TVD 3x21
So this was a kick, huh? I liked this episode more than I've enjoyed one for a while. It had the breakneck pacing I've been missing a bit this season. I loved the music choices, hard and angry.
Part of that is the having of not one but two legitimate villains with opposing agendas. I adored Klaus ripping the Gilbert home apart and throwing around his flaming posts in a temper tantrum. Hilarious as a viewer, but it's all about reminding us what a force for malevolent chaos he can be. And I loved him for claiming to be responsible for Rose's bloodline - we don't know if it's a lie, or even if he knows whether or not it's true, but it's totally true to form for him to play that kind of mind game in trying to suck people into his whirlwind by claiming them as family.
Abby is back! BAAAAACK! Offering blood is a Damon-apology, as well as making a family-type gesture toward her, and I love that he did that in his own stubborn-ass way, and I really love Abby for not accepting it. Bonnie still has complicated feelings about her mother, to which she's obviously entitled, and good for Bonnie for knowing that but still dealing enough to help save Caroline and put down Ric. I really loved that Bonnie got to complete the spell her mother did, and to do so by getting to pull some power out of the vampires, rather than everyone else sucking up the Bennett power.
As he's been this season, Damon's relatively stable/static, but a fantastic source of amusement and perspective. DAMON DOES STUPID THINGS! "Like let my friend die with dignity, when I should've just killed him." He's all being good because FUCK YOU and LOOK WHAT HAPPENED. Damon being a tool about Tyler is (a) hilarious and (b) makes sense given the last season finale? Maybe that's why everyone puts the discomfort about the Klaus-Tyler dilemma on him, because he really does have a reason to act the way he does.
I don't know if Stefan offering to leave with Klaus again was a fake-out in the way Tyler pretending to be sired still was a fake-out. Both of them, I think, weren't quite sure what power Klaus still had over them at the beginning of the episode, and it was only when push came to shove and they were forced into crisis decision-making that they got their bearings to act the way they wanted to act. It is a huge disappointment that the show so far has been dropping the ball on relationship abuse, because it continues to show an astounding understanding of familial abuse. Stefan and Tyler put Klaus down in the same way Mikael got put down, only a half an hour after Alaric (self-hating doomed vampire father figure) tortured Caroline for her vamp-ness, but without the justification Bill was giving himself.
TVD's general secularism and amorality is generally a huge asset, and I wouldn't change that, but I adore that the show's one proscriptive moral stance is that abusive father figures are not to be excused or apologized for, even after they get theirs. Mayor Lockwood and then Mikael. Klaus is a borderline case - after all, it wasn't his own family he was really after, and he's presented as having been someone in that disempowered position, and so he's not totally dead, even if he is well-contained.
This is the episode of intellectual honesty. Elena has for the first time clarified her stance about the vampires - they should all die but I don't want them to so oh well - and I think that's actually a reasonable position to take? Not least because she's agreeing with me, and how much do I love it when people do that. She's being honest that she's prioritizing a small pack goal over a large one, but she acknowledges what she's doing.
On the other hand, PodRic's stance, that it's unacceptable to make nepotistic exceptions to basic safety rules? Just as reasonable, and honestly, probably right. I'm keeping my reservations about the terrible implications of Ric's changeover. If I put that out of mind, though, I can really appreciate how this fits in with his story. He's simultaneously an insider, by way of being a human Council member, and an outsider, because he's not one of the Founding Families. So he's in a position to take the clear-eyed/extremist/big picture perspective. I was totally into the shot of him walking through the sunlight and calmly accepting that he's being scorched by it. He's one of the monsters now, but he'll take his beating to show that he's the better monster.
I also loved how this episode underlined Elena's inner hard edge, without that self-destruct wish she had back at the end of S2. Her MAD gambit with Ric was fantastic. FINALLY BEING A DOPPELGANGER MEANS SOMETHING. It's obviously had to have metaphysical consequences for Elena as well as social ones. The doppelganger thing has been niggling for a while now, and I love that it looks like it might, after two full seasons, finally pay off. Maybe she's linked to the Originals in the way they're linked to the vampires?
Still totally apathetic to the triangle. I know it's what I signed up for when I got into this show, I just think it's the least interesting thing about any of the characters. It feels more than a little false with the claim that this relationship is what will tear them apart. Because: "Damon and I have been through a hell of a lot worse than you." Also, it gets less interesting when the false dichotomy keeps getting flung around. There is a third option, Elena, and it is "I don't define myself by which of you two tools I may or may not wish to bone today." I suppose there's a chance we're supposed to catch how dumb that either/or thinking is? I guess we'll find out next week. Elena needs to take a page from Jeremy: JUST ONE DAY WITHOUT VAMPIRES.