EPISODE 3.11

BIRTHDAY

Written by: Mere Smith

Directed by: Michael Grossman

Who is Cordelia Chase?

I suppose that is in the six years we have been watching the Buffyverse, there is no character who has changed more than Cordelia Chase.  In a "Birthday", we were again reminded of the sort of person that she used to be.  Skip shows her – and us - us the party in which she met Angel for the first time after they had both left Sunnydale.  Her response to that chance encounter was characteristic:

"Well, it was nice seeing you, but I've got to get mingly. I really should be talking to people that *are* somebody."

Then she just walks away, leaving Angel to mutter to  himself:

            "It's nice that she's grown as a person."

That in a nutshell was our Cordelia.  She was never a monster.  She was, however, always the center of her own universe.  Everything that happened was seen and evaluated from her own point of view; the most important question was how it affected her.  Since the start of ANGEL, especially since "To Shanshu in LA", however we have seen her change and grow as a character.  This development  can be traced back to her experiences of the visions.  These represented the outside world intruding in the most painful and forceful way imaginable into Cordelia's own little universe.  It’s not only the physical pain of the visions – the blinding headaches.  She has, on several occasions, emphasized that she experiences the pain and fear of the victims she sees.  In “Dead End”. for example, she sees a businessman stabbing himself in the eye:

“He had to be crazy.  But he didn't feel crazy.  He felt normal, you know? Until he started stabbing himself."

This suggests that she feels what he feels.  So, with the visions constantly pressing in on her she can't think just about herself.  She feels she has to help.  As she said in “To Shanshu in LA”:

 "I saw them all.  There is so much pain.  We have to help them."

This connection with the victims was clearly intended to be key to understanding the "new" Cordelia.  When you literally have to walk in someone else's shoes, when you are forced to identify with them so closely that where you end and the other person begins becomes blurred, then it is simply no longer possible to see everyone and everything from you own point of view.

It seems therefore entirely in character that, even after having been separated from her body in the course of a vision Cordelia should be more concerned to pass on the details of the visions to the gang than she is with her own situation:

Angel: "It was a vision, wasn't it? She started to say something a girl, then...

Cordelia: "That's right! She's in a house on Oak Street, middle of Reseda…feels like we got some time, but...but you can't hear me at all, can you?"

Of course none of this is exactly new.  As I have said the change in her as been obvious for some time now.  The real point of this episode is not just to show us this side of Cordelia but to test it, to show how deep it really goes.  When Skip arrives he gives Cordelia a choice.  He shows her the party in "City of..." and explains how things were supposed to happen:

Skip: "You're on the sidelines over here, talking to a couple of wannabe moguls. Angel's downfield here. Now, instead of cutting to the middle  and meeting Angel, what if you'd been forced to counter? What if this man -- who happens to be a very powerful talent agent -- flanked you, and drew you offsides? What would happen then?

Cordelia: "I'd... score a touchdown?

Skip: "Metaphorically speaking? Heck, yeah. Inside every living thing, there's  a connection to the Powers That Be. Call it intuition, instinct -- deep down, we all know our purpose in this world.

Cordelia: "You're saying I was meant to be an actress?

Skip: "No. I'm saying you were meant to be an incredibly famous and wealthy actress. And The Powers can make that happen."

Cordelia: "They can do that? Turn back time

Skip: "They don't go in for that. Much. Think of this as... writing over history. From this moment on, you could live the life you've always wanted. No monsters, no visions, no dying. Not for a long time, anyway.”

Here Cordelia was being asked to chose between the visions on the one hand and a life without them on the other.  And this is in many ways the acid test of her new found desire to help others.  When you constantly live with the pain and suffering of others you can hardly avoid doing something about it – if only for your own peace of mind.   Helping the helpless simply becomes a case of making the best of a bad job.  She was going to suffer the pain anyway, why not make sure that some good at least comes out of it.  That way all the pain and suffering  serves some purpose and that is a comfort.  It would be far worse if it were all for nothing.  Giving Cordelia a choice means that she can, if she wants, wave goodbye to all the pain.  But at the same time she also would also have to wave goodbye to her ability to help others.  So, instead of accepting the latter as a way of easing the pain she must now decide between what is in her own best interests and what is in the interests of others.  The choice she makes but perhaps more tellingly the reasons why she makes it are what this episode is all about.

Helping the Helpless

At one level Cordelia's decision to resume “ownership” of the visions after giving them up in favor of a normal life is simply a matter of her discovering her true destiny.   Skip initially tried to explain that Cordelia hadn’t been intended to meet Angel at the party in “City of…”.  Instead she was meant to be an actress.

“Have you ever had that vague sensation maybe you left the oven on? Or you were supposed to call someone, just forgot who it was? More to the point, you ever felt that way about your acting career?”

This was all part of Skip's argument to her that the visions were never really meant for her:

Skip: "Well, they're usually pretty good at catching that sort of thing. What they didn't count on where his feelings for you."

Cordelia: "You mean---Doyle gave me the visions because---he loved me?"

Skip: "I can't answer that. What I can tell you is that it was a mistake."

But  when Cordelia actually was a famous actress, talking to her assistant Nevin, she echoes the words Skip had earlier uttered to her:

Cordelia: “Nev, you ever get a nagging feeling you're supposed to be somewhere doing something but you can't remember what?

Nevin: “No, I'm highly organized. Which is why you pay me pretty well, although with the holidays and all…”

Then, from somewhere within, her memories of the Hyperion surface and one thing leads to another until she comes face to face with an Angel inflicted with the visions and half mad.  In an echo of the scene where Doyle had passed the visions on to her in a kiss, we see them return when Cordelia kisses Angel.   And with the visions Cordelia also has returned to her the memories of what she had left behind her.  The implication is clear – the visions are meant for her.  Skip had claimed that TPTB didn’t know why Doyle passed the visions to her.  But pass them he did; and when she kissed Angel the visions passed again.   This fact alone suggests that no matter what Cordelia wanted for herself, that no matter what alternative future was open to her and no matter what different choice she tried to make she would always be brought back to the point where the she was given them.

And there is a good deal of symbolism about this.  Take the Hyperion.  In the “real world” this was a run down hotel used as a base by Angel Investigations.  In the Cordyverse it was a plush residence for the stars – very appropriate for Cordelia.  But once you strip away  the Jacques Latour wallpaper underneath is the same wall on which Cordelia wrote the address of the victim in Reseda.  Then there is the fact that everyone – including Cordelia – notes how out of place Cordelia is in Reseda.  But she still finds herself there – to help the same victim she was trying to help in the real world.  The message is clear.  This is the real Cordelia Chase – not the other one.

What Matters to Angel

But it is very hard to conclude that this was all there was to Cordelia's decision - a realization where her destiny lay.  As we have seen, when things start to go wrong for her she seems more worried about the potential victim she saw in her vision than she is about herself.  But that was before she knew the real nature of the choice she was to make:

Skip: “Cordelia -- I want you to listen very closely. You go back into your body, you won't wake up. You will lie there, unable to move, unable to speak, until the next vision hits, and then you will die. That is how that life is destined to end.”

Cordelia: “But that's not fair. How's Angel gonna save that girl if I don't tell him where she is? He needs me!”

Here we see what really dismays Cordelia about having to give up the visions.   Her immediate reaction was to focus not on the consequences for the victim of her not being around but on the fact that Angel needed her.  If the important thing was to save the hapless victim, then wouldn’t it have been more natural for her to say “if I’m not around the girl will die”.  Her words here remind me very much of  a couple of things that were said in “That Vision Thing”.  First of all Fred told her:

“You're like Angel's Lassie. Sure, he does most of the saving but it's your visions that tell him that Timmy is trapped in the well, or the robbers are hiding in the barn. He really needs and depends on you."

Then Cordelia herself says to Angel:

“If I lose the visions, I wouldn't be able to help you anymore. You wouldn't need me."

The more that is dependent upon a choice the truer that choice needs to be.  The greater the consequences of the choice for you the greater the premium on making the correct decision.  But sometimes we are faced with Hobson’s choice, that is to say no choice at all.  As we have seen a straight choice between the headaches and helping people would tell us where Cordelia’s real focus now lay – with herself or others.  But Cordelia being faced with giving up the visions and living on the one hand or keeping them and dying on the other faces no real conflict between helping others and her own personal comfort.  She can’t help anyone if she’s dead.  But if it was a choice between dying on the one hand and living without a connection that for her was more important than her own life, that would be a different matter. And as if to confirm that what was really at the bottom of her unwillingness to give up the visions we need only look at why her resistance to giving up the visions crumbled.   We see it in the following scene in which Angel was trying to contact the Powers:

Angel: “The visions are too much -- she's not strong enough to handle them.”

The Conduit: “Obstinate. It speaks and does not listen.”

Angel: “No, you're not listening! Cordelia's not a champion! She's a rich girl from Sunnydale playing superhero. Don't The Powers get that? She's weak!”

Cordelia: “Get me out. Skip, get me out, now.”

What the promise of certain death cannot accomplish, the thought that Angel doesn’t respect or value her -the thought that he doesn’t need her – does.  Cordelia decides to give up the visions.  The pain of what she evidently saw as personal rejection makes up her mind.

Conversely, she decides to give up her life as a successful actress and resume her visions when she sees that Angel really does need her.  Without her in the team, he becomes the recipient of the visions from Doyle (inquiring minds want to know exactly how!) and as result goes half mad.  So, Cordelia by accepting demon DNA and the visions not only saves his ability to carry out his mission; she saves him from the madness the visions would cause.

And, as we saw on several occasions in this episode,  Cordelia’s feelings for Angel are more than reciprocated.   The two most obvious examples were Angel’s  impassioned complaints  to a catatonic Cordelia about the way she had hidden her condition:

“I know you can't hear me, but...there's something I have to say.  You really piss me off, you know that? I thought we trusted each other, but you've been lying.  MRI's, CAT scans; it's been going on for over a year. Why couldn't you let me in? I could've helped you. You make me so furious.”

 And his later admission that:

“I'm more afraid of her dying than she is? What is that?”

Now I am not going to pretend that I especially like this angle.  I do not warm to the idea of ANGEL as a series becoming a gothic romance where the principal characters’ actions are driven by love for one another.  Such a scenario can work very well where the idea is to show that human (or in this case inhuman) attachments lead to selfishness and blindness which have consequences for the protagonists.  But ever since the B/A love affair came off the rails so spectacularly in season 2 of BtVS for precisely those reasons, ME seem to have very little interest in exploring these ideas.  Typically relationships in the Buffyverse  conform very closely to the traditional soap opera concept in that they form a continuing story on their own, quite independent of the main plot of an individual episode or even of a season-long arc.  They are also often sentimentalized and perhaps even melodramatic in nature.  We are I think beginning to see the same trend here and I like it just as well – that is to say not at all.   Indeed, in episodes like “That Vision Thing” and its companion piece “Billy” the writers largely ignored the obvious moral and thematic implications of Angel’s single minded determination to save Cordelia at all costs simply because of his feelings for her.  The prospect of more of the same alarms me no end.

The Plot

It is not, however, only this aspect of the episode that I find disconcerting.  The plotting also left a good deal to be desired.  The first  question that we must surely ask is why did TPTB show any interest in the Cordelia's welfare at all? One of the reasons why I actually liked the much derided Oracles of Season 1 was because I took their arrogant and patronizing attitude towards humanity as representative of the powers own attitude.  And this impression is strengthened by Angel's encounter with the Conduit. 

“It believes itself valuable. It believes it can demand. Presumptuous. The Powers owe nothing. Send it away.”

If this is their attitude to someone they refer to as a Champion, then what is their attitude to the rest of humanity?  This is a world in which those who fight  for the TPTB seem to get very little consideration.  Poor old Doyle got none.  Indeed  TPTB and their representatives seem to show few if any human values such as compassion for others.  This raises all sorts of interesting possibilities about the Powers' real agenda and how they view humanity.  Is the World simply a convenient battle ground between forces (including TPTB) for whom humanity means little? But regardless of the answers to these questions, how do you square the  attitude of TPTB towards first of all the Host and then Angel with their attitude to Cordelia.  They took a great deal of trouble to persuade her to accept life as a rich and famous celebrity.  Yet they were unwilling to give the Angel the single word of explanation even when they were trying to do what he wanted. 

And then there is poor Tammy.  She had the visions for a year.  Then they blew out the back of her head.  Where was the interest from the powers in her? Who tried to persuade her to give the visions up?

Indeed, in this context there is an even bigger question.  Why would TPTB overwrite history for Cordelia's personal benefit if the result was to cripple Angel? Would it not make more sense from a purely utilitarian point  of view just to use her up, throw her away and get someone else? But if contrary to my view of them they are motivated by personal concern for Cordelia then why show no such concern for Angel? After all the harm that he suffered from the Visions was in its own way just as catastrophic as death.  And yet apparently the consequence of Cordelia's good fortune was this.  It seems very odd to play favorites like that.

You cannot say that the Powers were solely motivated by ensuring that both Angel and Cordelia fulfilled their own destiny.  Nothing we have seen to date indicates that it was the Angel's destiny to be the one inflicted with the Visions.  In fact quite the opposite.  It is by no means clear where the prophecies of Aberjian presently stand.  But to the extent they mean anything they indicate that Angel has a very different destiny.  And certainly the Niazin prophecies would be completely foiled by this turn of events.  After all, in this version of LA, Angel clearly was in no condition to father Connor. On the other side of the coin the whole point about this episode was that Cordelia's destiny was not to become a famous actress - no matter what TPTB said.    If that was the case then why did they return the visions to her?  Indeed this remains the central contradiction at the heart of this episode.  The actual denouement flatly contradicts the premise.  It was Skip's intervention on behalf of the Powers and his success in persuading Cordelia to accept her "destiny" that led directly to the discovery that it was not her destiny at all.

All of this makes so much more sense of you assume that the Powers’ intervention was a cynical piece of manipulation.  Their real purpose in all of this was to get Cordelia to volunteer to become part demon so that she and Angel could both continue on the respective paths.  The first problem with this is that there is nothing in the text of which support this thesis.  The other problem is that it makes no sense at all. 

Another very real problem here is what was the nature of the change that came over Cordelia’s world.   This problem was highlighted for me by the fact that the alternative Cordelia we see is a very different to the Cordelia we met at the party in " City of ....”.   She is, indeed, very similar the person we see that the beginning of "Birthday".  She treats her staff with some consideration and respect; her desire to stop something nasty but undefined is strong enough that she is prepared to go to a lot of trouble to track it down.   I mean she was even prepared to go to Reseda.  And when she sees Angel she is very compassionate towards him.  This, despite the fact that she only knows him as Buffy's ex-boyfriend and someone who once went psycho and started killing all her friends.    But above all, in the crucial moment when she recovers the visions and meets Skip again, we see the same person who left her own body in a coma; the person  whom Skip brought to the Mall and whom he tried to get to change her destiny.  This is the difference between " Birthday "and " It's a Wonderful Life. "  In the latter the James Stewart character was taken  out of the history of his hometown so that he could see how in the town had changed because he wasn't there.   He observed those changes as an outsider -someone who existed outside the altered history of the town.  Here we are asked to view Cordelia's as having her life changed but who ended up as essentially the same person she became with a very different life experience.  The writers are, therefore, treating Cordelia's as if her life had changed but the same time portraying her - like the James Stewart character - as existing independently of the changes in her life. 

This is simply incompatible with  the idea that the Powers allowed her to live her part of her life again.  First of all, the treatment that Cordelia would get as a television star would exacerbate all worst traits of her character.  We see very good examples of this in the deference she receives from the hotel management when she arrives at the Hyperion.  Peeling off expensive wallpaper would get most people into serious trouble, not her.  The clerk's only reaction is an embarrassed:

“Yes, I hate that wallpaper. It's bad... bad wallpaper."

We also see it in the service she gets.  Only the best hotel room will do for her and her every whim is attended to without question, no matter how absurd it seems:

Cordelia: "I want something... Hypo something...

Nevin: "Josh, let's get a large tub of ice water to Ms. Chase's dressing room pronto.

Cordelia: "No, that's not it."

Nevin: "Cancelling ice water."

Cordelia: "Hyper... hyperbaric."

Nevin: "Josh, let's make that an oxygen tent."

Cordelia: "That's not right."

Nevin: "Cancelling tent."

Finally we also see it  in the adulation of her fans, including Cynthia - the would be victim.

“I love your show. Like, love love. You are just... you are my idol, Cordy. I want to be just like you.”

All of this treatment is designed to make her think of herself as the center of the universe - the only person that really matters.  Contrast this to the whole thrust of her development as a character over the last season and a half of the series.  Remember what Wesley said in "Epiphany":

"Our Cordelia has become a very solitary girl. She's not the vain, carefree creature she once was... Well, certainly not carefree. It's the visions, you see. The visions that were meant to guide you. You could turn away from them. She doesn't have that luxury. She knows and experiences the pain in this city, and because of who she is, she feels compelled to do something about it. It's left her little time for anything else."

How then, can Cordelia be the  same person without the visions as she was with them?

Of course, we should not forget the various points of detail which also cause difficulties. 

There must therefore be an alternative explanation.  In the Mall Skip suggests that there is a difference between turning back time and writing over history.  That suggests the nature of the exercise was not to provide an alternative time line in history but simply to change things from that point on.  This resolves some of the problems.  It explains why we see essentially the same Cordelia in the alternative universe.  It explains why the Hyperion is no longer haunted.  But it doesn't explain others such as the writing on the wall or the fact that Cynthia didn't need saving once LA was restored to the status quo ante.  More to the point it creates different anomalies.  If the new Cordyverse was changed prospectively how were the visions removed?  This part of the plot only works of you assume they were never given to her in the first place.  In short I really don’t see how this structure can be made to work.

Well, Hello Mary Sue

And this leads me to the other principal problem with the episode.  There is, for my comfort, too much of a “Mary Sue” feel to Cordelia in this episode.  Consider the evidence. 

As we have seen, her personal welfare is of concern to the highest Powers.   They ignore poor Tammy; they don't care that the Angel is a half mad and they treat his opinions with contempt.  But they are very anxious that Cordelia becomes a television superstar.  And note that little bit of wish fulfillment.  Cordelia's alternative future is not just a normal life.  She is wealthy, universally beloved, respected as an actress, incredibly successful.   The world revolves around her.  This is extravagance piled upon extravagance - a classic sign of a Mary Sue.

The other side of the coin of course is that no opportunity is lost to pile on the pathos.  Cordelia  has been taking extra strong medication for year and has been telling no one.  As Fred said:

"If Cordelia was takin' a drug this powerful in secret, then the visions were probably doin' a lot more damage than she let on."

And of course the give away is the MRI  results.

Fred: "See, green is a "cold" color, usually signifyin' dead areas of the cerebrum. Normally you wouldn't see a scan like this.."

Gunn: "Unless the person was a cucumber."

This is a truly remarkable person who has suffered extreme neurological damage which would leave most people vegetables and yet continues to function normally. 

Of course that is explained by the fact that she is so much stronger than anyone else.  Tammy could only last year before her head explode.  Cordelia's has lasted two.  Of course she is mentally very strong but then I am not sure that courage and determination will stop your head exploding. 

Then there is the fact that Angel is driven mad by the visions.  We see this after he had previously referred to Cordelia as a rich girl playing superhero.  Well he was driven to a far worse state than Cordelia wasn't he?  So who is the strong one now?  Indeed it is pretty obvious that in the Cordyverse LA things are so much worse than the " real L.A. "  Wesley only has one arm and Angel is a train wreck.  That shows just how important Cordelia really is .  Of course there is a fairly major flaw in this scenario.  It depends entirely on Angel being the recipient of the visions and that explains why  the writers had to resort to the highly improbable plot device of giving the visions to him.  If they had been given to say Lorne instead, and if he had been sent to help the Angel, Cordelia wouldn't have been much missed or really missed at all.

Let us also look at what happens when the choice of becoming part demon is presented to Cordelia.  First of all the consequences are exaggerated:

“The process isn't easy.  It'll make your vision pain feel like a stroll through CandyLand. And even after the agony subsides, the effects of the transformation would be numerous and unpredictable. “

But of course after the transformation these dire consequences fail to materialize.  She is indistinguishable from the old Cordelia.  In fact she is better off.  Instead of having to make a real sacrifice she ends up with a power to levitate.  On the other side of the coin, she loses the pain of the visions.  It is a win-win situation.  So what was the fuss all about?  In other words the adverse consequences were threatened to make her decision look even more heroic but she is never actually asked to pay the price.  And never mind the fact that Doyle had headaches and he was half demon or that Angel also obviously suffered pain with the visions and was physiologically full demon.  That particular part of the visions seems to have been waived for Cordelia. 

But finally of course just in case we missed the point we were supposed to get about Cordelia we had Skip's entirely unsolicited testimonial to hammer it home to us:

"I was an honor being your guide, Cordelia Chase."

And this brings me to what I find most unsatisfactory about this episode.  At the risk of some oversimplification, drama depends upon conflict.  Characters can face two sources of conflict – the external and the internal.  You can make perfectly good drama out of good, brave, determined and selfless individuals overcoming external threats to achieve something important.   But I regard that as inherently less interesting than the other sort of drama., not least because unlike external threats the internal demons can never be entirely defeated.   More to the point it is also out of character for ANGEL as a series.   This is not about heroes and heroines in the sense of people who do good and noble things because they are good and noble themselves.  If it means anything that it is about damaged individuals, misfits relegated to the margins of society because of their internal demons.  Their struggle is primarily with themselves.  It is through their fights with external demons that they learn how to deal with their internal ones.  Cordelia, before this episode, was an uneasy fit in this picture.  She carried little or no baggage from her past.   The one point of conflict for her was her frustrated ambition to be an actress.  What is left of that?  

We have been reminded on occasion that there is still some part of Cordelia's that is attracted to the idea of wealth, fame and the good life. However, as far as I can see, at no stage since "Epiphany" has that attraction ever affected her actions or even threatened to. In the Pylea arc, for example, we saw at the beginning the sense of regret the Cordelia had that no one was interested in her as an actress and that all she had to offer were the visions. But in the end she was offered to opportunity of getting rid of the visions and she blew it off with hardly a second's thought.

What I had hoped for here was the last temptation of Cordelia Chase. What I had hoped for was a genuine dilemma. It would have been easy to write to part of Skip as the Devil tempting her in the following terms:

"Isn't this what you have always wanted Cordelia? The wealth and the fame? Well now I am offering this to you. Why not take it? What have the visions ever broke you apart from pain, suffering and prospect of an early death? Who really cares about you helping people. They certainly aren't grateful. Why should you kill yourself to help them? Besides, it's not as if they wouldn't be helped any way. Someone else will get the visions. Someone will always be there to help. Why should it be you? Why should you suffer?"

How she faced that sort of temptation seems to me to be an inherently more interesting story than the one we actually got.  As it was, Cordelia's attachment to the visions and to her mission remains strong and determined. It is not shaken by anything other than the thought that Angel has rejected her as not being good enough. She recovers her confidence in her mission when she then discovers the that she is needed after all.   Where does Cordelia as a character go from here?   She occasionally makes sarcastic references  to other people's foibles.  When Angel objects to her dirty hands holding the baby she replies:

“But pig-drinking bloodsuckers are okay?”

But for the most part she now plays three roles in the series.  She is “vision girl” – the guardian of the mission.  She is “the most important person in the world” for Angel and someone who must be saved from harm regardless of all consequences.  Finally she is the person who understands Angel and dispenses sage advice to him.  I have next to no interest in a character like that.  The only thing left for Cordelia now is to fall over heels in love with the Angel.  And that I do not regard as a positive

Overview (C)

This episode contains a perfectly good concept to explain Cordelia’s relationship to her visions and why she wants to keep them.  It is not one I warm to, especially since we have already had a number of examples of Angel forgetting all his other responsibilities when they conflict with Cordelia's welfare.  But at least showing Cordelia's desire to be the most important thing in the world to Angel made sense and it avoided the cliche that we saw, for example in "No Place Like Plrtz Glrb".  There what we saw in Cordelia was someone who wants nothing for herself but simply has an altruistic desire to help others and who is prepared to make any sacrifice necessary for the purpose.  Unfortunately the idea was marred by sloppy and self-indulgent execution.  The execution was sloppy from a number of points of view.  The writers never did explain what exactly was meant by “overwriting” history and this inevitably lead to a lot of confusion about the nature of the alternative universes and how they came about.  The obvious explanation was that we saw an alternate timeline but that model just falls apart in your hands when examined.  A better fit is the idea of a change to present reality without having the protagonists actually reliving their lives over again.  But even that explanation doesn’t resolve all difficulties and indeed introduces new ones of its own, such as how did Cordelia lose the visions  instead of simply not being there to receive them.  But that isn’t the only problem.  Exaggeration and hyperbole in characterization serve characters very poorly.  It deprives them of their believability and much of their interest.