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tori_reviewsLike I said, last time was too soon to say I was going to be any better at sticking to a posting schedule. I make no promises this time either.
The Vampire Diaries 1x17: Let the Right One In
I actually don’t think I can find much to say on this episode. But sometimes when I say that I find more than enough to make a review out of. It’s not a bad episode, it’s pretty good in fact, there are elements of it I really like; I just…have a hard time caring all that much it seems. The argument that ‘it’s Stefan’ doesn’t do much for me, and I often have a hard time understanding why it does much for the characters (I understand using it on Damon, but Alaric?). I also kind of feel Stefan is maybe not worth all the effort that people go through trying to save him.
To get it out of the way, this episode is repeatedly said to take place the day after last ep. So all of this immediately follows the effort to have a nice normal day. That’s a case of TVD timing we haven’t seen that much of so far; there’s no place to pretend any time passed with them trying to keep things normal, it’s immediately diving into the next crisis.
It’s also a little important to the Matt and Caroline development. I feel sort of mixed on the way they are in the beginning of the episode; in some ways it logically followed from their moderate breakthrough during the double date, but it could have used a couple more days of slack time for it to feel right that the good part of the date was what stuck in their minds and not the bad. And I feel a similarly conflicted way about how the episodes ends with them, because it completely undoes any breakthrough that last episode was, and I’m not sure I like that quick a turn around.
However, I can actually say plenty about that Matt/Elena hug (or Matt-Elena, a lot of it applies even without shipping). Because Elena is the only person Matt lets himself be open and vulnerable to; he’s not there with Caroline, he doesn’t have that kind of relationship with his mom, he’s not sitting in the kitchen with Vicki’s exes who are two of his best friends. Elena is the only one he can just let go with, and cry as she holds him.
And the interesting thing I find myself thinking, is that that’s exactly what she couldn’t do after her parents died. She pulled away rather than leaning on him and letting him be her emotional support. And I kind of think this contrast makes more sense in the currently implied history of their relationship than it does with the later retcon that she was already thinking about getting out of the relationship before the crash; I’m not sure I can articulate why though. It just seems like the right read to me (and as it was probably the backstory they had in mind when it was written, there may be a reason I’m picking up on it that way).
That said, I feel a little detached from Elena in those closing scenes (actually I feel pretty detached from Elena through the episode, but that’s a separate point). I feel like Elena somehow…forgot that she already knew Vicki was dead. Her reaction comes off more like shock instead of like the Sword of Damocles that had been hanging over them for…weeks(?) had finally fallen. None of the characters who already knew Vicki’s fate have much reaction to her body being found; but I judge Stefan and Damon differently on that fact than I do Elena. Damon doesn’t care and Stefan is distracted (we don’t see how Elena tells him or how he reacts); but where I get just about every other character’s reaction to the news, I feel distanced from Elena’s and I don’t like it.
I should like Elena in this episode more than I do. I tend to be a proponent of Elena getting to take actions and not let the assholes tell her what to do. But she seems so utterly naïve in her decisions this episode, having no appreciation or preparation for the dangers of assaulting a vampire compound, giving no thought to the cost (to her or in general) of going in to rescue Stefan, and thinking Alaric should be convinced by the argument that ‘it’s Stefan.’ What is Stefan to Alaric? Elena doesn’t even mean that much to Alaric at this point, and she’s his wife’s biological daughter and his girlfriend’s niece, along with not being a mass murderer. I’d argue that even in the future, when Alaric would do it for Elena, and probably do it for Damon, he still wouldn’t for Stefan’s own sake.
This episode’s morality is odd. There are shades of later TVD morality, but I don’t think it’s just me that sees it with a fairly critical eye. Damon’s killing of first the farm lady and then a whole bunch of vampires isn’t seen as something to be reveled in or particularly glorious. Damon is acting according to TVD morality of protecting one’s own at any cost to others, but the narrative isn’t quite siding with him yet. And I think that’s an interesting place to be, compared to the very protagonist centered morality that will consume later seasons.
Nope, still don’t understand what Pearl is going for.
I like a lot of the Jeremy/Anna stuff this episode, but I think a lot of it is too fast. Jeremy is ready to commit himself to this choice too fast, and apparently gives it up too fast at the end. I think the irony of it works, having Anna basically deciding to turn him out of spite at her mother while Jeremy probably thinks he said the right thing. But their conversation at the end is too stilted and relies on assumptions I’m not sure the characters would make so quickly. Of course, this is TVD and everyone does everything happens pretty quickly.
I don’t know whether it would have been intentional or not, but we end up with an interesting contrast between Anna feeding on Jeremy last episode and Stefan feeding on Elena here. And that the contrast is not favorable to Stefan/Elena is particularly odd; there’s nothing sexy about it, and though Stefan tries to paint it in a mutual light at the end, it doesn’t come off that way at the time.
But I don’t feel like I can count that as something I want to build a reading on, because this episode is steering into the Damon/Elena vibes and I definitely don’t like that. So if the feeding scene is a little skewed anti-S/E I think it’s more likely to be done from a pro-D/E perspective than a general anti-Salvatore or Team Human one. I’m not sure it stood out so much to me on first watch, but I definitely wasn’t doing much analysis at the time, but this episode feels like a shift in the writing of their dynamic. Without really changing how it’s written exactly, because I still think Damon comes off as an awful, villainous, sociopathic monster; but I can sense…TV convention saying that we are now in enemies to lovers territory. And that I’m supposed to be touched by his concern for Elena’s safety, I’m just not moved by it, really at all.
So for not thinking I had much to say, yep, got a full review out of it.
What am I shipping?
I kind of already tipped my hand on this, but Elena/Matt means a lot to me. And I enjoy Anna/Jeremy.
Who do I hate the most?
I guess Frederick, but I want to give it to Damon on principle to show that the show trying to make me like him isn’t working.
The Vampire Diaries 1x17: Let the Right One In
I actually don’t think I can find much to say on this episode. But sometimes when I say that I find more than enough to make a review out of. It’s not a bad episode, it’s pretty good in fact, there are elements of it I really like; I just…have a hard time caring all that much it seems. The argument that ‘it’s Stefan’ doesn’t do much for me, and I often have a hard time understanding why it does much for the characters (I understand using it on Damon, but Alaric?). I also kind of feel Stefan is maybe not worth all the effort that people go through trying to save him.
To get it out of the way, this episode is repeatedly said to take place the day after last ep. So all of this immediately follows the effort to have a nice normal day. That’s a case of TVD timing we haven’t seen that much of so far; there’s no place to pretend any time passed with them trying to keep things normal, it’s immediately diving into the next crisis.
It’s also a little important to the Matt and Caroline development. I feel sort of mixed on the way they are in the beginning of the episode; in some ways it logically followed from their moderate breakthrough during the double date, but it could have used a couple more days of slack time for it to feel right that the good part of the date was what stuck in their minds and not the bad. And I feel a similarly conflicted way about how the episodes ends with them, because it completely undoes any breakthrough that last episode was, and I’m not sure I like that quick a turn around.
However, I can actually say plenty about that Matt/Elena hug (or Matt-Elena, a lot of it applies even without shipping). Because Elena is the only person Matt lets himself be open and vulnerable to; he’s not there with Caroline, he doesn’t have that kind of relationship with his mom, he’s not sitting in the kitchen with Vicki’s exes who are two of his best friends. Elena is the only one he can just let go with, and cry as she holds him.
And the interesting thing I find myself thinking, is that that’s exactly what she couldn’t do after her parents died. She pulled away rather than leaning on him and letting him be her emotional support. And I kind of think this contrast makes more sense in the currently implied history of their relationship than it does with the later retcon that she was already thinking about getting out of the relationship before the crash; I’m not sure I can articulate why though. It just seems like the right read to me (and as it was probably the backstory they had in mind when it was written, there may be a reason I’m picking up on it that way).
That said, I feel a little detached from Elena in those closing scenes (actually I feel pretty detached from Elena through the episode, but that’s a separate point). I feel like Elena somehow…forgot that she already knew Vicki was dead. Her reaction comes off more like shock instead of like the Sword of Damocles that had been hanging over them for…weeks(?) had finally fallen. None of the characters who already knew Vicki’s fate have much reaction to her body being found; but I judge Stefan and Damon differently on that fact than I do Elena. Damon doesn’t care and Stefan is distracted (we don’t see how Elena tells him or how he reacts); but where I get just about every other character’s reaction to the news, I feel distanced from Elena’s and I don’t like it.
I should like Elena in this episode more than I do. I tend to be a proponent of Elena getting to take actions and not let the assholes tell her what to do. But she seems so utterly naïve in her decisions this episode, having no appreciation or preparation for the dangers of assaulting a vampire compound, giving no thought to the cost (to her or in general) of going in to rescue Stefan, and thinking Alaric should be convinced by the argument that ‘it’s Stefan.’ What is Stefan to Alaric? Elena doesn’t even mean that much to Alaric at this point, and she’s his wife’s biological daughter and his girlfriend’s niece, along with not being a mass murderer. I’d argue that even in the future, when Alaric would do it for Elena, and probably do it for Damon, he still wouldn’t for Stefan’s own sake.
This episode’s morality is odd. There are shades of later TVD morality, but I don’t think it’s just me that sees it with a fairly critical eye. Damon’s killing of first the farm lady and then a whole bunch of vampires isn’t seen as something to be reveled in or particularly glorious. Damon is acting according to TVD morality of protecting one’s own at any cost to others, but the narrative isn’t quite siding with him yet. And I think that’s an interesting place to be, compared to the very protagonist centered morality that will consume later seasons.
Nope, still don’t understand what Pearl is going for.
I like a lot of the Jeremy/Anna stuff this episode, but I think a lot of it is too fast. Jeremy is ready to commit himself to this choice too fast, and apparently gives it up too fast at the end. I think the irony of it works, having Anna basically deciding to turn him out of spite at her mother while Jeremy probably thinks he said the right thing. But their conversation at the end is too stilted and relies on assumptions I’m not sure the characters would make so quickly. Of course, this is TVD and everyone does everything happens pretty quickly.
I don’t know whether it would have been intentional or not, but we end up with an interesting contrast between Anna feeding on Jeremy last episode and Stefan feeding on Elena here. And that the contrast is not favorable to Stefan/Elena is particularly odd; there’s nothing sexy about it, and though Stefan tries to paint it in a mutual light at the end, it doesn’t come off that way at the time.
But I don’t feel like I can count that as something I want to build a reading on, because this episode is steering into the Damon/Elena vibes and I definitely don’t like that. So if the feeding scene is a little skewed anti-S/E I think it’s more likely to be done from a pro-D/E perspective than a general anti-Salvatore or Team Human one. I’m not sure it stood out so much to me on first watch, but I definitely wasn’t doing much analysis at the time, but this episode feels like a shift in the writing of their dynamic. Without really changing how it’s written exactly, because I still think Damon comes off as an awful, villainous, sociopathic monster; but I can sense…TV convention saying that we are now in enemies to lovers territory. And that I’m supposed to be touched by his concern for Elena’s safety, I’m just not moved by it, really at all.
So for not thinking I had much to say, yep, got a full review out of it.
What am I shipping?
I kind of already tipped my hand on this, but Elena/Matt means a lot to me. And I enjoy Anna/Jeremy.
Who do I hate the most?
I guess Frederick, but I want to give it to Damon on principle to show that the show trying to make me like him isn’t working.
