so...that happened
Oct. 19th, 2012 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthI know I’ve been pretty quiet this last week, between baseball playoffs and I did a Revenge rewatch/catch-up that I didn’t feel like doing review of but might post a few thoughts on at some point (because I do have Revenge thoughts, really). But tonight was new TVD, so it’s reaction post time.
So this episode was clearly taking notes from the books. I have mixed feelings on that because, as always they did do them better, but on the other hand they really have grown so far past the books that I wish they would have thrown them out long before they decided to turn Elena into a vampire by crashing off Wickery Bridge (mostly because, I still don’t like it).
For those who haven’t read them I’ll say it. In the books blood-sharing=sex (because book vamps can’t do sex, being dead and all); which pretty much makes what Damon did here molesting Elena. Stay classy Damon; because Elena of course wouldn’t see it as all that different from when she drank from all of them as a human, but they’re setting it up as being more between vamps if not as explicitly so as in the books. Also in the books Elena ends up feeding on Matt while she’s in transition, so I wasn’t really surprised to see the show pull up that detail; also completely logical as at this point the only other option is Jeremy and that could just be weird.
On the whole I...sort of liked this episode. I may not like or buy how we got to this situation, but if we’re stuck with it this seems fairly reasonable. Aside from Stefan, who I’m going to bitch at royally in a minute, I didn’t really have any complaints and there were even a few moments I liked.
Well, there’s the standard complaints of not enough of the girls interacting, but I *kind of* buy that Bonnie would be avoiding the situation at this point. I’m less accepting of Caroline not mother-henning it up, but at least we did get a good moment between Elena and Care. And I thought the Founders’ Council group death was leading to something important, but for the moment it appears it really was just to not have to write for them and allow a new “baddy” to move in. I use the term “baddy” loosely because so far we really know nothing about him, and as you may recall I’m hesitant to label wanting to kill vampires as inherently evil
I did appreciate Elena’s stuff this episode (but this will come into play more in my imminent Stefan bitching) but probably my favorite subtle stuff this episode was the Alaric stuff. In the first scene at the bar you think Damon’s just trying to keep Liz away but then when it’s Elena you realize he doesn’t want anyone sitting in Ric’s seat. And then at the end we get ghost-Ric showing up for Damon’s pity party and it was great. At least that was how my thoughts worked on it. And as such it seemed like Alaric kind of was subtly in the stuff with the hunter guy (whose name escapes me if we even heard it), as the last hunter to come to town ended up being Damon’s BFF rather than remaining the enemy.
Okay, let’s get down to what I really didn’t like: Stefan. I may not have liked Damon around Elena or Elena’s story in general, but at least I did like him dealing with his Ric-grief, while Stefan was only written around Elena and was written as an a-hole. At first I was willing to cut him some slack, thought maybe the initial hunting was Elena’s idea and he was helping her with it, and we still don’t know for a fact that that wasn’t the case, but I’m less forgiving after the end which was pretty mu 3x20 all over again with Stefan trying to control Elena’s grief and them make it about him.
But let’s not ignore that even the first part was pretty dumb. Again it was written as if everything that happened last season never happened. As if Stefan’s dark past is some distant memory that he’s moved on and learned from WHEN IT ISN’T. Or wouldn’t be if he had any kind of character development. He hasn’t learned anything from his recent return to the dark side, hell he hasn’t even learned anything from helping Caroline through her transition not that long ago. Stefan, news flash, your teaching method DOESN’T WORK, nor are you the poster boy for vampirism.
Again I, being me, have to ask WHERE IS ELIJAH???? There’s a guy out there with a thousand years of experience who has probably seen every type of transition/new amp experience you can think of; a guy who is almost a shoe in to think he owes Elena a thing or two after what Rebekah did *and* it turning out Klaus is alive; a guy who IS the poster boy for control and...more control; and a guy who probably has nothing on his plate right now as he planned to run away from Alaric for a while...but no one considers ASKING if he’d like to join their team. Notice how I could make that case without getting into shipping territory? Because it’s so ridiculous that he’s not around I don’t need to make it shippy.
But anyway, while I wish the opening had given us more about what ELENA wanted rather than what STEFAN wanted for her (you know, exactly what I feared the show would do with this plot), I could live with it until the end. Remember how I wanted to throw things at Stefan when he wouldn’t let Elena freak out over Alaric’s death? Yeah, he did it AGAIN. And while I do think that lead to a moment these characters needed to have (because seriously, they’ve gone through a ton of shit recently), which is at least more than I can say for 3x20, the fact that he KEEPS DOING IT means I still want to throw things. This is never allowed to be about Elena’s pain, it’s always about how Stefan thinks he can control Elena’s feelings when he thinks they’re negative.
And what’s worse is I thought for one moment when Elena started talking about how she felt SO MUCH GRIEF, that for once the show was going to acknowledge how much she’s gone through. But instead Stefan’s like “You can have feelings, but only on my terms” again, and I HATE THAT. So I’m of two minds about the last couple Elena scenes because of that; they’re good but not what they should have been if Stefan wasn’t such an awful friend/boyfriend.
And that was after I’d already been jerked around by the Elena plot because *I* thought they were setting up for something to go wonky in her transformation and we’d get the plot I want about Elena not actually being a vampire. Yeah, everything I want for Elena was being toyed with here, and not only have they not changed course on this vampire thing, but we didn’t even get a proper freak out from her in spite of her story obviously wanting to go there.
Small points:
-Poor John, no one misses you (or Isobel, or the Martins, or Pearl, or Rose, or probably several others even I’m forgetting). Even dearly departed dead dad Dick (hands up if you get the reference) got a mention, but not Elena biological father who gave his life for her...so she wouldn’t become a vampire...that sacrifice went well.
-At least someone did think to remember Jenna in all that.
-When DID they have time to throw any kind of funeral for Alaric? Or was that what Damon’s “the date’s probably wrong” thing was about, that he’s guessed when he did it in some spare moment without everyone being involved?
-So I take it Liz and Carol are back in power? Possibly Meredith too? Again, what was the POINT of the FC plot if it didn’t actually change anything? Also, why do these ladies not get any actual story time? (I know, it’s the CW where people over 30 (who aren’t vampires) don’t actually get plots, but I can still bitch).
-I still have no idea if Bonnie’s going to get an actual story out of this, and I’m still upset it apparently isn’t going to be about her saying “Fuck you” to the spirits who have dicked her around so much.
-I miss my Original drama when they go away for a week.
Apparently I had a fair amount of bitching to do, but I...liked this episode okay. Didn’t love it, only hated a couple factors of it, still reserving judgment on a lot of it. And I do love Matt ever so much, so the episode does get points for giving me Matt stuff.
So this episode was clearly taking notes from the books. I have mixed feelings on that because, as always they did do them better, but on the other hand they really have grown so far past the books that I wish they would have thrown them out long before they decided to turn Elena into a vampire by crashing off Wickery Bridge (mostly because, I still don’t like it).
For those who haven’t read them I’ll say it. In the books blood-sharing=sex (because book vamps can’t do sex, being dead and all); which pretty much makes what Damon did here molesting Elena. Stay classy Damon; because Elena of course wouldn’t see it as all that different from when she drank from all of them as a human, but they’re setting it up as being more between vamps if not as explicitly so as in the books. Also in the books Elena ends up feeding on Matt while she’s in transition, so I wasn’t really surprised to see the show pull up that detail; also completely logical as at this point the only other option is Jeremy and that could just be weird.
On the whole I...sort of liked this episode. I may not like or buy how we got to this situation, but if we’re stuck with it this seems fairly reasonable. Aside from Stefan, who I’m going to bitch at royally in a minute, I didn’t really have any complaints and there were even a few moments I liked.
Well, there’s the standard complaints of not enough of the girls interacting, but I *kind of* buy that Bonnie would be avoiding the situation at this point. I’m less accepting of Caroline not mother-henning it up, but at least we did get a good moment between Elena and Care. And I thought the Founders’ Council group death was leading to something important, but for the moment it appears it really was just to not have to write for them and allow a new “baddy” to move in. I use the term “baddy” loosely because so far we really know nothing about him, and as you may recall I’m hesitant to label wanting to kill vampires as inherently evil
I did appreciate Elena’s stuff this episode (but this will come into play more in my imminent Stefan bitching) but probably my favorite subtle stuff this episode was the Alaric stuff. In the first scene at the bar you think Damon’s just trying to keep Liz away but then when it’s Elena you realize he doesn’t want anyone sitting in Ric’s seat. And then at the end we get ghost-Ric showing up for Damon’s pity party and it was great. At least that was how my thoughts worked on it. And as such it seemed like Alaric kind of was subtly in the stuff with the hunter guy (whose name escapes me if we even heard it), as the last hunter to come to town ended up being Damon’s BFF rather than remaining the enemy.
Okay, let’s get down to what I really didn’t like: Stefan. I may not have liked Damon around Elena or Elena’s story in general, but at least I did like him dealing with his Ric-grief, while Stefan was only written around Elena and was written as an a-hole. At first I was willing to cut him some slack, thought maybe the initial hunting was Elena’s idea and he was helping her with it, and we still don’t know for a fact that that wasn’t the case, but I’m less forgiving after the end which was pretty mu 3x20 all over again with Stefan trying to control Elena’s grief and them make it about him.
But let’s not ignore that even the first part was pretty dumb. Again it was written as if everything that happened last season never happened. As if Stefan’s dark past is some distant memory that he’s moved on and learned from WHEN IT ISN’T. Or wouldn’t be if he had any kind of character development. He hasn’t learned anything from his recent return to the dark side, hell he hasn’t even learned anything from helping Caroline through her transition not that long ago. Stefan, news flash, your teaching method DOESN’T WORK, nor are you the poster boy for vampirism.
Again I, being me, have to ask WHERE IS ELIJAH???? There’s a guy out there with a thousand years of experience who has probably seen every type of transition/new amp experience you can think of; a guy who is almost a shoe in to think he owes Elena a thing or two after what Rebekah did *and* it turning out Klaus is alive; a guy who IS the poster boy for control and...more control; and a guy who probably has nothing on his plate right now as he planned to run away from Alaric for a while...but no one considers ASKING if he’d like to join their team. Notice how I could make that case without getting into shipping territory? Because it’s so ridiculous that he’s not around I don’t need to make it shippy.
But anyway, while I wish the opening had given us more about what ELENA wanted rather than what STEFAN wanted for her (you know, exactly what I feared the show would do with this plot), I could live with it until the end. Remember how I wanted to throw things at Stefan when he wouldn’t let Elena freak out over Alaric’s death? Yeah, he did it AGAIN. And while I do think that lead to a moment these characters needed to have (because seriously, they’ve gone through a ton of shit recently), which is at least more than I can say for 3x20, the fact that he KEEPS DOING IT means I still want to throw things. This is never allowed to be about Elena’s pain, it’s always about how Stefan thinks he can control Elena’s feelings when he thinks they’re negative.
And what’s worse is I thought for one moment when Elena started talking about how she felt SO MUCH GRIEF, that for once the show was going to acknowledge how much she’s gone through. But instead Stefan’s like “You can have feelings, but only on my terms” again, and I HATE THAT. So I’m of two minds about the last couple Elena scenes because of that; they’re good but not what they should have been if Stefan wasn’t such an awful friend/boyfriend.
And that was after I’d already been jerked around by the Elena plot because *I* thought they were setting up for something to go wonky in her transformation and we’d get the plot I want about Elena not actually being a vampire. Yeah, everything I want for Elena was being toyed with here, and not only have they not changed course on this vampire thing, but we didn’t even get a proper freak out from her in spite of her story obviously wanting to go there.
Small points:
-Poor John, no one misses you (or Isobel, or the Martins, or Pearl, or Rose, or probably several others even I’m forgetting). Even dearly departed dead dad Dick (hands up if you get the reference) got a mention, but not Elena biological father who gave his life for her...so she wouldn’t become a vampire...that sacrifice went well.
-At least someone did think to remember Jenna in all that.
-When DID they have time to throw any kind of funeral for Alaric? Or was that what Damon’s “the date’s probably wrong” thing was about, that he’s guessed when he did it in some spare moment without everyone being involved?
-So I take it Liz and Carol are back in power? Possibly Meredith too? Again, what was the POINT of the FC plot if it didn’t actually change anything? Also, why do these ladies not get any actual story time? (I know, it’s the CW where people over 30 (who aren’t vampires) don’t actually get plots, but I can still bitch).
-I still have no idea if Bonnie’s going to get an actual story out of this, and I’m still upset it apparently isn’t going to be about her saying “Fuck you” to the spirits who have dicked her around so much.
-I miss my Original drama when they go away for a week.
Apparently I had a fair amount of bitching to do, but I...liked this episode okay. Didn’t love it, only hated a couple factors of it, still reserving judgment on a lot of it. And I do love Matt ever so much, so the episode does get points for giving me Matt stuff.
