It's Cordelia's birthday, but before she has a chance to celebrate it she receives a vision and is thrown across the room, hitting a glass cabinet and falling into a coma. As she tries to communicate her vision message, she is met by Skip, a demon who gives her a choice: live her dream of being an actress or die with her next vision…

Not only furthering Cordelia's character development this season but also dealing with her ongoing vision pain, thought explained in That Vision Thing, this episode is a welcome return to more standalone stories. Thankfully the new baby doesn't get in the way of proceedings, but you kind of get the impression that the parallel universe angle enables the writer to get away with it a bit. In future I suspect that in episodes where The Host doesn't appear, he'll be mentioned to be babysitting.

What's so good here is that we get to see the real strength of Cordy and how her experiences have changed her. Even her acting persona shows growth and a loss of the shallowness that she had back in Sunnydale. Charisma Carpenter beautifully plays Cordy's courage and toughness, not to mention her resolute determination, while David Boreanaz is once more allowed to show how close Angel is getting to her, although his hurtful words that she overhears may come back to haunt him. It's also fun to see Gunn falling for Fred in a nicely underplayed scene at Cordy's home.

Meanwhile, there's the return of the demon Skip, seen earlier in the year in the aforementioned That Vision Thing., who is still a nice little character despite not having a huge amount to do, and it's interesting to see how Angel and his team might have turned out without Cordelia, particularly when she meets Wesley who she now hasn't seen since his time in Sunnydale. Good to see their kiss referenced once more.

The reason this doesn't get full marks is that the switch into 'parallel universe' mode partway through is a little sneaky, rather than finding another way of dealing with things, but it does redeem itself by moving quickly away from the details of Cordy's new acting life and back onto the main plot, even if it does scream out It's a Wonderful Life. At the end of the day, though, it gains big marks for an unexpected solution to Cordelia's problem that will certainly make for some interesting stories in the future as she explores her new life.

****

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