Episode 6: The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco

When Gunn brings some documents to Angel to sign, Angel confesses that he feels “disconnected” in his new position, despite the lavish surroundings and increased opportunities to do good. During the conversation Wolfram and Hart’s elderly mail guy (known as “Number 5” because he wears a hooded
mask with that numeral on it) picks up a stack of mail from Angel’s desk and toddles off down the hall. A moment later Angel notices Number 5 forgot an envelope, so he chases after Number 5 and grabs his arm. To Angel’s surprise, frail Number 5 tosses Angel through a window and then calmly squeaks away with his cart. Then, as Gunn calls security, Wesley reports that four bodies were just discovered with their hearts ripped out at a special mass for the Mexican Day of the Dead. Angel, Gunn, Wes, and Spike drive to East L.A., where they find yet another body with its heart missing. Then a large demon resembling an Aztec warrior attacks them. Angel and the others fight back but their weapons have no effect, and finally the demon shoves Angel into a dumpster and disappears.

Later at Wolfram and Hart, Fred analyzes the demon’s blood while Wesley searches ancient texts for
information on the demon. Spike asks about the Shanshu prophecy, which predicts an epic battle and a vampire with a soul who plays a major role in the battle and may get to live again. Spike notes that he’s a vampire with a soul and that he heroically closed a hellmouth, but Wes says there’s no mention of ghosts in the prophecy. Later Wesley shows Angel a picture of the warrior demon, explaining that it returns every 50 years, on the Day of the Dead, seeking human hearts. Wes also says that on the demon’s last visit it was defeated by five brothers who were the champions of their time, and all but one of them were killed in the battle. Angel asks if the surviving brother is still alive, and Wesley says he is… and they know him.

A bit later Angel knocks at the door of an apartment, which is opened by Number 5. He yanks Angel in and slams him into a wall, but this time Angel returns the toss, saying he needs Number 5’s help in defeating the Aztec warrior demon. Number 5 insists he’s retired, but Angel says he’d honor the memory of his dead brothers by helping. At the mention of his brothers, Number 5 shows Angel a small Day of the Dead altar which contains, among other items, a picture of him and his four brothers, once wildly popular luchadores (Mexican wrestlers) who all wear numbered masks like the one Number 5 still wears. Number 5 recalls their spectacular career in the ring, and says they also fought gangsters and monsters outside the ring on behalf of the weak and helpless. Angel asks how the brothers defeated the warrior demon, but Number 5 says he can’t remember, then recounts how after his brothers died he was so disheartened that he took a job with Wolfram and Hart, even though they stood for everything he hated. He says that ever since, he has built an altar and invited his brothers’ spirits to visit on the Day of the Dead, but they never come. Angel says it’s because Number 5’s spirit is broken, and asks how that happened. So Number 5 takes him to a wrestling arena where five midget wrestlers put on an act mocking Number 5 and his brothers in their fight against the Aztec warrior. Number 5 says that despite all his brothers’ good deeds, they obviously made no lasting difference in the world.

Meanwhile Gunn and Wes research the warrior demon’s victims and realize that each of them had performed a heroic act. At the same time, after Angel sees Number 5 to a bus home, the warrior demon attacks him again. Eventually it raises a dagger over Angel’s head… but then, instead of killing Angel, it just backs off and disappears. At the office Wes and Gunn tell Angel how the warrior is taking the hearts of heroes, but Angel notes that it let him live, and he’s a hero. Wes and Gunn say that if the demon uses hearts for sustenance, Angel’s dead organ wouldn’t do it much good. Gunn goes off to see if the warrior has a contract with Wolfram and Hart, but Wesley stays with Angel and says another reason the demon may not have taken Angel’s heart is that it can sense, as Wes does, that Angel’s heart just isn’t in his work any more. Wes asks if Angel still believes in the Shanshu prophecy, which is the only thing that will keep Angel from ending up disillusioned like Number 5. Just then Fred summons them to the lab, where she has discovered that human hearts are like rocket fuel to the demon. Spike speculates that its Achilles heel may be its own heart and Gunn confirms this, saying the demon has a contract that allows it to return every 50 years to search for a talisman that can give it infinite powers. Gunn says the talisman, which looks like a gold coin, was given to a hero who was charged with protecting it, and that it gets passed down from hero to hero through the generations. Angel remembers seeing the coin on Number 5’s altar and dashes back to his apartment. When he gets there both Number 5 and the altar are gone. Angel finds Number 5 a few minutes later, setting up the altar to summon the demon near his brothers’ grave at a local cemetery. Angel asks for the talisman, but Number 5 says he doesn’t have it. Then the demon appears. As it approaches Number 5 says he swallowed the talisman, and invites the demon to cut it out of him. He taunts the demon until it attacks, but as it swings a sword to kill Number 5, Angel attacks. Eventually the demon gets the upper hand and runs its sword through Number 5. As he falls, Angel attacks, but the demon tosses him into the brothers’ gravestone. As Angel shakes off the blow, a hand rises from the grave.

As Angel watches, brothers 1 through 4 break out of their grave, ready to fight for Number 5. They grab iron pickets from a nearby fence, and attack the demon lucha-style. Then they pin him to the ground with the fence pickets while Angel drives the demon’s own dagger through its heart, killing it. Number 5, barely alive, thanks Angel, then admits that the talisman is really in a thermos full of coffee sitting next to them. As Angel retrieves the talisman, Number Five finally dies, and his brothers pick up his body nd vanish once more into their grave. Later Angel delivers the talisman to Wes and tells him that Number 5 died a hero. Then, after Wes leaves, Angel returns to Wesley’s office alone and pulls out a book to read about the Shanshu prophesy.