The Vampire Diaries 2x09 Review

[iaria]

Katerina

I loved this episode much more than last week. We added to our death count with male vampire Slater (too bad I rather liked him), finally got some quality Elena/Katherine face time, some wonderful Caroline friendship scenes, and it was just generally pretty great.

Caroline and Stefan (Elena)

• “You had to break out the girlfriend code.” The Elena/Caroline friendship was very much highlighted this episode even though they had only one short scene. I love it. It was so wonderful to see. The fact that Elena turned to Caroline and Caroline helped her made me very happy. And then even though they didn’t have another scene together all the further Caroline scenes were very much about Caroline having Elena’s back.

• “I might have done something.” – Caroline Woo, Caroline! I loved her using the truth, something she probably wasn’t planning on telling anyone, in order to distract Stefan and ultimately cover for Elena. I just... that she did that, even knowing Stefan would probably be mad made me love her even more. Their friendship makes me warm. Bonnie, leave the silly boys and get back to your girls! Plus, she played the whole thing so well. She’s getting better at this whole subterfuge/lying thing.

• “Yes Caroline as a matter of fact I am a little mad.” Heh. I love how this is said in the most level tone possible. Oh, Stefan.

• How are Stefan and Caroline so adorable? They are just so amazing and loveable together and I just want to squish them together and pat their heads. God, this show. Somehow in the past eight episodes they have made these two one of my favourite friendships. I adore them together. Also – ha! I knew Caroline was going to be the new Lexie! I knew it. I hope all these recent mentions of Lexie mean up-coming Lexie flashbacks.

• Caroline: I would not have let her put herself in danger.
Stefan: Put herself in danger where? What... (pause) She’s with Damon, isn’t she?
Caroline: Ewww. No.

This isn’t actually much better coming from Caroline. The ‘let her’ part I mean. It would annoy me coming from a guy and it annoys me from a girl as well. Elena is her own person and it’s her choice.

Of course Caroline’s reaction would be ‘eww’ and disgust. Considering how her relationship with Damon played out this is not unexpected. On the Damon vs Stefan front we certainly know which team Caroline is going to pick. What interests me is that Caroline doesn’t know about Damon’s feelings for Elena, doesn’t know that there is possibility there. Now I can’t wait for Caroline’s reaction when Elena starts to fall for Damon.

Stefan’s reaction is very interesting as well. He goes danger + secret = Damon and he says it in this really resigned tone. Hmm.

• “Stefan. I am your friend. But I’m also Elena’s friend and I’m sorry but I’m not going to tell you where she is.” I ♥ Caroline. When he tried to guilt her into telling him where Elena was by putting in doubt their friendship I really felt for her but I was also firmly on the side of ‘Elena loyalty trumps Stefan loyalty’ and was ready to be mad at her if she told. So her response made me really happy. I love that she didn’t make it a competition – ‘I’ve been friends with Elena longer’ – but that it was just I’m both your friends and I made her a promise. Caroline having Elena’s back so much this episode was awesome – from helping her with Katherine, distracting Stefan with something she wasn’t planning on telling, to keeping her promise even knowing it would make Stefan mad at her – she was amazing.

• While I get that Stefan was afraid for Elena his little attempt of blackmail there makes me shake my head at him. On the other hand, he did spend the entire day talking with Caroline, listening to her worries and reassuring her, even knowing that she was keeping something from him/purposefully trying to distract him. He put their friendship and Caroline over his feelings for Elena in this episode and that made me want to hug him.

Elena and Katherine (Stefan)

• “You don’t look so good. How long until you’re body shuts down? Ten, twenty years? It must be painful to desiccate and mummify. I can’t even imagine.” – Elena. Wow. I’m kind of impressed here. That was mean and the way she said that last part was almost even bitchy! There was none of that empathy that she’s known for. I kind of love it.

• “It’s your family history.” It’s also Elena’s history. And then Katherine said “You have the Petrova fire.” and I was expecting, or rather wanting, either of them to acknowledge that they are more than just doppelgangers but also family. Elena is all about family and I feel like this could go in very interesting directions. I mean of course they both realise that they’re related but I don’t think either of them have really thought about or confronted that fact. That Elena is her beloved lost daughter’s many times granddaughter, that Katherine is Elena’s many times grandmother. Okay, for Elena maybe less so since she’s already done the whole biological mother/father mess and it hasn’t really moved her. (Which actually – what about Isobel’s parents? Are they still alive or does she have siblings? I can’t remember but now I find it weird that Elena’s apparently never looked.)

At the end of the episode we watch Katherine look tearfully at a drawing of her parents as Rose reveals that the older vampires can’t turn off their emotions. While showing signs of the vampire Katherine she’d become in the future we also saw a Katerina who loved her parents, or at least loved her mother a lot, even after she was turned. She desperately loved and wanted to keep her baby. She had feelings and we got to see it. I wonder if this is going to lead Katherine – who is so overwhelmingly about protecting and saving herself – into sacrificing herself to save Elena at some future date?

• I love how Katherine always keeps her own agency. She was disowned and so made a fabulous new life for herself somewhere else. Her fabulous new life was going to sacrifice her so she conned someone into helping her to escape. She was going to be returned for sacrifice and tried to kill herself. The fact that Katherine killed herself, and turned herself, is so perfectly Katherine. I love it. In fact because it is Katherine I think that her trying to kill herself was nothing of the sort. If she had really wanted to die she would have slit her wrists or done more damage. Instead what she basically did was hurt herself enough that it would be necessary to give her vampire blood to heal her. I think she engineered her own turning (probably from the moment she was locked in the room) and I find that so awesome.

• Technically Rose is Katherine’s Maker and I wonder if that has... I don’t know, affect in their interactions? I mean in the past five hundred years they had to have met at least once, right? Does being a Maker have any particular significance beyond emotional on this show?

• “Let me guess you want to trade that stone for your freedom, you manipulative psychotic bitch.” – Stefan
“My freedom? That’s where you’re wrong Stefan. I don’t want my freedom. Because when Klaus shows up to kill us all and he will I’ll be in the tomb where no vampire will enter because they can’t get out. I’ll be the safest psychotic bitch in town.” – Katherine

♥ Awesome! That was just so amazing. I love how she always turns situations to her advantage. How does she do that? I mean two episodes ago she was screaming and pleading to be let out and now she’s all ‘suck it bitches’. I love her.

- I love Katherine’s expression when Stefan said that she wanted to trade for her freedom. She was all ‘so wrong, idiot’ derision. Also Stefan’s expression after her above epic pwning was perfect.

• Nitpick: I have a problem with Rose and Trevor’s reactions to Katherine turning and taking off in that neither of the stopped her or went after her. Why did they let her escape?

• Nitpick: If Klaus went to the trouble to send people to kill Katerina’s family, under the impression that she would find out I assume, why didn’t he have people stationed there waiting for her to show up with orders to kill or capture her when she did?

• Nitpick: Why would Klaus kill off Katerina’s family if her bloodline is so important? Was it only her parents and they were both beyond childbearing age?

Rose and Damon and Elijah (Bonnie)

• It seems that TPTB have changed their mind about who they want the character Rose to be. They called her tough and, in a direct quote stated “Maybe there’s some humanity left in her – have fun finding it” and I have to say... this is not the Rose that I see on screen this episode. I was expecting a cold and unmovable vampire, or at least someone more self-contained like Pearl, or even someone bitchy/mean but I don’t see any of that in Rose. I mean in her first few seconds in this episode when she came face to face with Elena again she seemed hesitant and awkward, shy even. And okay most people would probably feel a bit awkward coming face to face with the person they kidnapped, planned to trade for ritual sacrifice and slapped across the face but Rose isn’t any person – she’s a five hundred year old vampire!

I think I went in having an idea of what she would be (always a bad idea) and that isn’t what we’ve been getting and it’s been throwing me. I was expecting Rose to be a huge BAMF and/or HBIC, like Pearl or Katherine, but she’s – not. That’s a disappointment that I’m trying to get past because it’s not fair to Rose the character. Rose despite her seeming harshness in the last episode, and in the flashbacks, is actually a vampire with a very fluffy centre.

Rose’s breakdown after the cafe attack where she just completely lost it and broke down in tears about how dead they all were annoyed me and made me go ‘wtf’ the first time I watched it. But after the second time I understood it a lot more. I think Rose is at her limit/breaking point. She spent the last five hundred years running and hiding and judging by how she talks about Klaus always worrying that it was always just a matter of time before they were killed. I wonder if she wouldn’t have thrown herself on Elijah’s mercy a lot sooner if Trevor hadn’t been there to take care of. Now Trevor is dead and she is alone in a way she’s never been, and the threat of Klaus is so much more pronounced. She’s completely terrified still and no one else shares her level of fear and just then she almost died in a place she considered safe. So yeah, her freak out/loss of control is understandable to me now.

But I’m still shaking my head at her screaming on the floor of the cafe and not dragging herself up and away like everyone else did. She is five hundred years old and she shouldn’t need Damon Salvatore to save her. I’m annoyed. Unless... that was some sort of passive suicide attempt but I don’t think it was.

• I have no problem with the Damon/Rose this episode though like Rose herself it was not what I was expecting. I was expecting passion and maybe a side of violence or at least aggression but we got something a lot more like – companionship? It was kind of weird. I do think I could really grow to love them however if they continue in the direction I see hints of: i.e. best friends. Damon has never had a best friend but I think, though he’ll never admit it, that he really wants one of his own and Rose has just lost her best friend and has never been alone. They’ve shown that they share a lot of similarities in how they see the world. I can totally see them as becoming BFF (with occasional sex benefits). They would be perfect for that type of relationship. I hope this is where TPTB are going with them.

• “It’s a lie you know? There’s no switch you can turn off. Sure, when you’re a newbie but after a couple hundred years you just have to pretend.” I find this fascinating. I wonder why it works like that? I understand having the switch at first – help the new vampires get used to eating humans and seeing them as prey but why would that ability disappear after awhile? Perhaps an emotional off switch helps to lengthen young vampires lives but not having the switch helps older vampires to survive even longer? So Katherine and Rose and Pearl and Lexie – none of them have the emotional off switch whereas characters like the Salvatore brothes, Anna, Fredrick, etc do. Hmm.

• “Shut up, Damon.” – Stefan. Heeee. LMAO. The way he said that was perfect.

• Damon’s expression when Slater asked Rose about Trevor made me smile. It was just so exaggeratedly ‘awkward’.

• I love that there is such a thing as a vampire friendly cafe. Of course there would be! I can’t believe that I’ve never considered that before. And in the modern age it’s so easy to do as well. I couldn’t really tell but were some of those other patrons vampires, or all of them or were they human? Now I really want to know what other places vampires have created. That SUV Rose was driving – I wonder if it’s a vampire who was behind that?

• I found Elijah scarier in this episode than in the previous one. Him throwing the coins and shattering the windows and the way it very much felt and sounded like an explosion was actually pretty scary. The knowledge that he can compel vampires – not just terrify them into submission but actually take over their free will like vampires do with humans – suddenly makes him not only a bigger threat to our vampire main characters but makes him a scarier threat all together. I mean now he can use our main vampires against each other. Yikes. Now that this is out there it has to mean that someone is getting compelled into betraying the others this season, yes? (I hope, with his track record, it’s Damon.)

• Dr. Jonas Martin, our new adult witch, turning out to be working for vampires doesn’t really surprise me. When I saw him with Elijah I was kind of ‘of course’ about it. Because apparently working with/for vampires is just what witches do and I really want to more about that story. Especially since it was apparently, if Katherine is to be believed and I do, that witches are the reason vampires can’t walk in sunlight. Did that spell somehow cause an imbalance of some sort and since then all witches are forced to help vampires if the vampire saves them? Or something like that?

• Bonnie’s “Uh, why?” to Jeremy asking her to hang out made me laugh. I mean poor Jeremy but it’s so understandable. Bonnie explained it as “It’s just... you’re Elena’s brother.” and I filled in her unspoken ‘and it’s weird’ because it is. I like that even after their bonding and truth telling from the last episode she does still feel the awkwardness of ‘this is my best friend’s younger brother.’ Actually this is now making me think of the Tyler/Vicki relationship at the beginning of the show and how it’s also an example of someone dating his best friend’s younger sibling. I don’t think I ever wondered about that at the time. I think if Jeremy/Bonnie ever does go forward Elena is going to need to talk to Matt about how to deal with it.