The Vampire Diaries 1x22: Founders’ Day
May. 29th, 2023 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsSo, assuming I remember, check in later this week for a new project on the horizon.
The Vampire Diaries 1x22: Founders’ Day
(Yeah, so I’m putting that apostrophe where it logically should go, even if it seems to migrate around on episode lists.)
This is…an episode that I have a complicated reaction to. It’s not bad, not by a long shot, and a lot of the things that bother me about it are more long term issues that stand out on rewatch, rather than problems with this episode. But…it’s almost too invested in being a season finale, and tying up so many of the plot threads going on, while escalating things into s2; but in doing so it kind of skims over a lot of the plots it’s trying to pull into a single episode plot.
Admittedly, that’s kind of just a TV thing for me, and one that I wouldn’t say has gotten better in the last decade as TV has shifted form. It’s been a while since I thought about this, partly because it is presented differently in modern TV, but it’s still kind of the same problem. In a lot of modern shows where there is one clear central plot line that pulls everything else along with, it can end up feeling like some smaller plots will end up paced according to that central plot rather than at their own pace. In a show like this, there are some big plots and then some small plots, and all of them get part of their pacing because of the needs of the schedule.
I think in this specific case what’s making it sit awkwardly in my head, is that the plot elements and the soap opera/character elements are all made to crescendo around the same story here. In some ways this is a bad example to illustrate this as a problem, because the story does at least justify why the big plot things are happening at this point, and a lot of the character beats are reactions to it. It’s still just very crowded because of all it’s trying to do at once. It also has to absolutely refuse to do the most logical thing in places, and doesn’t have time to include even a contrived reason for things like why John would bother to stake Anna but not Damon.
So…where is Bill Forbes for this plot? Narratively, the show brings in Bill after John is dead, and kind of repeats very similar plot beats with him. I actually think they do a better job with Bill (as I do call it the Bill Forbes appreciation society rather than the John Gilbert society). But I wonder why Bill wouldn’t be here for this event, especially with Caroline being Miss Mystic.
This episode is also brought to you by bobblehead disease. I don’t know if this is something in the direction this episode, but everyone was doing awkward little head bobbles. First I noticed Damon doing it, and I kind of thought he usually did that, it just happened to stand out to me this time; but then I think everyone was doing it in the Grill scene where Mayor Lockwood sends the teens out of the danger zone. And Damon kept doing it all episode. It kind of felt like acting out a fanfic where the writer has a habit of having the characters make some action as a dialog scene happens, and you don’t realize until someone points it out that your character is always shaking their head or sighing at the start of a line.
…not that I’m talking about myself…I mean…other…writers…
Alright (cracks neck) let’s get into this episodes Triangle analysis. (It’s nearly a quadrangle, but Katherine is more of a connected but distinct matter.)
So did Katherine instruct Isobel to more or less egg the Triangle on? It was pretty forced into last episode, and while I mostly think that was Doylist interference, it *could* also be forced in on a Watsonian level. But now that someone has raised the specter of the Triangle, Stefan and Damon are both stepping up their Triangle behavior, and I hate them both that little bit more. Which of them I hate more is sort of a Doylist vs Watsonian problem too.
This episode does make sure to try and convince the audience that Damon is now not a villain but simply a romantic rival. It wants me to believe that he’s improving and starting to feel things and deciding to do good things for decent reasons. And I might have been interested in that as a starting point for a Damon-works-on-himself character arc, but it hasn’t even begun to make up for his actions as a villain, or even gotten to him regretting being a villain. And I can’t move him anywhere near potential love interest (at least not for someone who cares about right and wrong) until he’s done a lot more work on himself. And the episode wants to leap over all that complicated middle part so that it can get straight to the soap opera stuff.
Stefan is just a douche. He’s jealous and controlling and doesn’t see Elena as her own person. And I mean that last on two fronts. That he doesn’t see her as a person in her own right with opinions and preferences and beliefs of her own that will motivate her romantic interests; Stefan sees her as some kind of video game NPC that he is now going to have to compete with Damon over. And he sees her through the lens of Katherine; he projects it onto Damon assuming that this will be like 1864 again, but Stefan is the only one acting like it is the same situation.
…well I guess I had less to say this time.
This whole vampire roundup plot creates quite a few dangling plot threads that I don’t think ever really get addressed. Were none of the officers actually paying attention to the people they were catching? Just in case any of them were prominent citizens who had been regularly seen in the daylight so maybe everyone should know it’s possible at this point. Or who the affected vampire might have been with when captured, who might be either a willing accomplice or have been compelled or at minimum might now know something about vampires and should be watched and/or brought into the fold of the Council. Or maybe wonder why the history teacher who as far as the cops know knows nothing about vampires is suddenly running around taking part in the vampire roundup. Or question if there’s some connection between Tyler’s car wreck and everything else that was going on at the time (even if they only conclude that it did something to distract him driving).
It's also an instance of TVD’s other moral morass. Pretty much all of my problems with TVD morality come down to protagonist centered morality, but it comes out in a few different ways. The one I remember calling out most often is the characters themselves seem to operate on very tribal rules with the idea that it doesn’t matter who else is hurt, as long as the people they care about are safe; and as the show goes along their tendency to only care about their in-group gets more pronounced.
The other moral morass I’m discussing here is connected in some ways; because the show can’t have characters with a strong moral compass that considers the out-group, the show can’t have a consistent view of how anyone but the main characters should be treated. It neither applies in-group morality to the out-group (in which case it’s just as wrong to kill/leave to die the other vampires as it would be Damon), nor out-group morality to the in-group (in which case Damon is just as much a threat as any other vampire in that basement and has probably killed more people than all of them combined – it seems that most of the tomb vamps had been turned fairly recently to 1864 and then were locked away until a couple months ago; assuming they have an average of 5 years of active vampire-ing and there are 20 vampires, that’s 100 years of active vampire-ing to Damon’s 140+).
Again, I will say that this is kind of a midpoint, where that moral morass is in evidence, but the show isn’t drowning in it. In just over a season it will, without a trace of irony, try and frame Bill Forbes as completely wrong to assume vampires are killers, in the same episode where we’ll see one of romantic lead Stefan’s wall sized lists of people he’s killed. Here the writing is sort of…accounting for what could be pitfalls if not addressed. If not for Damon and Anna (and not accounting for werewolves as potentially affected) John’s actions would be seen as heroic (maybe unambiguously so) by the characters as well as the audience; and the writing goes out of its way to frame John’s actions regarding Damon and Anna as *personally* villainous, as well as removing any culpability that the ‘heroes’ left ‘innocents’ to die while rescuing Damon.
I kind of want to keep going on this topic, but it’s not like this will be my last chance to discuss it.
What am I shipping?
I guess I’ll go with Jeremy/Anna, but only because they’re the only ones that rise above the level of saying ‘absolutely no one’ to this question.
Who do I hate the most?
Rather than decide between Stefan and Damon, I’ll give it to John, for staking Anna but *not* Damon. Have the courage of your convictions dude, if ridding the world of the Salvatores (and other vamps) was a goal of yours, make sure it gets done.
The Vampire Diaries 1x22: Founders’ Day
(Yeah, so I’m putting that apostrophe where it logically should go, even if it seems to migrate around on episode lists.)
This is…an episode that I have a complicated reaction to. It’s not bad, not by a long shot, and a lot of the things that bother me about it are more long term issues that stand out on rewatch, rather than problems with this episode. But…it’s almost too invested in being a season finale, and tying up so many of the plot threads going on, while escalating things into s2; but in doing so it kind of skims over a lot of the plots it’s trying to pull into a single episode plot.
Admittedly, that’s kind of just a TV thing for me, and one that I wouldn’t say has gotten better in the last decade as TV has shifted form. It’s been a while since I thought about this, partly because it is presented differently in modern TV, but it’s still kind of the same problem. In a lot of modern shows where there is one clear central plot line that pulls everything else along with, it can end up feeling like some smaller plots will end up paced according to that central plot rather than at their own pace. In a show like this, there are some big plots and then some small plots, and all of them get part of their pacing because of the needs of the schedule.
I think in this specific case what’s making it sit awkwardly in my head, is that the plot elements and the soap opera/character elements are all made to crescendo around the same story here. In some ways this is a bad example to illustrate this as a problem, because the story does at least justify why the big plot things are happening at this point, and a lot of the character beats are reactions to it. It’s still just very crowded because of all it’s trying to do at once. It also has to absolutely refuse to do the most logical thing in places, and doesn’t have time to include even a contrived reason for things like why John would bother to stake Anna but not Damon.
So…where is Bill Forbes for this plot? Narratively, the show brings in Bill after John is dead, and kind of repeats very similar plot beats with him. I actually think they do a better job with Bill (as I do call it the Bill Forbes appreciation society rather than the John Gilbert society). But I wonder why Bill wouldn’t be here for this event, especially with Caroline being Miss Mystic.
This episode is also brought to you by bobblehead disease. I don’t know if this is something in the direction this episode, but everyone was doing awkward little head bobbles. First I noticed Damon doing it, and I kind of thought he usually did that, it just happened to stand out to me this time; but then I think everyone was doing it in the Grill scene where Mayor Lockwood sends the teens out of the danger zone. And Damon kept doing it all episode. It kind of felt like acting out a fanfic where the writer has a habit of having the characters make some action as a dialog scene happens, and you don’t realize until someone points it out that your character is always shaking their head or sighing at the start of a line.
…not that I’m talking about myself…I mean…other…writers…
Alright (cracks neck) let’s get into this episodes Triangle analysis. (It’s nearly a quadrangle, but Katherine is more of a connected but distinct matter.)
So did Katherine instruct Isobel to more or less egg the Triangle on? It was pretty forced into last episode, and while I mostly think that was Doylist interference, it *could* also be forced in on a Watsonian level. But now that someone has raised the specter of the Triangle, Stefan and Damon are both stepping up their Triangle behavior, and I hate them both that little bit more. Which of them I hate more is sort of a Doylist vs Watsonian problem too.
This episode does make sure to try and convince the audience that Damon is now not a villain but simply a romantic rival. It wants me to believe that he’s improving and starting to feel things and deciding to do good things for decent reasons. And I might have been interested in that as a starting point for a Damon-works-on-himself character arc, but it hasn’t even begun to make up for his actions as a villain, or even gotten to him regretting being a villain. And I can’t move him anywhere near potential love interest (at least not for someone who cares about right and wrong) until he’s done a lot more work on himself. And the episode wants to leap over all that complicated middle part so that it can get straight to the soap opera stuff.
Stefan is just a douche. He’s jealous and controlling and doesn’t see Elena as her own person. And I mean that last on two fronts. That he doesn’t see her as a person in her own right with opinions and preferences and beliefs of her own that will motivate her romantic interests; Stefan sees her as some kind of video game NPC that he is now going to have to compete with Damon over. And he sees her through the lens of Katherine; he projects it onto Damon assuming that this will be like 1864 again, but Stefan is the only one acting like it is the same situation.
…well I guess I had less to say this time.
This whole vampire roundup plot creates quite a few dangling plot threads that I don’t think ever really get addressed. Were none of the officers actually paying attention to the people they were catching? Just in case any of them were prominent citizens who had been regularly seen in the daylight so maybe everyone should know it’s possible at this point. Or who the affected vampire might have been with when captured, who might be either a willing accomplice or have been compelled or at minimum might now know something about vampires and should be watched and/or brought into the fold of the Council. Or maybe wonder why the history teacher who as far as the cops know knows nothing about vampires is suddenly running around taking part in the vampire roundup. Or question if there’s some connection between Tyler’s car wreck and everything else that was going on at the time (even if they only conclude that it did something to distract him driving).
It's also an instance of TVD’s other moral morass. Pretty much all of my problems with TVD morality come down to protagonist centered morality, but it comes out in a few different ways. The one I remember calling out most often is the characters themselves seem to operate on very tribal rules with the idea that it doesn’t matter who else is hurt, as long as the people they care about are safe; and as the show goes along their tendency to only care about their in-group gets more pronounced.
The other moral morass I’m discussing here is connected in some ways; because the show can’t have characters with a strong moral compass that considers the out-group, the show can’t have a consistent view of how anyone but the main characters should be treated. It neither applies in-group morality to the out-group (in which case it’s just as wrong to kill/leave to die the other vampires as it would be Damon), nor out-group morality to the in-group (in which case Damon is just as much a threat as any other vampire in that basement and has probably killed more people than all of them combined – it seems that most of the tomb vamps had been turned fairly recently to 1864 and then were locked away until a couple months ago; assuming they have an average of 5 years of active vampire-ing and there are 20 vampires, that’s 100 years of active vampire-ing to Damon’s 140+).
Again, I will say that this is kind of a midpoint, where that moral morass is in evidence, but the show isn’t drowning in it. In just over a season it will, without a trace of irony, try and frame Bill Forbes as completely wrong to assume vampires are killers, in the same episode where we’ll see one of romantic lead Stefan’s wall sized lists of people he’s killed. Here the writing is sort of…accounting for what could be pitfalls if not addressed. If not for Damon and Anna (and not accounting for werewolves as potentially affected) John’s actions would be seen as heroic (maybe unambiguously so) by the characters as well as the audience; and the writing goes out of its way to frame John’s actions regarding Damon and Anna as *personally* villainous, as well as removing any culpability that the ‘heroes’ left ‘innocents’ to die while rescuing Damon.
I kind of want to keep going on this topic, but it’s not like this will be my last chance to discuss it.
What am I shipping?
I guess I’ll go with Jeremy/Anna, but only because they’re the only ones that rise above the level of saying ‘absolutely no one’ to this question.
Who do I hate the most?
Rather than decide between Stefan and Damon, I’ll give it to John, for staking Anna but *not* Damon. Have the courage of your convictions dude, if ridding the world of the Salvatores (and other vamps) was a goal of yours, make sure it gets done.
