Cordelia Chase first appears in the première episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, titled "Welcome to the Hellmouth". Introduced as a potential friend for Sunnydale High's newest student, Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Cordelia reveals her true colors by verbally attacking Willow (Alyson Hannigan), whom Buffy befriends instead. Ignorant of the supernatural, Cordelia shows up regularly throughout the first season of Buffy to insult and ridicule the other characters. She plays a larger role in the episode "Out of Mind, Out of Sight", in which she falls victim to a social outcast who wants revenge on popular students for ignoring her so much that she turned invisible. In the season finale, Cordelia helps Buffy and her friends battle vampires, finally coming to terms with the existence of supernatural forces. In season two, Cordelia becomes a more active ally to the "Scooby Gang" and begins a romantic relationship with Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon). In "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", dating someone of Xander's social status causes Cordelia to become ostracised from her popular peers and she reluctantly breaks up with him. However, when Xander performs a love spell to pay her back for hurting him, Cordelia realises how much he cares about her and takes him back, rejecting her superficial friends in the process. In season three's "Lovers Walk", Cordelia suffers heartbreak when Xander cheats on her with Willow, which ends their relationship. By the season three episode "The Wish", Cordelia slips back into her antagonistic persona from the first season, disassociating herself from the Scooby Gang altogether. In the episode "The Prom", she reveals that her family's wealth has been seized for tax fraud. Cordelia later attempts an unsuccessful relationship with Wesley (Alexis Denisof) and makes peace with Xander at the prom. In the season three finale, she rallies alongside Buffy and her friends at graduation against the demonic Mayor of Sunnydale (Harry Groener), where Cordelia slays her first vampire.
After three seasons on Buffy, Cordelia moved over to star in Angel, a spin-off series focusing on Buffy's vampire ex-lover Angel (David Boreanaz). The first season of Angel sees Cordelia move to Los Angeles, in the hopes of escaping her new-found poverty by becoming an actress. After Angel saves her life in the series pilot, Cordelia helps him found the supernatural detective agency Angel Investigations, working in an administrative position. She also becomes close to half-demon co-worker Doyle (Glenn Quinn), but their budding romance is ended by his death ten episodes into the series. Before dying in the episode "Hero", Doyle passes his ability to see people in distress over to Cordelia when he kisses her. Although she initially views the visions as a curse, in the season one finale, a demon causes Cordelia's visions to overwhelm her—causing her to experience worldwide pain—and upon her recovery she vows to help those in need. In season two's "Reunion", Cordelia and the other staff at Angel Investigations are fired by Angel, who is becoming increasingly obsessed with bringing down the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart. Cordelia joins Wesley and Charles Gunn (J. August Richards) in re-forming the agency on their own. Angel and Cordelia eventually reconcile in the episode "Epiphany". As her acting career continues to flounder, Cordelia is sucked into and made princess of a medieval hell dimension called Pylea in the season two episode "Over the Rainbow". When presented with the opportunity to pass her visions over to a champion named the Groosalugg (Mark Lutz), Cordelia refuses and returns to L.A. with her friends in the season two finale.
In season three's "Birthday", Cordelia learns from the demon Skip (David Denman) that her visions are slowly killing her because human beings are not strong enough to control them. To save her life, Cordelia accepts Skip's offer to alter history so that she never met Angel in L.A., instead landing her big break as an actress. However, even in this alternate timeline, Cordelia feels compelled to help others and eventually crosses paths with Angel again, who received the visions in her place and is now insane. Unable to let her friend suffer, Cordelia has Skip return the timeline to normal, and agrees to become half-demon, with new powers, in order to harbor the visions safely. This season also sees Angel become a father, with Cordelia stepping in to mother the infant Connor until he is kidnapped into a hell dimension in the episode "Sleep Tight", only to emerge as a disturbed teenager (Vincent Kartheiser) in "The Price". In the episode "Waiting in the Wings", Angel realizes he has romantic feelings for Cordelia, but is prevented from voicing them by the return of Groosalugg. Cordelia dates Groosalugg for the remainder of the season, but Groo notices she loves Angel instead and decides to leave. In the season finale, Cordelia arranges to meet Angel to confess her feelings, but is prevented from doing so by Skip, who informs her that she has become a higher being. Cordelia accepts her duty, and leaves Earth for another dimension.[26] In season four, Cordelia feels trapped in her poisiton as a higher being,[27][28] and so in the episode "The House Always Wins" she returns to Earth in an amnesiac state.[29] In "Spin the Bottle", her memories are returned via a spell, along with a vision of a mysterious Beast (Vladimir Kulich). Afterward, she admits to Angel the feelings she once had for him.[30] As L.A. succumbs to the apocalypse in season four's "Apocalypse, Nowish", Cordelia begins to behave out-of-character; she seduces Connor,[31] murders Lilah (Stephanie Romanov) in the episode "Calvary",[32] commands the Beast in "Salvage",[33] and magically battles former friend Willow to keep Angel from his soul in the episode "Orpheus".[34] In season four's "Players", the team realize that the now pregnant Cordelia is possessed,[35] so Cordelia takes the unstable Connor on the run with her so they may give birth to their supernatural offspring, Jasmine (Gina Torres). In "Inside Out", Skip explains that Jasmine is his master, and a higher being who possessed Cordelia before her returning to Earth, manipulating events to be born in a new body of her own.[36]
Cordelia falls into a post-natal coma for the remainder of season four. Following an eleven-episode absence, Cordelia returns to Angel in season five, in the 100th episode "You're Welcome". Having apparently awoken from her coma, Cordelia reunites with Angel Investigations, who she discovers have taken over Wolfram & Hart since their defeat of Jasmine. She chastises Angel for accepting W&H's "deal with the devil", and reminds him of his true mission and higher calling. Together, they face and defeat their old enemy Lindsey McDonald (Christian Kane), who had been impersonating Doyle in an attempt to destroy Angel. In the episode's closing moments, Cordelia reiterates to Angel that she loves him and kisses him, shortly before he receives a phone call reporting that Cordelia died that morning. When Angel turns around, Cordelia is gone. It is later revealed that this encounter—the Powers That Be repaying their debt to Cordelia—allowed Cordelia to pass one last vision over to Angel, giving him the knowledge he needs to bring down the Circle of the Black Thorn.
