little bit." The defining moment of the episode, Minear thinks, is when Angel - rather than offer his help - instead indicates he may later need Gunn's help. In his book on the mythology of vampires, Peter Day points out the depiction of vampires as "gang-like" is a unifying characteristic of the LA subgenre, which includes (among others) The Lost Boys, the Blade films and television series, and Blood Ties. In this episode, gang violence is presented as a conflict of race - the racially diverse humans, led by Gunn, battle the uniformly vampire gang, who are presented as "fascist skinheads looking to maintain the purity of the blood supply." Their shared vampirism unifies the gang and provides them with a sense of community identity, in "a city whose urban sprawl has led to social and cultural segregation of communities," Day writes. Acting Michele Kelly, who played Gunn's sister Alonna, said she "literally shouted" with excitement upon reading the script. "Getting to play someone as unrestricted as a vampire is a thrill," she says. Kelly found the vampire make-up and prosthetics uncomfortable, but the most difficult aspect of the role was Kelly's pre-existing friendship with J. August Richards, which "made a part of me not want to hurt him." Kelly explains she twisted that connection by imagining the isolation and "raging despair" her character would feel after being made a vampire: "All I wanted is my brother... that's where I got the impetus to go into that ugly space - it was just the other side of loving." David Nabbit was originally intended to be a recurring character, but only appears in two additional episodes. David Herman had difficulty fitting Angel into his schedule, and so the writers stopped writing scenes for him. References External links Angel (season 1) episodes 2000 American television episodes Sororicide in fiction Television episodes directed by David Straiton