The Vampire Diaries 2x03: Bad Moon Rising
Sep. 15th, 2023 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsThe Vampire Diaries 2x03: Bad Moon Rising
This is a pretty good episode too, even if it does start the chain of convoluted mythology that the show will never be able to make sense of again. Not that it makes complete sense now, as is bound to happen when you have long lived and much experienced characters who don’t know crucial pieces of information about their world.
The fact that the mythology we get here turns out to be largely false or at most half-truths, is actually not as big a problem as you might think. It’s presented as mythology, and while a lot of people are going to spend this season acting like it is real, mythology is often a confused mess; plus we know that the Originals deliberately confused things for their own ends. I feel the need to mention that there is a point about religion to be made here, but I’m going to sidestep actually going down that way.
Do we ever get an explanation where werewolves come from in this world? I don’t recall one, which could mean any number of things as to whether one is ever given. This mythology may consider them a natural part of nature, but I’m not sure I love that as the explanation.
There’s kind of a good side and a bad side to the timeline of this episode. On the good side, there does seem to be a few days of time to play with here; the early conversations are at maybe only a day or two after last episode, but then they have to wait for a good day to take a road trip and Bonnie to figure out the daylight rings spell. And most of the characters do seem to have had a few days to sort out what’s happened lately, although I do have to question how Liz hasn’t noticed anything is up with Caroline. Not helped by the bad side of the timeline we see.
Because trying to work out when this is set makes it hysterical. Given that s3 will eventually admit that s1&2 take place in the same school year; and then s4 will set up that the Miss Mystic Falls contest is *before* Christmas, this episode clearly should be taking place in the middle of winter, also known as a bad time for a get together at the swimming hole. For some of Alaric’s excuses to Jenna to work, school must be going on, but Caroline can’t have been going this week, so what does Liz think is going on? (For that matter, how did Caroline get in the house, maybe I should have put that in last episode’s reviews.) I’m also guessing this is the first full moon since…1x18 if my math checks out, so just think about how busy that month has been for these kids.
With those wiggle days, I will be a little more lenient with the fact we haven’t gotten anything between Caroline and Elena over all this. It’s possible to assume they have at least talked off screen (unless of course the show undercuts that later, which it well might). But I can’t let the writers off the hook that much, because I think it does say something that they were more interested in exploring Caroline’s transition through her relationships with Stefan and Matt, while having Bonnie be confrontational and Elena absent.
And while this is a good episode for Caroline dealing with what’s happened to her, I actually have more to say about Bonnie. I kind of thought it took a little longer before the show started treating Bonnie as a complete afterthought, only there to do magic stuff for the other characters. At this point I kind of have to assume that Bonnie’s issues aren’t going to be a factor, much less actually explored. The show can’t even bother to actually answer her concerns about whether they’re doing the right thing with the situation they have; we’re just supposed to be on Stefan’s side and brush off not-Trip’s death last episode because it was an accident. I’m even largely willing to agree with him, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more mind given to it. It might help if Caroline seemed more disturbed by having killed someone than she did eating rabbits and not being able to go swimming.
Also, it’s not as if always having daylight rings did Stefan and Damon much good in terms of keeping their humanity. No matter what Stefan likes to pretend about his enhanced trait being his empathy (gods that bit was funny, but at least I was amused rather than annoyed by it this time).
And…I can’t tell if last episode makes me more or less convinced of Bonnie’s threat to put a stop to vampires who hurt people. I’m leaning towards less because her attack on Damon wasn’t for the reason it should have been if it was about stopping him from hurting anyone.
I’m also taking issue with the way Matt is written here. Actually I think my issue is with having him say he loved Caroline last episode and then having him fairly easily put off this episode. I don’t think it would be unreasonable to assume that him taking that step last ep was mostly from fear of losing her without really being at that point emotionally yet (in fact, new theory that it was a combination of the fear for her life initially and then worry that he’d have another girlfriend break up with him after a car accident, although probably mostly subconsciously on that front). Yes she’s been a little all over the place (especially from his perspective) since the crash, but I don’t think I believe that he could have been in love with her and so quickly been put off by her not out of character behavior. Again, compare it to how he is with Elena.
On top of which, I can’t figure how much of the last scene was staged by Caroline. Did Any show up on her own, or did Caroline compel the setup so that she could have another jealous episode so that Matt would decide to break up with her without her having to explain the actual reasons they needed to end this? If not for Amy telling Tyler that she was really into Matt I’d almost have to assume it was staged, as is I’m not sure.
Speaking of, Tyler acts like a non-psychopath when someone tells him she’s into someone else. Granted, considering Tyler’s history I’m not going to call him a great guy with listening to girls’ opinions, but at least he outclasses Damon.
And as a small note, I could have sworn Elena got all of her circle covered in vervain a while ago. Maybe she never found a way to get Matt anything without it seeming like she was giving him special presents that would send a weird message between them. But it still seems like an oversight by this story.
Sigh, okay, time to tackle this gods damned triangle once again.
Stefan is…not terrible. I find his interaction with Elena to be somewhat questionable, but I can’t decide if it’s clumsily written or if I’m once more seeing parallels to later, much worse behavior. He ends up seeming a bit possessive and controlling, like he should have a say anything that Elena does with her time. It is possible to be charitable in this case, I admit. Because right now he has legitimate reason to think Damon could do something stupid again and Alaric isn’t really that much protection if Damon does snap; plus maybe Elena would *like* more of buffer between her and Damon. But there’s a bit of a fine line in matters of Stefan not wanting Elena and Damon to spend time together, and this is right on the edge of where it becomes controlling and manipulative that Stefan hates it when the two of them do get along.
I actually do kind of like Stefan talking about Elena though. His conversation with Caroline about dating as a vampire is ironically one of the more human scenes for him. He feels more genuine in that conversation than he ever does with Elena; because he can’t say that kind of stuff to Elena. So in a fairly sweet commentary about Elena, it ends up reflecting best of Stefan and Caroline’s relationship; that Stefan finally has someone he can really talk to, and him being a decent mentor for Caroline.
Elena basically does nothing wrong this episode. She’s being petty at times and a bit using Stefan as a prop to make a point with Damon, but as for the rest I see no problem. My main problem with her is that I know this hatred thing isn’t going to stick, that Damon has not in fact lost her forever or even half a season, when he should really have to work to gain even her trust back. I don’t even think she was being that manipulative with Damon. She was giving him a few chances to not be awful, and at every turn he basically proved that he’s only not awful when he thinks he has a chance of impressing her. That does not mean he’s not awful; it means that she could maybe manipulate him into a fake it ‘til you make it redemption arc; but that isn’t her job. Damon needs to want to be not awful before he’ll actually be worth her time to try and make him better.
That said, for whatever reason I apply to it, Damon is marginally less awful here than he has been. There’s nothing worth redeeming in him, but at least he’s less actively awful. He’s good behavior Damon…sort of. Although, I know what Elena (I think) doesn’t and that good behavior Damon is still a murdering sack of shit, he’s just not hiding it as much this time they go on a road trip. (Although I still wouldn’t be surprised if he doubled back to kill off Isobel’s assistant before they left; he has priors after all.)
I just have no sympathy for Damon’s hurt feefees that Elena is upset about what happened. He may have a small point about what Elena’s hatred has historically and continually meant, but he doesn’t get to be hurt by her not immediately forgiving him. And as much as I hate Damon, I want to think his honesty at the end shows some small amount of growth, but I wish Elena would be less inclined to see the potential upside. Because it’s a very slight upside that Damon might at least a little bit regret trying to kill Jeremy, that doesn’t cover what he did to Elena and doesn’t remove the fact that Damon very much was trying to kill Jeremy.
Plus another thing that I think I’m reading more into with hindsight than I probably would have at first, but Damon snapping that Elena and Katherine have more in common than their looks struck me as below the belt. At this point that isn’t quite as cruel a remark as it will be later, when Elena hates Katherine a lot more than she does now and when being compared to Katherine is the thing Elena hates most, but it’s still out of bounds. I also kind of think it may have struck me as particularly cutting *because* it’s at this point in events, before it’s become personal between the doppelgangers. Elena may not hate Katherine as much now as she will later, but she also has no defense against the comparison.
I thought about having an Alaric point in this, but it’s never jelled into much of a point, so this is all he gets.
But I do end up with a reason to comment on the in episode timeline (as opposed to the episode by episode timeline). At the end Alaric says that he should have kissed Jenna ‘that morning’ which pretty well says that the whole road trip was a day long event. Now, I don’t know what the drive time between Mystic Falls and Duke is, but it’s been night time a while before they even leave Duke. In point of fact, Mason had gone back to being human before team road trip made it home; and one would think Mason would be a wolf all night.
And I don’t think I even want to deal with trying to figure out what Tyler remembers from that night and what he doesn’t. His reaction to Mason would indicate he remembers the encounter, but does he remember Stefan and Caroline’s presence? Stefan said he dealt with Tyler, but how much if he remembers seeing Mason-wolf? For that matter, what does Mason remember about being a wolf?
No…I’m not going to try and work that one out.
What am I shipping?
I am well on my way to shipping Stefan/Caroline, but in a long term view. I like them as friends for now, and for a while to come (if only I didn’t know Caroline’s fondness for Stefan made her push Stefan/Elena for way longer than a person should), with an eye to it eventually becoming romantic. Although I’m still not sure how to square that with her issues about competing with Elena.
Who do I hate the most?
Damon, he probably would have managed to get the win anyway, but his last line sealed it.
This is a pretty good episode too, even if it does start the chain of convoluted mythology that the show will never be able to make sense of again. Not that it makes complete sense now, as is bound to happen when you have long lived and much experienced characters who don’t know crucial pieces of information about their world.
The fact that the mythology we get here turns out to be largely false or at most half-truths, is actually not as big a problem as you might think. It’s presented as mythology, and while a lot of people are going to spend this season acting like it is real, mythology is often a confused mess; plus we know that the Originals deliberately confused things for their own ends. I feel the need to mention that there is a point about religion to be made here, but I’m going to sidestep actually going down that way.
Do we ever get an explanation where werewolves come from in this world? I don’t recall one, which could mean any number of things as to whether one is ever given. This mythology may consider them a natural part of nature, but I’m not sure I love that as the explanation.
There’s kind of a good side and a bad side to the timeline of this episode. On the good side, there does seem to be a few days of time to play with here; the early conversations are at maybe only a day or two after last episode, but then they have to wait for a good day to take a road trip and Bonnie to figure out the daylight rings spell. And most of the characters do seem to have had a few days to sort out what’s happened lately, although I do have to question how Liz hasn’t noticed anything is up with Caroline. Not helped by the bad side of the timeline we see.
Because trying to work out when this is set makes it hysterical. Given that s3 will eventually admit that s1&2 take place in the same school year; and then s4 will set up that the Miss Mystic Falls contest is *before* Christmas, this episode clearly should be taking place in the middle of winter, also known as a bad time for a get together at the swimming hole. For some of Alaric’s excuses to Jenna to work, school must be going on, but Caroline can’t have been going this week, so what does Liz think is going on? (For that matter, how did Caroline get in the house, maybe I should have put that in last episode’s reviews.) I’m also guessing this is the first full moon since…1x18 if my math checks out, so just think about how busy that month has been for these kids.
With those wiggle days, I will be a little more lenient with the fact we haven’t gotten anything between Caroline and Elena over all this. It’s possible to assume they have at least talked off screen (unless of course the show undercuts that later, which it well might). But I can’t let the writers off the hook that much, because I think it does say something that they were more interested in exploring Caroline’s transition through her relationships with Stefan and Matt, while having Bonnie be confrontational and Elena absent.
And while this is a good episode for Caroline dealing with what’s happened to her, I actually have more to say about Bonnie. I kind of thought it took a little longer before the show started treating Bonnie as a complete afterthought, only there to do magic stuff for the other characters. At this point I kind of have to assume that Bonnie’s issues aren’t going to be a factor, much less actually explored. The show can’t even bother to actually answer her concerns about whether they’re doing the right thing with the situation they have; we’re just supposed to be on Stefan’s side and brush off not-Trip’s death last episode because it was an accident. I’m even largely willing to agree with him, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more mind given to it. It might help if Caroline seemed more disturbed by having killed someone than she did eating rabbits and not being able to go swimming.
Also, it’s not as if always having daylight rings did Stefan and Damon much good in terms of keeping their humanity. No matter what Stefan likes to pretend about his enhanced trait being his empathy (gods that bit was funny, but at least I was amused rather than annoyed by it this time).
And…I can’t tell if last episode makes me more or less convinced of Bonnie’s threat to put a stop to vampires who hurt people. I’m leaning towards less because her attack on Damon wasn’t for the reason it should have been if it was about stopping him from hurting anyone.
I’m also taking issue with the way Matt is written here. Actually I think my issue is with having him say he loved Caroline last episode and then having him fairly easily put off this episode. I don’t think it would be unreasonable to assume that him taking that step last ep was mostly from fear of losing her without really being at that point emotionally yet (in fact, new theory that it was a combination of the fear for her life initially and then worry that he’d have another girlfriend break up with him after a car accident, although probably mostly subconsciously on that front). Yes she’s been a little all over the place (especially from his perspective) since the crash, but I don’t think I believe that he could have been in love with her and so quickly been put off by her not out of character behavior. Again, compare it to how he is with Elena.
On top of which, I can’t figure how much of the last scene was staged by Caroline. Did Any show up on her own, or did Caroline compel the setup so that she could have another jealous episode so that Matt would decide to break up with her without her having to explain the actual reasons they needed to end this? If not for Amy telling Tyler that she was really into Matt I’d almost have to assume it was staged, as is I’m not sure.
Speaking of, Tyler acts like a non-psychopath when someone tells him she’s into someone else. Granted, considering Tyler’s history I’m not going to call him a great guy with listening to girls’ opinions, but at least he outclasses Damon.
And as a small note, I could have sworn Elena got all of her circle covered in vervain a while ago. Maybe she never found a way to get Matt anything without it seeming like she was giving him special presents that would send a weird message between them. But it still seems like an oversight by this story.
Sigh, okay, time to tackle this gods damned triangle once again.
Stefan is…not terrible. I find his interaction with Elena to be somewhat questionable, but I can’t decide if it’s clumsily written or if I’m once more seeing parallels to later, much worse behavior. He ends up seeming a bit possessive and controlling, like he should have a say anything that Elena does with her time. It is possible to be charitable in this case, I admit. Because right now he has legitimate reason to think Damon could do something stupid again and Alaric isn’t really that much protection if Damon does snap; plus maybe Elena would *like* more of buffer between her and Damon. But there’s a bit of a fine line in matters of Stefan not wanting Elena and Damon to spend time together, and this is right on the edge of where it becomes controlling and manipulative that Stefan hates it when the two of them do get along.
I actually do kind of like Stefan talking about Elena though. His conversation with Caroline about dating as a vampire is ironically one of the more human scenes for him. He feels more genuine in that conversation than he ever does with Elena; because he can’t say that kind of stuff to Elena. So in a fairly sweet commentary about Elena, it ends up reflecting best of Stefan and Caroline’s relationship; that Stefan finally has someone he can really talk to, and him being a decent mentor for Caroline.
Elena basically does nothing wrong this episode. She’s being petty at times and a bit using Stefan as a prop to make a point with Damon, but as for the rest I see no problem. My main problem with her is that I know this hatred thing isn’t going to stick, that Damon has not in fact lost her forever or even half a season, when he should really have to work to gain even her trust back. I don’t even think she was being that manipulative with Damon. She was giving him a few chances to not be awful, and at every turn he basically proved that he’s only not awful when he thinks he has a chance of impressing her. That does not mean he’s not awful; it means that she could maybe manipulate him into a fake it ‘til you make it redemption arc; but that isn’t her job. Damon needs to want to be not awful before he’ll actually be worth her time to try and make him better.
That said, for whatever reason I apply to it, Damon is marginally less awful here than he has been. There’s nothing worth redeeming in him, but at least he’s less actively awful. He’s good behavior Damon…sort of. Although, I know what Elena (I think) doesn’t and that good behavior Damon is still a murdering sack of shit, he’s just not hiding it as much this time they go on a road trip. (Although I still wouldn’t be surprised if he doubled back to kill off Isobel’s assistant before they left; he has priors after all.)
I just have no sympathy for Damon’s hurt feefees that Elena is upset about what happened. He may have a small point about what Elena’s hatred has historically and continually meant, but he doesn’t get to be hurt by her not immediately forgiving him. And as much as I hate Damon, I want to think his honesty at the end shows some small amount of growth, but I wish Elena would be less inclined to see the potential upside. Because it’s a very slight upside that Damon might at least a little bit regret trying to kill Jeremy, that doesn’t cover what he did to Elena and doesn’t remove the fact that Damon very much was trying to kill Jeremy.
Plus another thing that I think I’m reading more into with hindsight than I probably would have at first, but Damon snapping that Elena and Katherine have more in common than their looks struck me as below the belt. At this point that isn’t quite as cruel a remark as it will be later, when Elena hates Katherine a lot more than she does now and when being compared to Katherine is the thing Elena hates most, but it’s still out of bounds. I also kind of think it may have struck me as particularly cutting *because* it’s at this point in events, before it’s become personal between the doppelgangers. Elena may not hate Katherine as much now as she will later, but she also has no defense against the comparison.
I thought about having an Alaric point in this, but it’s never jelled into much of a point, so this is all he gets.
But I do end up with a reason to comment on the in episode timeline (as opposed to the episode by episode timeline). At the end Alaric says that he should have kissed Jenna ‘that morning’ which pretty well says that the whole road trip was a day long event. Now, I don’t know what the drive time between Mystic Falls and Duke is, but it’s been night time a while before they even leave Duke. In point of fact, Mason had gone back to being human before team road trip made it home; and one would think Mason would be a wolf all night.
And I don’t think I even want to deal with trying to figure out what Tyler remembers from that night and what he doesn’t. His reaction to Mason would indicate he remembers the encounter, but does he remember Stefan and Caroline’s presence? Stefan said he dealt with Tyler, but how much if he remembers seeing Mason-wolf? For that matter, what does Mason remember about being a wolf?
No…I’m not going to try and work that one out.
What am I shipping?
I am well on my way to shipping Stefan/Caroline, but in a long term view. I like them as friends for now, and for a while to come (if only I didn’t know Caroline’s fondness for Stefan made her push Stefan/Elena for way longer than a person should), with an eye to it eventually becoming romantic. Although I’m still not sure how to square that with her issues about competing with Elena.
Who do I hate the most?
Damon, he probably would have managed to get the win anyway, but his last line sealed it.
