He then moves to Los Angeles, where he attempts to redeem himself in the service of others. He finds support from Doyle, a half-demon sent by The Powers That Be, and Cordelia Chase, a former classmate of Buffy's who has moved to L.A. to find wealth and fame. The trio form Angel Investigations, a shoe-string operation with the mission statement of protecting those who cannot defend themselves and helping lost souls find their way.

Doyle, Angel's trusted friend and sole connection to the Powers, is killed in the line of duty, leading Angel to become even more protective of those he holds dear. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who had briefly served as Watcher to both Buffy and Faith in Sunnydale, arrives in L.A. working as a "rogue demon hunter," but stays to assist Angel and Cordelia in their mission (albeit mainly because he wasn't doing very well on his own). A few months later, they are joined by lifelong demon fighter Charles Gunn. The AI Team also enlists the help of demon karaoke bar-owner Lorne, known initially only as The Host, a demon who can read the futures of humans and demons when they sing. During this time, Wolfram & Hart attempt to have Angel killed by the rogue vampire slayer Faith, but Angel's influence, coupled with Faith's pre-existing self-loathing issues, encourage Faith to begin her own path to redemption, and she turns herself into the police to make up for what she did.


Cordelia, Gunn, and Angel, 3 members of Angel Investigations.As Angel continues to help the helpless in Los Angeles, his good deeds begin to disrupt the plans of the evil inter-dimensional law firm, Wolfram & Hart. In an attempt to control him, W&H resurrect his sire and former lover, Darla, but bring her back as a human rather than a vampire. W&H then bring forth Drusilla, who turns Darla into a vampire again, causing Angel to feel that he has failed to save her. He then fires his crew and embarks on a bitter, ruthless vendetta against W&H (going as far as consciously allowing the murder of a very large group of W&H employees) and the newly reunited Darla and Drusilla. In a moment of perfect despair, Angel attempts to remove his soul by having sex with Darla, but instead finds a moment of clarity following the desperate act, realizing his purpose is still for good. Horrified at Angel's epiphany, Darla flees Los Angeles. After a difficult reconciliation that involves Wesley taking over the official position of leader of the group, the AI team then find themselves transported to Lorne's home dimension, Pylea. Eventually, after Angel defeats the undefeated Champion of Pylea, The Groosalugg, they return with a new team member, Winifred Burkle, in tow, and to the news that the love of Angel's life, Buffy, has died.

Despite Buffy's miraculous resurrection a few months later, Angel finds that his previously platonic love for Cordelia has grown to be romantic. Before he has a chance to confess his feelings, however, Darla returns, pregnant with his son, to be named Connor. False prophecies, time travelers and betrayal lead to Angel losing his infant son to an old enemy, Holtz, who abducts Connor soon after his birth, taking him to a hell dimension (Quor-Toth) where time passes differently. When Connor returns days later, he is a young man who has been raised by Holtz to believe that Angel is still a soulless monster. Connor vows to make Angel pay for the suffering he had once caused (made even worse when Holtz set up his own death to make it appear as though Angel had killed him), and he acts out his retribution by sending his father to the bottom of the ocean in a steel coffin. At the same time, Cordelia ascends to a higher plane, the feelings shared between her and Angel still left unspoken.

Rescued by Wesley from his watery prison, Angel's relationship with Connor is strained. It is complicated further by the return of an amnesiac Cordelia, who prefers to stay with Connor because he told her the truth while the others lied to her (albeit

Angel's story before he met Buffy unfolds in flashbacks scattered among numerous episodes of both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel". They were not presented in chronological order. A guide to finding the flashback or flashbacks to a particular event is at Angel, Darla, Spike and Dru: Before 1997.

Over time, Buffy and Angel fall in love. Though they try to deny their feelings, they cannot resist the passion growing between them. When they finally consummate their relationship, Angel experiences the one moment of pure happiness needed to break his curse. Without the humanity and conscience that was instilled by his soul, Angel quickly returns to his former, evil self.

After Angel transforms back into Angelus, he allies himself again with Spike and Drusilla, who had recently settled in Sunnydale. Angelus finds immense pleasure in tormenting Buffy and her friends.


Angelus catches up with JennyHe goes on to kill Jenny Calendar, who had been a core member of Buffy's group, just after she manages to successfully decipher the lost Gypsy curse which would restore Angelus' soul. He then attempts to awaken the demon Acathla in an attempt to bring about the Apocalypse. Buffy, however, is determined to stop him despite their deeply emotional history. Fighting him in one-on-one combat, Buffy is able to overcome Angelus, but before Acathla consumes him, Angel is cursed again by Buffy's friend and comrade Willow Rosenberg, his soul restored moments before Buffy has to kill him and, in doing so, save the world.

Less than a year later, Angel is unexpectedly released from Hell, reappearing in his mansion in a feral state. Buffy aids him in secret, fostering his rehabilitation. Having regained his senses, Angel realizes that his return from Hell was not accidental, and that he must be meant to serve some higher purpose. Haunted by The First, taking on the appearances of those he killed as Angelus, Angel almost kills himself out of the guilt he feels, but when it snows on the day he was trying to expose himself to the sun, he begins to realize that he may have been saved for a good reason. He and Buffy tried to have an actual relationship, but, after a meeting with Joyce Summers, Angel makes the difficult decision to leave Sunnydale and Buffy, in an effort to protect them both and lend whatever normality to Buffy's chaotic life he can.

You have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done... and to care.

—Angel

In 1898, Angelus slew the favorite daughter of a tribe of Gypsies, the Kalderash Clan. To avenge her death, they cursed him by restoring his human soul, thus afflicting him with a conscience and condemning him to an eternity of remorse for what he did when he didn't have his soul. He tried and failed to resume his life with Darla. After he was unable to kill a baby during the Boxer Rebellion to prove himself to Darla, Angelus fled (presumably to the United States). There, he lived an isolated life avoiding humanity, and the temptation to feed, living in a dark apartment.

Angel arrived in New York via Ellis Island in 1902 (Angel Season 4 Episode 15 "Orpheus")

During World War II, Angel was recruited by The Demon Research Initiative who sunk him to the bottom of the ocean to rescue an American submarine crew from three Nazi captured vampires (including Spike). The American crew had stolen the German submarine. Angel was forced to sire Ensign Sam Lawson to save the crew.

In 1952, Los Angeles, Angel was a resident at the Hyperion Hotel, the building which would one day become the future base of Angel Investigations. During this time, Angel was attempting to stay to himself, avoiding interaction with other patrons and looking the other way when his help was required, even despite the numerous strange incidents of murders and suicides running rampant throughout the hotel. After his meeting with a young woman named Judy, he was forced to disarm a man chasing her, but then immediately ended any interaction with her soon after. However, her repeated attempts to contact him managed to help him build a, lukewarm at best, relationship with her while the hotel continued to become corrupted around him. Though he didn't understand why, Angel felt compelled to help the human residents of the hotel by defeating the Paranoia demon affecting them, but by the time he had obtained the items he required, the entire hotel had been overcome with paranoia and not only did Judy betray him in order to save herself, but the hotel residents beat and then hanged him. This was a turning point in Angel's life where he got close to a human and tried to selflessly help her and the other residents, but in the end decided it was not worth saving them, bitter at their actions against him. He returns many decades later to find Judy an old woman, having been trapped in the Hyperion all this time feeling guilt at Angel's apparent death by hanging because of her accusations. Angel forgives her and remembers her fondly as one of his first few friends.

In New York during the 1970s, Angel came upon a robbery at a doughnut shop. After the robber shot the employee and fled, Angel stayed with the man as he died. Unable to resist the urge to feed from a warm human, Angel fed on the man and then grew disgusted with himself. He exiled himself to a life of homelessness, living in alleyways and feeding off of stray rats. A shadow of his former self, a reclusive and emotionally tortured Angel eventually met a demon named Whistler in 1996, who persuaded him to join the fight against the evil that had corrupted him and to help the newly called Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers. When he and Buffy finally meet in Sunnydale, CA, he introduces himself not as Angelus, but as Angel.