Angel had a rough fourth season, a stellar final season, and it gave us a chance to see some of our favorite characters take on another life. It also trashed Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) as a character and then turned around and killed off Fred (Amy Acker). Great!
Time has told us why Cordy ended up with the worst possible storyline in season 4, and yes, the Fred-to-Illyria pipeline would have been sad but fine had I not sat through the previous season, but still, we were stuck with the end of Angel being a lackluster time for women. We went from a show about a badass woman to one that became a boys’ club.
Watching the show from the first season on through season 5, it is kind of depressing to see how it just becomes the guys leading the charge. Wesley (Alexis Denisof), Gunn (J. August Richards), Spike (James Marsters), and Angel (David Boreanaz) are the main characters trying to save the world in the end. They’re the ones there to try to save Fred, and there isn’t another woman as part of that main group—and it’s depressing to see.
Carpenter has talked about how she felt like she was punished by Joss Whedon for getting pregnant with her son and how it inevitably led to Cordy being written off the show in season 4. That led into Fred’s death and the rise of Illyria in such a way that makes it feel like the show thinks women are weak unless they’re possessed by some otherworldly power.
Watching as Cordelia was forced to sleep with Angel’s son Connor (Vincent Kartheiser), as part of some grand plan of the powers that be to force them to have a child together, felt like watching a show go off the deep end with just its female characters. And for what? That storyline is heralded as the arc people skip when they rewatch the series.
What happened to Cordy ruined whatever fun could be had with Illyria
During childbirth, Cordelia slips into a coma, where she stays until her death in season 5, with Carpenter’s return for the 100th episode. Not 3 episodes later, Fred also dies. “A Hole in the World” has Fred dying in Wesley’s arms when the men of her team fail in finding a cure for her illness—or more that Angel has the option to save Fred but chooses not to in the end.
It results in Illyria taking over Fred’s body and becoming this powerful being in Fred’s wake, a storyline that I would have probably liked fine had I not just watched Cordelia die in childbirth for a villain that lasted five episodes of a horrible season.
Whatever interesting elements exist within the Illyria storyline, they’re damaged by the pain of what happened to Cordelia. So my heart ached knowing that not only was I yet again denied time with my OTP on the show (I loved the idea of Angel/Cordy and Wes/Fred), but I was also watching a woman die once more for some “greater purpose” when the men get to carry on being heroes.
Yes, the saving grace for me was the reversal of Fred’s death, with Wesley dying in Illyria’s arms, but it was still all tarnished because of how the show had treated these women.
(featured image: The CW)
