TVD thoughts: "this crazy life you got stuck living"
So, since many on my f-list have already written pretty much everything I feel about this episode, this post isn't going to be particularly... thorough? Or lucid.
Disclaimer for this post:
1. I ain't never claimed I was smart
2. I ain't never claimed I was not addled.
3. Yeah, that's it. That's all I got.
One day, the universe might look back on this episode and realize that it was the moment when what I thought was impossible became possible. The moment it all began. The moment when I started to stan Klaus. I mean, not that I stan him now but I seriously am growing to appreciate him for the sheer LULZ because this:
HAPPENED. JoMo appears to be making a very deliberate (and smart) choice to play Klaus as slightly unhinged--except not slightly at all). And I think that this is something that is slipping into his performance over time (also smart, because given how emotionally fraught he is now without his family of coffins to talk to before breakfast every day and other factors, I imagine he would be cracking at his barely-patched-up seams)? As in, Alaric!Klaus was actually diabolically insane, and you got the inklings from things like his torturing Katherine in that particular way for shits and giggles or twirling his way around a dance floor that this character was not quite playing with a full box set. And then I felt like JoMo tamped it down a little, and started to play Klaus a little more straight and as an actual evil genius with a PLAN and a New World Order to establish, and I couldn't buy it. And then season 3 came and I was still massively underwhelmed by Klaus as a villain and as a character but in hindsight, I now see threads of genius in this performance: the sobbing into his beer, the sobbing at the fireplace, sobbing in the cellar, general weeping in almost every episode (he's an emotional guy, and an even more emotional and unstable vampire, and he's lived over 1000 years and eternal life sucks balls); all the little games he plays and his apparent love for high school social functions; his obsession with creating a surrogate family so he won't be lonely; his plethora of mummy/daddy/sister/brother/family "issues". He's still really kind of a "bad" villain in ways that villains can be bad because he appears to be kind of unfocused and ineffectual even though we know him to cruelly effectual when he puts his mind to it. And maybe that's it, maybe Klaus needs a clear-cut goal again. All those centuries he spent working towards one thing: breaking the curse. Now that he's done it, I'm not sure he quite knows what to do with himself. And there's a lot of reasons as to why this might be the case and maybe it isn't the case--but this isn't a Klaus post or a SRS BSNS post (I might one day write one because what is my life?).
But he was especially unhinged in this bedroom scene. I can't stop snickering at it. Where did it come from? Why? Because like there was obviously so much truth to what he was saying, he meant it in the way that Klaus can "mean" things. He cares about birthdays you guys, can I get fic of Klaus' birthdays through the years? Does he even remember the actual date or did he have to pick one. Also bonus: for fic about how he celebrates his siblings' birthdays. The loss of meaning is something we all grapple with, right? Now that magnified 1000 times over an eternity of living is just really frightening to me, and I imagine I'd have an existential crisis every damn year. What is my purpose? Why am I still here? What is there to live for when you're no better than a ghost? And I felt for him when he talked about his suicidal thoughts over the years. He's clearly lonely without any friends and a bunch of hybrids that die really easily and can't replace the family he really wants, I mean what's he gonna do--talk to Rebekah's coffin all day (which I'm sure he's done frequently in the past, and with all his siblings, and I'd like fic). It was this really bizarre moment where I found myself identifying with Klaus but also recognizing the utter ludicrousness of him and this character and the trolling nature of this show. I can't.
Anyway, before I get into the post proper, I'd like to share a song from Klaus' official soundtrack--one that truly speaks to him for me. Just like Elijah was in touch with the pop cultural zeitgeist of 2011 with my personal favorite song for him, Willow Smith's Whip my Hair, Klaus takes it back a few years with this solid summer hit:
I recommend listening to it while you read this post. If only to distract yourself from how few intelligent things I say.
Onwards:
I loved this episode, truly. Because how can I not love an episode in which these kids make these faces:
Gif Source.
Ah, too adorable. This season is trying far harder than season 2 (thank god) to ground these characters in their very distinct realities and it's important that they do that. Because without moments like these, without me understanding the tangible connections all of these people have with each other, with their town, with their "real world" lives, it's really hard to grasp the ways they function in a real world full of the supernatural, how and why they make the terrible and dangerous choices they make, what it is they're fighting for at the end of it all, basically who they are.
Rebecca Sonnenshine, the writer of this episode, has a particular skill with that. She also wrote Ghost World, which was similarly heavy-handed about certain themes but just hit some solid and necessary emotional notes for me and gave a pretty good balance of characters that this show sometimes fails so spectacularly at. She especially writes well for the women, which, I like and she writes good Damon, and in this episode, a good Stefan and Matt. So I like her, I hope she stays.
Sometimes I like it when my shows beat a particular theme to death. And this one did with all the different permutations of free will/choice. But also with the idea of rebirth or gaining/regaining meaning in life, and in some cases, losing that meaning and what it does to you (see: Stefan). This show is best when it's playing with actually really complex themes on multiple levels with multiple characters, and this episode did that really well for the most part. I'm not going to write about it a lot as it was all sort of apparent.
Quick Bullets:
1. Ah, fantastic opening scene. Damon practically yodeling from glee in the shower will never get old, I love him.
1B. Elena with that punching bag is the stuff my fantasies are made of. It's interesting to me that this season is just actually the Season of Elena in terms of the narrative coming almost full circle with her (and literally so in this episode) and that means it gives so much breadth for her as a character, and she's growing up, she's defining herself in new ways, and I'm just excited. Because all the right decisions: they are making them with her right now. And it hurts in all the best ways!
How perfect was that last scene with Matt? I didn't know how much I needed that scene until I saw it. We grow up or we're forced to in those abrupt, traumatizing, painful moments like losing one's parents at age 16. Those things break us. But the real truth of it, of coming of age, of life and living it--it comes in these quiet moments; and the growing understanding we all get that life is dark and painful and difficult, and you have to get a little harder to live it. You have to learn to accept truths in yourself, or try to, at least. And she's doing that, and it was such a good, real moment. It's something of the tragedy of growing up, is that as much as you gain from your experiences it's this prolonged process of letting go, and sometimes losing and losing really badly. And we all get used to losing and to learning how to pick ourselves up after that. That's that. (Is that depressing? I don't have good words today.) But it made me weep.
1C. Also, if I did that whole functional endgame shipping stuff, I'd be all over that.
1D. Damon and Elena scene was so good. This show is doing this so right, I don't know what to do with myself. I am like three steps away from becoming a shipper or something. CALL THE POLICE.
1E. "I'll survive, somehow I always do." UGH, KILL ME, ELENA.
1F. Also, how awesome, there is no Damon riding in on his white steed to save Elena from the clutches of crazy Stefan, which too many shows that I watch would have done and I would've been gagging into my wine. Because, this is not what this show is about, and I am delighted by this.
2. A few months ago, I wrote a nonsense-post (basically the only reason I use Tumblr is to make nonsensical posts) How to Survive in The Vampire Diaries. Several of those points still stand especially in this episode (see: Council, local police etc.) but I did find the time to update it given events in this episode with two points, no 17 is pertinent:
"All PoC need to leave Mystic Falls. Get out. Leave. RUN. For. Your. Lives. I mean, it’s clear that many of them have cottoned on to the real deal and have fled Mystic Falls already (Hello, Tiki and her grandpappy; Lucy couldn’t run fast enough; Bonnie’s dad who is, as far as we know, perpetually “away on special business” even though he probably runs like the local gym or something equally mundane or “fighting in some mysterious and unnamed war abroad that no one has ever heard of”; all those PoC who do not attend crass social functions and founding family bonanzas despite the promise of free booze but instead settle in bunkers beneath their homes being like, ‘Man, these white folk fall for this shit every time, what’s up with that?’). But for those who insist on staying, you need to run. Follow Jeremy Gilbert down the yellow brick road. Fast. RIP: Mindy."
At this point, I give up on this show's treatment of PoC. I am holding a private prayer circle for Bonnie's mother and the new guy this coming Wednesday, feel free to join.
3. Caroline! Loved her very real existential crisis, I'm so glad the show took the time to explore that. Side-eying that situation at the end of the episode mainly because I just don't want Caroline in some sort of gross, pseudo-abusive relationship again. BUT for all the creepiness, and the clear incestuous displacement issues, I will watch on with bemusement because lol, Klaus. And if it means interesting and potentially scary and dark places to take Caroline as a character, I'm all for it.
3B. Caroline & Tyler. That awful Coldplay song in their first scene was so obnoxiously loud and over their dialogue! Ugh, this show does that sometimes and it drives me nuts. Other than that, I have no feelings for that scene or the ship, tbh, because beyond those episodes in season 2 where they were just friends connecting over their combined sense of difference and loss--I've failed to understand what it is that Caroline actually gets out of it. And therefore, I cannot ship it. For those who do love them, and for the characters... I'm sorry it's over? They'll probably get together by the end of the season if that's any consolation.
4. Bonnie! I love everything. It's hard out there for a Bonnie stan, it really is. This episode was just the right calibration of things I needed with her. YES to her calling out the terrible of Jeremy-Gate (if I see one more person bleating about how the show wants us to think that was a GOOD thing, I will break something, must you be bludgeoned to death with every single thing, fandom?). But then I also love that even though she knows it's problematic, she cares about Jeremy's well-being too and she's also her usual pragmatic self and she knows that she would do the same if she was in that situation (actually she has, several times, so....).
4B. Guys, growing up and making hard decisions is complicated stuff, and it's messy. I like that they kept it messy in this episode and that Bonnie's as much a part of that mess, and somewhat complicit in it. Fandom keeps crowing about "right" and "wrong" in this situation and it's like please find a new refrain, goddamn, don't you get tired of hearing yourselves in an echo chamber? Frustration.
4C. Ugh, at her little face when she hugged Jeremy and then shot that look at Elena that had all these layers in it (guilt, condemnation, complicity, frustration, and sadness). Bless your heart, this show is just balancing her really well and I like it. SPOILER: NEXT EPISODE IS GOING TO KILL ME BTW.
4D. Also, with the balance, I liked seeing her trying to get that casket open. I love the spell-casting on this show and that she has an actual language (unlike TSC in which they say things like, "fire hot, water wet" or some shit) and it's mystical and dangerous and imbued with purpose and SO cool. Even though Grams told her to stay out of it, Bonnie cannot help but get involved with these things, she'll always find herself in the middle of them and I imagine it will one day kill her as it did the Bennetts who came before. But she'll keep doing it anyway.
5. Stefan. Master of the Trolls. Like last week, I am so sure that this show is doing everything I've ever wanted for this character but I'm still scared they won't. But this episode, man, Stefan is at his most compelling for me right now. Because PW is doing this thing of playing him doing terrible, irrational, devious things but managing to convey a sense of conflict? A sense that Stefan is genuinely in a bad place because he's lost so much and feels he has few choices but to go on this vengeance mission. But that, in itself, is a choice. And it's a terrible choice. And people are getting hurt by it. He knows this. But he's going to stick with it doggedly because he believes he has no other reason or right to anything else. There was no attempt to paint his choices as "heroic", (LOL at Damon's brotherly pride though), they are what they are. AND I AM EXCITED. MORE PLEASE, SHOW.
5B. I made a post on Tumblr during the episode that was like, damn, if I shipped Stefan/Elena this episode would make me ship them EVEN MORE. Because actually, this ship has never had more potential for me than it does now. Now there is no dissembling, there are no fabrications, there is no problematic and uncomfortable co-dependency symbiosis between them. They're more on equal footing as individual characters than they've ever been for me because Elena KNOWS, she knows and she's experiencing him--the true him. He is not masquerading as something that he isn't any longer, and his journey to figuring himself out is going to take a long time but at least he's pushing to the point where there are no more expectations with regards to him for Elena and that's good. All I can say is well-played, show, let's see where you go with this.
Semi Serious Thoughts
5C. To go with that, I love that this has obliterated the idea of any ships on this show being about being SAVED BY THE LOVE OF A GOOD WOMAN and other such nonsense. THIS IS BRILLIANT. One day I will write smart things about this because IT IS IMPORTANT.
Briefly, this show is deconstructing a lot of things, a lot of accepted ideas and assumptions about "heroism", and "redemption", and "freedom" and "love", and it's doing it pretty bloody well. And on multiple levels with multiple characters, we know this. But this particular trope is one of the most frustrating things in all of literature/film for me. I think over the past two and a bit seasons, there has been a sense with Stefan and Elena (but also with other ships) that the man somehow or sometimes believes/tries to believe that loving this woman will "save" him, or grant him absolution or "redemption". The fandom, or portions of it, has this gross habit of reading these relationships that way x10000000. And it was troubling and problematic, and placed (places) this really horrible burden on Elena. A burden that, I think, in some ways, Elena was also placing ON HERSELF.
And, I'm not sure why I ever doubted it, but this season more than any other is about dismantling that. It is breaking those idiotic ideas down. Elena is not going to "save" these brothers. And she shouldn't feel that she HAS to. She has her own life to live, she can be "selfish" (often a synonym for pragmatic and smart) if she wants to, and choose her own bloody well-being and her own life-purpose over sacrificing for other people. She really is no longer that girl who was trying so desperately to "save" Stefan because various and complicated reasons that we can't get into right now. And this is something that's been unfolding, sometimes in the ugliest ways, all season (and through the show, but specifically this season is grappling with that). We can write the meta on the painful gradations of it in each episode, in fact, and it's excellent.
Stefan is no longer that guy who wanted/needed to believe that she could. Damon doesn't believe it either. And, I'm not saying this well right now, I'm sorry for the incoherence, but it's just a good storytelling decision.
6. Matt Donovan. I just wrote fic about you. But this episode may or may not have made me start to love you like I did back in season 1 when you had that arc with your mum. Zach Roerig also managed to emote really well, which is not often the case imo, and I'm glad of it, could it be that Matt's making a come-back? I JUST WANT THEM TO GIVE HIM A ZEPPO EPISODE FFS! Watch this space....
6B. Also this face:
7. No feelings on Meredith. Except, is she a murderer? That would be awesome.
7B. Speaking of murders, the occurrence of a normal murder is like one of my dreams for this show. I always used to wish that the FBI would come to MF to start investigating the high animal kills rates, or that Logan Fell or Andie would blow the lid on all the murders, and it would be awesome. It's an interesting choice for the show to make, and I'm glad they've done it because they need to create tension and drama that connects with the world outside of this bubble. Can't wait to see where they go with this.
That's it. That's all I got. LOL, this post is appalling. *goes to listen to Whip My Hair.
Update:
- As I said, I wrote Matt fic, set around Ghost World or slightly before that.
- Time to go and catch up on Revenge.
- And I need to finish BSG already. EEP!
- Is anyone watching Bomb Girls? I'm thinking of starting it because... Tumblr.
Disclaimer for this post:
1. I ain't never claimed I was smart
2. I ain't never claimed I was not addled.
3. Yeah, that's it. That's all I got.
One day, the universe might look back on this episode and realize that it was the moment when what I thought was impossible became possible. The moment it all began. The moment when I started to stan Klaus. I mean, not that I stan him now but I seriously am growing to appreciate him for the sheer LULZ because this:
HAPPENED. JoMo appears to be making a very deliberate (and smart) choice to play Klaus as slightly unhinged--except not slightly at all). And I think that this is something that is slipping into his performance over time (also smart, because given how emotionally fraught he is now without his family of coffins to talk to before breakfast every day and other factors, I imagine he would be cracking at his barely-patched-up seams)? As in, Alaric!Klaus was actually diabolically insane, and you got the inklings from things like his torturing Katherine in that particular way for shits and giggles or twirling his way around a dance floor that this character was not quite playing with a full box set. And then I felt like JoMo tamped it down a little, and started to play Klaus a little more straight and as an actual evil genius with a PLAN and a New World Order to establish, and I couldn't buy it. And then season 3 came and I was still massively underwhelmed by Klaus as a villain and as a character but in hindsight, I now see threads of genius in this performance: the sobbing into his beer, the sobbing at the fireplace, sobbing in the cellar, general weeping in almost every episode (he's an emotional guy, and an even more emotional and unstable vampire, and he's lived over 1000 years and eternal life sucks balls); all the little games he plays and his apparent love for high school social functions; his obsession with creating a surrogate family so he won't be lonely; his plethora of mummy/daddy/sister/brother/family "issues". He's still really kind of a "bad" villain in ways that villains can be bad because he appears to be kind of unfocused and ineffectual even though we know him to cruelly effectual when he puts his mind to it. And maybe that's it, maybe Klaus needs a clear-cut goal again. All those centuries he spent working towards one thing: breaking the curse. Now that he's done it, I'm not sure he quite knows what to do with himself. And there's a lot of reasons as to why this might be the case and maybe it isn't the case--but this isn't a Klaus post or a SRS BSNS post (I might one day write one because what is my life?).
But he was especially unhinged in this bedroom scene. I can't stop snickering at it. Where did it come from? Why? Because like there was obviously so much truth to what he was saying, he meant it in the way that Klaus can "mean" things. He cares about birthdays you guys, can I get fic of Klaus' birthdays through the years? Does he even remember the actual date or did he have to pick one. Also bonus: for fic about how he celebrates his siblings' birthdays. The loss of meaning is something we all grapple with, right? Now that magnified 1000 times over an eternity of living is just really frightening to me, and I imagine I'd have an existential crisis every damn year. What is my purpose? Why am I still here? What is there to live for when you're no better than a ghost? And I felt for him when he talked about his suicidal thoughts over the years. He's clearly lonely without any friends and a bunch of hybrids that die really easily and can't replace the family he really wants, I mean what's he gonna do--talk to Rebekah's coffin all day (which I'm sure he's done frequently in the past, and with all his siblings, and I'd like fic). It was this really bizarre moment where I found myself identifying with Klaus but also recognizing the utter ludicrousness of him and this character and the trolling nature of this show. I can't.
Anyway, before I get into the post proper, I'd like to share a song from Klaus' official soundtrack--one that truly speaks to him for me. Just like Elijah was in touch with the pop cultural zeitgeist of 2011 with my personal favorite song for him, Willow Smith's Whip my Hair, Klaus takes it back a few years with this solid summer hit:
Click to viewI recommend listening to it while you read this post. If only to distract yourself from how few intelligent things I say.
Onwards:
I loved this episode, truly. Because how can I not love an episode in which these kids make these faces:
Gif Source.
Ah, too adorable. This season is trying far harder than season 2 (thank god) to ground these characters in their very distinct realities and it's important that they do that. Because without moments like these, without me understanding the tangible connections all of these people have with each other, with their town, with their "real world" lives, it's really hard to grasp the ways they function in a real world full of the supernatural, how and why they make the terrible and dangerous choices they make, what it is they're fighting for at the end of it all, basically who they are.
Rebecca Sonnenshine, the writer of this episode, has a particular skill with that. She also wrote Ghost World, which was similarly heavy-handed about certain themes but just hit some solid and necessary emotional notes for me and gave a pretty good balance of characters that this show sometimes fails so spectacularly at. She especially writes well for the women, which, I like and she writes good Damon, and in this episode, a good Stefan and Matt. So I like her, I hope she stays.
Sometimes I like it when my shows beat a particular theme to death. And this one did with all the different permutations of free will/choice. But also with the idea of rebirth or gaining/regaining meaning in life, and in some cases, losing that meaning and what it does to you (see: Stefan). This show is best when it's playing with actually really complex themes on multiple levels with multiple characters, and this episode did that really well for the most part. I'm not going to write about it a lot as it was all sort of apparent.
Quick Bullets:
1. Ah, fantastic opening scene. Damon practically yodeling from glee in the shower will never get old, I love him.
1B. Elena with that punching bag is the stuff my fantasies are made of. It's interesting to me that this season is just actually the Season of Elena in terms of the narrative coming almost full circle with her (and literally so in this episode) and that means it gives so much breadth for her as a character, and she's growing up, she's defining herself in new ways, and I'm just excited. Because all the right decisions: they are making them with her right now. And it hurts in all the best ways!
How perfect was that last scene with Matt? I didn't know how much I needed that scene until I saw it. We grow up or we're forced to in those abrupt, traumatizing, painful moments like losing one's parents at age 16. Those things break us. But the real truth of it, of coming of age, of life and living it--it comes in these quiet moments; and the growing understanding we all get that life is dark and painful and difficult, and you have to get a little harder to live it. You have to learn to accept truths in yourself, or try to, at least. And she's doing that, and it was such a good, real moment. It's something of the tragedy of growing up, is that as much as you gain from your experiences it's this prolonged process of letting go, and sometimes losing and losing really badly. And we all get used to losing and to learning how to pick ourselves up after that. That's that. (Is that depressing? I don't have good words today.) But it made me weep.
1C. Also, if I did that whole functional endgame shipping stuff, I'd be all over that.
1D. Damon and Elena scene was so good. This show is doing this so right, I don't know what to do with myself. I am like three steps away from becoming a shipper or something. CALL THE POLICE.
1E. "I'll survive, somehow I always do." UGH, KILL ME, ELENA.
1F. Also, how awesome, there is no Damon riding in on his white steed to save Elena from the clutches of crazy Stefan, which too many shows that I watch would have done and I would've been gagging into my wine. Because, this is not what this show is about, and I am delighted by this.
2. A few months ago, I wrote a nonsense-post (basically the only reason I use Tumblr is to make nonsensical posts) How to Survive in The Vampire Diaries. Several of those points still stand especially in this episode (see: Council, local police etc.) but I did find the time to update it given events in this episode with two points, no 17 is pertinent:
"All PoC need to leave Mystic Falls. Get out. Leave. RUN. For. Your. Lives. I mean, it’s clear that many of them have cottoned on to the real deal and have fled Mystic Falls already (Hello, Tiki and her grandpappy; Lucy couldn’t run fast enough; Bonnie’s dad who is, as far as we know, perpetually “away on special business” even though he probably runs like the local gym or something equally mundane or “fighting in some mysterious and unnamed war abroad that no one has ever heard of”; all those PoC who do not attend crass social functions and founding family bonanzas despite the promise of free booze but instead settle in bunkers beneath their homes being like, ‘Man, these white folk fall for this shit every time, what’s up with that?’). But for those who insist on staying, you need to run. Follow Jeremy Gilbert down the yellow brick road. Fast. RIP: Mindy."
At this point, I give up on this show's treatment of PoC. I am holding a private prayer circle for Bonnie's mother and the new guy this coming Wednesday, feel free to join.
3. Caroline! Loved her very real existential crisis, I'm so glad the show took the time to explore that. Side-eying that situation at the end of the episode mainly because I just don't want Caroline in some sort of gross, pseudo-abusive relationship again. BUT for all the creepiness, and the clear incestuous displacement issues, I will watch on with bemusement because lol, Klaus. And if it means interesting and potentially scary and dark places to take Caroline as a character, I'm all for it.
3B. Caroline & Tyler. That awful Coldplay song in their first scene was so obnoxiously loud and over their dialogue! Ugh, this show does that sometimes and it drives me nuts. Other than that, I have no feelings for that scene or the ship, tbh, because beyond those episodes in season 2 where they were just friends connecting over their combined sense of difference and loss--I've failed to understand what it is that Caroline actually gets out of it. And therefore, I cannot ship it. For those who do love them, and for the characters... I'm sorry it's over? They'll probably get together by the end of the season if that's any consolation.
4. Bonnie! I love everything. It's hard out there for a Bonnie stan, it really is. This episode was just the right calibration of things I needed with her. YES to her calling out the terrible of Jeremy-Gate (if I see one more person bleating about how the show wants us to think that was a GOOD thing, I will break something, must you be bludgeoned to death with every single thing, fandom?). But then I also love that even though she knows it's problematic, she cares about Jeremy's well-being too and she's also her usual pragmatic self and she knows that she would do the same if she was in that situation (actually she has, several times, so....).
4B. Guys, growing up and making hard decisions is complicated stuff, and it's messy. I like that they kept it messy in this episode and that Bonnie's as much a part of that mess, and somewhat complicit in it. Fandom keeps crowing about "right" and "wrong" in this situation and it's like please find a new refrain, goddamn, don't you get tired of hearing yourselves in an echo chamber? Frustration.
4C. Ugh, at her little face when she hugged Jeremy and then shot that look at Elena that had all these layers in it (guilt, condemnation, complicity, frustration, and sadness). Bless your heart, this show is just balancing her really well and I like it. SPOILER: NEXT EPISODE IS GOING TO KILL ME BTW.
4D. Also, with the balance, I liked seeing her trying to get that casket open. I love the spell-casting on this show and that she has an actual language (unlike TSC in which they say things like, "fire hot, water wet" or some shit) and it's mystical and dangerous and imbued with purpose and SO cool. Even though Grams told her to stay out of it, Bonnie cannot help but get involved with these things, she'll always find herself in the middle of them and I imagine it will one day kill her as it did the Bennetts who came before. But she'll keep doing it anyway.
5. Stefan. Master of the Trolls. Like last week, I am so sure that this show is doing everything I've ever wanted for this character but I'm still scared they won't. But this episode, man, Stefan is at his most compelling for me right now. Because PW is doing this thing of playing him doing terrible, irrational, devious things but managing to convey a sense of conflict? A sense that Stefan is genuinely in a bad place because he's lost so much and feels he has few choices but to go on this vengeance mission. But that, in itself, is a choice. And it's a terrible choice. And people are getting hurt by it. He knows this. But he's going to stick with it doggedly because he believes he has no other reason or right to anything else. There was no attempt to paint his choices as "heroic", (LOL at Damon's brotherly pride though), they are what they are. AND I AM EXCITED. MORE PLEASE, SHOW.
5B. I made a post on Tumblr during the episode that was like, damn, if I shipped Stefan/Elena this episode would make me ship them EVEN MORE. Because actually, this ship has never had more potential for me than it does now. Now there is no dissembling, there are no fabrications, there is no problematic and uncomfortable co-dependency symbiosis between them. They're more on equal footing as individual characters than they've ever been for me because Elena KNOWS, she knows and she's experiencing him--the true him. He is not masquerading as something that he isn't any longer, and his journey to figuring himself out is going to take a long time but at least he's pushing to the point where there are no more expectations with regards to him for Elena and that's good. All I can say is well-played, show, let's see where you go with this.
Semi Serious Thoughts
5C. To go with that, I love that this has obliterated the idea of any ships on this show being about being SAVED BY THE LOVE OF A GOOD WOMAN and other such nonsense. THIS IS BRILLIANT. One day I will write smart things about this because IT IS IMPORTANT.
Briefly, this show is deconstructing a lot of things, a lot of accepted ideas and assumptions about "heroism", and "redemption", and "freedom" and "love", and it's doing it pretty bloody well. And on multiple levels with multiple characters, we know this. But this particular trope is one of the most frustrating things in all of literature/film for me. I think over the past two and a bit seasons, there has been a sense with Stefan and Elena (but also with other ships) that the man somehow or sometimes believes/tries to believe that loving this woman will "save" him, or grant him absolution or "redemption". The fandom, or portions of it, has this gross habit of reading these relationships that way x10000000. And it was troubling and problematic, and placed (places) this really horrible burden on Elena. A burden that, I think, in some ways, Elena was also placing ON HERSELF.
And, I'm not sure why I ever doubted it, but this season more than any other is about dismantling that. It is breaking those idiotic ideas down. Elena is not going to "save" these brothers. And she shouldn't feel that she HAS to. She has her own life to live, she can be "selfish" (often a synonym for pragmatic and smart) if she wants to, and choose her own bloody well-being and her own life-purpose over sacrificing for other people. She really is no longer that girl who was trying so desperately to "save" Stefan because various and complicated reasons that we can't get into right now. And this is something that's been unfolding, sometimes in the ugliest ways, all season (and through the show, but specifically this season is grappling with that). We can write the meta on the painful gradations of it in each episode, in fact, and it's excellent.
Stefan is no longer that guy who wanted/needed to believe that she could. Damon doesn't believe it either. And, I'm not saying this well right now, I'm sorry for the incoherence, but it's just a good storytelling decision.
6. Matt Donovan. I just wrote fic about you. But this episode may or may not have made me start to love you like I did back in season 1 when you had that arc with your mum. Zach Roerig also managed to emote really well, which is not often the case imo, and I'm glad of it, could it be that Matt's making a come-back? I JUST WANT THEM TO GIVE HIM A ZEPPO EPISODE FFS! Watch this space....
6B. Also this face:
7. No feelings on Meredith. Except, is she a murderer? That would be awesome.
7B. Speaking of murders, the occurrence of a normal murder is like one of my dreams for this show. I always used to wish that the FBI would come to MF to start investigating the high animal kills rates, or that Logan Fell or Andie would blow the lid on all the murders, and it would be awesome. It's an interesting choice for the show to make, and I'm glad they've done it because they need to create tension and drama that connects with the world outside of this bubble. Can't wait to see where they go with this.
That's it. That's all I got. LOL, this post is appalling. *goes to listen to Whip My Hair.
Update:
- As I said, I wrote Matt fic, set around Ghost World or slightly before that.
- Time to go and catch up on Revenge.
- And I need to finish BSG already. EEP!
- Is anyone watching Bomb Girls? I'm thinking of starting it because... Tumblr.