Angel S3-08: The Short Review

'Quickening'

Written by Jeffrey Bell

Directed by Skip Schoolnik

"I want your word that when the time comes you will show them no mercy" - Sahjan.

OK, that was fun.

One of the criticisms levelled at Angel's third season to date has been that the pacing has been too slow. To a certain extent, I would agree with this; whilst we had two mini-arcs to deal with in the early part of the season (Fred's crush, and Billy), neither felt particularly important, and there was the unfortunate sense that we were merely treading water until Darla's inevitable return during sweeps. Personally, the way I would have rectified it would have been to drop 'Carpe Noctem' altogether, move 'Fredless' to the fourth episode slot and deal with Fred's crush issues there, have 'Billy' as episode five, and make episode six an episode dealing with Wesley (and the Host's) reengagement with the world at large, slotting in the discovery of the Naizian prophecies in the background. I would also push the second Darla tag back a few episodes, probably to episode four. These changes would, to my mind, have produced a better sense of events building on each other and moving towards a climax, although it would mean Gavin wouldn't have that embarrassing video footage of Lilah.

However, things certainly aren't moving slowly any more. And, at the risk of sounding like a drooling fanboy, although the episode wasn't perfect (why didn't Wesley noticed Darla's water hadn't broken when she first started having contractions, for instance?) I had such a blast watching it that I just don't care. There were lots of nifty ideas throughout - from finding out that it was Gavin, after all, who sent those exterminators, to the demon voicemail ('to speak to or worship master Tarfong, underlord of pain, press three') to the general amusement value of watching all the bad guys make a mess of each others' plans (and, indeed, each other) in their hurry to get a hold of (and in Wolfram and Hart's case, dissect) the miracle child. 'Quickening' is the third good, solid episode Jeff Bell has been involved in so far this season, and I'm almost enjoying his writing enough to make me proclaim him the new Tim Minear. Almost.

One thing we don't get a lot of this week are answers. We find out that the child looks like a human boy, and the rather neat idea that the Troklon is a confluence of events rather than a person, but that's about it. Meanwhile, we get plenty more questions. What, for instance, is going on with Darla? Seeing her baby on that monitor seems to have thrown her; it's almost as though she's developing feelings for it. Wherever this turns out to lead, I'm willing to bet that it involves the fact that Darla has been carrying a being with a 'filthy soul' around inside her for the past nine months - for a vampire, that can't feel good. We already know it's given her cravings; what else might it be doing? Also, I don't really feel that I understand Holtz yet. OK, so he's motivated by revenge, but from what we know of him, I'd have expected to see some more conflict about the rightness of his actions. Possibly this will happen when he finds out that Angel has a soul; we shall see.

More generally in fact, if there's a problem with this storyline at the moment, it is that the epic nature of the plot isn't leaving a whole lot of room for the characters. It was to be expected that Wesley, Fred and Gunn, at least, would be more-or-less marginalized at this point, but I'm not even sure we're getting enough on Cordelia, Darla and Angel - especially Angel. I'm more convinced by his reactions this week than last, but this is still something he never thought he'd have, and even when he sees the ultrasound the reality doesn't seem to fully sink in. Still, that's not a major complaint for what is really a transitional episode. I feel pretty confident there'll be some more interesting character action next week, now that the birth has started for real, and Holtz (and his demon troopers) have caught up with Angel.

Pretty much the only other thing that niggled slightly about the episode was Angel's acceptance of Darla's portrayal of him as shamelessly using her in 'Reprise'. What she says is true, but it's not as though she wasn't a willing participant once she realised what was going on - she thought she was going to get Angelus back, after all - and I'd like to see someone point that out. Having said that, Angel's always been quick to take the blame, and there's no other character around who knows what went on, so I think I'll just have to be satisfied with knowing that Darla isn't entirely right.

As a final thought, I'm starting to wonder whether we might not see Darla staked in the near future, after all. AI seem well aware that she's extremely dangerous, so I have reasonably high hopes that there will be a concerted effort to stake her once she has given birth. On the one hand, the writers seem to be extremely attached to the character, and she's been involved in most of the best plotlines on the show to date, so they may well be reluctant to get rid of her; on the other hand, they'd still be able to use her in flashbacks, and killing her would free up space to more fully develop other antagonists, such as Holtz.