Birthday

Plot

The gang decides to throw Cordelia a little surprise birthday party complete with cake and presents. However, when she is about to open presents, she is hit with a vision so hard that it knocks her body into a coma and her spirit into the astral plane. The gang discovers her prescription headache pills so Fred and Gunn go to her apartment to see what else Cordelia’s been hiding. While there, despite Phantom Dennis’ attempts to prevent them, they find more drugs and a history of brain trouble dating from over a year ago.

In the meantime, Angel tells catatonic Cordelia he’s mad at her for keeping secrets. Lorne tries to communicate with her, but he determines she isn’t even in her body. Angel forces Lorne to find a way to contact The Powers That Be. When Angel falls asleep, Cordelia posseses his body and writes 171 Oak on the wall, because that was the location of the girl in her vision who was about to be eaten by a monster. She’s kicked out of his body by some shadowy force. Wesley enters the room and tells Angel that the brain scans show that Cordelia is dying.

Skip, the demon that guarded Billy in the prison dimension, shows up on the astral plane with Cordelia. He tells her that if she doesn’t want to die, she must come with him.

Lorne returns all battered and tells Angel that in order to get to TPTB, he must talk to the Conduit. Angel immediately takes off despite Lorne’s warnings that it is only for a “champion.” When Angel arrives, he argues with the Conduit about how the visions must be removed from Cordelia so she won’t die.

Skip takes Cordelia to a mental construction of a mall to make her comfortable. He shows her on a screen how she got the visions to begin with. They were passed along when Doyle kissed her. He says that she was never meant to have the visions. He says that they end up killing humans and provides an example of a young woman from the 1800s whose brain exploded during a vision. He tells her that only demons can handle the visions. Skip then gives Cordelia the choice to have never met Angel in L.A. and live the life she had dreamed of as a famous actress or she can return to her body and die. She chooses to return to her body because Angel needs her. Skip then takes Cordelia to where Angel is arguing with the Conduit. She hears Angel telling the Conduit that she is weak and only playing superhero and can’t handle the visions. This changes Cordelia’s mind, and so she chooses stardom.

She is immediately transported to the set of her very own sitcom called “Cordy.” However, she still has a nagging feeling she should be doing something else so she goes to the Hyperion, which now is in full operation as a real hotel. There she goes to a room and rips off the wallpaper where she find the 171 Oak she had written while in Angel’s body.

When she arrives at 171 Oak, she finds a teenager who had just summoned a demon in a botched attempt to get her dad to come back home. Wesley and Gunn show up and kill the demon. Wesley only has one arm. Cordelia and Wesley reminisce a bit and she is introduced to Gunn. Wesley and Gunn take Cordelia to see Angel who has gone crazy because he now has the visions. For some crazy reason, she kisses Angel and the visions are returned to her, along with the memory of everything that had happened. Skip is there and tells her that this isn’t what they had agreed to. She says she knows her purpose in life and that it includes the visions. Skip is not happy and tells her that the only way she can have the visions and not die is to become part demon. This means incredible pain, unknown side effects, and the possibility to never lead a normal human life. She agrees to it anyway and is sent back to her body. When she wakes up she checks for horns and a tail then tells the gang that they needn’t worry about the last vision, it was taken care of. She has another, painless vision during which she is floating above the ground.