The Vampire Diaries 3x11 Review
Jan. 19th, 2012 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaOur Town
Like
• I loved the final Matt/Elena scene and Elena saying goodbye to the normal girl she’d been pre-series with her own funeral/eulogy.
- I found it interesting that Elena chose to have her own funeral and the person she invited to be there with her was Matt. It could be just as simple as Matt being the most uncomplicated person she could call (Caroline recovering from almost dying, tension with Bonnie, Jeremy gone, Stefan being crazy, Damon being complicated, Alaric not knowing the previous her). But it also felt like a goodbye in a way. A part of me wondered at the beginning of the season if Elena might get back with Matt for a short while in reaction to the season two finale and all its horror and craziness and as a way to cling to or return to who she was. Instead we have her acknowledging that she is an utterly different person now and how that makes her feel and then saying goodbye to past her. She went completely in the opposite direction! And I really, really love it.
"I've been holding on to the girl who was supposed to die here." Elena saying goodbye to past-Elena – the nice girl, the cheerleader and normal person – is also her letting go of that life and accepting who she now is, and her current life and the people in it and it makes me so happy!
... Anyway, I feel like Matt was chosen to be there specifically because he is a tie to past Elena in a way none of the others are anymore. Just as Elena has changed and become immersed in the world of the supernatural and the moral gray so have all her other friends from back then – Caroline, Bonnie, Tyler – and Matt remains the one most untouched (though not unaffected). They are a part of who she is now. Matt isn’t. I think this is Elena pretty much putting the kibosh on any future relationship with Matt. And I’m completely fine with it because while I enjoy their friendship when it pops up I don’t care for them as a couple.
- Even though Matt’s rather terrible with Caroline he, as always, is completely the opposite with Elena.
• “You need a funeral. You need to say goodbye to your old life so you can move on with your new one.” – Elena. ♥ So much love for them throwing Caroline a funeral party to help her move on. It was a wonderful idea and exactly what Caroline needed. Good job, Elena.
• Despite how mad I was about Stefan’s actions towards Elena I also kind of love just how far Stefan has gone? I feel like the show is saying that this is all Stefan – he isn’t under compulsion, he isn’t lost in some blood fuelled Ripper rage and he doesn’t have some switch flipped – this is him making these choices and I love that so much. I find it kind of exciting.
Plus it makes me ship Stefan/Elena even more. I want them to have so many more interactions and I really, really want Elena to finally admit that this is Stefan. I’ve been hoping that Elena’s excuses of “it’s not really Stefan/not his fault” were all about her and not what the show was trying to say and this episode seemed to confirm that interpretation. I think once Elena does admit to herself that this Stefan is just as much the ‘real’ Stefan as the guy she fell in love with then the Elena/Stefan relationship will be all the stronger for it. Well – once Elena forgives him.
• Despite my complaining about Klaus/Caroline below I actually really loved their scene together. I think they have excellent chemistry for one thing. For another, despite doubting Klaus’s sincerity – or rather not his sincerity but being certain that he was working some angle and playing her – I think what he said was exactly what Caroline needed right then. I liked how gentle and understanding he was with her. I loved that he forced her to choose to live.
• I loved Elena working out on the punching bag. I love the show continuing to show that she’s serious about doing all she can to protect herself and get stronger.
• I loved Elena and Bonnie decorating Caroline’s locker to wish her birthday and the implication that it’s tradition. I loved that when Caroline ended up skipping school they grabbed the sign and balloons and Matt and took it to her house for a surprise party/get together. Oh, and Elena putting the tiara on Caroline made me aww.
• I liked Elena giving Bonnie a chance to say bye to Jeremy
• Tyler/Caroline – I really liked their scenes. The first one with him apologising to her and wishing her a happy birthday was lovely and it made me really feel for Tyler again. Then Tyler stood up to Klaus for her which earned him back a lot of points. I’m not mad at him for biting Caroline – he was basically compelled and was completely horrified – and I feel like this is going to be the impetus that will have him fighting to defeat Klaus.
• “Friends don’t strip friends of their free will” – Stefan
“Okay granted yeah that was a little extreme. I get a little moody. Just ask my siblings.” – Klaus
1) LOL at Klaus. Its moments and lines like that which make me like him.
2) My first reaction at Stefan’s line was to be all “she’s trying to protect him! Shut up, Stefan, like you wouldn’t or haven’t done worse!” Heh. Possibly I’m feeling very defensive about Elena and her choices (even if I don’t agree with them).
3) Also on Stefan’s line I’m left feeling rather darkly amused because in this town and even among our main characters making choices for other people is just what they do.
• I loved Bonnie lighting the candles with her magic so casual like.
• “No dead hybrids at the Founder party.” – Damon. LOL. That just really amused me.
• “You’re taking his choices away.” – Bonnie. I really liked Bonnie calling out Elena on compelling Jeremy.
• I loved hearing the three of them giggling together when Tyler showed up but I really wish that Bonnie hadn’t left.
• I love how proud and impressed Damon was with Stefan’s actions. Of course he would be. I also liked him defending Stefan to Elena because it’s what they do. Stefan’s done his time defending Damon when he did worse things so it fits perfectly for Damon to defend Stefan.
• "I have no business messing in Jeremy's head. I just don't know what else to do. He's in danger here. I can't lose anyone else I love." – Elena. I really liked that Elena said right out that she’s in the wrong with what she’s doing to Jeremy. But I loved the fact that she continued to do it anyway. She’s lost all of her family now except for Jeremy (unless you count Katherine) and she’s nominally in charge of him and it just makes so much emotional sense to me for her to do this. It’s wrong, she knows it, but she is damn well going to do it any way to protect him.
• It was nice to see Liz again. We got her friendship with Damon, her love for Caroline and her being dedicated to doing her best for the town - all the reasons I loved her.
Dislike
• I was actually kind of infuriated that Caroline got bit and neither Elena nor Bonnie was there for her. We got to see Elena be there for Rose but not Caroline? We get Elena and Bonnie in the same scene afterward (saying goodbye to Jeremy) and neither mentions Caroline? Did either know that she was bit? We get a scene between Matt and Elena and even though it was about something completely different they could have started things off with Elena asking about Caroline or mentioning that she and Bonnie stopped by to see her earlier or were planning to stop by in an hour or something. Instead there was no acknowledgment from either girl that their best friend almost died and it makes me so mad. WTF, show, WTF?
- We had better get some good Elena/Caroline/Bonnie in the next episode to make up for this. Also I really hope we get a Stefan reaction to the fact that Caroline was almost a causality in his war with Klaus. I realise the show has seemingly dropped their friendship but this is a major thing.
• I feel as if the whole ‘Tyler bit Caroline’ storyline was a bit wasted in this episode. That is a huge thing to happen and it should have been the A storyline but instead it kind of got buried among everything else. When Rose and Damon were bit we got a lot about how it affected them and how it affected others so I was disappointed with what we got for Caroline.
• The reason the idea of Caroline/Klaus getting together bothers me comes in two parts:
1) If she can’t date Tyler because he’s under Klaus’s control how does having a relationship with Klaus make any sense whatsoever? Actually how does Klaus/Caroline make any sense in any way? Perhaps I’m reading too much into it and that’s not where the show is going but if it is... how is she going to reason out this decision? She knows exactly who and what Klaus is. She knows what he’s done. It was Klaus who forced Tyler to bite her, for gods sakes. If she’s getting involved with Klaus it had better start with her forgiving Tyler at the very least.
On the positive side Caroline’s bad life choices should redirect Bonnie’s ire and let Bonnie and Elena bond again. Yay?
2) I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t be so against the idea of Klaus hooking up with Caroline (or any of the main characters minus Stefan) on the show if only he hadn’t killed Jenna. It’s a vampire show – I’m completely fine with him killing off tons of people and torturing and basically being the bad guy he is but the fact that he killed Jenna is making it hard for me to accept him ever being accepted by anyone on Team Gilbert. If he’d simply turned her then I wouldn’t have a long term problem. I can accept people getting over non-permanent deaths (largely perhaps because the person killed has the ability to forgive it and, well, because it wasn’t permanent) but I can’t accept loved ones getting over an actual death so easily. Okay, granted Caroline wasn’t particularly close to Jenna and I can only think of one scene between them but still – Team Gilbert!
• Stefan’s method of forcing Klaus to do what he demanded was such an asshole move. He could have threatened to crash the car anywhere but he chose the place where Elena’s parents died and he saved her life the very first time? What the hell, Stefan? Plus he added the threat of making her into a vampire something that he once spent an entire episode helping Elena confess she didn’t want. It’s like he was purposefully doing everything he could to ‘make her hate him’ as she asks later.
Mostly I find his actions as puzzling as everyone else and I just want to know why. It can’t really be all about Stefan’s “Klaus took everything from me” line, can it? I feel like the show has dropped the ball on Stefan’s motivations here which is annoying.
• Matt pissed me off with his “mean girl” line at Caroline’s eulogy. That’s basically what it was and that was really all he had to add? It was a jerk move in itself (at the least very passive-aggressively mean) but then we get the scene at the end with Elena and his contribution to her eulogy is “fun girlfriend and an amazing friend" Really Matt? Stop being a dick.
• "I don't trust her not to get back together with him." - Elena A throw away line but one that makes me go WTF. I don't even... *hands*
• I was a bit annoyed with Bonnie bringing up the Jeremy situation at the party but she blurted it out in a way that clearly wasn’t intention and sometimes that happens. What left me a hell of a lot more irritated was that she didn’t drop it, apologize to Caroline and then get back to helping her celebrate her death/18th year and instead left. WTH Bonnie? I mean this wasn’t just some random party and I wanted to tell her to just suck it up for Caroline’s sake.
• While I liked Bonnie calling Elena on compelling Jeremy it was just as hypocritical of her to do that as Elena's decision was. Elena hated Damon and Stefan taking choices away from her and fought against it and yet now she's doing it to Jeremy. Bonnie thinks Elena is wrong to take the choice away from Jeremy but it isn't as if Bonnie hasn't done similar things as well (even to Jeremy in 2x21). It would be nice to get some acknowledgment from both that they being hypocritical.
- I really don’t know why TPTB felt the need to send Bonnie off. If they needed her out of the way to let Stefan kidnap Elena then she could have easily separated from the others while looking for Caroline. This would have given us the bonus of perhaps seeing Bonnie finding Caroline and then actually being there for her while she’s dying! Elena had a reason to be MIA – kidnapped and phoneless – but Bonnie really didn’t which ended up making her look bad.
Other
• “You can’t kiss me again. It’s not right.” I want Elena and Damon to be talking at cross purposes here. So Damon hears that “it’s not right” because of Stefan (because he feels guilty because Elena has always been ‘Stefan’s girl’) but what Elena is saying is “it’s not right” because he may be her friend now and she trusts him but he has done horrible things, including to people she loves, and she knows a relationship with him wouldn’t be a good idea.
• It sucks that Mindy died, I wish it was one of the random no-name hybrids instead, and yet it was also a badass move on Stefan’s part.
• This episode really highlights how Damon and Stefan have switched places. Damon with his ‘small list’ of people he cares about protecting and trying to put the brakes on Stefan and trying to be diplomatic. Meanwhile Stefan is being impulsive and aggressive and pretending his hardest he doesn’t care.
• I’m glad the show brought up the Original vampires but I’m still confused. So according to Damon Klaus had 6 siblings – the boy who died as a human (and thus was never an Original), Elijah, Rebekah, 2 coffins “one who died in the new world”. Who the hell died in the new world? I feel like I missed something major here. Plus based off of 3x08 I thought Klaus had four Original siblings who abandoned him after their mother’s death while Rebekah and Elijah stayed with him so I was expecting four coffins plus one for Elijah. I think I need to do some re-watching because I’m confused.
• So if Damon won’t be going for Mayor, and doesn’t appear to be the head of the council maybe he can become Liz’s right hand at the police department.
• I’m actually really surprised that there wasn’t some sort of big party planned for Caroline’s 18th birthday.
• So I guess Liz and Caroline will be moving into a new house in the next episode, yes?
• I really wish that we’d gotten more of Caroline, Elena, Bonnie and Matt hanging out and having fun together. We didn’t really get to see much of them just hanging out.
Like
• I loved the final Matt/Elena scene and Elena saying goodbye to the normal girl she’d been pre-series with her own funeral/eulogy.
- I found it interesting that Elena chose to have her own funeral and the person she invited to be there with her was Matt. It could be just as simple as Matt being the most uncomplicated person she could call (Caroline recovering from almost dying, tension with Bonnie, Jeremy gone, Stefan being crazy, Damon being complicated, Alaric not knowing the previous her). But it also felt like a goodbye in a way. A part of me wondered at the beginning of the season if Elena might get back with Matt for a short while in reaction to the season two finale and all its horror and craziness and as a way to cling to or return to who she was. Instead we have her acknowledging that she is an utterly different person now and how that makes her feel and then saying goodbye to past her. She went completely in the opposite direction! And I really, really love it.
"I've been holding on to the girl who was supposed to die here." Elena saying goodbye to past-Elena – the nice girl, the cheerleader and normal person – is also her letting go of that life and accepting who she now is, and her current life and the people in it and it makes me so happy!
... Anyway, I feel like Matt was chosen to be there specifically because he is a tie to past Elena in a way none of the others are anymore. Just as Elena has changed and become immersed in the world of the supernatural and the moral gray so have all her other friends from back then – Caroline, Bonnie, Tyler – and Matt remains the one most untouched (though not unaffected). They are a part of who she is now. Matt isn’t. I think this is Elena pretty much putting the kibosh on any future relationship with Matt. And I’m completely fine with it because while I enjoy their friendship when it pops up I don’t care for them as a couple.
- Even though Matt’s rather terrible with Caroline he, as always, is completely the opposite with Elena.
• “You need a funeral. You need to say goodbye to your old life so you can move on with your new one.” – Elena. ♥ So much love for them throwing Caroline a funeral party to help her move on. It was a wonderful idea and exactly what Caroline needed. Good job, Elena.
• Despite how mad I was about Stefan’s actions towards Elena I also kind of love just how far Stefan has gone? I feel like the show is saying that this is all Stefan – he isn’t under compulsion, he isn’t lost in some blood fuelled Ripper rage and he doesn’t have some switch flipped – this is him making these choices and I love that so much. I find it kind of exciting.
Plus it makes me ship Stefan/Elena even more. I want them to have so many more interactions and I really, really want Elena to finally admit that this is Stefan. I’ve been hoping that Elena’s excuses of “it’s not really Stefan/not his fault” were all about her and not what the show was trying to say and this episode seemed to confirm that interpretation. I think once Elena does admit to herself that this Stefan is just as much the ‘real’ Stefan as the guy she fell in love with then the Elena/Stefan relationship will be all the stronger for it. Well – once Elena forgives him.
• Despite my complaining about Klaus/Caroline below I actually really loved their scene together. I think they have excellent chemistry for one thing. For another, despite doubting Klaus’s sincerity – or rather not his sincerity but being certain that he was working some angle and playing her – I think what he said was exactly what Caroline needed right then. I liked how gentle and understanding he was with her. I loved that he forced her to choose to live.
• I loved Elena working out on the punching bag. I love the show continuing to show that she’s serious about doing all she can to protect herself and get stronger.
• I loved Elena and Bonnie decorating Caroline’s locker to wish her birthday and the implication that it’s tradition. I loved that when Caroline ended up skipping school they grabbed the sign and balloons and Matt and took it to her house for a surprise party/get together. Oh, and Elena putting the tiara on Caroline made me aww.
• I liked Elena giving Bonnie a chance to say bye to Jeremy
• Tyler/Caroline – I really liked their scenes. The first one with him apologising to her and wishing her a happy birthday was lovely and it made me really feel for Tyler again. Then Tyler stood up to Klaus for her which earned him back a lot of points. I’m not mad at him for biting Caroline – he was basically compelled and was completely horrified – and I feel like this is going to be the impetus that will have him fighting to defeat Klaus.
• “Friends don’t strip friends of their free will” – Stefan
“Okay granted yeah that was a little extreme. I get a little moody. Just ask my siblings.” – Klaus
1) LOL at Klaus. Its moments and lines like that which make me like him.
2) My first reaction at Stefan’s line was to be all “she’s trying to protect him! Shut up, Stefan, like you wouldn’t or haven’t done worse!” Heh. Possibly I’m feeling very defensive about Elena and her choices (even if I don’t agree with them).
3) Also on Stefan’s line I’m left feeling rather darkly amused because in this town and even among our main characters making choices for other people is just what they do.
• I loved Bonnie lighting the candles with her magic so casual like.
• “No dead hybrids at the Founder party.” – Damon. LOL. That just really amused me.
• “You’re taking his choices away.” – Bonnie. I really liked Bonnie calling out Elena on compelling Jeremy.
• I loved hearing the three of them giggling together when Tyler showed up but I really wish that Bonnie hadn’t left.
• I love how proud and impressed Damon was with Stefan’s actions. Of course he would be. I also liked him defending Stefan to Elena because it’s what they do. Stefan’s done his time defending Damon when he did worse things so it fits perfectly for Damon to defend Stefan.
• "I have no business messing in Jeremy's head. I just don't know what else to do. He's in danger here. I can't lose anyone else I love." – Elena. I really liked that Elena said right out that she’s in the wrong with what she’s doing to Jeremy. But I loved the fact that she continued to do it anyway. She’s lost all of her family now except for Jeremy (unless you count Katherine) and she’s nominally in charge of him and it just makes so much emotional sense to me for her to do this. It’s wrong, she knows it, but she is damn well going to do it any way to protect him.
• It was nice to see Liz again. We got her friendship with Damon, her love for Caroline and her being dedicated to doing her best for the town - all the reasons I loved her.
Dislike
• I was actually kind of infuriated that Caroline got bit and neither Elena nor Bonnie was there for her. We got to see Elena be there for Rose but not Caroline? We get Elena and Bonnie in the same scene afterward (saying goodbye to Jeremy) and neither mentions Caroline? Did either know that she was bit? We get a scene between Matt and Elena and even though it was about something completely different they could have started things off with Elena asking about Caroline or mentioning that she and Bonnie stopped by to see her earlier or were planning to stop by in an hour or something. Instead there was no acknowledgment from either girl that their best friend almost died and it makes me so mad. WTF, show, WTF?
- We had better get some good Elena/Caroline/Bonnie in the next episode to make up for this. Also I really hope we get a Stefan reaction to the fact that Caroline was almost a causality in his war with Klaus. I realise the show has seemingly dropped their friendship but this is a major thing.
• I feel as if the whole ‘Tyler bit Caroline’ storyline was a bit wasted in this episode. That is a huge thing to happen and it should have been the A storyline but instead it kind of got buried among everything else. When Rose and Damon were bit we got a lot about how it affected them and how it affected others so I was disappointed with what we got for Caroline.
• The reason the idea of Caroline/Klaus getting together bothers me comes in two parts:
1) If she can’t date Tyler because he’s under Klaus’s control how does having a relationship with Klaus make any sense whatsoever? Actually how does Klaus/Caroline make any sense in any way? Perhaps I’m reading too much into it and that’s not where the show is going but if it is... how is she going to reason out this decision? She knows exactly who and what Klaus is. She knows what he’s done. It was Klaus who forced Tyler to bite her, for gods sakes. If she’s getting involved with Klaus it had better start with her forgiving Tyler at the very least.
On the positive side Caroline’s bad life choices should redirect Bonnie’s ire and let Bonnie and Elena bond again. Yay?
2) I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t be so against the idea of Klaus hooking up with Caroline (or any of the main characters minus Stefan) on the show if only he hadn’t killed Jenna. It’s a vampire show – I’m completely fine with him killing off tons of people and torturing and basically being the bad guy he is but the fact that he killed Jenna is making it hard for me to accept him ever being accepted by anyone on Team Gilbert. If he’d simply turned her then I wouldn’t have a long term problem. I can accept people getting over non-permanent deaths (largely perhaps because the person killed has the ability to forgive it and, well, because it wasn’t permanent) but I can’t accept loved ones getting over an actual death so easily. Okay, granted Caroline wasn’t particularly close to Jenna and I can only think of one scene between them but still – Team Gilbert!
• Stefan’s method of forcing Klaus to do what he demanded was such an asshole move. He could have threatened to crash the car anywhere but he chose the place where Elena’s parents died and he saved her life the very first time? What the hell, Stefan? Plus he added the threat of making her into a vampire something that he once spent an entire episode helping Elena confess she didn’t want. It’s like he was purposefully doing everything he could to ‘make her hate him’ as she asks later.
Mostly I find his actions as puzzling as everyone else and I just want to know why. It can’t really be all about Stefan’s “Klaus took everything from me” line, can it? I feel like the show has dropped the ball on Stefan’s motivations here which is annoying.
• Matt pissed me off with his “mean girl” line at Caroline’s eulogy. That’s basically what it was and that was really all he had to add? It was a jerk move in itself (at the least very passive-aggressively mean) but then we get the scene at the end with Elena and his contribution to her eulogy is “fun girlfriend and an amazing friend" Really Matt? Stop being a dick.
• "I don't trust her not to get back together with him." - Elena A throw away line but one that makes me go WTF. I don't even... *hands*
• I was a bit annoyed with Bonnie bringing up the Jeremy situation at the party but she blurted it out in a way that clearly wasn’t intention and sometimes that happens. What left me a hell of a lot more irritated was that she didn’t drop it, apologize to Caroline and then get back to helping her celebrate her death/18th year and instead left. WTH Bonnie? I mean this wasn’t just some random party and I wanted to tell her to just suck it up for Caroline’s sake.
• While I liked Bonnie calling Elena on compelling Jeremy it was just as hypocritical of her to do that as Elena's decision was. Elena hated Damon and Stefan taking choices away from her and fought against it and yet now she's doing it to Jeremy. Bonnie thinks Elena is wrong to take the choice away from Jeremy but it isn't as if Bonnie hasn't done similar things as well (even to Jeremy in 2x21). It would be nice to get some acknowledgment from both that they being hypocritical.
- I really don’t know why TPTB felt the need to send Bonnie off. If they needed her out of the way to let Stefan kidnap Elena then she could have easily separated from the others while looking for Caroline. This would have given us the bonus of perhaps seeing Bonnie finding Caroline and then actually being there for her while she’s dying! Elena had a reason to be MIA – kidnapped and phoneless – but Bonnie really didn’t which ended up making her look bad.
Other
• “You can’t kiss me again. It’s not right.” I want Elena and Damon to be talking at cross purposes here. So Damon hears that “it’s not right” because of Stefan (because he feels guilty because Elena has always been ‘Stefan’s girl’) but what Elena is saying is “it’s not right” because he may be her friend now and she trusts him but he has done horrible things, including to people she loves, and she knows a relationship with him wouldn’t be a good idea.
• It sucks that Mindy died, I wish it was one of the random no-name hybrids instead, and yet it was also a badass move on Stefan’s part.
• This episode really highlights how Damon and Stefan have switched places. Damon with his ‘small list’ of people he cares about protecting and trying to put the brakes on Stefan and trying to be diplomatic. Meanwhile Stefan is being impulsive and aggressive and pretending his hardest he doesn’t care.
• I’m glad the show brought up the Original vampires but I’m still confused. So according to Damon Klaus had 6 siblings – the boy who died as a human (and thus was never an Original), Elijah, Rebekah, 2 coffins “one who died in the new world”. Who the hell died in the new world? I feel like I missed something major here. Plus based off of 3x08 I thought Klaus had four Original siblings who abandoned him after their mother’s death while Rebekah and Elijah stayed with him so I was expecting four coffins plus one for Elijah. I think I need to do some re-watching because I’m confused.
• So if Damon won’t be going for Mayor, and doesn’t appear to be the head of the council maybe he can become Liz’s right hand at the police department.
• I’m actually really surprised that there wasn’t some sort of big party planned for Caroline’s 18th birthday.
• So I guess Liz and Caroline will be moving into a new house in the next episode, yes?
• I really wish that we’d gotten more of Caroline, Elena, Bonnie and Matt hanging out and having fun together. We didn’t really get to see much of them just hanging out.
