Grade: A-
Angel begins experiencing dreams in which he hunts and brutally kills humans on the streets of LA; meanwhile, at the police department, Kate begin dealing with a chain of just such victims. Discussing the case with her, Angel inadvertently catches a glimpse of photos from the crime scenes, every corpse featuring a cross carved into their cheek. Obviously dismayed, he returns to headquarters, where Wesley, having decided to research Angel's historic killings with greater accuracy, has just realized that the cross carved onto the victims is extremely reminiscent of Angelus' modus operandi. Despite Cordelia's skepticism, Angel arrives and confirms Wesley's suspicion; he is unsure how, but he believes that in some manner he has been committing the murders in his dreams, or sleepwalking and retaining no memory of it afterward. Determined to get to the bottom of the affair, Wesley chains Angel to his bed and keeps watch over him through the night; in spite of this, another victim appears the next morning. Having experienced more detailed dreams that night, Angel now realizes what he's dealing with; Penn, a vampire sired by Angel in the 19th century, has arrived in LA, and Angel's sudden proximity to his old protege has triggered the onset of his dreams. Researching similar serial killings from the past, the team realizes that Penn repeats the same pattern every time; knowing that he needs to give Kate information, he provides her with a sketch of Penn and a clue regarding where he's likely to strike next, but refuses to explain the source of his knowledge. Determining to trust him, Kate follows up on his tip, successfully averting Penn's next killing but losing the suspect himself. Tracking Penn down, Kate follows him into an empty warehouse, where she shoots the vampire several times, only to be caught off guard when the shots do not injure him. Angel appears and fends off her attacker, only for Kate to witness his vampiric transformation. With no way out, Angel tells her what he is, and warns her to stay away from Penn in the future. Penn pays an undercover visit to Angel's headquarters, attempting to gain current information on his sire; Cordelia catches on to his ruse just as Angel and Wesley arrive, and Penn is able to buy his escape by taking Wesley hostage. Before he leaves, Angel taunts him with his repetitive, unoriginal pattern of crimes, stinging Penn into threatening something different and much worse. Learning the location of Penn's hideout, Angel and Wesley find evidence suggesting that he's going to attack a bus of schoolchildren; however, distrusting the too-obvious nature of the supposed plot, Angel deduces that Pen will head to the police station and target Kate instead. Acting on his suspicion, he arrives to find that it was correct. Managing to engage Penn in one-on-one combat, he gets the worst of it until Kate steps in; having done research on vampires since learning Angel's identity, she stakes Penn, sparing Angel's life despite having learned of his brutal past and gaining a deep distrust of him. Later that night, Angel worries that his dark nature might be resurfacing, admitting to Cordelia that he enjoyed the dreams of brutal killing; Cordelia assures him that she has faith in him, but also promises to stake him if he should ever become a problem.
Observations:
- One of the first times in the series where we get a glimpse of the truly dark events haunting Angel, as well as his being forced to face both ghosts from his past and present difficulties. Definitely an interesting glimpse of his on views of himself and the way he deals with his less-than-savory past.
- Kate finds out Angel's true identity, as was inevitably going to occur. It will be interesting to see where their personal and professional relationship goes from here.
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