"Fredless" is the fifth episode of the third season of Angel and the forty-ninth episode in the series. Written by Mere Smith and directed by Marita Grabiak, it was originally broadcast on October 22, 2001, on The WB network.
Synopsis[]
Angel goes into full detective mode when Fred's parents unexpectedly arrive in Los Angeles to bring Fred home, but their appearance inexplicably sends her into a tailspin and on the run.[1]
Summary[]
Wesley, Cordelia, Fred, and Gunn joke around in the lobby, while Fred works on a contraption that nobody can figure out. Wesley and Cordelia mockingly act out a summary of Buffy and Angel's relationship while Angel is meeting his resurrected ex-lover. Angel walks in on them, and Cordelia attempts to get him to talk about what went on with him and Buffy, but Angel refuses. He decides to take Fred out for some ice cream (since she's the only member of the gang who doesn't care about the meet-up with Buffy) as Cordelia laments that no-one will ever find out what happened.
Angel and Fred scour the sewers for a Durslar beast that attacked them while in Häagen-Dazs, despite them not being known for roaming above ground. Angel is certain he can kill the Durslar himself, and he sends Fred back to the hotel.
A middle-aged couple named Roger and Trish show up at the hotel looking for their daughter. The gang ask them questions about what supernatural force they think took their daughter, but Roger and Trish explain they already hired a private detective who traced her to the hotel; their missing daughter is Fred. As the gang quickly try to cover their discussion of demonic activity as slang, Fred enters the hotel unnoticed, spots her parent, and rushes up to her room.
Fred's parents explain that they recently got a letter from their daughter telling them she was okay, since she'd been missing for five years, but not to look for her. Gunn can't help but be impressed that the private detective traced them despite there being no return address on the envelope. The gang make up that Fred was depressed, and Angel suddenly walks in the Durslar beast's head talkng about the great fight he had. The gang shut him up and pretend Angel works in monster movies and the head is a prop.
The gang head to Fred's room to find she is gone, but the ice cream wrapper on the floor shows she's just been there and fled. The gang don't trust her parents, since Fred seems to be scared of them and she did send a letter asking them not to look for her (and even discuss the possibility the letter may just be a ruse to get close to Fred). Worried about Fred, especially since she's never left the hotel alone, the gang decide to split up and search for her.
Fred heads to Caritas, which is still wrecked from the massacre of a few weeks earlier, to see Lorne. He is still depressed over what happened and in no mood to entertain, lounging around in pajamas and a robe. Fred briefly sings to Lorne and asks him for money so she can leave LA. He tells her that he understands she's running from her own demons, warning her she may not have run far enough.
Angel searches for Fred in the sewers, and, unbeknownst to him, is being followed by a creature that looks like a giant fly with glowing blue eyes. The others search the Los Angeles Public Library, where Fred used to work, as Trish tells them how she would pick Fred up from their community library back home after her rounds as a school bus driver. Roger demands to know what Fred is doing with the gang, since it seems strange a physicist would work for a detective agency. Cordy, Wes, and Gunn confer over where else Fred could have gone to, it finally hits them she may have headed for Caritas. They call Angel, who is still being stalked, and tell him to meet them there.
At the bar, Lorne makes it clear to Gunn that he's not welcome at the moment (since it was partially his fault that his gang attacked). Cordy tries to claim Lorne works with Angel in monster movies, explaining his demonic appearance as makeup, but Lorne is in no mood to humor anyone. Lorne tries claiming he doesn't know where Fred is, but Angel convinces him to help. Lorne tells them where she is, but he warns Angel that it's not going to be easy for Fred.
Meanwhile, Fred is at the bus station, talking to herself and trying to decide where to flee to, when her parents find her. Fred confesses she didn't want to see her parents because she didn't want them to know where she had spent the past five years, nor she wanted to relive these experiences when telling them about her ordeal. With her friends watching, Fred breaks down in tears and is comforted by her parents as she is forced to come to terms with the fact that the terrible things she went through in Pylea actually happened. They all embrace, and, just then, a bug-like demon descends upon them in the bus station and starts attacking. All attempts to fool the Burkles are abandoned, and everyone fights the creature. Fred is injured, but Trish drives a bus over the demon and kills it.
Back at the hotel, everyone patches up their wounds and talk over what happened. Roger and Trish take the knowledge of supernatural beasts and monsters in stride, just happy to see their daughter. Fred begins to doubt her place in the group and where she fits in; combined with her recent injury, Fred decides to go home with her parents. Roger and Trish are happy to have their daughter return home with them, while the rest of the gang respect her decision. Angel later talks with Fred in her room, as she admits that she just built herself another cave here after he left upon learning of Buffy's death.
Fred says her farewells to the gang and leaves with her parents. As they head to the airport, Fred suddenly notices the demon's blood on her shirt crystalized, and she asks to head back. Meanwhile, Angel and the others talk about how much they'll miss having Fred and her parents around, only to be interrupted when a bug demon smashes through the hotel's doors, with a mass of other demons outside. As they begin to attack, Fred walks in and sets off her contraption: a hands-free device that flings an axe across the room. The axe bisects the severed Durslar head, releasing hoards of bugs.
Seeing this, the fly creature leaves. Fred explains discovery of what happened: the demon laid its eggs in the Durslar's head, which is why it ventured above ground and attacked; when Angel brought the head back to the hotel, the mother or father (Fred believing it could be either or both) attacked them at the bus station and, when the parent was killed, the rest of the hive arrived to claim the offspring. Fred is commended on her excellent deductive reasoning, which makes Fred realize she does have a place with Angel Investigations after all. She decides to stay, and her parents accept her decision.
Later, the gang and Fred's parents paint over Fred's wall scribbling. Angel and Fred's dad bond over the knowledge that Spiro Agnew was a demon, and Wes and Gunn argue over the correct way to paint. Fred comes across a drawing of her and Angel on a horse, and she paints over it.
Continuity[]
- An off-screen meeting between Angel and Buffy takes place immediately before this episode, Angel having left to meet her at the end of the previous episode, "Carpe Noctem." Buffy's similarly vague commentaries about the encounter appear in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Life Serial."
- The Scooby Gang will speculate Buffy and Angel's meeting in the dubious canon comic Reunion.
- Fred muses to herself that she could go to Las Vegas and make a fortune counting cards at blackjack. She will later do just that in "The House Always Wins."
- Roger and Trish Burkle would return to Los Angeles only in "The Girl in Question."
- This episode introduces Fred's knack for building contraptions, which will appear again in the episode "Billy."
Appearances[]
Individuals[]
- Angel
- Roger Burkle
- Trish Burkle
- Winifred Burkle
- Cordelia Chase
- Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan
- Charles Gunn
- Buffy Summers (Only mentioned)
- Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Organizations and titles[]
- Angel Investigations
- Slayer (Only mentioned)
Species[]
- Demon
- Deathwok Clan
- Durslar beast
- Grathnar demon (Only mentioned)
- Rodentius demon (Only mentioned)
- Unidentified bug demon
- Human
- Vampire
Locations[]
- Earth
- Dallas (Only mentioned)
- Burkle residence (Only mentioned)
- Las Vegas (Only mentioned)
- Los Angeles
- Dallas (Only mentioned)
- Pylea (Only mentioned)
Objects[]
Death count[]
- A Durslar beast, beheaded by Angel.
- One bug demon, squashed by Trish Burkle with a bus.
Behind the scenes[]
Production[]
- The set used for the bus station lobby is also used in the episodes "Five by Five" and "Shells."
Broadcast[]
- "Fredless" had an audience of 3.0 million households upon its original airing.[2]
Pop culture references[]
- Angel compares Durslar beasts with the writer William Faulkner and alludes to the title of his 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury.
- Angel takes Fred to the ice cream store Häagen-Dazs.
- Fred sings the nursery rhyme "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" to Lorne.
- Fred interrupts Lorne watching the reality court show Judge Judy.
- Lorne compares watching the film The Godfather Part III with massacres, explaining that "once is enough."
- Trish talks about Roger's love of Alien movies, saying he loves them all "except that last one they made. I think he dozed off." The movie she is referring to is Alien Resurrection, the screenplay of which was written by Joss Whedon.
- Fred describes the behavior of the bug demons laying eggs in the Durslar beast's head as following the evolutionary Darwinism theory.
- Angel and Roger talk about the politician Spiro Agnew being a demon.
- Angel and Roger talk about the 1963 golf tournament Bob Hope Desert Classic, in which Jack Nicklaus won against Gary Player.
Music[]
- Robert J. Kral — original score
International titles[]
- Czech: "Bez Fred" (Without Fred)
- Finnish: "Fredin ratkaisu" (Fred's Solution)
- French: "Les démons du passé" (Demons of the Past)
- German: "Fre(u)dlos" (Joyless/Fredless)
- Hungarian: "Fred nélkül" (Without Fred)
- Italian: "Senza Fred" (Without Fred)
- Portuguese (Brazil): "Procurando Fred" (Searching for Fred)
- Russian: "Без Фрэд" (Without Fred)
- Spanish (Latin America): "Sin Fred" (Without Fred)
- Spanish (Spain): "Sin Fred" (Without Fred)
- Turkish: "Fredsizlik" (Fredless)
Adaptations[]
- This episode is included in The Vampire Anthology: Fred DVD.
References[]
- ↑ "angel: Fredless." TheWB.com. Archived from the original on November 26, 2003.
- ↑ "Nielsen Ratings for Angel's Third Season." Nielsen Ratings for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, & Firefly. Archived from the original on July 5, 2008.