![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthHmmmm....
TVD 4x09 reactions
I was not nearly as bothered by this episode as I was the last one, I’m still not exactly happy with it, but in the land of side eye ‘I’m glad I don’t actually care anymore’ rather than the RAGE BITTER UTTER RAGE UNTIL THE END OF TIME like I was last week so that’s...better I guess.
One thing came to me this episode, that this whole sire thing just about guarantees that they’re planning to cure Elena’s vampirism, because they can’t continue to have Triangle nonsense if she remains sired and the only way to change that is by making her human again (I suppose they could kill Damon but that’s much less likely). So as much as I loathe that they ever introduced the sire bond, I’m finding it oddly comforting that it means in the future we’ll have human Elena again. Not that I have any confidence they’ll deal how all of the affects her once she is human again, but small steps. Which then raises the question of why they turned her in the first place but I’ve been wanting an answer to that since they did.
You know, the fake plan for dealing with Klaus actually has a lot of potential, especially with Caroline’s added part of the plot, it’s a shame the plan was wasted on being fake. On the other hand the stuff dealing with Klaus was easily the best part of the episode so it would have been a shame for it to end with him out of action at this point (I’m still a little bitter they put him back in action so quickly after desiccating him last season, but that’s not really part of this discussion); both the Klaus scenes and the conflict behind the scenes dealing with him.
However, I have to take issue with the Stefan-Caroline discussion of Klaus. Because Stefan flirts with having a point that he’s really not any better than Klaus, but ends up just dragging Caroline partway down the path with him - and while Caroline isn’t innocent by any means, she can count her kills on one hand I think, rather than needing a wall to write part of them on – while claiming that “they” come back from the edge because they have family to stop them. Plus, isn’t that kind of contradictory to flashback-Lexi’s point last week about how Damon encourages him to go over it? (Must avoid talk of last week, I’d like to forget it ever happened, and this is just more reason to.)
On the other hand this episode was heavy on the Klaus/Stefan (to the point where I wish they’d just admit that’s what they’re writing) and Klaus/Caroline continued to be inexplicably fun but was nicely kept to a minimum (with Klaus allowed to point out that Caroline being nice-ish to him probably means something is afoot). And those are the only ships I feel like commenting one.
Oh, aside from Rebekah/April, which I feel like I’m really close to shipping (more Original/high schooler shipping for me, surprise; although this is more April->Rebekah, which is probably good to have one Original ship where it’s someone pursuing them rather than one of them wanting a high schooler). Sure April’s screen-time all season could have been used for characters we actually care about, but out of that context it has been a fairly well done story that looks about to bring Rebekah back in with it, so that’s nice.
God damn it show, please make Elena-Jeremy matter more than their romantic interests for once. I want to see them deal with what Jeremy said to her, even if it’s to say it was just the Hunter-ness talking. Hell, don’t have them address it, but admit that Elena doesn’t want to discuss it because she actually feels like he’s right to think that or something, don’t just have something that intense happen between them and then act like he didn’t just say the most hurtful thing he ever could have said to her.
Also wasn’t the point that he had to be able to think of a vampire he cared about to create that cut-off, how does focusing on Bonnie work for that? And for once I may need to write Jeremy fic where when asked if there’s anyone else that would work he gets all bitter about how Anna and Vicky are dead, because I really expected the scene to bring that up, and it made the whole using Bonnie to help him thing just that bit more awkward.
I still kind of don’t get Shane’s plan, I don’t get the endgame, I don’t get the process, I don’t get how you could possibly have old magic that requires the souls of 12 unsired hybrids when hybrids didn’t exist until...two/three months ago in show time. Plus I’m refusing to let go of the idea that this leads back to Tatia and I’m not sure how this all connects (not that it’s clear without trying to put that piece in or I’d have to admit it didn’t go anywhere).
Speaking of the time line...um, show, you do realize that this implies the entire first season took place between at most early September (episode 6 was Halloween as I recall) and Christmas; plus, what happened to all the other Founders’ Day events that should have followed MMF? With your time scale, you need to avoid holiday episodes of any kind (even school years are a little iffy) because it never all fits together when you try to put dates to things.
Look, I feel absolutely nothing for Damon’s “sacrifice” of giving up Elena, partly because it was completely gross and partly because I know it won’t really be over, and party just because I that deeply do not care about Damon; BUT, Stefan is an utter douche too when he finds out Damon and Elena were together too. I’ll reserve a little judgment until I find out who he’s mad at, but my gut tells me he’s going to be a dick to both of them, just in different ways probably (in that he’s going to redouble his controlling dick behavior about finding the cure to fix Elena and just be a general ass to Damon about the sex rather than his hesitation to leave Elena alone once they knew about the sire bond; the second deserves condemnation, the first happened before they knew about it so as gross as it was for the *show* it wasn’t really Damon’s fault). So so far just an eye-rolling ‘shut up Stefan’ preemptively rather than the shouting I’ll probably do when he doesn’t listen to me.
I probably should have realized when the show actually gave Carol and Tyler a meaningful scene that it meant she was going to die, though at the time it was focused on the possibility of something happening to Tyler. Not cool show, I’ll just say that with a big sigh because you are so not cool that you’re going to need Elijah, Rebekah, Katherine, and probably more cool characters just to reach ‘semi-cool’ status as a show.
Let’s all hope the show’s New Year’s resolution is to do just that, otherwise it’s going to be a long haul to get through this season.
Hmm, you know that was mainly thinky thoughts and bitching, but really there were bits of this episode I liked, just apparently not ones that inspired much thought. On the whole vast improvement from last week, but watching paint dry would have been a vast improvement over that dreck (even DW's Library eps would have been marginally better, and I loathe those eps).
TVD 4x09 reactions
I was not nearly as bothered by this episode as I was the last one, I’m still not exactly happy with it, but in the land of side eye ‘I’m glad I don’t actually care anymore’ rather than the RAGE BITTER UTTER RAGE UNTIL THE END OF TIME like I was last week so that’s...better I guess.
One thing came to me this episode, that this whole sire thing just about guarantees that they’re planning to cure Elena’s vampirism, because they can’t continue to have Triangle nonsense if she remains sired and the only way to change that is by making her human again (I suppose they could kill Damon but that’s much less likely). So as much as I loathe that they ever introduced the sire bond, I’m finding it oddly comforting that it means in the future we’ll have human Elena again. Not that I have any confidence they’ll deal how all of the affects her once she is human again, but small steps. Which then raises the question of why they turned her in the first place but I’ve been wanting an answer to that since they did.
You know, the fake plan for dealing with Klaus actually has a lot of potential, especially with Caroline’s added part of the plot, it’s a shame the plan was wasted on being fake. On the other hand the stuff dealing with Klaus was easily the best part of the episode so it would have been a shame for it to end with him out of action at this point (I’m still a little bitter they put him back in action so quickly after desiccating him last season, but that’s not really part of this discussion); both the Klaus scenes and the conflict behind the scenes dealing with him.
However, I have to take issue with the Stefan-Caroline discussion of Klaus. Because Stefan flirts with having a point that he’s really not any better than Klaus, but ends up just dragging Caroline partway down the path with him - and while Caroline isn’t innocent by any means, she can count her kills on one hand I think, rather than needing a wall to write part of them on – while claiming that “they” come back from the edge because they have family to stop them. Plus, isn’t that kind of contradictory to flashback-Lexi’s point last week about how Damon encourages him to go over it? (Must avoid talk of last week, I’d like to forget it ever happened, and this is just more reason to.)
On the other hand this episode was heavy on the Klaus/Stefan (to the point where I wish they’d just admit that’s what they’re writing) and Klaus/Caroline continued to be inexplicably fun but was nicely kept to a minimum (with Klaus allowed to point out that Caroline being nice-ish to him probably means something is afoot). And those are the only ships I feel like commenting one.
Oh, aside from Rebekah/April, which I feel like I’m really close to shipping (more Original/high schooler shipping for me, surprise; although this is more April->Rebekah, which is probably good to have one Original ship where it’s someone pursuing them rather than one of them wanting a high schooler). Sure April’s screen-time all season could have been used for characters we actually care about, but out of that context it has been a fairly well done story that looks about to bring Rebekah back in with it, so that’s nice.
God damn it show, please make Elena-Jeremy matter more than their romantic interests for once. I want to see them deal with what Jeremy said to her, even if it’s to say it was just the Hunter-ness talking. Hell, don’t have them address it, but admit that Elena doesn’t want to discuss it because she actually feels like he’s right to think that or something, don’t just have something that intense happen between them and then act like he didn’t just say the most hurtful thing he ever could have said to her.
Also wasn’t the point that he had to be able to think of a vampire he cared about to create that cut-off, how does focusing on Bonnie work for that? And for once I may need to write Jeremy fic where when asked if there’s anyone else that would work he gets all bitter about how Anna and Vicky are dead, because I really expected the scene to bring that up, and it made the whole using Bonnie to help him thing just that bit more awkward.
I still kind of don’t get Shane’s plan, I don’t get the endgame, I don’t get the process, I don’t get how you could possibly have old magic that requires the souls of 12 unsired hybrids when hybrids didn’t exist until...two/three months ago in show time. Plus I’m refusing to let go of the idea that this leads back to Tatia and I’m not sure how this all connects (not that it’s clear without trying to put that piece in or I’d have to admit it didn’t go anywhere).
Speaking of the time line...um, show, you do realize that this implies the entire first season took place between at most early September (episode 6 was Halloween as I recall) and Christmas; plus, what happened to all the other Founders’ Day events that should have followed MMF? With your time scale, you need to avoid holiday episodes of any kind (even school years are a little iffy) because it never all fits together when you try to put dates to things.
Look, I feel absolutely nothing for Damon’s “sacrifice” of giving up Elena, partly because it was completely gross and partly because I know it won’t really be over, and party just because I that deeply do not care about Damon; BUT, Stefan is an utter douche too when he finds out Damon and Elena were together too. I’ll reserve a little judgment until I find out who he’s mad at, but my gut tells me he’s going to be a dick to both of them, just in different ways probably (in that he’s going to redouble his controlling dick behavior about finding the cure to fix Elena and just be a general ass to Damon about the sex rather than his hesitation to leave Elena alone once they knew about the sire bond; the second deserves condemnation, the first happened before they knew about it so as gross as it was for the *show* it wasn’t really Damon’s fault). So so far just an eye-rolling ‘shut up Stefan’ preemptively rather than the shouting I’ll probably do when he doesn’t listen to me.
I probably should have realized when the show actually gave Carol and Tyler a meaningful scene that it meant she was going to die, though at the time it was focused on the possibility of something happening to Tyler. Not cool show, I’ll just say that with a big sigh because you are so not cool that you’re going to need Elijah, Rebekah, Katherine, and probably more cool characters just to reach ‘semi-cool’ status as a show.
Let’s all hope the show’s New Year’s resolution is to do just that, otherwise it’s going to be a long haul to get through this season.
Hmm, you know that was mainly thinky thoughts and bitching, but really there were bits of this episode I liked, just apparently not ones that inspired much thought. On the whole vast improvement from last week, but watching paint dry would have been a vast improvement over that dreck (even DW's Library eps would have been marginally better, and I loathe those eps).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-12-15 01:10 am (UTC)Yeah, I'm getting this impression too.
Oh, aside from Rebekah/April, which I feel like I’m really close to shipping
I could ship it.
huh?
Date: 2012-12-20 04:38 am (UTC)I only watched a few scenes but I thought that Damon had the ability to revoke the sire bond? Wait...disregard...it's always a bad idea to question the storyline or characterization too closely.
(sigh) My Elijah-missage is a physical ache. Since there's a cure for vampirism, maybe Elena *and* Elijah can be cured (together...with lots of strong-jawed babies)...If you're going to dream...dream big...