Darla (Angel episode)
Encyclopedia
"Darla" is episode 7 of season 2 in the television show Angel
. Written and directed by Tim Minear
, it was originally broadcast on November 14, 2000 on the WB television network
. In this episode, Angel tries to rescue Darla from the clutches of Wolfram & Hart
and Lindsey
's affections, as she suffers guilt of her demonic past. Flashbacks show Darla as a syphilis
-stricken prostitute being transformed into a vampire by the demonic Master, her retaliation when the Gypsies cursed Angelus with a soul, and the Boxer Rebellion
in China. Many of the flashback
scenes echo the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Fool for Love", which was originally broadcast earlier the same night.
appears in the doorway and expresses his concern that Angel has become obsessed. Angel brushes him off. Meanwhile Lindsey comes into a room to find Darla curled in a corner, bleeding, haunted by memories of her past.
In 1609 Virginia Colony, the human prostitute Darla lies in her deathbed, covered in sores from the syphilis
that is killing her. She receives a visit from the Master, who takes her life and makes her a vampire
.
Back in the present, Angel is trying to locate Darla, over the objections of the group, who suggest Wolfram and Hart may just be trying to keep him distracted. Gunn suggests that they probably have connections to the place where she`s staying, and Angel gives criteria for the kind of place she would want to live. They go off to check into it.
In 1760 Darla brings Angelus before the Master, bragging about her wonderful new creation. Angelus is less impressed, and his disrespect gets him beaten up. Nevertheless, Darla chooses Angelus over the Master, and goes with him. In 1880, while strolling the streets of London, Angelus, Darla, and Drusilla bump into a man named William, later known as Spike. In need of companionship, Drusilla makes him into a vampire.
The team at Angel investigations has found a likely location for Darla`s new home, and Cordelia confirms it by playing a sob story for a clerk. Angel starts to rush off, but Wesley stops him, saying that he and Gunn will look into the situation and they`ll make any decisions later as a group. Angel starts to object until Cordelia points out that it`s one in the afternoon, and the area doesn't have good sun cover. Meanwhile Darla receives another visit from Lindsey. She is visibly upset, shaken by her memories and disturbed by the experience of having a soul and being human again. She expresses confusion about who she is now, then asks Lindsey why he hasn't kissed her - he obviously wants to. He said he didn't know what she wanted, and she asks why he should care; she never considered anyone else.
In 1898 Darla threatens a Gypsy, wanting him to revoke the curse on Angelus in exchange for not killing his family. Unfortunately before he can answer Spike emerges from the caravan, having already slaughtered his wife and daughter. Frustrated, Darla snaps the man`s neck.
Angel looks at pictures of the room where Darla was staying. All the reflective surfaces are smashed, but there is no sign of forced entry - or wasn't until Gunn and Wesley broke in. Angel says she is feeling the weight of her soul. Cordelia points out that Angel doesn't run around smashing mirrors, and he answers that he doesn't have to face himself in them. He insists they have to help her, brushing off Cordelia when she tries to hand him the phone until she tells him it`s Darla on the other end. Darla asks him to help, and tells Lindsey that Angel is the only one who can do anything for her. When a security guard tries to stop her from leaving, a shot is heard, and he falls. A later discussion between Lindsay and Holland indicates the guard is dead, and that Darla has been caught. Lindsey is told he is off the project. Angel leaves to go find Darla and help her. Wesley tries to warn him to be careful, telling him he should know what Darla was. Angel corrects him, saying it was what they both were - and that having been through it, he might be able to help her. When Wesley reminds him that he went over a century without seeking redemption, Angel replies that he sought Darla instead.
During the Boxer Rebellion
in China, Angel tracks down Darla, and - despite being cursed with a soul - asks her for a second chance to rule at her side.
Angel attacks Lindsey in a parking garage. Lindsey tells him Darla is in trouble, that they plan to kill her. Angel promises to come back and kill him if he`s lying.
Angel, back in the Boxer Rebellion, comes upon a terrified family and distracts his companions from them. Drusilla tells them that Spike has killed his first Slayer. Angel tries to act excited, but drops the act when Drusilla fixates on the alley where he left the family and instead tries to convince the others to leave. Angel returns to Darla after going out to feed on animals. She tells him she noticed that he only killed the guilty in the riots, and demands he prove he's truly evil. She says she went back and killed the family in the alleyway, but kept their baby, which she wants him to kill.
Darla sits up suddenly, staring in fear at three people in white with guns as Angel`s car appears behind her. She is thrown aside, and after defeating the three men, Angel runs to her. In the lobby of Wolfram and Hart, Lindsey sees the supposedly murdered guard very much alive. He talks to Holland, accusing him of playing him. Holland says they had to make the crisis real. Lindsey speaks derisively of the idea that Angel would achieve his moment of perfect happiness with Darla under the circumstances, but Holland tells him he doesn't understand the plan - that they expect Angel to save her soul.
Darla wakes up, and whispers "Angelus" when she sees Angel. Cordelia corrects her. She says she's lucky to have someone who understands - something Angel never had. She wants him to turn her back, saying she can't bear to feel her own heartbeat. Angel tells her it's a gift to be human, but she disagrees, and demands he "return the favour" for turning him into a vampire. Angel backs away, stunned that she still considers what what she did to him a gift. When she instead tries to convince him to turn her as revenge, he refuses.
Looking down at the baby, Angel confesses he can't pretend to be who he's not. She says she's disgusted with him. He takes the baby and jumps through a window.
Darla runs out of the office, telling Angel not to look for her again, mirroring the words of a century ago.
says this is his favorite episode to have scored, as he was able to write several different themes for the character of Darla. He was asked by director Tim Minear
to write music that was "epochy. Something with horns...something Wagnerish
." Kral and Buffy composer Thomas Wanker deliberately choose not to collaborate, so that the cross-over scenes would "maintain a different perspective," Kral says.
Production designer Stuart Blatt says the Boxer Rebellion
flashback scenes in this episode and "Fool for Love
" were filmed at a movie ranch with a standing set for a Mexican village. "Through our research," Blatt says, "we realized that a lot of Chinese towns looked very similar to small Mexican villages...clay adobe structures with either thatched or tower roofs." Gaffer Dan Kerns explains that to simulate the burning streets, his crew set up numerous 'flicker boxes' that "pulse like a flame", in addition to simulated moonlight from "cherry picker
"-like machines.
's directorial debut. He says he felt it was time to explore Darla's history, which "should really be her story with Angel throughout the 150 years that they were together." When Joss Whedon
pointed out that they were already doing a Spike origin story on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Minear suggested they do both.
Although this episode shows Angel and Darla's romantic history, Minear cautions, "at no time was I trying to play this as being Angel's true love. It's more like the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
; this troubled, old married couple with secrets. I wasn't trying to take Buffy's place in his heart by any stretch of the imagination. But here's a guy who's been around for a couple of hundred years before he ever met Buffy and certainly he was shaped in some way." He explains that despite cries of retconning from fans — who saw in the Buffy episode "Becoming, Part One" that Angel was living on the streets of New York in the early 1990s — he doesn't believe Angel was "thrown out of that room in Romania by Darla in 1898 and has been on the street ever since."
Minear likens the storytelling approach in this episode to the non-linear, looping technique exhibited by Quentin Tarantino
's Pulp Fiction
: "It's a different story happening in the same universe."
Angel (TV series)
Angel is an American television series, a spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffys creator, Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt, and first aired on October 5, 1999...
. Written and directed by Tim Minear
Tim Minear
Tim Minear is an American screenwriter and director. He was born in New York, grew up in Whittier, California, and studied film at California State University, Long Beach....
, it was originally broadcast on November 14, 2000 on the WB television network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
. In this episode, Angel tries to rescue Darla from the clutches of Wolfram & Hart
Wolfram & Hart
Wolfram & Hart − Attorneys at Law is a fictional international, and interdimensional law firm featured in the television series Angel, as well as other extended materials in Joss Whedon's Buffyverse.-Fictional history:...
and Lindsey
Lindsey McDonald
Lindsey McDonald is a fictional character from the television series Angel. He first appeared in the series' first episode, "City of," and featured prominently in the story arcs of seasons one, two, and five. Lindsey is the only character besides Angel himself to appear in both the first and last...
's affections, as she suffers guilt of her demonic past. Flashbacks show Darla as a syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
-stricken prostitute being transformed into a vampire by the demonic Master, her retaliation when the Gypsies cursed Angelus with a soul, and the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
in China. Many of the flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
scenes echo the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Fool for Love", which was originally broadcast earlier the same night.
Plot
As Angel sits alone drawing pictures of Darla, when WesleyWesley Wyndam-Pryce
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel...
appears in the doorway and expresses his concern that Angel has become obsessed. Angel brushes him off. Meanwhile Lindsey comes into a room to find Darla curled in a corner, bleeding, haunted by memories of her past.
In 1609 Virginia Colony, the human prostitute Darla lies in her deathbed, covered in sores from the syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
that is killing her. She receives a visit from the Master, who takes her life and makes her a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
.
Back in the present, Angel is trying to locate Darla, over the objections of the group, who suggest Wolfram and Hart may just be trying to keep him distracted. Gunn suggests that they probably have connections to the place where she`s staying, and Angel gives criteria for the kind of place she would want to live. They go off to check into it.
In 1760 Darla brings Angelus before the Master, bragging about her wonderful new creation. Angelus is less impressed, and his disrespect gets him beaten up. Nevertheless, Darla chooses Angelus over the Master, and goes with him. In 1880, while strolling the streets of London, Angelus, Darla, and Drusilla bump into a man named William, later known as Spike. In need of companionship, Drusilla makes him into a vampire.
The team at Angel investigations has found a likely location for Darla`s new home, and Cordelia confirms it by playing a sob story for a clerk. Angel starts to rush off, but Wesley stops him, saying that he and Gunn will look into the situation and they`ll make any decisions later as a group. Angel starts to object until Cordelia points out that it`s one in the afternoon, and the area doesn't have good sun cover. Meanwhile Darla receives another visit from Lindsey. She is visibly upset, shaken by her memories and disturbed by the experience of having a soul and being human again. She expresses confusion about who she is now, then asks Lindsey why he hasn't kissed her - he obviously wants to. He said he didn't know what she wanted, and she asks why he should care; she never considered anyone else.
In 1898 Darla threatens a Gypsy, wanting him to revoke the curse on Angelus in exchange for not killing his family. Unfortunately before he can answer Spike emerges from the caravan, having already slaughtered his wife and daughter. Frustrated, Darla snaps the man`s neck.
Angel looks at pictures of the room where Darla was staying. All the reflective surfaces are smashed, but there is no sign of forced entry - or wasn't until Gunn and Wesley broke in. Angel says she is feeling the weight of her soul. Cordelia points out that Angel doesn't run around smashing mirrors, and he answers that he doesn't have to face himself in them. He insists they have to help her, brushing off Cordelia when she tries to hand him the phone until she tells him it`s Darla on the other end. Darla asks him to help, and tells Lindsey that Angel is the only one who can do anything for her. When a security guard tries to stop her from leaving, a shot is heard, and he falls. A later discussion between Lindsay and Holland indicates the guard is dead, and that Darla has been caught. Lindsey is told he is off the project. Angel leaves to go find Darla and help her. Wesley tries to warn him to be careful, telling him he should know what Darla was. Angel corrects him, saying it was what they both were - and that having been through it, he might be able to help her. When Wesley reminds him that he went over a century without seeking redemption, Angel replies that he sought Darla instead.
During the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
in China, Angel tracks down Darla, and - despite being cursed with a soul - asks her for a second chance to rule at her side.
Angel attacks Lindsey in a parking garage. Lindsey tells him Darla is in trouble, that they plan to kill her. Angel promises to come back and kill him if he`s lying.
Angel, back in the Boxer Rebellion, comes upon a terrified family and distracts his companions from them. Drusilla tells them that Spike has killed his first Slayer. Angel tries to act excited, but drops the act when Drusilla fixates on the alley where he left the family and instead tries to convince the others to leave. Angel returns to Darla after going out to feed on animals. She tells him she noticed that he only killed the guilty in the riots, and demands he prove he's truly evil. She says she went back and killed the family in the alleyway, but kept their baby, which she wants him to kill.
Darla sits up suddenly, staring in fear at three people in white with guns as Angel`s car appears behind her. She is thrown aside, and after defeating the three men, Angel runs to her. In the lobby of Wolfram and Hart, Lindsey sees the supposedly murdered guard very much alive. He talks to Holland, accusing him of playing him. Holland says they had to make the crisis real. Lindsey speaks derisively of the idea that Angel would achieve his moment of perfect happiness with Darla under the circumstances, but Holland tells him he doesn't understand the plan - that they expect Angel to save her soul.
Darla wakes up, and whispers "Angelus" when she sees Angel. Cordelia corrects her. She says she's lucky to have someone who understands - something Angel never had. She wants him to turn her back, saying she can't bear to feel her own heartbeat. Angel tells her it's a gift to be human, but she disagrees, and demands he "return the favour" for turning him into a vampire. Angel backs away, stunned that she still considers what what she did to him a gift. When she instead tries to convince him to turn her as revenge, he refuses.
Looking down at the baby, Angel confesses he can't pretend to be who he's not. She says she's disgusted with him. He takes the baby and jumps through a window.
Darla runs out of the office, telling Angel not to look for her again, mirroring the words of a century ago.
Production
Composer Robert J. KralRobert J. Kral
Robert J. Kral is an Australian film and television composer. He is best known for scoring the TV series Angel for most the entire series . In May 2005, a soundtrack album called Angel: Live Fast, Die Never was released, including many tracks which had been composed by Kral during the show's history...
says this is his favorite episode to have scored, as he was able to write several different themes for the character of Darla. He was asked by director Tim Minear
Tim Minear
Tim Minear is an American screenwriter and director. He was born in New York, grew up in Whittier, California, and studied film at California State University, Long Beach....
to write music that was "epochy. Something with horns...something Wagnerish
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
." Kral and Buffy composer Thomas Wanker deliberately choose not to collaborate, so that the cross-over scenes would "maintain a different perspective," Kral says.
Production designer Stuart Blatt says the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
flashback scenes in this episode and "Fool for Love
Fool for Love (Buffy episode)
"Fool for Love" is episode 7 of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is a companion to the Angel episode "Darla", which first aired later the same night on The WB network; both episodes include multiple flashbacks to the history of Spike and Darla, shown from their...
" were filmed at a movie ranch with a standing set for a Mexican village. "Through our research," Blatt says, "we realized that a lot of Chinese towns looked very similar to small Mexican villages...clay adobe structures with either thatched or tower roofs." Gaffer Dan Kerns explains that to simulate the burning streets, his crew set up numerous 'flicker boxes' that "pulse like a flame", in addition to simulated moonlight from "cherry picker
Cherry picker
A cherry picker , is a type of aerial work platform that consists of a platform or bucket at the end of a hydraulic lifting system.- Design :...
"-like machines.
Acting
Actress Julie Benz says the flashback scenes are "the high points" of playing Darla; her favorite scene is the Boxer Rebellion. Gaffer Dan Kerns' girlfriend Heidi Strickler appears in that scene, playing the frightened mother in the alley whom Angel attempts to shelter.Writing
This episode was writer Tim MinearTim Minear
Tim Minear is an American screenwriter and director. He was born in New York, grew up in Whittier, California, and studied film at California State University, Long Beach....
's directorial debut. He says he felt it was time to explore Darla's history, which "should really be her story with Angel throughout the 150 years that they were together." When Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon
Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures...
pointed out that they were already doing a Spike origin story on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Minear suggested they do both.
Although this episode shows Angel and Darla's romantic history, Minear cautions, "at no time was I trying to play this as being Angel's true love. It's more like the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play by Edward Albee that opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theater on October 13, 1962. The original cast featured Uta Hagen as Martha, Arthur Hill as George, Melinda Dillon as Honey and George Grizzard as Nick. It was directed by Alan Schneider...
; this troubled, old married couple with secrets. I wasn't trying to take Buffy's place in his heart by any stretch of the imagination. But here's a guy who's been around for a couple of hundred years before he ever met Buffy and certainly he was shaped in some way." He explains that despite cries of retconning from fans — who saw in the Buffy episode "Becoming, Part One" that Angel was living on the streets of New York in the early 1990s — he doesn't believe Angel was "thrown out of that room in Romania by Darla in 1898 and has been on the street ever since."
Minear likens the storytelling approach in this episode to the non-linear, looping technique exhibited by Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
's Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction (film)
Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references...
: "It's a different story happening in the same universe."
Continuity
- This is the first time that the viewers get a glimpse of what Darla's life was like before she became a vampire.
- It is revealed that Darla had a different name in life, although no one (including Darla) remembers what it actually was.
- As her conscience finally catches up with her, Darla tries to escape from Wolfram & Hart, turning to Angel, in the hopes of becoming a vampire again.
- This is the only episode in which Angelus and the Master are seen together.
- This marks the Master's only appearance on Angel.
- This is the only episode of the Buffyverse in which Angel / Angelus, Spike, Darla, Drusilla and the Master all appear.
- Along with "Becoming, Part One", "Fool for Love" and "The Girl in Question", this is one of only four Buffyverse episodes in which all four members of the Whirlwind (Angel, Spike, Darla and Drusilla) appear.
- This is the only episode of either Buffy or Angel in which Spike appears in flashbacks but no present day scenes.