Angel (born 1727 in Galway, Ireland) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt for the television programs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The character is portrayed by David Boreanaz.

EARLY HISTORY
Angel was born as Liam, to an Irish merchant, in 1727. By 1753, at the age of 26, he had developed a taste for alcohol, women and sloth. Though a good man at heart, Liam was a hedonist whose only real ambition lay in seeing the world. For the lazy Irishman, that seemed a laughable dream, especially after he was expelled from his father's household, but he had caught the eye of an affluent woman - actually a vampire - named Darla. She lured him into an alley and, promising him a world full of excitement and travel, transformed him into a vampire.

The loss of his soul meant Liam no longer possessed any restraint over his darker impulses. On the night he rose from his grave, and in response to Darla's claim that he could have anyone in the village, he set about slaughtering the entire community. When he came to slaughter his own family, he found no problem in entering, his little sister inviting him in without hesitation or suspicion. Before killing his father, he would tell him mockingly, "She thought that I'd returned to her. An angel. She was wrong." For generations Darla and Liam, now known as Angelus, terrorized humankind, murdering and torturing anyone who crossed their path. Angelus sired the vampires Penn (who indulged his blood lust by becoming a serial killer), and Drusilla, a young woman driven insane by Angelus before he finally sired her. Drusilla, in turn, sired Spike, for whom Angelus largely served as a mentor and "role model." Spike would go so far as to call the elder vampire his "Yoda".

According to Angel in the episode "City of", he had been around for 14 wars, not counting Vietnam; "they never declared it."

CURSED

"You have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done... and to care." Angel

In 1898, Angelus slew the favorite daughter of a tribe of Gypsies, the Kalderash Clan. To avenge her death, the Kalderash cursed him by restoring his human soul, thus afflicting Angel with a conscience and condemning him to an eternity of remorse for the crimes he committed as soulless Angelus. During the Boxer Rebellion, Angel tried and failed to resume his life with Darla, finding himself unable to eat a baby to prove himself to his sire. Angel fled (presumably to the United States) and lived in self-imposed isolation, controlling the temptation to feed by avoiding humans altogether.

Angel arrived in New York via Ellis Island in 1902. Aside from one mention of the unspecified interval he spent in Missoula during the Depression, Angel didn't surface for the next four decades.

During World War II, Angel was coerced to undertake a secret mission by The Demon Research Initiative, who sank him to the bottom of the ocean to rescue an American submarine crew from three Nazi-captured vampires (including Spike). The American crew had stolen the German submarine and the vampires had escaped their bonds, decimated them, then besieged the survivors. Angel was forced to sire Ensign Sam Lawson to save the remaining crew members.

In 1952, Los Angeles, Angel was a resident at the Hyperion Hotel, the building which would one day become the future base of Angel Investigations. During this time, Angel attempted to stay to himself, avoiding interaction with other residents and patrons. Despite the numerous strange incidents, murders and suicides running rampant throughout the hotel, he looked the other way when his help would have made a difference. After finding a young woman named Judy hiding in his room, Angel tried to preserve his isolation, first by disarming and removing the man chasing her, then by immediately ejecting Judy herself. However, her repeated attempts to interact with him allowed the two to build a lukewarm -- very surprising and rare for Angel -- relationship. Meanwhile, hotel staff and residents (including Judy) continued to become corrupted and, although he didn't understand why, Angel felt compelled to help. He discovered the presence of the Thesulac, a paranoia demon affecting the humans in the hotel, but by the time Angel learned how to defeat it and obtained the items required, the entire hotel was overcome with pathological paranoia. Mad with demon-induced fear, the hotel residents and staff turned on Judy as their exemplar of The Outsider. To save herself, Angel's new friend betrayed him to the mob. With rabid fury, they ambushed Angel, beat him, and then hanged him. This was a turning point in Angel's life. Crushed and embittered by the consequences of becoming close to a human, Angel abandoned Judy and everyone else. Instead of destroying the Thesulac as it was in his power to do, he allowed the vicious demon to prey upon and ravage them unhindered. Upon Angel's return to the Hyperion many decades later, he found Judy there, an old woman, still trapped, still consumed with guilt for causing her new friend and protector to be lynched in her stead. Telling Judy he'd forgiven her, Angel allowed them both to find some sort of peace. However, at the time of his bitter departure from the Hyperion, he disappeared again and little is known of his activities for the next twenty years.

In New York during the 1970s, Angel witnessed a robbery at a doughnut shop. After the robber shot the employee and fled, Angel stayed with the man as he died. Unable to resist the sight and smell of the clerk's still-warm blood, Angel helplessly succumbed to the overwhelming urge and fed on the body. Deeply disgusted by his own weakness, Angel fled the shop, and then exiled himself to a life of homelessness, living in alleyways and feeding on rats. Two decades later, a shadow of his former self, the reclusive and emotionally tortured Angel was sought out in 1996 by a demon named Whistler, who persuaded him to join the fight against the evil that had corrupted him and to help the newly-called Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers. The following year, when he and Buffy finally met in Sunnydale, he introduced himself, not as Angelus, but as Angel.

SUNNYDALE
Angel's story before he met Buffy unfolds in flashbacks scattered among numerous episodes of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. As these are not presented in chronological order, a guide to finding which flashback illuminates a particular event can be found at Angel, Darla, Spike and Dru: Before 1997.

Angel fell in love with Buffy the first time he saw her on that fateful day in L.A. when she first was called. However, Angel didn't show himself until after her move to Sunnydale, and after her first day at Sunnydale High. Buffy did not realize Angel was a vampire until several weeks later, but by then the damage was done -- she had fallen in love with him in turn. Though they tried to deny their feelings, they could not resist the passion growing between them. When they finally consummated their relationship, Angel experienced one moment of pure happiness, which broke the Gypsy curse and lost him his soul. Without the compassion and conscience instilled by his human soul, Angel instantly reverted to his former evil self, Angelus.

Angel, now Angelus, allied himself once again with Spike and Drusilla, who had recently settled in Sunnydale. Resenting the humiliation he felt because Buffy had made Angel feel like a human being, Angelus took immense pleasure in tormenting the Slayer and her friends. First, he helped Spike and Dru deploy the Judge, but Buffy and her crew put a stop to that. Then Angelus embarked on a guerilla campaign, lurking on the peripheries, preying on Buffy's classmates, sending her grusome messages, circling closer and closer to her inner core.

Angelus' reign of terror culminated in his murder of Jenny Calendar, which served him in two ways. First, he eliminated an enemy (Jenny was born Janna of the Kalderash clan) and destroyed her work just as she managed to successfully decipher the lost Gypsy curse which would restore Angel's soul. Second, Angelus used Jenny's death to viciously torment Giles, on whom Buffy depended most, and whom Angel had grown to respect. After Angelus orchestrated this masterpiece of terror, Drusilla drew his attention to a new opportunity for destruction and chaos. Angelus widened his focus and began a scheme to awaken the demon Acathla and bring about the end of the world, the Apocalypse. Buffy was determined to stop him despite their deeply emotional history. Fighting him one-on-one, the Slayer was able to overcome Angelus, but just as Acathla opened the vortex into his hell dimension, Buffy's friend and comrade, Willow Rosenberg, using the ritual Jenny had rediscovered and preserved, cursed Angelus again. Thus, Angel's soul was restored mere moments before the world's imminent destruction. Buffy was forced to save the world, not by killing evil, soulless Angelus, but by sacrificing her beloved Angel. Impaled on the Slayer's enchanted sword, Angel appeared to shrink into the distance until Acathla's vortex suddenly snapped closed.

Less than a year later (by Sunnydale reckoning), Angel was unexpectedly released from Acathla's hell, reappearing in his mansion in a feral state. Buffy aided him in secret, fostering his rehabilitation. Once he regained his senses, Angel began to suspect that his return from Hell was not accidental, that he must be meant to serve some unknown purpose. That fear -- that this purpose was not for the cause of good -- grew in Angel's mind as he began to experience what he believed to be hallucinations. However, he was actually being haunted by The First Evil. The First, able to adopt the appearances of Angelus' victims, drove Angel ever closer to the brink of madness by lashing him with guilt and, ultimately, tempting him to end it all by losing his soul once again and killing Buffy in the throes of passion. In despair, Angel chose to kill himself rather than risk his beloved Slayer. To Angel's shock and consternation, it snowed that Christmas morning as he waited under the open sky for the sun to rise. From that moment, he began to entertain the hope that his return might have some purpose for good after all.

After that miraculous snowy day in southern California, Angel and Buffy tried to build an actual relationship, taking in the occasional movie, getting away on more scenic patrols, enjoying moonlit picnics in the cemetery. But it was not to be. Even before their one and only night together, Angel had worried about Buffy's future with him, his inability to give her a family, or even a remotely normal human life. Upon hearing his own concerns reflected back to him from such disparate sources as the undeniably evil Mayor Wilkins (speaking as an immortal man who loved and married a mortal woman) and the undeniably good Joyce Summers (speaking as a mortal woman, and as Buffy's mother), Angel at last made the difficult decision to leave Sunnydale, to leave Buffy. His love for the Slayer was so great that he chose to set her free. At the time, anguish obscured the deeper truth that Angel's choice set them both free.

LOS ANGELES
Angel promised Buffy he would stay until Sunnydale High's Graduation Day, to help avert the Mayor's Ascension. He also warned her that, if they survived the ordeal, he would leave without saying goodbye. They survived, and Angel, with a last, long look at the Slayer, kept his final promise. His move to Los Angeles brings Angel's story into the present. In L.A., Angel spends a few months alone, and nightly patrols dives and dark alleys, dusting the vamps who hunt there. Soon enough, he receives support in his attempts to redeem himself in the service of others. First, Doyle, a half-demon and fellow Irish, is sent by The Powers That Be. Almost immediately thereafter, Angel runs into Cordelia Chase, a former classmate of Buffy's who has moved to L.A. to find wealth and fame. The trio form Angel Investigations, a shoestring operation whose mission statement is to protect those who cannot defend themselves and to help lost souls find their way.

Doyle, Angel's trusted friend and sole connection to the Powers, is killed in the line of duty, leading Angel to become even more protective of those few he holds dear. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who had briefly served as Watcher to both Buffy and Faith in Sunnydale, arrives in L.A. claiming to be a "rogue demon hunter," a lone wolf sort who only works solo. After their first case, however, Wesley is eager to stay and assist Angel and Cordelia in their mission. A few months later, they are joined by lifelong demon fighter, Charles Gunn. The AI team also enlists the help of demon karaoke bar-owner Lorne, known initially only as The Host. Both prescient and empathic, Lorne can sense the futures of humans and demons when they sing. During this time, three young Wolfram and Hart associates, Lindsey McDonald, Lee Mercer, and Lilah Morgan, attempt to have Angel killed by the rogue vampire slayer, Faith. Under Angel's influence, the deeply troubled Faith starts along her own path to redemption, ultimately turning herself in to the police as the first step toward making amends for her crimes.

As Angel continues to help the helpless in Los Angeles, his good deeds begin seriously to disrupt the plans of the evil inter-dimensional law firm, Wolfram and Hart. In an attempt to control him, the firm resurrects his sire and former lover, Darla, who comes back as a human rather than as a vampire. Wolfram and Hart then summons Drusilla, who turns Darla into a vampire again. Angel feels such deep anguish at his failure to save Darla, and such intense fury at Wolfram and Hart for their machinations, that he fires his crew and embarks on a bitter, ruthless vendetta against both the law firm and the newly reunited Darla and Drusilla. In a dark moment very similar to what he experienced at the Hyperion in the 1950s, Angel even goes so far as to consciously allow the slaughter of a very large group of W&H employees at the fangs of their own creation, Dru and Darla. In spiritual agony beyond even his endurance, Angel attempts to shed his soul by having (perfect) sex with Darla, but instead of happiness, finds perfect despair. A moment of clarity follows the desperate act, and Angel realizes that his purpose is still to do all the good he can, even if he can't do all the good he wants. Having hoped to get her boy Angelus back, Darla is horrified and infuriated by Angel's epiphany, and flees Los Angeles. After a difficult reconciliation that involves Wesley taking over the official position of leader of the group, the AI team then find themselves transported to Lorne's home dimension, Pylea. Eventually, after Angel defeats the undefeated Champion of Pylea, The Groosalugg, they return with a new team member, Winifred Burkle, in tow, and to the news that the love of Angel's life, Buffy, has died.

Despite Buffy's miraculous resurrection a few months later, Angel finds that his previously platonic love for Cordelia has grown to be romantic. Before he has a chance to confess his feelings, however, Darla returns, pregnant with his son, to be named Connor. False prophecies, time travelers and betrayal lead to Angel losing his infant son to an old enemy, Holtz, who abducts Connor soon after his birth, taking him to a hell dimension (Quor-Toth) where time passes differently. When Connor returns days later, he is a young man who has been raised by Holtz to believe that Angel is still a soulless monster. Connor vows to make Angel pay for the suffering he had once caused (made even worse when Holtz set up his own death to make it appear as though Angel had killed him), and he acts out his retribution by sending his father to the bottom of the ocean in a steel coffin. At the same time, Cordelia ascends to a higher plane, the feelings shared between her and Angel still left unspoken.

Rescued by Wesley from his watery prison, Angel's relationship with Connor is strained. It is complicated further by the return of an amnesiac Cordelia, who prefers to stay with Connor because he told her the truth while the others lied to her (albeit because they thought it was for her own good). When a very powerful demon known only as the Beast arrives and begins an attempt to bring forth an apocalypse, Angel's worst fears are realized when he has to strip himself of his soul and revert to his evil alter ego in order to defeat it. Angelus does indeed overcome the Beast, and is also deft enough to realize that the Beast was a mere "flunkie" serving an even deeper evil; the Beast he knew was only interested in smashing and slaughter, and it was unlikely that the Beast would have become smarter since Angelus fought him.

Although he is momentarily free to wreak a little havoc of his own, Angelus is recaptured and re-ensouled with the help of Faith (who almost dies in her quest to capture Angelus) and Willow, culminating in a brief but violent mental battle between Angel and Angelus. After his soul is restored, Angel figures out that the enemy he has been battling is a little closer to home than the group had previously considered, realizing that whatever the Beast's "boss" is, it is using Cordelia's body to carry out its plans. After battling and defeating the divine being known as Jasmine, Angel is offered the L.A. branch of W&H on the grounds that he ended world peace (despite the fact that "world peace" meant no free will and the sacrifice of thousands of lives at the hands of Jasmine, who had to literally devour people to stay alive). Angel acts against all of his instincts and makes a deal with his sworn enemy, in exchange for W&H erasing Connor’s memories and giving him a normal life, and trying to find a way to cure Cordelia.

Angel's year spent running W&H is one marred with challenge and self-doubt. Trying to battle evil from within the belly of the beast proves to be more difficult than even he imagined, with the lines of good and evil becoming ever more grey with every action taken. Shortly after Angel assumes control of the law firm, matters are further complicated when Spike appears as a ghost, emerging from a familiar amulet sent to Angel in the mail. Sharing a complicated history of murder and mayhem, they had spent more than a century as rivals in everything. Now both possessing souls, and both still in love with Buffy, they had evolved into very different heroes in the war against evil. Forced to co-exist, they wage a protracted, insidious battle of wits, ending when they finally come to an understanding and acceptance of their unique brotherhood on their journey to redemption.

In the episode "Destiny," when they prepare to do battle over the Cup of Perpetual Torment, Spike tells Angel "You had a soul forced on you. As a curse. Make you suffer for all the horrible things you've done. Me, I fought for my soul, went through the demon trials, almost did me in a dozen times over, but I kept fighting. Because I knew it was the right thing to do. It's my destiny." Then Spike defeats Angel for the first time in their century plus association. Despite this, Spike and Angel come to an understanding that lets the two of them operate as a lethal team when the two end up fighting side-by-side, using their long experience of each other's skills to operate in near-perfect tandem.

Angel finally understands that he will never be able to completely stop the forces of evil, but that he can temporarily sever the Senior Partners' hold on Earth. Together with his comrades, Angel prepares to suicidally incur the apocalyptic wrath of the Senior Partners as a way of going out in a blaze of glory. They assassinate the members of the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Senior Partners' instruments on Earth for pulling all the political and economic strings. In this effort, Gunn is badly wounded, and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is killed. Gunn manages to make it to the meeting point, the alley behind the Hyperion Hotel, and together with Angel, Spike, and Illyria, proceeds to engage in battle with the dark armies that the Senior Partners have sent against them. The last words spoken on screen are, "Let's go to work."

In the non-canonical comics following the series, the four members of Angel's team seem to have survived the battle. Angel goes to Romania to remove his curse. He helps the Gypsies in a fight versus a dictator and he is forced to kill the only person who was able to remove his curse.

Series creator Joss Whedon has stated that he had originally intended Angel to survive this battle and go on into a sixth season. However, this was his original intention prior to the show being cancelled and prior to his writing the final episode. Early previews of the Buffy season eight comics have revealed that Angel and Spike will appear sparingly- suggesting both survived the battle (although death has not stopped either character from coming back in the past and another dead character from the Buffy series Anya Jenkins is reported to make an appearance)

Angel has been picked up for a canonical season 6, to be written by Brian Lynch, and plotted by Joss Whedon. It will be a twelve issue mini-series called "After The Fall."

Angel has the standard powers and vulnerabilites of a Buffyverse vampire. He is a highly skilled combatant and generally fights unarmed, using circular attacks such as spinning kicks and back hands. He has, however, mastered many varieties of weapons, favoring the axe and the broadsword. Angel also possesses some cognitive abilities; he has a photographic memory (cf. "Habeas Corpses") and has displayed a psychic connection to those he has sired on at least one occasion (cf. "Somnabulist"). In "Power Play", he reveals that Cordelia passed on her visions to him earlier that season in "You're Welcome". However, he explains that this was a "one-time deal", suggesting that this ability is not permanent. As Angelus, he displays considerable skill in manipulating others emotional states and has driven his victims insane, as seen with Drusilla. With or without his soul, he is shown to be an expert in torture, having tortured Giles as Angelus (cf. "Becoming, Part Two") and Linwood as Angel (cf. "Forgiving").

As well as his supernatural abilities and fighting skills, Angel displayed a number of other talents. He apparently has "very nice handwriting" and is a gifted artist, first seen in the episode "Passion", using charcoal crayon and China ink to draw portraits. He can drive; owning a black 1967 Plymouth GTX convertible in Angel seasons one to four and a Viper in five. He can speak several languages, including Korean, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, Romanian, German, and in "Harm's Way" tries to learn the language of the Vinji and Sahrvin demons via an instruction tape. Angel is competent but uncomfortable with using modern technology; he frequently struggles to understand cellphones (once claiming that they must have been invented by a "bored warlock") and confuses computer terminology such as "chatty rooms." He is shown changing diapers, but claims to be more familiar with pins than the "new-fangled fasteners" of disposable brands (cf. "Dad"). He is a convincing improvisational actor, as seen in the episodes "Enemies", "Five by Five", and "The Shroud of Rahmon", but is very not talented at singing (as seen in the episode "Judgement", amongst others). That's not a vampire thing: Darla (cf. "The Trial") and Spike (cf. "Once More, with Feeling") can sing very well.

Whilst Liam is human and Angelus is a vampire, Angel is a third, unique persona, a demon burdened with a human soul. A hybrid of man and vampire, he constantly deals with vampiric urges, and the human conscience that prevents him from ever forgetting his past misdeeds. Though the early seasons of Buffy expressed the view that when a human becomes a vampire, "You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old home; it walks like you and it talks like you - but it's not you" ("Lie to Me"), later seasons of Buffy and Angel had the relationship between Angelus and Angel far more intertwined. Angelus once referred to himself as "Angel" during Season Two of Buffy (possibly to torment Buffy). Angel usually says "I" when speaking of Angelus, but has also used "he". In "Amends" Angel protests, "It wasn't me!", but more often speaks of Angelus' crimes as his own. They share the same memories, and Angel never resumed the name of his human original, Liam (except while amnesiac in "Spin the Bottle"). Also, in Season One's "Eternity", Angel reverts back to his evil self without even losing his soul, when he is drugged and enters a state of 'bliss' that allows Angelus to regain control. This suggests that in a subconscious state that Angel's true nature is allowed to appear, although it may have been that the drug-induced state of bliss 'tricked' Angel's body into thinking that the curse had been broken.

Angel: Look, I'm weak. I've never been anything else. It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man. Episode 3.10 (btvs) "Amends"

Angel: ...there is no guilt, there is no torment, no consequences... It's pure. I remember what that was like. Sometimes I miss that clarity. Cordelia: But not the trying to kill your friends and family part, right? Just checking! Episode 1.21 (ats) "Blind Date"

Cordelia (possessed by Jasmine): What I remember when I was a higher being... I remember seeing you. Your past. When you were Angelus. Angel: I've never tried to hide who I was. Or what I've done. You already knew. Cordelia (possessed by Jasmine): Knowing's different than living it. When I was up there, I could look back and see everything you did as Angelus. More than see. I felt it. Not just their fear and pain. I felt you. And how much you enjoyed making them suffer... Episode 4.07 (ats) "Apocalypse, Nowish" (Note: Since the above was said by the entity that would become known as Jasmine while posing as Cordelia, this specific example of Angel being just a different aspect of Angelus comes from a questionable source to say the least.)

The relationship between Angel and Angelus has been described and depicted in numerous ways. Both personas are shown battling for control inside Angel's mind in the episode "Orpheus". In Season Four, Jasmine threatens Angelus by telling him that she will lock him away inside Angel forever, where he will be forever watching, forever thirsty, forever longing to escape his prison. When the two confront each other in "Orpheus", they clearly appear to be different people, albeit evenly matched. Though Angelus does not accept that Angel is truly 'seperate' from him (believing that Angel is merely "denying what he is"), he nonetheless draws a line between the two of them, and is disgusted with what Angel does with his body while in control. Angelus particularly resents Angel's two decades of eating rats after an incident he we succumbed to temptation and bit into from a murder victim. As seen in "Becoming, Part One" and "Becoming, Part Two", it takes a few moments for Angel to remember the events of Angelus' life after the curse comes into effect. This gap in memory is presumably the reason why the spell that erased all memories and references to The Beast did not affect the part of Angel's mind that Angelus resides in.

Although Angelus' bodycount was vast, his worst weapon was arguably his boundless cruelty and love of psychological intimidation. He is prone to brutal displays of what he would see as affection, one such incident involved him nailing a puppy to a wall, though a full explanation of this was never given as Buffy interrupted Giles with "Skip it, I don't have a puppy. So skip it." Another example of Angelus' grisly acts of love was when he brought Dru a still-warm human heart on Valentine's Day. Angelus has always had an obsession with elevating death to an art form; a truly satisfying kill must be perfectly framed and appreciated. He delights at the prospect of torturing a bound Giles in "Becoming, Part Two", mentioning that that the last time he tortured someone, they hadn't even invented the chainsaw. In the episode "Amends", The First Evil references him killing a man's three children, then propping them up in bed so that they appeared to be sleeping. It was only after the father kissed one of them good night that he felt how cold they were. This is mirrored in a prior episode when Angelus placed the recently-slain body of Jenny Calender in Giles' bed, making Giles believe she had set up a romantic evening for them.

Angelus had a weakness in that he was prone to excessive talking, and a need to utterly obliterate the mind of his victims before killing them. This streak of sadism sometimes gave potential victims time to escape or fight back (although it made little difference as he almost always got them in the end). Spike once observed to Angelus "you bloody well talk them to death before you kill them!"

It should be noted that Angelus is often referred to as 'Angel', the former typically being used to distinguish the two if necessary. Angelus accepts 'Angel' as a nickname, unwilling to see a distinction between his 'ensouled' half and his evil half.

Darla — Angel was sired by Darla. The pair were lovers until Angelus' transformation into Angel drove them apart, although he briefly tried to stay with her. She was regarded by Angel as his 'obsession', and even with a soul, knowing what she was and what she had done, he was still attracted to her in some way. During Darla's brief moments of humanity - when she is resurrected by Wolfram and Hart - the two retain a close bond, with Angel risking his life to give her a second chance. When Darla becomes pregnant with her and Angel's son, Connor, Darla stakes herself to allow Connor to be born, asking Angel to tell the child that their son was the only good thing they ever did together.

Drusilla — Angelus tormented the human Drusilla, sired her and kept her on as a companion afterwards; Angelus regarded her as his greatest work. The two also have a sexual relationship many years later during a period when her lover, Spike, is wheelchair-bound.

Spike — Spike mentions in the fifth season episode, "Power Play", that "Angel and me have never been intimate. Except that one--" Whedon has confirmed in numerous interviews and forum posts the possibility of at least a one night stand between the pair. In the DVD commentary to the episode "Hole In The World" he says: "You know, um, I just wanna say Angel and Spike, they were hanging out, uh, for years and years and years, they were in, you know, all kinds of deviant, they were vampires... Are we thinking they never...? Come on, people! I'm just sayin'. I'm just sayin'. You know, they're open-minded guys. They may be evil but, you know, they're not bigoted or closed-minded."

Buffy Summers — Angel's "first love." When he first sees Buffy, he realizes that he wants to be someone. When they sleep together for the first time, Angel loses his soul, becoming Angelus. Buffy is forced to kill him, to save the world, even though Willow has just ensouled him. After he returns from Hell, he and Buffy still love each other, and attempt a relationship. After realizing this relationship is unfair to Buffy, he leaves. Buffy comes to L.A, and for a brief time, Angel becomes human. He has to rewind the day, because being human will eventually lead to Buffy's death without him able to fight at peak performance. After Buffy dies in the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel spends months away at a convent in Asia. He comes to help Buffy in the Buffy finale, and they have an emotional conversation. Angel provides aid to Buffy in the final fight against Caleb, gives her an amulet that proves important in the final confrontation with the First, and goes to seek Buffy out in Italy during the last season of Angel, albeit unsuccessfully. He feels that he and Buffy share a "forever love."

Kate Lockley — Kate serves as Angel's contact in the police force as he starts his private detective business. The strong possibility of a relationship is hinted at, but ultimately doesn't materialize as she is unable to accept her discovery of his vampire nature, blaming him for the death of her father when her father was killed by vampires and wouldn't invite Angel in to help.

Rebecca Lowell — A short-lived potential love interest introduced in the episode "Eternity", Rebecca is an actress who hires Angel as her bodyguard. Learning about his vampire nature, she tries to convince him to turn her, not wanting to become old and unattractive, but her attempts only result in Angel briefly reverting to Angelus when she drugs his drink, inducing a feeling of bliss. After this, she leaves the office and is never seen again.

Winifred Burkle — After he rescues her from the Pyleans during their first meeting, Fred develops a childlike crush on Angel for a time; she gets over it after learning more about the curse, but later kisses Angel as part of a ruse to escape Jasmine's followers. She remains the only person to have seen Angel's demonic side before she knew who he was and not been scared by it, creating a close bond between the two of them even without a romantic relationship.

The Transuding Furies — The Furies are the three beautiful, powerful beings who cast the anti-demon-violence spell on Lorne's bar, Caritas. When Angel needs the spell removed to fight Gunn's rogue former gang, the Furies tell Cordelia that they will require 'payment' for such an act, and only Angel is 'equipped' to repay the debt (Whenever he is mentioned all three of them say, "Mmmm... Angel"). The general tone seems to imply a past sexual relationship between the Furies and Angel.

Cordelia Chase — Friends for years, Angel and Cordelia eventually realize that they have fallen in love with one another, only to be torn apart by her ascension and transformation and his imprisonment underwater by Connor before they can tell each other. Upon their subsequent returns, they do not pursue the relationship; Cordelia instead, under the control of Jasmine, forms a relationship with Angel's son, which results in her falling into a coma when Jasmine uses her body to create an independent host for itself. Later, Cordelia returns to put Angel back on track to stopping the Apocalypse. She does this and just before she dies, Cordelia and Angel share their first and only real kiss. In doing so, one last vision, that shows Angel who the true power holders are, is passed to him, helping him to stop the Apocalypse from the inside. The visions can only be passed if the previous owner is in love with the recipient. Even though they never properly tell each other, they both know how each other felt. Cordelia died knowing that Angel knew her feelings.

Gwen Raiden — A thief with command over electricity, Angel shares a kiss with Gwen after she gives him an electro-shock that (temporarily) reawakens his dead heart. He subsequently flirts with her to make Cordelia jealous while they are trying to protect the Ra-Tet from the Beast, but later seems to develop a slight affection for her; he almost appears jealous when she asks for Gunn's help over his.

Nina Ash — A werewolf who Angel saves from being eaten, she develops feelings for Angel and he is eventually convinced to give a relationship a shot. This relationship establishes that Angel is able to have positive sex (unlike his "perfect despair" moment with Darla) and still keep his soul.

Eve — Angel's liaison to the Senior Partners, she and Angel have a one-time encounter at Wolfram & Hart's Halloween party, when Lorne loses control of his empathic powers and he begins to unintentionally write destinies instead of reading them (he tells Angel and Eve to "get a room", saying that "you could cut the sexual tension with a knife"). When Angel thinks they should talk about it, Eve remarks, "It's not as if this is the first time I've had sex under mystical influence. I went to UC Santa Cruz". After this, however, their relationship becomes increasingly hostile due to Eve's relationship with Angel's old foe Lindsey, particularly following her attempt to infect Angel with a dream-inducing parasite.

OTHER

Faith Lehane — When Faith first crosses the line by killing a man, Angel is the first person to attempt to rehabilitate her. However, he is interrupted when Wesley tries to hand her over to the Watchers Council. While working for Mayor Wilkins Faith attempts to remove Angel's soul by seducing him. At this point Faith harbors a primal sexual attraction to Angel, but this is never elaborated on after she falls into a coma. After awakening from her coma and fleeing Sunnydale Faith goes to Los Angeles. Shortly after her arrival Wolfram and Hart hire Faith to kill Angel. After torturing Wesley, Angel confronts Faith, and during the fight he realizes what Faith really wants; she wants Angel to kill her. He refuses, and again tries to help her, defending her from both Buffy and agents of the Watcher's Council. Thanks to Angel's help Faith starts down the path to redemption by confessing to her crimes and going to prison. He visits her to make sure she is alright and prison is where she stays for several years. She later breaks out, but only because Angel needs her help, due to Angelus having been restored. Despite the difficulties involved in such a task, Faith makes sure he is brought in and protected so he can be re-ensouled by Willow, even defeating Connor to prevent him from staking his father. The two share a strong bond based on their mutual desire for redemption; Faith also states that Angel is the one person that has never given up on her, a factor that doubtless plays an important role in her decision to fight so hard to save him.

Willow Rosenberg — Angel shares deep affection and mutual confidence with Willow, and not just because she restored his soul not once but twice; in several occasions he asks for her help, looking at her as a reliable ally and friend. During his initial time in Sunnydale, after Buffy, Willow was probably Angel's closest friend in the Scooby Gang, although, as with all the team, his relationship with her was somewhat strained after he came back from Hell. At the end of episode "Orpheus" (the last time they meet onscreen) they hug as very good old friends.