100 Reviews: 48
Sep. 30th, 2012 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthThis episode is...this episode. (Such insight above the cut I know.)
TVD: 3x14: Dangerous Liaisons
You know the thing about doing regular reviews like this is it turns out I start to feel tired by the show. If I just tune out and watch I can watch it ep after ep after ep, but it turns out after a while having to THINK about it a lot gets draining. I want to just watch this episode and go “Oh Elijah you’re so smitten’ and ‘Why must Klaus/Caroline have so much chemistry when I should hate this ship?’ and ‘Why are the Salvatores still on my screen? I watch to watch the Originals hit on high-schoolers.’ But no, this time around I’m watching for more than gut reactions, I’m going to have to explain them.
Part of it may also be that I’ve talked about this ep a fair amount over the last few months so I’ve already put in a lot of thought on the parts I like so what I think about a lot here are the parts I don’t. That and the parts I don’t like mainly got by the names Stefan and Damon and I’m so much more angry and bitter about the way they make me angry than I used to be, but I’m almost tired of thinking about it at this point.
Yes, Damon is a controlling dick this episode, but Stefan, you do not have the right to call anyone else a controlling dick after your recent actions. And considering how the rest of the season is going to try and push this idea that Stefan gives Elena room to make her own choices, when in actually he’s just as controlling as Damon about how she acts just uses different methods, I’m torn between warming up my bullshit shouting muscles and fearing I’ll burn out if I start this early. They’re both controlling dickheads and Elena should dump their asses ASAP.
I’m also extra frustrated because first time around Stefan’s actions more or less made sense to me, in that I assumed we were still dealing with dark-Stefan who did put a higher value on killing Klaus than anything else except maybe Damon and extra-maybe Elena’s lives. But it’s really a problem with the writing when a character’s actions/attitudes make LESS sense in retrospect when you know off screen they’ve changed their motivations slightly. You want me to buy that he’s been changed back to good-Stefan, don’t keep writing him actions that only make sense as dark-Stefan. It just made more sense that dark-Stefan would agree to Elena’s plan because it went in line with his own goals; than that Stefan is acting like a controlling dick but actually letting her make her own choices; that doesn’t compute.
Sigh, Damon. I confess I don’t like Damon, I probably never will at this point since at best I’ve only ever found him vaguely interesting. But this is the Damon that comes out every 6-10 episodes (up to now, it’s about to get a lot more frequent) and is a complete d-bag that I don’t believe has any more real feelings for Elena than Klaus has for Caroline; he’s convinced himself he’s in love with her but it’s a kind of “love” that has no respect, friendship, affection, understanding, or compassion in it; it’s just desire, a want to possess her, and obsession. These are the times when I just hate everything about it and the very idea makes my skin crawl.
(In case anyone needed reminding, I’ll say again that I’m making no effort to use these reviews to make new friends in the D/E or S/E community. I’m laying my opinions out there, and my opinions are that the Salvatores suck especially where Elena is concerned.)
A short list of things that continue to bother me about this episode before we get back to actually discussing things.
-The Originals threw a ball in one day and all these people happened to have formalwear lying around. There’s a reason it’s so easy to latch onto the idea that Elijah had the dress made for Elena and it’s because it’s easier to believe that than that she’s had that dress hanging in her closest all this time, and don’t even get me started on how Matt got a tux for the event.
-The lack of invitation for Bonnie and Abby (but mostly Bonnie). It’s annoying here, it’ll be more annoying after the next episode.
-Whatever happened to Elena and Caroline being girl dates to the ball? I would have gone for that about a billion times more that the Triangle drama that Elena was hoping to avoid.
-I have paused it in the past but I can never get a good look at who Elijah is dancing with.
-To be fair that change-partners-halfway-through-the-dance dance makes little sense.
-That Damon was able to snap Kol’s neck, I might even buy that Damon could have won the fight by reason of Kol forfeiting but Originals should be made of sterner stuff.
-Speaking of, what was with the obvious set up for a past between Damon and Kol that the show dropped from here on out?
-And the big one:
Elena, Stefan, Damon; y’all are idiots for not seeing the obvious compromise (Elijah may be too, I can never decide if he should have just offered). It’s this simple Elena “Okay, you guys don’t want me to see Esther alone, how about I ask Elijah? She’d hardly keep him out but if he’ll give me his word not to let anything happen to me in there I know he’ll keep it.” Now Stefan and Damon might well have kept arguing since they don’t have Elena’s trust in Elijah but it’s a completely obvious compromise to my eyes. Now, that would involve these three *compromising* which is a completely novel concept in their relationships and contributes to why I don’t ship the Triangle.
Also I would have loved to see a war council with Elijah on Elena’s side vs. the Salvatores attempting to control the situation, because these things appeal to me.
I can’t decide if it was written that way so they wouldn’t make Elena’s choice regarding the binding spell even more murky or if they missed the chance to make it even more of a punch in the gut. It would have required them to put a bit more care into writing her making that choice, but they really could have stood to do that anyway. I definitely think she could convince herself to do whatever it took to get rid of Klaus, but after showing so much agency to get to the meeting she seems to go along with Esther’s plan pretty passively so it’s kind of awkward. I do think there was a part of her that just didn’t want to know and I get the feeling that scene was meant to have a lot more menace to it than ended up on the screen (the energy between Elena and Esther is just all wrong on a lot of levels), but I feel like she’s way less inquisitive than she ought to be about what Esther’s planning.
Again, I’m not really questioning that she would make the choices she makes, but how she seems to come to them.
I could comment on all the other ships this episode plays with but I’m ready to get to get down to business. And by business I mean the fact that Elijah is clearly smitten with Elena and how her choices surrounding the binding spell and him break my heart.
One weird observation is that the filming of the opening scene makes it seem Elijah and Rebekah are about the same height and yet it *feels* like Elijah is just towering over her even though they’re looking straight at each other. I’m always surprised when there’s scenes that show Elijah as not very tall because he *feels* so much larger than life. I have some moments of that in the next episode too when he and Elena are walking around together and you see he’s not really that much taller than her which in that case I just find cute.
If six words last time (Where is the lovely Elena tonight?) were enough to make me start seriously thinking about this ship, ten words this time (I believe we have a little catching up to do) made me dive into the deep end and never look back. Guh, smitten I tell you; and Elena’s not exactly blind to how hot he is at the moment either.
But while that scene is squeeful, and Elena’s early defense of Elijah to the Salvatores makes me happy, and the fact that I always feel like Elijah rushes off the stairs after announcing the waltz because he’s hoping to catch Elena before the Salvatores do (unfortunately he fails) I actually want to talk about their oh too brief hallway scene. Because that scene right there is how someone actually treats Elena with respect, certainly not Damon trying to dictate her actions out of love, or Stefan trying to maneuver things so gets what he wants out of this circumstance. He asks her intentions, confides his own concerns, asks if they can work together again, but doesn’t make it *about* his questions. And as she walks away you can just see him happy to have his favorite ally working with him again (or you know, to be teaming up with the girl he likes, whichever you prefer).
And it’s *that* scene that makes Elena’s choice to go through with Esther’s plot so tragic to me. Because Elijah wants to work with her, considers her an ally and confidant, and in that scene I see Elena wanting it too. Elena and Elijah’s relationship has always been about trust building and gaining understanding, and that scene is ALL ABOUT that.
And then she goes off and agrees to Esther’s plan including the need for HER to make sure Elijah plays his part. And that’s just a dick move by Esther because it’s clearly done because she sees how much Elijah trusts Elena even if Elena herself only partially sees it. And by the time we get to toast Elena has convinced herself to see it through, but it’s still painful to watch her go through with it, and it obviously bothers her. To the point where the fact that Elijah doesn’t question her on it right then and there says some pretty big stuff about just how smitten he is. Because we know he sees it (I’ve always said it’s pretty obvious here and we know from next ep that yeah he saw it) but decides to trust that if it were really important to know right now she’d tell him.
I could say some stuff about the last Elena and Stefan scene particularly about how Elena claims she feels everything but I don’t buy it since she’s repressing so many feelings by this point it’s just that she feels so deeply about the things she can’t repress that she still thinks she feels everything. But you know me, I’d probably just end up talking about how Elena’s first concern is that she lied to Elijah and only then that she’s party to killing the whole Original family when she felt guilty for daggering Rebekah back in 3x09.
As a final note, Esther, when you say the spell to kill your family will take time you mean it’ll happen tomorrow. That’s pretty misleading you crazy old witch you. Probably fortunate since Elena had a crisis of conscience in the next eight hours so her keeping it up for actual time was probably not going to happen.
Next time:
Oh man am I going to make such a review of 3x15, I may have talked about it at length repeatedly but that’s one I can just keep discussing. The good and the bad.
This round of TVD reviews will end soon, really
TVD: 3x14: Dangerous Liaisons
You know the thing about doing regular reviews like this is it turns out I start to feel tired by the show. If I just tune out and watch I can watch it ep after ep after ep, but it turns out after a while having to THINK about it a lot gets draining. I want to just watch this episode and go “Oh Elijah you’re so smitten’ and ‘Why must Klaus/Caroline have so much chemistry when I should hate this ship?’ and ‘Why are the Salvatores still on my screen? I watch to watch the Originals hit on high-schoolers.’ But no, this time around I’m watching for more than gut reactions, I’m going to have to explain them.
Part of it may also be that I’ve talked about this ep a fair amount over the last few months so I’ve already put in a lot of thought on the parts I like so what I think about a lot here are the parts I don’t. That and the parts I don’t like mainly got by the names Stefan and Damon and I’m so much more angry and bitter about the way they make me angry than I used to be, but I’m almost tired of thinking about it at this point.
Yes, Damon is a controlling dick this episode, but Stefan, you do not have the right to call anyone else a controlling dick after your recent actions. And considering how the rest of the season is going to try and push this idea that Stefan gives Elena room to make her own choices, when in actually he’s just as controlling as Damon about how she acts just uses different methods, I’m torn between warming up my bullshit shouting muscles and fearing I’ll burn out if I start this early. They’re both controlling dickheads and Elena should dump their asses ASAP.
I’m also extra frustrated because first time around Stefan’s actions more or less made sense to me, in that I assumed we were still dealing with dark-Stefan who did put a higher value on killing Klaus than anything else except maybe Damon and extra-maybe Elena’s lives. But it’s really a problem with the writing when a character’s actions/attitudes make LESS sense in retrospect when you know off screen they’ve changed their motivations slightly. You want me to buy that he’s been changed back to good-Stefan, don’t keep writing him actions that only make sense as dark-Stefan. It just made more sense that dark-Stefan would agree to Elena’s plan because it went in line with his own goals; than that Stefan is acting like a controlling dick but actually letting her make her own choices; that doesn’t compute.
Sigh, Damon. I confess I don’t like Damon, I probably never will at this point since at best I’ve only ever found him vaguely interesting. But this is the Damon that comes out every 6-10 episodes (up to now, it’s about to get a lot more frequent) and is a complete d-bag that I don’t believe has any more real feelings for Elena than Klaus has for Caroline; he’s convinced himself he’s in love with her but it’s a kind of “love” that has no respect, friendship, affection, understanding, or compassion in it; it’s just desire, a want to possess her, and obsession. These are the times when I just hate everything about it and the very idea makes my skin crawl.
(In case anyone needed reminding, I’ll say again that I’m making no effort to use these reviews to make new friends in the D/E or S/E community. I’m laying my opinions out there, and my opinions are that the Salvatores suck especially where Elena is concerned.)
A short list of things that continue to bother me about this episode before we get back to actually discussing things.
-The Originals threw a ball in one day and all these people happened to have formalwear lying around. There’s a reason it’s so easy to latch onto the idea that Elijah had the dress made for Elena and it’s because it’s easier to believe that than that she’s had that dress hanging in her closest all this time, and don’t even get me started on how Matt got a tux for the event.
-The lack of invitation for Bonnie and Abby (but mostly Bonnie). It’s annoying here, it’ll be more annoying after the next episode.
-Whatever happened to Elena and Caroline being girl dates to the ball? I would have gone for that about a billion times more that the Triangle drama that Elena was hoping to avoid.
-I have paused it in the past but I can never get a good look at who Elijah is dancing with.
-To be fair that change-partners-halfway-through-the-dance dance makes little sense.
-That Damon was able to snap Kol’s neck, I might even buy that Damon could have won the fight by reason of Kol forfeiting but Originals should be made of sterner stuff.
-Speaking of, what was with the obvious set up for a past between Damon and Kol that the show dropped from here on out?
-And the big one:
Elena, Stefan, Damon; y’all are idiots for not seeing the obvious compromise (Elijah may be too, I can never decide if he should have just offered). It’s this simple Elena “Okay, you guys don’t want me to see Esther alone, how about I ask Elijah? She’d hardly keep him out but if he’ll give me his word not to let anything happen to me in there I know he’ll keep it.” Now Stefan and Damon might well have kept arguing since they don’t have Elena’s trust in Elijah but it’s a completely obvious compromise to my eyes. Now, that would involve these three *compromising* which is a completely novel concept in their relationships and contributes to why I don’t ship the Triangle.
Also I would have loved to see a war council with Elijah on Elena’s side vs. the Salvatores attempting to control the situation, because these things appeal to me.
I can’t decide if it was written that way so they wouldn’t make Elena’s choice regarding the binding spell even more murky or if they missed the chance to make it even more of a punch in the gut. It would have required them to put a bit more care into writing her making that choice, but they really could have stood to do that anyway. I definitely think she could convince herself to do whatever it took to get rid of Klaus, but after showing so much agency to get to the meeting she seems to go along with Esther’s plan pretty passively so it’s kind of awkward. I do think there was a part of her that just didn’t want to know and I get the feeling that scene was meant to have a lot more menace to it than ended up on the screen (the energy between Elena and Esther is just all wrong on a lot of levels), but I feel like she’s way less inquisitive than she ought to be about what Esther’s planning.
Again, I’m not really questioning that she would make the choices she makes, but how she seems to come to them.
I could comment on all the other ships this episode plays with but I’m ready to get to get down to business. And by business I mean the fact that Elijah is clearly smitten with Elena and how her choices surrounding the binding spell and him break my heart.
One weird observation is that the filming of the opening scene makes it seem Elijah and Rebekah are about the same height and yet it *feels* like Elijah is just towering over her even though they’re looking straight at each other. I’m always surprised when there’s scenes that show Elijah as not very tall because he *feels* so much larger than life. I have some moments of that in the next episode too when he and Elena are walking around together and you see he’s not really that much taller than her which in that case I just find cute.
If six words last time (Where is the lovely Elena tonight?) were enough to make me start seriously thinking about this ship, ten words this time (I believe we have a little catching up to do) made me dive into the deep end and never look back. Guh, smitten I tell you; and Elena’s not exactly blind to how hot he is at the moment either.
But while that scene is squeeful, and Elena’s early defense of Elijah to the Salvatores makes me happy, and the fact that I always feel like Elijah rushes off the stairs after announcing the waltz because he’s hoping to catch Elena before the Salvatores do (unfortunately he fails) I actually want to talk about their oh too brief hallway scene. Because that scene right there is how someone actually treats Elena with respect, certainly not Damon trying to dictate her actions out of love, or Stefan trying to maneuver things so gets what he wants out of this circumstance. He asks her intentions, confides his own concerns, asks if they can work together again, but doesn’t make it *about* his questions. And as she walks away you can just see him happy to have his favorite ally working with him again (or you know, to be teaming up with the girl he likes, whichever you prefer).
And it’s *that* scene that makes Elena’s choice to go through with Esther’s plot so tragic to me. Because Elijah wants to work with her, considers her an ally and confidant, and in that scene I see Elena wanting it too. Elena and Elijah’s relationship has always been about trust building and gaining understanding, and that scene is ALL ABOUT that.
And then she goes off and agrees to Esther’s plan including the need for HER to make sure Elijah plays his part. And that’s just a dick move by Esther because it’s clearly done because she sees how much Elijah trusts Elena even if Elena herself only partially sees it. And by the time we get to toast Elena has convinced herself to see it through, but it’s still painful to watch her go through with it, and it obviously bothers her. To the point where the fact that Elijah doesn’t question her on it right then and there says some pretty big stuff about just how smitten he is. Because we know he sees it (I’ve always said it’s pretty obvious here and we know from next ep that yeah he saw it) but decides to trust that if it were really important to know right now she’d tell him.
I could say some stuff about the last Elena and Stefan scene particularly about how Elena claims she feels everything but I don’t buy it since she’s repressing so many feelings by this point it’s just that she feels so deeply about the things she can’t repress that she still thinks she feels everything. But you know me, I’d probably just end up talking about how Elena’s first concern is that she lied to Elijah and only then that she’s party to killing the whole Original family when she felt guilty for daggering Rebekah back in 3x09.
As a final note, Esther, when you say the spell to kill your family will take time you mean it’ll happen tomorrow. That’s pretty misleading you crazy old witch you. Probably fortunate since Elena had a crisis of conscience in the next eight hours so her keeping it up for actual time was probably not going to happen.
Next time:
Oh man am I going to make such a review of 3x15, I may have talked about it at length repeatedly but that’s one I can just keep discussing. The good and the bad.
This round of TVD reviews will end soon, really
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-10-01 07:17 pm (UTC)Haha, well if Elijah got the dress made for Elena, maybe Rebekah got Matt a tux?
Whatever happened to Elena and Caroline being girl dates to the ball?
I would have loved to see that.
It’s this simple Elena “Okay, you guys don’t want me to see Esther alone, how about I ask Elijah? She’d hardly keep him out but if he’ll give me his word not to let anything happen to me in there I know he’ll keep it.”
Yeah, I don't think there's any way the Salvatores would have agreed to that. They wouldn't compromise.
Guh, smitten I tell you; and Elena’s not exactly blind to how hot he is at the moment either.
The looks they give each other. Guh. I love Elena's little head tilt here.
Because that scene right there is how someone actually treats Elena with respect
Yeah, it amazes me how consistent this is with Elijah compared to the way the Salvatores treat her.
Because we know he sees it (I’ve always said it’s pretty obvious here and we know from next ep that yeah he saw it) but decides to trust that if it were really important to know right now she’d tell him.
Kill me more, why don't you.
I await your 3x15 review with anticipation.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-01 08:15 pm (UTC)They never do, because they're assholes.
I love Elena's little head tilt here.
I think it's the head tilt that convinces me she's into things on some level. It's part 'God I'm happy to see you again' and part 'I'm pretty close to jumping your bones right now you sexy thing' and part 'Finally, someone I can actually work with' and not a trace of 'I'm mad at you for not killing Klaus when you said you would' to be found. It's a complex head tilt.
Yeah, it amazes me how consistent this is with Elijah compared to the way the Salvatores treat her.
These two are so perfect, why can't this perfection ever be? (wringing of hands and flailing.) It's just...that scene after the Salvatore dramas really throws things into contrast for why I ship this one and not those two.
My 3x15 will probably be epic. Assuming I can keep from getting brain fried partway through.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-02 06:00 pm (UTC)Yes. Yes, the head tilt is complex.
The tragedy of non-canon shipping. :( Really it's just unfair of the writers to create two characters who are so perfect for each other and then dangle them in front of us like this.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 12:20 am (UTC)But then...that's actually why I end up so worried about Elijah sometimes. If they saw him solely as something that wouldn't be a danger to the damned Triangle I wouldn't worry they'd feel the need to dispose of him to keep him from doing that. That these two are SO PERFECT for each other but can never be in this show is just...arg on every level.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-10 08:21 pm (UTC)That these two are SO PERFECT for each other but can never be in this show is just...arg on every level.
You described my feelings perfectly.