I'm Still Furious About the Character Assassination of Cordelia Chase

There are a lot of things I’ve emotionally processed from my adolescence. The end of Cordelia Chase in Angel is not one of them. And frankly? I refuse to heal.

Cordelia Chase had one of the best, most organic character arcs in the Buffyverse. From shallow, bitchy high school queen bee to fiercely loyal, self-made hero with a moral compass stronger than half the Watcher's Council combined. She didn’t get superpowers by accident. She earned every inch of her growth. She got visions. She got purpose. She found family. She became the heart of Angel Investigations.

And what did she get in return?

Possessed. Comatose. Killed off-screen. Character-assassinated so violently it felt personal.

It wasn’t just a bad arc. It was a calculated erasure of everything she had built. First they stripped her of agency by making her possessed by Jasmine. Then they blamed her for it. Then they wrote her out like she was an inconvenient subplot instead of the emotional centre of the entire damn show.

The most insulting part? They were building something real with her and Angel. A slow-burn, tender, adult love story — the kind neither of them had ever truly had before. It wasn’t about teenage obsession or tortured pining. It was about partnership. Trust. Growth. The look Angel gives her in "You're Welcome" still hurts because it’s filled with everything they were robbed of.

Cordelia wasn't a consolation prize because Buffy was gone. She was Angel's equal. She called him on his self-pity. She laughed at him when he brooded too hard. She loved him enough to see the man and the mission, flaws and all.

And the showrunners couldn't handle it.

So instead of letting that love story play out—instead of letting Cordelia stay messy, brilliant, powerful—they threw her into a coma and moved on like she hadn't carried the emotional load of three seasons.

Knowing what we know now about the toxic mess behind the scenes (waves aggressively at Joss Whedon), it’s even harder to swallow. Charisma Carpenter deserved better. Cordelia Chase definitely deserved better. And we, the fans, deserved better.

And yes, Angel deserved better, too. Because the thing is? Buffy might have been Angel's first love. But Cordelia was his last.

In this house, we do not forgive. We do not forget. We light a candle for Cordelia Chase—forever the real champion of the Buffyverse.