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“Spin the Bottle”
Angel episode
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 06
Written by	Joss Whedon
Directed by	Joss Whedon
Guest stars	Andy Hallett    (Lorne) Vladimir Kulich    (The Beast)
Production no.	4ADH06
Original airdate	November 10, 2002
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Supersymmetry" "Apocalypse, Nowish"
List of Angel episodes

"Spin the Bottle" is episode 6 of season 4 in the television show Angel. Written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon, it was originally broadcast on November 10, 2002 on the WB television network. In this episode, Lorne performs a magic spell on Cordelia to help her regain her memory, but instead the spell causes all the Angel Investigations members to revert to their teenage personas. See List of Angel episodes for a complete list.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Acting 2.1 Main cast 2.2 Special guest star 2.3 Guest stars 2.4 Co-stars 3 Production details 3.1 Continuity 3.2 Translations 4 Reception and reviews 5 Timing 6 References 7 External links 8 See also

Lorne directly addresses an unseen crowd, narrating the conversation that Angel and Cordelia begun just as the previous episode ended. Cordelia questions whether she and Angel were in love, and Angel is uncertain. Cordelia just wants to remember who she is. Lorne arrives with the answer: a bottle containing a memory-restoration spell, which Cordelia is eager to try. Wesley arrives, having been asked to help with the spell, and has an awkward meeting with Fred. She vaguely informs him that her mission was completed, as Gunn realizes that Wesley helped Fred try to kill her professor. When he confronts Wesley, Wesley reminds him that Gunn and the others abandoned him after he kidnapped Connor. The gang hold hands and sit in a circle around the bottle, which spins as lights shoot out. The spell makes them feel woozy and out of place as they wander and stumble. Cordelia suddenly freaks out and smashes the bottle with her boot. She starts on a tirade about kidnapping and sophomore pranks, as she has mentally regressed to when she was the most popular girl at Sunnydale High; Wesley believes he is still a student at the Watcher's Academy, Gunn is once again a rebellious street kid, Fred is transformed into a younger and insecure pothead, and Angel has reverted to his pre-vampire self - a 1753 Irish teenager named Liam who is frightened by the modern world in which he has suddenly found himself. While Liam wonders what happened to his Irish accent, the rest of the gang question what brought them together and what they should do to solve the mystery of their current situation. Gunn and Wesley butt heads on plans and when Wesley tries to demonstrate his toughness with a karate demonstration, he unintentionally activates a stake weapon up his sleeve. When Gunn and Fred find Lorne passed out behind the counter, they are shocked to see a demon. Meanwhile, Connor saves a young woman from two vampires. The woman offers her body in repayment, but he's unwilling.

Back at the hotel, Wesley tapes Lorne to a seat in the lobby while arguing with Gunn over whether to cut Lorne's head off or torture him for information. When Cordelia asks why they're not freaking out at the sight of a green man with horns, Wesley and Gunn both reveal that vampires and demons are real and they both have experience with them. Fred examines an unconscious Lorne while Wesley shares his theory that they're being kept in the hotel with a vampire as a test. They all start to wonder why they don't look 17 like they feel, and collectively decide to hunt for the vampire that will supposedly set them free once they kill it. Cordelia and Liam team up and go one way while the other three head in the other direction. Liam struggles to adjust to this strange world that is hundreds of years beyond his life. Cordy tries to comfort him, but while she turns away, Liam vamps out and much to his own surprise, realizes that he's a vampire and he will be killed if the gang finds out. Liam decides to leave the hotel before the others realize he's a vampire, but becomes frightened when he spots the cars on the street and rushes back inside the hotel to escape the "demons." As the group regathers in the lobby, Wesley introduces a new theory: the vampire may be one of them. He passes a cross around the group, but when it finally reaches Liam, he manages to hide his smoking hand until a distraction develops. Lorne wakes up, his memory unaffected, and identifies Liam as a vampire to the rest of the group. A fight breaks out between Liam, Wesley and Gunn, and the girls run in separate directions. Liam chases after Cordelia, who screams loudly when he catches her, drawing a lurking Connor out of the shadows. Liam rants to Connor about fathers and the two fight, while upstairs, Lorne convinces Fred to release him so he can fix the spell. Once released, Lorne mixes together a concoction to restore their memories.

Later, in the lobby, Lorne puts a touch of the mixture on Cordy's tongue. She pauses as she is struck with a vision of a terrifying demon and then runs off. Lorne finishes up his story at the lounge, describing how Angel catches up with Cordelia and she reveals that she remembers everything. He asks her a final question: Were they in love? She tells him they were and walks off, leaving Angel behind.

This episode took much longer to film due to the cast being unable to stop laughing. Amy Acker and Andy Hallett ruined dozens of takes by giggling, and Alexis Denisof and David Boreanaz prolonged shooting for an hour and a half when they couldn't stop laughing. To get the scene, Denisof explains he and Boreanaz resolved not to look at each other; on the DVD commentary Whedon points out background shots where Boreanaz is still failing to keep a straight face.^[1]

• David Boreanaz as Angel
• Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
• J. August Richards as Charles Gunn
• Amy Acker as Winifred Burkle
• Vincent Kartheiser as Connor
• Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndam-Pryce

• Andy Hallett as Lorne

• Vladimir Kulich as The Beast

• Sven Holmberg as Delivery Guy
• Kam Heskin as Lola

Writer/director Joss Whedon says this episode grew out of his desire to see Wesley returned to the "bumbling moron" of the past. "We were reminiscing about the days when he was a complete idiot, and so we thought we wanted to see old-school Wesley but also cool, new-school Wesley," Whedon explains.^[2] Although the regression to a comedic figure contrasts his new, darker persona, Wesley still exhibits heroism during this episode, which is in line with the growth his character experienced over the last four years.^[3] Peggy Davis argues that "Wesley can embody masculine heroism or feminine comic figure, but not both"^[4]; however in this episode he demonstrates that his heroic masculinity allows for a comedic element as well.^[3] In addition to bringing back "classic Wesley", this episode also gave the opportunity to refresh viewers' memories of "teenage bitch queen" Cordelia, whose character changed dramatically during her time on Angel.^[1]

Whedon gave Lorne's spell the side-effect of making the gang "high" to differentiate this memory spell from a similar one used in the Buffy episode "Tabula Rasa", readily admitting the spell itself is "lazy writing," meant only to set the plot in motion.^[1] The frame narrative established by Lorne in the night club was done to highlight the postmodern aspects of the episode, explains Whedon. The artificiality of the night club, and Lorne's breaking of the fourth wall when he comments on the commercials that played during the act break, provides a foreground for the alternate reality caused by the spell.^[1] Whedon notes that while writing this episode, he already knew that Connor and Cordelia were going to have sex, but the story had to move faster than he had originally planned because Carpenter became pregnant.^[1]

• When Cordelia, under the spell, first sees Angel she says "Hello, salty goodness", the same thing she says upon first seeing him in "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date".

• When Wesley says, "there are stories at the Watcher's Academy of a test. A secret gauntlet which only the most cunning can survive. You're locked in a house with a vicious, deadly vampire, and you have to kill him before he kills you. It's been done in the past with Slayers," he is speaking of the Cruciamentum that Buffy had to undertake in "Helpless".

• Fred speaks to a plant in this episode, as she previously did in "That Old Gang of Mine". Also, Spike mentions speaking to plants is one of Illyria's powers in "Origin".

• German title: "Flaschendrehen" ("Spin the bottle")
• Italian title: "Gira la bottiglia" ("Spin the bottle")

The DVD commentary for this episode, featuring writer/director Joss Whedon and actor Alexis Denisof, ranks 68th on the list of top 100 commentary tracks for DVD boxsets and movies on RateThatCommentary.com,^[5] and 3rd on Slayage.com.^[6]

Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:

Location, time (if known)	Buffyverse: Fall 2002 - December 2002 (non-canon = italic)
Sunnydale, 2002	B7.01 Lessons
Mexico, 2002	Buffy/Angel book: Seven Crows
L.A., 2002	A4.01 Deep Down
Sunnydale, 2002	B7.02 Beneath You
L.A., 2002	A4.02 Ground State
Sunnydale, 2002	B7.03 Same Time, Same Place
Sunnydale, 2002	Buffy book: Apocalypse Memories
L.A., Las Vegas, 2002	A4.03 The House Always Wins
Sunnydale, 2002	B7.04 Help
L.A., 2002	Angel book: Dark Mirror
Sunnydale, 2002	Buffy book: Mortal Fear
Sunnydale, 2002	Buffy book: Spark and Burn
Sunnydale, L.A., 2002	Buffy/Angel book: Heat
L.A., 2002	A4.04 Slouching Toward Bethlehem
Sunnydale, 2002	B7.05 Selfless
L.A., 2002	A4.05 Supersymmetry
Sunnydale, 2002	B7.06 Him
L.A., 2002	Angel book: Solitary Man
L.A., 2002	A4.06 Spin the Bottle
L.A., 2002	Angel book: Love and Death
L.A., 2002	Angel book: Monolith
Sunnydale, 2002	B7.07 Conversations with Dead People
L.A., 2002	A4.07 Apocalypse, Nowish
Sunnydale, 2002	B7.08 Sleeper
L.A., 2002	A4.08 Habeas Corpses
Sunnydale, 2002	B7.09 Never Leave Me
L.A., 2002	A4.09 Long Day's Journey
Sunnydale, 2002	B7.10 Bring on the Night
Unknown, 2002	Tales of the Vampires: Stacey
New York, 2002	Tales of the Vampires: Spot the Vampire
Unknown 2002	Tales of the Vampires: Taking Care of Business
L.A., 2002	A4.10 Awakening

• "Spin the Bottle" at the Internet Movie Database

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