer release? We iron out our wacky differences and bond? I don’t think so.”

Sj: “I flitted back and forth in time. Changed the one that threatened me, polished some others. Flitted in a *manly* way …just so we’re clear.”

Sj: “Do I look like I need more skin problems?”

Sj: “Had to put your boy down. Pity. The kid had a big future. I mean _big_.”

L: “Hey, I, ah, cleaned the pentagram as best I could. The dried blood, well, that’s starting to be a look out there.”

L: “You know, there is a bigger picture here, Angel. And in that bigger picture there is a glass….” A: “If the words ‘glass is half full’ are about to come out of your mouth, don’t.” L: “No. No, this is more a glass half full of spiked blood.”

G: “It’s just good you came.” F: “He’s not completely out of the woods yet. Your being here can only help.”

A: “Hey, Wes. I just… I want you to know that I understand why you did it. I know about the prophecies and I know how hard it must have been for you to… do what you did. You thought I was gonna turn evil and kill my son. I didn’t. It’s important you know that. This isn’t Angelus talking. It’s me, Angel. You know that, right?” [Wesley blinks] “Good.”

A: “You’re dead! You’re a dead man, Pryce! You’re dead! I’ll kill you!”

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