Damon, Elena, their toxic relationship, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree....
So, I loved last night's episode, 5x16, "While You Were Sleeping" -- which was especially important to me for two reasons, 1) the episode title is my favorite romantic comedy of ALL TIME; and 2) this is the first full episode with Elena back. I wanted to appreciate her, and just be generally OVER THE MOON that my girl has returned. I am happy to say that both of those things were felt deeply, and I'm really happy with this turn of events.
The first thing I want to comment on is that I've never thought of Damon and Elena as two people in a perfect relationship. What I have thought of them is that they are a good match; they have a lot of similar qualities that, to my mind, makes them equal and brings them together in a good place. They also have an uncanny knack for total honesty with each other, which let's face it, she never shared with Stefan. I'm not writing this to knock the Stefan/Elena relationship, but I do feel you have to draw on one to fully illustrate the other.
Because TOXIC is what was SAID, but TOXIC was not what was SHOWN. And the whole time Elena was with Stefan and Stefan continually lied to her, and they swept their issues under the rug, even up to and including the delusion that they could just go back to the way things were, no one ever called anyone on being in a less-than-functional relationship.
And yet Damon is the one to describe his relationship with Elena as toxic because she loves him, no matter what he does. For me, with Damon, it always comes back to the fact that nobody has ever LOVED him, to borrow a saying from my mother, warts and all. Oh, yes, Stefan has tolerated him on occasion, when he wasn't steeping in his own forms of self-loathing, but most of the time, Stefan would leave Damon when Damon wasn't "being good." Or, Damon left Stefan, for various reasons, most of which included stupid Lexi, but that's not what this meta is about. I thought it was very clever that the whole first half of this episode was about Damon and Elena being cutesy and flirty on the phone. They caught up on the gossip, they discussed how Katherine tried to destroy their lives. They talked about what they would do when they were reunited. Now, obviously, the big Aaron bombshell awaited them, but it wasn't that Damon didn't intend to tell her; he just didn't want to do it over the phone, and that makes sense to me. Just like he doesn't want to be excused, he also wants to be understood. He needs Elena to know that what she thinks of him matters, and when he let himself believe that she thought the worst, living up to (or down to) that just seemed like a good idea. He's always going to be impulsive, and his impulses will always lean towards the dark. That's what he was conveying that night, the night he spilled his heart out to Katherine: Elena helps keep the darkness away, her love for him and his love for her inspire him to be better, so on those days when he falters, there is guilt, which for some is a motivating emotion to do better. Damon has slowly been doing better, and the arm-chair psychologist in me really wants him to learn to do better for HIMSELF. But I also think that Elena's steady influence is the best way for that to happen, because even though it annoys him, it also must scorch his heart that she "can't" stop loving him.
No matter what he does, Elena Gilbert loves him. And that has never happened to him before.
For Elena, the slow graduation of her black and white world into a myriad of gray shades (something I've commented on at length before) is still going. I don't believe that Elena should have to give up what she believes in, or forfeit her morality so she can love Damon, or even be with Damon. But again, let's talk about what we were shown last night? I know Elena was under duress due to the werewolf venom-laced serum, but when she staked Liv? COME ON. If that wasn't a Damon Salvatore move (please watch the scene where he takes the Gilbert Ring off Matt Donovan's finger), I don't know what is. This is what I've been talking about since I started writing meta about these two: Elena's shades of gray are something she's not entirely honest with to HERSELF. She has always been drawn to Damon because they are alike; they will do whatever is necessary, not whatever is moral. Damon coming to help her at any price, was less the toxic aspect of their relationship and more exactly what the man who loves you will do when you are sick with something that probably won't be cured and you're going fucking nuts and he doesn't know what to do, so the only thing he can do is make the effort.
I just, for me, everything about them is so interesting, and watching them try to find the balance is more important than them never making mistakes, or being forgiven for those mistakes.
And then, of course, there's the BREAK-UP. The for real, "we're in agreement" break-up.
I've probably mentioned this before because I know I've thought about it before, but let me reiterate: in the film Walk the Line, which is the story of Johnny and June Carter Cash, and how they came to be the loves of each other's lives, there is a scene when he is still married to his first wife, and he and June are singing a song called, "It Ain't Me, Babe," in the which they are declaring that they aren't right for one another. The director on the commentary says that he purposely did that scene to have the characters SAYING one thing while actually SHOWING the opposite was true.
So "While You Were Sleeping" comes down to this: everything we are shown doesn't support what was said; sure there are aspects, but even with Elena no longer "making excuses" for Damon (to which he snarls, "THANK YOU!"), we are seeing something change within her, within their dynamic.
And so they break-up, only to come together just as explosively as they did the night they first got together. And besides that, look at their faces. Damon even shakes his head a little in the second gif, like he just can't do it. The Right Thing. Breaking up is the last thing either of them want to do; loving someone and being apart because of some arbitrary rule they think they need to abide by is never going to stick. And I for one can't wait to see how it unfolds further.
And these two shots are possibly the most beautiful ever filmed by a TVD director:
JUST, GUH.
Remember when Stefan and Elena broke up? It felt devastating, even to me a non-Stelena shipper, because it felt final. Even after Tessa revealed how the universe brings the doppelgangers together, I never thought, oh Stefan and Elena will get back together -- and this excitement and certainty I feel about Damon and Elena is probably due to the fact that seven years later, I finally got my ship from Veronica Mars. I'm sure everyone in association with that would have at one time or another described Logan and Veronica as TOXIC. And yet.
And yet.
