100 Reviews: 56
Oct. 11th, 2012 02:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthThis is really somewhere between a review and a very delayed reaction post since I have nothing to go on after this episode except the way my feelings for it have...settled since it aired. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’ve changed though. Also that I never did do an in depth reaction post at the time.
TVD: 3x22: The Departed
The weird thing about this episode is that he further you break it down into a series of moments the more I like it. But the more I look at it in context of the rest of this season the less I like it. And the more I think about it in context of what the show is likely to do going forward the more I actively hate it.
First the good. This episode is a very effective mood piece, it’s dark and hopeless and depressing, everybody hurts and everyone is lost somehow. And I definitely respond to that in the moments, be they the flashbacks or the stuff in the present, hell I even have actual feelings on the Triangle *in the moments* (as in beyond loathing it completely, although I still think Elena ought to dump them both even then). The acting is good and emotional, the direction is evocative, and the writing within the context of this episode is pretty good.
The highlights for me being:
-Actual-Ric’s final moments with Damon and then Jeremy. Sniff, goodbye at last Ric (until MD decides he wants to come back to the show and they concoct a way for him to come back).
-The revelations of TyKlaus (I may hate it but the scene was pretty good) but mostly for the new direction they’re taking Bonnie in; it’s about time and it’s beyond time for the show to actual deliver on a Bonnie story arc.
-As much as I’m loathe to say it, the Damon/Elena phone call got to me, but goodbyes tend to have a quick line to my heartstrings so maybe it’s not a surprise. Damon and Stefan’s worked for me really well too until it went into Triangle territory.
-Any of Rebekah’s scenes, especially when she watches Klaus die.
-EVERY SECOND OF ELIJAH. The dinner table scene being a study in utterly selfless love (but still with eyesex) and the scene between him and Rebekah is just heartbreaking (especially if you’re me and figure he’s going to react badly to what happens next making it doubly tragic).
But the highlight that should have been but unfortunately we didn’t see is the offscreen phone call between Elena and Elijah that I never managed to fic to my satisfaction all summer and I definitely tried*. You just know he called to say goodbye but that neither of them would actually say it, maybe making contingency deals in case they get another chance at killing Alaric but pretty much expecting they wouldn’t. Rebekah listening in even further offscreen realizing that Elijah’s so far gone that he’s not even really considering killing Elena.
But I will share how I figured the conversation ended:
Elena: Run hard, Elijah.
Elijah: Live well, Elena.
Okay, so the moments worked, let’s talk about how the picture doesn’t.
For one, Stefan is a big issue again. This whole weird thing continues in that here he’s fine, you can see why Elena loves him and why they were good together. The PROBLEM is that it doesn’t fit with what’s happened to them this season. There’s no acknowledgement of what’s happened between them in the last season; Stefan makes one off-hand comment to Matt about losing your free will but that barely counts as acknowledging that this isn’t 2x22 anymore. Their relationship has been challenged by what’s happened in the last season (I’d say season plus but let’s focus on just since he left with Klaus) but it’s not *written* as if it has been. If the writers wanted to show them coming through those challenges and growing into a stronger couple because of it they need to still write them differently to show that they’ve been through all that; not write them as if nothing had changed.
Their moments in this episode, while I don’t necessarily find them powerful or emotionally gripping were okay on their own. But they just don’t work with where the season has been or what this episode is trying to be. Writing them as the old Stefan and Elena is a) not very new and interesting; b) borderline offensive to anyone wanting a good story for them or Stefan as an individual; and c) makes the Triangle even more useless than ever. Because no, there’s never been any question that Elena loved who Stefan was more than she did Damon, the drama (such as it was) came from whether she still did after everything that’s happened, by ignoring everything that’s happened the question becomes a moot point.
Not to give Stefan all my Triangle issues of the episode, because I REALLY don’t like the flashback scene between Damon and Elena. I may have thought their modern day stuff was moving in its hopelessness and despair, but the flashback was awful. Oddly enough it actually reminds me a lot of book Damon/Elena, which is a serious problem as book Damon/Elena makes no sense at all. There and here it’s just Damon being gross and controlling and only seeing Elena as an object that he projects his own wishes onto. He’s decided he knows what she wants, and whether or not he’s (partially) right is a moot point for me because HE decided what she wanted without even knowing her; just what he assumed about her. Therefore it’s gross and I want it to die in a fire.
Although I have to admit, *I’m* fond of the implication that actually it wouldn’t matter if Elena had met Damon first because she actually did. Haha Damon, you lose no matter what. I’m fairly sure other people interpret it differently (since she doesn’t remember meeting him first) but to me that’s how it came off.
Also, as I’ve sort of made a point of several times throughout the last couple seasons, usually on a case by case basis I don’t have a huge problem with the other’s making certain choices to protect Elena when they know she wouldn’t agree to prioritize her own safety. And I have a lot less issue with Matt and Jeremy (or the other teenage characters) doing it than the Salvatores, because they’re KIDS trying to do what they can in order to survive and protect those they care about. Admittedly the whole move to get Elena out of town seems silly anyway, since the only Original who can get in her house is Elijah and he clearly has no intention of killing her (you don’t have to think he’s totally in love with her to pick up on that fact) so she’s a lot less safe on the road. But again these are teenagers thrust into awful hopeless circumstances and trying to guess their way through.
HOWEVER, in a larger context I have to hate on the show for ONCE AGAIN taking Elena’s agency out of the equation. And really that’s why I have less issue with it here than I would with Stefan or Damon did it, it’s because these characters aren’t the ones that make a habit of doing it in story while they do. I’m mad at the writers in this case more than I am at the characters.
I may love every moment of Elijah, but he’s still woefully underused here. If he’s around a lot more next season I may somewhat forgive this, because it mostly pisses me off since Elijah has been underused all season, not because he’s in any way used badly here. On the other hand I do get some amusement out of Jeremy’s complaining about all the vampires hovering around Elena when there are in fact only two one of whom is Stefan who would probably support you having a “plan” to get Elena out of danger. And some further amusement because both Stefan and Damon seem to pick up on there being major vibage between Elena and Elijah, that Elena will always be willing to make a deal with him, etc. However I’m holding out hope that Elijah had realized late that he maybe should make sure Rebekah didn’t do anything to Elena that night so doubled back to her house where he runs into Jeremy running out and Jeremy’s the one to ask “Do you have a thing for my sister or something?” (Another thing I utterly failed to write to my satisfaction this summer.)
The flashbacks are...meh. There’s parts of them I like...sort of, but I can’t really like them as they’re all done in context of the Triangle drama. And contradicting established canon that Elena fell out of love with Matt after her parents died. Yes I can accept some the idea that she wasn’t comfortable with how he had their lives planned out when she wanted to enjoy her life the way it was (of the tragedy) but this felt like it was going too far to have her already thinking about breaking up with him (I mean “setting him free” [gag, sorry ma Gilbert]) before the accident. Add to that that I find it entirely possible to look at Matt’s “This wasn’t how our lives were supposed to go” and Elena’s agreement as her realizing that she kind of would have been okay with that life Matt had in mind because this one sure as hell sucks, and I just thought the episode seemed kind of scatter shot with the Elena/Matt stuff.
Okay, I guess I better get to the parts I HATE because of what they mean in the larger context.
For one, unless Klaus gets his own body back within three episodes (everyone having realized what happened after one) I’ll hate this more than I do just that it happened at all. I hate that the show wouldn’t just kill Klaus off or even keep him out of things for a while. I hate that the show wussed out of having there be consequences for things. I hate that Klaus ended up in TYLER of all people when Bonnie had to have better options. I hate that MT is not a very good actor so has no hope for pulling this off. I hate...this plot. The only thing I like about it is the possible directions for Bonnie’s story which has thin hopes of being paid off. (I hate that I have so little hope of Bonnie getting a story.)
But let’s get to the big one. After a summer to sit on it, I will in fact say that I HATE everything connected with the vamp-Elena possibility.
-Within the context of this episode I hate the way the scenes underwater are handled. It’s STUPID that she wasn’t able to escape, or even try to do so. At a MINIMUM Stefan should have broken her seatbelt off so she’d have a chance. It’s bad enough that he couldn’t try and take them both when Elena was still conscious so she wouldn’t just be dead weight. Of course it’s also stupid that they had such a long scene underwater and she was still conscious, but that’s a different kind of stupid. Also, I’m pretty sure Matt’s truck would have had manual windows that someone could have tried to ROLL DOWN (my car isn’t as much an old beater an Matt’s truck and it has manual windows). Again, everything about this scene is stupidly contrived.
-Beyond that HOW DID STEFAN KNOW WHERE TO FIND THEM (maybe that ap Bonnie was using last ep, I may let the episode have that one) and WHY DID REBEKAH LET HIM GO DOWN THERE? I can just about get my head around her calling to tell him what she was going to do (not really but I can suspect disbelief to some extent), but having been willing to do that wouldn’t she stick around to make sure it was done?
-Plus, would it have been so hard to pay off the Matt/Rebekah plot of the season that she didn’t want to see him die with Elena so Rebekah went in to save him and then wasn’t able to stop Stefan from going after Elena who was by that point dead? Yeah it would have lessened the tragedy of Elena putting Matt’s life ahead of her own, but it would have substantially reduced the other stupid about that scene.
-I also hate that nothing about Elena’s death is her own choice. As much as I hate the idea in general of vamp-Elena if it had come as a consequence of her own choices I would probably hate it marginally less (or if what little was her choice wasn’t done so dumbly). As I said I’m sick of things being done to Elena in the narrative. I accept that if she’s going to be a player then there are going to be consequences for the choices she makes, and even random tragedy (say Matt swerves to avoid a deer and hits a tree) it...would be acceptable in a better show at least; but here she’s going to be a vampire because of what was done TO her by all the characters that removed her agency.
-Here’s the thing, I don’t exactly blame Rebekah for making the choice she made. I think she had valid reasons and a sympathetic viewpoint that caused her to make that choice. But I do expect there to be consequences for it. If say Elijah goes so far as to break his own code and dagger her for it I won’t have a problem with that either (I’ll miss her but I won’t have a story problem with it), because it’s consequence brought on by her own actions, not him using her to his own ends.
-I don’t just say that to get my Rebekah thoughts out there (and some more Elijah ones), but to illustrate the difference. What happens to Rebekah over this is Rebekah’s fault, which is as it should be; what happens to Elena happens through none of Elena’s own fault, which is frustrating.
-I also hadn’t necessarily realized it until someone on my flist pointed it out, but this episode also wusses out of making any of the vampire characters responsible for her becoming a vampire. By making it Meredith they remove they remove any future dramatic possibilities of one or more of them dealing with having some hand in what happened. AND it’s kind of a dumb move on Meredith’s part not to tell them she’d used vamp blood, even if she wanted to downplay just how serious it was she could have said something like “I didn’t want to risk it being worse than I thought (plus she’d lost a lot of blood then for some reason y’all gave her alcohol afterward) so as a precaution I gave her a boost to speed her recovery along.” It’s a dumb move for dramatic reveal at the end that makes little to no sense on a character level.
-But mainly this episode does nothing to convince me the writers are smart enough to pull off a story with Elena as a vampire. Ever since the season moved into its final act they’ve more or less abandoned Elena being an actual character in her own story. Even when they’re not actively writing her as an object in other people’s stories they’re still not making her an actual character in hers. This episode is given all the look of being about Elena, but it’s about her “choice” between bad and worse romantic options and her being passed around by other people making (or at least trying to make) decisions for her. And I’m left with the feeling that that’s exactly how they’re going to continue to treat her (in text and on a meta level) going forward. (Again, the person who doesn’t do that is Elijah but even he has to play to his audience a bit with pointing out he could have killed her to serve his own ends but didn’t. Which considering he does that in one of the few times he’s not eyesexing Elena makes it all the more clear to me that he’s lost the ability to even passively threaten her.)
-Basically, as I’ve been saying since it happened: SHOW, YOU ARE NOT SMART ENOUGH FOR THIS.
Next time:
Well, tomorrow (ish) I’ll be back with TVD in reaction posts. But the review posts will probably go back to DW for a bit. Or at least something to makes me less angry when I go to talk about it.
Suggestion box for good things
TVD: 3x22: The Departed
The weird thing about this episode is that he further you break it down into a series of moments the more I like it. But the more I look at it in context of the rest of this season the less I like it. And the more I think about it in context of what the show is likely to do going forward the more I actively hate it.
First the good. This episode is a very effective mood piece, it’s dark and hopeless and depressing, everybody hurts and everyone is lost somehow. And I definitely respond to that in the moments, be they the flashbacks or the stuff in the present, hell I even have actual feelings on the Triangle *in the moments* (as in beyond loathing it completely, although I still think Elena ought to dump them both even then). The acting is good and emotional, the direction is evocative, and the writing within the context of this episode is pretty good.
The highlights for me being:
-Actual-Ric’s final moments with Damon and then Jeremy. Sniff, goodbye at last Ric (until MD decides he wants to come back to the show and they concoct a way for him to come back).
-The revelations of TyKlaus (I may hate it but the scene was pretty good) but mostly for the new direction they’re taking Bonnie in; it’s about time and it’s beyond time for the show to actual deliver on a Bonnie story arc.
-As much as I’m loathe to say it, the Damon/Elena phone call got to me, but goodbyes tend to have a quick line to my heartstrings so maybe it’s not a surprise. Damon and Stefan’s worked for me really well too until it went into Triangle territory.
-Any of Rebekah’s scenes, especially when she watches Klaus die.
-EVERY SECOND OF ELIJAH. The dinner table scene being a study in utterly selfless love (but still with eyesex) and the scene between him and Rebekah is just heartbreaking (especially if you’re me and figure he’s going to react badly to what happens next making it doubly tragic).
But the highlight that should have been but unfortunately we didn’t see is the offscreen phone call between Elena and Elijah that I never managed to fic to my satisfaction all summer and I definitely tried*. You just know he called to say goodbye but that neither of them would actually say it, maybe making contingency deals in case they get another chance at killing Alaric but pretty much expecting they wouldn’t. Rebekah listening in even further offscreen realizing that Elijah’s so far gone that he’s not even really considering killing Elena.
But I will share how I figured the conversation ended:
Elena: Run hard, Elijah.
Elijah: Live well, Elena.
Okay, so the moments worked, let’s talk about how the picture doesn’t.
For one, Stefan is a big issue again. This whole weird thing continues in that here he’s fine, you can see why Elena loves him and why they were good together. The PROBLEM is that it doesn’t fit with what’s happened to them this season. There’s no acknowledgement of what’s happened between them in the last season; Stefan makes one off-hand comment to Matt about losing your free will but that barely counts as acknowledging that this isn’t 2x22 anymore. Their relationship has been challenged by what’s happened in the last season (I’d say season plus but let’s focus on just since he left with Klaus) but it’s not *written* as if it has been. If the writers wanted to show them coming through those challenges and growing into a stronger couple because of it they need to still write them differently to show that they’ve been through all that; not write them as if nothing had changed.
Their moments in this episode, while I don’t necessarily find them powerful or emotionally gripping were okay on their own. But they just don’t work with where the season has been or what this episode is trying to be. Writing them as the old Stefan and Elena is a) not very new and interesting; b) borderline offensive to anyone wanting a good story for them or Stefan as an individual; and c) makes the Triangle even more useless than ever. Because no, there’s never been any question that Elena loved who Stefan was more than she did Damon, the drama (such as it was) came from whether she still did after everything that’s happened, by ignoring everything that’s happened the question becomes a moot point.
Not to give Stefan all my Triangle issues of the episode, because I REALLY don’t like the flashback scene between Damon and Elena. I may have thought their modern day stuff was moving in its hopelessness and despair, but the flashback was awful. Oddly enough it actually reminds me a lot of book Damon/Elena, which is a serious problem as book Damon/Elena makes no sense at all. There and here it’s just Damon being gross and controlling and only seeing Elena as an object that he projects his own wishes onto. He’s decided he knows what she wants, and whether or not he’s (partially) right is a moot point for me because HE decided what she wanted without even knowing her; just what he assumed about her. Therefore it’s gross and I want it to die in a fire.
Although I have to admit, *I’m* fond of the implication that actually it wouldn’t matter if Elena had met Damon first because she actually did. Haha Damon, you lose no matter what. I’m fairly sure other people interpret it differently (since she doesn’t remember meeting him first) but to me that’s how it came off.
Also, as I’ve sort of made a point of several times throughout the last couple seasons, usually on a case by case basis I don’t have a huge problem with the other’s making certain choices to protect Elena when they know she wouldn’t agree to prioritize her own safety. And I have a lot less issue with Matt and Jeremy (or the other teenage characters) doing it than the Salvatores, because they’re KIDS trying to do what they can in order to survive and protect those they care about. Admittedly the whole move to get Elena out of town seems silly anyway, since the only Original who can get in her house is Elijah and he clearly has no intention of killing her (you don’t have to think he’s totally in love with her to pick up on that fact) so she’s a lot less safe on the road. But again these are teenagers thrust into awful hopeless circumstances and trying to guess their way through.
HOWEVER, in a larger context I have to hate on the show for ONCE AGAIN taking Elena’s agency out of the equation. And really that’s why I have less issue with it here than I would with Stefan or Damon did it, it’s because these characters aren’t the ones that make a habit of doing it in story while they do. I’m mad at the writers in this case more than I am at the characters.
I may love every moment of Elijah, but he’s still woefully underused here. If he’s around a lot more next season I may somewhat forgive this, because it mostly pisses me off since Elijah has been underused all season, not because he’s in any way used badly here. On the other hand I do get some amusement out of Jeremy’s complaining about all the vampires hovering around Elena when there are in fact only two one of whom is Stefan who would probably support you having a “plan” to get Elena out of danger. And some further amusement because both Stefan and Damon seem to pick up on there being major vibage between Elena and Elijah, that Elena will always be willing to make a deal with him, etc. However I’m holding out hope that Elijah had realized late that he maybe should make sure Rebekah didn’t do anything to Elena that night so doubled back to her house where he runs into Jeremy running out and Jeremy’s the one to ask “Do you have a thing for my sister or something?” (Another thing I utterly failed to write to my satisfaction this summer.)
The flashbacks are...meh. There’s parts of them I like...sort of, but I can’t really like them as they’re all done in context of the Triangle drama. And contradicting established canon that Elena fell out of love with Matt after her parents died. Yes I can accept some the idea that she wasn’t comfortable with how he had their lives planned out when she wanted to enjoy her life the way it was (of the tragedy) but this felt like it was going too far to have her already thinking about breaking up with him (I mean “setting him free” [gag, sorry ma Gilbert]) before the accident. Add to that that I find it entirely possible to look at Matt’s “This wasn’t how our lives were supposed to go” and Elena’s agreement as her realizing that she kind of would have been okay with that life Matt had in mind because this one sure as hell sucks, and I just thought the episode seemed kind of scatter shot with the Elena/Matt stuff.
Okay, I guess I better get to the parts I HATE because of what they mean in the larger context.
For one, unless Klaus gets his own body back within three episodes (everyone having realized what happened after one) I’ll hate this more than I do just that it happened at all. I hate that the show wouldn’t just kill Klaus off or even keep him out of things for a while. I hate that the show wussed out of having there be consequences for things. I hate that Klaus ended up in TYLER of all people when Bonnie had to have better options. I hate that MT is not a very good actor so has no hope for pulling this off. I hate...this plot. The only thing I like about it is the possible directions for Bonnie’s story which has thin hopes of being paid off. (I hate that I have so little hope of Bonnie getting a story.)
But let’s get to the big one. After a summer to sit on it, I will in fact say that I HATE everything connected with the vamp-Elena possibility.
-Within the context of this episode I hate the way the scenes underwater are handled. It’s STUPID that she wasn’t able to escape, or even try to do so. At a MINIMUM Stefan should have broken her seatbelt off so she’d have a chance. It’s bad enough that he couldn’t try and take them both when Elena was still conscious so she wouldn’t just be dead weight. Of course it’s also stupid that they had such a long scene underwater and she was still conscious, but that’s a different kind of stupid. Also, I’m pretty sure Matt’s truck would have had manual windows that someone could have tried to ROLL DOWN (my car isn’t as much an old beater an Matt’s truck and it has manual windows). Again, everything about this scene is stupidly contrived.
-Beyond that HOW DID STEFAN KNOW WHERE TO FIND THEM (maybe that ap Bonnie was using last ep, I may let the episode have that one) and WHY DID REBEKAH LET HIM GO DOWN THERE? I can just about get my head around her calling to tell him what she was going to do (not really but I can suspect disbelief to some extent), but having been willing to do that wouldn’t she stick around to make sure it was done?
-Plus, would it have been so hard to pay off the Matt/Rebekah plot of the season that she didn’t want to see him die with Elena so Rebekah went in to save him and then wasn’t able to stop Stefan from going after Elena who was by that point dead? Yeah it would have lessened the tragedy of Elena putting Matt’s life ahead of her own, but it would have substantially reduced the other stupid about that scene.
-I also hate that nothing about Elena’s death is her own choice. As much as I hate the idea in general of vamp-Elena if it had come as a consequence of her own choices I would probably hate it marginally less (or if what little was her choice wasn’t done so dumbly). As I said I’m sick of things being done to Elena in the narrative. I accept that if she’s going to be a player then there are going to be consequences for the choices she makes, and even random tragedy (say Matt swerves to avoid a deer and hits a tree) it...would be acceptable in a better show at least; but here she’s going to be a vampire because of what was done TO her by all the characters that removed her agency.
-Here’s the thing, I don’t exactly blame Rebekah for making the choice she made. I think she had valid reasons and a sympathetic viewpoint that caused her to make that choice. But I do expect there to be consequences for it. If say Elijah goes so far as to break his own code and dagger her for it I won’t have a problem with that either (I’ll miss her but I won’t have a story problem with it), because it’s consequence brought on by her own actions, not him using her to his own ends.
-I don’t just say that to get my Rebekah thoughts out there (and some more Elijah ones), but to illustrate the difference. What happens to Rebekah over this is Rebekah’s fault, which is as it should be; what happens to Elena happens through none of Elena’s own fault, which is frustrating.
-I also hadn’t necessarily realized it until someone on my flist pointed it out, but this episode also wusses out of making any of the vampire characters responsible for her becoming a vampire. By making it Meredith they remove they remove any future dramatic possibilities of one or more of them dealing with having some hand in what happened. AND it’s kind of a dumb move on Meredith’s part not to tell them she’d used vamp blood, even if she wanted to downplay just how serious it was she could have said something like “I didn’t want to risk it being worse than I thought (plus she’d lost a lot of blood then for some reason y’all gave her alcohol afterward) so as a precaution I gave her a boost to speed her recovery along.” It’s a dumb move for dramatic reveal at the end that makes little to no sense on a character level.
-But mainly this episode does nothing to convince me the writers are smart enough to pull off a story with Elena as a vampire. Ever since the season moved into its final act they’ve more or less abandoned Elena being an actual character in her own story. Even when they’re not actively writing her as an object in other people’s stories they’re still not making her an actual character in hers. This episode is given all the look of being about Elena, but it’s about her “choice” between bad and worse romantic options and her being passed around by other people making (or at least trying to make) decisions for her. And I’m left with the feeling that that’s exactly how they’re going to continue to treat her (in text and on a meta level) going forward. (Again, the person who doesn’t do that is Elijah but even he has to play to his audience a bit with pointing out he could have killed her to serve his own ends but didn’t. Which considering he does that in one of the few times he’s not eyesexing Elena makes it all the more clear to me that he’s lost the ability to even passively threaten her.)
-Basically, as I’ve been saying since it happened: SHOW, YOU ARE NOT SMART ENOUGH FOR THIS.
Next time:
Well, tomorrow (ish) I’ll be back with TVD in reaction posts. But the review posts will probably go back to DW for a bit. Or at least something to makes me less angry when I go to talk about it.
Suggestion box for good things
