The original intent of Evil Cordelia?

[orpheusxi]

As we all know for Season 4 Cordelia was going to be the big bad, but due to Charisma's pregnancy things were forced to be changed with some last minute re-writes. It was revealed that originally the season finale was supposed to have Angel & Evil Cordelia have a dramatic face off to the finish. It seems kind of odd for her to just become evil out of the blue so I was wondering were the intentions of why Cordelia was supposed to be evil ever spoken about?

 

[VisionGirl]

I don't know, I never quite got the details of that. I do know that they wanted Glenn Quinn (Doyle) involved but that obviously couldn't happen due to his death. It just pisses me off that they had Cordy spend half the season in a coma. Really, Joss, you were that mad at her for not revealing her pregnancy right away? Grow up. The writers could've been much more creative about the whole thing. People get pregnant, it's called life.

 

[MixolydiaJCF]

I think the possession thing makes more sense unless instead of being possessed while being in the other dimensions (I forget what it's called in Angel), she was influenced and corrupted by it and decided to do something about the world. I don't know how that would have worked out maybe she would have been like Dark Willow, because Cordelia was obviously more powerful than she normally was with Jasmine inhabiting her - (throwing knives at Willow, knocking people out, loads of Charisma [wink] to influence others like the Beast). We also don't know what scale of power or what power(s) she would have had IF she had been the true big bad and not Jasmine instead, but I'm guessing they would have been pretty phenominal considering she became a higher-up and was influenced/possessed by them in the show's canon.

 

[Hale Caesar]

As we all know for Season 4 Cordelia was going to be the big bad, but due to Charisma's pregnancy things were forced to be changed with some last minute re-writes. It was revealed that originally the season finale was supposed to have Angel & Evil Cordelia have a dramatic face off to the finish. It seems kind of odd for her to just become evil out of the blue so I was wondering were the intentions of why Cordelia was supposed to be evil ever spoken about?

I don't think we ever got concrete evidence on what was supposed to happen in Season 4, but we have heard lots of rumors. I heard what [MENTION=10354]VisionGirl[/MENTION] said. Glenn Quinn was supposed to come back as Doyle, and Cordelia was supposed to be evil but Jasmine would never have happened. Cordelia and Angel were just going to fight it out.

Joss was apparently really pissed at Charisma, because he wrote her out of Season 5, and he said it was because "her character was done"...but that's bullsh*t. Xander had been done since season 5, but Joss had a stronger connection to Xander than Cordelia, so he kept him on the show for 3 more seasons.

 

[MixolydiaJCF]

I don't think we ever got concrete evidence on what was supposed to happen in Season 4, but we have heard lots of rumors. I heard what [MENTION=10354]VisionGirl[/MENTION] said. Glenn Quinn was supposed to come back as Doyle, and Cordelia was supposed to be evil but Jasmine would never have happened. Cordelia and Angel were just going to fight it out.

Joss was apparently really pissed at Charisma, because he wrote her out of Season 5, and he said it was because "her character was done"...but that's bullsh*t. Xander had been done since season 5, but Joss had a stronger connection to Xander than Cordelia, so he kept him on the show for 3 more seasons.

Did Joss actually fire Charisma because she was pregnant, she could have sought legal action? And I agree other characters on Buffy were more or less done as well, but were given "bigger" roles but I digress.

 

[Hale Caesar]

Did Joss actually fire Charisma because she was pregnant, she could have sought legal action? And I agree other characters on Buffy were more or less done as well, but were given "bigger" roles but I digress.

Joss did an interview a while back with TV Guide (there's no link to the actual interview, but it's real, i've read the same thing on other sites)

Now that Angelus and Co. have assumed control of Wolfram & Hart on Angel, we suggest they use their new seat of power to solve the show's biggest mystery: What the heck happened to Charisma Carpenter and her alter ego Cordelia? Carpenter — a former Buffy cast member who, like David Boreanaz, has been with the show since its inception — went off to have a baby last season and hasn't been heard from since. (Cordy remains in a coma on the show.) Making matters more murky, a new Angel cast list makes no mention of the actress. The WB and 20th Century Fox have been cagey about the omission, and numerous attempts to make contact with Carpenter's agent have proven unsuccessful. So, what's a journalist to do? Go straight to the big boss himself, Joss Whedon.


TV Guide Online: Why was Charisma's name removed from next season's cast list?
Joss Whedon: Mainly because we felt like we had taken that story — just like Buffy for seven years — about as far as it could go. The Angel/Cordelia [love story] had gone pretty much as far as we wanted to take it. Their romance was definitely not a popular move on our part, and I think with most fans. It just seemed like it was time because we were revamping the show, and then paring it down... it just seemed like a good time for certain people to move on. Not completely, obviously. I'm hoping that we'll get Charisma to do some episodes as Cordelia sometime during the year. She's a new mother, so, like Sarah [Michelle Gellar], I'm waiting to hear what her schedule is like. But it just seemed creatively like... I once said that I finally got to tell the story of Buffy that I tried to tell in the movie, and I did it with Cordelia. Which was the story of someone who was completely ditzy and self-involved becoming kind of heroic. But the way the series was different from the movie was that I didn't know where you go from there. So, I felt like we spent seven years playing that very arc, and it had played. Like Buffy itself, it's time to look at something new.

TVGO: Isn't that a disservice to fans who invested all those years in the character and her redemption? It seems an odd thing to do to the show's leading lady.
Whedon: That's a fluctuating concept, the leading lady thing. And it is a little odd. Some choices are ultimately kind of controversial about who stays and who goes and who we focus on. But obviously, we had to have her out of a bunch of episodes toward the end of the year because she was having a baby... so what we had [leading] up to it wasn't a dynamic I wanted to play out that much. The fact is, this is not the end — unless Charisma herself says, "You know what? I don't feel like doing any recurring episodes." But when you have an increasingly large ensemble week-by-week, and you come in in your [fifth] year kind of having to revamp the show and trim the budget and also think creatively, "How am I going to service all of these people?," sometimes the people who have been around the longest, you've done the most with them.

TVGO: Some are speculating that she was a casualty of James Marsters's cross over as Spike next season. Like, there wasn't enough money in the budget to pay for them both, so she got the boot.
Whedon: That's a hell of a thing to lay on James. It was a creative decision that we made before Spike came over to the show, and like I said, I don't intend to leave Cordelia in a coma for the rest of the Buffyverse. But the creative decision to have the character step down happened long before negotiations with James [started]. It should not be laid at his feet.

TVGO: Were things left on good terms with Charisma?
Whedon: Yeah, but that's also stuff between us and not stuff that I would talk about in an interview.

I don't agree with Joss. Xander was done in season 5. Giles was done in season 6. Only Buffy and Spike had real stories in Season 7. I don't see any real reason why Charisma was not part of Season 5 either than he was just mad

 

[orpheusxi]

Charisma actually spoke upon Cordelia Season 4 & the Joss situation in this video at the 4 minute mark all the way to the very end

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_igTbXKPck"]Felicia Day, Kristy Swanson, Julie Benz, Charisma Carpenter DragonCon 2009 Friday 5 - YouTube[/ame]

It wasn't too specific, but it definitely shed a bit more light to her side of the story. It's also nice to know that they put it behind him & she didn't speak of him in a bad or resentful way. I definitely think its odd though because I think its more complex than "Joss being mad at her for becoming pregnant". I recall somewhere in either the extras or Firefly/Serenity or a random interview Gina Torres came to Joss saying something to the effect of "Look, If the show manages to continue, Zoe's getting knocked up eventually" & based off of her describing that Joss didn't seem to mind at all. She was just as pivotal Firefly as Charisma was to Angel.

As far as there being nothing more left to do with Cordelia I definitely disagree but under the premise that events in Season 3 (specifically the half demon powers & Cangel relationship) were changed. Characters like Giles & Xander were definitely done, but at the same time they didn't write them so far left into a corner like they did Cordelia (and Connor) in Season 4.

 

[Taake]

I don't agree with Joss. Xander was done in season 5. Giles was done in season 6. Only Buffy and Spike had real stories in Season 7. I don't see any real reason why Charisma was not part of Season 5 either than he was just mad

I agree with Joss when he puts it like that - taking someone from ditzy to heroic... if that was the journey he wanted for Cordy then I can see how he kind of thought it was finished.

I just wished Cordy turning evil could have been different... because I think Charisma could have been bloody brilliant at it (truly scary y'know) if she had been given better material than "you're possessed by an evil baby and action"... (no wonder Charisma was bitter)

If Doyle would've come back then they could have been an evil duo somehow I imagine with Cordy seeing the error of her ways at the end after some kind of face-off with Angel. I think that would have been far more emotionally significant and powerful rather than going "oh Cordy never came back. Not the real-Cordy anyway". Real Cordy could've been badass, it sucks that they didn't give her the chance.

 

[Hale Caesar]

I agree with Joss when he puts it like that - taking someone from ditzy to heroic... if that was the journey he wanted for Cordy then I can see how he kind of thought it was finished.

I just wished Cordy turning evil could have been different... because I think Charisma could have been bloody brilliant at it (truly scary y'know) if she had been given better material than "you're possessed by an evil baby and action"... (no wonder Charisma was bitter)

If Doyle would've come back then they could have been an evil duo somehow I imagine with Cordy seeing the error of her ways at the end after some kind of face-off with Angel. I think that would have been far more emotionally significant and powerful rather than going "oh Cordy never came back. Not the real-Cordy anyway". Real Cordy could've been badass, it sucks that they didn't give her the chance.

I agree that her journey was a very complete one, but looking at Joss's history that's no reason to take her off the show. Xanders journey from high school nerd to responsible man was also very complete, but he stayed on the show for 3 full seasons, and the same can be said for Giles in season 6.

So, I agree her story might have been complete, but she shouldn't have been written off the show. I honestly believe that's just an excuse though, I believe he was mad at her for ruining the end of his season

 

[caritas08]

I'm gonna play devil's advocate and say that maybe Joss just couldn't think how Cordelia's character would fit in with the WR&H truce in Season 5. I just can't see Cordy consenting to that like the others did so maybe he really didn't know what to do with her character. Also, I'm pretty sure she was in a coma at the end of Season 4 because of maternity leave. It's probably not true but I heard that the brief period when Cordy goes off for a vacation with Groo in Season 3 was because of complications Charisma had due to a miscarriage or something.

As per the original question.....I think that Cordy would have become "evil" by siding with the PTB over Angel. We would have gotten to know more about the actual Powers and Angel would have clashed with them and Cordelia about how to go about fighting the good fight or something. I think their would have been a lot of grey area and interesting points brought up about free will versus "good" guys making decisions for everyone "for their own good" (something Angel himself has been guilty of on more than one occasion).

 

[nightshade]

It's probably not true but I heard that the brief period when Cordy goes off for a vacation with Groo in Season 3 was because of complications Charisma had due to a miscarriage or something.

If I remember correctly she took time away in order to deal with the miscarriage, which is why she left it until later to tell everyone about her second pregnancy.

 

[VisionGirl]

If I remember correctly she took time away in order to deal with the miscarriage, which is why she left it until later to tell everyone about her second pregnancy.

Which is totally understandable- it is very common for women who have suffered a pregnancy loss to wait until they're sure the subsequent pregnancy is viable. 1st trimester miscarriage is extremely common: 10-25% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.

Anyway I think that stuff Joss said is total B.S. Her character was NOT finished IMO. In fact, the Higher Power thing was totally lame. And in retrospect, a total set-up. I think there should've been some negative consequences to her being half demon, and I think season 5 Cordy (or Jasmine-in-Cordy's body) should have had to deal with her feelings about the death she wrought in season 4.

 

[badwolf]

Oh wow--can you say drama? I've just heard about this (well actually read this thread) and i'm a bit stunned TBH. I thought it was all cool between the cast and Whedon...wow 😵 And I just read a whole bunch of spoilers and I am so pissed off with this show...evil Cordy, getting it on with Conner...What the...season 4 is gonna be so weird to watch now..totally jumped the shark, man...

 

[Hale Caesar]

Oh wow--can you say drama? I've just heard about this (well actually read this thread) and i'm a bit stunned TBH. I thought it was all cool between the cast and Whedon...wow 😵 And I just read a whole bunch of spoilers and I am so pissed off with this show...evil Cordy, getting it on with Conner...What the...season 4 is gonna be so weird to watch now..totally jumped the shark, man...

Season 5 is amazing though, IMO the best Buffyverse season. It doesn't have Cordelia, but it's still my favorite. Don't lose faith on Angel!

 

[Dagenspear]

If I remember correctly she took time away in order to deal with the miscarriage, which is why she left it until later to tell everyone about her second pregnancy.

Oh, wow. 🙁 I had no idea that she'd had a miscarriage prior. I feel so sad for her now. I hope she got through it okay... obviously she did, but still... I hope she's okay now.

---------- Post added at 09:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:01 AM ----------

Oh wow--can you say drama? I've just heard about this (well actually read this thread) and i'm a bit stunned TBH. I thought it was all cool between the cast and Whedon...wow 😵 And I just read a whole bunch of spoilers and I am so pissed off with this show...evil Cordy, getting it on with Conner...What the...season 4 is gonna be so weird to watch now..totally jumped the shark, man...

If it makes you feel better... Cordelia is possessed by and Evil Demon Goddess when she's doing all this, so she can use Cordy's body to give birth to itself. So... it's not really her.

 

[Dagenspear]

It does make me feel better. A lot.

Good. I'm glad I could help.