EPISODE 3.07

OFFSPRING

Written by:  David Greenwalt

Directed by: Turi Meyer

And Baby Makes Three

The fact that Darla was pregnant and that Angel was the father of the baby posed two obvious questions.  The first was how two vampires could create a new life at all? And indeed unless a satisfactory answer to this question is given the season arc may yet suffer.  But the more immediately interesting question is: what is the child?  By that I do not mean what is it physically.  Rather the question is, what is it metaphysically.  Angel has a soul.  But he is also a vampire and as Darla so graphically reminded him in “Dear Boy”:

“No matter how good a boy you are…God doesn't want you!"

Darla for her part is as evil and soulless a vampire as they come.  What would be the nature of a child conceived from a union of this pair?  All we know for certain is that this is something important.  As if the unprecedented nature of the event were not clue enough, the shaman Darla visited in “That Vision Thing” confirmed:

“This is not meant to be known.”

The question is, did he mean this in a good or a bad way?  That is the question that this episode explores, and in a very interesting way.  The baby is still safely inside Darla’s womb so what we know about it is limited.  But its parents, as we have already seen, are far from unknown quantities and throughout this episode we are invited to look at the child as the offspring of these parents – and especially Angel.

The Good Father

“Offspring” starts out with Angelus in 18^th century Rome falling into a trap and being captured by Holtz.  Angelus and Darla have killed his family but it isn’t simple revenge that Holtz wants: 

“My only desire is to discover if a thing such as yourself can be made to pay for it’s sins.  You’re a demon.  It is your nature to maim and kill.  But you were also once a man.  If we beat and burn the demon out of your living flesh will there be anything left?  Anything at all?  I doubt it?”

He probably realizes that punishing a vampire for a murder that it committed is futile.  Equally you cannot really talk about the sins of a demon.  It may understand the concept of right and wrong but, as Holtz says, it is in the nature of the beast to do evil.  Sin and therefore punishment for sin are, therefore,  both concepts that are meaningless to vampires.   They only mean something to a human with a soul. If a human does evil it acts against its nature.  That is its sin and that is why punishment is due.  Essentially therefore Holtz was saying that, from a metaphysical perspective, there was nothing human about Angelus.  He was evil right through.

We then move to present day LA where we see Angel and Cordelia together.  The first thing to note about this scene is the emphasis on Angel’s continuing vampire state:

Angel :”What’s this?”

Cordelia: “It’s just so dark and lifeless that I thought I’d brighten it up for you. You…ah…can’t exactly go out and enjoy the sunny field of nature but that doesn’t mean that we can’t bring a little gloom into your darkness.”

Angel: “They’re fake.”

Cordelia: “Yeah.  You put something real into this Hell Hole and it’ll die like that (snaps fingers).”

The symbolism here is interesting.  Angel is still a creature of darkness and he and life do not mix.  But we are also reminded of the duality of his nature when Fred, Wesley and Cordelia began to talk about Angel’s shanshu.  Wesley explained that the word meant both to live and to die, somewhat to Fred’s puzzlement.

Fred “So, which is it?

Wesley: “Both.  In his case it meant that someday the vampire in him might die but that the human in him might live. 

Fred: “That he’d be like a normal man.”

Wesley: “Yes.”

Fred: “Wow.  What would we do if that happens.”

Cordelia: “I’d buy him some plaid shirts and take him to the beach.  The boy needs some color.”

Now the first thing to note about this exchange is the very subtle way that the concept of shanshu is being twisted.  In “To Shanshu in LA” the word was interpreted as meaning that Angel would become mortal and, like a mortal, live out a normal lifespan and then die.  Here we see a very different spin.  We can only conclude therefore that that spin was felt necessary to serve the different thematic purpose of this episode.  What we see here is the emphasis on Angel both as vampire and human and the humanity within him is being symbolized by the reference to the beach and the plaid shirts – things of light and color.  These are in very stark contrast to the darkness of  the cellar.

Not the least interesting thing here is Angel’s reaction to these different aspects of his existence.  In the cellar he is pleased when he sees the flowers and disappointed when they turn out to be fake.  And in the margins of the conversation about his shanshu he seems genuinely sad at the reminder of the humanity that was once so important to him but for which, since “The Trial”, he seems to have given up all hope.  And perhaps it was the recollection of the promise of humanity made to him that led to his angry outburst at Caritas against prophecies in general:

“These stupid prophecies.  You can always interpret them 100 ways from Sunday.”

This then is a very different creature, from a metaphysical point of view, from the pure vampire that Holtz wants to examine in Rome.

And then there is the way that Angel reacts to Cordelia.  I am going to withhold all further comment on the possibility of a relationship between the two of them at this stage.  It is far too early to see where the writers are going with this one.  But I think that there was some very interesting use of the connection between them here.  Cordelia for her part seems entirely unconscious of the possibility of a romantic entanglement between herself and Angel.  Angel does entertain the possibility.  But he is acutely aware of the barriers in the way:

“I was just thinking about things…people….how they relate.  Take you and me for instance.  We’re very different…very different, obviously.  (Points from Cordelia to himself and back) Human…vampire….woman…man…-pire.”

He was I think going to call himself a man when he realized he couldn’t.  It would not have been true.  The first difference between them that he mentioned said it all. She was human and he wasn't.  That fact forms a barrier to what the human in him might want by way of a relationship with anyone.  There are always two sides to him and they are always in conflict.  As he says to Cordelia:

“We’ve been through so much together…you and me as friends.  You’ve seen the good in me…and the not so good.”

Indeed the very existence of the child itself is a symbol of the bad.  As Angel and Darla fight in the Arcade, she taunts him:

“You so want to play the good guy, don’t you.  Yeah, you’re the good guy who did this to me.”

The implication here is that Angel behaved badly when he got Darla pregnant – that he just used her with caring about her.  Cordelia herself takes the same view.  The truth is a lot more complex and is hinted at in the following exchange:

Angel: “Cordy…I’m sorry that I lied.  It was just a very dark time…”

Cordelia: “Oh, you used her to make you feel better during your dark time.  Well, that makes it all heroic.”

We are being reminded here of just what a state of mind Angel had got into at the end of “Reprise.”  We are also being reminded why – how his obsessiveness, his lust for revenge and the willingness to entertain any means to achieve it were all aspects of the vampire coming out in him.  And finally we are reminded of the way that Angel risked releasing Angelus on the world again when he did sleep with Darla.  Thus the child was the direct result of the vampire psyche in Angel in action. And the use of the word “heroic” here I find especially interesting.  I will be the first to admit that I cringed when Fred started throwing the word “hero” about in the scene between her and Angel in the cellar.  “Hero” (at least in its modern usage) is an ideal which fits ill in a series about how flawed humans (and a vampire with a soul) are.  But the whole point of using the word in these two contexts was to show that Angel was not a hero in this idealized sense at least:

            “I don’t see how anything spawned by Darla and me can be good.”

The Unwilling Mother

The first mention of Darla in this episode is symbolically very interesting.  When asked why he and Darla returned to Rome, Angelus’ explanation was suitably ambiguous:

Angelus: “Darla…she loves the Sistine Chapel”

Holtz: “Michelangelo?”

Angelus: “Not him.  She’s mad about Botticelli’s frescos.  The “Temptation of Christ” is her favorite, probably because of the leper.”

This painting is too crowded and complex for my tastes but it contains a fascinating allegory for the purposes of this story.  First of all it reminds us of the dual nature of Christ who was both fully human and fully divine.  As the title suggests this painting shows us the episodes in which the Devil tempted Christ to commit various sins.  Because He was fully human He could be tempted but because He was divine He resisted the temptation.  Moreover these scenes all take place around a tableau showing the purification of a leper.  Leprosy was always seen by an outward sign of sin and its purification was therefore a sign of the cleansing of that sin – just as Christ as a human was part of this imperfect, sinful World and as God came to cleanse it. 

So again we see the theme of duality.  Of course in Darla’s case it was rather more difficult to see any evidence of duality in her.  After all her idea of a bus trip wasn’t complete unless she carried out the odd slaughter on the way.  But while we know what Darla really is, that perception was altered by her condition.  Cordelia herself put it very well:

Cordelia: “It was my fault, Angel.  I felt sorry for her.  She looked so helpless - like a mother.”

That was why Cordelia became so protective about her and so annoyed at Angel, why she blamed him for Darla's pregnancy and why she referred to him as going “all male.“  She perceived Darla as the victim and as that greatest of all human icons – the mother.  And indeed in the Amusement arcade we saw what motherhood stands for, especially when one mother mistakes Darla's kidnap of a little boy for something more innocent:

“You’re a brave woman….about to have one…taking the other one out to play.”

This is the sort of unselfishness we all assume that mothers will display.  Of course none of this comes naturally for Darla.  She asks Angel:

            “How could you put this in me.  I hate you.”

This is someone who does not take easily to being a mother.  This is someone who has spent months trying to rid herself of the child.  Nor is it only the discomfort and inconvenience that drivers her to want rid of the baby. 

Angel: “Darla, the child has a heartbeat.  It has a soul.”

Darla: “It’s not my child.”

Angel: “Our child, our child, our child.  That’s why you’ve been craving pure blood.   That’s why it’s been driving you out of you’re mind.  It has a soul.”

The child wasn’t a vampire.  It was human. We have already seen how Darla regards the human soul – as something unclean.  In “Five by Five” she reacts with horror when Angelus is cursed:

“They gave you a soul.  A filthy soul!  No! You're disgusting!"

How much worse now that a creature with a soul is part of her.  But ironically this is someone who is forced into being a mother in spite of herself.  And as a mother she has to physically sustain the child.  But how does a vampire provide nourishment for herself and the baby?

“You may have the face but you don’t know the hunger.  It pounds.  You can’t make it go away.  You can’t stop it.”

It is this hunger that controls her, leading her to try to kill both Cordelia and the little boy in the arcade.  It was not just for the sake of a kill but to feed her child – to be a mother to it.  And here we find one more example of duality in Darla's situation.  It is the fact that the child is “pure” that drives Darla to do evil, namely kill the innocent. 

Good and Evil

Here we see not that it is difficult to tell good from evil but that it is difficult to separate them.  There is no blurring of the distinction between what is right and what is wrong.  But there is a very conscious effort to suggest that Angel, in paricular, walks a very fine line between the two.  The fact that Angel is human and demon and that he is capable of acting both for good and for ill is a well-established theme in the series.  But it is always a compelling one.  The power of the first half of season 2 lay in the fact that the harder Angel struggled to do the right thing the more deeply mired he became in Wolfram and Hart’s trap.  It was only because he tried to save Darla’s soul that he so very nearly lost his own.  The idea that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions illustrates an inherent contradiction not only for Angel but for us all.  Good and evil exist in all of us and the dividing line for us can often be as thin as it is for Angel or indeed Darla for that matter.

For both of them the important point in this episode was not their subjective intentions but rather the consequences of their actions.  And this is where Fred’s little speech on Destiny comes in:

“Screw Destiny.  If this evil thing comes we’ll fight it and we’ll keep fightin’ it until we whup it (now why did I have a George Bush moment here?).  ‘Cause “destiny” is just another word for inevitable and nothing’s inevitable as long as you stand up. Look it in the eye and say “you’re evitable”.”

The mere fact that there is evil as well as good within Angel does not mean he is bound to be a danger to humanity.  That is a matter of choice for him, as our actions and the consequences coming from them are a matter of choice for us.  This is about facing up to the consequences of that choice.  Those consequences may or may not be fair. When speaking to Angel the Host pointed out that not only was Darla’s pregnancy biologically impossible.  It may be mystically unfair: 

“You fought long and hard for good.  If you’re destiny is to spawn something evil….?”

But then it will come as no surprise to the viewers of this series that consequences are often unfair.   They are none the less real for all that.  Angel fathered a child.  That was not something he was pre-destined to do.  It happened because of a choice he made.  As a result there was hurt to Cordelia; pain and distress to Darla and the near death of another child.  But above all there was a new life, a life whose significance was far from clear.  And this is where I think the theme works so well.  Whether we are talking about Angel or ourselves the same principle applies.  Just as our actions can lead to good or ill, regardless of intention, so can Angel’s child be either a scourge to the world or something better.  This is the new angle (correct spelling) on this issue that the writers have found.  And not only does this make us think about this issue in a new way, it also exploits fully the dramatic potential in it. 

The Plot

That is because the focus of the plot is on determining whether there is any connection between the imminent arrival of Angel’s child on the one hand and an ancient prophecy on the other.  We are introduced  this subject by Cordelia :

Cordelia: “You’re off your game.  It’s ‘cause of the prophecy Wes and Gunn are off trying to get their hands on.  You think the end is coming”

Angel:  “The end is not coming.  Someone is always uncovering some ancient scroll and they’re always saying the same thing – that something terrible is coming.  Do you know how many of these things I’ve seen in my very long life?

Cordelia: “Four?”

Angel: “Three, but there’s nothing to worry about.”

This little exchange gets some bonus marks for handling the exposition about the scroll with a little humor.  It is one more example in a long list of the series poking a little gentle fun at itself.  But it gets major demerits for the fact that this exposition is necessary at all.  I just noted in my last review how well Angel handles continuity by introducing in one episode someone or something that will be important in another.  This is called planning.  We saw it in “Blind Date” when the scroll of Aberjian was introduced incidentally only for it to become crucial in “To Shanshu in LA”.  Here the subject of the Nyazian scroll was brought up out of the blue.  There was no explanation about how it was discovered or how it was brought to the attention of Angel Investigations.  There was no explanation as to which bits were missing and how they were needed to make sense of the bits they already had.  This was just careless, especially since the scrolls were so central to the episode. 

Wesley explained the meaning of the scrolls  in a little more detail:

Wesley: “It predicts the arrival or arising of the Tro-clan, the person or being that brings about the ruination of mankind. “

Gunn: “So, it’s a two for one.  Ain’t that nice.”

Wesley: “And I’m not clear on the translation.  Ruination may in fact be purification.”

Gunn: “Purification?  So this Tro-clan’s a good thing?”

Wesley: “I doubt that.  But it’s purification in Aramaic, ruination in Ancient Greek and in the lost Gushundi language it means both.”

We of course know about Darla’s pregnancy, the fact that it was impossible and the fact that it had baffled and scared the Western Hemisphere.  And Fred’s throwaway remark that the Tro-clan might have arisen or arrived last March is interesting because that would fit in with the events of “Reprise/Epiphany”.  It hardly needed Fred to wonder out loud whether this was that bad thing they were expecting.  So, even at this early stage the writers were tempting us to make the connection – without in any way committing themselves to saying that there was one.  And they were also being deliberately ambiguous about the significance of the Tro-clan.  Ruination or purification?  And if purification what did that mean?  Many forms of purification can and do involve the destruction of elements seen as polluting a body or society.  Would this purification be some form of latter day “final solution” perhaps to the human race as a whole?  As the Host says:

“It could be anything.  A child born of two vampires…”

And this is the key to the episode – we are left in a state of complete uncertainty about the significance of the child.  The mere fact that it had a soul did not resolve anything.  An ensouled being could still be a menace to humanity.  Now of all times we hardly need lessons in the dangers of good old fashioned human fanaticism.   Or it could even be the innocent cause of something terrible.  Alternatively the purification of the Tro-clan may be something entirely beneficial.  The Tro-clan may indeed have nothing to do with the child or even be something tangentially associated with it.  We simply do not know.    The big twist at the end appeared to suggest that Holtz was the Tro-clan.  But the truth is that there are just too many variables for us to even guess at this stage. And this is both the strength and the weakness of the episode.  It is a strength in the sense that there is a mystery here and an important one.  This importance lies not just in the potential for catastrophe for the human race that it brings.   Rather it is in the potential significance of the event for Angel personally.  Very often (“Becoming” being the classic case) it is the likely personal cost to a character of preventing some great danger that resonates more with the audience than the actual threat that the danger itself poses.  And it is not difficult to imagine Angel’s feelings when he contemplates a life he has fathered and the need perhaps at some stage to kill it.  And considerations like this are closely bound up with the question – what is the significance of the child?  So this is a mystery that engages the audience.  It wants to find out the truth.

The weakness of the episode lies in the fact that it cannot yet find that out.  “Offspring” is mainly set up. The questions are being put  but as yet no answers forthcoming.  Even the reappearance of Holtz at the end does little to move the arc forward.  This is obviously not good news for Angel and further complicates an already tangled web.  To that extent it adds to the anticipation, but does little else.  And that is inevitably frustrating.  That is why I think the first half of this episode has a padded feel to it.  It started very well with Angelus falling into a trap.  I always like this sort of “hit them between the eyes” scene.  We know of course that Angelus would survive but the question is how.  The way that his attempts at evasion fail and he is trapped alone and facing seemingly overwhelming odds certainly poses the question – how does he get out of this one?  But after this set-piece, things slow down considerably.  The early scenes between Angel and Cordelia both in the cellar and in the Hotel lobby seem too long.  The robbery pulled off by Gunn and Wesley was fun and it’s always nice to see a bit of quick thinking save the day.  But the episode would not have been adversely affected if it had been left out altogether and that is never a good thing to say about any scene. 

For me the only part of the story that worked well – and admittedly it worked very well – was the way in which Angel discovered that the child had a soul.  And this doesn’t happen until quite late in the episode.  The discovery involves a sequence of events which begins when Darla is left alone with Cordelia, seemingly helpless and vulnerable.  Because of this we are lulled into a false sense of security..  Then, completely out of the blue we and Cordelia realize at the same time just how much trouble she is in.  It starts innocently enough with Cordelia sharing her experiences as a mother to be.  Then she says the wrong thing but before we and she both understand the full implications of her words these are spelt out for us by Darla:

Cordelia: “At first your sick to your stomach and can’t eat and then you’re ravenous.  Are you bale to eat or do you just…”

Darla: “What…drink?”

From there things move with frightening speed as Cordelia tries to beat a retreat only to be intercepted by Darla.  Then shockingly, and against my expectations, she actually feeds from her, only to be pulled off by Angel.  This scene was full of danger and excitement but the subsequent scene in which she kidnaps a little boy had greater tension.  This was because it  was spun out a little to give the audience an chance to wonder and worry about the fate of the child.  ANGEL being the series it is it was entirely possible that Darla could have killed him and we were continually asking what was going to happen next, where was Angel and would he be in time?  These scenes work not only because they were dramatic and powerful in themselves but because they were linked together to move the story forward.  The attack on Cordelia, her vision and Darla’s attempted murder of the child established the latter’s need for “pure” blood and the fight between Angel and Darla led directly to his discovery of why that was.  

Apart from the general slowness of the episode, there were a few small things about the story that jarred with me.  The first was the way the Host reacted to the news that Angel “boned” Darla as Cordelia so elegantly put it.  That reaction seemed less directed at the fact that she was pregnant than the fact that Angel had sex with her.  Indeed Angel’s explanation about how little they really did together also seems for the Host’s benefit.  But the Host already knew about this.

Secondly was the stupidity that everyone from Angel to the Host to Cordelia showed in leaving her alone with Darla.  Thematically Cordelia forgetting she was a vampire may have worked but they all should have known how dangerous she was.

I also have two small difficulties about the way that Angel resolved his uncertainty over the nature of the child.  Cordelia says that her visions are trying to tell her why Darla is craving younger victims.  But up to that point where was the indication that she was?  And since when was the possession of a heart an indication of a soul.  Demons have hearts.  The possession of a beating heart will differentiate between a vampire and a human but we do not know that Darla’s child must be one or the other.

But my final problem lay in the concern that Angel showed for Cordelia and Fred.  He started by telling Gunn who was standing guard over Darla:

“If she goes near Cordy or Fred…”

Then in the hotel lobby, he added for good measure to Cordelia:

“You’re not to go near Darla for any reason without me, Gunn and a lot of crossbows standing between you.  You understand.”

And then added:

“That goes for you too Fred.”

The odd thing here is that his concern here didn’t seem to extend to Wesley or Gunn for that matter.  This may be the sort of chivalry you could expect from Angel but it is very odd that it was left uncontradicted.   Are the writers really saying that it is the role of the men in cases like this to look after the women?  It does sort of cast into doubt how serious they were about the idea that women can take care of themselves.  Coming immediately after "Billy" this leads me to think that maybe ME had better rethink its gender politics.

But that isn’t actually the most jarring thing about this.  What about Darla’s child?  Is there no thought about the dilemma posed by killing the mother when she is so close to term?  But if there is then we see no  evidence of this.  And because, as I have already tried to indicate, the safety of the child plays such an important part in the whole episode, this is frankly inexplicable.

Overview (B+)

 The principal interest in this episode lay in its treatment of theme.  We saw the duality of Angel’s nature and even to an extent in the role of mother that Darla was forced to play.  This raises some very interesting questions about the offspring of this pair and what it s nature may be.  This in turn opens up some more general questions about good an evil and its place in the world, especially how difficult it can be to separate them in everyday actions.  In terms of plot, the episode was top-heavy with set-up; very good set-up too.  Darla and Angel have been brought together; Angel knows about the child; we have been told about the coming Tro-clan and know that Holtz and probably the child are in someway involved with this.  We get from this a clear sense of something building towards a climax and an even clearer sense that the climax will be big.  But we don’t yet have a clear idea of how the different strands of the story relate to one another.  So there is mystery, supense and tension here.  Unfortuneately, first half in particular had a rather slow, talking heads feel to it.  Too little happened and the one sequence that really packed a punch as a piece of drama was when Darla went feral.  This means that the episode, while excellent in many ways, falls short of top marks.