jedi_of_urth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jedi_of_urth) wrote2012-07-10 01:15 am
jedi_of_urth) wrote2012-07-10 01:15 am
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100 Reviews: 16
I now present you, the first TVD episode I watched in close to real time. It might have been a day or two late, but it was around this point when I caught up with the show (just about in time for it to go on hiatus if memory serves me)
TVD: 2x15: The Dinner Party
This episode is weird. I kind of love it, I kind of hate it, I kind of think I want to like it more than I actually do. Whereas 2x14 was pretty much perfect this one is kind of scattered, and yet when it’s good it’s REALLY good.
Let’s deal with the flashback parts first because they’re of the I want to like it more than I do area. And I think I like them even less now than I did a year or so ago, because Lexi’s appearances are like that, each one kind of undermines the power of the one before. In s1 Lexi was AWESOME, here she’s okay, s3 Lexi is practically a different character who could be awesome if she wasn’t supposed to be Lexi.
I’m usually either a fan of the flashback episodes or I find them at least okay, but this time...they’re not great. Because I don’t really attach onto the theme they’re supposedly there for. Not that flashbacks have to be included for a theme, in fact I usually prefer that they don’t, but this one was explicitly done for that reason and I don’t think it works.
And all the characters involved in the flashback story don’t seem quite right. It’s a running problem with Damon in the flashbacks, he’s supposedly full of hatred and vowing eternal torment on Stefan and yet we don’t actually see him acting that way; he does help Stefan go after the Founding Families, but he doesn’t seem to be getting anything out of it (which could have been a thing about how revenge doesn’t solve anything if this had been a Damon focused story) and he seems just sad for Stefan; he may not be willing to live with him but that seems more for practical reasons that because he’s full on hating him. It also continues the show pussy footing around Stefan’s dark side, even when the acknowledge it they downplay that it’s a part of him. And Lexi, once dear Lexi, I actually don’t have a problem with her being the one to make Stefan turn the switch on (and much prefer this to torturing him into it), but I take issue with her latching onto Ripper Stefan and just writing Damon, who at this stage was still very much emotions on even if a lot of them were “negative” ones, off as a lost cause.
Okay, back to the main story.
First off: Elijah rarely pursues younger women. That’s actually a pretty good joke that gets even funnier retroactively. At least to me.
Also, let’s all wave goodbye to Elijah Mark 1. Elena really does kill him quite effectively, because he’s operating on a new character level when he comes back. Up to this point he’s been threatening, powerful, enigmatic, and kind of a troll. But, in that way that only makes sense retroactively once you realize you ship this couple like burning, their confrontation this episode is really the first time it feels like Elijah’s starting to have squishy feelings for Elena. And when he comes back he’s going to let her, and therefore the audience, see him as a person rather than just an Original.
His “I’m sorry Elena,” feels like it has some real regret in it; that he knows it’s not her fault, but the deal is still off. But most of it is between the point where he decides to call her bluff and her proving just how bad an idea that was. Even barring shippiness you can watch him go from “She’s totally bluffing” to “You are bluffing right?” to “I’m starting to think that might have been a bad idea” to “HOLY GODS WHAT HAVE I DONE???” And it doesn’t come across to me as concern for the doppelganger and not being able to kill Klaus, at least not primarily. Because while he’d always respected her as the one to make decisions regarding her own life (I feel like Elijah would consider that a really obvious thing to do, the Salvatores could use a lesson though), it’s at this point when it morphs into respecting her...will for lack of a better word. That she can surprise him that much, that she was still bargaining for the lives of others and not her own (you’ll note the negotiating never reaches the question of whether she’ll go with him or not, it’s all about getting him to agree not to hurt the others), how strong her sense of honor and values is; it appeals to Elijah.
In a way he doesn’t really have time to process in this episode because Elena stabs him in the heart right as it’s happening.
But you know what’s weird? Even after the dagger (and later stake) shenanigans at the end of the season and into s3, I don’t really have a problem with things in this episode. I mean, I’ve always been glad that they couldn’t actually kill him but even when they thought it would I don’t object to them trying. Because *I* may like Elijah (this is before I really loved him, but it’s coming), but the characters (with the possible exception of Elena...and, well, Jenna and Andie but that’s neither here nor there) don’t and he’s given them every reason not to. They’re reasons for wanting to kill Klaus are to stop Elena from dying and Elijah’s obviously aren’t since his plan involves doing exactly what they’re trying to stop. At this point they have no beef with Klaus aside from that (maybe Stefan has some subconscious resentment for Klaus dumping him 90 years ago).
But it probably helps that a) I know how soon he’ll be back in the grand scheme of things (even this episode pretty much implies he’s not down for the count) and b) that when he comes back we’ll get Elijah Mark 2 aka when I fall in love with Elijah and Elijah falls in love with Elena (and really tries not to).
I promise I’m about to get past the Elijah observations, but there are a couple things that I never really thought about until I ready some of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wheatear’s fic dealing with this episode. 1) Elijah tells Damon that he’ll kill everyone in the house if anything but dinner happens at the party, but when he comes to he doesn’t, he just leaves. And at minimum Damon was still in the house then, even if the other’s scattered really quickly. So it this just main character immunity or did Elijah have other reasons for not killing people Elena loves? 2) While Jonas’s lines give no indication of it, fic finally gave a good reason for taking away Bonnie’s powers: Elijah was planning to take Elena away and needed to make sure Bonnie couldn’t track them. Trying to connect the lines we get with that explanation makes me wonder if Elijah thought Luka had told them about the dagger or something so Jonas was on an Elijah mission and a protective dad one.
The other thing I want to touch on this ep isn’t actually Bonnie (sine we know this subplot basically goes nowhere) but Jenna. Jenna really got the short end of the writing stick this season. She kind of did in s1 too, but s2 just wasn’t good to her. As the supernatural stuff gets more and more pervasive in Elena and Jeremy’s lives, and she’s involved with Alaric, and John shows up from time to time the fact that she’s the designated character in the dark makes her look more and more blind and stupid. And what could have maybe been an interesting arc about her steadily realizing there’s things going on that no one is telling her, and dealing with how it damages the relationships between her and those around her, gets shoved into a mistrust between her and Ric plot when that’s really the least interesting side of it. And the fact that it had to be John who started it just hurts it even more.
I mean couldn’t it have been more interesting if, with Jenna as honorary Gilbert in place of Miranda and Grayson while the kids were still too young, Jenna had been brought into the Founder’s Council? We could have seen how the FC brings new people into the know. And then with her new knowledge the (maybe) vampire and things exist she started to realize some of the lies the kids told because she’s lying to them too, she gets more worried about what they’re up to when they disappear at night, eventually she realizes Elena’s been slipping her vervain for months and finally it all comes to a head of people stopping lying to each other. But all that would have needed them to treat Jenna as an actual character rather than a rather poor parental figure as mandated by CW shows.
Basically, I have loads of Jenna feels and he show rarely gives me a chance to deal with them, so I’m venting now (at least it’s more on topic than my rant last time).
Oh, I almost forgot. Elena makes the boys agree to do things her way from this point on. She’ll fight if they’ll agree to fight her way. Yeah, that’ll last.
Really the best thing they could do is put the tomb spell back up, throw Elijah in there undaggered, and negotiate a new deal before letting him out. Because if the two sides who want Klaus dead would actually work together they could probably come up with a solution to the issue with Elena dying (Elijah may not be sure the elixir works, but maybe they could test it? Or there’s some other kind of protection spell they could do? These are the kinds of solutions they might come up with if people actually talked to each other rather than at each other for once on this show).
Next time:
I kind of feel like I’ll go back to DW, but we’ll see
I’d love some specific suggestions at this point
TVD: 2x15: The Dinner Party
This episode is weird. I kind of love it, I kind of hate it, I kind of think I want to like it more than I actually do. Whereas 2x14 was pretty much perfect this one is kind of scattered, and yet when it’s good it’s REALLY good.
Let’s deal with the flashback parts first because they’re of the I want to like it more than I do area. And I think I like them even less now than I did a year or so ago, because Lexi’s appearances are like that, each one kind of undermines the power of the one before. In s1 Lexi was AWESOME, here she’s okay, s3 Lexi is practically a different character who could be awesome if she wasn’t supposed to be Lexi.
I’m usually either a fan of the flashback episodes or I find them at least okay, but this time...they’re not great. Because I don’t really attach onto the theme they’re supposedly there for. Not that flashbacks have to be included for a theme, in fact I usually prefer that they don’t, but this one was explicitly done for that reason and I don’t think it works.
And all the characters involved in the flashback story don’t seem quite right. It’s a running problem with Damon in the flashbacks, he’s supposedly full of hatred and vowing eternal torment on Stefan and yet we don’t actually see him acting that way; he does help Stefan go after the Founding Families, but he doesn’t seem to be getting anything out of it (which could have been a thing about how revenge doesn’t solve anything if this had been a Damon focused story) and he seems just sad for Stefan; he may not be willing to live with him but that seems more for practical reasons that because he’s full on hating him. It also continues the show pussy footing around Stefan’s dark side, even when the acknowledge it they downplay that it’s a part of him. And Lexi, once dear Lexi, I actually don’t have a problem with her being the one to make Stefan turn the switch on (and much prefer this to torturing him into it), but I take issue with her latching onto Ripper Stefan and just writing Damon, who at this stage was still very much emotions on even if a lot of them were “negative” ones, off as a lost cause.
Okay, back to the main story.
First off: Elijah rarely pursues younger women. That’s actually a pretty good joke that gets even funnier retroactively. At least to me.
Also, let’s all wave goodbye to Elijah Mark 1. Elena really does kill him quite effectively, because he’s operating on a new character level when he comes back. Up to this point he’s been threatening, powerful, enigmatic, and kind of a troll. But, in that way that only makes sense retroactively once you realize you ship this couple like burning, their confrontation this episode is really the first time it feels like Elijah’s starting to have squishy feelings for Elena. And when he comes back he’s going to let her, and therefore the audience, see him as a person rather than just an Original.
His “I’m sorry Elena,” feels like it has some real regret in it; that he knows it’s not her fault, but the deal is still off. But most of it is between the point where he decides to call her bluff and her proving just how bad an idea that was. Even barring shippiness you can watch him go from “She’s totally bluffing” to “You are bluffing right?” to “I’m starting to think that might have been a bad idea” to “HOLY GODS WHAT HAVE I DONE???” And it doesn’t come across to me as concern for the doppelganger and not being able to kill Klaus, at least not primarily. Because while he’d always respected her as the one to make decisions regarding her own life (I feel like Elijah would consider that a really obvious thing to do, the Salvatores could use a lesson though), it’s at this point when it morphs into respecting her...will for lack of a better word. That she can surprise him that much, that she was still bargaining for the lives of others and not her own (you’ll note the negotiating never reaches the question of whether she’ll go with him or not, it’s all about getting him to agree not to hurt the others), how strong her sense of honor and values is; it appeals to Elijah.
In a way he doesn’t really have time to process in this episode because Elena stabs him in the heart right as it’s happening.
But you know what’s weird? Even after the dagger (and later stake) shenanigans at the end of the season and into s3, I don’t really have a problem with things in this episode. I mean, I’ve always been glad that they couldn’t actually kill him but even when they thought it would I don’t object to them trying. Because *I* may like Elijah (this is before I really loved him, but it’s coming), but the characters (with the possible exception of Elena...and, well, Jenna and Andie but that’s neither here nor there) don’t and he’s given them every reason not to. They’re reasons for wanting to kill Klaus are to stop Elena from dying and Elijah’s obviously aren’t since his plan involves doing exactly what they’re trying to stop. At this point they have no beef with Klaus aside from that (maybe Stefan has some subconscious resentment for Klaus dumping him 90 years ago).
But it probably helps that a) I know how soon he’ll be back in the grand scheme of things (even this episode pretty much implies he’s not down for the count) and b) that when he comes back we’ll get Elijah Mark 2 aka when I fall in love with Elijah and Elijah falls in love with Elena (and really tries not to).
I promise I’m about to get past the Elijah observations, but there are a couple things that I never really thought about until I ready some of
wheatear’s fic dealing with this episode. 1) Elijah tells Damon that he’ll kill everyone in the house if anything but dinner happens at the party, but when he comes to he doesn’t, he just leaves. And at minimum Damon was still in the house then, even if the other’s scattered really quickly. So it this just main character immunity or did Elijah have other reasons for not killing people Elena loves? 2) While Jonas’s lines give no indication of it, fic finally gave a good reason for taking away Bonnie’s powers: Elijah was planning to take Elena away and needed to make sure Bonnie couldn’t track them. Trying to connect the lines we get with that explanation makes me wonder if Elijah thought Luka had told them about the dagger or something so Jonas was on an Elijah mission and a protective dad one.The other thing I want to touch on this ep isn’t actually Bonnie (sine we know this subplot basically goes nowhere) but Jenna. Jenna really got the short end of the writing stick this season. She kind of did in s1 too, but s2 just wasn’t good to her. As the supernatural stuff gets more and more pervasive in Elena and Jeremy’s lives, and she’s involved with Alaric, and John shows up from time to time the fact that she’s the designated character in the dark makes her look more and more blind and stupid. And what could have maybe been an interesting arc about her steadily realizing there’s things going on that no one is telling her, and dealing with how it damages the relationships between her and those around her, gets shoved into a mistrust between her and Ric plot when that’s really the least interesting side of it. And the fact that it had to be John who started it just hurts it even more.
I mean couldn’t it have been more interesting if, with Jenna as honorary Gilbert in place of Miranda and Grayson while the kids were still too young, Jenna had been brought into the Founder’s Council? We could have seen how the FC brings new people into the know. And then with her new knowledge the (maybe) vampire and things exist she started to realize some of the lies the kids told because she’s lying to them too, she gets more worried about what they’re up to when they disappear at night, eventually she realizes Elena’s been slipping her vervain for months and finally it all comes to a head of people stopping lying to each other. But all that would have needed them to treat Jenna as an actual character rather than a rather poor parental figure as mandated by CW shows.
Basically, I have loads of Jenna feels and he show rarely gives me a chance to deal with them, so I’m venting now (at least it’s more on topic than my rant last time).
Oh, I almost forgot. Elena makes the boys agree to do things her way from this point on. She’ll fight if they’ll agree to fight her way. Yeah, that’ll last.
Really the best thing they could do is put the tomb spell back up, throw Elijah in there undaggered, and negotiate a new deal before letting him out. Because if the two sides who want Klaus dead would actually work together they could probably come up with a solution to the issue with Elena dying (Elijah may not be sure the elixir works, but maybe they could test it? Or there’s some other kind of protection spell they could do? These are the kinds of solutions they might come up with if people actually talked to each other rather than at each other for once on this show).
Next time:
I kind of feel like I’ll go back to DW, but we’ll see
I’d love some specific suggestions at this point
no subject
But, in that way that only makes sense retroactively once you realize you ship this couple like burning, their confrontation this episode is really the first time it feels like Elijah’s starting to have squishy feelings for Elena.
YES. Yes to everything you say about Elijah. I want to quote all of it.
Because while he’d always respected her as the one to make decisions regarding her own life (I feel like Elijah would consider that a really obvious thing to do, the Salvatores could use a lesson though)
lol truth
That she can surprise him that much, that she was still bargaining for the lives of others and not her own (you’ll note the negotiating never reaches the question of whether she’ll go with him or not, it’s all about getting him to agree not to hurt the others), how strong her sense of honor and values is; it appeals to Elijah.
I love all this. Everything she does in that scene (despite the fact that she kills him) is what makes Elijah respect and admire her.
Elijah tells Damon that he’ll kill everyone in the house if anything but dinner happens at the party, but when he comes to he doesn’t, he just leaves.
Honestly I think it's main character immunity, but you can interpret it as Elijah having his priorities straight: doppelgänger before revenge.
Elijah was planning to take Elena away and needed to make sure Bonnie couldn’t track them.
This is what I assumed was actually the case. Yeah, it's head canon, but that's how I interpreted the scene. It makes sense with how Elijah and Jonas are working together.
You're completely right about Jenna and I do wish she'd had more time in the know. There was potential with that story line.
I'm going to be selfish and ask you to continue the TVD reviews, mostly because I really want you to get to 2x19...
no subject
And even the fact that she stabs him plays a role in his growing respect for her. But basically yes, this scene is a huge turning point in their relationship for a lot of reasons, to be followed by the biggest one of all after he wakes up.
Yeah, it's head canon, but that's how I interpreted the scene
It makes a lot more sense than the scene as presented. Because if Jonas really was there because of the mind rape the episode before you'd think he would have come after her earlier in the ep.
Man, as long as these reviews have ended up being I don't even want to think about how long my one for 2x19 is going to be. Unless it all boils down to SQUEEEEEEE. I'll definitely get there, I'm just feeling a little like I could stand to branch out a bit.
no subject
Yes, exactly.
Man, as long as these reviews have ended up being I don't even want to think about how long my one for 2x19 is going to be. Unless it all boils down to SQUEEEEEEE.
Very much anticipating this! ♥