Angel Investigations
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| Angel Investigations, aka Team Angel | ||||||||||
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 Members of Angel Investigations in Angel 2003. |
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Angel Investigations is the name of a detective agency run by the title character Angel on the WB television series Angel (a spin-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). It is sometimes abbreviated as AI. The agency allows Angel to openly advertise his willingness to assist people in trouble without specifying the agency's specialization in supernatural cases; their slogan We Help the Helpless is especially appealing to people who are unfamiliar with the supernatural world and therefore are afraid to ask for help, fearing they will be considered crazy, but who are nonetheless in desperate need of aid.
Throughout most of the series' run, the agency has employed most of the characters, and provided the series with a steady income of storylines. Because of this, AI is somewhat synonymous to the group of main characters. It is also known as Team Angel, a term that could be employed even following the demise of Angel Investigations as a business.
[edit] Story of the Agency
The agency was founded by Angel sometimes between the first and second episodes of Season One. Angel makes friends with Doyle, a demon, who's been given visions by higher beings, of people in need of Angel's help. After they successfully save old Sunnydale pal Cordelia Chase, she joins them; they decide to front their operations with a detective agency. She is also the one who comes up with their slogan, "We help the helpless".
Half-way through the first season, Doyle dies and Cordelia gets his visions, while another old Sunnydale friend, self-titled "rogue demon hunter", and former Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce also joins Angel Investigations. At the end of the season, street tough vampire-hunter Charles Gunn also joins, to add more muscle to their group. All this time, AI has been operating from a small apartment, which also housed Angel. But at the end of the first season, the evil law-firm Wolfram and Hart has it blown up.
Subsequently, in the second season, AI moves to a new location, the Hyperion Hotel, an empty hotel which Angel had stayed in during an earlier visit to Los Angeles in the 50s. Half-way through the season, Angel fires his three colleagues after escalating disagreements about his growing moral corruption. Instead, while Angel deals with his private issues, Gunn, Cordelia, and Wesley continue running AI without him in a rented office. Eventually, Angel rejoins them and their base of operations returns to the Hyperion Hotel. During a story-arc in the demon-dimension Pylea, home to friend Lorne, they rescue Winifred Burkle, a brilliant former physics student, who joins the agency at the start of season 3.
At the end of season 4, the agency is dissolved when Angel assumes control over the L.A. branch of their former enemy Wolfram & Hart.
Aforementioned karaoke-demon Lorne, and Angel's son Connor, are also affiliated with the agency, although it is unclear whether they were actually employees.
[edit] Members
- Angel, the team's namesake and a member throughout. The exception to this being a period in season two, where technically he disbanded the team, but the other members simply continued without him. Originally he had been the team's leader and boss, when he returned after his absence from the team he was de jure subordinate to Wesley. When Wesley left the team Angel essentially became the de facto leader once again.
- Cordelia Chase, a founding member until her disappearance at the end of season three. She returned in season four but, possessed, was indeed working against AI from within. She fell into a coma at the end of that season and died the following year.
- Allen Francis Doyle, a founding member. Doyle died in season one.
- Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, a member from mid-season one onwards and team leader for some period. However, his actions in season three caused him to leave the group, though he was gradually brought back into the fold in season four. He died in the season five series finale.
- Charles Gunn, an ally from the end of season one onwards, Gunn officially joins the group in season two, when he starts receiving a salary.
- Winifred Burkle, introduced towards the end of season two, Fred becomes a member in season three and is a core member of the group until her death in season five.
- Lorne, a long-time ally since his introduction in the first episode of season two, it is hard to pinpoint when he becomes a genuine member of the group, though most likely in season four.
- Connor, Angel's son is introduced in season three and has a complicated relationship with the group, more often than not he is working against them or is indifferent to them.
