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tori_reviewsThis was not a well written review, but I don't remember what I wanted to say well enough to do much with it. This is why I shouldn't keep the backlog for quite this long.
The Vampire Diaries 2x05: Kill or be Killed
Two months. I was basically stalled on that last review for two months. Which I guess is less than my review of The Prom has been stalled in the Buffy reviews (oh right I do still have a couple of those I hadn’t posted), which I suppose I have even less excuse for (hey do we remember when I reviewed all of Buffy s2 is less than a month, those were the days; it also helps me remember to post things). Anyway that last episode is just a middling (is middling the right word, I’m not super fond of it but I’m pretty sure there will be long stretches of episodes in later seasons where I’ll wish for an episode I was that kind of middling on) TVD episode that I somehow found a lot to say about in a super disorganized way. Can we do better this time?
Well, I think I can do it quickly, but that’s partly because I’m not sure I have much to say about this one. It’s a fine to good episode, but there’s not much that I really invest in.
But this has always been the episode that I don’t let Caroline off the hook for. Her actions in 2x02 were based on instincts she didn’t understand, but here she doesn’t get even as much a free pass as I gave her there for what she does. I did notice this time that they leave it a bit ambiguous if she actually is the one to kill the deputies, she may have only knocked them out and wounded them while one was shot by the other before he was taken out and then might have actually been killed by Damon. But even if she didn’t exactly kill them, she did cause their death, and more importantly, she doesn’t seem to care. If she was looking around like she only intended to knock them out and she was upset that they ended up dead, I’d probably put her less on the hook, but it bothers me that she isn’t bothered.
To the point where I almost want to call it out of character. Caroline was quite upset when she killed not-Trip but she has basically no reaction to what happens here. And the writers’ puppet strings are so very clear in that. They don’t care about the deputies who died, so their deaths don’t mean anything to the narrative; if anything they’re convenient to refill Damon’s health bar. We’re supposed to be touched by him declaring that Liz is his friend so he’s not going to kill her, but that’s just further evidence of TVD’s skewed pack morality; Damon has decided he cares about Liz, Caroline cares about Liz, Elena at least cares that Liz is Caroline’s mom, so Liz gets to live. The deputies though, no one cares about them, so they’re just dead bodies with blood in them.
And to make it more evident the writers are just having Caroline’s actions determined by plot progression; if Caroline is willing to run in and start killing deputies in front of her mother, then why does she only kick Mason’s ass when he directly threatens her? I’m not going to question how Mason knows Caroline’s a vampire (if not just instinct, Katherine easily could have told him), and I’m willing to headcanon why he didn’t out Caroline to Liz along with the Salvatores (although he may wish he had). But there should probably be more consequences to one or the other of them for getting into that fight.
Now, I might take issue with how Caroline is handled this episode, but wow I did not expect to react so badly to Stefan. He resorts to threats against Mason in their first scene after professing himself to be the nice brother; he needs almost no encouragement to decide that yeah they should totally kill Mason, because obviously this was Mason’s fault and it’s totally not like the Council could be either dosing people with vervain or trying to smoke out vampires; and Stefan could hardly sound more like a deluded drug addict at the end if he tried.
On that last point; I know I haven’t reacted that strong to his plan before. Because logically it makes sense. Logically he should be able to ration himself and learn to handle human blood in small doses; and as he works through the training wheels he can stay balanced however his diet fluctuates. But this time around I want to punch him, because he’s had 145 years to figure out that maybe he could work on finding a balanced diet. He thinks Lexi is the best example of how to be a vampire, and she would handle human blood without going all dark side. Granted, up to this point off the wagon Stefan seems more like a week long bender, rather than the Ripper of Monterey but my point stand. I feel like Stefan has to have tried adding human blood to his diet before now; and it either doesn’t work for him, or he’s choosing to let that be his excuse when he goes crazy from his forest diet.
And really, there’s a huge difference between what Katherine has done with vervain and what Stefan is thinking about with blood. Vervain is poison, Katherine has to endure the pain in order to gain the benefit of not being affected when it may matter most. Stefan drinking blood is a risk, but if it works it costs him nothing, he only gains benefits; and even if it doesn’t work, he likely won’t be the one paying the price for what happens.
It doesn’t help that the more attention I pay to TVD time the less I can handle certain aspects of Stefan and Elena’s relationship. It would be generous to assume they’ve known each other for six months, and their relationship has not exactly been smooth sailing; when have they gone three weeks without at least coming close to breaking up? So Elena in their final scene promising that it’s the two of them always rings really hollow; and the only way to smooth it over is to point out that she’s 17, at which point I still don’t believe it, only at most believe she thinks so. And even that I’m not sure I buy, because a key facet of Elena’s character is that she’s still working through the grief cycle over her parents, and from that she has issues believing life has permanence.
One of the things I like about this episode is the small moments when it does recall that with both Elena and Jeremy. Elena struggling not to point out to Caroline that maybe it’s not super cool to discuss parent drama with the orphan. And the way Jeremy and Tyler can bond over losing parents; although I really wouldn’t blame any of the characters involved for thinking there was something kind of gay about Jeremy’s interest in Tyler this episode.
I did sort of just imply there was a limited number of things I liked about this episode, but it’s actually a really well put together episode. And while I have a couple of fairly large issues with a couple of the characters (and the increasingly evident bonkers morality), most of people’s actions and attitudes seem to be in character. It has its own momentum and moves the larger plot forward enough to be important without being crowded. Some things might be a bit contrived if looked at too closely but nothing too glaring.
I do kind of want some insight into Mason’s headspace on the Katherine and Elena issue; I’m willing to say he didn’t know Elena much when she was young so I’m not going to say it’s creepy, but what does he know about what it means that they’re lookalikes. Oh, and did Katherine compel the girls hanging out with Tyler to do something stupid that could get them killed? Also, before Elena and Caroline got the crypt I found myself thinking how Katherine could show up as Elena and it would just add more confusion to everything.
But why does Tyler want to be a werewolf, even for a moment? I think his issue would have been more relatable if he’d said something about being more concerned for himself than the girl who almost died, and he didn’t like that that was how he felt. But I’m not sure how to make sense of what he actually says he was thinking.
What am I shipping?
I wasn’t kidding about Jeremy/Tyler setting off my potential ship radar. I’m not sure how I think it would work, and I have no interest in writing it or reading it, but the show was laying a groundwork that it could have gone in that direction if they wanted.
Although I am yet again distracted thinking how no one but Elijah can tell Elena’s lying by the sound of her heart. (E-minus two, I can make it now.)
Who do I hate the most?
Even after watching the episode I don’t think I realized it was Stefan until I was writing about it. I kind of hate letting Damon off the hook, because I feel like show wants me to and I don’t, but Stefan got more under my skin this time.
The Vampire Diaries 2x05: Kill or be Killed
Two months. I was basically stalled on that last review for two months. Which I guess is less than my review of The Prom has been stalled in the Buffy reviews (oh right I do still have a couple of those I hadn’t posted), which I suppose I have even less excuse for (hey do we remember when I reviewed all of Buffy s2 is less than a month, those were the days; it also helps me remember to post things). Anyway that last episode is just a middling (is middling the right word, I’m not super fond of it but I’m pretty sure there will be long stretches of episodes in later seasons where I’ll wish for an episode I was that kind of middling on) TVD episode that I somehow found a lot to say about in a super disorganized way. Can we do better this time?
Well, I think I can do it quickly, but that’s partly because I’m not sure I have much to say about this one. It’s a fine to good episode, but there’s not much that I really invest in.
But this has always been the episode that I don’t let Caroline off the hook for. Her actions in 2x02 were based on instincts she didn’t understand, but here she doesn’t get even as much a free pass as I gave her there for what she does. I did notice this time that they leave it a bit ambiguous if she actually is the one to kill the deputies, she may have only knocked them out and wounded them while one was shot by the other before he was taken out and then might have actually been killed by Damon. But even if she didn’t exactly kill them, she did cause their death, and more importantly, she doesn’t seem to care. If she was looking around like she only intended to knock them out and she was upset that they ended up dead, I’d probably put her less on the hook, but it bothers me that she isn’t bothered.
To the point where I almost want to call it out of character. Caroline was quite upset when she killed not-Trip but she has basically no reaction to what happens here. And the writers’ puppet strings are so very clear in that. They don’t care about the deputies who died, so their deaths don’t mean anything to the narrative; if anything they’re convenient to refill Damon’s health bar. We’re supposed to be touched by him declaring that Liz is his friend so he’s not going to kill her, but that’s just further evidence of TVD’s skewed pack morality; Damon has decided he cares about Liz, Caroline cares about Liz, Elena at least cares that Liz is Caroline’s mom, so Liz gets to live. The deputies though, no one cares about them, so they’re just dead bodies with blood in them.
And to make it more evident the writers are just having Caroline’s actions determined by plot progression; if Caroline is willing to run in and start killing deputies in front of her mother, then why does she only kick Mason’s ass when he directly threatens her? I’m not going to question how Mason knows Caroline’s a vampire (if not just instinct, Katherine easily could have told him), and I’m willing to headcanon why he didn’t out Caroline to Liz along with the Salvatores (although he may wish he had). But there should probably be more consequences to one or the other of them for getting into that fight.
Now, I might take issue with how Caroline is handled this episode, but wow I did not expect to react so badly to Stefan. He resorts to threats against Mason in their first scene after professing himself to be the nice brother; he needs almost no encouragement to decide that yeah they should totally kill Mason, because obviously this was Mason’s fault and it’s totally not like the Council could be either dosing people with vervain or trying to smoke out vampires; and Stefan could hardly sound more like a deluded drug addict at the end if he tried.
On that last point; I know I haven’t reacted that strong to his plan before. Because logically it makes sense. Logically he should be able to ration himself and learn to handle human blood in small doses; and as he works through the training wheels he can stay balanced however his diet fluctuates. But this time around I want to punch him, because he’s had 145 years to figure out that maybe he could work on finding a balanced diet. He thinks Lexi is the best example of how to be a vampire, and she would handle human blood without going all dark side. Granted, up to this point off the wagon Stefan seems more like a week long bender, rather than the Ripper of Monterey but my point stand. I feel like Stefan has to have tried adding human blood to his diet before now; and it either doesn’t work for him, or he’s choosing to let that be his excuse when he goes crazy from his forest diet.
And really, there’s a huge difference between what Katherine has done with vervain and what Stefan is thinking about with blood. Vervain is poison, Katherine has to endure the pain in order to gain the benefit of not being affected when it may matter most. Stefan drinking blood is a risk, but if it works it costs him nothing, he only gains benefits; and even if it doesn’t work, he likely won’t be the one paying the price for what happens.
It doesn’t help that the more attention I pay to TVD time the less I can handle certain aspects of Stefan and Elena’s relationship. It would be generous to assume they’ve known each other for six months, and their relationship has not exactly been smooth sailing; when have they gone three weeks without at least coming close to breaking up? So Elena in their final scene promising that it’s the two of them always rings really hollow; and the only way to smooth it over is to point out that she’s 17, at which point I still don’t believe it, only at most believe she thinks so. And even that I’m not sure I buy, because a key facet of Elena’s character is that she’s still working through the grief cycle over her parents, and from that she has issues believing life has permanence.
One of the things I like about this episode is the small moments when it does recall that with both Elena and Jeremy. Elena struggling not to point out to Caroline that maybe it’s not super cool to discuss parent drama with the orphan. And the way Jeremy and Tyler can bond over losing parents; although I really wouldn’t blame any of the characters involved for thinking there was something kind of gay about Jeremy’s interest in Tyler this episode.
I did sort of just imply there was a limited number of things I liked about this episode, but it’s actually a really well put together episode. And while I have a couple of fairly large issues with a couple of the characters (and the increasingly evident bonkers morality), most of people’s actions and attitudes seem to be in character. It has its own momentum and moves the larger plot forward enough to be important without being crowded. Some things might be a bit contrived if looked at too closely but nothing too glaring.
I do kind of want some insight into Mason’s headspace on the Katherine and Elena issue; I’m willing to say he didn’t know Elena much when she was young so I’m not going to say it’s creepy, but what does he know about what it means that they’re lookalikes. Oh, and did Katherine compel the girls hanging out with Tyler to do something stupid that could get them killed? Also, before Elena and Caroline got the crypt I found myself thinking how Katherine could show up as Elena and it would just add more confusion to everything.
But why does Tyler want to be a werewolf, even for a moment? I think his issue would have been more relatable if he’d said something about being more concerned for himself than the girl who almost died, and he didn’t like that that was how he felt. But I’m not sure how to make sense of what he actually says he was thinking.
What am I shipping?
I wasn’t kidding about Jeremy/Tyler setting off my potential ship radar. I’m not sure how I think it would work, and I have no interest in writing it or reading it, but the show was laying a groundwork that it could have gone in that direction if they wanted.
Although I am yet again distracted thinking how no one but Elijah can tell Elena’s lying by the sound of her heart. (E-minus two, I can make it now.)
Who do I hate the most?
Even after watching the episode I don’t think I realized it was Stefan until I was writing about it. I kind of hate letting Damon off the hook, because I feel like show wants me to and I don’t, but Stefan got more under my skin this time.
