Darker Angel: How much is too much?

While "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" remains in negotiations which could result in a move from the WB to another network, "Angel" continues its process of "Redefinition." But as "Angel" reinvents itself in counterpoint against both the mother show and the competition, the title character's slide into darkness may be too extreme to maintain viewer sympathy for our anti-hero.

In the episode "The Trial," Angel was willing to die for the human Darla. In the episode "Redefinition," Angel is willing to sacrifice almost everything else that has mattered to him in the recent past in order to stop the vampire Darla. Yet, beyond "moving up the food chain" by rejoining the ranks of the predators, Darla has not changed much since her recent experience with humanity. Angel's obsession with Darla seems to say much more about Angel himself than about Darla's real significance as one vampire among many in L.A.

As Lindsey put it, it is the late Holland Manners' "vision" of Angel's future, the darker Angel that Wolfram and Hart wanted, which seems to be driving him now. Turning his back on both sides of his "family," ignoring Cordelia's visions, recognized by Drusilla as a "shadow," Angel is now becoming someone that no one really knows, and if he continues on his present path, soon no one may care.

The "Angel" writing team seems to be hooked on parallels. Now it's Angel's two dysfunctional families, one evil and one good. Both families want him back, yet he belongs with neither. Considering Angel's actions at the end of "Redefinition," his status as a desirable member of either "family" is questionable at best.

In "Redefinition," Darla is complaining that Angelus should be with them, sharing the mayhem and the thrill of burning down the town, while Wesley and Cordelia, Angel's other "family," are complaining about him running out on his responsibilities to help people. Cordelia continues to receive visions, as Drusilla continues to get psychic flashes of information. As we flash back and forth between Angel's two families, with Darla and Wesley both complaining similarly about Angel's absence, and each of them taking on parallel leadership roles which each believes properly belong to Angel, it becomes particularly chilling to realize that Angel's struggle right now is to be able to bring himself to kill "his girls."

Angel has transferred his obsession with "saving" Darla to an obsession with stopping her, and yet, we the audience see no essential difference between the one and the other. Darla as vampire has the same personality as the human Darla we saw during the first part of the season. The presence or absence of a soul has had no noticeable effect on Darla; her reactions are the same, and she is still fundamentally the same person.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic