BUFFY'S BACK (KIND OF) FOR ANGEL COUNTDOWN
24 APRIL 2004. SOURCE: ZAP2IT

Contains spoilers

As ANGEL nears its 19 May finale, it's looking like Joss Whedon will stick to his vow not to clutter up the last few episodes with characters from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.

That's not to say, however, that Buffy is not a presence on the show. In fact, one of the final episodes will revolve around Angel and Spike trying to rescue her from an old foe.

THE GIRL IN QUESTION, the episode scheduled for Wednesday 5 May, will find the two soul-cursed vapmires heading for Rome at the behest of Buffy cohort Andrew (Tom Lenk). They're on a mission to rescue the Slayer from The Immortal, a nemesis from their past.

Darla and Drusilla appear in flashback scenes, but Buffy herself doesn't show up in the episode. Whedon has said that he doesn't want to overshadow ANGEL's core characters by having Gellar or other BUFFY stars around for the finale.

The WB is somewhat more cryptic about the final two episodes, saying only that Angel and Co. will battle Wolfram & Hart's mysterious Senior Partners and someone will die. The network also says that Connor (Vincent Kartheiser) will appear in the series finale on 19 May, but the characters' role is left undefined.