Angel - S1E20

Warzone
First Aired: Tuesday May 9, 2000

Angel is hired by a rich computer person to stop him from being blackmailed. When Angel strays into a certain neighborhood, he is confronted by a rag-tag team of street kids who hunt vampires.

The opening segment of the episode shows a girl being chased by some vampires, but when they turn to see who has come to stop them, it is a young black man (instead of Angel). He and his group take on the vampires, dusting a few, but when they return to their home, one of the group dies. Charles Gunn, the leader, shows little remorse since the guy died for a cause. Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley are attending a party elsewhere. The man running the party is a computer nerd who has made millions and is now being blackmailed with pictures of him at a demon brothel. Investigating the case, Angel is lead back to a man in a seedy part of town. When he confronts the man there, Gunn sees Angel vamp-out and sees him as a target. Angel returns the next night, but the blackmailer has brought a demon, which Angel is able to kill after a taxing battle. That isn't the end of the night for him, however, since Gunn's crew then shows up and hunts him. They corner Angel, who has Gunn's sister hostage, but he saves her life and the crew lets him go. Angel worries for their wellbeing and returns the next night to aid them. They aren't interested in that, since they had been ambushed by the vampires in the area and Gun's sister was taken, so they look him in a meat locker and they go to confront the vamps. Gun wishes to enter alone and is confronted by a horrifying sight; his sister has been turned. She tries to convince him to join her, but in the end he does the hardest thing and stakes her. Back at the locker, Cordelia and Wesley show up to let Angel out. Angel arrives at the warehouse in time to kill the vampire leader and scares off the rest. Cordelia and Wesley talk the next day about how the people survive with Charles Gunn before Cordelia starts talking about selling herself out to the geek. The episode ends with Angel meeting up with Gunn in an abandoned building and Angel saying he may need his help in the future, giving him reassurance that what he is doing is right.

I enjoyed this episode, if for nothing more than it introduced Gunn. It was an above average episode where two separate story lines converged into one. My favorite moment was at the end when Angel sort of confirmed to Gunn that he was on the right path and that Angel would be glad to have him as an ally.

Score: 3 / 5