Bachelor Party (Angel)

Plot

Doyle is trying to talk Angel into having some fun, telling him he spends way too much time on "this whole redemption thing" when Cordy walks in ready for a date with a handsome rich man she has met. After Cordy and her date, a stock broker named Pierce, leave, Doyle picks up a book Angel was reading and his bookmark, a photo of Buffy, falls out. Doyle, having never met Buffy, does not realize it's her and starts to show an interest in her. With a hurt look upon his face Angel looks away, and Doyle realizes it is Buffy. Doyle then apologizes and puts the photo back. Immediately after, Doyle has a vision of a young man being held captive in a nest of vampires. While they go to clear it out and save the prisoner, Cordelia is on her date, incredibly bored because Pierce only talks about his work. As Angel and Doyle leave, a straggler vampire follows them to the office. He arrives there just as Cordelia's date drops her off. When the vampire walks up to them and attacks Cordelia, Pierce immediately gets in his car and flees, leaving Cordelia with the vampire. Luckily, Doyle appears at the door carrying a crossbow and, after a struggle, stakes the vampire with an arrow.

After things have settled, Cordelia expresses her frustration that, as a result of her experiences in Sunnydale, she now looks for bravery in potential suitors as well, and that she was impressed with Doyle's bravery during the confrontation with the vampire. As she tries to ask him out for some time together, Doyle's estranged wife, Harriet, asks for a divorce so she'll be free to marry her new love, Richard. Though quite surprised to learn this piece of Doyle's past, Angel and Cordelia do all they can to support their friend. With the wedding a few days away, Cordelia accepts Harry's invitation to her bridal shower and Doyle accepts the invitation to Richard's bachelor party. That night, Angel follows Richard and sees him accept a strange package from a car and then go to a restaurant kitchen with Harry. Upon seeing Richard change into a red, scaly demon, Angel breaks through the restaurant window and intervenes, thinking Richard plans to kill her. However, he discovers that Richard, as Harry already knew, is an Ano-movic demon, a race that used to be quite violent and savage, but has since become fully integrated in modern society and runs a series of luxurious restaurants, including the one they're in. The package Richard accepted was some unspecified, and "not strictly speaking illegal" foodstuff.

Though Richard and Harry know that Doyle was the one who put Angel up to following him, they still let Doyle come to the bachelor party. However, as the viewers find out, they plan to have Richard consume Doyle's brain as part of a pre-wedding ritual. At the party, Richard asks Doyle for his blessing in the marriage (Doyle being unaware that he is asking for consent in eating his brain). At the party, Angel, whom Doyle invited along, strays from the party and sees one of the family elders chanting ritualistically to a knife. After calling Harry and asking for a translation of the chanting, Angel is beaten and thrown out of the restaurant by some of Richard's relatives. At the party, Doyle gives Richard his blessing and is strapped into a wooden box with his head exposed. After being given local anasthesia to his head, Doyle learns that Richard is planning to consume his brain in order to bless his marriage as part of an ancient Ano-movic tradition (it hasn't been done in ages because no Ano-movic has married a previously married partner in that time). At the bridal shower, Harry and Cordelia translate what Angel heard and, after one of Richard's female relatives slips up, realize what they are up to and go to the bachelor party to stop them. Just as Richard are about to cut open Doyle's skull, Angel breaks through the door and starts fighting them. In the struggle, Doyle's bonds are broken, he transforms into his demon self and joins the fight.

At that moment, Cordelia and Harry burst in. Cordelia hits Doyle with a tray, not realizing that it's him, and he transforms back without her noticing. Harry berates Richard for not telling what he was planning and for still adhering to the Ano-movics' ancient, barbaric ways and breaks off her engagement to Richard. Back at the office, Doyle has another vision, this time of Buffy fighting something.

Acting

Guest star Carlos Jacott also appeared in two other Mutant Enemy produced television shows: he played Ken in "Anne", the first episode of the third season of Buffy, and Lawrence Dobson on the pilot episode of Firefly.

Continuity

Arc significance

Doyle has at least two significant opportunities to show Cordelia his demon face, neither of which he takes. The first is when he fights the stalker vamp and chooses to struggle unaugmented rather than reveal his mixed heritage. The second comes when Harry and Cordelia walk in on the boys' mêlée. Doyle has just been knocked flying and is lying out of sight under the table in one of the restaurant booths. He groggily sits up during Harry's tirade—still in demon form. Cordelia, in an excess of concern for her friend, Doyle, vents some of her anger and anxiety by grabbing a handy serving tray and repeatedly bashing the blue-green, spiny thing she believes to be one of the evil, brain-eating demons. Angel hastily comes to Doyle's rescue, both pulling Cordy off and distracting her so she won't see him morph back to human form. It remains unclear whether Cordelia recognizes him as the same person when Doyle deliberately shows her his demon face in "Hero".