Angel S3-11: The Short Review

'Birthday'

Written by Mere Smith

Directed by Michael Grossman

"Now, what if the play ran a little differently? You're on the sideline, over here, talking to a couple of wannabe moguls. Angel is downfield here. Instead of cutting to the middle to meet Angel, what if you'd been forced to counter? What if this guy - who happens to be a very powerful talent agent - flanks you, drew you offsides? What would happen then?" - Skip

'Birthday' is, by some way, Mere Smith's strongest script since 'Untouched'. It's funny; it's smart; it moves along nicely; it answers a whole bunch of long-standing questions, and asks plenty of new ones. It's not perfect - in particular, Cordelia overhearing Angel was a little clunky - and I have a couple of reservations about where things might go from here. But as an episode in itself, it's pretty damn good.

That fact becomes more impressive when you consider that the story actually had to walk a very fine line. Demonising Cordelia may have been the logical next step in the character's development, but we already knew - or could be fairly confident - that if given the opportunity, she would take it. It's evident from early on in the episode - when trying to communicate with the rest of AI, Cordelia doesn't try to tell them where she is, or that she needs help; she tries to tell them how to find the girl she saw in her vision.

What, then, is the point of the episode? I would argue that it is primarily about giving Cordelia peace of mind. She may have accepted the visions, but as Skip rightly points out, before now there was always a part of her that wondered what she was missing by not pursuing her acting career. Viewed in this light, 'Birthday' becomes more a tale of emotional acceptance. In particular, because Skip erases her memory, the Cordyverse is not a place in which people she cares about are substantially worse off because she got the visions; it is a place in which Cordelia has a nagging feeling that she should be doing something else - and finds that some people she once knew in high school are already doing it. Her choice is about knowing, once and for all, with no more doubts, what her purpose is in life, and not about helping our her friends.

At a secondary level, I think this episode is also about the Powers That Be. My personal take on the episode is that everything that happens to Cordelia after she arrives at the mall is part of a construct; none of it is an actual rewriting of history. This would appear to be supported by the final scene with Skip, in which (a) the resolution is not the restoration of the 'real' timeline plus the demonisation of Cordelia; it is 'only' the demonisation of Cordelia, and (b) everyone apart from Cordelia and Skip is frozen. However, it's also possible to read the episode as literally changing history, and then changing it back. In the end, though, it is irrelevant which view is correct; it's just a device. What the episode is about - what does matter - is Cordelia's choice; and the question is, why do the PTB present Cordelia's choice in this way? Why not just offer her the option of demonisation up front?

The answer, I think, expands our understanding of the PTB somewhat. Firstly, Skip emphasises early on that the Powers aren't great with free will and love; Cordelia getting the visions, he says, was a big cosmic whoops. This is consistent - after all, Whistler says in 'Becoming' that the PTB never saw the Buffy/Angel relationship coming, either. It suggest that the Powers don't want to (or can't) take anything away from 'lower beings'; they must reach a decision of their own accord - especially, it is implied, with a decision as important as this. If demonisation had been offered, up front, as an option, there is little doubt that Cordelia would have taken it - but the nagging feeling that she was missing something would still be there. She would have made the choice as much because she felt it was what she should do as much as because it was what she wanted to do. So, the Powers showed her what she was missing, and let her reach the understanding on her own.

So, that's how Cordelia got to where she is now; the question is, where does she go from here? As I said, I have some reservations about the future. I'm glad that the show is willing to make a change this permanent to one of its characters, and it opens up a whole range of interesting possible developments (as well as, in all probability, neatly closing the 'psychic hacker' loophole intoduced in 'That Vision Thing'), but, well...I liked the fact that everyone apart from Angel was human. Over on Buffy, Xander is specifically written as 'the normal guy', because most everyone else is something special. I liked the fact that Angel's heroes were all 'normal guys'. And I'm a little uncomfortable with the way the first manifestation of Cordelia's transformation was played for laughs. Her choice was a sacrifice; I wanted an "oh-my-god-that's-so-cool!" moment, with possibly a little ominous foreboding.

Still, I'm not really that worried; I trust the writers enough to think that after Skip's dire warnings, becoming a demon really will have some severe drawbacks, even if they take a while to become apparent. Besides, that's a worry for the future; and frankly, 'Birthday' was far too full of neat little touches to really spend much time dwelling on that right now. And any episode that can turn me into a Fred/Phantom Dennis 'shipper has got to be something pretty special.