Before we get into this one I’d like to quickly rundown the Mystical Pregnancy trope.
It’s a trope that stands out to me like the Wilhelm scream
...and feels equally boring and unnecessary.
Strictly speaking the trope refers to when a character in a story conceives a baby supernaturally,
...or the baby is in some way supernatural.
Or both.
And the trope, while overused, is not specifically sexist in and of itself,
but man is it INCREDIBLY easy for it to traipse into that territory,
...depending on how the episode is written.
The most iconic version I know of occurred in 'Season 2' of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'.
In the episode 'The Child',
a glowy ball of light
flies up between Troi’s legs at night
into her uterus,
...and she wakes up pregnant.
A roomful of men debate what should be done about her baby.
She gives birth 36 hours later.
The child ages and dies,
eventually telling Troi that he wanted to experience being born and growing up as a human.
Thank you for being my incubator on a whim,
...Mom.
"Angel."
"I get...visions."
"We do things a certain way in L.A.."
"I'M BAD!"
It’s date night for Cordelia on a quiet evening at Angel Investigations.
Wesley, clearly bored, stops by looking for action.
“I also packed along, uh,..."
"...'Word Puzzle 3-D'."
When Cordy’s friends show up for their hot night out,
...Cordy has a vision of...something.
Angel covers for her.
“That, uh, client I’m supposed to be meeting tonight."
"What's he like again?"
“Like a big baby.”
She saw a big baby monster in a vision?
Get it?
Cordy and company head out
while Angel and Wes go for the giant baby monster.
I kind of enjoy 'Angel' the show’s indulgent use of monster gore.
Seems like they do quite a bit
more of it than 'Buffy'
and it has the effect of making Angel's life feel more like a grind.
An actual job
...and not a calling.
Cordy’s date is Ken Marino,
...who I just cannot unsee from 'Reno 911' and 'The State'.
“I WANT TO DIP MY BALLS IN IT!”
Balls Guy lays quite the line on Cordy.
“I'm the guy behind the camera watching and recording life"
"not..."
"...living it"
"...each and every moment.”
"Like you."
Now there’s nothing to say that the two shows can’t overlap each other from time to time.
Spin-off means "off on it’s own"
...not "parallel".
Bu I feel like we JUST met this character.
"--what made it so sad was that there was..."
...well, a lot of stuff he didn't get to finish."
"It made me think about..."
"--living for now."
Cordy brings Balls Guy home.
Interesting, that she invites the predator in, just like a vampire.
Dennis does all he can to disturb the couple's evening,
hitting the lights and putting polka on.
Cordy calls him off
and she and Balls Guy move to the bedroom.
The next morning she wakes up and…
Wesley and Angel stand around talking about what to to do with Cordelia and her child.
Wesley sets out for a prenatal exam
and Angel goes looking for Balls Guy.
The exam reveals a litter of scary babies coming
and Cordy starts acting psychic and weird.
Angel discovers the other women from Cordy’s group are also pregnant
and finds Balls Guy at a gun club.
He takes his toy and gets info from him.
Scary Possessed Cordy brains Wesley with a book and escapes.
The three women congregate at a factory.
Wesley and Angel come up with a plan
and Wesley heads into the factory first.
Demon Daddy comes in and he’s ENORMOUS.
“As a point of courtesy,"
"I like to get to know my opponents"
"...before I engage them in mortal combat."
"Do you, uh..."
"Do you have any hobbies?“
That’s pretty much my favorite comedic line in the entire series.
Angel blows up the Demon Daddy
... and all's right with the world.
Boy, do I have such mixed feelings about this episode
...and especially Cordy’s realization.
"I learned that I have two people"
...I trust absolutely"
"...with my life.'
To some degree, the next step in Cordy’s character arc
from fierce high school alpha
was going to be some form of her needing to depend on other people,
...and learning that vulnerability is not a defect.
I just find the 'Rosemary’s Baby' path to get there a little exhausting
and would rather have seen her come to this insight
...without being a damsel in distress.
Again.
In fairness, this episode contains quite a few great lines and comedic sequences.
“You don’t think sticking the axe in the wall put them off?”
“That was charming.”
“What about the fact they thought we were gay?”
“Adds mystery.”
Problem is, Buffyverse shows are ALWAYS loaded with good stuff.
The writers of either show could write an episode that consisted of the gang
doing laundry
and cleaning the office
...and it would STILL probably be worth a watch.
And here, the great lines don’t mesh up at all with the episode's plot,
...as it seesaws between moments of character and exposition.
Cordy discovering an ability to put faith in anyone other than herself is an important step
...but BOY was it not worth the pile we had to step over to get there.
In fact, the intersection of her own desire for atonement
and this violation plot actually sickened me at different points.
“Oh, God."
[sniffles]
"I’m being punished.”
This is a callback to her feelings earlier
when she thought the ghost was punishment for who she was in high school.
"And if it goes away, it's like--"
--"Like what?"
"Like I'm still getting punished."
"Punished?"
"For what?"
[shrugs]
"I dunno."
“For how I was."
"For everything that I said in high school just cause I could get away with it.”
Which was sweet and endearing as she eventually overcame her present circumstances,
...as opposed to here in 'Expecting'
...where she needs to be saved by Angel and Wesley.
And here, her fear of pregnancy as punishment
either for sex itself
or for her transgressions as a high school student
...feels sickening and wrong.
Especially because this was done TO her and she had no control over it.
There is nothing for her to learn from her actions in the episode except maybe...
"Uhh..."
"Sex is bad?"
"We all knew that."
We’ve done the consequences of sex
...ad nauseum at this point,
and while that wasn’t totally inappropriate to the show's historical context,
JUST ONCE
I’d like to see a Sunnydale alumni
have some fun,
casual,
deliriously good
...animal sex,
hug their partner goodnight
and go their separate ways
without it
...birthing a hellspawn.
Versions of the mystical pregnancy trope sometimes involve sex,
...sometimes not.
VERY often they ignore issues of consent.
Troi
...did not consent.
Cordy consents to sex in the episode yes,
...but clearly she didn’t fully understand the extent to what she was consenting to,
...so this one still ends up feeling rapey.
And often cases of the mystical pregnancy
swing into the body horror territory, 'Rosemary’s Baby' style.
Which frames pregnancy as gross and disturbing, and the unborn as demonic.
Still, I wouldn’t label the trope intrinsically sexist
...but rather one that can too easily be mishandled.
Male reproductive bits,
more commonly in film,
are used as plot devices
-most often for yucks.
[lower zipper up sound]
"OOOWWWWW!"
And one of the most famous mystical pregnancy stories in movie history
that also involved disturbing body horror
...was a pregnancy carried by a man.
My feelings about the trope are relatively straightforward.
It CAN be used to build character.
To present them with challenges that they can overcome
...that they then carry with them throughout the rest of the movie or show.
Or, the trope can be reductive,
...rendering the character to little more than a carrier
in an episode that is
...rapidly forgotten by the next.
Unfortunately,
...'Expecting' is the latter.
“I WANT TO DIP MY BALLS IN IT!”
[audience cheers]
"I was so hoping you'd say that."
[punch]
[Balls Guy violence montage]
"Now you're gonna tell me what I need to know."