Angel

Season 5

Conviction

1. Alexis Denisof was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy just before filming of the final season on Angel commenced. During the shooting of 'Conviction', director Joss Whedon was careful to keep most of Alexis's shots on his right profile, as the left side of his face was fairly immobile at the time.
2. On the DVD commentary, Joss Whedon says that the first scene in the 5th season's first episode purposely matches the first scene in the first episode of Season 1, in that Angel is saving a damsel in distress in a dark alley.
3. The long shot in which Fred, and subsequently the other characters, arrive at the Wolfram and Hart building is three and a half minutes long and took 27 times to get it right.
4. Character Corbin Fries is the name of Joss Whedon's nephew.
5. David Boreanaz appears in this season as the only remaining original Angel (1999) cast member.
6. T.J. Thyne who would later plays alongside David Boreanaz on Bones (2005) makes the first of several appearances on Angel (1999) in this episode.
7. J August Richards' character Charles Gunn becomes a lawyer in this episode which is named Conviction. He would go on to play lawyer Billy Desmond on a Law And Order series also named Conviction.
8. Spike (James Marsters) returns! Spike died in the last episode of Buffy the vampire slayer (1997) called Chosen (2003)

Just Rewards

1. The flashback scene takes place in Sunnydale in May 2003.
2. After Spike has materialized and he understands who he is, Lorne says, "Honey of a story - the Vampire Slayer both men loved, both men lost. Oh, I could sell that to any studio in a heartbeat." This is a self-referential statement about (one story line) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) - the story which did become a series.

Unleashed

1. When Gunn jokes about a leprechaun soufflé Crane responds with "there's no such things as leprechaun," contributing to the running gag throughout both Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) and Angel (1999) regarding the nonexistence of a magical creature in a world where most other mythical beings do in fact exist.
2. Jenny Mollen originally auditioned for the role of Eve. The part went to Sarah Thompson. However, the producers liked Mollen so much, she was brought back as Nina Ash, aka Werewolf Girl.
3. Around 30:09, when Fred, Gunn, Wesley and Angel are in Angel's office trying to figure out who kidnapped Nina, Wes says "An underground, monster hunting, military organization... it's happened before" he's referring to Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 4 when she and the Scoobies come across Riley and "The Initiative" - which is literally an underground, monster hunting, military organization.
4. Of his experience playing Dr. Evan Royce in this episode, John Billingsley said, "It was fine. It wasn't a particularly fleshed-out part. Everybody was very nice, and treated me well. I had nothing negative to say but it wasn't something that was particularly memorable."
5. Lorne says to Angel, "OK, Atlas, how about a shrug?" This is a reference to Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."
6. Around 22:50, when Fred is in the limo with Nina, they're discussing Angel and how he saves people. Nina says "Guess he saves a lot of girls, huh?" and Fred replies, "Girls, guys, puppies...." The "puppies" comment is in reference to Angel Season 4, Episode 15 "Orpheus" when Faith and Angelus go into each others' minds and relive Angel's life where in the 1920s, Angel saves a puppy from being run over by a car.

Hell-Bound

1. Gunn says about the White Room, "Actually, it's not that bad... if you like cats." Angel nervously replies, "I'm kind of a dog person." It is part of TV lore that David Boreanaz was walking his dog one day when he was spotted by a talent manager and cast as Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).
2. Angel and Spike actually have the same first name. Spike's mortal name is William, and Angel's is Liam - the Irish derivation of William.
3. Simon Templeman who plays Matthias Pavayne or "Reaper" also had a recurring role as the Angel of Death on the TV series Charmed.
4. The sounds of the man in the basement chopping off his fingers were done by Foley artists chopping vegetables. In fact, they sound much more like carrots or cabbage than human fingers.

Life of the Party

1. Since the original airdate for this episode was close to Halloween, the original television promotion was called 'Halloween: Lorne Style'.
2. The movie/TV show that Lorne is pitching, on his cell phone, at the very beginning, sounds very close to Joss Whedon's original idea for his TV show, "Firefly".
3. T.J. Thyne has a brief appearance as an employee here. He would soon after this episode go on to star in Bones alongside David Boreanaz (Angel). This is the second actor to have a guest spot on Angel before appearing on Bones with him. (The first being Joel David Moore in the episode Salvage.

The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco

1. In flashback, an attorney gives Number 5 a Wolfram & Hart business card. If you look closely, on the bottom left hand side of the card, you can see the name of the lawyer, "Holland Manners, Associate Attorney." Holland Manners appears in season 1 of Angel (decades after the events in this flashback) as a senior attorney at Wolfram & Hart.
2. The flashback scenes take place in Los Angeles in 1953.
3. There is a flashback where one of the brothers answers the phone. What he says in Spanish translates to: "What? The devil built a robot?" Numero Cinco mentioned the incident with the Devil's Robot to Angel earlier in the episode.
4. This episode's plot is reminiscent of the "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" episode "Legacy of Terror". See also trivia for Angel Episode 5.7 "Lineage".

Lineage

1. Spike's line "Sex with robots is a lot more common than you think" is a likely a reference to Warren's robot girlfriend and his own Buffybot in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).
2. Spike refers to Wesley as "Percy" while poking fun at the fact of him being head boy in school. This is a reference to Harry Potter character Percy Weasley.

Destiny

1. Alexis Denisof does not appear in this episode as he took time off for his wedding to Alyson Hannigan (Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997)).
2. After Spike spares Angel's life by only stabbing him in the shoulder, Spike says "Probably should have dusted you, but frankly I don't want to hear *her* bitch about it." He is clearly referring to Buffy.
3. Fred refers to Gunn as "Gunn" in this episode as opposed to "Charles" as we see in previous episodes. Perhaps this is intentional, emphasizing the fact that the couple have now parted ways.
4. In a flashback to 1880, Angelus says, "William. You know, you really should find a new name for yourself. It just doesn't strike the right note of terror." This provocation might be the reason why William found the reasons to re-name himself Spike.
5. Christian Kane's return as Lindsey McDonald was kept a closely guarded secret. Sarah Thompson (Eve) didn't know until shortly before filming their scene together.
6. After Angel brawls with Spike, Angel is breathing heavily. Vampires don't breath.

Harm's Way

1. The voice-over in the beginning says Wolfram & Hart has influence in every major corporation, including Weyland-Yutani. This fictitious firm is the ominous company in the Alien films, including Alien vs. Predator (2004).
2. Another corporation under the Wolfram and Hart umbrella is Yoyodyne. This company is run by the evil Red Lectroids in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) as a cover for their activities on Earth.
3. Brendan Hines plays a character named Eli. He also plays a character named Eli in "Lie To Me".
4. The actress shown in the film (with the VO proclaiming 'she owes us her first born') is Merle Oberon. An interesting true fact about Ms Oberon was that the woman who she introduced to everyone as her 'housekeeper' was, in fact, her mother. Ms Oberon was of Indian (the country) descent, and tried to hide this throughout her life.

Soul Purpose

1. This episode was David Boreanaz's directorial debut.
2. David Boreanaz had just had knee surgery when shooting began. As a consequence Angel spends most of the episode sitting or lying down.
3. On the Commentary, David Boreanaz says of directing the scene between James Marsters and Christian Kane, "What's great about working with actors that are so passionate about what they do, is that you really get raw power out of them. In this scene, I really wanted to capture the rawness of these two characters. And James and Christian really brought that to the table. I let them do their thing. They know what they're doing, basically; and as long as their energy's up, and they're real internal with their passion, it really shows at the end, here. I think that if I can get under their veins and really pump what I want to get out of them, that I've achieved something, as far as the story's concerned. They definitely did their job in this scene."
4. Some references to season 1 episode 1, not just the appearance of Lindsay masquerading as Doyle having visions but Spike re-enacts a double vampire kill using stakes in his sleeves exactly like Angel.
5. Wesley says that what attacked Angel was a Selminth parasite. This is just one letter away from helminth, a class of terrestrial parasitic worms which feed off living hosts and cause weakness and disease (though they have never been known for causing traumatic psychical dreams to vampires).
6. Christian Kane, who was uncredited, says on the Commentary that, in the strip club scene, a few of the extras were big "Angel" fans and had begun to leak Kane's appearance onto the Internet. Joss Whedon had decreed that Lindsey would use the name Sean, so no one knew that Kane would be showing up as "Doyle" - which was clever of Whedon, to fool the fans who would want to mob the sets, but which was a cruel trick to play on Angel, as it turns out later.
7. The kitchen cabinets, and most of the furniture, in Spike's new apartment was also used in Angel's home in Season 1, as well as in his kitchen at the Hyperion hotel suite.
8. In the first moments of the show, we know that Angel is dreaming, because previously, in "Destiny," Spike was as badly beaten as Angel, but here he has not a scratch on him.
9. When Lindsay shows Spike his new digs, he says "Great. Another ruddy basement". This is in reference to his stay in Xander's basement in Buffy S4 and Buffy's basement in S7. Lindsay tells Spike that being a hero requires a Spartan existence. When Faith first comes to Sunnydale in Buffy S3, her (fake) new watcher, Gwendolyn Post, tells her the same thing when she sees her hotel room.
10. During Angels - Fred hallucination, Fred cuts open Angels abdomen and pulls out various organs, she also pulls out a licence plate with the comment "came up through the gulf stream". This is a reference/pun to Jaws when Richard Dreyfuss opens the first shark caught by local fishermen. He finds a licence plate and says something very similar "just as I thought, he can't up through the gulf stream".
11. In the "Honky-Tonk" dream sequence Lorne tells Angel, "Sing out, Louise." The line comes from the musical "Gypsy".
12. During Angel's hallucination, Fred tells him that "you're empty. There's nothing left. Just a shell." Later, as Illyria, she often refers to human bodies as "shells," with nothing spiritual important inside them.
13. People, in the prior case Darla working for Wolfram and Hart, also messed with Angel's dreams and made him sleep all the time in the season two episode First Impressions. As such, he and the others who were part of the team at the time should have been more aware in this episode of what was going on, despite the slight differences in the two cases.

Damage

1. As Spike is fighting Dana, she speaks Chinese to him. He says "Sorry love, I don't speak Chinese." That is what he said to the slayer that he killed during the Boxer Rebellion.
2. In the scene where Angel, Gunn, and Wesley are walking across the foyer at Wolfram and Hart David Boreanaz can be seen walking with a limp. This is probably due to the knee surgery that was kept him immobile in the previous episode.
3. When they are brainstorming in the boardroom, Fred exclaims "Whiskey!". Whiskey was Amy Acker's doll name in Dollhouse, Joss Whedon's series that starred Eliza Dushku as the main character, who played Faith the vampire slayer in Buffy/Angel.
4. The flashback scenes take place in Los Angeles in 1988.
5. In the opening moments of the show, Dr. Rabinaw sees that the nurse is working a crossword and says, "Give me one." She suggests, "'In a mellifluous manner.' 7 letters, ends in a 'Y'." It is hardly secret knowledge that the Latin word for honey is "mellis," and "fluens" means "spilling", which suggests that the answer is "sweetly." Perhaps it does suggest something about his character that Dr. Rabinaw gives up and says, "Give me another one."

You're Welcome

1. Charisma Carpenter turned down their initial offer to appear as Cordelia. She said she later agreed to come back in order to give fans some closure to the character.
2. With the use of footage of Doyle from the first season, this 100th episode of the series features all three main cast members credited in the first episode.
3. According to Charisma Carpenter, she and David Boreanaz spent several hours crying together during their finale scene.
4. Though not credited, Joss Whedon wrote the final scene between Angel and Cordelia.
5. Cordelia's statement: "Doyle pissed me off so righteously going out like that" refers to the death of the actor who played Doyle, Glenn Quinn who died of a heroin overdose, rather than the character Doyle, who sacrificed his own life to save Los Angeles.
6. Spike is playing Donkey Kong when "Doyle" (Lindsey) comes in to his room.
7. Originally Sarah Michelle Gellar was to appear in this the 100th episode instead of Charisma Carpenter, but scheduling conflicts made her pull out. She then offered to appear in the finale but Joss Whedon declined stating that the finale should only be focused on the characters on Angel and no special guest stars.
8. When Lindsey fights Angel and pulls out his knife, he opens it as if it's a butterfly knife. It's shown as a front opening Buck knife right afterwards.
9. The katana that Cordelia uses against Lindsey has been hanging on the wall of Angel's office since season 2 with the acquisition of the hotel.
10. When Charisma Carpenter was asked to appear in this episode as Cordelia she originally said she would under the condition that Cordelia not be killed off. When she got the script and saw that Cordelia would die, she was very upset and cried.

Why We Fight

1. One of the government officials recruiting Angel in 1943 for the submarine mission stated that he is part of the Demon Research Initiative. This is apparently a predecessor to the Initiative from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) Season Four.
2. While in the submarine during 1943, Angel and Spike uncover a German document that describes research on how to control demons by using brain implants. Years later, Spike will be captured and implanted with a government chip, rendering him unable to harm humans.
3. The character the Prince of Lies is a reference to Max Schreck, who played the main vampire in Nosferatu (1922), and Willem Dafoe, who played Max Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire (2000).
4. When Lawson asks Angel how someone can manage to swim to a submarine 400 feet below the surface of the ocean without an oxygen tank, the fact of the matter is that no one, not even vampires if they existed, could pull this off. Due to the pressure of the water weighing up to 600 tons per cubic inch in the ocean's depths, no one could manage to get 200 feet below the surface without their body being turned to complete mush. This, for example, can be referenced in James Cameron's telling of the Titanic, when in the opening sequence, researchers travel 12,000 feet to the ocean floor at the very bottom and have to be wary that their research shuttle does not crash into anything upon landing on deck, as the water pressure funneling through the portholes would cause instant death.
5. The flashback scenes take place in New York City and aboard a submarine in the Atlantic Ocean in 1943.
6. The title comes from documentaries commissioned by the US government during world war 2 to explain to soldiers (and eventually the american people) the reasons for the US involvement in the war.
7. Right after finding out what the Germans had in store through their research documents, Angel says not to kill the seaman because "I am not getting trapped at the bottom of the sea!" Spike retorts "I am not getting experimented on by his government". Both happen to them years later. The transition between "Angel"'s 3rd and 4th seasons finds Angel trapped at the bottom of the sea by Connor. Spike is tortured by the government's "Initiative," in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) Season Four.
8. When Angel realizes that Lawson has been stabbed and is dying, Angel orders, "Tell me what to do." Lawson gasps that he knows how to fix the propulsion problem for the submarine, but that he is the only one who knows how to fix it. Angel says, "I know you can," morphs into a vampire, and bites Lawson. The script reads, "Lawson seems passive and confused at first, but transforms in a moment into a blood-thirsty vampire-to-be, holding on tight to Angel's arm and suckling hard at Angel's hand." This is one of few scenes showing that vampire victims enjoy being transformed; which is, of course, a basis of much fan-fiction.

Smile Time

1. While Angel has accepted a suite of rooms at Wolfram & Hart as his new home, Fred is revealed to have a home in a trendy Los Angeles neighborhood near Venice Beach, at 511 Windward Circle.
2. Lorne says 'Is there a Geppetto in the house?!'. Andy Hallet, The actor whom played Lorne, went on to make Geppetto's Secret (2005)
3. David Fury: plays Gregor Framkin.

A Hole in the World

1. The song Eve sings for Lorne is "LA Song", which was written by David Greenwalt and performed by Christian Kane (Lindsey McDonald). Lindsey performed the song at Lorne's Caritas nightclub in Angel: Dead End (2001).
2. Feigenbaum, Fred's stuffed bunny, is named after Mitchell Jay Feigenbaum, a mathematical physicist, who did pioneering studies in chaos theory.
3. The story that Fred has Wesley to read to her is Frances Hodgson Burnett's "A Little Princess."
4. The Deeper Well is a reference to the Emmylou Harris song from her album 'Wrecking Ball'. It's about religion, about the well of souls.
5. According to the lease agreement Gunn shows Wes, Lindsey had been living at 6851 Westeried Lane, Apt. 2, Los Angeles, CA 90932 under landlord Mike Nichols. The lease was from November 1, 2003 to November 1, 2004.
6. The flashback scenes take place in Texas in the mid 1990s.
7. Co-creator Joss Whedon was set to write and direct the previous episode, "Smile Time" (5.14), but he came up with this one and entrusted the other to Ben Edlund. According to Whedon, he was reading Shakespeare with actors Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker and suddenly decided to kill Fred and allow Acker to play an entire different character.

Shells

1. All three of the main Angel actresses have alliterative names, Charisma Carpenter (CC), Amy Acker (AA) and Mercedes McNab (MM).
2. The flashback scenes take place in Texas in the mid 1990s.

Underneath

1. Illyria mentions visiting a world with nothing but shrimp. This is a nod to Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Superstar (2000), in which Anya and Buffy are talking about alternate realities, specifically a world with nothing but shrimp.
2. The opening credits were changed to show Amy Acker would now be playing the part of Illyria and confirming her previous character, Fred, would no longer be portrayed.
3. Spike mentions Knight Rider. One episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer shows an excited Clem telling Spike there's a Knight Rider marathon on hinting that he and Spike are fans.
4. Mercedes McNab was added to the credits, because the show was going to be canceled.
5. When Angel visits Gunn in the hospital he looks at the magazine that Gunn is reading and refers to Trista and Ryan's big baby plans. The couple he is referring to is Trista (Rehn) and Ryan Sutter. Trista was on season 1 of The Bachelorette. She chose Ryan Sutter and their wedding was televised in 2003. Their first child was born in 2007, three years after 'Underneath' aired.
6. When Lorne is in the bar and says he's sick of wearing bells on his toes is likely a reference to the nursery rhyme: "Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross To see a fine lady upon a white horse; With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, She shall have music wherever she goes."
7. When Eve, Harmony, and Lorne hear the alarms going off in Wolfram and Hart signalling that Hamilton has made his way past security, Lorne asks, "This thing coming after you... How bad on a scale of, say, one to Terminator?" Almost immediately after that, they witness Hamilton punch clean through the abdomen of a security guard attempting to stop him, just like Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator did in the first film.

Origin

1. According to Andy Hallett, it was during the filming of this episode that the cast and crew were given the news that the show was canceled. It was in fact during the previous episode, as stated in the DVD commentary for that episode, just after the scene in the basement.
2. Connor informs Angel that he is attending Stanford University. In s. 3 ep. 10 "Dad," Angel makes it known that he wants Connor to attend the University of Notre Dame. The football teams at these universities are rivals and meet annually to play for the Legends Trophy.

Time Bomb

1. Jaime Bergman who plays Amanda is married to David Boreanaz.
2. While telling Amanda about the Fell Brethren, Gunn comments that their leader makes Jim Jones "look like a Sunday school teacher." Jones was the leader of the Peoples Temple cult, which became notorious in 1978 for the mass suicide of its members; in total, 909 people died at the Jonestown settlement in Guyana, and the incident was the greatest single loss of American civilian life until the September 11 attacks in 2001.

The Girl in Question

1. According to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 graphic novel, the girl in question is not actually Buffy. She is one of two decoy slayers meant to draw attention away from the actual Buffy, who is training slayers in Scotland. It was Andrew who thought it would be hilarious for this decoy to be dating "The Immortal."
2. In the original script that Joss Whedon wrote, Andrew was seen leaving with a man and a woman. However, during filming when Joss wasn't there it was changed to two women.
3. Michelle Trachtenberg was originally going to appear but had to back out when the shooting schedule for EuroTrip (2004) was changed. The script was re-written with Andrew Wells instead.
4. It is stated by a house-sitting Andrew Wells that Buffy and Dawn are living in Rome and Dawn is going to school there in order to learn Italian. This is an in-joke based on Kristine Sutherland who played Joyce Summers on Buffy. She was largely absent from season 4 because she was house-sitting in Italy, partly in order to allow her daughter to go to school there and learn Italian. Now her character's daughters do the same.
5. It's a commonly held belief that Sarah Michelle Gellar was approached to appear in this episode, but had to turn it down because she was filming The Grudge (2004). In actuality, the writers had never intended for Buffy to appear in the episode at all.
6. Angel's speech about the cookie dough is a reference to Buffy Season 7 finale when Angel makes an appearance to give Buffy the amulet that Spike wears in the final fight. Buffy uses an analogy that she is cookie dough rather than cookies because she's not done baking yet, meaning she hasn't fully developed personally.
7. The first episode where Amy Acker acted as Illyria acting as Fred.
8. In the Buffy movie she defines her four life aims as 'Graduate, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater and die'. By the time of her final appearance in this Angel story she has indeed achieved a score of four - although she hasn't married Christian Slater, Buffy did graduate, she went to Europe, and she has died twice.
9. The flashback scenes take place in Rome in 1894 and the 1950s.

Power Play

1. Mention is made of a Boretz Demon; this is a reference to Michael Boretz, assistant to Joss Whedon.
2. The flashback scene takes place in Los Angeles in 2004.
3. Spike tells Illyria to play Crash Bandicoot if she gets bored as he hands her an Xbox controller. The original Xbox unit is plainly visible. Crash Bandicoot was a PlayStation exclusive and became available to play on Xbox in 2017.
4. Last appearance of Jenny Mollen's character Nina Ash.
5. Last appearance of Jenny Mollen's character Nina Ash.
6. At the end of the episode, when they raise their hands to join Angel's fight against the Senior Partners and the Circle of the Black Thorn, the background music is the same as in the episode "Hero" (Season 1, Episode 9). "Hero," of course, was the episode in which Doyle sacrificed himself.
7. When Angel does the glamor, he states they have minutes to talk. From that point to the credits is 5 minutes and 9 seconds, giving time for the beginning of the next episode, Season 5 Episode 22, to finish.

Not Fade Away

1. Wesley's last scene was Alexis Denisof's last scene, and the last scene of the whole series (in the alley in the rain) was the last one to be shot.
2. As of the series finale, David Boreanaz is the only actor to have appeared in every episode, David Boreanaz and Christian Kane are the only actors to appear in both the first and last episodes of the series and David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, Alexis Denisof, Julie Benz and J. August Richards are the only actors to have appeared in every season.
3. The poem Spike reads in the bar is the same poem he reads to Cecily, the object of his affection, in "Fool for Love" in season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997). After Cecily rejects him, he wanders around London until he runs into Drusilla, who sires him.
4. Christian Kane (Lindsey) was unavailable for filming at the same time as the rest of the cast, so he filmed his scenes one and a half months before the rest of the episode was shot.
5. Charles Gunn uses a pair of retractable stakes, hidden in his sleeves, while fighting the senatorial candidate's cronies. These are exactly like the ones used by Angel in the series' first season.
6. WILHELM SCREAM: As Lindsey is fighting with his demons.
7. There is only one character to appear in both the unaired pilot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the series finale of Angel. While most people would assume it was Angel, he was not in the unaired pilot. The only character in both was Harmony.
8. The alley where the final fight takes place is the same alley where Angel fights with Faith in Season 1.
9. During Angel's speech before the plan, Spike says he's not wearing any amulets, alluding to when he wore an amulet to close the hellmouth, which killed him in the process.
10. The girl that Gunn helps move, was first seen in season two of Buffy, as a vampire worshipper named Chantarelle. In season three, she reunites with Buffy as a runaway. Buffy gives her the name Anne to use as a thank you for helping her. Anne is Buffy's middle name that she was also using as her alias as a waitress.
11. When Angel does the glamor, he states they have 6 minutes to talk. From that point to the credits is 5 minutes and 9 seconds, giving time for the beginning of the next episode, Season 5 Episode 22, to finish. When Hamilton enters the office, it's exactly 6 minutes total.
12. Last episode of the series.
13. Just before Lindsey meets his fate, Lorne tells him "I've heard you sing." This is technically true, as Lindsey did sing in front of Lorne - in Season 2, Episode 18 ("Dead End"), three years earlier. The all-seeing Lorne did not seem anything less than pleased with Lindsey's song in that episode. However Lindsey also sings a few bars of Christian Kane's "L.A. Song" just before Lorne shoots him, possibly sealing his fate in Lorne's eyes.