Birthday

Previously on Angel, Darla went poof, Cordy shared her home with a ghost, Cordy punched Angel in the nose, Cordy honed her falling-down-screaming skills, and Cordy made her voice get all sad and scratchy. I wonder who the focus of this episode will be.

We open with some misdirection-based-comedy. For a change. Cordy's making a tearful speech of gratitude, and it turns out she's just demonstrating an imaginary award acceptance speech for Fred. Then Cordy and Fred go back to cleaning up the mess made when Angel used a grenade to make a daring escape. Which means that this episode follows fairly soon after "Dad." Which took place the day after "Lullaby," which took place the same night as "Quickening," which probably happened the day after "Offspring." I'm starting to wonder if this entire season occurs in the space of a month. You know, considering that the cast already tends to look older than their characters are meant to be, I'd probably have show time go faster than real-time, not slower. Plus, then it'd be easy to justify the abrupt character shifts. "Of course Gunn and Angel are friends now -- it's been six months since the events of "That Old Gang of Mine!" Just a suggestion. Where was I?

Oh yes: they're cleaning. I can't imagine why my interest wasn't captured by that fact. Gunn wanders over from his own clean-up duties and asks Fred if Wesley is back. Cordy answers that Wesley's still out shopping for cleaning supplies. Gunn leaves to go make a single tally mark to his "number of lines I got this week" scorecard. Angel enters with a plot-devouring demon. Oops, I meant to say "his kid." Angel makes Cordy go wash up before she can hold the baby. Once she's gone, Angel leans over to Fred and whispers, "Does she know?" Suddenly Wesley rushes in, loaded with bags, and asks where Cordy is. Hey, while they're engaged in this cleaning frenzy; do you think they're bothering to remove all the cameras and microphones that Wolfram & Hart have hidden everywhere? Or do they all just go into the janitor's closet when they want to talk privately?

Cordy's in the bathroom, popping painkillers. Believe me when I say that I know exactly how she feels.

When Cordy returns to the lobby, she is greeted by the others singing "Happy Birthday." Gunn and Wesley are holding a cake with a picture of some Wonder Woman-type superhero on it. Cordy is quite surprised. As is the audience, since it was strongly implied that her birthday is in May. After she blows out the (six) candles, Angel hands Cordy the baby while everyone else rushes off to fetch Cordy's presents. Angel awkwardly pulls out a small box and gives it to her. Cordy insists that he didn't have to get her a present, and does that sound like Cordelia? No. I'm not talking about the Cordelia from years ago; I'm talking about the Cordelia from as recently as "Heartthrob," who basically said, "Angel! Great to have you back, did you bring me a present?" Is it really this hard to remember basic things like character traits? Angel non-explains his gift-giving by saying, "I'm a champion. We do important stuff. Hey, who's more important than --" Alas, he is cut off when the MoG return carrying presents. Cordy agonizes about trading the baby for the presents, and then makes with the baby talk because I'm not hating this scene enough yet. Suddenly Cordy orders Angel to take the baby. He chuckles, "You're choosing birthday gifts over my kid?" "Take the baby!" she snaps, and Angel does so just as she reels back with a vision. Cordy sees an address, and a young girl being menaced by a demon. Suddenly she's blown back into the weapons cabinet and collapses. Cordy lies on the floor, eyes open, while the MoG kneel around her.

Cordy blinks and jerks awake. She sits up slowly, insisting that she'll be all right. Then she realizes that she's across the room from where everyone else is still gathered around her body. "I'm just...dead?" she whispers. Credits roll.

When we return, Cordy and the others are looking down at a still-unconscious Cordy. You know what I mean, right? Angel is demonstrating his extensive first-aid skills by repeatedly saying, "Wake up!" He finally decides that she's in "a trance or a coma," and suggests they move her to the couch. Gunn and Angel lift Cordy up, and let her head flop around as they haul her body across the room. You'd think that Angel would have absorbed "support the head" from lugging the baby around all the time. Out-of-body Cordy -- whose voice is all echoey -- chuckles, "This is some kind of bizarre birthday present you guys cooked up!" I guess her brain is still stuck in her body. Angel decides that this must be a side effect of the vision Cordy was having. While Wesley says something barely audible about the strain of the visions, Cordy encourages them to go help the girl from her vision. She finally notices that they can't hear her. Cary descends the stairs to investigate the hubbub, and Cordy starts jabbering about how sure she is that he'll be able to see her. He walks right through her. Then a spooky shadow moves across the room, and Cordy asks, "Did anybody else just see that?" We can finally hear the other dialogue again as Cary asks, "Jumpin' Judas on a unicycle, what happened?" Heh. I wonder if the writers enjoy brainstorming wacky things for Cary to say. I can just picture them passing away the hours, just sitting around coming up with all kinds of fun dialogue. And then an intern rushes in and reminds them that they've got two hours left to actually write this week's script. Explains a lot, really. Fred says, "There's a lot we don't know," and shows the others a bottle of "Seltrax" that fell out of Cordy's pocket. Wesley expositions that Seltrax is a powerful migraine medication. Cary suggests taking Cordy to a hospital, and Angel, not unreasonably, asks, "So they can do what they did last time -- strap her to a bed and tell us there's no hope?" Fred insists that if Cordy was keeping her medication a secret, the visions are probably bothering her more than she admits. Hey, remember when Cordy said that the visions felt like someone cracked her skull open and poured hot lava inside? Maybe after repeatedly getting zero sympathy in response to comments like that, she figured nobody actually cared how much pain she was in. And maybe handling this storyline with that idea would have been more interesting than the obligatory "Cordelia the long-suffering martyr" treatment she's getting now. And maybe that would require writing with some depth, so I can see their dilemma with that.

Ahem. Cary says the problem is mystical, not medical, and Angel jumps all over that vague concept. He tells Gunn and Fred to go to Cordy's apartment and look for any clues about her health. Cordy protests this, but of course, no one can hear her. Wesley will -- and here's a shocker -- do some research. Cary's job is to tend the baby. Angel picks Cordy up and hauls her upstairs, still without any support for her head. Ugh. I hope Charisma Carpenter knows a good chiropractor. While I'm at it, I hope Charisma Carpenter's chiropractor has a name that starts with C, because that would be fun. As the room empties, Cordy cries, "Does nobody care that there is a girl in Reseda who's about to be fed to a no-eyed, three-mouthed monster?" That's a big no. Then, to use captioning terminology, "indistinct whispering" picks up as the other sounds fade away. This seems like a good time to mention that the sound effects and mixing throughout this episode is really nice. I was really impressed by the layered dialogue and the fade-outs and some other things that happen later when I watched the original broadcast using the surround-sound speakers. Of course, the fact that I noticed the sound effects might be an indication that certain other elements weren't exactly holding my attention, but nevertheless: good job there.

Cordy tells herself, "I'll leave a message," and heads over to the front desk. But when she tries to grab a pen, her hand passes right through it. It seems to me that once you realize that no one can hear you, you stop talking. Well, for a while, at least. I admit that when I've been snowbound or just antisocial, and spend a weekend puttering about the apartment, by the end of it I am carrying on little conversations with myself. And then I start talking to myself about how I'm talking to myself, and how that's a bad sign, and that's usually when I figure it's time to chat on the phone for while. All I'm saying is, continuing to carry on conversations with people who can't hear her just makes Cordy seem kind of dumb.

At Cordy's apartment, Fred and Gunn are showered with confetti. We see a party hat resting on Phantom Dennis's head, and behind him hangs a homemade banner reading "Happy Birthday." The hat answers (I guess) one of my long-standing questions, which is: does Dennis have a ghostly "body" or is he more like an amorphous power in the apartment? Gunn tells Fred that Dennis was probably expecting Cordy, which shows what he thinks of Fred's intellect. Fred steps forward and does her blithering idiot dialogue as she introduces herself and shakes Dennis's hat in greeting. Gunn reacts to this by saying, "Fred -- you are so cool!" Oh Gunn, she really, really isn't. At all. Then Fred and Gunn prepare to break the bad news about Cordy to Dennis.

Oh my lord, Cordy still hasn't taken the hint. She's shouting Wesley's name and waving her arms as Wesley sits at his desk. Wesley, not to be outdone, is talking to himself about Cordy's situation: "But if she's in the astral plane, she could be here [and] unable to communicate." Cordy tries to read about astral projection over Wesley's shoulder, but he turns the page too quickly for her.

We cut back to Cordy's apartment, where Fred is insisting, "It doesn't make any sense." No doubt. Fred is actually talking about the fact that there's nothing unusual in Cordy's medicine cabinet. Gunn wanders into the bathroom, holding a bright green bra. Fred complains about Gunn looking at Cordy's "personal support things." Gunn asks if Fred never hid anything in her underwear drawer, and Fred stammers and burbles and requests that they change the subject. She finally explains, "I just figured [that] if Cordy was taking something serious like Seltrax, she'd have tried other stuff first, but there's not even any aspirin in here." She suspects that Phantom Dennis is protecting Cordelia. Gunn tries to explain their concern to Dennis, adding, "Unless you so hyped on the ghostin' life that you want her to join you?" When there's no response, Gunn sits down on the bed. A moment later, a box slides out from under the bed. Fred and Gunn pull out several bottles of pills. Fred says significantly, "The date on this prescription? It's from a year ago."

Blipvert to the Hyperion. Cordy's body is in Angel's bed. The stupid baby coos from its stupid crib. Angel sits to the bed and says, "Cordy, look, I know you can't hear me, but there's something I have to say...You really piss me off, you know that?" He complains that Cordy's been getting MRIs and CAT scans over the past year, and never said a thing about it. He insists that he could have helped, although one has to wonder how. Astral Cordy replies, "I get hijacked on my birthday and you're the one that's furious?" Cary enters and prepares to try his Anagogic Mind-Meld. He rubs Cordy's temples and talks to her. Astral Cordy tries again to tell them to go to 171 Oak Street and stop the demon, but Cary doesn't hear her. He stops and tells Angel, "Cordelia's not in there. She's just gone." The spooky whispering starts up again. Angel stands up angrily and tells Cary, "You have a connection to The Powers That Be and you're gonna find me a way to talk to them." He does? He will? I'm almost beyond caring enough to complain, but I really preferred it when Cary was kinda amoral, and had no particular connection to the various forces of Good and Evil. Cary nervously tells Angel that it's dangerous to contact TPTB, and Angel responds by glaring. Cary quietly exits.

Time passes. Angel is snoring in the chair. Cordy gasps, "Finally! Okay, Wes, let's hope your books know what they're talking about." She walks over, stands in front of Angel, and then sits down inside him. You know, with the morphing ghostly-possession thing. Angel stands up, picks up a marker, and writes "171 Oak" on the wall behind the bed. Then the whispering starts up, shadows morph out of the wall, and Cordy is suddenly knocked out of Angel's body. Angel collapses, and Cordy tries yelling at the whisper gallery. Wesley enters the room as Angel stands up and explains, "I had this dream that Cordy was here; she was trying to tell me something." Cordy echoes the thoughts of many forum posters when she asks Angel, "How are you a champion?" Wesley says that according to the tests, Cordy is suffering from "widespread neuro-electrical deterioration." Which tests? Did Wesley do a complete medical examination of Cordy? Angel translates this to mean that she's dying, because now Angel's the neurosurgeon. Cordy is surprised to hear this, even though she's the one who's been seeing doctors and all. Wesley offers to watch Cordy and Connor while Angel goes off to brood somewhere. Wesley sits down, and suddenly Cordy's hair is blown about by an astral breeze, or something. Cordy backs into a corner and whimpers as, with flashes of lightning, the morphy shadows finally solidify into the terrifying image of...Skip. "Hey! How's it goin'?" he says. As we go to commercial, maybe those who were clamoring for more appearances by Skip should think about what they've done.

When we return, Cordy steps forward and says, "You're Death? You've come to take me." I bet Charisma Carpenter enjoyed this scene a lot more when she was acting opposite Sebastian Bach. Skip laughs ominously, then apologizes and introduces himself. He takes a look at Cordy's body on the bed and tells her that, for most people, "their spiritual shapes tend to be an idealized version of themselves. You know: straighten the nose, lose the gray." After looking at Cordy for a minute, he comments, "You're pretty confident, aren't ya?" Cordy demands to know what's going on, and Skip says he'll explain, but that they have to go somewhere else first. Upon being told that she "doesn't belong here anymore," Cordy again worries that she's dead, but Skip says she isn't...yet! Dun dun duuuun. Cordy asks if Skip will help tell the others about her vision, but Skip says that's not his job. Cordy finally takes Skip's hand as they wait for the camera to cut away so they can leave.

Fred is showing the others a pile of MRIs and explaining the medical diagnosis. You know what? Fine. I give up. Fred knows everything: physics, obstetrics, hacking, neural biology. Problem with the Angelmobile? Fred's a mechanic! Money troubles? Fred's an economist! Can't understand the ethnic conflict in Serbia? Fred's a historian! Still having problems figuring out exactly what happened in Memento? Fred can explain it, and tell you interesting facts about the cinematography as well. Yessir, if there's some difficulty that a good dose of exposition will solve, Fred's your girl. Where was I? Fred's explaining that the MRIs show decreasing activity levels in Cordy's brain. Gunn announces, "Cordy's doctors couldn't explain it." Maybe she's been watching the show. And, hang on, they interviewed Cordy's doctors? And these medical professionals shared confidential medical information with some random clowns who showed up asking questions? Or maybe there's just a Post-It stuck on one of the MRIs that says, "Dear Cordelia -- We cannot explain this. Love, Your Doctors." Angel frets some more, but is interrupted when Cary enters, moaning. Cary's clothes are in tatters, and one horn is broken and dangling. Fred asks what happened, and Cary says that he can't talk about it. Gunn asks, "Then how we supposed to find 'em so we can kick their asses?" I'd complain again about Gunn's wildly varying feelings about demons, but I've decided it's easier to just pretend that "That Old Gang of Mine" never happened. Cary clarifies, "I mean I can't talk about it -- they cast a spell." Angel interrupts to ask if Cary learned anything, and Cary gets pissy because Angel isn't concerned about him. Because Cordy's life isn't nearly as important as Cary's wardrobe. Cary finally admits, "They didn't say I couldn't write it," and hands Angel a piece of paper. Well, whoever it was that Cary talked to, I think we can assume he's pretty stupid. As Angel heads out the door, Cary says, "Only a champion can deal with the Conduit." The Conduit? Great. I love important mystical powers that we've never heard of before.

It turns out that Cordelia and Skip have gone to the mall. Skip says that the Powers That Be thought she'd feel comfortable at a mall. Then he admits it's just a "construct of a mall, y'know, like in The Matrix." This leads to Skip enthusing that he loved The Matrix, and there goes another little shred of my respect for Skip. He directs Cordy's attention to an information screen, which displays not information, but a shot of Doyle from "Hero." Cordy watches as the screen shows Doyle kissing her, just before he was tragically killed by a clunky metaphor. Skip explains that Cordy wasn't meant to receive the visions, but The Powers That Be hadn't considered how Doyle felt about her. Cordy says that she thought TPTB knew everything, and Skip answers, "Life and death, that sort of thing, they've got a handle on. Who someone chooses to love? That's just good old free will." He explains that only demons can handle the visions, and calls out a girl named Tammy as his first witness. Tammy turns out to be a Renaissance Festival refugee with a bad perm and a cockney accent. She tells Cordy, "Town fathers called me a witch. They wanted to burn me at the stake." Luckily they didn't have to, because the back of her skull exploded first. She turns to show Cordy, then turns back so we can see the 'sploded-head wackiness. Maybe that explains her hair. Tammy advises Cordy to listen to Skip. Skip aw-shucks, "Get outta here." And then, more curtly, repeats, "Really. Get out. I've got work." Some people think the old jokes are the best jokes. I'm not so sure. Tammy turns and exits.

Cut to a dark space, empty except for a square stone that contains the practical light source. A moment later, the room also contains Angel, who plummets down and crashes to the ground. Echoey voices declare, "It is [sic] come, the champion has come, come for what, answers not to be had, death is certain, yes my precious, I am your father, the Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" and so on. Angel says that he wants to talk to the Conduit, and of course, that's just what the echoey voices are. I think in its off-hours, the Conduit doubles as the Guardian of Forever. Angel says he has a message for TPTB, and the Conduit snaps that it's not a message service, and then Angel's all, "Well, I'll just wait here till TPTB show up, then," and pulls out a bag lunch. And the Conduit tries to tell him that TPTB might not even show up today, because they had a big meeting downtown, and that if Angel would like to schedule an appointment for three months from now, the Conduit will be happy to arrange that, but Angel isn't interested. Then the Conduit sighs and tries to ignore him for a while, and starts doing its nails. Angel eats his bag lunch and flips through the magazines, and gets engrossed in a Reader's Digest story about a family that learned important life lessons from their pet gerbil, but finally he gets bored and starts yelling that TPTB should take away Cordy's visions. The Conduit, who doesn't get paid enough to put up with this kind of thing, sends Angel flying across the room and into a wall. Twice. The Conduit says, "The Powers owe nothing. Send it away." But Angel isn't done yet. No sir!