Angel/Are You Now or Have You Ever Been

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been
Season 2, Episode 2
Airdate	October 3, 2000
Production Number	2ADH02
Written by	Tim Minear
Directed by	David Semel
← 2x01 Judgement	2x03 → First Impressions
Angel — Season Two

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been is the second episode of the second season of Angel, and the twenty-fourth episode overall.

David Boreanaz (Angel), Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia Chase), Alexis Denisof (Wesley Wyndam-Pryce), J. August Richards (Charles Gunn)

Guest Starring: Melissa Marsala (Judy Kovacs), John Kapelos (Hotel Manager), Tommy Hinkley (Detective), Brett Rickaby (Denver), Scott Thompson Baker (Actor), J.P. Manoux (Bellman)

Co-Starring: David Kagen (Salesman), Terrence Beasor (Older Man), Julie Araskog (Over the Hill Whore), Tom Beyer (Blacklisted Writer), Eve Sigall (Old Judy)

Uncredited: Tony Amendola (Thesulac Demon)

Plot Overview

Angel has Cordelia and Wesley investigate the history of the Hyperion Hotel, discovering that it has a violent history. Angel, meanwhile, tours the empty building, recalling his own personal past with it and its residents in 1952.

Notes

Monster of the Week

• Thesulac Demon: Thesulac is a non-corporeal paranoia demon which drives up peoples' fears and anger by whispering their darkest thoughts to them. The demon only becomes corporeal after a large meal of peoples' emotions or if someone raises it. The process of raising the demon involves the use of the Orb of Ramjarin and an incantation. The demon is a metaphor for the paranoid times of the early 1950s in America, most notably pushed forward by Senator Joe McCarthy, who accused many high profile people of being communists and was only "defeated" after he had the nerve to accuse high ranking military officials.

Body Count

#	Whom	By Whom	How	Where
1	Man	Himself	Suicide	Hyperion Room 215 (1952)
2	Thesulac	Angel	Electrocuted	Hyperion
3	Judy	—	Natural Causes	Hyperion

Music

Music is listed in order of appearance in the episode.

• Perry Como - "Hoop-De-Doo"

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Angel Investigations: Angel moves his operation out of Cordelia's apartment and into the Hyperion Hotel.

Characters

• Angel: In 1952, Angel lived in room 217 at the Hyperion Hotel in Hollywood. During this period of his life, he purposefully removed himself from most human contact. However, when he took pity on a girl hiding in his room, he withdrew further when she betrayed him under the influence of the paranoia demon. He also apparently smoked cigarettes, which doesn't seem like it would do a vampire a whole lot of good.

Trivia

The Show

• Anachronism: Outside the Demons-Books store in a 1952 flashback, you can clearly see a couple stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. However, the Walk of Fame did not exist until 1960.

• Meta-References: Angel is staying in room 214 at the Hyperion, which is the same room in which Jack Torrence stayed in Steven King's The Shining. (The number was changed in the movie adaptation as a request by the hotel that it was filmed in). The character of Judy is also a slight reference to a character of the same name from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, who comes from the same city of Salina, Kansas.

Behind the Scenes

• Ratings: On its first airing, this episode scored a 4.5/6 in the overnight Nielsen ratings. It was ranked 6th out of the 17 WB shows which aired that week.

• Deleted Scene: A scene from the end of the first act was cut from the final episode. The scene showed Angel turning up his music and drinking as the salesman killed himself in the room next to his.

Allusions and References

• Lana Turner: Lana Turner was an actress whose career peaked during the 1940s and early 1950s. She was most famous for starring in movies like The Bad and the Beautiful and Peyton Place. She was also famous as a pin-up girl due to the "sweater girl" character type that she typically played during the early 1940s.

Man: Ah, come on, honey! How do you think Lana Turner got started?

• I Love Lucy: Denver, the bookstore owner, comments on a "zany redhead" he's watching on television. It seems likely that the character he's talking about is the main character of I Love Lucy, which premiered in 1951.

Denver: They keep calling her a zany redhead. Could be a brunette for all I can tell.

• Van Helsing: Angel refers to Abraham Van Helsing, the main character of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Van Helsing was a Dutch doctor with expertise in many fields, including vampire hunting. The 2004 movie Van Helsing used a new character named Gabriel Van Helsing, which director described as Abraham's younger brother.

Angel: Now, it's been a long time since I've opened a vein, but I'll do it you pull any more of this Van Helsing Jr. crap with me.

Quotes

• Judy: Um-Um, my-my boyfriend - he's kind of the jealous type.

Angel: Maybe you shouldn't go wandering into other men's rooms.

• Wesley: Now we know one thing for certain.

Cordelia: Yep. It's not that vampires don't photograph. It's just that they don't photograph well.

• Cordelia: It's kind of like a puzzle. The "who died horribly because Angel screwed up fifty years ago?" game.

• Angel: Why'd they fire you?

Judy: Because I'm not what I say I am. I've been passing since I was fifteen years old.

Angel: Passing?

Judy: For white. My mother was coloured, my father - I didn't even know him. My blood isn't pure. It's tainted.

Angel: It's just blood, Judy. It-it's all just blood.

Judy: Nobody believes that! Not even my mother's family. I'm not one thing or the other. I am nothing.

Angel: I know what that's like.

Judy: Yes. Yes, I am. I am something. I'm a thief! I've never stolen anything before in my life, I swear it. It's just... God, the things that they called me.

Angel: Fear makes people do stupid things.

Judy: It was stupid. And I wish I'd never done it.

Angel: I didn't mean you. I meant your former employers. They were afraid. That's why they fired you.

• Thesulac: Well, I don't know about you, but I'm stuffed! God, I love people! Don’t you? They feed me their worst and I kind of serve it right back to them, and the fear and prejudice turns to certainty and hate, and I take another bite and mmm-mmm-mmm! What a beautiful, beautiful dance! Oh, you got your feelings hurt, didn't you? See now what happens when you stick your neck out for them? They throw a rope around it! And you thought you'd made a friend. News flash! You had! That's what made her the yummiest morsel of all. You reached her, buddy! Restored her faith in people. Without you she would have been just another appetiser. But you plumped her up good! Now, she's a meal that's gonna last me a lifetime! Hey, you know what? There is an entire hotel here just full of tortured souls that could really use your help. What do you say?

Angel: Take them all.

• (fighting a demon)

Angel: Watch his tentacles.

Cordelia: Excuse me?

Wesley: Tentacles.

Cordelia: Oh.

• Wesley: I've been accused of a great many things in my time, but paranoid has never been one of them. Unless people have been saying it behind my back.

• Cordelia: (about the hotel) Seventy years of violence, mayhem and paranoia. Bad vibes.

Angel: We're moving in.

Cordelia: I mean, a few throw pillows, what's not to love?

• Wesley: Angel, you don't find me especially paranoid, do you?

Angel: Not especially.

Wesley: Oh, thank God. I was worried.