Welcome to Rewatching Angel, the part of the blog where I rewatch the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off: Angel. Each Tuesday evening, you’re invited to join me as I attempt to rediscover what made me love these shows so many years ago.

You’re Welcome

• Angel, Wesley, and Gunn break down a door followed by Fred tracking something or someone on a gizmo she’s holding.
• They come across five dead nuns.
• They’re looking for a client that has used the deaths of five holy women to open a portal to another dimension to escape from Angel.
• This is it for Angel…
• He can’t do it anymore.
• He tells them he quits… no more running Wolfram & Hart for him.
• Elsewhere, Cordelia Chase has a vision and wakes up from her coma.
• Yeah, remember Cordelia?
• Kinda got screwed over last season?
• Yeah… that’s the one.
• In the office, Angel and his team discuss his resignation.
• Gunn brings up the ramifications of what the Senior Partners might do if they try to leave.
• But is that because the Senior Partners might not let them leave or because he doesn’t want to leave?
• Angel gets the call… Cordelia is awake.
• And she’s back to her old self.
• No more higher powers hijacking her body.
• She tells Angel and Wes that she remembers everything prior to the coma, in spite of the fact that she wasn’t in control.
• Wes suggests that they take her shopping so she doesn’t have to walk around in a hospital gown.
• Cordelia is good with that… because shopping.
• Also, she mentions she’s not ready to go back to the hotel just yet.
• Not to worry… the hotel isn’t the base of operations anymore, kiddo.
• Skip ahead to her arrival at Wolfram & Hart.
• She really doesn’t want to get off the elevator here, either.
• Cordy reunites with Lorne, Gunn, and Fred… then asks where Connor is.
• Little problem… No one but Angel remembers that Connor exists.
• Guess Cordelia missed out on that little mindwipe due to the mystical coma.
• How weird would that reunion be, though?
• Seeing as how a former higher power decided to put on Cordelia’s face to seduce Connor in order to give birth to herself…
• I really didn’t like Season 4.
• Before Angel can convince Cordelia not to say anything about Connor, Harmony bursts in excited to see her old bestie.
• Finally, Angel and Cordy get a moment to talk one on one.
• Angel’s trying to put on the happy face about them working at Wolfram & Hart.
• She lets him know about her vision: Angel in trouble.
• She also saw a lot of weird symbols on a wall and on flesh.
• Eve interrupts.
• This doesn’t go over well with Cordelia.
• She warns Angel that he’s literally making deals with the devil, and then a guy who literally looks like the classic image of the Devil in a business suit walks up and shakes Angel’s hand, confirming their next racquetball game.
• Where’s Spike in all this?
• He’s sitting in his underground apartment playing Donkey Kong.
• Sounds like a typical day during quarantine if you ask me.
• Lindsey shows up and gives him a hard time about sitting around playing video games.
• Spike says the games are rehab, since he’s getting used to having his hands reattached and all.
• Lindsey says he knows a little of what that’s like, since he lost one of his own hands a few years back.
• Then he gets a call from Eve informing him that Cordelia is awake and that she had a vision leading Angel right in his direction.
• Lindsey seems less than concerned, looking at Spike and telling Eve that it just calls for a change of plans.
• Angel walks into his apartment and finds Cordelia watching the old Angel Investigations commercial that she made with Doyle… the real Doyle… back in the first season.
• Cordy points out that Doyle knew the sacrifice he had to make to make sure that Angel would keep on fighting.
• Then she goes on a rant about how Wolfram & Hart seduced him into being their puppet and she can’t think of a single reason why he would accept their offer…
• But Angel just says Connor’s name.
• He finally tells her that no one remembers him.
• And Connor has no memories of any of them.
• Angel tries to explain that Connor is happy and that they really are doing good at Wolfram & Hart… even if he doesn’t believe it.
• But she’s not having it…
• She asks why the Powers That Be would send her a coma vision if not because Angel had derailed?
• Time to get him back on track.
• But Angel doesn’t think the Powers are in his corner anymore now that Spike is in the picture.
• Cordelia reminds him of the guy he used to be… the guy she fell in love with.
• Only she doesn’t quite get there with the love talk.
• The next day, Cordy and Wes work together, researching the symbols from her vision.
• She brings up last year… everything she did when she was possessed… no one is talking about it.
• Wes tells her that she didn’t kill Lilah… but she still feels guilty about it.
• They find the symbols… protecting the bearer from watchful eyes… or modern surveillance.
• Cut to Lindsey sneaking around, walking into Wolfram & Hart’s secure basement without a care in the world.
• Even the laser grid doesn’t pick him up.
• He kills a demon in a lab coat and cuts something off his neck.
• Cordelia wanders around the halls, getting kind of lost… then she runs into Spike…
• Who immediately vamps out and bites her.
• Angel attacks Spike and then he claims it was a taste test, to see if Cordelia was really evil.
• Then Spike lets it spill that he’s been getting info from a guy with tattoos named Doyle… a guy who gets visions from the Powers That Be.
• Eve talks to Lindsey on the phone and warns him that they’ve figured it out.
• Lindsey says he’s almost there and she needs to get out of the building now.
• She’s not too stealthy and Angel and Cordy drag her into Angel’s office.
• Team meeting… and Eve tries to deny everything, in a hurry to evacuate.
• Harmony barges in and asks if she gets the afternoon off, too… since everyone else has already taken off.
• Gunn looks into it and said there’s a Code 7… whatever that is.
• Cordelia tells Angel to go ahead and torture Eve… so Angel lets Harmony slap Eve around a little.
• Then she spills…
• The Senior Partners buried a failsafe under the building… something big designed to take down Angel in case they couldn’t keep him on their leash.
• Angel formulates a plan for the team…
• Wes, Gunn, Fred, and Lorne head off to figure out a way to eliminate the symbols clouding the Senior Partners’ vision where fake-Doyle is concerned.
• Spike shares all he knows about fake-Doyle, including that he lost a hand once… which gives it away that it’s Lindsey.
• Fred tries to keep Angel from heading into the basement alone, but he tells her it’s designed to take him down and he won’t let anyone he cares about get near it.
• So Spike volunteers… Angel’s good with that.
• Angel tells Harmony to guard Eve and if she tries anything, she can eat her.
• Cordy is not sitting on the sidelines on this one, grabbing a sword and insisting that she join Angel and Spike in the big fight.
• The trio arrives in the laser room and are attacked by zombies.
• Spike volunteers to hold back the zombie horde while Angel and Cordy move on.
• They get to Lindsey and he surprises Angel with a little super strength.
• Oh, and he’s got some kind of telekinesis going on, too.
• Angel tells Cordelia to shut down the failsafe… which appears to be some kind of giant monster inside a big container.
• Lindsey and Angel have a pretty epic sword fight.
• Upstairs, the rest of the team works on the spell that will eliminate Lindsey’s tattoos.
• Cordelia manages to shut down the failsafe.
• Angel kicks Lindsey’s butt.
• And then the tattoos vanish…
• Meaning the Senior Partners can see Lindsey now.
• And they are not happy.
• The Senior Partners pull Lindsey up through a portal.
• Eve is summarily kicked out of the building.
• Everyone talks about going to get a drink.
• Angel decides he’s in, too… then goes to get his coat.
• Cordelia hangs back to have a word with the hero.
• He tells her that he doesn’t really feel like he saved anyone by taking down Lindsey.
• But she points out that he saved himself.
• Angel says whatever is coming from Wolfram & Hart, they’ll be able to beat it.
• She tells him she believed that the whole time… she just needed him to believe it, too.
• Then Cordelia tells him she wishes she could be there to see it and she tells him to explain it to the others once he understands.
• She tells him the Powers That Be owed her one and she didn’t waste it.
• But before she leaves, she gives Angel one last kiss.
• The phone rings, interrupting the kiss… and she tells him he needs to answer it.
• It’s the hospital… they break the news that Cordelia has died.
• She never did wake up…
• Body count: Demons – 1

Okay… I know this turned kinda long, but bear with me for some final thoughts.

I think that Cordelia Chase had one of the most incredible character arcs throughout her stints on both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. She went from a self-absorbed, self-entitled, self-important mean girl from Sunnydale to an actual hero who played a major role in the battle between good and evil. What the creators did to her in Season 4 of Angel was criminal. I hate that the real Cordelia wasn’t around and that she only appeared in this episode of the final season. But, this appearance was amazing, in spite of how painful it turned out to be in the end.

If you are a Buffy/Angel fan, what are your thoughts on the character of Cordelia Chase? Let me know in the comments!