Our first words reprise the beginning of Angel the series. "It all started with a girl." Only this girl is actually Fred, and Angel is giving us a voiceover recap of season 5 while he jumps in between some nasty looking demons and a threesome of humans. He tells us how he wanted to channel the evil resources of Wolfram and Hart (W&H) into something positive, how it was his worst choice ever, how it changed him, it killed Fred, and led to him taking a stand.
Which led to his current situation, which he characterizes as him trying to make up for that stand he took. As he fights, it looks like the demons get the upper hand, but then arrives The Dragon. The one last seen flying ahead of a demon army, coming down the streets of Los Angeles towards the alley where our four surviving heroes stood, wounded but ready to fight. Angel says he and the dragon realized neither of them wanted to work for W&H anymore, and they teamed up. The dragon takes out the rest of the demons here with little effort and a lot of flame.
Angel tells the human survivors to take his car and go to an address immediately. The woman, who was once a lawyer, asks him why this is happening, saying she didn't deserve it. Angel says he doesn't know, but tells us differently. And then we find out exactly what was the cost of Angel's last stand: Wolfram and Hart sent L.A. to hell.
After that, the demons divided up the city, and Angel was left to lick his wounds back at the W&H office. He's been headquartered there ever since. He returns there now, sending the dragon to the parking garage, reflecting on how it wasn't the worst punishment he could get from W&H. So it seems he's still waiting for the shoe to drop, to find out what else they have planned for him and why they kept him alive. And we have no news yet on the others, aside from Angel's comment that there were losses on both sides of the fight.
As Angel walks through the building, he's attacked by a demon, Burge, Lord of Downtown L.A., and his son. They're annoyed about Angel's having killed 6 of the kid's men. Burge wants Angel (and all) to respect the boundaries of his turf and not hunt within them. His son is just pissed Angel took out his guys and wants to kill him. As they're having this mostly one-sided conversation, someone asks if there's a problem. Shock number 2 of the story is here: Wesley!
Funny the one person we knew was dead would show up before we find out the fates of the ones left standing at the end of season 5. Apparently Wes is in the Lilah position now. His contract with W&H didn't end with his death, and they've brought him back to what? Watch over Angel? Run the L.A. office? Something else nefarious? We don't know yet.
At this point he argues for Angel's life to Burge, claiming that W&H don't condone his actions and will take away his TV privileges, but that he was left alive for a reason, and Burge would do well to leave him that way. "Angel's fate isn't up to you." Burge agrees to leave it for now, but won't abide any other attacks on his holdings or his men. Angel needs to stay inside tonight. His son isn't happy and tries to kill Wes, which doesn't work 'cause he's all ghostly now.
For some reason Angel has a stake in his hand at this point. Not sure why or if he had it on him or grabbed a piece of broken furniture. He gets nostalgic with it, but Wes doesn't follow. They talk about the night's 'rounds' and we cut to the address Angel gave the humans as a refuge.
Santa Monica. They approach a hotel, arguing whether they should have trusted the guy on the dragon. They enter to see a large group of people, humans and demons, all armed. Then the air turns electric as Gwen! enters the picture. As she appears in front of them, holding them in place with her juju, Nina! approaches from the rear, giving them a good smell. She's all feral and gross, and the lawyer asks if she's hungry or bi-curious when Nina gives her a lick. Apparently the sun and moon are both out all the time in this hell, and it's keeping the werewolves constantly in flux.
And then who would appear but Connor! He's running this place; calls the group his family.
Angel is getting his wounds tended to by a creepy Cronenbergian demon bug thing. Ew. He and Wes talk some more. It's obvious things are strained between them. Wes is being stoic but depressive. Angel doesn't trust him because of his contract with W&H. Angel tells Wes he didn't fight back against Burge because he knew it would escalate to fullout war with demons using human targets. So Angel's pretty much spent the last couple of months just saving small groups of humans under attack and sending them to Connor for protection.
He asks Wes if that's what W&H wants, but Wes says he doesn't know. Angel doesn't know whether to believe that or not. Wes says he would give anything to get out of his contract and move on, but knows no way to do it. So he says he wants Angel to stop being so gunshy about having damned the city to hell and start trying to take some control back before someone else does.
Cut to KR'PH, Lord of Westwood, Dark Overseer of Everything West of Beverly Hills. He's a creepy dude that looks like a skeleton covered with a blue protoplasm, with glowing red eyes and a glowing yellow globe in the center of his chest. He's in the UK-LA Sporting Field? -- some arena, surrounded by scantily-clad slave girls and demon bodyguards, trying for some human gladiator action. The humans are ex-cops and bouncers dressed vaguely like Roman gladiators. (Shout-out to DeKnight?) They're not excited to fight one another.
KR'PH tells the Splenden Beast beside him (looks like a giant, floating fish with hair) to brain-yell them into action. The fish claims to be a telepath, but he can't control other people. KR'PH uses his yellow globe to amp up the fish's power and tells him to do it or the humans will start dying. So the Splenden--look, we find out later his name is George, so let's go with that--George complies.
Then he senses others approaching the arena, angry others. We see a group of hooded figures approaching with weapons. They knock out George and fall upon the demons. KR'PH is fine at first, but as more of his bodyguards bite it, he starts shrieking about making a deal. Then we see who leads this band of merry men: Gunn! Yay, Gunn is alive! But surprising really.
He grabs the yellow globe from KR'PH's chest and the demon is down. "Chalk that up to a win for Team Gunn!" His teammates are all what? Apparently they were together before he came in and took over and then dressed them like his old gang. Anyway, the only ones besides them left alive now are the slave girls. Gunn tells them it's okay, that the last couple of months were just a bad dream. Then he hits on them. Ew.
Back at W&H, Burge's son is outside with 6 humans. He's an eye for an eye type I guess. He's going to kill them while Angel watches, having agreed (in their minds) to stay in the building. Angel ruminates on what to do. Wes told him everything he has been doing is wrong, but Angel doesn't know if that's Wes talking or W&H. But ultimately he can't stand by and watch this happen, so he stakes Burge's son in the eye, killing him. And war is declared.
"Of course, this might be exactly what Wolfram & Hart wants. That's fine. Let them think they're in charge. Wolfram & Hart has taken away everything I had. Everyone I cared about. Everything I was. But that's how I'm going to win. They think they've changed me." As the last bit of voiceover occurs, we see Gunn, in full vamp face, killing all the slave girls. Man.
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