Reviewed by: Adam Bardwell
Rating: 8.5/10
This is a busy episode, essentially telling two stories - that of Angel being sired and a story of Kate's fathers involvement of drug pushing vampires. The viewer in then left to draw the parallels. I liked the fact that the writer didn't dumb down these parallels and waste dialogue with contrived sections instead choosing to treat the audience as intelligent (Voyager writers take note). The only problem with this approach is that one of the stories, in this case the flashbacks, isn't satisfactory developed and the intergation of the stories doesn't quit work. I will come back to this along with my qualms about how the stories we arranged together.
The flashbacks and the appearance of Darla in them has to be one of my favourite aspects of the show. The accents may be of there normal poor standard but it has part of the charm of these sequences. I like the fact the series has allowed the writers more opportunities to tell Angels life story in more depth than what we got to see in the Buffy episodes especially Becoming. The flashbacks of this episode basically revolve around the events of the opening flashback in that Buffy episode - Angel becoming a vampire. Material from that flashback was effectively incorporated into this episode. The flashback story adds to the important events of Angel becoming a vampire with his emergence from his grave and first kill also shown for the first time. Of course we also get to see Angels return to his family who he kills. This not the kind of material you often see on television and I think that it was a bold move from the writers but necessary in the story.
As I said in my review of "Somnambulist" unappreciative / unapproving farthers has been a theme of the season. However, this is the episode where it actually takes centre stage. In the flashbacks we get to see our first and only look at Angel's relationship with his father before he was a vampire. He seemed to be constantly putting Angel down and seemingly driving Angel (or Liam as we discover here is his real name) to his drinking and whoring. He shows young Liam no affection, no sign that he cares his attitude seems only to be that he is the man with the power in the household. Kate's relationship with her farther isn't quite the same but there are similarities. He also doesn't show any affection for his child - he seems very emotionally close has "Sense and Sensitivity" would testify. He comes across as uncaring which may not be the case but it is the same impression you get of Angels farther.
Although there are undoubtably parallels in the two relationships I think the at the heart of the parallels we are ment to draw is Angels statement about the price of a mistake being greater than the original offence. Both Angel and Kate's farthers lost their lives for the mistakes and both mistakes were made when they felt they had there child's best interests at heart. Angels farther thought that he had to take charge of Angel to try to guide him towards a more productive life style. If Angels farther hadn't taken this attitude Darla may never have seen Angel and never sire him for Angel was just trying to do what was expected of him - fail in life. Kate's farther was involved in transporting what he thought were car parts but were actually demon drugs for he was trying to provide for Kate's future.
I think the other big parallel of this episode is that everything changes after death. People are treated in a different light once they are dead. I've had personal experience of this with deaths in the family. I think it come from are inability to express our true feelings about each other. This parallel here is highlighted by the gravestones of Angel's and Kate's father saying Beloved Son andBeloved Farther respectively.
I'm not so keen on Kate's character since she discovered that Angel is a vampire but it has given her a great arc throughout the second half of the season. After finding out about Angel this has to be the most important event in the series for her character for her inability to deal with the revaluation that mystical creatures exist and her fathers death lead her not only to stop trusting Angel but blaming him for her lose which is quite unjustified. Angel tried to save Mr. Lockly but he wouldn't invite Angel in. This has to be the most powerful scene of the episode with Angels despair at watch Kate's father dye tangible. Kate's discovery of her farther was also powerful and very well acted.
The way that Angel went after the vampires and demon after Mr. Lockly's death shows how mush it affect him (in the same manner as Tina's death did in "City Of..."). I think that it also shows that Angel has some sort of feelings for Kate as Cordelia had suggested in "Somnambulist". He wanted to avenge for Kate's fathers death for her as much as for himself. His appearance almost certainly saved Kate's as she went after revenge Giles style ("Passion") although perhaps not quite as kamikaze. Kate seems to forget that Angel effectively saver her life in later episodes. This demonstrates what Angel feared - the more she sees the more of the detail she misses.
This was a quiet episode for Cordelia and Wesley. They got some good moments, however. I enjoyed the security system sub-plot. Angel Investigations really does need some sort of security system for people / demons are always entering uninvited. Its a pity the system they put in was so lame - but it was funny. I liked Cordelia disguise for trailing duty. Its about time that she got to do some detective work.
Wesley gets to demonstrate why he is actually a more useful member of the team as he shows off his scientific knowledge. He does look like a mad professor with the while coat and the weird circular thing on his head (what is that some sort of magnifying glass?). However, its nice to see him earn is keep and be an invaluable member of the team which is good for him with his inferiority complex.
The ideas behind this episode are all very good. They are hindered by aspects of its execution. One of the main problems for me was the way that the flashbacks were incorporated into the story. They were done in a way that gave the impression that they were Angel remembering similarities to his past in what was currently happening but they started before he'd seen Kate in the episode. Considering the links between the threads I feel it would have worked far better if the flashbacks had started after the initial scene between Kate and her farther where he seems to be checking up on her.
Although I said I liked the fact that the show wasn't playing to the dumbest member of the audience I do also feel that the writing could have remaining engaging while being a bit more developed and therefore easier to appreciate. I particular I think we needed more of Angels relationship with his father. The viewer has to put the picture of what is going on between them together themselves to perhaps a greater than necessary extent. At least with Kate's we also had Sense and Sensitivity to get an idea as to the nature of there relationship. It may seem that I'm being nit- picky but I'm just trying to put my figure on exactly why I felt that, although this episode is good, as an integrated pieces it doesn't fully work. As you can probably tell I am struggling to define why this is so you'll just have accept that this is the case.
Great Angel Moment: Angel standing at Mr Lockly's door as he is being killed.
In a Nutshell: An interesting look at a farthers lasting influence on their child which also gives us a good look at an important part of Angels past and greatly advances Kate's character arc.