The House Always Wins (Angel episode)
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Summary
Angel, Fred and Gunn take a road trip to Las Vegas to find and enlist Lorne’s help in finding a way to get higher being Cordelia back to their dimension. But the gang soon gets caught up in a supernatural and literal “futures” trading scheme on the black market when Lorne’s employer Lee DeMarco, an evil and greedy casino owner of the Tropicana, coerces Lorne into reading people’s futures and makes them influenced to gamble away all their money on rigged slot machines and other casino games, in which Angel himself falls under the influence of the house games. Back in Los Angeles, Conner is still living in the streets and fighting vampires on his own while Wesley tries to take advantage of Angel’s absence to steal his clients for his own profit.
Expanded overview
A wounded man runs from a building only to run into his pursuer, Connor. The man reveals himself to be a vampire and while Angel secretly watches from the roof of a nearby building, Connor fights with and ultimately stakes the vampire. Meanwhile, from high above and unbeknownst to Angel, Cordelia makes several not so subtle suggestions that he should be focusing more on how to rescue her. After Connor runs off into the night, Fred and Gunn make their presence known on the roof and confront Angel on the issues of Connor and Cordelia. Angel realizes that he been making life difficult for his friends and to make up for that, he decides to take them away on a trip to Vegas!
As they drive down the strip, Angel muses about how he remembers Vegas. They arrive at the Tropicana where Lorne is headlining and check out his show. The rest of the audience seems to believe Lorne's appearance is due to make-up, making his high-profile performances all the less out of the ordinary. Lorne puts on quite a show complete with scantily clad Lornettes to back him up. He goes through the audience, letting various people sing along to a song, but ignores Angel and the others as if he never saw them. After the show, Angel, Gunn and Fred wait for Lorne to exit backstage, but he brushes them off again.
As Lorne recovers from the show in his private suite guarded heavily by security guards, he receives a visit from a man named Lee and his assistant Spencer. Lorne is shown a map of the theater where he just performed and is forced to identify the people who sang in the audience and their futures he read when they sang. Meanwhile, back in L.A., Wesley talks on the phone with Lilah, while simultaneously conducting business with his men and clients. At the casino, Gunn and Fred play Blackjack while Angel worries about Lorne. One of the Lornettes offers one of the singing audience members from Lorne's show, Vivian, a special chip to play in a Spin to Win game and maybe win a million dollars. Angel later approaches the Lornette and asks her to give Lorne a note. Angel continues to wander around the casino, noting the strange behavior of some of the gamblers. Fred continues to worry about Angel and Lorne so Gunn decides they should investigate Lorne's situation to help ease Fred's mind.
A couple of security guards throw Angel outside and assault him, but ultimately, Angel knocks them out. Desperate for more quarters, Vivian walks in a trance-like state across the casino's driveway and is nearly run over by a taxi, but Angel rescues her. Fred and Gunn find Lorne's room and Gunn figures out a plan to get past the security. Fred dresses up as one of the Lornettes and the security guards let her get inside. Lorne takes a minute to recognize her, but he's grateful to see her and that they finally came to rescue him. He informs her that Lee DeMarco is blackmailing him for his psychic abilities.
Angel sneaks back into the special Spin to Win game area and although he's not there to play, Lee tosses him a chip. Angel tosses it away, but it slides onto a place on the table and when the house wins, Angel loses his destiny. He's given a cup of quarters and sent out to the casino to play. Fred runs from Lorne's room and hysterically convinces the guards outside to go into the room. Lorne manages to escape and the three run out into the casino to find Angel. They find him sitting at one of the slot machines playing in a zombie-like state and ask him to pose a distraction while they get Lorne out. Angel's too entranced with his gambling to really understand the plan. DeMarco receives information from Spencer about Angel and his souled vampire status. Lee is very pleased and realizes how profitable Angel will be for them.
While on the run from security outside the casino, Lorne reveals that the people he's been reading from his shows with bright futures have been lured into the Spin and Win game and then their destines and futures sucked into the chip they played. Those chips are stored near a magical glass ball and later sold on the black market while the people are destined to live depressing lives gambling with no future. A couple of guards spot them and to pose a distraction, Lorne sings a high-pitch noise into a microphone. After they escaped, Gunn blows up at Lorne and quickly assumes that Lorne told Lee about Angel. Lorne correct him by revealing that he's being blackmailed and if he refuses to cooperate, people will be killed. Gunn backs off at that and after realizing that Angel's destiny has been taken away, he runs back to the casino to rescue him.
Gunn finds Angel at one of the slot machines and tries to convince him to leave the slot machine, but before that can happen, Spencer shows up with Lorne and Fred held in the custody of his security guards. Angel returns to gambling and the rest of the group is brought before Lee. He orders Fred and Gunn killed and Lorne to return to his work. Meanwhile, Cordelia wonders from high above how she can save her friends from certain death. Somehow, she manipulates the slot machine Angel's at to win a jackpot so he can be brought into the back room with the others. Lee is angered that someone actually won but Angel doesn't have an explanation for his winning.
Lee lets Angel return to playing and Gunn tries to break free, triggering the violence. One of the men pulls a gun on Fred and it brings out the demon in Angel, who starts to beat up on Lee's men. Lorne spots the glass ball with the chips and despite Lee's protests and attempts to stand in the way, the ball is broken and all of the destinies are returned to their rightful bodies. Back to his normal self, Angel talks about another memory from Vegas, but his friends don't pay much attention to the story. Back in L.A., the gang is all glad to be home, although Angel questions what caused his jackpot winning at the casino. Lorne sneaks away to find a bathroom while the others head inside the hotel. They all freeze once they see Cordelia standing in the middle of the lobby. She doesn't know who they are, though.
Production details
Music
- Lorne - "It's not Easy being Green".
- Lorne - "Lady Marmalade".
- The Archies - "Sugar Sugar".
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 | ||
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