Are you now or have you ever been

Plot

Present Day – Per Angel’s direction, Wesley and Cordelia are investigating the abandoned Hyperion Hotel in Hollywood, despite the fact that there is no client.

1952 – At the Hyperion Hotel, the bellman is instructed to deliver the weekly bill to Room 217. He’s apprehensive. The tenant in that room unnerves him. He gathers his courage enough to drop the bill on the threshold and run. As he races back to the elevator, the door to room 217 opens and its “creepy” tenant steps into the hallway. It’s Angel.

Present Day – Angel stands in the lobby of the hotel. It’s the same lobby he stumbled upon last week.

1952 – Angel heads up to his room, ignoring the day to day bustle of the people surrounding him. He enters his room and unpacks a bottle of blood. He retrieves his ice bucket and goes back into the hallway to fill it. A salesman stands at the end of the hall, talking to himself. Another man is pounding on the door of the room across the hall. Angel returns to his room but now he has a visitor. A young woman, Judy, has taken refuge in Angel’s room. She tells Angel the man pounding on the door across the hall is her boyfriend. She’s avoiding him. Angel doesn’t care.

Just as he’s about to throw her out, Angel hears the sound of someone picking the lock on his door. He swings it open to discover the “boyfriend.” Angel makes short work of getting rid of him by breaking his nose, dragging him down the hall and tossing him in the elevator. Judy is beside herself with relief. As she goes to thank Angel, he steps back into his room and slams the door in her face.

Present Day – Wesley and Cordelia have continued their research, finding a history of murder and death leading up to the hotel’s closing in 1979. It’s now an historical landmark but no one has been willing to buy it. As Cordelia is looking through old photographs, she comes across a familiar face. Angel. In 1952. They realize that Angel’s connection to this place is personal.

1952 – In the room next door to Angel’s, the salesman listens to a cheery tune. A voice whispers to him. He walks to the desk, picks up a gun and loads it. He sinks to the floor clutching a pillow. He raises the pillow (and the gun) to his head. In his own room, Angel pours himself a bloody beverage. A shot rings out. Angel pauses for a moment and then continues to drink.

The bellman and the hotel manager go up to the salesman’s room. As they discuss what to do about this latest death, a voice whispers to the manager, telling him that they’ll shut the place down now. The manager realizes it’s true. He decides not to report the incident to the police and instructs the bellman to store the body. Down in the lobby, the residents of the hotel are discussing the suicide. An older man sits apart from the debate. He hears a voice whispering to him. Maybe it wasn’t suicide. Maybe it was murder.

Angel is up at Griffith Park Observatory. He stands alone, surveying the lights of Los Angeles. Judy is also there. She’s come to see the show and get out of the heat. She thanks Angel for his assistance with the “boyfriend” and invites him to join her inside. He refuses, wishing to be alone. Finally, Judy takes the hint and leaves him.

Present Day – Wesley and Cordelia continue to piece together the pieces of the puzzle.

1952 – The old man is now telling the others that he thinks it was murder. Within minutes, everyone is aboard the paranoia bandwagon. Angel is heading back to his room when Judy beckons him. She’s frantic. She explains that she stole some money from the bank she worked at in Kansas after her employers discovered that she was half-black. The “boyfriend” is actually a PI who has been looking for her. She’s afraid that the police are going to find her when they come to investigate the “murder.” Angel decides to help her.

Present Day – Cordy and Wesley come across an old press clipping about Judy. The search for her was called off and she was presumed dead. She disappeared in 1952 after staying at the Hyperion.

1952 – Angel takes Judy down to the basement and hides the money. While he’s down there, he hears that whispering voice. He realizes that there’s something in the hotel that’s making people crazy.

Present Day – Angel returns to the basement and unearths the bag of money, still untouched. Judy never returned for it. Wesley is back at the apartment looking for the pattern in all the mayhem of the hotel’s history. Angel calls. It’s a Thesulac Demon, a demon that whispers to his victims and then feeds on their fear and paranoia. He wants to raise the demon and kill it. Wesley offers to research the ritual but there’s no need. Angel already knows it.

1952 – Angel visits a Hollywood bookstore looking for information. The bookstore owner throws a bible at him. Angel vamps out. He grabs the shop owner and threatens him. Angel needs his help.

Back at the hotel, the paranoia has reached a fevered pitch. They’re turning on one another. In the midst of the witch hunt, the PI returns to the lobby. He’s looking for someone. He flashes Judy’s picture. Judy sits upstairs in her room as the demonic whispering warns her that the others will turn her in. She’ll never make it in prison.

The shop owner supplies Angel with the ingredients he needs to raise the Thesulac. He also gives him a battle-ax, which may or may not kill the demon. To really kill it, a bolt of lightning would be helpful. Angel takes the tools and heads back to the hotel.

Present Day – Wesley, Cordy and Gunn are at the hotel. They have begun the raising ritual.

1952 – Angel arrives back at the hotel but the lobby is deserted. When he arrives on his floor, he discovers why. The mob has taken Judy. They’re swarming her, accusations flying. A terrified Judy spies Angel walking down the hall. She announces that Angel’s the murderer. He’s a monster who keeps blood in his room.

The angry mob turns on Angel. They drag him out into the lobby and hang him from the rafters. As Angel hangs there, seemingly dead, the enormity of what they’ve done sinks in. The fervor dies out and they all flee to their rooms.

Once the lobby is empty, Angel reaches up and undoes the noose. The Thesulac, now fully sated and corporeal, appears before him. He tells Angel how tasty their fear and paranoia is. The most interesting part of all this to him is that Angel really did reach Judy. And she turned on him anyway. Now the ramifications of her betrayal will feed him for years. He offers Angel the chance to redeem all these tortured souls. Angel tells the demon to take them all.

Present Day – The ritual complete, the Thesulac appears before them. He speaks of how he’s been feeding all these years and it just gets better with age. Gunn shoots his crossbow at the Thesulac, nailing one of his tentacles to the wall. Angel grabs another and slams it into the fuse box, electrocuting the demon.

Realizing what the demon was referring to about still feeding, Angel goes upstairs and finds Judy in her old room. She’s been there for the past fifty years, living with what she had done to Angel. She asks him for forgiveness. A shaken Angel grants it. Finally at peace, Judy lies down to rest and passes away.

Angel returns to the others downstairs. They can’t wait to be getting out of the hotel. Angel shakes his head. Not so fast. They’re not leaving.

Angel Investigations is moving in.