100 Reviews: 29
Aug. 4th, 2012 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthOkay, so I went about a week between episodes, like I was pretending I was watching the show in original time, we’ll pretend it was intentional that way.
TVD: 2x21: The Sun Also Rises
Basically this one has all the opposite problems of 2x20, in that there’s no set up just shit happening and reactions to shit happening. While there are some good character moments, it’s all about ending most of this season’s plot threads, even if several of them lead into new-ish ones for season 3. Which is why it had always felt like the real season finale, with 2x22 as sort of a coda/epilog/bridge to s3. Right down to that ending shot of Damon walking off into the...midday that hell, felt more like a *series* finale than anything.
The love-triangle-of-meh (not to be confused with the Triangle-of-Do-Not-Want) also felt really finale-ish. Everything was pretty well tied up, Matt and Caroline broke up (though honestly half the time I forgot they were together and the other half I couldn’t tell if they were), Tyler and Caroline were all cuddly with implied ‘going to get together eventually’ written all over them (half the time I forget they aren’t together, I just don’t care). It was rather tied in with Caroline’s season arc of accepting the changes in her life that started with her becoming a vampire (have I ranted enough times about how I feel Caroline’s arc here makes vamp-Elena narratively redundant?). Aside from dealing with the issue of Liz that side of the plot was pretty neatly wrapped up.
However, when not looking at this as a finale, the B-plot involving the love-triangle-of-meh is pretty redundant to the rest of the episode, and in a lot of ways drags it down. It’s a plot line I can accept they wanted to clean up before the end of the season, but running it in parallel to the A-story makes it feel...tacked on to put it mildly. They’re not doing anything to help with the Klaus situation when quite frankly, they should have been. Klaus intended to sacrifice Caroline and Tyler, having them help fight him would have made a lot more sense than shuffling them off into a love-triangle-of-meh side plot that had nothing to do with the main story.
On with the main story...again it usually works better when I’m watching both eps back to back.
Although I think I’ve retconed a reason for a retcon problem. In the very next episode we learn that Klaus’s blood can cure a werewolf bite (unless he didn’t have that ability before he unlocked the curse, in which case I wonder how he knew he could do it), so that raises the question of why he didn’t feed Damon his blood and then use him in the ritual. Well I think, like most of the times Klaus doesn’t kill Damon, we have to put it down to Klaus’s epic (in his mind) bromance with Stefan. He’d never win Stefan back if he killed Damon and Elena, and this way he’d get to play the hero and show up to offer and cure Damon and win Stefan over (I’m sure that’s how Klaus saw it playing out). It’s total fanwank, but the fact that the Salvatores aren’t dead (especially Damon) requires a fair amount of fanwankery.
A more distant problem with retroactive continuity is that Elijah more or less says Klaus killed all of his family members. Now I have, for my own headcanon, reasoned that Mikael eventually got around to telling Elijah the truth about that Klaus killed Esther and I tend to assume it was Mikael who told him what happened to the others and had assumed the buried at sea element, but then...does Elijah know anything happened to Mikael and if so what does he think happened? I can believe that he *assumes* Klaus finally took Mikael down, but it would be nice to know these things. And that doesn’t address the Henrick and unknown sibling side of the issue, which is comparatively minor, but still.
One thing that’s bugged me ever since I first saw this episode is how it’s all the girls that die (well, and John). I almost feel like it’s intentional, with having Klaus comment on how he’s sacrificing three women, but it doesn’t seem to have decided why the story went that way and Greta’s death just seems...mean spirited in how casual it is. Not that Greta was an actual character, even less than the rest of her family, but I’m not even sure I noticed it happening the first time I watched this; I must have but it’s just completely glossed over.
The strength of the episode is in the character moments, Elena and Jenna, Elena and Jeremy, Damon and Katherine, come to mind first. But it also ignores a lot character angles, Alaric’s feelings are only hinted at, there’s no consequence for Bonnie knocking Jeremy out in order to keep him away from the fight, for that matter Bonnie’s feelings about anything aren’t given much play, and while I will allow that for this stage in the story it’s fine that Elijah’s feelings aren’t given much development there’s definitely a lot more that could have been explored with him. It’s another reason why watching this series of episodes in a run works better, since other episodes are so character driven the fact that this one is driven by Klaus’s plots doesn’t quite feel like it leaves as much out.
I was hoping watching some TVD would help bring my muses back around, but even my ep reviewing muses aren’t really feeling up to it tonight, because I feel like I should have more to say, particularly on the good side since I mostly do like this ep in spite of its issues, but I’m fighting with the words to get this far. So I guess I’ll leave it at that.
Next time:
Probably 2x22 to round out the season, but we’ll see (and see how much I talk about every character but Damon probably).
I’m always up for more suggestions
TVD: 2x21: The Sun Also Rises
Basically this one has all the opposite problems of 2x20, in that there’s no set up just shit happening and reactions to shit happening. While there are some good character moments, it’s all about ending most of this season’s plot threads, even if several of them lead into new-ish ones for season 3. Which is why it had always felt like the real season finale, with 2x22 as sort of a coda/epilog/bridge to s3. Right down to that ending shot of Damon walking off into the...midday that hell, felt more like a *series* finale than anything.
The love-triangle-of-meh (not to be confused with the Triangle-of-Do-Not-Want) also felt really finale-ish. Everything was pretty well tied up, Matt and Caroline broke up (though honestly half the time I forgot they were together and the other half I couldn’t tell if they were), Tyler and Caroline were all cuddly with implied ‘going to get together eventually’ written all over them (half the time I forget they aren’t together, I just don’t care). It was rather tied in with Caroline’s season arc of accepting the changes in her life that started with her becoming a vampire (have I ranted enough times about how I feel Caroline’s arc here makes vamp-Elena narratively redundant?). Aside from dealing with the issue of Liz that side of the plot was pretty neatly wrapped up.
However, when not looking at this as a finale, the B-plot involving the love-triangle-of-meh is pretty redundant to the rest of the episode, and in a lot of ways drags it down. It’s a plot line I can accept they wanted to clean up before the end of the season, but running it in parallel to the A-story makes it feel...tacked on to put it mildly. They’re not doing anything to help with the Klaus situation when quite frankly, they should have been. Klaus intended to sacrifice Caroline and Tyler, having them help fight him would have made a lot more sense than shuffling them off into a love-triangle-of-meh side plot that had nothing to do with the main story.
On with the main story...again it usually works better when I’m watching both eps back to back.
Although I think I’ve retconed a reason for a retcon problem. In the very next episode we learn that Klaus’s blood can cure a werewolf bite (unless he didn’t have that ability before he unlocked the curse, in which case I wonder how he knew he could do it), so that raises the question of why he didn’t feed Damon his blood and then use him in the ritual. Well I think, like most of the times Klaus doesn’t kill Damon, we have to put it down to Klaus’s epic (in his mind) bromance with Stefan. He’d never win Stefan back if he killed Damon and Elena, and this way he’d get to play the hero and show up to offer and cure Damon and win Stefan over (I’m sure that’s how Klaus saw it playing out). It’s total fanwank, but the fact that the Salvatores aren’t dead (especially Damon) requires a fair amount of fanwankery.
A more distant problem with retroactive continuity is that Elijah more or less says Klaus killed all of his family members. Now I have, for my own headcanon, reasoned that Mikael eventually got around to telling Elijah the truth about that Klaus killed Esther and I tend to assume it was Mikael who told him what happened to the others and had assumed the buried at sea element, but then...does Elijah know anything happened to Mikael and if so what does he think happened? I can believe that he *assumes* Klaus finally took Mikael down, but it would be nice to know these things. And that doesn’t address the Henrick and unknown sibling side of the issue, which is comparatively minor, but still.
One thing that’s bugged me ever since I first saw this episode is how it’s all the girls that die (well, and John). I almost feel like it’s intentional, with having Klaus comment on how he’s sacrificing three women, but it doesn’t seem to have decided why the story went that way and Greta’s death just seems...mean spirited in how casual it is. Not that Greta was an actual character, even less than the rest of her family, but I’m not even sure I noticed it happening the first time I watched this; I must have but it’s just completely glossed over.
The strength of the episode is in the character moments, Elena and Jenna, Elena and Jeremy, Damon and Katherine, come to mind first. But it also ignores a lot character angles, Alaric’s feelings are only hinted at, there’s no consequence for Bonnie knocking Jeremy out in order to keep him away from the fight, for that matter Bonnie’s feelings about anything aren’t given much play, and while I will allow that for this stage in the story it’s fine that Elijah’s feelings aren’t given much development there’s definitely a lot more that could have been explored with him. It’s another reason why watching this series of episodes in a run works better, since other episodes are so character driven the fact that this one is driven by Klaus’s plots doesn’t quite feel like it leaves as much out.
I was hoping watching some TVD would help bring my muses back around, but even my ep reviewing muses aren’t really feeling up to it tonight, because I feel like I should have more to say, particularly on the good side since I mostly do like this ep in spite of its issues, but I’m fighting with the words to get this far. So I guess I’ll leave it at that.
Next time:
Probably 2x22 to round out the season, but we’ll see (and see how much I talk about every character but Damon probably).
I’m always up for more suggestions
