Monsters of Television

Teach me, Uncle Mason.

Few broad comments before I get into the nitty gritty. First, I gotta say, I was kind of kidding in weeks past when I called Caroline, “Awesome Vampire Caroline” [AVC], but now I just have to make that her official name. TVD has officially proven that the best way to make a bad character better is to kill him/her. And then make him/her undead.

I know that just being supernatural doesn’t work because Bonnie sucks. She’s whiny, bitter, and boring. AVC, on the other hand, is whiny, bitter, and exciting!

Other characters deserving of such treatment? Consider the possibilities. On TVD, there’s Jeremy, obviously. But outside this show? Would becoming undead make Tara on True Blood cooler? I bet it would. What about that girl with an addiction on Rubicon? She could use a little undead action. Don’s ex on Mad Men?  Way better as a vampire–all her particularities would become evil distortions.  Alex on Grey’s Anatomy?  Dwight on The Office?  Gosh, this is a fun game. Wanna play?

Here we go, yet another flashback–turns out, though, this one is better than last week.  Know why?  Cause it connects directly to multiple storylines featured this week.  That is how you incorporate a flashback, CW writers.

The flashback features hot Uncle Mason.  He leaves a bar, drunk dude accuses him of schtupping girlfriend, Mason demurs, drunk dude starts to fight, Mason accidentally kills him.  All this connects to Mason’s lesson to young Tyler–the curse becomes activated when a Lockwood man kills another person.  Even if the death is an accident.  Now, that is interesting.  A family full of hot-headed men has a curse that tries to keep them in line.  Clever use of a curse.

Stefan and Elena share a tender moment in which they discuss their elaborate breakup plot to fool Katherine into thinking she’s too sexy to resist.  Elena complains about how hard it is to fight with Stefan, so he says, “If I say, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ what I really mean is I love you.”  Elena returns serve with her own form of I love you, “Yeah, fine, Stefan, whatever.”  Seems a bit cheesy on the page here, but it really worked.   And the kiss between them that followed?  Hot.  How are these two still so sexy together?  TVD, you are doing something really right.

At a new park opening, Caroline fights with her Mom and Stefan tries to play nice with Mason.  Then Stefan becomes cool again.  He tells Mason, “There’s one of you.  There’s two of us.  I think you’re the one who needs to watch his back.”  I love dangerous Stefan.

Mason isn’t in the mood to play nice, though.  He tells Sheriff Liz that Damon is a vampire!  Yes, he did.  Low blow, dude.  Then he proves it by slipping Damon some verveine in a lemonade.  Game on.

Mason helps the Sheriff and two deputies trap Stefan and Damon, then leaves them to do the dirty work.  Sheriff Liz shoots Damon repeatedly because she’s pissed he pretended to be her friend, but Damon insists his friendship was for real.

Mason runs into Elena and AVC and is dumb enough to talk trash about AVC, threatening to tell her mother about her secret.  So she beats him up.  Good for her.  AVC then tracks Damon and Stefan, and after a moment of brief doubt about exposing herself to her mother, she kills both the deputies.  In front of her mother.  In fast forward (she moves fast, you know, cause she’s a vampire).  Sheriff Liz is displeased, to put it mildly.  Even Damon is a bit put out.  “This is the most unfortunate situation,” he says.

Then Damon’s deep down nice guy (you know, the guy he is when he isn’t being a dick) comes out in two ways.  First, he doesn’t kill Sheriff Liz, because “she’s my friend.”  Later, when Liz asks them to keep AVC away from her because her daughter is gone, Damon tells her how wrong she is about that.  Nice of him, but AVC, of course, overheard her mother and is now super sad.  After the verveine leaves her system, Damon will glamor the Sheriff into forgetting everything, but AVC knows eventually her mother will reject her again.

AVC admits to Elena that Katherine threatened Matt, forcing AVC to do her bidding.  AVC says she is frightened of Katherine, and Elena tells her she should be.

Now hold up–what in the world has Katherine done yet that is actually scary?  All she does it wander around, mooning over Stefan.  BORING.  But wait–the episode is not done yet.

Best line of the night, though, goes to a random girl that made out with Tyler two weeks ago.  Random girl’s friend looks at Jeremy like he’s a lollypop, and the random girl warns her, “that guy is damaged goods.”  Truer words have never been spoken.

Having been told by Elena that Tyler’s family is full of werewolves (good, she’s keeping her promise to tell him the truth), Jeremy tells Tyler he knows his secret.  The two actually have a good talk, during which Tyler admits he doesn’t trust his uncle.  Gosh, everyone is being so honest today.  Honesty, it seems, makes a show really interesting.  Who knew?  But when Tyler accidentally almost kills a girl after wrestling with her over his moonstone, he hands over the moonstone to Uncle Mason.

Uncle Mason then gives the rock to his girlfriend–Katherine.  Good reveal, guys.  Turns out Katherine is the one who set Mason up in the first place (though he doesn’t know that). She got the drunk guy to pick a fight, and has been riding the Mason train ever since.  Still not sure what she’s up to, exactly, but sleeping with Mason is a good call.  I mean, this lady has bagged at least three super hot guys in the last two hundred years–well done, Katherine.

Stefan decides he better start drinking human blood so he can keep up with Katherine.  Elena is unsure, until Damon reminds her that it is necessary.  She tells Damon that he did a good thing for Caroline’s mom (by not killing her, I guess–I love bonus points for failing to kill someone). Then she offers Stefan some of her blood, cutting open her hand.  Man, these two just keep being super sexy.  Wow.

Good show, CW.