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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