This was a quite interesting episode, suspenseful. It goes back to the 1950s, where Angel was living in a creepily-wallpapered hotel, alone and brooding. He somewhat spontaneously helps a lady from her angry boyfriend. Angel’s first help? I think so. His instincts for helping aren’t honed yet though, and the lady turns out to be a thief and a liar, albeit one who feels guilty about it. She’s a good person. The hotel is filled with a paranoia demon, who feeds off paranoia, after feeding people their paranoia. There were also interestingly lots of scenes thrown in about race–a black family not being allowed to stay at the hotel, the lady Angel helps is half-black and feels disconnected, and finally Angel gets lynched. (After the paranoid hotel residents turn on him.) (Angel then lets the demon feed off them all, and leaves.)

This all leads to the present time, where somehow or other, Angel ends up at the hotel and Wesley and Cordelia research it. They return and vanquish the paranoia demon. Angel finds the lady he helped, who had been sitting in the room for 50 years, paranoid. She dies right there. Then Angel decides that’s where the new office should be.

Anyway this was pretty strong episode, I had no idea what was going to happen. And the way it was shot with the time jumps and the creepy wallpaper was pretty interesting. I didn’t really like the ending, with the old lady just dying, though I guess it did show a more forgiving Angel–he forgave her turning on him, which was in contrast to him letting the demon feed off all the hotel people 50 years ago. He’s a different vampire now.

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