In "Birthday", Cordy has a vision that puts her body in a coma and her consciousness straight out into the ethereal. Her friends are unaware of her spiritual existence as she attempts to contact them and warn them about the girl in danger somewhere in L.A. Her body lies in bed unresponsive as the gang tries to figure out what's wrong with her. The more they dig around, the more they realize just how bad her headaches have gotten due to the visions. She is taking extremely powerful painkillers and scans of her head reveal that she is dying.
The Powers That Be send their man Skip to come talk to Cordy. She finds out that Doyle was never supposed to transfer the visions to her and all of this has been a mistake. If she keeps the visions any longer she will die. Skip offers her a timeline in which she becomes a famous Hollywood actress instead. Cordy accepts it and lives a superstar life, briefly...
Something in the back of her mind takes her back to the old hotel where she uncovers a note she wrote to warn the gang. (I'm not sure why this would exist in that timeline but whatever...) Cordy visits the girl and they're attacked by a demon. Gunn and Wesley show up and kill it. In this timeline, Angel has the visions and has gone insane. Wesley has lost an arm; Fred is seemingly still in an alternate dimension. Everything's bad.
Cordy remembers everything after kissing Angel. She asks Skip to return her visions even if they kill her. The two come up with a loophole: Cordy can turn half-demon. This will allow her body to handle this. She wakes back up feeling fine. The episode ends with her having a vision and levitating in the air.
This episode gives us the old "what-if" scenario for Cordy's acting career. She's changed a lot since the early seasons of BtVS when she was quite the drama queen and mean girl. Her arc throughout the two series is possibly my favorite; it's fair to say that she's traveled the furthest in this amount of time. Her self-sacrifice in this episode for Angel is absolutely touching. And Skip is hilarious as always.
I've loved the direction they've taken this season so far. I hope it continues.
The Powers That Be send their man Skip to come talk to Cordy. She finds out that Doyle was never supposed to transfer the visions to her and all of this has been a mistake. If she keeps the visions any longer she will die. Skip offers her a timeline in which she becomes a famous Hollywood actress instead. Cordy accepts it and lives a superstar life, briefly...
Something in the back of her mind takes her back to the old hotel where she uncovers a note she wrote to warn the gang. (I'm not sure why this would exist in that timeline but whatever...) Cordy visits the girl and they're attacked by a demon. Gunn and Wesley show up and kill it. In this timeline, Angel has the visions and has gone insane. Wesley has lost an arm; Fred is seemingly still in an alternate dimension. Everything's bad.
Cordy remembers everything after kissing Angel. She asks Skip to return her visions even if they kill her. The two come up with a loophole: Cordy can turn half-demon. This will allow her body to handle this. She wakes back up feeling fine. The episode ends with her having a vision and levitating in the air.
This episode gives us the old "what-if" scenario for Cordy's acting career. She's changed a lot since the early seasons of BtVS when she was quite the drama queen and mean girl. Her arc throughout the two series is possibly my favorite; it's fair to say that she's traveled the furthest in this amount of time. Her self-sacrifice in this episode for Angel is absolutely touching. And Skip is hilarious as always.
I've loved the direction they've taken this season so far. I hope it continues.