Lorne tries to cheer up Angel who is making sketches of the Beast and sulking in his room after previously discovering that Cordelia and Connor had slept together by bringing a warm glass of type O blood to his room but fails to do so. Meanwhile, Gwen Raiden meets with her client, an African dressed in native costume, late at night in a deserted oil pumping station to tell him that she has decided against accepting his job offer to find some powerful amulets for him and that she was moving to Tahiti to escape the recent apocalyptic events in Los Angeles. Suddenly, the Beast appears behind them and punches his fist through her client's back and out of his chest while knocking her out of the way. When she gets up, she sees light coming out of her dead client's chest and the Beast pulling out a metal object out of his chest before disappearing. Cordelia wakes up after sleeping on the floor of Connor's loft and finds Connor unable to sleep without her on his bed. She gets a vision of the Beast talking to her but can't remember the words, so she leaves Connor to see Angel.
At the Hyperion Hotel, Fred, Gunn and Wesley are not making any progress ascertaining the Beast's motives and how to kill it. Gunn believes that the little girl in the White Room was referring to Connor with her cryptic message "The answer is among you" and that Connor is connected somehow to the Beast. Wesley identifies the little girl in the White Room as Mesektet, one of the totems of the mystical order of the Ra-Tet and that the earthly contingent of Wolfram & Hart are cut off from the Senior Partners with her gone. Lorne arrives with the news that the Beast recently tore the heart out of a powerful female white magic shaman. Fred identifies her as Ma'at, another member of the Ra-Tet. Cordelia arrives and sees Angel to tell him about her recent vision of the Beast. She also tells him to get over his snit over the fact that she slept with Connor and to start acting like a leader. Angel assembles his demoralized team in the lobby and gives a speech about taking the battle to the Beast when Gwen walks in. She tells them about meeting the Beast and what he did to her client, skipping the fact that he pulled an object out of his chest cavity. Fred identifies her client from a book as Ashet, another member of the Ra-Tet, so Angel takes Gwen to Death Valley to search for and protect the fourth totem Semkhet, a saber toothed tiger-like being in one of the illustrations in the book. When they arrive at Semkhet's cave, they discover that they were too late and that he had been torn apart by the Beast. Manjet, the last totem of the Ra-Tet, appears as a short, old man dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt and hat to tell them that the Beast is taking things from each of the totems in order to permanently blot the sun out of the sky, which will bring out all of the vampires and demons in the eternal night. Angel convinces Manjet to come with them so that they can protect him from the Beast.
Angel and Gwen arrive with Manjet back at the hotel, where they try to figure out with the rest of the team where to hide Manjet. Gwen volunteers her place, and Angel, Cordelia, Gunn and Manjet go with her while Fred and Wesley stay behind with Lorne. Gwen's home turns out to be a lavishly decorated and opulent unit inside a decrepit building, and she hides Manjet in her panic room, a steel vault that could only be opened by her touch. Angel mentions to Cordelia that the Axis of Pythia, which he borrowed from Gwen to locate Cordelia in her higher plane, was worth $33 million. Gwen and Gunn take the first four hour shift guarding the panic room, and Gwen detects from Gunn that he is worried about losing Fred to Wesley. Cordelia and Angel take the next shift. She says to him that it might be a good time to talk about their problems, but Angel refuses while drinking a glass of blood. The next thing he knows, he is being awakened by Gwen. Apparently both he and Cordelia had fallen asleep during their watch. When they open the vault, they find blood everywhere and that an orb was taken out of Manjet's head. Gwen finally admits that the Beast had also taken something out of her client's chest as well. She finds that security tapes that might have shown what had happened were erased and that the system log indicated that the failure occurred 10 minutes before Angel and Cordelia began their watch, suggesting an inside job.
When they go back to the hotel, Lorne tells them that the Beast is assembling a winged-like object out of the pieces removed from the totems. Wesley and Fred tell them that opening a portal may be the only way of getting rid of the Beast. Angel decides to involve Connor and all of them head out to his loft. Meanwhile, Connor hears a knock at his door and opens it only to find the Beast standing outside. He attempts to fight the Beast but is thrown out through the window and lands in front of Angel's car just as the whole team arrives. Cordelia stays behind with the injured Connor while Angel and the others rush inside to fight the Beast. They burst inside the room just as the Beast is reciting a chant in front of the assembled pieces taken from the totems of the Ra-Tet. They manage to toss the Beast into a portal opened up by Fred and Wesley, however, it is too late; the sun turns black and darkness descends upon Los Angeles. The Beast reappears and calls Angel Angelus before swallowing the orb and disappearing again. Cordelia finally fully remembers her vision and realizes that the Beast was talking to Angelus. Angel denies having ever talked to the Beast as Angelus. Wesley tells them that the only way to fight the Beast is to bring back Angelus to find out what he knows.
Tropes
- Bookcase Passage: To Gwen's walk-in safe/panic room.Gwen: You never pass up a good cliché.
- Cut Apart: Cordelia says they need to bring Connor in on this. There's a knock on Connor's door and he rushes to open it — only to find the Beast.
- Description Cut / Conversation CutCordelia: (sarcastically) Great, as long as it's not some non-descript tenement downtown—[Gwen is leading Angel, Cordelia, Manny, and Gunn up the stairs in a dingy walk-up apartment building.]Cordelia: ...with discarded boxes in the stairwells and peeling plaster and the faint odor of dead people.
- Destination Defenestration: The Beast throws Connor out the window.
- Downer Ending: The Beast successfully blots out the sun and effortlessly returns from the portal they toss him into.
- Evil Plan:Angel: Apparently there's a ritual using members of the Ra-tet to change day into night. Forever.Wesley: As far as evil plans go, it doesn't suck.
- Foreshadowing: Lorne says to a sulking Angel "When all's said and done, Connor will still be your son", referencing Connor's future transition into a new family with new parents at the end of the season.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Manny offers to buy Gwen a lapdance at the Pink Pony, provided he can watch.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The blood-splattered walls of the panic room are all that's shown of Manny's death. Just as well as his head has been cut open.
- Hope Spot: The Fang Gang manages to kick the Beast through a portal just before he blots out the sun. Only he managed to do it before they stopped him, and the portal thing was a No-Sell anyway. He just shows up unperturbed.
- I Resemble That Remark!: Gwen describes what attacked her as a demon with horns and teeth as Lorne enters. He takes it well, replying the evil ones cannot pull off the lamé suit, it gets camp.
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Gunn says they can't begin fighting against the Beast without some clue as to what it's up to. Cue Gwen entering the Hyperion with the first clue.
- Ironic Echo Cut:Cordelia: I trust you, Connor.(Cut to) Gunn: I don't trust him.
- Last Day to Live:Manny: Look, it's probably just a few hours 'til this guy catches up with me. I want to spend my last moments with my oldest, dearest friends down at the, uh, Pink Pony Lounge. (to Gwen) I'll buy ya a lap dance if I can watch.
- Literary Allusion Title: The title is presumably intended to evoke Long Day's Journey Into Night. It features a family in turmoil (like Angel Investigations), one of whom is addicted to opiates (like Glenn Quinn).
- Locked in a Room: Averted when Angel and Cordy are on guard duty.Cordy: So, all this time alone together. Could be good for us. Maybe we should talk.Angel: Maybe we shouldn't.Cordy: Valid point.
- Metronomic Man Mashing: The Beast to Connor.
- The Nicknamer: Lorne refers to the Beast as "Dr. Feel-Bad" and "El Destructo". Gunn refers to the late Mesektet as "Creepilocks". Manny calls Angel and Gwen "Super Hunk and Spandexia".
- Operation: Jealousy: Angel going off with Gwen to find Semkhet, arm conspicuous around her waist to piss off Cordy.
- Prophecy Twist: The Loa's final portent appears; the sky turns to blood as the Beast blots out the sun.
- Quit Your Whining: Cordelia tells Angel to just deal with the fact that she slept with Connor, as they've got more important things to worry about.
- Reveal Shot: The Beast in Cordelia's vision is talking to Angelus in the past.
- Rousing Speech: Angel gives it his best shot, but isn't very convincing.
- Suggestive Collision: While climbing down a cliff, Gwen slips and Angel catches her.Gwen: I did that on purpose.Angel: That's pretty pathetic.Gwen: If it's a lie, or if it's the truth?
- Sunglasses at Night: Mr. Ashet to hide his creepy eyes.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Cordelia rants how unlikely it is that someone would be able to sneak in and spike the drinks they made themselves... causing Angel to narrow his eyes.
- Total Eclipse of the Plot: The Beast blocks out the sun over Los Angeles, turning the city into a 24-hour demon haven. The darkness will eventually spread to cover the entire world.
- Wham Line:Wesley: There's only one way we're gonna defeat this Beast. We need Angelus.
- You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With: Subverted in typical Joss Whedon-style.Mr. Ashet: You have no idea who I am, do you, Miss Raiden? Or of the dire importance of recent events.Mr. Ashet: Well said. Perhaps, then, I won't kill you for your— (The Beast punches his fist through Ashet's chest)
