The Vampire Diaries is the type of series that’s twist and turns if done improperly could take it off the rails. This season has been heading back into guilty pleasure territory with the sire bond and vampire cure stuff. Having Elena sired to Damon is frustrating and infuriating and feels like bad writing; it seems to completely take the decision out of Elena’s hands. The vampire cure on the other hand comes off as an all too convenient way to retcon things back to status quo, which is a shame because the show has been great at demonstrating good, believable character evolution (Look at how much characters like Tyler, Caroline, and Damon have changed over the course of the series).
As bad of a plot decisions as I initially found them to be
though, the writers have dealt with them incredibly well. The sire-bonding has
thrown into examination the love triangle in a surprising way. “O Come All Ye
Faithful” brought out an interesting side of Damon, who finally having what he
wanted still struggled to do the right thing because Elena’s love still may not
be real. Here the Stefan-Elena side of the question is put into focus thanks to
a conniving Rebekah. Brought back to life by the most useless character April,
who now finds herself relevant to the plot finally, Rebekah feeds on April’s
desire for the truth to get what she wants. She brings Caroline, Elena, and
Stefan to the school and compels them to ask her questions. She mainly wants to
know the deets on the vampire cure, but she’s not beneath fucking with them
while she’s at it. We finally get the answers we want about what’s what here,
and though it’s based on prior information about what we knew about Elena’s
feelings towards each side of the triangle, the shift towards Damon does feel
SUDDEN (Is this meant as an excuse to get Stefan and Elena back together when
the cure is found?). Totally helpless, Elena reveals that she feels like she’s
merely Stefan’s “project” and that to him she needs to be “fixed” like a “broken
toy”. She may still “love” Stefan, but she’s not “in love” with him anymore.
The vampire cure has suddenly given everyone purpose. Everyone and their mother wants it. Klaus wants it to keep making his hybrid army. Stefan, Damon, and Jeremy want it so, for various reasons, they can cure Elena. Rebekah wants it to cure herself. Shane wants it so he can unearth that crazy beast Silas (Next season’s villain?).
Bonnie has never really worked as a character. Too many times she’s been at odds with our protagonists, and for questionable reasons. Now here she is being manipulated by Shane to use “expression” (I don’t care how desperate you are for magic. How do you not get suspicious when you’re sessions entail you falling asleep for multiple hours while the guy roots around in your mind?! You barely know him!). She goes out of her way to use a protection spell on him, but the “expression” magic leads to April being linked to Shane, and her nearly dying. Bonnie ends up swearing off this “expression” stuff, but since a Bennett witch is required to use this kind of magic to get the cure, I doubt that’s going to last long.
Jeremy’s training to control himself while hunting vampires is a slow moving process. Too slow for Klaus anyway, who by episode’s end has created a new batch of vampires to speed up the process of revealing the tattoo map. And Damon is cool with it now because Elena has admitted that she’s in love with him. This story didn’t work for me. It was too disconnected from all the rest of the action, and not much happened other than a pizza delivery girl turned vamp attacking Jeremy and Matt, which felt clumsy and pointless. The plot was too shoehorned into the narrative (they probably could have just set it aside for the episode, but that would mean Damon wouldn’t be in the picture and that would be impossible with the love triangle stuff at the forefront).
The episode was mainly an excuse for the writers to deal with the love triangle head on. “What does this have to do with the cure?” an ever defiant Caroline asks after a heated, personal line of questioning from Rebekah. Rebekah would be angered enough to just twist the emotional knots in Stefan (who daggered her last episode) and Elena, and so it lends the right amount of justification to have a character ask what’s all been on our minds. That’s good, smart writing that puts everything into sharper focus. Otherwise this is typical, boilerplate Vampire Diaries tightly written and edited, intense, and fun.
Stray Observations:
The vampire cure has suddenly given everyone purpose. Everyone and their mother wants it. Klaus wants it to keep making his hybrid army. Stefan, Damon, and Jeremy want it so, for various reasons, they can cure Elena. Rebekah wants it to cure herself. Shane wants it so he can unearth that crazy beast Silas (Next season’s villain?).
Bonnie has never really worked as a character. Too many times she’s been at odds with our protagonists, and for questionable reasons. Now here she is being manipulated by Shane to use “expression” (I don’t care how desperate you are for magic. How do you not get suspicious when you’re sessions entail you falling asleep for multiple hours while the guy roots around in your mind?! You barely know him!). She goes out of her way to use a protection spell on him, but the “expression” magic leads to April being linked to Shane, and her nearly dying. Bonnie ends up swearing off this “expression” stuff, but since a Bennett witch is required to use this kind of magic to get the cure, I doubt that’s going to last long.
Jeremy’s training to control himself while hunting vampires is a slow moving process. Too slow for Klaus anyway, who by episode’s end has created a new batch of vampires to speed up the process of revealing the tattoo map. And Damon is cool with it now because Elena has admitted that she’s in love with him. This story didn’t work for me. It was too disconnected from all the rest of the action, and not much happened other than a pizza delivery girl turned vamp attacking Jeremy and Matt, which felt clumsy and pointless. The plot was too shoehorned into the narrative (they probably could have just set it aside for the episode, but that would mean Damon wouldn’t be in the picture and that would be impossible with the love triangle stuff at the forefront).
The episode was mainly an excuse for the writers to deal with the love triangle head on. “What does this have to do with the cure?” an ever defiant Caroline asks after a heated, personal line of questioning from Rebekah. Rebekah would be angered enough to just twist the emotional knots in Stefan (who daggered her last episode) and Elena, and so it lends the right amount of justification to have a character ask what’s all been on our minds. That’s good, smart writing that puts everything into sharper focus. Otherwise this is typical, boilerplate Vampire Diaries tightly written and edited, intense, and fun.
Stray Observations:
-April has been tacked on in a really awkward way.
Connecting her to the pastor was a good idea, but the writers never followed
through with it. And so she’ just sort of been there with no real purpose or
point.
-Oh, and we finally meet Bonnie’s dad Rudy Owens who is
Interim Mayor in the wake of the death of Mayor Lockwood.
-Speaking of the Lockwoods: Tyler is compelled to turn by
Rebekah to imperil everyone else. And he never thought he’d have to again! At
least, he has Caroline to comfort him afterwards.
-“Both of which require you to be alive. That’s why I’m
updating our relationship status to ‘It’s complicated’”
-Damon shoots Klaus for killing Carole Lockwood. *slow
claps*For all you Damon haters out there: HE’S TOTALLY NOBLE!
-Kol returns as well, and he kidnaps Shane, but otherwise he’s
mostly perfunctory.
-“Being with Damon makes me happy” “Oh come on! Clowns make
you happy!”
-As poorly done as the pizza girl sequence was, her initial
failure to gain entry until Jeremy (the owner of the home) asked her in was a
nice piece of writing and a good callback.
Grade: B+
What did everyone else think?
What did everyone else think?
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