Monsters of Television

Oooh, scary small talk, Klaus. Where's your cool coin trick? I miss Elijah.

At the end of this week’s The Vampire Diaries, I turned excitedly to my partner and said, “This season is going really well, don’t you think?”  It was, of course, a rhetorical question.  There is much to like about this season, including a newly empowered and ennobled Tyler, a slightly less dumb Matt, a completely missing Bonnie, and an emphasis upon Damon and Elena (I suppose there could be fans less pleased with this, but if there are, I don’t know them).

Of course, there are aspects of season 3 that I admire less, like the tendency to get super foggy with the details of the Big Bad’s master plan.  I had to suspend my disbelief repeatedly during this episode’s scenes involving Klaus.  How do I question, thee, Big Bad–let me count the ways.  First, you are supposed to super powerful, so why have Stefan do all your killing? Have you even transitioned into a werewolf since you and Stefan set off on your dastardly buddy comedy?  Second, why can Stefan run into Elena and Damon repeatedly while wandering on a Tennessee mountain but Klaus–older and more powerful–remains oblivious?  Third, am I supposed to just accept that Klaus became a hybrid during the few minutes Elena was dead, but now that she’s back alive, no more hybrids can be made?  To go deeper into this mythological disclaimer might lead to madness, so I won’t harp on this point, but let’s just say, I have to remind myself not to ask too many questions.

Instead, I’d like to marvel at how The Vampire Diaries always manages to lessen or remove my annoyance at Elena.  She was driving me bat shit crazy this entire episode, but then, in a clever reveal at the end, I suddenly found her storyline this week way more insightful and effective.  More about that, though, after the jump…

 We open with Elena rushing to see how Damon is doing now that she has heard of Andie’s death. Damon notes with no small degree of snark that he’s doing just fine, “dead fake girlfriend and all.” “Why didn’t you tell me?” Elena asks. “Happy birthday, Elena. Stefan killed Andie. Cake?” Damon says by way of explanation. Elena says with urgency, “He called me, Damon.” Thing is, Damon doesn’t want to hear more about Stefan’s lingering humanity right now. [Quick aside—doesn’t Damon owe Stefan this kill of Andie? I mean, Damon killed Stefan’s best friend in season 1, and he doesn’t have Stefan’s excuse of being trapped with psycho Klaus.] Damon replies with bitterness, “Stefan’s gone, and I don’t mean geographically,” as he burns the newspaper clippings that symbolize his now-extinguished desire to find Stefan.

Elena will not be denied—she’s quite the persistent young thing in this episode. Clever girl that she is, she heads straight to Ric, cause “whatever Damon knows, [Ric] knows.” [God, I love this bromance.] Ric is determined to be a whiskey-soaked lost cause, so he works hard to deter Elena’s perkiness. But she reminds Ric that Stefan would never give up on her…

Klaus is already tired of Stefan’s brooding [imagine how we, the audience, feel about it after three years, Klaus]: “your self-loathing is suffocating you, my friend.” They finally find their wolf pack, and Klaus is absolutely delighted to learn they heard of him, “the hybrid.”

Carol Lockwood, having drugged herself a teenage, blonde, vampire, now tests her son. To be honest, despite my extreme annoyance at anyone that would try to hurt Awesome Vampire Caroline, I found pretty moving Carol’s unspoken fear that her son, too, was a vampire. Before Tyler wakes up to find Caroline gone, Carol doses his coffee with verveine. He drinks the coffee while she reminds him that she’d prefer his sleepover buddies not sneak out like prostitutes. Noting that the cream must be bad in the coffee, Tyler puts it down and asks his mother not to call Caroline a prostitute. Carol is super relieved as her son walks off, clearly not a vampire. She then makes a call to someone named Bill.

Jeremy, showing that Gilbert persistence, returns to Matt because he needs him. Jeremy says that when he saw Vicki’s ghost, she asked for his help. Jeremy now thinks he can help Vicki (he did his own online research, though we don’t yet know what sort of spell, etc, he has found) by connecting to her through some personal items and the mediating help of her family member.

Elena, as resourceful as her brother, meets with Tyler to get the lowdown on werewolves. He grabs her phone to show her the areas in the Tennessee woods where he imagines the wolves who like to transform unencumbered gather together on the night of the full moon. [I was super shocked the CW did not show us some sort of really impressive interactive map on that phone, with the brand name clearly visible. Missed product placement opportunity, CW! Now that I think of it, we didn’t get to see Jeremy “bing” his ghost research, either. Did the CW lose their product placement exec recently or something?] Elena forces Ric to join her in Tennessee cause she would go with or without him, and Lord knows there isn’t a man on this show that will let Elena get too near danger alone.

Klaus finds a random human among the wolf pack and feeds him to an already transition Ray, the werewolf from last episode that Klaus has already changed into a vampire. The rest of the werewolves have a choice—transition or die. [I was so bummed that when Klaus killed a resistant female vamp, he didn’t say, “She chose unwisely.” Name that film reference!]

Tyler has a reasonably friendly run-in with Matt while he waits in vain for Caroline to show up at the Grill. He tells Matt that he never meant for his friendship with Caroline to be a problem for Matt [understatement of year, on many levels]. Matt is perceptive here, figuring out that Tyler may need help during his midnight transformation if Caroline is AWOL, but Tyler assures him he’ll be fine. [There was a nice amount of awkwardness in this scene, with both the acting and the dialogue.] Tyler drinks some coffee Matt hands him, but grimaces when it tastes bad. Matt has a sly smile, saying Sherriff Forbes has him put verveine in the coffee every once in a while. “I’m surprised you can taste is—coffee usually hides the flavor, for humans anyway,” Matt explains [Note to self: look at past posts to see if Matt remains out of the loop about Tyler being a wolf, as the scene suggests]. Tyler is a bit slow on the uptake here, but you see the wheels in his brain turning reasonably quickly as figures out, crap, my Mom KNOWS.

Bill meets Carol Lockwood at her house—and it is the guy from Heroes! You know, the one actor on Heroes that was worth a darn? The guy without a name? Horned-rim glasses guy? Nice call, TVD—I’m already excited to see where this storyline goes (and my excitement triples in the program’s final minutes). Carol has the decency to be upset about Caroline being a vampire: “I remember the day she was born.” But Bill has less sentimentality: “She’s a vampire, Carol—we do what we have to do.”

Elena and Ric set off in the woods, with Elena admiring Ric’s arsenal, including a wolfsbane grenade [Ric rules me]. Then Elena hands Ric a rather familiar ring. He won’t touch Uncle/Daddy John’s ring, but Elena insists. Though she admits John wanted the ring to be saved for her possible future children [still believe that to be a super savvy move on John’s part—a clear statement that John didn’t like Elena’s boyfriend but framed in such a way as to be endearing], Elena offers to let Ric borrow it: “I’d feel bad if I got you killed before happy hour.” After that super smooth line, Elena suddenly gets pushed into a nearby lake. Damon has arrived, and he’s less than pleased. Elena, realizing Ric tipped off Damon, is equally annoyed. [All I envision is a future scene with a very wet Elena and Damon, and I’m excited.]

Stefan chats up Klaus, asking if his master plan is to build a hybrid army of slaves. Klaus takes offense to the choice of the word, “slave,” and corrects Stefan by saying the real trick is to build an army so large no one (especially the soldiers) will dare to challenge it. At this point, Stefan senses that the clock may be ticking on his time alive since he can’t exactly become a super hybrid like the wolves (funny how that works). Klaus assures Stefan that he’ll know why Klaus is keeping him around when Klaus decides it is time to tell him. [Klaus is super confident this entire episode, until he’s really not. I don’t like his character as much as Elijah, but maybe he’ll grow on me?]

Damon walks into the water to drag Elena out of the woods, reminding her (again) that she’s only safe if Klaus continues to think she’s dead. They bicker in an amusing way, and despite all the wisdom of Damon’s words, he can’t resist the little, “Damon, please,” that Elena offers him. He says, “okay, but we are out of here before the moon is full and I’m werewolf bait.” “I promise,” a satisfied Elena says Damon won’t let her be too satisfied: “Unless you want to relive that whole dead bit, kissy thing,” he says. “I said I promise,” a chastened Elena insists.

The new hybrid, Ray, starts to suffer at about the time his transition should be complete. Stefan is keeping his elation under the surface, until a rabid Ray runs off and bites him. Klaus insists he’ll only save Stefan [by feeding Stefan Klaus’ blood—remember that clause in the “deadly werewolf bite” manual?] if Stefan brings back Ray, so off Stefan goes. Stefan sees our fearless band of warriors–Elena, Damon, and Ric–in the distance, and somehow we’re supposed to believe that Klaus, who walks up behind Stefan, doesn’t see them (despite his super hearing, etc). [Suspension of disbelief. Repeat to self three times.]

Tyler and Carol have a biting conversation, which is great. She plays dumb when he mentions verveine, so he barks at her, “let’s skip the part where we pretend we don’t know about the vampires in this town.” [Not quite as awesome as when Buffy’s Mom finds out she’s a vampire slayer, but still reasonably satisfying.] When Tyler plays dumb about Caroline, his mom returns serve, “Let’s skip the part where we pretend she’s not one of them.” He gets agitated when he figures out Mommy has done something with Caroline, so Carol insists, “You can’t be with her. She’s a monster.” Tyler figures out that know-it-all Carol does NOT know about his own secret, so he develops a rather clever but devastating idea.

Before Stefan tracks down Hybrid Ray, Ray wanders into our fearless band of warriors just as Elena is insisting they have plenty of time before they leave the woods. Of course.

Matt decides to help Jeremy, bringing him to the storage area where all of Vicki’s personal items live. They are both struggling as they touch Vicki’s stuff, though Matt manages a joke, too: “does a pipe count?” as a personal item for Jeremy’s spell or séance whatever he is up to. Matt quickly becomes overwhelmed when he finds a picture of he and Vicki as kids, so he places the picture face down on a box and tells Jeremy he can’t do it. Jeremy leaves Matt alone with his grief, and Matt finds the photo has magically been placed upright again.

The fearless band manage to tie up Ray after Ric shoots him with an arrow and Damon hits him with the wolfsbane grenade thrown to him by Elena. Then Ray starts to transform into a wolf before the moon is up. Oops. Oh, and now Elena realizes it may be a good idea to get the heck out of the woods. When she comes face to muzzle with Ray in wolf form, Damon, being a hero, asks Ray-Wolf to follow him. Ric basically has to drag Elena away since her instinct is to chase after Damon. [Girl won’t listen to ANYONE, basically. I was waiting for someone to slap her, she was annoying me so much by putting everyone in such risk.]

Tyler drags his mother to his prison in the basement of the old Lockwood mansion and locks her into a caged area. Tyler tells his Mom that he, too, is a monster, and he transforms in front of a horrified and panicked Carol. [This was pretty harsh of Tyler. I know Carol kidnapped his girlfriend due to her monster-racism and all, but to make your mother see you become a wolf and then be stuck with you for an entire night of wolfy growling is pretty unkind.]

Damon is wrestling with Hybrid-Wolf-Ray, and he’s losing. Suddenly, someone rips into Ray’s back, and I thought it might be Ric. But it was Stefan, holding Ray’s heart. Stefan calmly asks Damon, “what part of don’t follow me any more got lost in translation?” Damon’s rejoinder is super pointed and appropriate: “Might want to take that up with your girlfriend. If you don’t want her chasing you, I’d stop with the late night phone calls.” Stefan tries to deny that he made the call, but Damon doesn’t buy it. Stefan asks Damon to get her home, and “try to keep her there this time,” he scolds.

Ric has Elena in the car, despite her many protests that Damon needs their help. She begins a pep talk, but Ric interrupts, “there doesn’t need to be a lesson here.” Of course, Elena continues talking, “You’re not a lost cause. You’re just lost. But so is Jeremy, and so am I. Our family is gone. We don’t have anybody, and I’m sorry, but you don’t have anybody, either. We’re kind of it for each other.” Ric is moved by this, and seals their newfound bond by saying with a smile, “I’m keeping the ring, then.”

Matt arrives at Jeremy’s with a backpack full of Vicki’s stuff. They share a tender moment as Matt admits that Jeremy got Vicki more than Matt did. Jeremy holds one of Vicki’s shirts and tells Matt that he doesn’t remember his last moment with Vicki—that Elena had Damon take it from him. Matt, too, doesn’t remember his last moment with Vicki as a human, when she was still his sister [Matt is wise here, wanting to remember human Vicki while Jeremy seems to think remembering Vicki trying to drain him is a good idea.] Vicki appears in the room and says her brother’s name (he doesn’t hear her, of course), so Jeremy asks her how he can help her. “I can come back,” Vicki announces. A glass door shatters, Vicki is gone, and Anna appears, warning Jeremy not to trust Vicki. [Miracle of miracles, I just got interested in this storyline that before seemed like a terrible violation of all the rules that give a fantasy story the least bit of believability. Still suspicious, but at least now I’m curious.]

Stefan returns to a super bummed Klaus, who has lost all his hybrids. They went rabid, so he killed them or they bled out. Stefan says Ray is gone, too. Now Klaus is as brooding as Stefan (joy). He shouts in anger, “I did everything I was told… I broke the curse, I killed a werewolf, I killed a vampire, I killed the doppleganger…” Stefan gets a look on his face that Klaus would be wise to read for what it is—terror. But he’s so caught up in his frustration, he misses Stefan’s obvious fear for Elena. Relieved, Stefan offers himself to Klaus, to dispose of as he pleases. Klaus tears his wrist and drips blood into a beer, which he hands to the still wolf-bite infested Stefan, who gratefully drinks. “We’re leaving,” Klaus growls. “It appears you are the only comrade I have left.”

Damon is in Elena’s room, keeping watch out her window. “Seriously?” she sighs. “I was wrong,” he admits. “Are you drunk?” she says with genuine disbelief. “I thought Stefan was gone, but I was wrong,” Damon explains, “He’s an insufferable martyr that needs his ass kicked…but he can be saved…Even in his darkest place, my brother still can’t let me die. So I figure I owe him the same in return. I’ll help you bring him back.”

Then Damon turns pointedly toward Elena. He wants to know something, “what made you change your mind?” With all her determination to stay in the woods despite all Ric and Damon’s pleas to be out of their before nightfall, why did she suddenly give up on finding Stefan and become equally as determined to leave the woods as she was before to stay? “You just gave up,” he inquires. Elena stutters that it was too dangerous, but Damon won’t let her off the hook. “It was too dangerous going out there in the first place, so what was it?” Elena, confused and frustrated, says, “I didn’t want to see you get hurt. I was…” she pauses…”I was worried about you.” Damon smiles and says thanks, turning away. “Yes, I worry about you,” Elena angrily admits, “why do you even have to hear me say it?” He walks toward her and puts his hands on her face. “Because when I drag my brother from the edge and deliver him back to you, I want you to remember the things you felt while he was gone.” They stare into each other’s eyes, and Elena lowers hers. “Good night, Elena.”

Damon walks out, past Ric who is moving his stuff into the Gilbert home. Ric looks into Elena’s bedroom and asks her, “know what you’re doing there?” To which she replies with stark honesty, “No, I don’t.” [Damon/Elena shippers cheer! Stefan/Elena shippers groan. I don’t foresee a Pacey-Joey turnaround here. I know Elena will always end up with Stefan, but I sure enjoy the chemistry between her and Damon.]

Tyler wakes up to find his mother rather contrite. She promises to make sure nothing happens to Caroline, but when she calls Bill, he won’t listen. The scene cuts to Awesome Vampire Caroline, tied to a chair in another stone cellar [Boy, Mystic Falls has a lot of underground caverns.] She hears someone coming toward the locked door, and calls out with fear, “Mrs. Lockwood?” In walks Bill. “Daddy?” Caroline says hopefully.

Something tells me Daddy is going to be as problematic as every other father-figure on this show. Are there ANY good fathers on TVD? [Besides Ric, of course.] Let’s see—we have…
• Stefan’s doomed uncle
• Damon, who used to play Stefan’s guardian (which was hysterical)
• Matt’s non-existent dad
• Tyler’s corrupt father
• Tyler’s misguided (but super hot) Uncle Mason
• Bonnie’s absentee dad (whom I presume we’ll meet soon)
• Luca’s seriously problematic dad from last season
• Elena’s Uncle John
• And of course, Stefan’s new father figure Klaus

Man, Ric has the weight of a lot of crappy dads on his broad, manly shoulders.  Show ’em how to mold young minds in a healthy way, Ric.

I think what I liked most about the Elena’s admission to Damon was that he didn’t ask for more after she admitted she worried about him.  It is only when she continues, asking why he needs to hear it, that he moves in for the emotional kill.  Elena is super confused, and all of this is rather wonderfully human.  Her refusal to listen to either Ric or Damon, who warned her repeatedly that her search for Stefan was risking all of their lives, makes more sense when one thinks of it in terms of a girl worried her partner’s absence–that his disappearance will not only bring distance between them but also leave her vulnerable to the allure of another.   Sure, the plot of this show is ridiculous, but when they base the reality of the world of the Mystic Falls in believable and flawed characters, I am reminded that there is more to this show than its pacing and sense of fun.  God forgive me for saying this, but is it possible there is some restraint on the part of the show’s writers?   Looking forward to finding out.