Happy Anniversary

Plot

This episode opens with Cordelia and Wesley trying to get their new office in order. Gunn comes in from putting flyers on cars to find that the place is a mess with only one desk and a broken phone.

Angel is sleeping in bed when someone singing The Star-Spangled Banner downstairs wakes him up. He comes downstairs to find The Host. The Host tells Angel that tomorrow night the world is going to end.

The Host tells Angel about an average, boring guy who came into the bar to sing. While the guy was singing, The Host passed out. The average guy’s future did not extend past 10:00 p.m. the next night, and no one else had a future past then either. When The Host came to, the guy was gone. He explains to Angel that the guy is going to do something between now and tomorrow night that will end the world if they don’t do something about it. Angel asks him why he came for his help, and The Host explains that Angel is a champion and that this is an emergency situation. They decide to look for the guy in other karaoke bars.

The scene then moves to a laboratory at a university. The average guy from the bar, Gene, explains to another student that he has plans to freeze time, if he can get the math right. Gene’s girlfriend shows up and they talk awkwardly about their plans for their one-year anniversary tomorrow night.

Angel and The Host get information from a bartender that suggests that the guy from the bar is a graduate student at a nearby university.

Back at the university lab, Gene tries to freeze a drop of mercury in time and fails. When he leaves the lab, some demons appear and change the math formula written on the board while talking about the end of the human race.

Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn are all in their new office wallowing in depression over how the place is in such bad shape. Virginia shows up with champagne and a job for them. Some wealthy clients have a demon hanging around the house that they want removed. She explains that the demon has already killed one of their sons.

Back in the lab, Gene returns and succeeds in freezing the mercury in time by using the new formula. He runs excitedly from the lab and comes upon Denise and a friend talking. They do not see him, and Denise admits that she is planning on breaking up with Gene that night after their anniversary dinner. She plans to sleep with him one last time before she breaks up with him. She tells her friend that it just isn’t the kind of love that lasts. Gene returns to the lab, looks at a picture of him and Denise, looks at the frozen drops of mercury, and then states that he will give her a love that lasts.

In the meantime, Angel and The Host find a picture of Gene in a yearbook at the school library. While Angel is getting directions to the physics lab, he is attacked by the same demons that were in the lab earlier. Angel defeats them and they flee, but not before talking about the golden child for whom they have been awaiting. The Host explains that they are Lubber demons, a fanatical sect that awaits a messiah that will usher in the end of all human life.

Angel and The Host go to the lab and find all of Gene’s equipment missing. Another graduate student explains that Gene was working on freezing time itself. The student also explains that if the machine got out of control, it could end up stopping the entire world. Angel assumes that Gene probably took his own equipment.

In the meantime, Gene was busy setting up the equipment in the basement of the apartment building and in his bedroom. He is also getting the place ready for an anniversary dinner.

While heading to Gene’s apartment, The Host and Angel talk about Angel’s recent bad attitude. The Host tells Angel that his heart is no longer in it and that he’s gone from helping the helpless to hunting down the guilty. Angel finally opens up and tells The Host that it is too much for him. He is trying to atone for 100 years of evil and that is something he never can accomplish. He is also frustrated by Wolfram & Hart constantly trying to drive him crazy. That is why is going to kill Darla and then burn the law firm to the ground. The Host tells him that it isn’t always going to be this bad. Angel suddenly runs over a Lubber demon and then they surround them.

While all of this has been going on, Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn have killed the demon for their client. In a room with the father, mother, daughter, son, and aunt of the client family, Wesley explains that the demon was acting under orders. He then plays detective and figures out that it was the aunt behind it all. She tries to flee but Cordelia apprehends her.

Angel fights a hoard of Lubber demons. The Host manages to disable a few of them by singing an ear-piercing note.

Gene and Denise are having an awkward conversation at dinner. They go into the bedroom and Denise begins undressing. They end up in bed together while Angel and The Host are still racing to get to the apartment.

Gene starts to activate the time-freezing machine while they are making love and stops them in time. The Lubber demons in the basement enter codes into the machine that causes the bubble surrounding the frozen couple to expand. Right before the bubble reaches the machine, Angel pulls the plug and the bubble retracts until it disappears.

The Host and Angel sit at a table with Gene, apparently having explained to him what all just happened. Gene apologizes for causing so much trouble and explains that he just didn’t want it to end. The Host encourages Angel to console him in the matters of love, but Angel ends up sounding morbid. The Host then tells them that you can’t hold onto something forever, it is the change that everyone is looking for. When Gene gets up to get a beer, Angel tells The Host that he can really relate to the guy since he is terrible at love and nearly destroyed the world. Angel also comments about how he did really leave his friends in the cold by firing them.

The scene then switches to Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn having a dance party at their new office. A man shows up and asks for help. He asks which of the three of them is Angel, and Wesley replies that it is just a name for their business.