We all had the relationship figured out. Angel is The Boss, Wesley is The Employee. Angel is the ultimate in cool; Wesley trips over his own feet. Angel tells Wesley what to do, and Wesley does it. Wesley gets kidnapped and Angel rescues him. We all thought we had it figured out, but when Season 2 came along, some things changed.

Angel lost his place momentarily. He was seduced by an old lover and turned his mind to destroying her instead of performing his role as protector of the human characters. Angel especially causes damage to his relationship with Wesley, because Wesley is not as easily bought back as Cordelia and Gunn are. In fact, Angel barely even tries. He doesn't buy Wes a present, as he did with Cordelia. Gunn's loyalty is easily gotten back, because Gunn had never fully trusted Angel anyway. Gunn at this time is still pretending he could care less about the future of Angel Investigations. Angel doesn't really sit down with Wes and talk to him, or ever apologize for the things he said and did. But Angel is shocked to discover that Wesley is not the pushover he was when Angel fired them all.

Wesley has taken control of Angel Investigations, seeing as how Angel refused to work with them. The other two are suddenly looking not to Angel, but to Wesley for orders and advice. When they've all reconciled somewhat, and moved the base of operations back into the hotel, Wesley takes the big comfy office and Angel is left to work at a card table in the lobby. There's been speculation from slashers on what this means for those two in the bedroom, perhaps now more like Criss Moody's "Mortal Coil" and less like Jessica Walker's "Fractured". Wes is shaky in his new role at first, in "Belonging"; he looks to Angel to come up with a battle plan for dealing with the demon. But by "Over the Rainbow", he's leading a successful army of rebels in an uprising against the Pylean government.

We were actually prepared for this in Guise Will Be Guise, an ep in which Wesley was forced to pretend to be Angel. We got to see how capable he really was at filling the role.

In Season 3, Angel seems to be slipping back into his Boss role, but at the same time, not quite shoving Wesley out of the way. They're more equal now. And if you've noticed, Wesley hasn't tripped over his own feet since GWBG.