At the risk of irritating quite a number of people,
'The Prodigal' is the first episode in 'Angel' the Series
...that might break into my Top 20.
Yes, yes, I know,
...'I Will Remember You' and...
...'Hero'
...are in 'Season 1',
...and while I think both of those episodes have wonderful emotional scenes
...that might be some of the most memorable in the series,
...there are aspects to both,
...especially in regards to plot,
...that I find troublesome and difficult to ignore.
But 'The Prodigal'
...is intricate,
...musical,
...emotional
...and feels like a complete thought from beginning to end.
"Angel."
"I get...visions."
"We do things a certain way in L.A.."
"I'M BAD!"
"I'M-I'M BAD!"
It’s 200 years ago
...and Angelus is standing in a doorway attempting to lure a fair maiden into the shadows and pounce on her.
Turns out it was just Liam with a blinding hangover.
This actually got me.
The reference to his future vampire self
...made through the medium of a hangover
...was such clever storytelling
...and made me wonder...
...if I’m a future vampire.
Liam’s father kicks him into the sunlight and curses him for his layabout ways,
...and we cut immediately to Angel in a subway doing battle.
Kate is now aware of Angel’s world
...but attempting mightily to compartmentalize and insulate herself from it.
"It's about that demon--"
“Could you please not say that word?"
"...it makes me,"
"...I don't know,"
"...just...
"...uncomfortable."
Still,
...Kate is the fish out of water through which some nice lore building is done on the show.
As she learns
...so do we
...and her ignorance justifies occasional bouts of exposition from other characters.
There’s a great little exchange between Angel and Kate
...as she momentarily lets her guard down
...and then verbally shoves him away.
Darla
...and Saffron
...are taking in Liam for the first time
...and are obviously impressed.
Wesley’s research reveals that the demon Angel found
...is actually peaceful.
Something must be up.
Angel tails a subway witness played by Danny McBride’s younger cousin,
...Randy McBride
(Hashtag)
(...HornyMcBride)
...to the apartment of Kate’s Dad,
...where he drops off a strange package.
Angel confronts him
...and has the door slammed in his face.
In flashback,
...we see Liam leaving home to get out from under...
...his father’s thumb.
Liam says goodbye to his younger sister.
And he and his father square off one last time.
And just when you think his father was at risk of becoming a little one dimensional,
...he grabs Liam by the arm.
His anger gives way to a look of fear and desperation at the the thought of Liam leaving home
A look that actually shook me.
Liam is turned by Darla in scenes we once saw in 'Becoming (Part 1)'.
And after the episode bothers to make Liam’s father a more interesting character,
Kate buys hers a beer
...and he seems to offer some genuine admiration for Angel and his abilities.
“It’s not good to be alone, Katie.”
This can only go well for these two.
Wesley discovers the peaceful demon was on drugs.
Turns out Kate’s Dad is unwittingly helping a demon crime lord move them.
The demon orders Angel’s death.
Angelus awakens after Liam’s funeral.
Darla is waiting for him
...and Angelus experiences his first kill.
There is a notable moment where Angelus turns to Darla looking for approval
...and then finishes the murder.
His father is boarding up the windows
... and Angelus surprises him.
Their exchange is some gripping tragedy.
And I can never help but picture his father’s last...
...desperate glance as Liam walked out the door.
"I was never in your way, boy."
It reminded me a bit of…
“Buffy, maybe we shouldn’t--”
--"Don't."
Angelus believes this to be his shining moment of victory.
But in the following scene back in the present,
...Liam’s choice to become a vampire with Darla
...means that Angel is unable to enter the apartment
...to save Kate’s father.
And he can only watch,
...until his soul leaves his body.
And then Kate discovers the scene.
"Oh,"
"...daddy!"
"No,"
"...Dad!"
This is Angel paying for Liam's choice in the loss of Kate's father.
Kate finds the address of the mafia demons
...and Angel helps her annihilate them.
But the rift between Angel and Kate is now permanent.
This is a complicated episode
...and there exists plenty of opportunities for nitpicks,
...but I think on closer examination
...there are some wonderful things going on.
'The Prodigal' is an engrossing tragedy.
And tragedy..
...is cyclical.
One bad action leads to...
...another,
...and then...
...another.
Liam left home, and asked Darla to show him her world.
The punishment for that action was the death of his entire family,
...and many years later,
...having to watch Kate’s father murdered in front of him
...while not being able to do anything about it.
The cycle of tragedy doesn’t care about the size of the action that created it.
Or...
...as Angel puts it:
"It's his choice."
"Yeah, I know all about it, Wesley, believe me."
"But sometimes the price we end up paying for one bad choice..."
"...isn't commensurate with the offence.”
The Buffyverse doesn’t often distill the horror and sadness of the vampire cycle so dramatically,
...and display it for us so unflinchingly.
I was most reminded of the haunting gaze
...Drusilla and Spike gave Ford in 'Lie to Me',
...and Buffy grappling with the complexity of her new life as she waited for Ford to rise.
After two duds
...and a...
"MEH,"
"..it’s alright",
...'The Prodigal' feels SO confidently well put together.
I love the parallel structure of the story,
...mirroring Kate and Angel’s relationships with their fathers.
As we’ve said before,
...for some reason Angel flashback episodes just tend to be really great.
But even beyond the story,
...the episode feels technically well executed.
The music by Robert Krahl and Christophe Beck is actually distinct between the two time periods.
The themes for Liam’s fall
...and the rise of Angelus
...are gothic,
...restrained
...and horrifying.
Tragically inevitable.
[tragic music]
Where the notes for the modern day sequences sound out the more conventional heroic motifs.
[hero fight music]
Ignoring the tumultuous aspects of the season,
...there has been some internal dissonance to 'Angel'’s structure.
The early parts of 'Season 1' were establishing a supernatural noir procedural,
...a framework inside of which Kate’s tough-as-nails cop-with-baggage fit rather well.
But episodes like...
...'I Will Remember You',
...'Somnambulist'
...and 'The Prodigal'
...hint at a more epic direction,
and ultimately are the most accurate representations to this point
...of what 'Angel' the Show turns into.
This episode feels like an effort to steer Kate’s character more in that other direction.
It kind of works,
... but pitting her against Angel going forward
...also puts her...
...outside the ensemble,
...a position from which it can be difficult for the writers to develop their character
...and often relegates those characters to throw in scenes meant to remind the audience
...they’re still on the show.
I love the episode's title and its reference to...
...'The Prodigal Son'.
'The Prodigal Son' is one of the parables of Jesus on loss and redemption.
In the story,
...a father has two sons.
The oldest son,
...toils under his father’s rule,
...uncelebrated.
The youngest asks for his share of the family fortune
...and upon receiving it
...he moves to a distant country,
...living and spending with great extravagance.
The word "prodigal" actual means,
...wastefully extravagant.
After he loses his fortune,
...he comes to his senses
...and returns to his father to beg to be his servant.
You could say,
...he finds his soul.
And his father welcomes him home with open arms,
saying,
...when his eldest son objects.
“Your brother was dead"
"...and is alive again.”
The show has been developing quite a storm of father issues.
Wesley’s were hinted at in the previous episode.
Kate’s father doesn’t show love because it might be a sign of weakness.
Liam’s father can’t see who Liam is,
...through the fog of his own imposed expectations
...and the belief that Liam will never live up to them.
People with the power in these sorts of relationships,
...whether unconsciously or deliberately,
...maintain control over their loved ones by withholding love and affection,
...keeping them desperate for it.
Kate points out in 'Sense & Sensitivity' that after her Mom died,
...her father just withdrew.
Which allowed him the dual power of insulating himself from further pain
...as well as keeping Kate pursuing him.
Liam’s inability to live up to his father’s expectations
...produced a powerful lack of self-worth,
...the template for the demon that took him over.
It follows then that Angelus would have a galvanized desire to conquer and destroy.
To dominate as thoroughly and brutally as he could,
...in as clever way as he could find.
His first act with Darla,
...after all,
...is to destroy his entire village.
But self-determination isn’t actually measured by power over others.
And Angel’s relationship to Darla throughout the episode
...undermines the notion that becoming a vampire has elevated him beyond Liam’s desires.
In the graveyard scene,
...he gives Darla such a childlike look for approval,
...as he kills his first human.
Even as a monster,
...he will always be trying to fill the void left by his human template.
And that GROUNDS Angel’s relationships to this point
...with both Darla
...AND Buffy.
From the graveyard scene here,
...all the way to...
...Sunnydale 200 years later
...when Darla entraps Angel
...and tries to get him to go after Buffy,
...we see the power she lords over him
...because of Liam’s original desperate desire for his father’s validation.
In 'Buffy'’s third season,
...once she’d broken up with Angel in 'Lovers Walk',
...and with the aid of some psychological torture from the First,
...Angel was again looking to escape his own emotional traps and self-hatred.
[Buffy cries]
"Am I a thing worth saving, huh?"
"Am I a righteous man?"
Considering his pattern of relationships then,
...leaving Sunnydale to come to L.A.
...might’ve been one of Angel’s first genuine acts of self-determination.
It wasn’t an act of childhood rebellion as when Liam left home.
Or a decision made from his selfish desires.
It was a decision made from Angel’s integrity.
And that decision...
..proves...
...Darla...
...wrong.
"Your victory over him took but moments."
"Yes."
"But his defeat of you will last lifetimes."
That was the perspective of the soulless.
Similar to the Mayor’s statement to Faith in 'This Year's Girl'
...that without him,
...her days were numbered.
If the soul is the moral compass,
...a being who lacks one cannot make a decision in opposition to their own selfish interests,
...effectively meaning they lack free will.
Ironically,
...I think the way out of all of this
(the Friar’s message that never made it to Romeo)
...was what Angel’s father said to him as he tried to prevent him from leaving early in the episode.
"Out of my way!"
"I was never in your way, boy."
And it’s what makes that line so crushing.
As much as our parents are gods to us when we’re young,
...as we get older,
...hopefully we discover their simple humanity,
...flaws and all.
While perhaps we don’t always get to choose who we love,
...the love given or denied us
...need not determine who we are.
We do that,
...through our choices and our ensuing actions.
And if we cede our self-worth and dignity to someone who abuses them,
...it’s on us to realize that that was still...
...our choice.
The idea is not to try and take that power and self determination back for ourselves,
...but to realize that it was always ours to begin with.
Or risk repeating that same pattern over
...and over
...and over again in future relationships.
We can’t control what the world does to us
...but,
...as one of my favorites,
...Viktor Frankl said,
...between stimulus
...and response
...there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose
...our response.
And in our response
...lies our growth
...and...
...our freedom.
['Home']