Cordelia’s Absence

S

SlayerThe

My
Joined
Jun 18, 2004
Messages
1,084
Age
39
Location
Tar Heel State
I find it strange that Cordelia was never really discussed in Season Four.

When did she leave? Did she tell the gang? Did they know that her family lost everything? Was there some gathering at the bus station where they sent her off and watched her leave?

Buffy apparently knew that Cordelia was in L.A., and then later working with Angel.

Also, the transcripts show something interesting:

Daylight. Xander is walking along a street and pauses at the window of a shop. He sees Cordelia inside holding up a dress. He starts, stops, looks for a moment more. He goes inside.
Xander: I have a theory. Your snide remarks earlier? I'm guessing grapes a little on the sour side. Didn't get into any schools, did you? The grades were there, but ooh, if it weren't for that pesky interview. Ten minutes with you and the Admissions Department decided that they'd already reached their mean-spirited superficial princess quotas.
Cordelia: And once again, the gold medal in the Being Wrong event goes to Xander "I'm as stupid as I look" Harris. (takes envelopes from her purse) Read 'em and weep, creep. USC, Colorado State, Duke, and Columbia.
Xander: Wow! These are great colleges. I'm guessing they must have seen a different side of your father's money.
Cordelia: (snatches the letters away from him) Go away.
Xander: Sure! If you'll excuse me, I have to go back to helping to save some lives. Carry on. I know that you have some important accessorizing to do.
Xander leaves. Cordelia looks unhappy.
Click to expand...

Cordelia had good grades and good test scores, good enough to get in to Duke and Columbia (two of the top schools in the country, in addition to Columbia being among the prestigious Ivy League), so why could she not get financial aid? Most probably because of her father's IRS problems, but she could have student loaned her education, especially at USC. And even more, she probably could have stayed and went to UC-Sunnydale.

Or maybe she just wanted out of Sunnyhell.
 
I think she wanted out of Sunnydale, cause I can't remember when but im sure at one point she spoke not so fondly of her parents. Plus at UC Sunnydale all her old friends would have been like "ahh poor Cordelia, she lost all her money and her dad went to prison" or be little bitcas about her.
 
I've always wondered why they never brought up the fact that Cordelia was gone. I was expecting in the first episode for it to be explained, like when Buffy and Willow were talking about Xander in the library. I was expecting a "I wonder how Cordelia's doing in L.A." But no, we never got it.

I never really thought about it again, because right after that, I found out that Cordelia was in fact in LA, and it never really registered again.

I think that she probably decided to blow off going to college to pursue her acting career.
 
I found it kinda weird that they didn't emphasize on her leaving either. I may be wrong but I think that Cordelia is the only main character on Buffy to leave without an explanation and actually seeing her leave. Angel broke up with Buffy and we saw him leave. Oz had that thing with Veruca and had to leave and when he did come back, Willow was already with Tara so he left again. Riley went back to the initative and got married. Giles went to England but kept coming back once in a while. Tara got shot and died. Anya died at the final battle. Last but not least, Spike died while closing the Hellmouth. See? Cordelia was the only regular who didn't have a proper exit. It used to bother me a little but I think her grand finale on Angel more than makes up for it.
 
Also, another question.

Did Cordelia really ever mention her family on Angel? She never went back to Sunnydale for the holidays or visits? That is also odd.
 
Slayer said:
Also, another question.

Did Cordelia really ever mention her family on Angel? She never went back to Sunnydale for the holidays or visits? That is also odd.
Click to expand...


I always figured they were in jail because of the tax fraud.
 
And we never saw her parents for all of those 7 years.

It wouldve been cool if they had Cordy go on Xanders little road trip with him and he ends up dropping her off in LA and they leave on good terms, but its just one of those little bad slips that they forgot about.
 
I don't think her mom was in jail because in the Angel episode Sense and Sensitivity Angel tells Cordelia that her mom called and that she should call her back. Although her dad might have gone to jail because in the Buffy episode The Prom, Cordy says "Daddy made a little mistake on his taxes.For the last twelve years." Maybe Cordy's mom wasn't aware of her husband's tax fraud which is why maybe Daddy went to jail and mommy didn't.
 
Primal Slayer said:
And we never saw her parents for all of those 7 years.
Click to expand...

Actually theres a pic of them seen in early S4, when Cordy is trying to get her memory back, but yeah thats the closest we get. Go to the "Find me a picture of" game in the games forum and you'll be able to get a pic of the pic.
 
From a character based view i can understand why Cordy wasn't exactly a major topic of conversation through season four onwards. Her main reason for hanging with the Scoobies was her relationship with Xander. I can't imagine that any of the other Scoobies would really have described themselves as being close to Cordy.

It's like in any group of friends, there are always people there that are only really linked to one other individual, say a boyfriend or girlfriend, and once that relationship ends they drift away again. It was fairly obvious in I Will Remember You that there was still no real affection between Buffy and Cordy. They weren't really friends in any way.

From a story telling point of view it was obviously neccessary to have Cordy already in L.A. by the time of City Of and so the only place to show her leaving would have been at the end of Graduation Day. Obviously this wasn't going to be possible if you wanted to end the third season with the big battle with the Mayor Snake. It would have been something of an anti-climax to then cut to a scene of the Scoobies standing at a bus station, waving Cordy off. Also there is no reason to beieve she left straight away. It could have been a month or more later when Cordy finally left.

So given the fact that there was no real place to show the "Cordy leaving" scene, added to the fact that she wasn't really that close to the other Scoobs, i think it makes most sense that we are left to our own devices to imagine the details. I've always pictured it pretty much being Cordy and Xander hugging and Buffy, Willow and Giles maybe standing in the background just to show some sort of Scooby solidarity as Cordy steps onto the bus and disappears to her new life in Los Angeles. No big, emotional scene. Just a very basic farewell to an old acquaintance.
 
W
Wilkins
Olé!
Cordeila is actually mentioned in season four, although in an off-handed sort of way.

In "Pangs", when Angel comes back and reveals himself to Willow, she asks if Cordelia is actually working for him. So there must have been some contact between her and the Scoobies. And if I'm not mistaken, Cordy calls Willow on more than one occasion for help on a computer problem.
 
Well, by the time of Pangs there had already been at least one crossover, in the form of Oz's visit in In The Dark. The Scoobies seemed to know that Angel had settled in L.A. by that point (hence why the knew where to find him) but it was never made clear if they already knew that he was working with Cordy. However they obviously would have known once Oz returned to Sunnydale. With that in mind it is quite possible that there really had been no direct contact between Cordy and the others prior to that.

I think the next time we know for a fact that Cordy spoke to anyone in Sunnydale was when she needed the Wolfram & Hart discs decrypted in Blind Date. I guess it was just common sense that she would call Willow under those circumstances. That doesn't neccessarily suggest that they ever spoke to each other just as friends though. She certainly had no idea about Willow's newfound sexuality when they spoke in Disharmony.
 
I think by the time they had taped Graduation, Joss told/asked Charisma if she would go over to Angel and she ended up going thus the open ended leaving for Cordelia between Graduation and The City Of. Charisma thought she would still be on Buffy before she knew of going to Angel.
 
Actually i'm pretty sure that Charisma joining the new Angel spinoff was planned well in advance of Graduation Day. That was why they went with the whole storyline of her parents losing all their money, giving her a reason to move to L.A. and try to become an actress.
 
The Watcher said:
From a character based view i can understand why Cordy wasn't exactly a major topic of conversation through season four onwards. Her main reason for hanging with the Scoobies was her relationship with Xander. I can't imagine that any of the other Scoobies would really have described themselves as being close to Cordy.

It's like in any group of friends, there are always people there that are only really linked to one other individual, say a boyfriend or girlfriend, and once that relationship ends they drift away again. It was fairly obvious in I Will Remember You that there was still no real affection between Buffy and Cordy. They weren't really friends in any way.

From a story telling point of view it was obviously neccessary to have Cordy already in L.A. by the time of City Of and so the only place to show her leaving would have been at the end of Graduation Day. Obviously this wasn't going to be possible if you wanted to end the third season with the big battle with the Mayor Snake. It would have been something of an anti-climax to then cut to a scene of the Scoobies standing at a bus station, waving Cordy off. Also there is no reason to beieve she left straight away. It could have been a month or more later when Cordy finally left.

So given the fact that there was no real place to show the "Cordy leaving" scene, added to the fact that she wasn't really that close to the other Scoobs, i think it makes most sense that we are left to our own devices to imagine the details. I've always pictured it pretty much being Cordy and Xander hugging and Buffy, Willow and Giles maybe standing in the background just to show some sort of Scooby solidarity as Cordy steps onto the bus and disappears to her new life in Los Angeles. No big, emotional scene. Just a very basic farewell to an old acquaintance.
Click to expand...

well in the first episode of series 4 if buffy they could have shown cordy leaving and xander leaving and then carried on with the episode by doing a three months later kind of thing
 
Xin Rong said:
well in the first episode of series 4 if buffy they could have shown cordy leaving and xander leaving and then carried on with the episode by doing a three months later kind of thing
Click to expand...

They could have done that, but why bother? If it wasn't needed for the start of season four then why break the momentum of the new status quo?

Like i said, the event was never really going to be all that memorable, given their relationships with each other. Hardly worth going out of their way to film the scene.
 
I think the main question to ask is:

Would it even have affected the storylines they dealt with?

Obviously not, otherwise they wouldn't have mentioned it.

Damn, I thought this thread was about how much ya'll missed me during my brief hiatus 🙂
 
I understand the not having a part to say bye to Cordy at the end of s3 it's like "we beat the giant snake and blew up the school, now lets go see Cordy off." Like it wasn't that important to any of them.. Xander had his closure with her at the prom when she emphasised saying "THANK YOU" (meaning for the dress) and the others didn't really need any. Cordy was pretty much rapped up on Buffy for me when she staked a vamp in the fight and then walked away at the end with the scoobies.
However, in s4 there could have at least been some talk of Cordy, the nxt time we hear her name is in "Pangs" and Angel completely disregards the question Willow asks about Cordelia. We don't really hear of her on BTVS untill Buffy describes Glory as being "kind of like Cordelia" in s5.
I believe that Cordy needed to pay a final visit to the gang in Sunnydale when she was all heroic, and now, she'll never get the chance.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom