Cordelia's visions are getting increasingly more painful and violent and leaving her with physical scars from them. When Wesley and The Host attempt to contact the Powers That Be, they discover that the cause is far closer to home: Wolfram & Hart.

After two seasons, it seems that the introduction of Fred has led the writers to realize they've been neglecting their other woman on the team, Cordelia. To this end this story is centred around her, albeit with her asleep in bed quite a bit of the time. How she tries to cope with her visions shows her strength of character, and it's good to see Dennis being used as well and Fred starting to gain a sense of kinship and friendship with Cordy, something that should expand both their characters nicely.

It's the Wolfram & Hart angle that brings things back nicely, however, giving us what we viewers missed at the end of last season. Lilah seems to have become even more conniving and manipulative than before and is certainly keen to make her presence felt. Getting at Angel through Cordelia may only be the start, and we don't know who she'll be targeting next. It's her real plan that's so frightening though; she's not just torturing Cordelia to get at Angel, she's doing it to enlist his unhappy aid in breaking loose a prisoner from another dimension.

The idea of Angel being tricked by Wolfram & Hart into killing creatures on the side of good is a particularly clever one, and his encounter with the cool demon who guards the prisoner he's after is incredibly funny, as the pair apologize for what they have to do. If that demon guard doesn't appear again, I'll be very disappointed. The final stand-off between Angel and Lilah is suitably tense, and it's good to see Angel making his point at the end of it by stopping Lilah's attempts to interfere with Cordy's visions at the source. But with an unknown prisoner now free, Lilah's plans are probably just beginning.

Quick mention as well for the brief snippet of Darla plotline at the end where she asks the question 'How?' about her baby. It's good to know the writers were aware what we were all thinking and it's another plotline that looks like making things interesting later in the year.

****

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