Angel S3-07: The Short Review

'Offspring'

Written by David Greenwalt

Directed by Turi Meyer

"I wonder if this might not be that bad thing we were expecting?" - Fred.

This, then, is It. This is the episode when the main season arc kicks in. This is the episode where Darla comes back to LA. This is the episode where Holtz arrives in the present. This is the episode where Angel finds out he is to be a father. This is the episode where Cordelia finds out that Angel lied. And this is the episode where Fred needs a chart to understand Angel's love life.

So how come it feels so ordinary?

'Offspring' isn't bad by any means, and I did enjoy it; but it just doesn't feel entirely coherent. The big revelations lack weight, and the general feel is disjointed. Whilst there are some fantastic scenes - the whole of the teaser, for instance - there are several that are just dull, and just go on too long, and contain too much clumsy exposition dialogue - for instance, the 'Angel loves Cordy' scene: We get it, already. Meanwhile, it's almost as if we've missed a bridging episode that dealt with Wesley and the Host's recoveries (although Wesley's, at least, is not completely glossed over; he is understandably overprotective of Fred, and seems to be less confident as leader generally), since both appear to be more or less back to normal, this week. Even discounting that, however, the episode feels underpowered, and I think I've worked out why - it just doesn't give us any more than we were expecting. We've known about Darla's pregnancy for almost two months, and I suspect the majority of fans have known Holtz was going to be turning up for longer than that. Ever since 'Heartthrob', we've been waiting and wondering what was going to happen next - and after 'Offspring', we're still wondering. To be fair, with the weight of expectation facing it, I suspect that any episode would have felt a little anticlimactic; but I also think we could have got better than we did.

My main problem, I think, is with Angel's reactions. OK, so he's likely to be in shock at this point, and covering his emotions as usual, but I would have still expected to see more intensity in his first reaction to the sight of Darla. It felt too much like he simply took it in his stride - one more thing to deal with, whereas in reality this is anything but 'one more thing'. He did look distinctly troubled at the end of the episode, but I was still left wanting more - although frustratingly, I'm not sure quite what more.

It's also frustrating to watch characters who should know better act in incredibly stupid ways, even when those dumb actions are grounded in entirely believable motivations, and are pointed out both before and afterwards by other characters. Cordelia's instinctive protection of Darla is stupid, grating, annoying…and completely understandable. Cordelia is both projecting her own experiences onto Darla and showing how angry she is with Angel by deliberately doing something she knows is going to upset him. The rest of the A-team, meanwhile, behave more intelligently; they may not be able to argue with Cordelia when she's in this sort of mood ("When was the last time Cordy took crap from any of us?" "Never. And the day after never"), but they do at least try to keep Darla at arm's length - and later, under armed guard. There's a case to be made that they really should be keeping her chained up, but to be honest I'm willing to give the writers the benefit of the doubt on that one; it seems unlikely to me that they'd be able to get away with showing a pregnant woman chained up on US TV.

There are also some questions hanging over the direction of the plot in general. Admittedly this week's vision was unusual, but there has been no mention of the toll the visions are taking on Cordelia since 'That Vision Thing', and no obvious sign that they're even as bad as they were in 'Heartthrob'. Are we going to get more on this, or are we just supposed to accept that she's learning to live with the pain? Also, how is Holtz (who surely has the best voice since Barry White) going to destroy (or purify) humanity? And what are Wolfram and Hart going to think when they find out Darla is pregnant?

On the plus side, we do get a hefty dose of metaphor to go with our story. Darla is the classic abandoned pregnant woman (with nifty demonic mood swings and cravings, even), but she's still evil - and we know that when Cordelia blames Angel for going 'all male', she is, quite simply, wrong. This makes for an interesting twist on a common idea. For Angel, meanwhile, fatherhood could literally be the end of his world - or the start of a new one. And Holtz is now in a position to do to Angel what Angelus and Darla did to him, by killing his 'wife' and offspring.

Still, despite all the revelations, the bulk of this episode feels a tad too slow for what should be the episode that kicks the series into high gear. There are some nice touches - Holtz's association with an offshoot of the inquisition, namechecked by Holland last season as metaphysical forbears of Wolfram and Hart - but also some poor ones - if I never hear another Pylean word coming out of Fred's mouth, it will be too soon. There's still a lot of potential in this storyline, but the episodes are going to have to get a lot more polished than this if it's to be fully realised.