Spin the Bottle (Angel episode)
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Summary
When Lorne tries to perform a magic spell on Cordelia to make her regain her memory, the spell naturally goes wrong in which Lorne is knocked out and the rest of the gang of Angel, Gunn, Fred, Cordelia and Wesley loses their own memories and resort to their teenage personas which some interesting and amusing results with Cordelia resorting back to her snobbish, rich girl from Sunnydale, the street-talking Gunn, the sly and intellectual Fred, and the cowardly Wesley bickering with each other and the perplexed Angel, resorting to his own persona, Liam, before he became a vampire. Later, things get complicated when an angry Connor arrives at the hotel looking to harm Angel believing him to be responsible for Cordelia not returning Connor's affections.
Expanded overview
Lorne sings and speaks to an unseen crowd and starts to tell a story, that begins with Cordelia and Angel talking in the courtyard about love. Cordy continues to question the potential love they had and Angel tells her why the answer to her question is uncertain. He just wants her back as his friend and Cordelia just wants to remember who she is. Lorne arrives with the answer, bottle used for a memory spell that supposedly carries no side effects or downsides. Angel questions it, but Cordelia is more than eager to try it if it means she'll get her memory back.
Wesley receives a call from Lorne asking for his assistance in the spell while Angel goes upstairs to wake Fred and Gunn. Lorne sets up a circular setting for the spell in the lobby floor as Wesley arrives and meets up awkwardly with Fred. Fred vaguely informs him that her mission was completed, while from afar, Gunn realizes that Wesley helped Fred try to kill her professor. Cordelia leaves her bathroom and finds Angel waiting in her room. They talk briefly about Connor and Cordelia continues to try to find the answer to her questions about her status with Angel. In the office, Gunn confronts Wesley about his helping Fred deal with her professor. Wesley tries to explain him behavior, but it really boils down to the attack by Justine and how his friends failed to support him.
The gang hold hands and sit in a circle around candles and the bottle for the spell. The bottle spins and lights shoot out into each of the six gathered. The immediate effects make them all feel woozy and out of place as they wander and stumble. Cordelia suddenly freaks out and smashes the bottle with her boot, ending the strange effects (presumeably, if she had allowed the spell to finish, everything would have worked as advertised; however, ending the spell before it was complete left their memories similarly incomplete. From that perspective, it could have been much worse; if the spell had been disrupted at the beginning, they could have all reverted to infants). She starts on a tirade about kidnapping and sophomore pranks in Sunnydale, showing that her memory has been restored, but she thinks she's the popular girl from Sunnydale High School at a time before she even knew about vampires and the Hellmouth. Further conversation with the rest of the gang reveals that they've all been set back to their high school years. Fred and Cordelia go back to being ordinary high school students, Wesley a student of the Watcher's Academy and Gunn returns to being a rebellious street kid. Cordy marvels at Angel, but his memory has traveled the furthest, back to before he was a vampire when he was just Liam. Liam starts to lash out at them because he doesn't recognize the world he's in and he discovers that he's missing his Irish accent.
While Liam wonders what happened to his accent, the rest of the gang question what brought them together and what they should do to solve the mystery of their current situation. Cordelia gets upset over her drastically shorter hair and Liam speculates that the devil is responsible for their situation. Gunn and Wesley butt heads on plans and when Wesley tries to demonstrate his toughness with a karate demonstration, he unintentionally activates a stake weapon up his sleeve. Things start to seem really strange when Gunn and Fred find Lorne passed out behind the counter. Meanwhile, Connor saves a young woman from two vampires, staking one as the other gets free. The woman offers to repay the favor, but he's not willing to pay for the services she's offering.
Back at the hotel, Wesley tapes Lorne to a seat in the lobby while arguing with Gunn over whether to cut Lorne's head off or keep him around for potential information. When Cordelia questions why they're not freaking out at the sight of a green man with horns, Wesley and Gunn both reveal that vampires and demons are real and they both have experience with them. Fred examines an unconscious Lorne while the guys continue to fight, only this time physically, over whether to kill Lorne. Cordelia breaks it up and Wesley shares his theory that they're being kept in the hotel with a vampire as a test.
They all start to wonder why they don't look 17, like they feel, and collectively decide to hunt for the vampire that will supposedly set them free once they kill it. Cordelia and Liam team up and go one way while the other three head in the other direction. Liam struggles to adjust to this strange world that is hundreds of years beyond his life. Cordy tries to comfort him, but while she turns away, Liam vamps out and much to his own surprise, realizes that he's a vampire. In the bathroom, Liam tries to deal with his lack of reflection, vampire face, and the fact that he's going to be killed once the gang realize he's a vampire.
Liam and Cordelia return to search for the vampire while the others continue to search and Fred speculates that they're dealing with aliens rather than vampires. They all meet up in the lobby again and a nervous Liam decides to bail on the hotel before the others realize he's a vampire. Once outside though, Liam spots all the cars on the street and frightened, returns to the hotel to escape the "demons." Wesley introduces a new theory: that the vampire may be one of them. He pulls out a cross and it's passed around the group. When it finally reaches Liam, he manages to hide his smoking hand until a distraction develops. Lorne wakes up and although his memory has been unaffected, his spell wasn't as perfect as he thought.
In a moment of intended self-preservation, Liam hits Lorne when the demon identifies him as a vampire to the rest of the group. Everyone gets put on guard and when calm talking fails, a fight breaks out between Liam, Wesley and Gunn. The girls run in separate directions and Liam chases after Cordelia. She screams loudly when he catches her and it draws a lurking Connor out of the shadows. Connor throws Liam out of a window and into the hotel kitchen and Cordelia offers to reward him for his assistance. Connor finds Liam in the kitchen and a fight ensues between them. Upstairs, Fred comes out of hiding and Lorne tries to get her to release him so he can fix the spell. Liam rants to Connor about fathers and teases him about Cordelia while the two continue to battle it out.
Lorne mixes a concoction together to restore their memories and places a touch of it on Fred's tongue. She later appears at the window above the kitchen and stops the fight between Angel and Connor. In the lobby, the gang pick up the mess left by the spell as Lorne puts a touch of the mixture on Cordy's tongue. She pauses a minute as she gets a vision of a frightening demon and then runs off. Lorne finishes up his story at the lounge much to the disappointment of the crowd. Back at the hotel, Angel catches up with Cordelia and she reveals that she remembers everything again. She needs to be alone, but he has to ask her a final question: Were they in love? She tells him they were and walks off, leaving Angel behind.
Trivia
- This is the 200th episode of Buffy/Angel aired.
Continuity
Timing
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
| Location, time (if known) | Buffyverse: Fall 2002 - December 2002 (non-canon = italic) |
|---|---|
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.01 Lessons (Buffy episode)>Lessons |
| Mexico, 2002 | Buffy/Angel book: Seven Crows (Buffy/Angel novel)>Seven Crows |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.01 Deep Down (Angel episode)>Deep Down |
| L.A., 2002 | B7.02 Beneath You (Buffy episode)>Beneath You |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.02 Ground State (Angel episode)>Ground State |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.03 Same Time, Same Place (Buffy episode)>Same Time, Same Place |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | Buffy book: Apocalypse Memories (Buffy novel)>Apocalypse Memories |
| L.A., Las Vegas, 2002 | A4.03 The House Always Wins (Angel episode)>The House Always Wins |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.04 Help (Buffy episode)>Help |
| L.A., 2002 | Angel book: Dark Mirror (Angel novel)>Dark Mirror |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | Buffy book: Mortal Fear (Buffy novel)>Mortal Fear |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | Buffy book: Spark and Burn (Buffy novel)>Spark and Burn |
| Sunnydale, L.A., 2002 | Buffy/Angel book: Heat (Buffy/Angel novel)>Heat |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.04 Slouching Toward Bethlehem (Angel episode)>Slouching Toward Bethlehem |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.05 Selfless (Buffy episode)>Selfless |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.05 Supersymmetry (Angel episode)>Supersymmetry |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.06 Him (Buffy episode)>Him |
| L.A., 2002 | Angel book: Solitary Man (Angel novel)>Solitary Man |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.06 Spin the Bottle (Angel episode)>Spin the Bottle |
| L.A., 2002 | Angel book: Love and Death (Angel novel)>Love and Death |
| L.A., 2002 | Angel book: Monolith (Angel novel)>Monolith |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.07 Conversations with Dead People (Buffy episode)>Conversations with Dead People |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.07 Apocalypse, Nowish (Angel episode)>Apocalypse, Nowish |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.08 Sleeper (Buffy episode)>Sleeper |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.08 Habeas Corpses (Angel episode)>Habeas Corpses |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.09 Never Leave Me (Buffy episode)>Never Leave Me |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.09 Long Day's Journey (Angel episode)>Long Day's Journey |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.10 Bring on the Night (Buffy episode)>Bring on the Night |
| Unknown, 2002 | |
| New York, 2002 | |
| Unknown 2002 | |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.10 Awakening (Angel episode)>Awakening |
| Buffyverse | ||
| Main | Canon | Index Chronology: Ancient | Modern | BS1 | BS2 | BS3 | BS4/AS1 | BS5/AS2 | BS6/AS3 | BS7/AS4 | AS5 | Future | Flashbacks | |
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| Places | L.A. | Sunnydale Bronze | Caritas | Hellmouth | Hyperion | Library | Magic Box | Pylea | Sunnydale High | |
| Music | Complete Tracklist | Use of Music in Buffy & Angel | Dingoes Ate My Baby | Film | | | Once More, With Feeling | |
| Key Terminology | "Demon" | "Slayer" | "Vampire" | "Watcher" | "Werewolf" | "Witch" "Child of Senior Partners" | Shanshu | Sunnydale Syndrome | Tro-Clon | |
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