In the fourth season of Angel, she appears to take on a villainous role before it is revealed that she is possessed by a malevolent deity; this storyline eventually leads to her death and subsequent exit from the series.

The character went through changes as she gradually redeemed herself throughout the course of Buffy and Angel, and has received attention in academic texts related to gender studies and social status.

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.

[7] In the season 3 finale, she rallies alongside Buffy and her friends at graduation against the demonic Mayor of Sunnydale (Harry Groener), where Cordelia slays her first vampire.

[15][16] As her acting career continues to flounder, Cordelia is sucked into and made princess of a medieval hell dimension called Pylea in the episode "Over the Rainbow".

[17] 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 2 finale.

[18][19] In season 3'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.

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.

[20] Season 3 also sees Angel become a father,[21] with Cordelia stepping in to mother Connor until the infant is kidnapped into a hell dimension in the episode "Sleep Tight",[22] only to emerge as a disturbed teenager (Vincent Kartheiser) in "The Price".

[25] In season 4, Cordelia feels trapped in her position as a higher being,[26][27] and so in the episode "The House Always Wins" she returns to Earth in an amnesiac state.

Cordelia claims to be the genuine article, having returned from the dead, but Angel is unconvinced and kills her; his suspicions prove correct when her body immediately disintegrates like the other clones.

[41] Despite portraying a shallow, valley girl stock character, actress Charisma Carpenter felt that Cordelia in early seasons was not "one-dimensional", nor was she "as superficial as people thought".

[42] Angel co-creator and executive producer David Greenwalt describes Cordelia in her Buffy years as "a somewhat shallow, somewhat vain, somewhat self-centered but [a] lively and honest character who spoke her mind".

The authors opine that Cordelia, unlike Buffy, is a "representation of the archetypal 'feminine type'", one who conforms to the "pervasive stereotypes of femininity while, at the same time, dominating the other girls in the school" and commanding the attention of the boys.

For Cordelia however, "her thought processes and actual utterances are completely identical" and because of this, she embodies an "antithesis of female self-sacrifice" in these years but also "the opposite of the kind of hypocrisy that is typically attributed to women".

Despite becoming more sympathetic as the series progressed, "bitchiness enhances Cordelia's comic appeal", as it offers viewers an opportunity to relish its honest truth-telling.

Any concerns that she was simply one-dimensional were alleviated for the actress when writers developed the character through her relationships with Xander and later Wesley, which led Carpenter to become more convinced of her potential.

[52] In an article about the psychology of characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Steven C. Schlozman writes about how "Cordelia is wealthy and, at first glance, superficial, appearing to care most about her own popularity.

[54] Cultural critic Jennifer Crusie points out how Cordelia was initially perfect for the transition to "selfish, superficial Los Angeles", which turned out to be her "trial by fire".

At the same time, Whedon felt her presence was sorely missed in the fourth season of Buffy where "All of our characters got to the point where they were loving and hugging, and it was sort of like, where's Cordelia?

Critically, Jennifer Crusie considers Cordelia's ascension to the heavens at the end of season 3 to be the "point that the Mutant Enemy Productions writers evidently lost their minds".

"[60] The episode "Inside Out" saw the height of this inversion of Cordelia's character, where she is seen urging Connor to murder an innocent girl in order to expedite the birth of the child they conceived together.

Steven S. DeKnight, who wrote and directed the episode, felt this was a brilliant role-reversal for both actresses as Carpenter is accustomed to playing the benevolent Cordelia where Darla is normally seen as a sinister vampire.

Further illustrating the comparisons, "Fred/Illyria become a joined mother/daughter subjectivity, a dual being whose constituent essences are inseparable; Cordelia is never so intimately connected with her evil child and is remembered as the healthy, vibrant Cordy that everyone knew."

Pointing out symbolic parallels in the subtexts of these gestations, Battis notes Cordelia, a vocal advocate of her own privilege, creates a fully formed supernatural being, Jasmine, who attempts (shockingly) to control the world.

It is also noted by critics that, in the fifth season, "it doesn't take long for Illyria to become a version of Cordelia, giving everyone the cold and honest truth whether they want it or not".

[58] Concerning Cordelia's last appearance in Angel's fifth and final season, Joss Whedon says he used the 100th episode to reinforce the "mission statement" of the show,[64] as well as assess where the characters are now compared to how they began.

Gillian Bennett wrote about Cordelia Chase in Paste Magazine noting, "The good old-fashioned high school mean girl; we all know them and may (secretly) love them.

Alexis Gunderson wrote an article named "Chasing Cordelia : The Rise of The Mean Girl heroine from Buffy to Pretty Little Liars" in Paste Magazine.