Angel 1.12: "Expecting"
Written by Howard Gordon
Directed by David Semel
In which a night of passion leaves Cordelia with an unexpected gift, which turns out to be the spawn of a demon, leaving Angel and Wesley with a race against time to save her…
Status Report
Considering the difficulty of establishing a unique presence within the Buffyverse, hampered by the sudden (planned or not) removal of one of the three pivotal characters, it’s not surprising that the writers struggled with the direction that the series should take. The first season was essentially about establishing Angel’s connection to humanity and his role as Champion, but it was also about establishing his “family”.
The point of this episode, beyond the simple pleasures of a Cordy-centric tale, is to complete the task of integrating Wesley into the gang. Angel and Cordy are already bonded well enough, but there’s the short and sweet conversion of Wesley from total prig to well-intentioned novice warrior still left to address. By the end of the episode, it’s hard to see Wesley as the outsider anymore, which is what the writers were going for. The problem is that this is an episode filled with good moments, but it doesn’t come together as a fully satisfying whole.
At the beginning of the episode, Wesley is still acting like he needs to beg for inclusion; he’s taking his battle axe on a walk, after all! He’s not sure whether or not he truly belongs, and he knows that both Angel and Cordy have reasons to keep him at a distance, given his past association with them. Cordy, on the other hand, is trying to work out her emotional response to Doyle’s demise. She’s seeking something comfortable and familiar, and hanging with women of popular social status gives her a feeling of “home”.
Cordy’s friends are about as shallow as the pack she used to rule in Sunnydale. Interestingly, she’s not trying to be the queen this time around; she’s apparently content to be one of Serena’s attendants and just bask in the insincere attention. It’s her way of stepping out of her current life situation into her fantasy world; part of that, of course, is going something relatively non-characteristic, like bagging one of the social alpha males.
Almost immediately, Angel and Wesley demonstrate why they make a good team. Wesley’s bumbling was quickly recast as a self-depreciating wit, balanced by a growing competence with his battle tactics. Wesley may still end up on his ass, but he doesn’t stay there and whine about it. He keeps fighting, keeps improving, and it’s turning him into someone with something genuine to offer. In short, he’s becoming the kind of man that Giles must have been in his younger days (just without the “evil” period).
Wesley may still feel a need to prove himself, but he’s comfortable enough to discuss Cordy’s lack of focus on the mission with Angel. That said, it’s hard to hear Wesley speak about the isolation and sacrifices of being a “demon hunter” when he has so much pain and suffering in his future. Angel’s comment about Cordy’s youth makes it even more ironic, since Wesley is still stuck in the romantic notion of fighting evil and battling demons. But Angel is getting comfortable with Wesley, because he can see that they share a personal need for a sense of redemption.
Cordy’s conversation with Wilson is full of naïve honesty, and it’s hard not to figure out that she’s being taken advantage of. Indeed, that’s largely the point: by turning outside of her new “family”, Cordy finds herself in jeopardy. Driven by her need for instant validation, by the need for some assurance that she’s not losing herself in the midst of so many major life changes (her year has, indeed, sucked big time), Cordy just wants a man of status to treat her the way she wants to be treated.
Of course, even if she’s in a state of self-delusion, Phantom Dennis is not. In one of the more clever aspects of the episode, Phantom Dennis tries to communicate his concerns to Cordy, but she doesn’t want to hear it. Phantom Dennis was a terribly difficult concept to pull off, as evidenced by his infrequent use, but there’s something palpably sweet about his protective attitude. Cordy’s counter-attack is just as good a highlight.
Rather quickly, of course, the episode jumps into the “Rosemary’s Baby” territory, which is all but played out at this point. It doesn’t take long for Angel and Wesley to realize that something is wrong, and when they find Cordy in her pregnant state, they don’t go on the warpath with moralizing. This is especially pertinent when it comes to Wesley; earlier in the episode, he happily judged Cordy’s new friends as promiscuous, and it was not a good thing in his book. But in a nice bit of character growth, Wesley sets that aside and deals with helping Cordelia with her condition, whatever that might mean. It’s a big step for him to take.
The episode then begins to move from scene to scene, with moments of varying success. The character development and “family” concept continue to be the best aspects of the episode. Angel’s botched attempt at bribing the bartender is a nice moment, but it’s easily trumped by Angel’s parting comment that he’s not a friend, but rather, “family”. Similarly, the visit to the doctor’s office has some musing and disturbing moments, but it’s far more notable for how well it depicts Wesley’s brotherly concern for Cordy.
It doesn’t take long for Angel to get some useful exposition from Serena, who is likewise pregnant. There’s little question that Cordy will eventually be “cured”, but it’s interesting to watch her struggle with the slow but methodical process of “possession”, as the demonic little buggers begin to instill the mothers with an intense desire to protect. The highlight, of course, is the scene where Cordy drinks the blood from Angel’s stock; even with some minor editing problems, it chills to the bone.
The resolution is fairly standard, since it’s not a shock when Cordy knocks Wesley cold to go join her possessed sisterhood. But on the plus side, Wesley doesn’t get knocked out by his foolishness, and when it comes to saving Cordy, he shows resolve. Having the demonic babies disappear without a trace once the demon is defeated is a bit of a plot convenience, but in this case, it’s almost inevitable. Besides, the plot itself is merely an excuse to demonstrate how the gang is finally coming together.
This is efficiently communicated in the final scene, when Angel and Wesley devote a great deal of energy and time to making Cordy feel welcome and comfortable upon her return. Actions speak louder than words, and both men spoke volumes about their devotion to Cordy and her well-being, no matter what the differences of opinion might be. Wesley gets to be the butt of another joke, but this time, it’s actually rather sweet. Given what is later revealed about his relationship with, well, everyone else in the world, it’s quite possible that this is the closest thing to family he’s ever had.
Given that it is more about character dynamic development than the actual plot itself, this episode rarely stands out in the minds of the fans as a major stepping stone. Instead, there’s a bit of controversy over whether or not this episode represents Cordelia’s “first time”. Cordy was never explicitly shown as being sexually active in the past, and so many found it jarring for her first on-screen sexual encounter to be so quick out of the gate.
In essence, Cordy is seeking a physical release of emotional pain, and so she finds a suitable successful young man, closer to her apparent standards, and takes what she needs. It’s not something that she would do if she had never slept with anyone before. Hard as it is for many to admit, despite similar memories of their own high school experience, the popularity of a young woman, especially in the “in crowd”, is sometimes measured by their willingness to sleep with the popular boys. And Cordelia was nothing if not popular, and willing to do anything to maintain that popularity for quite some time.
This is sometimes taken as evidence that Cordy is not the kind of person that was previously presented to the audience. Why should that be the case? If anything, Cordy acted like the kind of social climber who would use her sexuality as a means to an end, thus making her lack of sexual activity with Xander an expression of her true emotional state. In other words, if she didn’t sleep with Xander, it was probably because she truly cared for him; it would have been wrong, in her value system, to abuse that trust by taking things too quickly.
In a sense, to judge Cordelia’s morality based on this episode would be to do exactly what many fans thought Wesley would do. And since many were surprised that Wesley was able to overcome his self-righteous attitudes and care for Cordelia as a human being, that’s not painting those with objections in a very positive light.
For all that it brings the transition from Doyle to Wesley to a relative close, it’s also an episode that doesn’t take the overall season very far. It’s an episode that feels more like filler than a part of a larger whole, an episode needed to repair rather than enhance. And certainly, there were signs of uncertain direction for the rest of the season, perhaps due to the circumstances of Doyle’s (apparently) premature exit. This episode was a part of that fallout, and as such, it bears the burden of being somewhat utilitarian rather than memorable.
Memorable Quotes
CORDY: “Would it kill you to hum a little tune when sneaking up on people?”
ANGEL: “I don’t hum.”
CORDY: “Because she was from France. Remember what a pain she was?”
ANGEL: “Yeah…it made me want to drink a lot.”
CORDY: “Well, that’s the French for you…”
WESLEY: “Don’t move a muscle, demon spawn! Cowards, don’t make me thrash it out of you! Where do you lay your eggs? In the cellar?”
ANGEL: “Wesley…”
WESLEY: “In the bedroom?”
ANGEL: “Yeah, that’s right! Termites lay their eggs anywhere, such as next door!”
WESLEY: “Oh…”
ANGEL: “And we fight termites, wherever they may roam!”
WESLEY: “Sorry about the door…”
WESLEY: “You don’t think sticking the axe in the wall put them off?”
ANGEL: “That was charming.”
WESLEY: “What about the fact that they thought we were gay?”
ANGEL: “Adds mystery…”
WILSON: “You live alone, right?”
CORDY: “In the sense that I’m the only one living here that’s actually alive.”
WILSON: “That was a yes…I think…”
ANGEL: “Have you talked to Wilson?”
CORDY: “No. I haven’t talked to anyone. What would I say to him? I had a really good time, I think you left something at my place?”
ANGEL: “You’re gonna have to see what’s inside her.”
WESLEY: “I beg your pardon?”
ANGEL: “Pre-natal exam, Wesley…”
BARTENDER: “So…you’re her boyfriend.”
ANGEL: “No…I’m family.”
ANGEL: “I don’t think I ever realized just how disgusting that was. Get her back to bed.”
WESLEY: “Yes.”
ANGEL: “Maybe order her a pizza or something.”
WESLEY: “Good idea…”
CORDY: “I learned something, too. I learned…um…men are evil. Oh, wait, I knew that. I learned that LA is full of self-serving phonies. No…had that one down, too. Uh…sex is bad?”
ANGEL: “We all knew that.”
CORDY: “OK…I learned that I have two people I trust absolutely with my life. And that part’s new.”
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode was not very exciting. The “Rosemary’s Baby” retread was mostly an excuse for exploring the growing sense of family between Angel, Cordy, and Wesley, thus completing the process of bringing Wesley fully into the fold. While there are many good scenes along the way, the whole is somewhat lacking of anything distinctive.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
Directed by David Semel
In which a night of passion leaves Cordelia with an unexpected gift, which turns out to be the spawn of a demon, leaving Angel and Wesley with a race against time to save her…
Status Report
Considering the difficulty of establishing a unique presence within the Buffyverse, hampered by the sudden (planned or not) removal of one of the three pivotal characters, it’s not surprising that the writers struggled with the direction that the series should take. The first season was essentially about establishing Angel’s connection to humanity and his role as Champion, but it was also about establishing his “family”.
The point of this episode, beyond the simple pleasures of a Cordy-centric tale, is to complete the task of integrating Wesley into the gang. Angel and Cordy are already bonded well enough, but there’s the short and sweet conversion of Wesley from total prig to well-intentioned novice warrior still left to address. By the end of the episode, it’s hard to see Wesley as the outsider anymore, which is what the writers were going for. The problem is that this is an episode filled with good moments, but it doesn’t come together as a fully satisfying whole.
At the beginning of the episode, Wesley is still acting like he needs to beg for inclusion; he’s taking his battle axe on a walk, after all! He’s not sure whether or not he truly belongs, and he knows that both Angel and Cordy have reasons to keep him at a distance, given his past association with them. Cordy, on the other hand, is trying to work out her emotional response to Doyle’s demise. She’s seeking something comfortable and familiar, and hanging with women of popular social status gives her a feeling of “home”.
Cordy’s friends are about as shallow as the pack she used to rule in Sunnydale. Interestingly, she’s not trying to be the queen this time around; she’s apparently content to be one of Serena’s attendants and just bask in the insincere attention. It’s her way of stepping out of her current life situation into her fantasy world; part of that, of course, is going something relatively non-characteristic, like bagging one of the social alpha males.
Almost immediately, Angel and Wesley demonstrate why they make a good team. Wesley’s bumbling was quickly recast as a self-depreciating wit, balanced by a growing competence with his battle tactics. Wesley may still end up on his ass, but he doesn’t stay there and whine about it. He keeps fighting, keeps improving, and it’s turning him into someone with something genuine to offer. In short, he’s becoming the kind of man that Giles must have been in his younger days (just without the “evil” period).
Wesley may still feel a need to prove himself, but he’s comfortable enough to discuss Cordy’s lack of focus on the mission with Angel. That said, it’s hard to hear Wesley speak about the isolation and sacrifices of being a “demon hunter” when he has so much pain and suffering in his future. Angel’s comment about Cordy’s youth makes it even more ironic, since Wesley is still stuck in the romantic notion of fighting evil and battling demons. But Angel is getting comfortable with Wesley, because he can see that they share a personal need for a sense of redemption.
Cordy’s conversation with Wilson is full of naïve honesty, and it’s hard not to figure out that she’s being taken advantage of. Indeed, that’s largely the point: by turning outside of her new “family”, Cordy finds herself in jeopardy. Driven by her need for instant validation, by the need for some assurance that she’s not losing herself in the midst of so many major life changes (her year has, indeed, sucked big time), Cordy just wants a man of status to treat her the way she wants to be treated.
Of course, even if she’s in a state of self-delusion, Phantom Dennis is not. In one of the more clever aspects of the episode, Phantom Dennis tries to communicate his concerns to Cordy, but she doesn’t want to hear it. Phantom Dennis was a terribly difficult concept to pull off, as evidenced by his infrequent use, but there’s something palpably sweet about his protective attitude. Cordy’s counter-attack is just as good a highlight.
Rather quickly, of course, the episode jumps into the “Rosemary’s Baby” territory, which is all but played out at this point. It doesn’t take long for Angel and Wesley to realize that something is wrong, and when they find Cordy in her pregnant state, they don’t go on the warpath with moralizing. This is especially pertinent when it comes to Wesley; earlier in the episode, he happily judged Cordy’s new friends as promiscuous, and it was not a good thing in his book. But in a nice bit of character growth, Wesley sets that aside and deals with helping Cordelia with her condition, whatever that might mean. It’s a big step for him to take.
The episode then begins to move from scene to scene, with moments of varying success. The character development and “family” concept continue to be the best aspects of the episode. Angel’s botched attempt at bribing the bartender is a nice moment, but it’s easily trumped by Angel’s parting comment that he’s not a friend, but rather, “family”. Similarly, the visit to the doctor’s office has some musing and disturbing moments, but it’s far more notable for how well it depicts Wesley’s brotherly concern for Cordy.
It doesn’t take long for Angel to get some useful exposition from Serena, who is likewise pregnant. There’s little question that Cordy will eventually be “cured”, but it’s interesting to watch her struggle with the slow but methodical process of “possession”, as the demonic little buggers begin to instill the mothers with an intense desire to protect. The highlight, of course, is the scene where Cordy drinks the blood from Angel’s stock; even with some minor editing problems, it chills to the bone.
The resolution is fairly standard, since it’s not a shock when Cordy knocks Wesley cold to go join her possessed sisterhood. But on the plus side, Wesley doesn’t get knocked out by his foolishness, and when it comes to saving Cordy, he shows resolve. Having the demonic babies disappear without a trace once the demon is defeated is a bit of a plot convenience, but in this case, it’s almost inevitable. Besides, the plot itself is merely an excuse to demonstrate how the gang is finally coming together.
This is efficiently communicated in the final scene, when Angel and Wesley devote a great deal of energy and time to making Cordy feel welcome and comfortable upon her return. Actions speak louder than words, and both men spoke volumes about their devotion to Cordy and her well-being, no matter what the differences of opinion might be. Wesley gets to be the butt of another joke, but this time, it’s actually rather sweet. Given what is later revealed about his relationship with, well, everyone else in the world, it’s quite possible that this is the closest thing to family he’s ever had.
Given that it is more about character dynamic development than the actual plot itself, this episode rarely stands out in the minds of the fans as a major stepping stone. Instead, there’s a bit of controversy over whether or not this episode represents Cordelia’s “first time”. Cordy was never explicitly shown as being sexually active in the past, and so many found it jarring for her first on-screen sexual encounter to be so quick out of the gate.
In essence, Cordy is seeking a physical release of emotional pain, and so she finds a suitable successful young man, closer to her apparent standards, and takes what she needs. It’s not something that she would do if she had never slept with anyone before. Hard as it is for many to admit, despite similar memories of their own high school experience, the popularity of a young woman, especially in the “in crowd”, is sometimes measured by their willingness to sleep with the popular boys. And Cordelia was nothing if not popular, and willing to do anything to maintain that popularity for quite some time.
This is sometimes taken as evidence that Cordy is not the kind of person that was previously presented to the audience. Why should that be the case? If anything, Cordy acted like the kind of social climber who would use her sexuality as a means to an end, thus making her lack of sexual activity with Xander an expression of her true emotional state. In other words, if she didn’t sleep with Xander, it was probably because she truly cared for him; it would have been wrong, in her value system, to abuse that trust by taking things too quickly.
In a sense, to judge Cordelia’s morality based on this episode would be to do exactly what many fans thought Wesley would do. And since many were surprised that Wesley was able to overcome his self-righteous attitudes and care for Cordelia as a human being, that’s not painting those with objections in a very positive light.
For all that it brings the transition from Doyle to Wesley to a relative close, it’s also an episode that doesn’t take the overall season very far. It’s an episode that feels more like filler than a part of a larger whole, an episode needed to repair rather than enhance. And certainly, there were signs of uncertain direction for the rest of the season, perhaps due to the circumstances of Doyle’s (apparently) premature exit. This episode was a part of that fallout, and as such, it bears the burden of being somewhat utilitarian rather than memorable.
Memorable Quotes
CORDY: “Would it kill you to hum a little tune when sneaking up on people?”
ANGEL: “I don’t hum.”
CORDY: “Because she was from France. Remember what a pain she was?”
ANGEL: “Yeah…it made me want to drink a lot.”
CORDY: “Well, that’s the French for you…”
WESLEY: “Don’t move a muscle, demon spawn! Cowards, don’t make me thrash it out of you! Where do you lay your eggs? In the cellar?”
ANGEL: “Wesley…”
WESLEY: “In the bedroom?”
ANGEL: “Yeah, that’s right! Termites lay their eggs anywhere, such as next door!”
WESLEY: “Oh…”
ANGEL: “And we fight termites, wherever they may roam!”
WESLEY: “Sorry about the door…”
WESLEY: “You don’t think sticking the axe in the wall put them off?”
ANGEL: “That was charming.”
WESLEY: “What about the fact that they thought we were gay?”
ANGEL: “Adds mystery…”
WILSON: “You live alone, right?”
CORDY: “In the sense that I’m the only one living here that’s actually alive.”
WILSON: “That was a yes…I think…”
ANGEL: “Have you talked to Wilson?”
CORDY: “No. I haven’t talked to anyone. What would I say to him? I had a really good time, I think you left something at my place?”
ANGEL: “You’re gonna have to see what’s inside her.”
WESLEY: “I beg your pardon?”
ANGEL: “Pre-natal exam, Wesley…”
BARTENDER: “So…you’re her boyfriend.”
ANGEL: “No…I’m family.”
ANGEL: “I don’t think I ever realized just how disgusting that was. Get her back to bed.”
WESLEY: “Yes.”
ANGEL: “Maybe order her a pizza or something.”
WESLEY: “Good idea…”
CORDY: “I learned something, too. I learned…um…men are evil. Oh, wait, I knew that. I learned that LA is full of self-serving phonies. No…had that one down, too. Uh…sex is bad?”
ANGEL: “We all knew that.”
CORDY: “OK…I learned that I have two people I trust absolutely with my life. And that part’s new.”
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode was not very exciting. The “Rosemary’s Baby” retread was mostly an excuse for exploring the growing sense of family between Angel, Cordy, and Wesley, thus completing the process of bringing Wesley fully into the fold. While there are many good scenes along the way, the whole is somewhat lacking of anything distinctive.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
posted by John Keegan | 17:38
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