"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Favorite Characters: Darla (Queen Sugar)


Some time ago, I did a post on actors (actresses, to be more precise) that I’ve reevaluated over the years, ones I initially had a low-to-middling opinion of that I later realized were pretty damn awesome, thanks to finally seeing them in a role worth sinking their teeth into. Bianca Lawson wasn’t on that list, but that’s because, before Queen Sugar, while I’d seen her memorably in a previous role, that role clearly wasn’t substantial enough for me to have much of an opinion about her acting at all. When I saw her name in Queen Sugar’s credits (not saw her onscreen, because I didn’t recognize her at first,) I thought, “Hey, it’s Kendra the Vampire Slayer!” without any judgment on whether that was a good or bad thing (some Darla-related spoilers.)

But it was good, very good. The more I see of her on Queen Sugar, the more I love Darla, and Lawson is doing a stellar job in the role. As Blue’s mother and Ralph Angel’s ex, an addict in recovery, Darla isn’t an official member of the Bordelons, but her story is forever tied to theirs. I like that, right from the start, even though we see her largely from the Bordelons’ perspective (as the woman who turned tricks for drug money with Blue in the same room, a woman that sweet little boy had to be rescued from,) we see the hints that she’s more than just the “bad druggie ex” (it helps that Ralph Angel takes quite a few turns on the Bad Decision train himself, as evidenced by the opening scene of the pilot.) Instead, filtered as our view of her is through Ralph Angel, we still see the glimpses of a woman trying to get her life back on track, trying to get a job to work her way back to being able to see her son again.

Darla is someone who’s worked very hard on herself. She knows her fight isn’t over yet, and she knows that her actions now can’t erase anything she did at her worst, but she doesn’t make excuses for her past or demand redemption. Rather, she asks, quietly and with dignity, for the chance to prove herself anew. It’s a chance that she’s not always given – Ralph Angel takes quite a while to trust her, and Vi is pretty much always prepared to believe the worst of her – but she holds steady, dealing with her disappointments as well as she can and looking for new opportunities to show that she’s changed.

I feel like this is a picture of someone in recovery that I don’t often see on TV, but I love it. I cheer for Darla when she does well and crosses milestones, and I revel in seeing her find a bit of strength and gently stand up for herself. By the same token, my heart breaks for her when people who are important to her turn on her, reduce her to the crimes of her past and are unable to see past them. (To be fair, I get that Darla did some horrible things while she was using, and as someone who only “knows” her as she is now, it’s easier for me to see the resilient young woman onscreen than the characters who knew her from before.)

One Darla moment I especially love comes at a very low time for her. She’s admitted a terrible secret to Ralph Angel, that she isn’t sure whether or not Blue is his biological child (she found out she was pregnant shortly after a relapse, during which she was raped by multiple men, not that any of the Bordelons pay attention to the rape part, grrr.) Ralph Angel reacts explosively, the whole family boxes her out, and Darla goes missing. For Blue’s sake if nothing else, Ralph Angel searches for Darla, visiting one scary crack den after another. But when he finally finds Darla, she’s not using: she’s swimming, doing laps in a pool. While he assumed she’d turn back to drugs, she turned to a calming, centering activity that helps her cope. This beautiful scene shows how far Darla has come from the woman Ralph Angel still thinks she is.


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