TVD 4x9
Here’s what I love about this show: is that it can have a character kill a character I really like in order to terrorize a character that I love, and leave me more attached and sympathetic to the killer more than I was before. Klaus flat-out knows what Stefan figures out about him in front of the fire: that he is not intrinsically worse than they are, but that he does not have “family he can trust.” He never fit in with the other “always and forever” Mikaelsons. So he tries to make these situations where people are dependent on him, whether by sire-bond or by common interest (“I’m the best friend you’ve got right now”), and the fact that this just makes people hate him confirms his whole Woe Is Me worldview, and gives him something to depend on, and so he keeps doubling down and making things worse.
And now he’s fixated on Tyler. Klaus saw enough of himself in Tyler (the fellow-feeling of the werewolf gene/abuse situation) that he figured Ty was worth making more like him, with the hybrid thing. The first successful hybrid; the first one that made it. Tyler answers that by having more than Klaus does - by having the support and desire and optimism to drag himself out of the sire bond; by earning the loyalty of the other hybrids. This episode saw all of that being stripped away from Tyler. He’s disposable to Damon, specifically because of his connection with Klaus. Caroline is, against all of her conscious judgment, invested in Klaus and can’t be there for him. Klaus takes the hybrid support network away from Tyler, and then destroys his family support system as well. Klaus has to think of himself as a lonely special snowflake, and he hates feeling alone, and so he’s trying to bend Tyler into BEING him. And Tyler’s gone for that before and would again, except he would do it for the sake of others, which means he will never be Klaus.
This started with me, it has to end with me. Tyler, baby, how did this start with you? This started with Esther and Mikael and some horrible great-great-ancestor of yours. Tyler did everything he could do to do right by the hybrids. He deserved their respect. He accepted Kim back and even sought out and heeded her criticisms of him. He didn’t have any kind of death wish, but he wasn’t going to put one of them on the block for him.
I love that we weren’t supposed to be entirely comfortable with Carol in this episode. The episode showed her as clearly loving, and also unable to provide everything Tyler needed. She wanted him around to police her into sobriety. She says he’s like his father - she talks up Richard to him, she on some level could never admit how much Richard fucked with Tyler’s head. But she loved Tyler, she trusted and supported him and he never for a moment doubted her love. It’s allowed to be complicated. We can say Carol was a Bad Mommy for failing to protect Tyler from Richard, or at least acknowledge his flaws explicitly after his death. We can say she was a Good Mommy because Tyler turned out so well and that obviously wasn’t down to Richard. Or we can just see that this is a realistically complicate family dynamic.
As, of course, are our darling boys. The strength of the Salvatores’ fussing at each other speaks to their need and trust for each other. Because when it comes down to it, Damon will always choose Stefan, and Stefan will always save Damon from himself. Trust is something much more atavistic than “I think what you say in this moment is true.” Trust can maybe be deserved, but ultimately it can’t be won on merit. The Salvatores depend on each other. Always and forever.
The Gilberts are more wonderfully, deliciously complicated than that. It’d be easy to construe Jeremy’s “she ruined our lives” monologue as being his “real” self, but I think that’s completely wrong. We are as we do. That - THAT - is what Jeremy has been choking back since he became a hunter. He put himself in Shane’s hands in a conscious CHOICE to make himself safe for Elena.
It’s quite possible, given that we don’t know any more about “persuasion” than we do about “expression” that those thoughts weren’t coming from Jeremy at all. I’m not saying I think that’s true, just that it’s a possibility. Whatever it is, persuasion is creepy, possibly creepier than Bill’s reconditioning programs we saw last season. And we’re not allowed to put all of that on Professor Shady. Elena talks to Damon about “reprogramming someone’s mind,” which is meant to remind us of the compulsion they’ve laid on the poor kid before. And she deals with this oblique almost-epiphany by leaving a vulnerable Jeremy in Damon’s care.
Jeremy’s willingness to put himself in Bonnie’s hands is touching because we know she deserves it on her own merits, but she’s being misled by Shane, much like Tyler and Hayley and the hybrids. Because when people are desperate, to protect themselves as well as others, it’s a desperate, god-awful choice between taking the chance that things will get fucked up, or going on the path you’re on where they will definitely get fucked up.
And sometimes, that trust comes almost out of nowhere. APRIL SAVED REBEKAH! I didn’t really have strong feelings about April one way or the other, but look what this girl did. She doesn’t know jack about shit. But she hears Rebekah is in trouble and MIGHT, in this topsy-turvy world in which she’s apparently been living all this time, conceivably be salvageable. And so she goes down there alone, picks through all of those bodies, and helps her friend. You help your friend, it’s what you do. And when you’re as totally alone as April is, and when you get Not Safe signals from the people around you, you go to someone who’s only given you the slimmest of reasons to like you. It’s perfectly plausible that Rebekah will wake up and eat April. Except, Rebekah’s in the same position. She’s been betrayed and daggered, and is completely disposable to everyone as a receptacle for her abusive brother.
THIS WAS SOME DARK-ASS SHIT. YES. GOOD. THIS. This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/280919.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.
And now he’s fixated on Tyler. Klaus saw enough of himself in Tyler (the fellow-feeling of the werewolf gene/abuse situation) that he figured Ty was worth making more like him, with the hybrid thing. The first successful hybrid; the first one that made it. Tyler answers that by having more than Klaus does - by having the support and desire and optimism to drag himself out of the sire bond; by earning the loyalty of the other hybrids. This episode saw all of that being stripped away from Tyler. He’s disposable to Damon, specifically because of his connection with Klaus. Caroline is, against all of her conscious judgment, invested in Klaus and can’t be there for him. Klaus takes the hybrid support network away from Tyler, and then destroys his family support system as well. Klaus has to think of himself as a lonely special snowflake, and he hates feeling alone, and so he’s trying to bend Tyler into BEING him. And Tyler’s gone for that before and would again, except he would do it for the sake of others, which means he will never be Klaus.
This started with me, it has to end with me. Tyler, baby, how did this start with you? This started with Esther and Mikael and some horrible great-great-ancestor of yours. Tyler did everything he could do to do right by the hybrids. He deserved their respect. He accepted Kim back and even sought out and heeded her criticisms of him. He didn’t have any kind of death wish, but he wasn’t going to put one of them on the block for him.
I love that we weren’t supposed to be entirely comfortable with Carol in this episode. The episode showed her as clearly loving, and also unable to provide everything Tyler needed. She wanted him around to police her into sobriety. She says he’s like his father - she talks up Richard to him, she on some level could never admit how much Richard fucked with Tyler’s head. But she loved Tyler, she trusted and supported him and he never for a moment doubted her love. It’s allowed to be complicated. We can say Carol was a Bad Mommy for failing to protect Tyler from Richard, or at least acknowledge his flaws explicitly after his death. We can say she was a Good Mommy because Tyler turned out so well and that obviously wasn’t down to Richard. Or we can just see that this is a realistically complicate family dynamic.
As, of course, are our darling boys. The strength of the Salvatores’ fussing at each other speaks to their need and trust for each other. Because when it comes down to it, Damon will always choose Stefan, and Stefan will always save Damon from himself. Trust is something much more atavistic than “I think what you say in this moment is true.” Trust can maybe be deserved, but ultimately it can’t be won on merit. The Salvatores depend on each other. Always and forever.
The Gilberts are more wonderfully, deliciously complicated than that. It’d be easy to construe Jeremy’s “she ruined our lives” monologue as being his “real” self, but I think that’s completely wrong. We are as we do. That - THAT - is what Jeremy has been choking back since he became a hunter. He put himself in Shane’s hands in a conscious CHOICE to make himself safe for Elena.
It’s quite possible, given that we don’t know any more about “persuasion” than we do about “expression” that those thoughts weren’t coming from Jeremy at all. I’m not saying I think that’s true, just that it’s a possibility. Whatever it is, persuasion is creepy, possibly creepier than Bill’s reconditioning programs we saw last season. And we’re not allowed to put all of that on Professor Shady. Elena talks to Damon about “reprogramming someone’s mind,” which is meant to remind us of the compulsion they’ve laid on the poor kid before. And she deals with this oblique almost-epiphany by leaving a vulnerable Jeremy in Damon’s care.
Jeremy’s willingness to put himself in Bonnie’s hands is touching because we know she deserves it on her own merits, but she’s being misled by Shane, much like Tyler and Hayley and the hybrids. Because when people are desperate, to protect themselves as well as others, it’s a desperate, god-awful choice between taking the chance that things will get fucked up, or going on the path you’re on where they will definitely get fucked up.
And sometimes, that trust comes almost out of nowhere. APRIL SAVED REBEKAH! I didn’t really have strong feelings about April one way or the other, but look what this girl did. She doesn’t know jack about shit. But she hears Rebekah is in trouble and MIGHT, in this topsy-turvy world in which she’s apparently been living all this time, conceivably be salvageable. And so she goes down there alone, picks through all of those bodies, and helps her friend. You help your friend, it’s what you do. And when you’re as totally alone as April is, and when you get Not Safe signals from the people around you, you go to someone who’s only given you the slimmest of reasons to like you. It’s perfectly plausible that Rebekah will wake up and eat April. Except, Rebekah’s in the same position. She’s been betrayed and daggered, and is completely disposable to everyone as a receptacle for her abusive brother.
THIS WAS SOME DARK-ASS SHIT. YES. GOOD. THIS. This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/280919.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.