Angel/Recap/S04 E07 Apocalypse Nowish

Old enmities are put aside as signs of an imminent apocalypse increase.

• After-Action Patchup / Shirtless Scene: Ramping up the UST between Cordelia and Connor.
• Bad Vibrations: In the coffee bar where Fred is when the ground starts trembling.
• Betty and Veronica: Lilah vs. Fred.

Lilah: Oh, come on. Do you think I care about your little crush? Moon all you want over the Texas Twig 'cause I know whose bed you'll be crawling into at the end of the day. (puts arms around his neck) Or the middle of it. (starts kissing Wesley)

• Blank White Eyes: Cordelia having a vision.
• Bound and Gagged / Perp Sweating: Gavin

Lilah: Couldn't you have tortured him some more?

• Buffy-Speak: Snacky goodness (an Incredibly Lame Pun on last week's "salty goodness").
• Connect the Deaths: Using a map of recent mystical disturbances to find out where the Beast will be.
• Continuity Nod: Gunn being afraid of rats, mentioned in "Heartthrob".
• Curb Stomp Battle / The Worf Barrage: The Fang Gang vs. the Beast
  • Annoying Arrows: Angel yanks a pair of quarrels out of himself.
  • Bigger Stick: Wes goes from crossbow to handguns to pump-action shotgun. None of it works.
  • Catch and Return: Gunn throws his axe at the Beast, who crushes its blade in his hands and chucks it back at him.
  • Dual-Wielding: After losing his sword, Angel attacks with a couple of handaxes.
  • Friend or Foe: Lorne and Wes fire their crossbows. The Beast deflects the quarrels into Angel.
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: As Lorne and Wes reload, the Beast throws Angel into them.
  • Guns Akimbo: Wesley with twin handguns. Not quite a Leap and Fire, more like Run Sideways While Shooting In Slow Motion.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Angel gets stabbed in the neck by his own wrist-stake.
  • Hope Spot: The first is when Wesley's shotgun blasts bring the Beast to its knees, with him advancing on it firing from closer and closer - until he gets within range, at which point it grabs him, hurls him into a wall, and stands up as though its apparent injury was a just an act. The second is when Angel puts his Game Face on and goes in for a rematch. He also manages to knock The Beast to its knees, produces a stake, and stabs it towards The Beast's eyes, the only seemingly vulnerable part of it. He stops an inch away, and the camera reveals The Beast had caught his wrist. Then it stabs him in the neck with his stake and hurls him off the skyscraper.
  • Mook Chivalry: The gang should co-ordinate their attacks a bit. Not that it would have done much good.
  • Punched Across the Room
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: The Beast smirks at Wesley emptying a couple of clips into its chest. Wes pulls a Mossberg 12-gauge from under his coat and empties it into the Beast's face.
• Curse Cut Short: Wesley enters his apartment to find Lilah dressed up like Fred.

Lilah: (in Southern accent) Isn't this what you like? Big brain and a tight little—- Wesley: (rolls eyes) Lilah...

• Daydream Surprise: Cordelia's dream.
• Divide and Conquer: Angel points out that helping him fight the Beast is a win-win situation for Lilah. Either way, one of her enemies is going down.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Huge horned demon coming up from the fiery depths below...
• Double Entendre: Angel gets in a barb at Wes when he says that Lilah can be pretty giving.
• Enemy Mine: Lampshaded by Angel re Lilah. Wesley and the Fang Gang also put aside their differences in the face of what's coming.
• Evil Sounds Deep: The Beast certainly does.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar

Wesley: Maybe if we pool our data... Gunn: Go pool yourself.

• Fan Disservice: A grim-faced Angel watches his son having sex with Cordelia. A lot of fans had an "eeeewww" reaction as well.
• Fan Service: Cordelia's loose, cleavage-revealing tops. Connor's hormones must have been going off the scale.
• Gonna Need More Trope: The Fang Gang barge into the Sky Temple Club to find a huge horned demon with rock-like skin holding up a corpse in one hand after killing everyone in the place for a blood rite.

Lorne: Ooh, uh, I'm gonna need a bigger arrow.

• Human Sacrifice
• Iconic Item: Gunn's hubcap axe gets crushed.
• It's All My Fault: Connor doesn't think it's a coincidence that the Beast erupts from the ground in the exact same place he was born.
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Subverted

Lorne: A certain somebody with a good understanding of higher dimensions could tell me what got hoovered out of my head. Um, name starts with a "C." Angel: Connor. Lorne: No, I was leaning more towards a perky love muffin, but... Oh. (sees that Connor has walked into the lobby)

• Love Confession / Bait and Switch Comment: Cordelia says she loves Angel, but while she was a higher being she looked back in time and saw (and experienced) all the evil that Angelus did.
• Must Have Caffeine: Fred hangs out in the coffee bar for hours while she ponders what to do about her Love Triangle.
• Nerds Are Sexy / Girlish Pigtails / Meganekko: Lilah dresses up like Fred to taunt Wesley. When they start making out, Wes tells her to keep the glasses on.
• Neck Lift: The Beast to Cordy.
• The Nicknamer: This time Cordy does it to herself.

"Don't worry. I'm not gonna turn into Amnesia Action Figure Cordy again."

• Pre-Climax Climax: Cordelia faced with fire raining from the sky makes love to Connor.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: The camera view lifts just as Wes is about to yank up Lilah's short skirt. Apparently much of their sex scene had to be cut too, after Joss Whedon requested more "thrusting" and the actors complied.
• Signs of the End Times: There are birds crashing into buildings, snakes doing obscure things, rats swarming out of the plumbing and eventually, all the locations of the phone calls they get about these things, when laid out on a map, make an ancient symbol of destruction.
• Single Tear: Connor when Cordelia kisses him.
• Snakes Are Sexy: That is, if we read one of Lorne's phone conversations right.

"Snakes? Uh-huh. And they came out of your what? OK, OK, well did they get up there themselves, or is this part of a, you know, a thing. (laughs nervously) No, I'm not judging."

• Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Cordelia makes a point of mentioning (in this episode and the previous one) that Connor is eighteen years old, despite being only sixteen the year before. They could have plausibly made him seventeen, so Connor would be the same age Buffy was when she had sex with 243-year old Angel, but well...
• Stating the Simple Solution: Lorne suggests holding off until they know more about what they're dealing with.

Angel: If it's alive, we kill it. If it's not, we bury it.

• Stealth Hi Bye: Apparently It Runs in The Family, as Connor too has this power. Along with Angel's silver tongue.

Cordy: It must be genetic.

• Swiss Cheese Security: Wolfram & Hart's much vaunted vampire detectors aren't working at all now.
• Tempting Fate: It's not like the world is going to end this second.
• Terse Talker

Cordelia: Guess the sneaky's not the only thing you got from Angel. Getting pretty good with saying the right words, too. Connor: Complete sentences. I've been working on it.

• This Is the Part Where: Lilah and Angel.
• Title Drop / Buffy-Speak
• Twisted Echo Cut

Angel: (re Lorne's snake call) Are they making any kind of weird demony sounds? [Cut to Gunn and Fred investigating a haunted house] Housewife: The noises are horrible. The thumping, the groaning...it's impossible to sleep at night.

• The Worf Effect: The Beast beats Connor and later the Fang Gang.
• Your Head Asplode / We Have Reserves: Wolfram & Hart have been burning through their psychics trying to find out what Lorne read from Cordelia.