Monsters of Television

Come on--he's too pretty to be scary.

The Vampire Diaries took a bit of a break this week from its record-setting pacing. Instead, it allowed the characters to reflect on the many changes that have occurred in the past few weeks. At school, Tyler and Awesome Vampire Caroline are forced to stare at reminders that two girls died last week. Jeremy learns that there are limits to what Bonnie can do—and his subtle flirtation with her continues to develop intensity. Elena gets world’s chattiest vampire kidnappers to tell their their entire life history—a rather unrealistic series of conversations that provided the exposition needed to introduce new bad guys now that Katherine is out of the picture (for a brief moment).  Basically, a bunch of taking stock, reflecting, and conversing.  Little action.  Not necessarily a critique–more of an observation.

Meanwhile, in the episodes best subplot, Damon and Stefan take a little road trip to rescue Elena. I would have been perfectly content if this entire episode had focused on Damon and Stefan in that car. Amidst jokes about the requisite bonding that accompanies all road trips, our boys delve into the dangerous territory of Damon’s feelings for Elena and their own history of betrayal.

I’ve got some concerns about the direction the series seems to be taking, and I’ll discuss them below, but I loved the heck out of Stefan and Damon this week. Neither man has aged in 150 years, but they mature nevertheless. Their mutual recognition of their bond allowed them to move past so much nonsense—good acting and strong writing that deserve to be commended.

We begin with a debriefing session—a lot has happened, so it is understandable that all our characters need a moment’s pause this week. Awesome Vampire Caroline tells Damon about her quick thinking with Tyler and his mom—she’s super proud of herself and refuses to let Damon bully her into thinking her helping of Tyler wasn’t appropriate. As she tells Damon, she just felt badly for the guy. You know I love me some Awesome Vampire Caroline, but here is the first moment where I felt a vague concern…not yet one that I could fully describe.  More below.

Jeremy finds Stefan at school and warns him that Jenna has been pretty cool about all the drama between Stefan and Elena, but they should perhaps think twice about being so obvious about spending the night together. Light bulbs for both boys as they realize Elena is missing. Poor Elena—12 whole hours have passed and only now does anyone notice she is gone.

Elena has been kidnapped by some random stooge, who is quickly dispatched by a rather attractive, if scruffy, vampire named Trevor. He brings Elena to an abandoned mansion (sidebar: What is with the abandoned mansions?  Buffy the Vampire Slayers’s Sunnydale, too, boasted all kinds of huge mansions completely abandoned and therefore suitable for housing all sorts of supernatural creatures), where Elena tries to explain to a female vamp named Rosemarie that she’s not Katherine. Said female vamp repeatedly asks Elena to be quiet to no avail, so the annoyed female vamp totally smacks Elena and knocks her out. Elena isn’t the most annoying character on this show, but seeing her get knocked out was sorta satisfying.  Also, this is the last time that Rose is cool in this ep.  From this point on, the inexplicable incompetence begins.

Stefan gets angry when Damon admits Katherine had warned him that Elena was in danger. “How am I supposed to know she was going to start spouting off the truth?” he asks Stefan. They fight about whether to ask Katherine nicely for a bit more context, and I begin thinking, “seriously, TVD writers, you are going to bring Katherine back so quickly?” Luckily, they need Bonnie to answer a few questions about getting access to Katherine, and she figures out a better way to find Elena than trusting Ms. Crazy. Instead, Bonnie uses Jeremy’s blood to do a tracking spell. No one notices that Bonnie has a bloody nose because they’re busy using google to map the area indicated by the blood. Gotta admit, really liked this blend of old magic and new technology. Off go our noble heroes to find their damsel in distress.

Elena, demonstrating no particular wit or bargaining power, nevertheless manages to learn a lot about her mysterious captors. They are running from some guy named Elijah, and they are hoping Elena will be their ticket to freedom.

Tyler keeps bugging Awesome Vampire Caroline to tell him how she knew he is a werewolf. As he notices his new strength (breaking the lock off his locker), he becomes increasingly demanding, even grabbing Awesome Vampire Caroline. Bad idea, dude, she throws his arm behind his back and makes him bend over like the bitch he is. Poor Tyler gets really sad, “I can’t handle this!” he complains to Awesome Vampire Caroline.

Stefan and Damon, in the car, make small talk about Ric’s latest weapons loan, including a verveine grenade (neat). Stefan brings up Damon’s reason for helping him today, noting Damon’s not there for Stefan.  Damon jokes, “the elephant in the room lets out a mighty roar.” Stefan, undeterred, reminds Damon that he likes “road trip bonding.”  Stefan persists into the breach, “Are you in this car because you want to help your little brother save the girl that he loves, or is it because you love her, too.  Hm?” The “hm,” by the way, is important, because it exposes Stefan’s anxiety about this conversation.  Everyone is uncomfortable, and Damon deflects, warning that he can just as easily get out of the car and stop helping.  Stefan, knowing better, says, “no, you can’t.”

Back at casa Jeremy, Bonnie remembers a spell that may allow her to get a message to Elena. The spell succeeds, but Bonnie again springs a bloody nose and passes out.

Elena learns from world’s least savvy kidnappers that Elijah is one of the original vampires and that Elena is a Petrova doppleganger, key to breaking the curse (Which curse, you ask? No one has yet clarified). The moonstone, it seems, binds the curse, and the sacrifice of the Petrova doppleganger breaks it. Basically, all Elena has to do to get information from Trevor and Rosemarie is ask them some questions—if it was always this easy to get information each episode would last about 10 minutes. Not sure why the show’s writers insist on making Elena boring. Why not let her be a bit more clever here? Instead, her ability to get information makes her kidnappers seem dumb instead of making Elena seem smart. Oh, and turns out Rosemarie was once offered a blind date with Stefan, but declined since she likes “bad boys.” Uh oh…I think I see what’s coming…

Tyler continues to stalk Awesome Vampire Caroline, waiting for her at her house. He thinks he has it all figured out—“you’re just like me, aren’t you?” Cute Awesome Vampire Caroline breaks out in laughter. Tyler, displeased with this response, throws her against a wall.  They fight, and Awesome Vampire Caroline shows him her fangs. Dude, don’t mess with Awesome Vampire Caroline—don’t you know she’s the greatest character on this show?  [Now that she’s undead, I really hope they put her back with Damon. Sadly, that does not seem to be the direction the show is taking.]

Back to exposition land, Elena learns Trevor once helped Katherine, the original Petrova doppleganger (sidebar: doppleganger means “double,” right? So aren’t these two more correctly triplegangers? What, did they make a full dozen of Petrova copies back in the day? Told you Elena needs to read that Petrova book she got from Damon—that’s what you get for failing to do your homework, Elena–kidnapped and clueless). So, yeah, Trevor helped Katherine fake her death in 1864, and ever since, Elijah has been trying to kill him.

Bonnie has regained consciousness and explains to Jeremy that witchcraft has its limits. “It’s a reminder that I’m not invincible.” You know, I had been wondering about this. After the last time Bonnie tried to kill Damon, I got a bit nervous that she was seeming too powerful. Wonder if there is strength training for witches? Jeremy promises not to tell anyone (in particular the Salvatore brothers) about Bonnie’s weakness. “I’m all alone in this,” she sadly states. “That’s how I feel a lot of the time—alone,” Jeremy acknowledges. They don’t kiss, but it is so on.

Back to our road trip bonding boys, Damon grabs a bag of blood and begins sipping. Stefan asks if he can have some. Surprised, Damon cracks, “Oh, that’s so sweet, want to be all big and strong to save your girl.” Stefan explains he’s been drinking a bit of blood everyday to build his strength and control. Does Elena know, Damon asks, triumphant. “I’ve been drinking hers,” Stefan admits. “How romantic,” a clearly deflated Damon mumbles.

Damon’s reaction to Stefan’s drinking of Elena’s blood is interesting. He jumps to a seemingly random thought—remembering when Stefan used to be a blood thirsty killer. His reference is not to the most recent history of Stefan going a big blood crazy but rather to their wild past. “Back when you put blood into me so I could be a big, bad vampire….What happened to that guy? He was a hoot.” Stefan notes, “Guess he founds something else to live for.”  The connecting points between Stefan drinking Elena’s blood, Stefan’s post, and Damon’s feelings for both his brother and Elena are hard to understand during this scene, but subsequent scenes help connect the dots.

For instance, in the next scene, Trevor tries to cut and run in fear of Elijah. Rosemarie stops him, reminding, “we’re family forever,” perhaps a not so subtle reference to the Salvatore Bros. When times get tough, family sticks together.

There’s a bunch of buildup to Elijah entering—they sense him, Trevor panics, the camera takes us through the house, the door opens, letting in a ton of sunlight, and I pretty much expected Marlon Brando to walk through the door. Instead, some actor I’ve never seen before comes in. He’s relatively young—mid 30s. Clean, smooth, wearing a suit. Not particularly powerful, scary or impressive. Kinda wish he was more animal, less pretty. Or maybe older, bigger, or something to distinguish him as one of The vampires.

Elijah is pretty surprised to hear that there’s another Petrova doppleganger: “That’s impossible. Her family line ended with her. I know for a fact.” Then when he smells Elena, he’s again dumbstruck, “It’s human. That’s impossible.” Elijah doesn’t seem too caught up on the happenings in Mystic Falls, now does he? Why does Katherine know so much more than he does?

Stefan and Damon finally arrive at the mansion, yet they take a few minutes to chit chat before rushing to the rescue (seriously, it was so odd to see them standing there chatting after three hours in the car—pacing was really slow pokey this week). Damon warns Stefan that he may not return from the mansion (dying a second time, one presumes), and Stefan, without a hint of fear, says, “I can’t think of a better reason to die.” Really, Stefan? For Elena? Not sure she’s really contributed that much to the world to make your death for her all that worth it. But I may be a bit biased for Stefan over kinda dumb-of-late Elena.

Rosemarie makes the mistake of not being super exact in her conversation with Elijah. She makes him promise she’ll be free if she gives him the Petrova doppleganger—but she fails to include Trevor’s name in the promise. Sure enough, Elijah lets Trevor grovel for a bit and then run his hand through Trevor’s neck, detaching his head. Beheadings are pretty gross but still, it was pretty awesome. I mean, he cut off his head with his hand! That’s a neat trick.

Elijah turns to Elena, and she actually shows a moment of self-possession, reminding him he doesn’t have the moonstone and she is the one who knows where it is. He tries to glamour her, realizes she’s got verveine on her, rips off the necklace, and then forces her to tell him the moonstone is entombed with Katherine (really not sure why Damon left that moonstone with Katherine, btw).

Suddenly, we see blurs of movement rushing all around Elijah, Rosemarie, and Elena. As Elijah gets disoriented and stabbed in the hand, Stefan grabs Elena. Damon grabs Rosemarie. Elijah gets tired of this game and makes some threats. Out comes Elena, with the usual “take me, but don’t kill them” bit. Has that ever worked? She then throws the verveine bomb in Elijah’s face. Nice. Stefan shoots him a few times, and then Damon, with an able assist, stabs Elijah through the heart with a rather enormous piece of wood. Yeah, that should do it.

Damon, pleased, looks up at Elena, and there it is—Damon’s face is filled with relief and love as he sees Elena standing there. She seems to return the look and starts coming down the stairs. But Stefan walks into the frame and grabs her into a hug. Holding tight to her man, Elena looks at a devastated Damon. She mouths, “thank you,” and he smiles feebly, aware that his hopes are impossible. It is a really nice scene.

There’s a reunion scene with Jeremy, Bonnie, and Elena—and then we’re back with the Salvatores. They share some whiskey and Stefan informs Damon that Elena remains in danger. “The only way we’ll be able to protect her is if we’re not fighting each other.” Toward that end, Stefan offers Damon a truce: “I’m sorry…for being the guy who made you turn 145 years ago…  What I did was selfish. I didn’t want to be alone. Guess I just needed my brother.”

Also drinking are Tyler and Awesome Vampire Caroline. He asks how she could be a vampire, and she replies, “how can you be a werewolf?” She lies to Tyler that she’s the only vampire in town and then makes him promise that he’ll never tell anyone about either of their secrets. “This is life and death, Tyler.” True that. But I’m guessing this friendship won’t last. Tyler is, after all, a self-proclaimed dick. But he’s vulnerable and sweet here. “I have no one else to tell…  I’m scared.”

Amazingly, after all this, the episode is still not over. Rosemarie somehow walks right in to Stefan’s house—isn’t that impossible? I thought vampires had to be invited. Ah, well, details. She reminds Stefan that they both knew Lexi [whoever the heck that is] back in the day [editor’s note: yep, no memory of Lexi.  Thanks to reader Brandon for his reminder in the comments of her role in Season 1], “Lexi told me you’re one of the good ones,” Rosemarie says. And here I began to think too much.

I’ve written about this before. Anytime a show like The Vampire Diaries makes me think, that isn’t a good thing.   Hence my praise for its break-neck pacing.  Yet this week, I am driven to think.  What, may I ask, is a “good” vampire? Why in the world can there be such a thing as a “good vampire”? Why would other vampires want to hang with a good vampire?

Vampire stories are always tricky. At some point, the love story becomes impossible. The human will age, or want babies, or will have to die to be with the lover. More problematic, though, is the fact that vampire stories depend on the fact that there are parts of being a vampire that suck. Like, really suck. Like, making one prefer to be human kind of suckitude. Cause otherwise, why wouldn’t everyone sign up for a seat on the vampire train?

Let’s take Awesome Vampire Caroline. They’ve done a nice job of showing the costs of her new life. She had to glamour her own mother, even after her mother finally decided to accept her daughter as is, to protect the Salvatores. She had to give up Matt, because she didn’t want to eat him/get him killed.  In her interactions with Tyler this week, they both feel alone, scared, and sorta hopeless.  Awesome Vampire Caroline is awesome because she’s strong in a way no one expected. She’s lost a lot, but she persists. She’s a fighter.

Stefan, meanwhile, knows better than to love a human, but as the voiceover each week reminds us in the “last time on The Vampire Diaries” montage, he just had to know her. Well, guess what, dude…that is folly. And it completely undermines the “curse” part of being a vampire. He gets to be strong, hot, and live forever—and he gets all the benefits of being human (love, sex, trust, etc.). I cry foul!

I can’t seem to get Buffy out of my head this week, but there’s a reason. Buffy’s Angel romance worked because it was tortured. Angel suffered—like a lot. His desire to be good was a direct conflict with his nature—and the show explored that every single week. I know we had a few episodes during which Stefan fell prey to his bloodlust, but now that he’s getting control of that, is there any downside to his curse?

Damon’s character makes a million times more sense–and is therefore more moving and powerful. Elena walks into her bedroom, and there he is in the window—Damon being broody and sexy. I’m going to include his entire speech here. Partially because it is great and I heart Damon (seriously, Booth on Lost dying was the best thing that ever happened to The Vampire Diaries). But also because there’s deeper resonance that I’d like to discuss.

Damon shows Elena her verveine necklace but doesn’t return it immediately.
“I just have to say something.”
“Why do you need to say it with my necklace,” Elena nervously asks.
As Damon walks toward her, she stiffens, afraid.
“Because what I’m about to say is probably the most selfish thing I’ve ever said in my life.”
“Damon, don’t do this…” Elena is terrified (and the cause of her terror is ambiguous and therefore great).
“I have to say it once. You just need to hear it. I love you, Elena,” he says gently, “and its because I love you that I can’t be selfish with you and why you can’t know this. I don’t deserve you, but my brother does.”
Elena looks at Damon, and she seems shocked, frightened, and deeply affected. He moves his face towards hers, and she flinches. He kisses her forehead lightly.
“God, I wish you didn’t have to forget this, but you do.”
Glamored, Elena opens her eyes to find her necklace around her neck and the curtain to her open window blowing. She knows something may have happened, but of course can’t remember anything.

So there you go. From my perspective, Damon loves Elena more than Stefan because he’s willing to sacrifice himself in a more powerful way than Stefan. Sure, Stefan was willing to die in a battle to save her, but Damon is going to live with love unrequited. He’ll see his brother touch the woman he loves every day. And he will remain silent.

What made Damon a bad guy, one he so clearly believes inadequate to be loved? All signs of his human past portray him as a more tragic figure than Stefan. Yet Stefan is supposedly the “good”one.

I’m guessing Rose is gonna make a play for our man, Damon. She has not yet at all impressed me as a character, so I remain ambivalent. Though I see the beauty in Rose being someone who rejected a chance with Stefan once and therefore would be choosing Damon over him—something poor Damon has never experienced before.

I’m also unsure how much the writers will continue to play with the Damon, Stefan, Elena triangle. As we learned from Dawson’s Creek, these trilogies can lead to impassioned camps of divided fans. I’m clearly Team Damon, as I was Team Pacey. But Stefan is not nearly the tool that Dawson was (sorry, DJers), so I remain content with the Stefan-Elena romance. As long as they keep pushing the limits on Damon’s battle for humanity in a believable and effecting manner.

The ep ends by revealing that Elijah is not truly dead. Bummer. He was even less impressive than Rose, so now I’m stuck with two annoying new characters.

Lots of questions remain despite the heavy-handed exposition within this ep: Who is the original Petrova that Katherine and Elena are now copying? Was she one of the original vampires? What is her role with the curse? Go read the damn Petrova book, Elena. Or give it to Jeremy since he’s seeming way brighter than you these days.

What is the end game for characters like Elijah? What will breaking the curse provide? And all-access pass to daylight? Freedom from eternity? Return to human form?

Why isn’t Elijah dead? What does it take? Again, taking a cue from Buffy, I’m guessing beheading should do the trick. BTW, Buffy’s original vampire was way more scary than this dude.

What are the stakes for Stefan in the romance with Elena? He says he knows the risks, but I’d like to see him struggle against his desire more. Let Stefan acknowledge more openly his understanding that wanting to be with her is as selfish as Damon knows it to be. Give this romance a real struggle—and maybe then I’ll be a less vocal Team Damon member.