Season Summaries
Season 1
Angel arrives in Los Angeles and meets a half human half brachen demon called Doyle. Doyle receives visions from The Powers that Be and passes them onto Angel. Also he meets fellow Sunnydaler Cordelia Chase and after a chance meeting and a time where she was saved by him all three of them band together to form Angel Investigations. Angel spends time in LA to help the helpless and also try and get over the first love of his life, Buffy Summers. But it doesn't work quite so easily when Doyle gets a vision of her, Angel goes to help her in Sunnydale but doesn't say hello to her. Buffy heads to LA looking for an apology but instead they find a demon whose blood makes Angel human. But it can not be and time gets set and Angel reverts to being a vampire. Soon after Doyle sacrifices his own life, after telling Cordelia that he loves her, to help save some more half demon, half humans like himself from The Scourge. The Scourge were a pure demon blood army who were only there to extinguish half breeds. Cordelia gets the visions passed onto her after a kiss that Doyle and her exchanged before he jumped to his death.
The ex-watcher, Wesley Wyndam Pryce arrives in LA looking for a demon, but it turns out he's completely mixed up, but joins up with Angle and Cordelia to help the helpless. The rogue slayer, Faith, awakens from her coma in Sunnydale and heads to LA when things get rough for her there. She gets hired by Wolfram & Hart (evil incorporated) and tortures and attempts to kill Wesley, Angel saves the day. Really all Faith wanted was someone to kill her. Buffy arrives in LA when she knows of Faith's arrival and of Angel looking after her. The cops are after Faith for her murders in Sunnydale and a couple in LA, Angel is eventually taken to the police station where they find Faith admitting to everything. Buffy and Angel part on bad terms so Angel heads to Sunnydale to make things up, which they do. Angel and the gang get their hands on the scroll of Oberjian, which prophesize that the vampire with a soul with shanshu, become human again.
The previous owners of the scroll don't want that to happen and so send Vocah a powerful demon to torment Cordelia's mind with too many visions for her to cope with mentally. Vocah blows up Angel Investigations while retrieving the scrolls, sending Wesley to hospital. Angel sets out to find Vocah and kill him. He finds Vocah and Wolfram & Hart performing a ritual with the scrolls. Angel kills Vocah and forces Lindsey McDonald to carry on the ritual. Something appears in a box after the ritual which is taken away, Lindsey and Angel have a little showdown where Lindsey loses his hand and Angel regains the scrolls. In the scrolls are Cordelia's cure, which Wesley chants at her side. At Wolfram & Hart they have the box from the ritual, in it they have brought back Darla...
Season 2
The Angel Investigations team are joined by Charles Gunn, a young vampire hunter who they had helped out previously and their new home is the Hyperion Hotel, which was once haunted by a demonic entity, but the team got rid of that. Angel is also introduced by Wesley to a demon karaoke bar called Caritas, where The Host, a green skinned, red horned demon, reads people's/demon's futures when they come and sing. Angel is plagued by Darla in his dreams, while not knowing that she's actually back from the dead. Eventually he finds out and sees her in the streets of LA. Darla is being used by Wolfram & Hart so that they can have Angel how they want him, dark. Eventually the team find out that Darla is back from the dead and human, not a vampire. When Darla can't stand having a soul anymore she goes to Angel to ask him to change her back to what she was, he refuses saying that that beating in her chest is a gift.
Soon it becomes apparent that the disease Darla was dying of when she was a human many hundreds of years ago is back. Angel wants to help her, so they go through a trial where Angel does so many tasks to give Darla a second chance. But this was denied as she was living her second chance. Darla says that she's prepared to die, when Wolfram & Hart bring in Drusilla and forcefully take Darla and turn her again. Angel vows to kill Darla before she awakens as a vampire but doesn't do it in time. Darla and Drusilla team up and kill a room full of lawyers from Wolfram & Hart leaving only Lilah Morgan and Lindsey McDonald alive. They take charge of these two vampires while Angel turns to the darker side of himself, fires Cordelia, Gunn and Wesley from the Investigations and goes it alone. Wesley, Gunn and Cordy open up their own investigations office, however things don't start off so well with them, they eventually pick up. Angel is still on the war path searching for Darla to kill her. One night Angel finds out from a former partner at Wolfram & Hart, Holland Manners, where the source of evil is, which is what Angel was searching for to put Wolfram & Hart in the ground.
The source is here, everywhere, not hell, Earth. Angel, completely mortified, finds consolation in a night of passion with Darla. And instead of losing his soul he has an epiphany and retains his soul. He goes to seek advice from Lorne about what to do with Gunn, Cordy and Wesley. After saving their lives from a group of demons Angel gets most of the trust back from Gunn and Wesley but it's a bit harder to get it back from Cordy. He eventually gets her back, with the help of some new clothes, but as soon as that's done he loses her again to Pylea. One night a portal opened in Caritas releasing a huge demon and that night Cordy has a vision about a girl in a library being sucked into a portal. When they investigate they find out that the girl disappeared five years ago, her name was Winnifred "Fred" Burkle. Cordy begins to read from a book which she remember the girl was reading and another portal opens, it's The Host's cousin, Landok from Pylea, The Host's aka Lorne's home world. They all go out to kill the Drokken, the demon which has been released in LA, and they succeed. Then they try and send Landok back, which they do, but also Cordelia gets sucked into Lorne's dimension. They devise a plan and Angel, Gunn, Wesley and Lorne all go to Pylea to find Cordy.
In Pylea humans are seen as slaves and that's what Cordy is used as. She finds Fred, but she seems a little crazier than normal people. After Cordy has one vision her status changes from slave to princess by the priests there. When Angel, Gunn, Lorne and Wesley arrive Angel finds out he can safely stand in sunlight. They eventually find Cordy sitting on a thrown, which they find shocking. While trying to find a way back home Wesley finds a link to the priests of Pylea to Wolfram & Hart, and suggests not trusting them. Angel saves Fred from a beheading only to turn into a different kind of beast when he vamps out while trying to save Fred from local knights. Angel finds out he can't easily convert from that beast to human in Pylea. Wesley and Gunn find themselves escaping from the palace and run into rebels, outlawed human slaves. They bad together to take over the palace and get Cordy back. Plans go well, and the priests are defeated and Wesley figures a way home. On arrival Angel finds Willow sitting in the hotel lobby, it's Buffy...
Season 3
Angel arrives back from a retreat in Sri Lanka to get himself sorted about the death of Buffy. He feels guilty that he doesn't feel worse than he would have if it happened a couple of years ago. Darla arrives back in LA with a little more than what was expected, she's pregnant even though it's impossible for vampires to get pregnant. Cordy's not best pleased with the fact that Angel kept the fact that Darla and him slept together and at first takes Darla's side of things. Wolfram & Hart also want to get their hands on Darla and the baby and an unknown demon named Sahjhan wants to get his hands on Darla and Angel and kill them before the baby is born. A human called Holtz is brought to the twenty first century by Sahjhan to help him. Holtz was the vampire killer from the 1800's who sought to kill Darla and Angelus for killing his entire family, it was revenge for him. Darla finds the baby's human and has a soul, and it's soul is influencing her thoughts.
But she feared once the baby is born she won't love it anymore. The time of birth drew near and Darla could feel the baby dying. She decided to sacrifice her own life to save the child's, she killed herself leaving an unborn baby. Holtz then had a chance to kill both the child and Angel but he didn't do it, he let Angel go. The child being the child of two vampires was a prized possession and almost everyone was after it. Angel does his best to protect it and gives it a proper Irish name, Connor. Meanwhile Cordy's visions get ever more painful and one knocks her into a coma type state. Here she meets Skip, a demon guide, who tells her she wasn't meant to get the visions, Angel was. Cordy goes to an alternate universe where Angel gets the visions but sees that Angel couldn't even stand their power as he was insane from them. Skip gives her an alternative, to become half demon to bear the force of the visions, and so Cordy is now half demon. While Wesley is researching about Connor and he finds some prophecies where it translates the father will kill the son.
Wesley goes out of his way and doesn't tell anyone, consorts with Holtz about this and makes a deal with him, to take Connor to Holtz and then never return to LA again. Plans go wrong and Wesley's throat gets cut and Connor is taken to another dimension by Holtz, a hell dimension. Angel completely devastated tries to kill Wesley when he's in hospital after he finds out that the demon Sahjhan planted those fake prophecies so that his own skin could be saved, as Angel's son Connor was going to kill Sahjhan in the future. Weeks later after Angel has tried countless times to open portal to Quor-toth, where Connor is, he gives up. The portal which they managed to open in the lobby of the hotel spews out a monster a a teenager, it's Connor. Connor makes a break for it and leaves Angel. They eventually find him, but Connor doesn't stay long, he goes and meets a very elderly Holtz. Connor and Angle do have some father/son chemistry which Connor doesn't want to believe as he was brought up to believe all vampires are evil because of what happened to Holtz's family. When it finally seems that Holtz is willing to give in to age and let Angel have Connor he turns things around again. He makes Justine kill him, but making it look like a vampire, Angel did it.
Connor finds Holtz dead and him and Justine exact their revenge on Angel, without Angel knowing. Also going on is Cordy and Angel are getting to grips with their feelings for one another. As Angel and Cordy are to meet, Cordy's interrupted by Skip coming to her and telling her that she is now a higher being, and to ascend to that higher level. The final test for Cordy was to see if she could give up her love for Angel for doing this and she did. Angel on the other hand was having other problems, Connor showed up in the spot where Cordy and Angel were to meet and started a fight. It ended with Angel on the other end of a tazer. Angel was then put in a metal and glass coffin by Justine and Connor and allowed to live forever, at the bottom of the sea.
Season 4
Angel was rescued from his watery grave by an unlikely person, Wesley with some unwilling help from Justine. Back on the surface Fred & Gunn try to do their best with keeping the hotel alive as well as looking after Connor and trying to find Cordy & Angel. They do not know that Connor was the one who did what he did to Angel. Wesley & Lilah are in a relationship and though it appears to be very fickle they may have their feelings involved somewhere. After retrieving Angel, Wesley calls the hotel and lets Fred and Gunn know what happened and that it was Connor that did it. Angel arrives back home and kicks Connor out of the hotel and starts a new plan, to find Cordy. Meanwhile Cordy's on her higher plain pretty damn bored. While trying to find Cordy the Angel team bump into a new ally - Gwen Raiden. A girl with the power to enhance and attract electricity simple by touch. She's also a thief and earns a pretty penny doing what she does best. Something she steals is needed by Angel and co to find Cordy. Angel does get his hands on it and finds out where Cordy is, on her higher plain.
Even though Connor's out on his own Angel still keeps an eye on him, before he sets off to Las Vegas. Angel, Gunn & Fred go there to try and find Lorne who's performing there. But things aren't what they seem and he's actually being used there. They manage to free him and they all return to LA. When they return Cordy's in the hotel only she doesn't know who they are. Cordy's trying to adjust at the hotel but after the gang spin a web of lies she finds the only person she can trust is Connor and so ends up going to live with him. Meanwhile Fred has a rather un-friendly encounter with an old professor of her's that jeopardises her relationship with Gunn. And it seems that Connor and Cordy's relationship is going further than Cordy's at first willing to go. Cordy returns to the hotel to ask more questions, one being about her and Angel. They decide that a spell would work best on the situation to bring back Cordy's spell. But as spell's tend to go, it all goes wrong. However finally they manage to get Cordy's memory back but she doesn't quite believe a few things and so goes back to live with Connor. Things begin to deteriorate in LA. A new big bad arrives, The Beast and he brings his own apocalypse with him. The gang try and kill him and stop him but he's far too powerful. On that very same night Cordy and Connor sleep together to Angel's anger.
The Beast goes on a rampage destroying Wolfram & Hart as well. Day gets turned into night and things really start to get bad when it seems the only one who can help them is Angelus. Unwillingly Angel agrees to undergo a spell which will bring forth Angelus. However, as things do tend to go, Angelus is released and begins the mayhem. Angelus tells them that The Beast has a master but that's the only thing he knows. Wesley realises that the only way to bring Angel back is to bring back Faith. Wesley helps her with her jail break and she goes up against Angelus. Though with a guest appearance by The Beast things don't look to good. Though with daylight now restored Faith has a slight upper hand. They thrash it out only to both get into a coma. To get back Angel's soul Fred thinks it best for them to call Willow, the only person living to bring back Angel's soul. Which she manages to do and then takes Faith and heads off to Sunnydale. Cordy reveals herself to be pregnant with Connor's child. And the truth is out about Cordy, she's The Beast's master.
Cordy & Connor go off together to prepare for the birth. Meanwhile it is revealed that Cordy's trip to the higher plain has been planned for a lot longer that it would have appeared. The only thing for Angel to do is try to stop the birth of the evil thing which means killing Cordy. Only he's too late and the evil thing is born. The thing calls herself Jasmine and claims to be a power and wants only to bring peace to the world. However she does that through eating people. Fred learns the truth about her and she gets the rest of the gang to think her way. After a trip to her home dimension she is killed, by Connor. Who by now is completely lost, emotionally and so thinks the best way is to end his life as well as Cordy's and some others. Back at the hotel Angel & co are given an offer to hard to not take, it's to have the offices of Wolfram & Hart. They take the offer, only if Connor is taken out of the life he has and that is done. Connor gets a new life and Cordy is still in a coma being looked after by Wolfram & Hart.
Season 5
While the gang try and adjust to their new surroundings in the form of the Wolfram & Hart offices something even more unexpected occurs. Spike arrives, even though he perished while saving Sunnydale. The gang are even more surprised to know that Spike has a soul, a fact Angel seemed to have left out. Angel tries to take things in his stride and ruffles a few feathers by implementing some new objectives at Wolfram & Hart - less killing, more saving. There's a new liaison, Eve replaces Lilah who was only there for a very momentary stint. While Angel tries to ignore the fact that ghost-Spike is "haunting" the premises the only person who seems to care or want to help him is Fred. Gunn meanwhile has taken on the role of the lawyer, he's been chosen by the Senior Partners do undergo a rather radical treatment. A treatment which inserts lawyer knowledge, among other things, into his brain thereby making him a perfect Wolfram & Hart lawyer. The rest of the gang aren't too sure or happy about his transformation, but Gunn can't be happier with his new role.
As the gang go about their new positions Fred becomes somewhat almost romantically involved with her lab assistant, Knox. The two get close. Meanwhile Fred tries to learn more about Spike and why he keeps disappearing off without a moments notice. Turns out he's being sucked into hell, slowly, but Fred manages to stop that and save Spike. In their cases Angel comes across a werewolf called Nina, and there seems to be a spark between them. Lorne's finding it hard to find his place in the offices and creates an un-miss able Halloween party. Wesley gets a visit from who appears to be his father, but was just a robot in disguise. The Spike/Angel situation comes to a head when Spike receives a mysterious package in the post which makes him corporeal again, no longer a ghost. Both go on a wild goose chase for a chalice which will supposedly make them human. But it's a hoax set up by Lindsey, who's returned to LA, with Eve as his side kick. Angel begins to doubt himself and begins to think that Spike's the real champion and it will be him to Shanshu, it's him that's being talked about in the scrolls.
Things once again get a radical shake up at Wolfram & Hart when a slayer runs loose. A crazy slayer. Giles sends the best of his men, Andrew, to deal with the situation. Angel and co want to take the slayer in and re-educate her but it seems Buffy and co don't trust Angel anymore, since he moved in with Wolfram & Hart. While Angel tries to deal with this thought Cordelia awakens from her coma to set Angel on his path once more. She helps Angel defeat Lindsey and get rid of Eve. Only Cordelia actually died, she never woke up from her coma, her last vision and mission was to set Angel on his path and she appears to have succeeded. Day to day life at Wolfram & Hart gets less normal when a past foe of Angel's comes back to LA, only to get dusted. And also when Angel gets turned into a puppet. Though only momentarily, but as a puppet he was able to tell Nina his true feelings for her. And feelings are abound as Fred finally ditches Knox and lands herself a Wesley. Wesley's all too happy about this new situation. Though not everyone's as happy, Gunn appears to be losing his lawyer knowledge and he doesn't want to go back to his old self. He allows something into the country as a trade to get a permanent brain boost. But this proves fatal when that something he's let into the country is a sarcophagus housing one of the oldest demons to live. One of the first ones. This sarcophagus is delivered to Wolfram & Hart. While Fred is inspecting it she gets contaminated and the demon, Illyria, is born from within.
Illyria tries to return to her home world only to find that it's been destroyed, only dust remains and she finds she no longer has a place in the world. Wesley takes her in. As the gang try and move on Angel gets another surprise, his son, Connor returns. Only he doesn't know Angel's his father but someone is after him. Cyvus Vail, a demon sorcerer who wants Connor to fulfill his prophecy and kill Sahjhan. Vail was the one who had created Connor's new memory and had a device which could return them. So Angel, reluctantly, tells Connor that he has to kill Sahjhan. Only Wesley gets wind of what's happening and he thinks that Angel used Fred's life to save that of his son's. But he is wrong and his true memory is returned and he can't quite fathom what he's done. Connor on the other hand, it doesn't appear that his memories are returned but Angel feels that they might have.
Meanwhile Lindsey's whereabouts have been found. He was sucked up by the Senior Partners and planted into a holding dimension where every day he's tortured. But without memory of it or his previous life. Angel and co find they need Lindsey, he's got answers for them. They go and retrieve him only to lose Gunn who sacrifices himself and takes Lindsey's place in the holding dimension. Lindsey tells Angel that the apocalypse is coming and he's on the wrong side. Eve is replaced by a new liaison, Hamilton. Meanwhile Illyria's powers are overwhelming her and she's due to blow and take out the entire city with her. She thinks that they're all trying to kill her, but in truth all they do is take away her powers and leave her with only her physical strength. Illyria doesn't appreciate the sentiment. During a surprise visit by the Burkles, to see their daughter Fred, Illyria transforms herself into Fred's form, to Wesley's shock, to deceive Fred's parents. Wesley's none to happy about that.
After a meeting with a pregnant woman who's due to give her child away to a demon clan, but does not know it'll be sacrificed, Angel decides to give the child away. To everyone's worries. Angel seems to be changing and doesn't care for the small stuff. But it's all a ruse. He planned it so he could be accepted into the Circle of the Black Thorn. The players who will be instigating the apocalypse. Angel made sure he knew which demons were in it so he and the gang could kill them all. And that's what they did. Gunn took at the senator, Spike the Fell Brethren, Illyria took out Izzy and a couple of other demons. Even Lindsey pitched in with Lorne to take out the Sahrvin, only Lindsey was double crossed. Lorne's final job was to kill Lindsey and he did. Wesley was due to take out Vail, only he failed, he was brutally stabbed by Vail. Illyria stopped by in time and gave Wesley one last look of Fred before he died, and then Illyria took out Vail. Angel poisoned the Archduke Sebassis and killed Hamilton, with Connor's help, who wanted to help his father. With the Black Thorn gone the gang were up against the Senior Partners' full wrath. With a horde of demons in front of them they took their swords and went to work.
