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Angel Investigations

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Angel Investigations is a fictional detective agency run by the title character Angel previously 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.

Story of the agency

The agency is founded by Angel sometime between the first and second episodes of Season One. Angel makes friends with Doyle, a half-demon who's been given visions by The Powers That Be of people in need of Angel's help. After they successfully rescue former Sunnydale associate Cordelia Chase, she joins them and encourages them to front their operations with a detective agency, with the hope of having a steady paycheck while she attempts to make it as an actress. Cordelia also coins their slogan, "We help the hopeless" and designs their business logo, a stylized angel which resembles "a lobster."

Halfway through Season 1, Doyle passes his visions on to Cordelia just prior to his death. Another old Sunnydale friend, self-styled "rogue demon hunter" and former Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, joins Angel Investigations soon thereafter bringing an extensive knowledge of demons and magic to the agency. At the end of season one, street tough vampire hunter Charles Gunn also joins AI, adding much-needed brawn to their group. AI originally operate out of Angel's residence, a basement apartment beneath a ground floor office space comprising an inner executive office and an outer reception area. At the end of the first season, however, an agent of the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart blows up the building.

Cordelia's residence is pressed into service as AI headquarters until shortly into Season 2, when AI moves to a new location, the Hyperion Hotel. Now empty and all but abandoned, the Hyperion is a luxury hotel where Angel stayed in 1952. The Hyperion was abandoned due to a demon that drove the occupants to insanity. AI kills the demon and takes control of the building for use as their headquarters, Angel concluding that they will redeem the building like he seeks to redeem himself. The manager's office in the lobby is used by Angel (and later Wesley) and several of the empty rooms are used as a residence for various characters. Halfway through season two, Angel fires his three colleagues after escalating disagreements about his growing moral corruption. Instead of disbanding while Angel deals with his private issues, Gunn, Cordelia, and Wesley continue running AI without him in a rented office. They opt to keep the name "Angel Investigations" because they feel they are continuing the "mission" that Angel started out with, but their attempts to operate independently are hamped by the lack of Angel's supernatural abilities and his weapons stockpile. Eventually, Angel rejoins them and their base of operations returns to the Hyperion Hotel. As part of his amends, he agrees to work for them and Wesley is selected as the leader of the team. At the end of the second season, A.I. spent three episodes in the demon-dimension Pylea, home to friend Lorne. There they rescue Winifred Burkle, a stranded former physics student, who joins the agency around the middle of Season 3 after spending some time recovering from the trauma of her time in Pylea.

After a falling-out in Season 3, Wesley leaves the group and sets up his own group, which is run more as a paramilitary mercenary group than a detective agency. Angel resumes his function as leader with the departure of Wesley, although he was often unofficially 'in charge' even with Wesley's presence, leading their fight against such opponents as Gunn's rogue gang or Wolfram & Hart's attempts to abduct the pregnant Darla.

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.

In Season 5, the A.I. team is now known as Team Angel, though, in "Underneath", Angel claims that they "don't have a name". Due to their alliance with Wolfram & Hart this season, Angel's friends and allies in the Scooby Gang, including Buffy, have deemed him, and his crew by extension, untrustworthy.

By After the Fall, the team seems to have been fully disbanded, though the members are still active, albeit operating mostly independent of each other; the now-human Angel and a ghostly Wesley are combating the Demon Lords from the destroyed Wolfram & Hart building, Spike and an unstable Illyria are posing as Demon Lords in order to save humans and benevolent demons, a vampiric Gunn is fighting the Demon Lords and plotting revenge against Angel for letting him die, Connor is heading a safe house for humans and benevolent demons (most of them having been rescued and evacuated into his care by Spike and an anonymous Angel) alongside Nina Ash and Gwen Raiden, and Lorne is the neutral Lord of Silver Lake with the Groosalugg as his champion. In Angel's battle with the other Demon Lords' champions, Lorne rallies the others in order to help him in the fight, and afterwards, they all move back into the Hyperion.

After the Senior Partners rewind time, Angel and his crew are back in the Hyperion, running Angel Investigations as a business yet again, albeit with several difficulties due to Angel's newly-acquired fame; most of their recent clients are fans and admirers rather than people who actually need help.

Aforementioned karaoke-demon Lorne, and Angel's son Connor, are also associated with the agency, although it is unclear whether or not they are actually employees.

Members

(in order of length of membership)

  • Angel, the team's namesake and a member throughout. The exception to this being a period in Season 2, 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, although even before Wesley's departure, Angel was somewhat unofficially 'in charge'.
  • Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, a member from mid-season 1 onwards and team leader for some period. His actions in Season 3 forced him to leave, though he was gradually accepted back into the group again.
  • Charles Gunn, an ally from the end of Season 1 onwards, Gunn officially joins the group in Season 2, when he starts receiving a salary. He leaves the group between Angel Season 5 and After the Fall, because he was turned into a vampire. No longer a vampire, he takes a leave of absence with Illyria in Aftermath and returns in the ongoing IDW series.
  • Cordelia Chase, a founding member until her disappearance at the end of Season 3. She returned in Season 4 but, possessed, was working against AI from within. She fell into a coma at the end of that season and died the following year. In Angel: After the Fall she is revealed to be a genuine Higher being for the Powers That Be.
  • Winifred Burkle, introduced towards the end of Season 2, Fred becomes a member in Season 3 and is a core member of the group until her death in Season 5.
  • Lorne, a long-time ally since his introduction in the first episode of Season 2, it is hard to pinpoint when he becomes a genuine member of the group, though most likely in Season 3 after the destruction of his karaoke club Caritas. Lorne leaves the group after Season 5 (Not fade Away) asking them not to find him.
  • Spike, an old ally of Angel back in his souless days, joins the team during the fifth season when he comes back alive after his death in the finale of Buffy.
  • Allen Francis Doyle, a founding member. Doyle was a half-demon with precognitive abilities. He died in Season 1.
  • Connor, Angel's son is introduced in Season 3 and has a complicated relationship with the group, more often than not he is working against them or is indifferent to them due to his belief that Angel is inherently evil. He finally accepts Angel as his father and joins the group in Angel: After the Fall, continuing as a current member of the team.
  • Illyria, a depowered Old One who joined the team in Season 5 after being revived in the shell of Fred's body.
  • Kate Lockley, a former policewoman and an ally in Seasons 1 and 2. Reappeared in Angel: After the Fall - First Night and joined the team in Angel: Aftermath.
  • Betta George, a Splenden Beast - a telepathic creature resembling a giant floating Betta Splenden. An ally of Spike in Spike: Asylum and Spike: Shadow Puppets and an ally of Team Angel in Angel: After the Fall. Joined the team in the ongoing IDW Angel series.

Team variations

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Season 5

Although Angel and Team work for Wolfram and Hart, and no longer run Angel Investigations, there still is a core team and allies:

After the Fall

  • Angel
  • Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, until time is reversed in Angel: After the Fall #16
  • Spike, starting with Angel: After the Fall #5
  • Connor, starting with Angel: After the Fall #5
  • Nina Ash, starting with Angel: After the Fall #5
  • Illyria, starting with Angel: After the Fall #5 until she reverts to her true form in #14
  • Gwen Raiden, starting with Angel: After the Fall #5, until her betrayal in Angel: After the Fall #11
  • Allies

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