Talk:Birthday

Not Quite
As someone who watches this episode a lot since it's a favorite, I'd like to point out a few errors in the content of this page. If there is any protest you can remove this.

First in the 'Continuity' section:

"Skip's warning to Cordelia that if she keeps the visions and stays human, she'll stay in the coma and her next vision will kill her, foreshadows "You're Welcome”."

Not true.

Firstly the warning was that if she remained in the coma rather than re-locating to the AU where she would have never inherited the visions ergo ensuring her life. Whether or not she was to remain human did not come into play until that final scene because before then, that option was never bought up.

While this does have me newley considering the possiblity that it was the vision she had of Angel in impending danger that stopped her heart in 'You're Welcome', Cordelia was not in that coma due to the visions and that episode was not intended to feature her.

Ergo it's not a foreshadow.

"(in "The Wish", Cordelia wishes for Buffy Summers to have never 'came' to 'Sunnydale,' while in "Birthday" she wishes for herself to have never 'ran' into Angel)"

Here there was no wish, Skip had pushed that the only way her life could be spared at this point was to be re-located into an AU where she'd made it as an actress rather than joined Angel and thus inherited the visions.

(which he then had to convince her to go along with by taking her to see an out of context portion of what Angel was yelling about her to the conduit.)

Bloopers:

The first time I noticed this I thought it was a blooper as well but recently I've found reasonable doubt. Cordelia wasn't just "blown backward", a shadow shoved her out of Angel's body that is identical to the form which a few moments later precedes Skip's entrance kind of like a rock star dry ice effect.
 * "Angel (possessed by Cordelia) writes an address on a wall. The address is gone in the next shot when he's blown backward."

 Ergo it appeared to have been Skip who had intercepted that message. He apparently did not want Cordelia to achieve contact with the gang.

 My theory is that the AU in this episode while containing a few truths, was phony (I could write an essay on several subtle details that don't add up), that it and her ending up in the position to elect to become half-demon were all steps to prepare her to host Jasmine in season 4. One thing that IS solid fact is that Skip was actually allied with her NOT the PTB.

 I haven't exactly figured out what the threat was in Cordelia's getting that address through to the gang but my best guess so far is that because that vision was of the AU Skip was concerned about his true agenda being revealed (which would be ironic since the gang was far from intiutive in season 4 when it was right in front of them that Cordelia wasn't herself, particularly for Angel that was very sad).