Synopsis of The Prodigal


Written by TK

In Galway, Ireland, 1753, Angel is hung over and hitting on his family's servant. His father catches him and tells him off harshly for being such a loser and bringing disgrace to the family. He slaps Angel across the face.

Cut to Angel, present day, fighting a demon on the subway tracks in front of a stopped subway car. No one can see them from the station. Kate comes to the scene in the subway station, and gets a strange story from the cop there who says that some guy attacked a bunch of people on the train, and then got pulled through to the top hatch of the car. A passenger pulled the emergency brake. Angel finally kills the demon, just before Kate finds them behind the subway car. Kate is uncomfortable with the whole situation, and doesn't know how to write up her report. Angel says he'll take care of the demon body, and she should just write it up like she normally does when something strange happens and she doesn't completely understand it. Angel and Kate go back to the station, and overhear one of the witnesses from the train describing the suspect as average weigh, average height, average build. The witness, a delivery guy, says the suspect just came at him for no reason. Kate dismisses the witness, and then Angel spots Kate's father (retired cop) standing nearby. Kate goes to talk to him, and asks him if he's been listening to his police scanner again. Mr. Lockley (Kate's father) tries to play it off like he's not checking up on her and leaves, but Kate thinks he was checking up. She's kind of touched. She and Angel start chatting like friends, and then she turns to him and says she doesn't want everything to be normal like this, 'cause things aren't normal. She says she and Angel should just have a profession relationship, nothing personal.

Back in Ireland, Angel is in a bar fight, and an incredibly beautiful elegant woman is checking him out.

In the present day, Cordelia has had an alarm system installed at the office. Wesley looks up the demon that Angel killed so that they can figure out how to dispose of it. He discovers it's a Kwaini demon, femaled (they're all female), gentle, and articulate. They wonder what could have made this demon attack a train-load of people.

Angel goes to see Kate at her office. He says he thinks something else was going on with the demon on the train, and asks her for the names of the people who were on the train. She says it's over, forget about it. He says he's really like to question those people, particularly the delivery guy who said the suspect came right at him. Kate is not helpful.

Angel is spying on the delivery guy while talking to Wesley on his cell-phone. Meanwhile, Cordelia is cutting up the demon body. Angel talks about the tests that Wesley is going to run on the demon. Angel wonders why the delivery guy was on a subway train during his shift. He sees the delivery guy get out of his van, get a phone call on his cell-phone, and get back in his van and drive away. Angel tails him to a building where he sees the guy pick up a wrapped brown package from Kate's father!

Angel confronts Mr. Lockley at his apartment, and accuses him of showing up at the subway station yesterday not to check on Kate, but to steal evidence from a crime scene. Mr. Lockley denies it vehemently.

Back in Ireland, Angel is saying goodbye to his sister who is crying, telling her that they'll be together again someday. His father is yelling at him. His dad says some really terrible things to Angel, saying that he wanted a son but instead he got Angel. Angel says he's leaving and storms out of the house.

In a series of drunken hazy images, we see Angel getting seduced by the beautiful elegant woman at the bar, and then going outside with her. She vampires out, bites him, and then has him drink from her blood as well.

In present day, Kate's dad is meeting her for lunch during the work day. She is surprised that he would come all this way just for lunch. He tries to make like he had other reasons for being there, but then starts quizzing her about Angel. He asks if she's dating Angel, to which she of course says no, and then asks what Angel does for a living. She's says Angel is a private eye, and a good one.

Wesley is messing around with some of the body parts of the demon that Angel killed in the subway. He says it's definitely a Kwaini, as he originally thought, but the adrenal gland is much larger than usual, and he found traces in the body of a substance similar to metaphysical PCP, that would make the demon violent, and probably jonesing for more drug. Cordelia comes in from tailing the delivery guy during the daylight hours when Angel can't do it himself. She notes that he took a really long lunch at an exotic car warehouse, and left with three more of those brown wrapped packages.

Mr. Lockley walks into the exotic car warehouse, and reports to the guys in suits that they should lay low for awhile, 'cause Angel is on their tail. He says interrogating his daughter about her boyfriend was not part of their deal. He storms out, and the guys in suits turn to their leader, a huge ugly demon that emerges from the shadows, and asks what they should do. He tells them to kill both Angel and Mr. Lockley.

In Ireland, everyone is attending Angel's funeral. That night, the beautiful vampire comes to watch Angel rise from the grave. His first taste of human blood is that of a night watchman who catches what he thinks are grave-robbers. Then Angel sets off into town.

Cordelia is still playing around with the new alarm system, trying to get it to work. Angel says he's going to check out the exotic car warehouse, but Kate comes in and pulls him aside. She gives him the list of names he asked for and says she wants in on the case. Angel asks why the change of heart, and she tells him that her dad was asking about Angel, and when she told her dad that Angel was a good private investigator, she suddenly realized that she really meant it, and she trusted Angel's instincts.

Angel is ransacking the office trying to find his car keys. Wesley is telling him that making the protection of Kate from what her father has been doing highest priority is probably not the wisest way to go about things. Cordelia walks in with Angel's car keys and hands them over. As Angel leaves the office, Cordelia tells Wesley to have faith in Angel. Suddenly, violent Kwaini demons are pouring in all the doors and windows of the office. The alarm is useful only in that it announces their arrival, but their arrival is pretty obvious already. Cordelia and Wesley fight them off as best they can, and then Angel walks back in the door with a vial of the PCP-like stuff, and lures them into another room with it and then destroys them. He realizes that they were probably sent to get him, and he also realizes that that means Kate's dad is probably in danger too. He calls Kate and leaves her a message saying to get over to her dad's as soon as possible 'cause he's in danger.

In Ireland, Angel, now a vampire, goes to his home. His sister opens the door and thinks Angel has come back for her as he promised. She invites him in, and he kills her. He then throws all of the terrible words that his father ever said to him back in his father's face and kills him too. He also kills his mother.

Mr. Lockley is paid a visit by the men in suits. He invites the men in, and starts to make a drink while the men question him to make sure that his daughter doesn't know anything about what they've been doing. Once they're assured that Kate doesn't know anything, they start moving threatenly towards Mr. Lockley. Suddenly there's a knock at the door. Mr. Lockley opens it, and Angel sees what's about to happen and begs Mr. Lockley to invite him in. Mr. Lockley just tells Angel to go away, and then he's grabbed by the two men in suits who turn out to be vampires. Angel watches helplessly from the doorway as the vampires make short work of Mr. Lockley. As soon as Mr. Lockley is dead, Angel is able to enter the apartment, and he manages to stake one of the vampires before the other runs away. Just then, Kate arrives, and cries over her dead father. Angel tries to explain what was going on, but Kate, in her grief, just tells him to get out. He leaves.

Angel goes back to his place and gathers some serious weaponry.

Back at her dad's apartment, Kate finds an envelope full of cash with a business card from the exotic auto place.

At the exotic auto place, Kate sneaks up on a bunch of guys and shoots them. One, a vampire, comes towards her laughing that she doesn't know what she's dealing with. She says she does, pulls out a wooden stake, and gets him right through the heart... poof. Then the big ugly demon comes out, and when she tries to shoot him he just laughs at her. Luckily, Angel comes out full of his weaponry, and a huge fight ensues, and finally Angel ends up cutting off the big demon's head.

Angel is sitting in his family home in Ireland, surrounded by the corpses of his loved ones. The vampire who made him comes in and explains to him that even though he feels like he's had his revenge on his father, he will still never be able to get his father's love, which is what he really wanted. She reminds Angel that the humans they were before do make them the vampires they are now.

Angel watches Kate grieve over her father's grave.


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