Chief Seattle review for "Dear Boy"
Linda
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Developing the Arc
The principal advantage that a story arc has over a series of stand
alone episodes is that it gives the writers time. It allows them to
create a clearer sense that things are building towards a climax. This
creates a greater sense of expectation and tension than can normally be
found in a single episode story a correspondingly bigger climax. But
story arc, if they are to work, impose their own disciplines as well.
One of these is that the writers must know when to turn build up into
something more concrete. The second lies in the need to ensure
continuity.
In the "Darla" story arc we have had two episodes in which Angel has
been haunted by dreams. these were not repetitive because the nature of
the dreams changed. They moved from being comforting and, prima facie,
innocent to something much creepier. There was, therefore, a sense of a
single story moving somewhere. But if this sequence had been further
drawn out it would simply have become annoying as we wondered where the
writers were going. So the timing of the events in "Dear Boy" was
perfect. But a sense of momentum is not itself enough. The direction in
which the story moves must make sense. Of course we, the audience, do
not have to see that direction at once. Keeping us guessing about what
is going on is an important part of the story teller's art. But the
resolution of the story must make sense not only in itself but as the
conclusion of the sequence of events that preceded it. We must be able
to look back on those events and see a sensible progression towards the
climax. Otherwise it will be robbed of its meaning and much of its
impact. And this is the acid test for the writers here. How did they
fare?
The Two Agendas
Well, the first thing to say is that they threw us a curve ball. All
along we had been proceeding on the assumption that Darla and Wolfram
and Hart had been acting in concert. Suddenly we find out that each
have had their own agenda.
Angel: "What's the play Darla? What kind of game are you running?
Darla: "Just having a little fun. Been out of commission too long. You
know how that feels.
Angel: "Wolfram and Hart didn't bring you back for fun. The dreams, the
frame job, what's the big plan? Get me so screwed up I go bad again?"
Darla: "Kinda trite I know. What do you expect. They're only human."
The storyline we had been watching develop in "First Impressions"
and "Untouched" concerned the working out of the Wolfram and Hart
agenda. This was all about control. In "First Impressions" Darla sucked
him into the dreamscape, away from the world of reality so that he had
trouble distinguishing it from fantasy. Then in "Untouched" Angel just
like Betany is having things done to him. He feels the passion, the
excitement, the energy and the thrill. At one level he probably even
enjoys them. But he also recognizes their significance. He is
experienceing once more what it is like to be a soulless killer . But
despite this he can't control what happens to him. Rather in his dreams
it is the demon and its impulses which are in control.So long as that
feeling is confined to his dreams then no lasting damage done.
But "Untouched" raises a more disturbing question. If, like Bethany,
Angel's feeling of being controlled rather than being the one in
control damaged his self belief more generally then what might happen?
At the beginning of "Dear Boy" we see clear evidence of the effect the
dreams are having. He seems to have no energy. He spends vast amounts
of time sleeping:
Cordelia: "Ah, you must be all worn out from sleeping for the last
three days. It's like living with the world's oldest teenager. He can't
be having a growth spurt at two hundred and forty-eight, can he?"
He is fatalistic about something turning up. His concentration has gone
to pot. He dozes off and resumes his dreams in the middle of the day
and is disorientated when he wakes up. He shows little or no sense of
planning in how to deal with the demon Turfog and its followers and
even forgets all about Gunn when he needs help. This is an individual
whose higher reasoning functions are seriously impaired. He is tired
making the wrong decisions and what is worse doesn't even care he is
doing so. After the fight with the demon Gunn pulled Angel up about his
lack of teamwork and all he could say in reply was:
"Job got done."It did, but no thanks to Angel. This is the perfect
backdrop for Darla's mind games to be played out. But to what end? How
is Wolfram and Hart's agenda to be carried forward? Lindsey defines the
plan in the following terms:
"There's no better way to a man's darkness than to awaken his nastier
urges. Is there?"
This is certainly consistent with the idea that unhinging Angel,
destroying his self control might change the way Angel thinks of
himself. Just like Bethany before him he might have come to believe
from his experiences that he had no power over his life and therefore
no responsibility. His conscious mind might let things happen without
even trying to control them, even if he could.
The next step Darla takes does fit in with the logic of this approach
as she shows herself to him but only briefly and without giving him an
opportunity to get close. When he sees her it only adds to his
confusion. He knows it is her but logically it can't be. She is dead,
dusted. This unsettles him even more. After the first encounter Angel's
behavior becomes even more strange as he smells Cordelia's hair:
Angel: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I've been so out of it lately.
Because of her. I saw her, here in town. Last night."
This is quickly followed by the scene in which he confronts Darla at
the hotel. There he does get close and does speak to her in the
presence of witnesses. When she claimed she was Deetta Kramer and then
ran out into direct sunlight into the arms of her husband this
convinced both Wesley and Cordelia that Angel was imagining things. But
it only made Angel more desperate to find out the truth and less
amenable to others' objections. He was warned in clear and unambiguous
terms about his actions:
MC: "You're at a crucial juncture big guy."
Angel: "So, talk."
MC: "So, no."
Angel: "What do you mean "no"? You won't tell me anything?"
MC: "I'll tell you you're headed into trouble with a capital "trub".
Let her go bro. That way lies badness.
Angel: "What do you care? You've got murderous demons in here and you
give them free advice. But you won't help me."
MC: "Hey. I set people on their paths okay? And this is way off you
path sweetie. Go home.
Angel: "Tell me where Darla is."
MC: "I know you're not gonna start anything in here. You're a good boy."
But he ignored it. As he was intended to Angel stalked Deetta, tracked
her to the house and then he was framed for murder. And it is here that
we see a significant problem with the plot.
At this point the Wolfram and Hart plan has already stalled.
Notwithstanding the clear effects that Darla's campaign has produced on
Angel's reasoning abilities we have seen no sign of it undermining his
self-control. Indeed Darla's appearance to him only serves to clarify
his thoughts and sharpen his concentration. In the face of all the
evidence to the contrary and Wesley and Cordelia's doubts his certainty
never wavers:
Angel: "I thought I was losing my mind but you know she's here she's
alive."
Wesley: "What you're saying is impossible. You staked her to dust three
and a half years ago."
Angel: "I know that. I also know it was her"
Wesley: "Vampires don't come back from the dead.
Angel: "I did and I saw her. I'm not crazy."
This Angel knows the difference between fantasy and reality and has no
doubts about Darla belonging to the real world. This puts his dreams
into a completely different context. He does not yet guess exactly what
has been going on there but he is close enough when he says:
"Maybe I'm dreaming about her 'cause she's here."
From then on the dreams effectively loose their power over him. This is
not in itself a problem. In fact it is readily believable that Holland
and Lindsey misunderstand Angel and underestimate his ability to cope
with their tactics. The real problem is that the next stage in their
plan - framing him for murder - seems out of place. I think you can see
a vague outline of where they might be leading. A confused, perhaps
slightly deranged Angel finds his friends, already half-convinced he is
crazy, turning on him because they think he is bad. The police will now
be after him as well. He will have nowhere to go to and no-one to turn
to except Darla and Wolfram and Hart. As events showed this idea not
only showed no understanding of Angel's likely reaction to the trap he
fell into. It also underestimated the loyalty of both Cordelia and
Wesley (and even Gunn). But that is not the real problem. The problem
is not so much that the plan was a bad one but that it didn't really
make an awful lot of sense in the context of what had gone before. To
date they have been trying to make him go bad by undermining his sense
of self control and self belief. This isn't going to further that
enterprise. In fact it appears to have nothing to do with furthering
the purpose of Darla's earlier efforts at all.
So, up to a point "Dear Boy" does follow the continuity of "First
Impressions" and "Untouched". We have been able to trace the developing
execution of Wolfram and Hart's plan through two successive episodes to
the stage where they make the critical move which is intended to
deliver Angel into the darkness. The fact that the plan doesn't work is
neither here nor there. The problem rather is that with this final move
the continuity seems to fall apart.
Who is Angel?
The odd thing, however, is that none of this matters because the
Wolfram and Hart plan has simply been a vehicle to bring us to the real
focal point of this episode and, indeed, of Darla's resurrection. As
the passage I have already quoted indicates Darla seems to have had
very little faith in the likely success of the Wolfram and Hart plan.
Instead she has always had her own agenda for dealing with Angel. And
this agenda goes to the very heart of his character and indeed the
series. It asks who is he really? More particularly it looks at the
source of the darkness within him and where control of that darkness
really lies. This is the question that lies at the heart of the
confrontation between them in the former convent near the end of the
episode. But that confrontation is only the culmination of a whole
series of scenes in the episode addressing the same question in a
subtle, layered fashion.
A key early scene is where the followers of the demon Turfog are
fighting each other:
Cordelia: "Its disciples are human, they're killing each other. I think
the fight is over how to fittingly worship it."
This fighting take place somewhere that Cordelia described as "sacred,
in a twisted demonic kind of way" It turns out to be the site of a
former convent, a place that Angel immediately shows an interest in:
"Saint Bridget's, in Fremont. A convent, built on native burial grounds.
The land's cursed; they had eight murders in two years before the whole
place burned to the ground. Which is nothing compared to what happened
at Our Lady of Lochenbee... I have a thing about convents."
The idea of worship (albeit of a demon) leading to violence evokes two
separate comparisons with religious wars (the clearest being from Gunn
recalling his Uncle Theo's advice). And the history of the convent
deliberately mixes the sacred and the cursed. And this idea seems to me
to set the scene for the central theme of "Dear Boy". I think that in
it the writers are blurring the distinction between good and evil, not
as concepts in themselves but in the way they find expression in the
world.
So, for example we have Claire and Harold. Claire, according to her
husband, is "lovely". But along with the good there is also bad in her
character. While being the sort of woman who has earned her husband's
love, she has taken to going to the Franklin hotel to pick up strangers
in a fairly blatant, almost casual way, this betraying that love.
But of course the really important parallel lies in the way the writers
deal with Angel in this episode. They are asking whether there is not
also a blurring of the distinction between evil and good within him. We
have Liam and we have Angelus and we have Angel. Three persons in one.
Each is different. But none can be separated from the other. They are,
if you like, an unholy trinity. Everything that Liam was went into
shaping Angelus. And everything that Angelus was is present now in
Angel. The inter-reaction between these three characters produces many
interesting questions. For example how was the way Angelus related to
his father shaped by the way Liam saw him? Where did Angel's interest
in art come from? But in the final analysis there is only one question
that is important - what was the source of the darkness; where did
Angelus' particular cruelty come from? Did it only come from the demon?
I have already quoted the passage near the beginning of the episode in
which he betrays his detailed knowledge of convents in Los Angeles,
their history and especially the evil events that occur in them. Indeed
he readily admits his fascination for the subject.
This fascination obviously has its source in Angelus' preoccupations.
Just before he turns Drusilla he muses:
"Convents they're just a big old cookie jar."
(BTW did they have cookies in mid-18th century England?). Later he
brings Darla to St Bridget's and tells her:
"You remember how much I like Convents."
The truth is that Angelus' fascination has less to do with a convenient
source of food and more to do with his need to corrupt good. When he
sees Drusilla for the first time his reaction is interesting:
Angelus: "The one in the middle has something delicate and unique. Did
you find me a Saint?"
Darla: "Better than that. She has the sight."
Angelus: "Visions? She sees the future. She is pure innocence, yet she
sees what's coming. She knows what I'm going to do to her."In the same
way as he mocked God by carving the cross on the cheeks of his victims
in the late 18th century, for Angelus here too goodness was a
motivating force for him to do evil. And the greater to good the
greater the evil he felt impelled to inflict.
Angelus: "This one's special. I have big plans for her."
Darla: "So do we kill her during or after?"
Angelus: "Neither. We turn her into one of us. Killing is so merciful
in the end isn't it? the pain is ended."
Darla: "But to make her one of us...? She's a lunatic."
Angelus: "Eternal torment. Am I learning?"
The writers have, therefore, it seems to me tried to make a connection
between the ensouled Angel and his fascination with Convents and the
excesses of cruelty committed by the vampire. It's almost as if they
were asking: is he really any different?
But, as I have already said, in doing so they were simply laying the
groundwork for the real exploration of the issue which comes during the
battle of wills between Darla and Angel in the underground water tank.
During this confrontation each have very different objectives and those
objectives are informed by what they think of themselves. Darla's is
revealed in her talk with Lindsey:
Darla: "Everyone betrays you. That's not what eats at you in the long
winter's nights."
Lindsey: "What does?"
Darla: "Missed opportunities. He got a soul and it sickened me. All
that power wasted on a whiny, mopey do gooder."
She still wants him. She still hankers after the time when they were
together and shared everything. There is only one thing standing in the
way of that - his soul. That she still hates. But she is now sorry that
she rejected him along with his soul. For her the soul is not the
essence of the person before her. It changes nothing fundamentally.
Deep down she believes he is the same Angelus that she knew and loved
(at least loved insofar as a vampire is capable of love): Angelus, the
scourge of Europe.
"This is no life Angel. Before you got neutered you weren't just any
vampire. You were a legend. Nobody could keep up with you, not even me.
You don't learn that kind of darkness. It's innate. It was in you
before we ever met. You said you can smell me. Well I can smell you
too. And my boy is still in there and he wants out."
Liam and Angel and Angelus were all fundamentally the same person. The
only difference between them was that the human soul "neutered" them by
preventing them from fulfilling their dark potential. In this she is
informed by her own experience. Reincarnated as human she is
nevertheless as cold blooded a killer as she ever was, as witnessed by
the calm way she passes off her "husband's" death with a joke. He
wasn't a person he was only an actor. As she says herself:
"I'm still me"
Angel's attitude on the other hand is equally informed by his own
experiences. In response to Darla saying she hasn't changed he responds:
"But the bitch is, you have a soul now. Pretty soon those memories are
gonna start eatin' away at you. No matter how hard you try you won't be
able to escape the truth of what you were. Believe me, I know."
Here he is, of course, talking about himself. As it turns out saying
that Darla has a soul is something of an unwarranted assumption on his
part. But it is instructive that he makes it and that he anticipates it
will bring about a fundamental change in her. For him the soul is the
essence of the person. He still feels the destructive impulses from the
demon within. You can see this by the way he treats Darla when he first
drags her to the water tank. He feels a passion for her, he vamps out
and feeds of her and kisses her violently, just like in the dreams. The
difference is that he is appalled by what he did. He calls enough,
stops himself and reverts to his normal face.
This difference is made by the soul. It doesn't just impose shackles on
him that, in Darla's words, he can escape. It changes him
fundamentally. And for Angel the proof of that fundamental difference
lies in the comparison between his relationship with Darla and his
relationship with Buffy.
Angel: "You took me places, showed me things. You blew the top off my
head. But you never made me happy."
Darla: But that...that cheerleader did? We were together 150 years. We
shared everything. You're saying... never?"
Angel: "You couldn't understand.
Darla: "I understand all right. A guy gets the taste of something fresh
and he thinks he touching God....There was a time in the early years
when you would have said I was the definition of bliss. Buffy wasn't
happiness. She was just new."
Angel:" You're getting awfully bent over this Darla. I couldn't feel
that with you because I didn't have a soul. But then I got a second
chance."
The phrase I find most interesting here is Darla's reference to Angel
thinking he is touching God. It is echoed cruelly when, to prove her
own contention about him being the same, she later produces a cross and
burns him saying "God doesn't want you".
I do not think that this episode resolves the debate between the two of
them. There is evidence and argument on both sides. The answer will
only be given over the course of time. But that doesn't mean that the
issues have been left hanging. Just before Darla made her escape into
the light Angel threatened her:
"Darla, if you hurt anyone else and I'll kill you"
This could simply have been Angel fulfilling his role as protector of
the innocent, in the same way as he killed the blind assassin
from "Blind Date." But it soon became obvious that there was more to
his threat than this. When Darla taunted him about the nasty things he
said in his dreams he lost it and grabbed her again. This time the only
thing that made him let her go was the cross. The anger was building up
inside him. Who knows how long he was sitting brooding over these
events in his room when Cordelia and Wesley came to the door. But
certainly his anger had not cooled off, as is shown by the ominous
words he utters to them:
"There's going to be a lot of trouble and I say bring it on."
Perhaps this will be the acid test for Angel - the anger and violence
within him. Is he really as he thinks a fundamentally different person
now to the demon? And if he isn't what does that mean? His path has
been upwards towards redemption. By playing the forces of evil at their
own game, by unleashing the anger and violence within is he heading off
that path? Is that what the empath MC meant? We will see.
I have already tried to define in detail the relationship between Angel
and Angelus. This is no place to repeat those views. Suffice to say
they accord more with Angel's views of the importance of the human soul
than Darla's. But it doesn't bother me in the least that in the
interplay between Darla's views and those of Angel the writers have
expressly left open the possibility that Darla is right. Or indeed that
the very effective use of the flashbacks and the way they illuminated
certain aspects of Angel's present behavior tended to lend credibility
to what Darla is saying. Far from being Darla's lapdog, someone who
simply followed in her evil, we are at last being shown why the Master
described him as the most vicious creature he had ever met. The
refinement of his cruelty to poor Drusilla was beyond Darla's
imagination and seemed almost to frighten her. And Angel's
preoccupation with convents and the evil they can attract is a very
uncomfortable echo of Angelus. In fact I welcome this as a development.
What started out as a story about Wolfram and Hart's attempts to
undermine Angel's self confidence and self control now reaches more
fundamental territory. Here the writers are grappling with one of the
central issues of the whole series, indeed perhaps the central issue.
ANGEL as a series is about a struggle first of all to cope with a
burden of darkness and then to achieve forgiveness for the way that
darkness destroyed the lives of so many. Whether that Darkness belongs
to the demon or the man must necessarily affect our understanding not
only of Angel as a character but also of the burden he carries and the
possibility of forgiveness. He is no longer the victim of a blind fate
imposing an undeserved punishment. What happened to him in Borsa in
1898 and everything that followed it then becomes a manifestation of
justice in the same way as Faith's punishment. There is, therefore,
really no denying the importance, the interest or indeed the sheer
power of the subject in the context of the development of the series.
It is in fact precisely the sort of issue that the writers must explore
(so long as in the end they agree with me of course :-)).
And the mechanism they use to explore it could not have been bettered.
There is a very personal connection between Darla and Angel. They know
one another so intimately that no two people could be closer. At the
same time they are on the opposite sides of the argument. And this is
not an intellectual argument; it is deeply personal. For Darla this is
her chance to get back what she once had but lost. For Angel this is
about defending the new life and the new purpose that he has created
for himself - the thing that has pulled him out of the darkness and
despair that he knew. In this argument both have the knowledge to use
against the other and the motive to do so. This helped make the most of
the inherent power of the subject because it imbued the scenes between
the pair with a real passion.
Kate
In this context the character of Kate is, I think, being out to very
good use. Since we last saw her in "To Shanshu in LA" her career has
gone further downhill and she has been assigned to a post she refers to
as "Siberia". Her friends and colleagues ignore her. She seems to be
something of a laughing stock. Of course how she got a high profile
murder case to run and a large SWAT team under her command is, by this
token, something of a mystery but we will let that pass. Apart from
this, however, her character hasn't changed much. Indeed in this
episode we have confirmation of the real nature of her suspicion of
Angel. She is neither mad nor bad. There was very good circumstantial
and direct evidence that Angel had committed a horrible murder. She
knew as a vampire what he was capable of so she had no reason to give
him the benefit of the doubt. But when confronted by solid evidence in
the form of the picture of Darla and Gunn's persuasive argument about
Angel's inability to enter the Kramer's house if they were still alive,
she listened and acted reasonably. It is clear that by the end of the
episode she no longer believes Angel to be guilty of the crime. But the
basic objection she enunciated in "To Shanshu in LA" has not changed.
Kate: "You don't get it do you"
Gunn: "What, the fact that he is innocent?"
Kate: "The fact that while you are fighting your big battles of good
and evil, the innocent are the ones that get caught in the crossfire.
Those are the ones that I care about. Like that man tonight. Or like
the real owners of that house if what you say is true. And those are
the ones that I chalk up to your boss."
Wesley: "You can't blame Angel for...He's trying to do what's right."
Kate: "That's right. He's good. I keep forgetting. I'm sorry and why
did he kidnap that woman again?"
Angel is not a part of society. He acts outside the law. Because he
does so to Kate he is just as much a danger to ordinary members of
society as the things he is fighting. This is a credible point of view,
especially coming from someone like her with her history. And what
makes it interesting is that Kate is unambiguously a white hat who is
thereby placed in conflict with Angel. And this conflict is not so easy
for him to deal with as the conflict between him and a black hat. But
in this particular instance the real importance of Kate as a character
is that it reinforces the essential ambiguity of Angel's situation. It
highlights the link between his actions and evil consequences, albeit
ones unintended by him.
In this context the counterpoint between her reaction of finding out
Angel's evil side and Gunn's is very instructive.
"I'm just adjusting to the idea that this good guy vampire that I work
for can go bad."
His willingness to kill an evil vampire can be taken for granted. But
he remains completely open minded about Angel's guilt and immediately
sees the reason why he is innocent. The explanation for the difference
between him and Kate is obvious. It is revealed in the following
exchange over his record:
Kate: "Disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, interfering with police
officers in the performance of their duty. You've lead a rich full
life, haven't you Charles?"
Gunn: "I do what I have to do."
Cordelia: "Hey, I know this guy. He helps people. I bet this stuff
you're dredging up all happened a long time ago, didn't it."
Kate: "Some of it when he was a minor."
Cordelia: "Uh huh"
Kate: "And some of it in the last two weeks."
You see Gunn, just like Angel operates outside the law as well. He
fights the same fight as Angel and he does so on his own terms. It
seems to me that what we have here is in fact acknowledgement of the
fact that he is Angel junior and it is that fact that informs his
attitude towards Angel and indeed Kate's attitude towards him.
Plot
The plot of "Dear Boy" was stronger than most Angel episodes this
season. Its great strength was the way in which it kept on taking
different twists. Of these the key was the revelation that Darla was
human. The writers had been very clever. Every time we had seen her
beforehand it had been dark. We, therefore, had no reason to suspect
she was not still a vampire. Indeed it was so unexpected that, when she
ran into the light, I started looking for other explanations including
a magical immunity to direct sunlight or even the possibility that she
was a double. The effective part about this twist was that it sharpened
the doubts that Cordelia and Wesley were having over Angel's belief
that Darla was back while at the same time helping to create the frame
of reference for the later confrontation between herself an Angel.
At this stage though it seemed that the principal focus of "Dear Boy"
would be on Darla's mind games with Angel. At the beginning of the
episode we were shown how much Angel was "out of it". This was quickly
followed by the first sighting of Darla at the promenade and the
confrontation Angel had with her at the hotel. Here the emphasis was on
Cordelia's and Wesley's increasing awareness of their boss' weird
behavior. This led them openly to doubt what Angel was seeing. Wesley
was especially important here. he was the voice of calm and reason, the
perfect counterpoint to Angel's disorientation and lack of
concentration. This looks as though it is going to be the focal point
of the conflict. And at first the scene at the Kramer's house looks as
though it is going to continue the same pattern of trying to persuade
Angel that he is loosing it.
But things changed with frightening speed. As soon as Darla started
talking to Lindsey through the microphone it becomes obvious that
something serious is going to happen. So it does and we see the murder,
the frame and the escape in rapid succession. I have already mentioned
my basic problem here. I was trying and failing to work out how the
frame fitted in with Wolfram and Hart's plan and I found that
distracted from concentration on the events which unfolded afterwards.
To that extent the scenario was a little jarring. But in the end it
proved surprisingly effective.
At this stage it looked as though the rest of the episode would follow
a fairly standard storyline with Angel trying to convince first the
rest of the Fang Gang and ultimately the police of his innocence.
Nothing especially interesting in that. As it turned out, however, the
murder and subsequent frame attempt were no more than a plot device to
launch two very different and much more interesting confrontations. The
key one, between Angel and Darla, I have already dealt with at some
length. Its interest lay in the balance of argument and in the
interaction of the two principals. Angel as he proved several times was
the one who was physically in control of the situation. But he was also
the one under pressure. He knew what Darla was doing and, because he
was physically in control, he could confront her on his terms. But he
was also tired, angry, perhaps a little shocked at the turn of events
and what they revealed to him had been going on. And Darla was pushing
him very hard. Angel's actions were therefore ultimately unpredictable.
This is what really added spark to their scenes together. It is in this
context that I should really comment on the flashbacks. I have already
dealt with their purpose in setting out the background for the
confrontation between Angel and Darla. What is commendable here is the
way the writers resisted the temptation to overuse them. They
illustrated the points they were intended to and that was the end of
them.
The second confrontation was something of a tidying up exercise. Its
principal purpose was to allow for the resolution of the "frame". That
avoided the same sort of highly unsatisfactory situation that arose at
the beginning of season 3 of BUFFY. There, after having been wanted by
the police for the murder of Kendra, Buffy returns to Sunnydale only to
be told that for some undefined reason all charges have been dropped.
And the neat thing about the resolution here is that while it involved
one small "deus ex machina" in the form of the picture of Darla, the
real breakthrough was a piece of solid gold reasoning. How Angel had
got into the Kramer house had been bothering me but the explanation was
elegantly simple.
Aside from this there were some very interesting character related
developments. I have already dealt with Kate and Gunn. The rest
concerns the reaction of Wesley and Cordelia to the potential of Angel
going bad. First of all there was nice continuity between Eternity and
this episode in the explicit recognition that Angel might go bad "as he
has done before". I am also interested to see that they resort to non-
lethal means of protecting themselves. Indeed the lack of overreaction
altogether is both credible and really quite endearing. They have
obviously considered the possibility (and let's face it why wouldn't
they) and prepared against it. But they are not holding it personally
against Angel. As Cordelia puts it
"99% of the time he's good. And he's done a lot for us."
I have to say though the uncritical way they both maintain that Angel
is innocent does stretch credibility.
Cordelia: "He wouldn't. Angel could never do a thing like that."
Wesley:" He's not that type of person."
As Angel sure. But Angelus? And weren't they both afraid only a few
moments ago that he had gone bad? Putting up a common front is one
thing but asking for the evidence rather than giving a flat denial
would have been much more reasonable.
Overview
9/10: In following on from the previous two episodes, "Dear Boy" looked
as though it would concentrate on an interesting but limited question;
namely the ability of Angel to control his darker impulses. Instead as
the episode progressed it became apparent that it was dealing with
altogether more fundamental questions. These questions concern the true
source of the darkness within. They are not new in the sense that they
have been debated by fans many times. But this is the first time that
the series has addressed them in such a direct manner. And the way in
which it did so was quite compelling. This was not a dry academic type
debate. There was something important at stake for both Angel and Darla
in the argument between them and that is what created the sense of
importance and the tension that was so necessary when dealing with the
subject matter. Certainly this episode hasn't resolved anything. But,
while it may yet do so it doesn't actually have to. In real life
questions of equal difficulty are often left open. Why not here? In
terms of plot there were certainly some rough edges. The kidnapping
plot felt more than a little shoehorned into it. Otherwise the twists
and turn of the plot were what served to sustain interest. We were
never quite sure where the episode was going. And for such a dark and
serious episode there was a very nice leavening of fairly light hearted
humor, mainly in the form of bickering between Wesley and Cordelia but
the writers were also very adept at exploiting for humor the absurdity
of this dark and powerful figure being so "out of it".