Angel, "Lullaby" Review (3x09)

Brief Synopsis: “Holtz and Angel come face-to-face for the first time in hundreds of years. Holtz is still intent upon revenge against Angelus and Darla for murdering his family. With Darla close to giving birth, she escapes from the Angel Investigations team and disappears into the night. Angel must escape Holtz, find Darla, and help her give birth to their child before any harm comes to it.”


"Quickening" (3x08) quick link here                                                                                                                                 "Dad" (3x10) quick link here

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I can’t decide if “Lullaby”, “Sleep Tight”, or “Waiting In The Wings” is the best episode of this season, but I’m leaning slightly more towards “Lullaby”. This episode represents the apex of season three’s major arc (Angel-Darla-Holtz-Sahjhan-Connor) as, sadly, the season never quite reaches the same quality again. That’s not to say that the season still doesn’t have some terrific episodes forthcoming, it simply means that “Lullaby” is better than them. What “Lullaby” does so well is tie together Angelus and Darla’s past, Angel and Darla’s history since “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” started, their current mental states and relationship, and a fitting, dramatic, beautiful ending for Darla’s character. I will freely admit that I adore Darla as a character. Outside of Faith, Darla may be my favourite recurring character from either show. Her history with Angel is complex and fascinating, she played a key role in the last season of “Angel”, Julie Benz is a Goddess, and Darla was the very first vampire we ever saw in the Buffyverse. While I consider myself ‘Team Bangel’ (I hate fandoms having team names...), I think that Angel and Darla have the most interesting history and the most interesting relationship because of that history. Their relationship is always so complex and dark, and multi-layered that you can’t help but get caught up in it. Through Connor’s soul, Darla has some time to self-reflect on her life and her afterlife. This culminates in Darla’s hauntingly beautiful sacrifice scene towards the end of the episode, where she gives up her own afterlife so that her son – the soon to be named ‘Connor’ – can be born. The imagery that’s used throughout that scene is some of the best work the show ever creates. From the fire and explosion inside Caritas to the slow-motion rain falling on Angel and Darla in the alleyway outside of Caritas, everything works. The combinations of light and dark, of fire and rain, are used beautifully. Especially when you consider the fact that Angel, Darla, and Holtz are three very grey-area characters at this place in time. They’re a mixture of light and dark, of fire and rain.

Things are never the same after this episode. The entire tone of the show grows much darker between this episode and “Tomorrow”. Look at season four and five, then go back and look at season one. The tone of the show has definitely shifted. Wesley’s stealing of Connor and subsequent isolation from the group is certainly the foundation of this darker tone, but it goes much deeper than that. When Connor is taken, Angel gives up hope that he’ll become human. He received the one thing in the world he never thought he’d have and it was snatched away from him. Even after Connor returns, Angel is noticeably different, as is everyone else to some extent. They all go through too much loss, too much heartache, and they start to harden because of it. I don’t see the darker tone as better or worse than what it was before, it’s just interesting to see the difference in all the characters.

Translator: “You highlighted an ancient Nyazian Scroll?”
Lilah: “...In yellow.”

Prophecies are tricky little buggers. Whenever a show or book starts spouting off about prophecy, I immediately get suspicious. How often do prophecies go according to plan? It would be boring as hell if a prophecy was given and then came to pass exactly as stated. Why watch something if you’ve already been told what’s going to happen? That’s why I tend to love episodes of “Angel” that revolve around prophecy, like this one. They always seem to come true, but in the most twisted, unexpected way imaginable. At the start of “Lullaby”, we have two sub-prophecies on the go. The first is that the tro-clan has arrived in Los Angeles and will be some sort of important character for mankind. Secondly, we have the prophecy that Darla’s birth will bring only death. Prophecies by themselves are rather meaningless when it comes to storytelling. How they’re handled and how they relate to character development and character motive is what makes them interesting. When I read that Tim Minear was penning this episode, I knew two things immediately. 1) It’s going to be a terrific episode. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Tim Minear is the greatest “Angel” writer. He understands the characters so well, and nobody else can match him when it comes to a résumé on “Angel”. 2) It’s not going to end well. Tim has spent too long living under the Joss Whedon tree of television writing. If Darla is about to give birth, various factions are after the baby, and prophecies are becoming more commonplace than starring characters, you know Tim is going to find a way to make it awesome and gut-wrenching. Two scenes in this episode make it jump from ‘great’ to ‘almost perfect’. The first of which is Angel and Darla’s conversation on the rooftop about how Darla won’t be able to love her son once he’s born because she won’t have a soul again and she won’t be capable of it. This is one of the tenderest, most loving scenes between these two characters with a rich backstory, and it really helps solidify their bond to the audience. Once you’ve seen the conclusion of this episode, this scene takes on greater significance. It almost feels as though Darla has made up her mind to commit suicide here. This scene is the turning point for her character. The second scene is, of course, the alleyway scene at the end. Not just Darla’s sacrifice, but everything. Fred staying behind to help, Holtz emerging out of the flames of Caritas and pointing a crossbow at Angel, who’s holding his newborn son. Such drama, such intensity, and such damn good TV. Just when I thought Holtz might change his mind, he delivers his final line of the episode. Chilling.

Before all of that, however, we have the start of the episode. “Quickening” gave us more questions than answers. Will Darla successfully give birth? How will she give birth if her body is dead? Will she start producing expired milk? If the baby is born, will it be the destructive tro-clan that will bring about the ruination of mankind? How will Angel adapt to being a father? How will Holtz fit into the story? Will he let Angel and Darla be when he discovers that Darla is about to give birth? Will he get revenge by killing the child? And, most importantly, will Lorne be in the episode?

Cordy: “Please! Women have been giving birth without ancient prophecies for years!”
Gunn: “What we could really use right about now is some Vaseline and a catcher’s mitt.”

Gunn has clearly never seen a birth before. He’s expecting some sort of adult ping-pong ball show type situation.

At the conclusion of “Quickening”, Angel came face-to-face with his past and some of his worst atrocities as Angelus, when he returned to the Hyperion and bumped into Holtz. The scene between these two fascinating characters was every bit as interesting as I was hoping it would be. I loved the mirroring of Angel’s character and Holtz’s character. Holtz is slowly transitioning from noble, respectable hero to twisted, hateful villain, whereas Angelus was a twisted, hateful villain, but has since been re-ensoulled and is a legitimate hero and saviour of souls. What I love about Angel and Holtz’s scenes together throughout the season is that they’re so complex. Can you blame Holtz for wanting revenge? Can you truly despise Holtz for his actions, regardless of how severe they may appear? Angel himself doesn’t blame Holtz. Later in the season he tells Holtz’s followers that they’re right to follow Holtz, and that Holtz is a good man. It’s such an interesting change of pace to have a villain that isn’t that villainy. Unlike most of the other villains on the show, I can totally empathise with Holtz! How can I root for Angel to win when I half want Holtz to get some measure of revenge for his family? Ultimately, it comes down to the Angelus-Angel distinction. Angel didn’t commit these unforgivable acts against Holtz’s family. He didn’t even have a soul at the time! Should Angel be held accountable for Angelus’ actions? Angel himself has always thought so, but everyone else around him seems to disagree. Oh, also, Angel flicking a grenade into his mouth with his feet, pulling the pin out with his teeth, and exploding backwards through the elevator was equal parts absurd and badass.

Darla: “No, I haven’t been nourishing it. I haven’t given this baby a thing. I’m dead. It’s been nourishing me. These feelings that I’m having, they’re not mine. They’re coming from it.”
Angel: “You don’t know that.”
Darla: “Of course I do! We both do. Angel, I don’t have a soul. It does. And right now that soul is inside of me, but soon, it won’t be and then...”
Angel: “Darla...”
Darla: “I won’t be able to love it. I won’t even be able to remember that I loved it...I want to remember.”
*Darla begins to cry*

 
That fucking rooftop scene will be the death of me, I swear. As I mentioned before, all the warning signs are there. Everything has been subtly spelled out that Darla is going to give up her (after)life for her son. It’s horrific to think that Darla, as soon as her son is born, will literally lose the ability to be able to love him. She’d return to her soulless, evil ways, which would probably revolve around Darla trying to kill her son given her track record. She’d never be able to love him, never be able to care for him, to support him, or bond with him. After the exchange above, Tim Minear made it clear that there was no happy ending, regardless. Either Connor was going to die before Darla could give birth to him, Darla would succeed in giving birth, but then start hunting her son, or Darla would die. It’s a lose-lose-lose situation. In that respect, regardless of which of the three scenarios came to pass, the prophecy was correct. There would be only death.

The comical thing about “Lullaby” is that at its core it’s a love story. It’s a dark, suffocatingly agonising episode, but it’s a story about a mother’s unconditional love for her child...through that child’s soul...nobody said it was a conventional love story! Ugh, I’m gonna miss Darla. Since she was resurrected on “Angel”, she’s consistently raised the quality of pretty much every episode she’s been in. Think about it. The episodes where she has a lot of screen time are “Dear Boy”, “Darla”, “The Trial”, “Reunion”, “Redefinition”, “Reprise”, and “Epiphany”, all of which are great or spectacular. Her appearances this season haven’t brought quite so much quality, but she’s only been back for two episodes and those were build-up episodes. As I briefly touched upon before, Darla’s success can be greatly attributed to a combination of Julie Benz and the quality of the writing. Julie has had to play such a wide range of emotions with Darla. From psychopathic killer to depressed, to newly re-ensoulled, to bitch, to conflicted, to loving, and now, for the first time ever as far as I can recall...to crying. Darla crying showed that right from the beginning of the episode something was different. She cries repeatedly in this episode and I believe that the cause is Connor’s soul making her feel things that she hasn’t had to ever before. By all accounts Darla didn’t have a very happy life before The Master saved her from dying of syphilis, and even after she returned as human in “To Shanshu In L.A.”, she was too traumatised to really feel anything besides disgusted with herself. Connor’s soul gives her something different. Something pure and entirely alien to her. This purity of soul coupled with her love for her son makes Darla see herself and the world through new eyes. She shows remorse over what she and Angelus did to Holtz’s family, she shows love towards Angel and her son. For four hundred years, Darla has only brought about death and destruction, but now she’s giving life and love to the world. Also, it’s not lost upon me that she refers to her child as her “darling boy”, which is something that we’ve heard her call Angel before. Whereas Darla killed her first “darling boy” by turning him into a vampire and removing his soul, she saves her second “darling boy” by sacrificing herself so that he may live.

Darla has been a mother before in a sense. She sired Angelus. She shaped him into a killer, taught him how to hunt, how to feed, how to fight, how to be a monster. She raised her own vampiric offspring. It’s poetic and oddly moving that Darla’s second chance at being a mother ends in the exact opposite way. Darla and Angel have spent hundreds of years killing people, tearing families apart, and causing destruction and heartache. Now, she discovers that her son is dying because her body isn’t capable of giving birth. The one good thing that she’s done in her entire life and afterlife is slipping away from her. For the first time ever (in my opinion) in her life or afterlife, she loves something. She couldn’t love Angel, not really, because she didn’t have a soul. I’m sure she loved him in her own weird, dysfunctional, sadistic, soulless way, but it can’t compare to the pure, undying love that she feels for Connor. In the alleyway behind Caritas, the full weight of her previous actions hits her and she realises that it’s finally time to stop the suffering, so she puts her love for her son in front of her own fears of death and makes the ultimately sacrifice. It’s ironic that all three of Angel’s serious love interests make the ultimate sacrifice in one way or another at some point. Perhaps his brooding makes them want to die? Trying to diffuse the misery with humour...did it work?

Another very important scene in this episode is the flashback where Holtz discovers his deceased family. This scene is bloody horrific from start to finish. Angelus and Darla didn’t just kill his wife and infant son, they sired his daughter just to mess with him even more. That’s taking sadism to a whole new level. Not only does this show just how awful Angelus and Darla used to be once again, it also gives us Holtz’s motivations right in front of our face. We’ve heard that Angelus and Darla killed his family, we’ve seen flashbacks of Holtz hunting them, but their worst crime has always been in our imaginations. Seeing Holtz’s infant son being killed, seeing his wife plead for mercy, seeing Holtz’s daughter be sired and thrown into the sunlight by her father...it makes everything take on a new perspective. How can you hate Holtz after watching this scene? Hell, I wanted revenge on Holtz’s behalf! Also, in a much subtler way, it sets up Darla’s sacrifice even further. Through Connor’s soul, Darla feels remorse for killing Holtz’s family. Through her love for her son she can actually understand how life-changing it must have been for Holtz to discover his family dead. Darla doesn’t want to lose Connor’s soul and do something similar to her own son. Over the years, we’ve heard a lot about Angelus’ dark, twisted, artistic nature as a vampire, and we’ve even seen a lot of this through flashbacks, but the discovery that they left Holtz’s daughter undead was too much to bear. They didn’t just ruin this man’s life, they didn’t just take his family, they made him throw his own daughter into the sunlight and burn up in front of his eyes. Holtz throwing his daughter into the sunlight also made me realise that he’ll never, ever forgive Angel or see him as anything other than a demon. If Holtz is willing to ‘kill’ his daughter, he’s never going to forgive Angel, soul or not. Gah! The complexities of this season are fascinating. Holtz is now on a mission to kill Angel and Darla at all costs. He loses his ‘hero’ and ‘noble’ mantles when he slays Wolfram & Hart commandos to get to Angel, when he was intent upon killing Lilah. He’ll kill anyone who gets between him and his revenge. That includes random civilians and Angel’s friends. That is why Holtz is a villain, but, again, I can still understand his need for revenge. It’s funny (in an ironic way) that Angelus and Darla, two soulless vampires, took Holtz’s family from him, and in turn his humanity in a lot of ways. Yet, when he arrives in present day Los Angeles, Angel has a soul and has a family, everything that Angelus took from Holtz. Hauntingly beautiful parallels.

All of this leads us to Caritas. From the second Holtz walks into Caritas, everything suddenly jumps up yet another notch. Holtz quietly walks down the stairs into the karaoke club, looks at Lorne (who kindly gives him a leaflet!), a demon, and walks out without a word. This is one of those moments that seems to last an eternity. You can feel that something is wrong. Holtz wouldn’t just leave! What’s going on?! On his way back up the steps, he starts humming “All Through The Night”, a lullaby he used to sing to his children. Lorne reads Holtz while he’s humming, his eyes open wide, I yelp, and he tells everyone to run. The choice to turn this scene slow-motion at this point was one of the best decisions of the season from a visual perspective. HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO DESTROY CARITAS IN ONE SEASON?! LORNE JUST GOT THE CLUB READY TO OPEN AGAIN! As the team are running away towards Darla’s birthing room, a barrel crashes down the stairs in slow-motion, followed by a grenade, and a huge explosion...all in slow-motion. I cannot over-emphasise the visual beauty of that moment.

Wesley and Gunn bash a hole in Lorne’s bedroom wall and they escape into the alley behind Caritas. Just a little trivia fact for you, this alley is the same one that the final battle from “Not Fade Away” takes place in. It’s kind of beautiful that Angel chooses to stage his ‘never give up fighting’ battle at the same spot where his son was born and his sire sacrificed herself. It’s in this alley that Darla realises her son is going to die. Her body is not designed for childbirth, it’s dead. Darla reflects on the suffering she’s caused, her love for her son, and she makes the ultimate sacrifice. She uses her undead body to create life. Her last act on Earth is to create life out of nothing but love. It’s a very, very fitting end for this wonderful, captivating character. Darla tells Angel that they can never make up for all the heartache and destruction they caused, which is something that has always stuck with Angel. He can never re-balance the scales or make amends, all he can do is try to help people and save souls because it’s the right thing to do. Darla tells Angel that their son is the one good thing they ever did together and that he should tell their son that. Darla then reaches for a piece of broken wood off of the floor and plunges it into her heart before Angel can notice and react to what she’s doing. In her place in a naked, crying, newborn baby boy. This scene, this rain-filled scene in the alley behind Caritas is one of the finest, most beautiful, most emotional moments in the 110 episodes of the show. When I’ve finished my reviews and I round up the greatest moments, this one will definitely be near the top. Absolutely beautiful.

Darla, you will be sorely, sorely missed. Angel has to deal with the loss of his sire and learn how to be a single father in a matter of seconds...and then Holtz appears holding a crossbow. The rain is streaming down on two fathers and a newborn son in slow-motion. Amazingly, in this scene, only the rain is slowed down, not the actors. The effect is remarkably striking and works perfectly for the scene. Angel and Holtz lock eyes and it’s as though everything in the world outside of their gaze has slowed down and become unimportant. After a few seconds of staring, Holtz lets Fred, Angel, and his new son go. Just when I thought that Holtz may be playing a different part in this season, just when I thought Holtz had found some humanity and mercy in seeing Angel bond with his son, he delivers this line to end the episode...

Holtz: “I swore that I would show no mercy...and I won’t.”

Holtz’s plan has not changed, just his methods have. He’s letting Angel go so that he can do more than kill Angel. He can destroy Angel entirely by killing or stealing his son. Things will never be the same again.


Quote Of The Episode

Darla: “Our baby is gonna die right here in this alley. You died in an alley, remember?”

Angel: “I remember.”

Darla: “I wanna say I’m sorry. I wanna say it and mean it, but I can’t....aren’t you gonna tell me it’s okay?”

Angel: “No.”

Darla: “No? It’s really not, is it? We did so many terrible things together. So much destruction, so much pain. We can’t make up for any of it. You know that, don’t you?”

Angel: “...Yeah.”

Darla: “This child...Angel, it’s the one good thing we ever did together. The only good thing. You make sure to tell him that.”

*Darla buries a piece of wood into her chest, gasping. Angel lifts his head and stares at the hand of Darla that he’s holding, which slowly turns to dust. In Darla’s place is a naked, newborn human boy in the rain, crying.* 


FINAL SCORE: 9.5/10

What are your thoughts on "Lullaby"? Did you enjoy this episode? Dislike it? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments section below!

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