The Trial is...kind of fascinating.
It’s good, great actually.
Full of good humor, fun adventure, along with some emotional and shocking moments.
It’s just that...none of those things feel like they’re actually from the same episode.
The Trial plays like an anthology of three different episodes in one 45 minute story.
Nonetheless, this one is exceptional, with that unique ability Season 2 episodes have
had to play all the major notes in one episode, from its arc entire.
The episode opens with the pleasant return of fussy Angel.
“You got peanut butter on the bed.”
1:10 “Wrinkle free...yeah.
After you iron it for like 15 minutes.”
Cordy and Wes read his distraction with the finer points of menswear as a sign that he
has started to get over...
“Don’t say Darla.
I don’t want to hear Darla.”
Uhh...fine.
Smumarla has been staying at a rundown hotel.
I like the repetition of the mirror motif that has permeated this season and her realization
at the site of red on her lips.
Darla is now capable of taking hard looks at herself.
Angel still needs the rest of the team.
Gunn has found where she is staying.
They set out but a freshly coiffed Lindsey has beaten them there.
The long floppy hair of Season 1 is mercifully gone (for NOW.) Lindsey takes her to Holland
who assures her…
5:20 “You’re not our prisoner Darla.
You are, however, our moral responsibility.”
Whenever Holland talks about morals so warmly my skin begins to crawl.
Holland hands her a medical file.
In flashback we see Angelus and Darla fleeing some unseen force…
7:40 “It’s this man Holtz.
How does he keep finding us?”
Hooo boy.
Didn’t realize we were hitting this part of the series.
Darla in the present is searching crummy dive bars for vampires to turn her.
This is a great scene and I like this casting.
This guy looks like one of the wet bandits.
Vamp Darla would've beheaded Vamp Marv 10 seconds after turning.
11:00 V: I should mention....I'm not really clear on how this thing works.
D:
...what?
It almost feels like something from a fan fic.
The mundane happenings of your average vampire.
Side question, WHO turned THIS guy? Anywho Vampire Marv goes for the bite and Angel breaks
up Darla’s low point.
Close talking Angel explains that if Darla turns he’s going to have to kill her.
And I once again get distracted in closeups like this since you can really notice how
Angel was shot in 16:9 but composed for 4:3.
Most of the shot to the right of his ear here is wasted space.
Darla reveals to Angel her rush to be turned.
12:30 “I’m dying.”
In flashback we see Darla betray Angelus to Holtz.
Angel visits Lindsey to find confirmation about Darla, and Lindsey, still weaponized
by Holland in the way we talked about and not caring that he is (Darla reference) gives
it to him.
16:30 “they all say the same thing.
Syphilitic heart condition in the New World.”
Xander “SYPHILIS?”
L: Of course these days something like that can be cleaned up with some antibiotics.
If you catch it in time.
We’re about 400 years and a month too late.
If I’m doing the math right, presumably, Darla's condition has been advancing since
she's been back.
End of Season 1 was her return...that was at least 5-6 months ago.This means, and Lindsey,
A: doesn't take into account or, B: doesn’t care that Holland and everyone probably knew
and just ignored it.
17:50 “Do you love her, Lindsey?”
I love the way David plays this.
The long pause.
The judgmental smirk.
The evolution of Angel’s chemistry with Lindsey from ‘Blinddate’ continues to
progress and this current phase of...older brother bullying is so fascinating.
Angel teasing Lindsey: I was with her for 150 years.
Angelus and Xander: it must kill you that I got there first.
17:00 “You never loved her.”
- “I wasn’t capable of it.
And neither are you.”
“Maybe not.
Every character seems to have their own perspective on how love works and how its form is mitigated
by the soul.
I just read this scene as vampirism and narcissism are roughly parallel.
Or, you know, Angel is wrong about what Angelus was capable of and is just stabbing at Lindsey.
Angel returns with the bad news and, out of desperation, takes Darla to see Lorne.
*Ill Wind That's Julie Benz actually singing the song
‘Ill Wind,’ by Harold Arlen and Ted Kohler - popularized by Frank Sinatra.
I love this shot.
Lorne and Angel on either side of the frame as the camera pushes in.
The scene is probably a reference to the 1984 film, ‘The Cotton Club,’ by Francis Ford
Coppola.
The movie is about a Jazz club in the late 1920s owned by mobsters, which featured some
of the nation's most talented black performers doing shows to all white audiences.
One of the stories in the movie concerns the relationship between Sandman and Lila, a biracial
woman who can pass as white and, at the film’s mid-point sings…
*Ill Wind...
Lorne gives Angel an address of someone who might be able to help.
23:20 “It’s a bit of quest…”
And this begins the episode's second distinct flavor, Angel’s three trials to save Darla’s
life.
There are a couple neat details in the sequence.
In the first trial the demon that can connect his body back together is a really cool use
of a simple special effect.
Though, continuing to beat the aspect ratio dead horse, since these shots were supposed
to be cropped for 4:3 TV you can actually see the green screen pants the actor has on
in the 16:9 DVD versions.
The next trial is to cross a cross-covered floor, fish a key out of holy water, and open
a door.
And the final trial…
31:39 Angel - “What is this?”
Indy Knight - “You must choose.
But choose wisely.”
I always realized that this entire sequence bore some similarity to Indiana Jones and
the Last Crusade but it didn’t strike me just how much until this rewatch.
In both cases there is a kind Englishman guiding our protagonists.
In Last Crusade, Indy is doing three trials in order to get the Holy Grail and save his
fathers life.
Angel is doing his to save Darla’s.
Indy’s first trial is not to be chopped in half.
Angel’s is to battle a man who can survive being so.
In the second trial, Indy must walk over the name of God.
Angel must walk over one of his icons.
Indy’s third is a leap of Faith, (the actual first trial that starts Angel’s with his
pool jump.)
And the final trial for them both is the same.
You’ve earned a choice.
Are you still willing to give your life when she can promise you, nothing?
Yes.
He chose...poorly.
It’s too late.
“She deserves a second chance.”
- “She’s living her second chance.”
And the episode ends in its third flavor: the melancholy grief-ridden acceptance of
death swinging to, “Oh my God I can’t believe they just went there,” horror.
As Lindsey plus entourage break in and he’s brought along...a guest...
Okay, so...look...it’s all so SO good.
Really really super awesome good.
Lots of surprises and humor within each scene.
“I might not be able to come in Lindsey but…”
- “Wipe your feet.”
Some fun adventure and then that powerhouse family reunion at the end.
‘The Trial’ is an unforgettable episode.
But...I tend to forget that all of these things are in the same episode - Vamp Marv, to Ill
Wind, to swan dive, to chosen poorly, to Dru slow motion waltzing into the room like some
kind of majestic terrifying spectre of amazing (seriously that entrance has to be one of
the most memorable ever.)
The episode is very busy with wonderful, it’s that it’s flavors don’t feel integrated
with each other, but swingy instead.
From intimate character study,
“It’s a bit of a quest and it will probably kill ya.”
to...whatever the hell that last one is...pants wettingly captivating?
The mix of flavors makes a certain sense given the opening credits list three different writers
with pretty distinctive voices - Tim Minear and Doug Petrie for the teleplay with David
Greenwalt for the story.
IMDB even has Mere Smith listed in addition as an uncredited staff writer for this one.
But I think the spectrum of influences might be the thing making the episode feel oddly
episodic within itself.
Honestly, this one is so good I’m not sure any of this can even be considered a criticism.
Just structural oddities that seemed worth mentioning.
. There are a couple other odds and ends to
this one.
The influence of drinking Kate in ‘The Shroud of Rahmon’ is, on the surface at least,
nowhere to be found in this one.
6:30 Public accommodation.
She doesn’t live here.
Interesting loophole.
This helps setup Dru’s ability to enter the hotel room at the end of the episode but
seems like a weirdly specific exception to the magical rules.
“Home” is such a nebulous and emotional thing that is specific to each individual.
What if you’re renting an apartment?
Technically the renter doesn’t own the home.
Or if your bank has foreclosed on the home.
Or...you know what?
Nevermind.
There are more nice beats in the An...arla relationship?
The Dangel relationship? ...that mirror and invert Buffy and Angel’s.
“That’s exactly what they want us to do, Darla.
We’d be playing right into their hands.”
- “I don’t care.
I don’t want to die.”
“I don’t CARE.
Giles I’m 16 years old.
I don't want to die.”
At some point in the second season, Buffy being able to accept who she was meant having
to make a choice between letting Angel live or die.
And Darla’s accepting herself here happens from Angel’s choice to live or die for her.
I think the name of the episode is pretty interesting.
For one, it isn’t pluralized.
This title isn’t about the trials Angel is put through, but what this current journey
with Darla represents at this phase in his life.
And, given the episode's ending, I don’t think we can know the verdict just yet.
More importantly, ‘Judgment’ and ‘The Trial,’ (two episode titles this season
that I regularly mix up) are legal vernacular.
And that is Wolfram and Hart’s domain, not Angel’s.
Telling us something about everything transpiring in this episode.
“Their game.
Their rules.
Lindsey realized he was a pawn in all this in Darla but doesn’t care.
Angel realizes a game has been put in front of him but is underestimating Wolfram and
Hart’s appreciation of his ethos, thinking the choice is for him to turn or not to turn
Darla.
So he goes on a quest.
He follows the rules.
And, once again, can’t win.
“She’s living her second chance, sir.”
Because it’s all a part of the same system.
It’s all ‘The Trial.’
The real choice has been whether to play or to not.
2:30 “We’re not going to enable you and your addiction.”
Lorne: “Walk away from this one bro.”
Cordy’s take on Angel’s Darla fixation as an addiction is particularly telling, given
the alcoholic metaphor of Angel’s vampirism and the show’s always dangling question
of a relapse.
But if this is all going according to some Wolfram and Hart plan that Holland is manipulating
from the shadows, then Angel and Darla were still meant to face the trials and win a life.
And they did win it.
But if not Darla’s, then who's?
Angel: “This man Holtz seems like a machine…”
The end of the trials sequence always felt like something of a frustrating anti-climax
to me that cast a strange shadow over the episode.
The writer’s making an entire portion of the episode feel like a pointless detour in
the plot.
But, this time through, I started thinking about how well that works with the thematic
design of the season.
Darla was trying to beat her death with vampiric immortality.
Angel fights to beat it with the quest.
“Why don’t you just kill him if you want him dead?”
“We don't want anything, miss.
The journey is all.
Where it may lead is not our concern.”
And that pretty much sums up the existential indifference of mortality.
Life doesn’t care.
Life isn’t motivated, with any prosaic interests in who lives or dies.
Life just is.
It’s people who imbue it with meaning.
Don’t be cross.
I could be your mommy.