Baseball, TVD, and TO
So to round out the what I've been watching portion of posting, baseball. Then we'll get into my TVD-verse reactions of the week.
Baseball round 1 reactions:
AL WC game I had no preference for so I was okay with Tampa winning.
NL WC game I was rooting for the Pirates and they won, so yay.
ALDS (a) - Boston vs. Tampa: I was rooting for Tampa because Boston is so much fun to root against. So I’m sad that Boston won, but not exactly surprised.
ALDS (b) - Oakland vs. Detroit: I was cheering for Oakland so I’m not exactly happy with the end, but we got five games out of this series and seeing it play out I think the better team won, fooey.
NLDS (a) - LA Dodgers vs. Atlanta: I couldn’t make up my mind which way my feelings for either team went, I’m not exactly a fan of either of them so I didn’t really have a preference/ So...yeah.
NLDS (b) - St. Louis vs. Pittsburgh: I didn’t exactly know who to root for in this one either but because I could get behind both teams, the Cinderella story or my perennial post season favorite team. So good show Bucks, but I’m not hurt that the Cards won.
Looking ahead to the championship series.
ALCS: This should be an interesting series, I’m still expecting Boston to win even though I’ll be rooting against them. This in not quite the same as rooting for Detroit because I’m not real keen on either of them, but I dislike Boston just a bit more.
NLCS: I won’t be surprised however this one goes I don’t think. I’ll be rooting for the Cards as my post season favorite team, but I’m not sure who I expect to win.
TVD 5x02
Oh show, for a few glorious moments you gave us Elena being righteously angry at Damon the way she always should be. And so I’m going to conclude that the rage was not Silas induced but what Elena really feels just won’t allow herself to experience on her own. Because really in those scenes there was a whole hell of a lot of lot more of Elena the character than there was otherwise in the episode, *that* was the Elena who once stabbed herself to bargain with an Original, who punched ripper-Stefan and told him that hope was strength, who stared down the monsters and came through fighting; *that* showed some memory of the Elena I loved. And yeah, old-Elena wouldn’t have necessarily gone after Damon (or anyone) quite the way she did here, but it was the first sign in ages that she’s still in there somewhere.
You know, if the show would acknowledge Katherine killing Jeremy I’d totally be shipping them right now in all their screwed up glory. I thought for sure last week remembered that little fact and was just subtly hinting at it with Jeremy’s behavior towards her rather than bringing it up, but this week it really needed to be brought up (between them and/or in Elena’s rant about Damon sticking by Katherine) and they didn’t so I’m not sure they mean for us to remember. But if I could focus less on the bizarrely unspoken history I’d totally be wanting screwed up, vaguely incestuous Jeremy/Katherine times.
I can’t be the only person (not among my flist) to add to Jeremy’s schooling of Katherine on why nobody stood p or her since she didn’t care about anyone, to add, “And that’s why Elijah prefers Elena.” It’s why everyone who knows the pair of them prefers Elena in the end, but because I’m me I went for the Elijah angle.
This plot of having Katherine around full time can’t last though, it’s sure nice for now but you know ND must have a pretty hectic shooting schedule to do it, they are at least keeping the two of them separate to avoid having to do effects work to have them together (good for production, sad for lack of doppelganger interactions). Still, they’re giving Kat a pretty good arc so far and I do approve of better using your Katherine Pierce. Now if only Elena would get a good story sometime these days I’d be all kinds of happy.
While I liked the Bonnie stuff this ep, this plot is going to get real old real fast and I don’t see how they’re going to get out of this one. If not for TO I’d go back to saying they could do a hard reset of the plot back to before they wrote themselves into so many messes, but it’s harder to think that’s an option when there’s a spin off in the same verse.
Because this Silas plot is just a mess. At this point I just don’t see what they can do with it to keep things in their nice little boxes this show likes. Also, I’m a little confused what the Hinters’ job was, they can’t kill Silas but they’re supposed to keep him from getting the cure and being able to die? This confusion might be particularly bad because aside from certain scenes in 4x18 that I keep rewatching I refuse to rewatch s4 where all this stuff was...”explained”.
NO SHOW, I knew this college plot was never going to last since it takes characters out of the Mystic Falls box but TWO EPISODES and you take Elena back home? This is just pathetic. And the conspiracy college plot is all wrapped around Elena, not Caroline so...just no. I guess that means this likely won’t be a permanent thing (for now) but still the damn Triangle needs to die. I may eventually complain less about D/E if you just left them be without the damn Triangle elements. (Okay I’ll still have Damon and D/E, you can’t change that at this point, but I could ignore it more without it being a Triangle issue.)
In conclusion, it was okay, not great but it didn’t completely suck.
The Originals 1x02
What WAS great though? The Originals. That’s where most of my favorite characters are these days and it shows.
While I still think Hayley is a bit of a non-character there’s some hints of her being one down the road. I think the problem is that she wasn’t really a character as such on TVD yet they’re treating her like she’s already an established character now. Her plot is getting a bit more interesting but her character is still largely unformed. Still, I do approve of her actually getting to have opinions about what’s happening to her, and at least developing a little within that issue if not overall development.
Stop the presses, Klaus was actually competent this episode. This was absolutely vital to the show that is supposedly his show. But every cut of the pilot made Klaus look dumber and weaker than the last and it wasn’t like he was starting in a great place with TVD s4 (or much of s3 for that matter). Klaus *does* have the ability to carry out a plan, and play a longer/more complex game than tic tac toe (he did early on yeah, but that’s gone down a lot until now). Also got to be a bit more complex for once in his attitude towards the family and Hayley.
I hope they start to give Cammie a bit more development soon. So far she’s not even as interesting/developed as early Caroline and that’s saying something. This was a bit more interesting use of her, and further establishes Marcel as Klaus’s protégé (having a thing for blondes for reasons not adequately explained), but she’s pretty much a prop so far and not even an interesting prop.
There was a serious lack of Elijah in this one. Granted after the last couple seasons of no Elijah I’m not full on complaining about seriously limited Elijah, but I’m here for Elijah so I want more. In fact I really wonder where he was during Marcel’s upbringing, Klaus said they all mourned Marcel but we never got anything between him and Elijah.
Along with that it somehow continues to become less and less reasonable to me that Elijah hung around Klaus as long as he did. Up until last week I’d managed to assume Kol’s daggering came after they got to New Orleans, and even with last week I could almost allow that they were just putting Kol in a time out and would undagger him then Klaus redaggered him somewhere down the line...I guess that *could* still be true (in 3x13 Elijah said Kol was daggered for over a century at that point, not the several centuries if he’s remained daggered from the time they got there to the time they left). And then daggering Rebekah on top of that I just don’t think Elijah would have stuck around for, and maybe he didn’t but these are questions that should be addressed.
I am glad we got more of Marcels backstory at this point, it’s not really something that should have been kept a secret very long so it’s good that it wasn’t (three cuts of the pilot starting months ago make it feel longer than it has in terms of number of TO episodes). Not quite sure how I feel about Rebekah/Marcel but we’ll see what they do with it.
Okay, finally onto Rebekah, this was after all her episode (also, I feel we’re owed an in depth Rebekah-Elijah episode soon since we got Elijah-Klaus and Rebekah-Klaus (just barely holding it to - rather than / ) ).
Rebekah was all around awesome this episode, I haven’t been this fond of her in ages it seems (but then, who was I fond of last season really?). Wakes Hayley up to some truths about the Mikaelson family in general and Klaus in specific. Barges in and does what her scheming brothers don’t and just get shit done, it’s not good for long games but it’s effective for short term goals. Shows off her dysfunctional relationship with Klaus in all its near incestuous glory. Has more tragic backstory than you can shake a stick at. Loves too recklessly and deeply. And of course, finds the answer Klaus has failed to get for months, she may not *remember* all of it but she got there.
Basically Rebekah is awesome, and that’s great.
However; show, you can’t keep going back to the well of threatening to kill Elijah (or any of the Originals). We know you won’t this early in the show and you’ve gone down this road before. Also, don’t play music at montage volume during dialog scenes with important stuff happening, it’s just bad form.
Baseball round 1 reactions:
AL WC game I had no preference for so I was okay with Tampa winning.
NL WC game I was rooting for the Pirates and they won, so yay.
ALDS (a) - Boston vs. Tampa: I was rooting for Tampa because Boston is so much fun to root against. So I’m sad that Boston won, but not exactly surprised.
ALDS (b) - Oakland vs. Detroit: I was cheering for Oakland so I’m not exactly happy with the end, but we got five games out of this series and seeing it play out I think the better team won, fooey.
NLDS (a) - LA Dodgers vs. Atlanta: I couldn’t make up my mind which way my feelings for either team went, I’m not exactly a fan of either of them so I didn’t really have a preference/ So...yeah.
NLDS (b) - St. Louis vs. Pittsburgh: I didn’t exactly know who to root for in this one either but because I could get behind both teams, the Cinderella story or my perennial post season favorite team. So good show Bucks, but I’m not hurt that the Cards won.
Looking ahead to the championship series.
ALCS: This should be an interesting series, I’m still expecting Boston to win even though I’ll be rooting against them. This in not quite the same as rooting for Detroit because I’m not real keen on either of them, but I dislike Boston just a bit more.
NLCS: I won’t be surprised however this one goes I don’t think. I’ll be rooting for the Cards as my post season favorite team, but I’m not sure who I expect to win.
TVD 5x02
Oh show, for a few glorious moments you gave us Elena being righteously angry at Damon the way she always should be. And so I’m going to conclude that the rage was not Silas induced but what Elena really feels just won’t allow herself to experience on her own. Because really in those scenes there was a whole hell of a lot of lot more of Elena the character than there was otherwise in the episode, *that* was the Elena who once stabbed herself to bargain with an Original, who punched ripper-Stefan and told him that hope was strength, who stared down the monsters and came through fighting; *that* showed some memory of the Elena I loved. And yeah, old-Elena wouldn’t have necessarily gone after Damon (or anyone) quite the way she did here, but it was the first sign in ages that she’s still in there somewhere.
You know, if the show would acknowledge Katherine killing Jeremy I’d totally be shipping them right now in all their screwed up glory. I thought for sure last week remembered that little fact and was just subtly hinting at it with Jeremy’s behavior towards her rather than bringing it up, but this week it really needed to be brought up (between them and/or in Elena’s rant about Damon sticking by Katherine) and they didn’t so I’m not sure they mean for us to remember. But if I could focus less on the bizarrely unspoken history I’d totally be wanting screwed up, vaguely incestuous Jeremy/Katherine times.
I can’t be the only person (not among my flist) to add to Jeremy’s schooling of Katherine on why nobody stood p or her since she didn’t care about anyone, to add, “And that’s why Elijah prefers Elena.” It’s why everyone who knows the pair of them prefers Elena in the end, but because I’m me I went for the Elijah angle.
This plot of having Katherine around full time can’t last though, it’s sure nice for now but you know ND must have a pretty hectic shooting schedule to do it, they are at least keeping the two of them separate to avoid having to do effects work to have them together (good for production, sad for lack of doppelganger interactions). Still, they’re giving Kat a pretty good arc so far and I do approve of better using your Katherine Pierce. Now if only Elena would get a good story sometime these days I’d be all kinds of happy.
While I liked the Bonnie stuff this ep, this plot is going to get real old real fast and I don’t see how they’re going to get out of this one. If not for TO I’d go back to saying they could do a hard reset of the plot back to before they wrote themselves into so many messes, but it’s harder to think that’s an option when there’s a spin off in the same verse.
Because this Silas plot is just a mess. At this point I just don’t see what they can do with it to keep things in their nice little boxes this show likes. Also, I’m a little confused what the Hinters’ job was, they can’t kill Silas but they’re supposed to keep him from getting the cure and being able to die? This confusion might be particularly bad because aside from certain scenes in 4x18 that I keep rewatching I refuse to rewatch s4 where all this stuff was...”explained”.
NO SHOW, I knew this college plot was never going to last since it takes characters out of the Mystic Falls box but TWO EPISODES and you take Elena back home? This is just pathetic. And the conspiracy college plot is all wrapped around Elena, not Caroline so...just no. I guess that means this likely won’t be a permanent thing (for now) but still the damn Triangle needs to die. I may eventually complain less about D/E if you just left them be without the damn Triangle elements. (Okay I’ll still have Damon and D/E, you can’t change that at this point, but I could ignore it more without it being a Triangle issue.)
In conclusion, it was okay, not great but it didn’t completely suck.
The Originals 1x02
What WAS great though? The Originals. That’s where most of my favorite characters are these days and it shows.
While I still think Hayley is a bit of a non-character there’s some hints of her being one down the road. I think the problem is that she wasn’t really a character as such on TVD yet they’re treating her like she’s already an established character now. Her plot is getting a bit more interesting but her character is still largely unformed. Still, I do approve of her actually getting to have opinions about what’s happening to her, and at least developing a little within that issue if not overall development.
Stop the presses, Klaus was actually competent this episode. This was absolutely vital to the show that is supposedly his show. But every cut of the pilot made Klaus look dumber and weaker than the last and it wasn’t like he was starting in a great place with TVD s4 (or much of s3 for that matter). Klaus *does* have the ability to carry out a plan, and play a longer/more complex game than tic tac toe (he did early on yeah, but that’s gone down a lot until now). Also got to be a bit more complex for once in his attitude towards the family and Hayley.
I hope they start to give Cammie a bit more development soon. So far she’s not even as interesting/developed as early Caroline and that’s saying something. This was a bit more interesting use of her, and further establishes Marcel as Klaus’s protégé (having a thing for blondes for reasons not adequately explained), but she’s pretty much a prop so far and not even an interesting prop.
There was a serious lack of Elijah in this one. Granted after the last couple seasons of no Elijah I’m not full on complaining about seriously limited Elijah, but I’m here for Elijah so I want more. In fact I really wonder where he was during Marcel’s upbringing, Klaus said they all mourned Marcel but we never got anything between him and Elijah.
Along with that it somehow continues to become less and less reasonable to me that Elijah hung around Klaus as long as he did. Up until last week I’d managed to assume Kol’s daggering came after they got to New Orleans, and even with last week I could almost allow that they were just putting Kol in a time out and would undagger him then Klaus redaggered him somewhere down the line...I guess that *could* still be true (in 3x13 Elijah said Kol was daggered for over a century at that point, not the several centuries if he’s remained daggered from the time they got there to the time they left). And then daggering Rebekah on top of that I just don’t think Elijah would have stuck around for, and maybe he didn’t but these are questions that should be addressed.
I am glad we got more of Marcels backstory at this point, it’s not really something that should have been kept a secret very long so it’s good that it wasn’t (three cuts of the pilot starting months ago make it feel longer than it has in terms of number of TO episodes). Not quite sure how I feel about Rebekah/Marcel but we’ll see what they do with it.
Okay, finally onto Rebekah, this was after all her episode (also, I feel we’re owed an in depth Rebekah-Elijah episode soon since we got Elijah-Klaus and Rebekah-Klaus (just barely holding it to - rather than / ) ).
Rebekah was all around awesome this episode, I haven’t been this fond of her in ages it seems (but then, who was I fond of last season really?). Wakes Hayley up to some truths about the Mikaelson family in general and Klaus in specific. Barges in and does what her scheming brothers don’t and just get shit done, it’s not good for long games but it’s effective for short term goals. Shows off her dysfunctional relationship with Klaus in all its near incestuous glory. Has more tragic backstory than you can shake a stick at. Loves too recklessly and deeply. And of course, finds the answer Klaus has failed to get for months, she may not *remember* all of it but she got there.
Basically Rebekah is awesome, and that’s great.
However; show, you can’t keep going back to the well of threatening to kill Elijah (or any of the Originals). We know you won’t this early in the show and you’ve gone down this road before. Also, don’t play music at montage volume during dialog scenes with important stuff happening, it’s just bad form.