iaria

Biggest WTF

“There is no Damon and you. There is Damon and whoever he’s using. And those people they end up dead. Whatever's going on, Jeremy I want you to stay out of it.” – Elena
“Well, I don’t really care what you want Elena. It’s because of you that I’m in this mess in the first place so I’m sorry, you don’t really get to tell me what I’m going to do.” – Jeremy

You know I can understand Jeremy being all ‘whatever’ to Elena trying to keep him away from the supernatural and blowing her off, and I understand just generally him not liking her telling him what to do. But his entire bit of dialogue here leaves me going ‘um, wait... what?’ Seriously what the hell is he talking about!? ‘Because of you’ and ‘this mess’ – what mess is he talking about and how exactly is it Elena’s fault? Is it about the danger Katherine represents to him? It’s not Elena’s fault her psycho ancestor who is also Elena’s doppelganger is after her. Is this about the compulsion last season? Again? Damon breaking his neck? Seriously what the fuck is he talking about and how the fuck is it Elena’s fault? That really annoyed me. Shut up, Jeremy.

Likes / Loves

• “Elena. I riled Katherine up. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t think.” – Damon

I love that Damon confessed to Elena that he was very likely the reason why Katherine chose now to attack Jenna. He didn’t have to, Elena probably wouldn’t have known otherwise, but he told her the truth anyway and I was pretty impressed. Like with Caroline he took the harder road of complete honestly and I love that so much more. Considering how strained their relationship is already confessing something like this could have made it even worse but he still told her because he couldn’t not tell and because I think he had to apologise in his own way.

I also love how visibly affected he was by Elena (and I assume Stefan’s) grief and his “I wasn’t thinking”. Damon spends a lot of time acting and reacting instead of thinking and planning and that has got him in some serious trouble lately. Once again he just acts on what he’s feeling without considering the potential consequences and yet again he’s managed to seriously hurt Elena in the process (which in turn hurts him). This is yet another step on his long road to being a better person and I approve.

This goes further than this scene though, or it should and I’m excited to see if it does. Because if Damon is seeing the correlation between taunting Katherine and Jenna being hurt and feeling regretful about it then he’ll see the correlation between killing Mason and whatever happens between Matt/Tyler right? Will he also be regretful and contrite about them as well? Or will the move too far past Elena (Stefan/Liz/Alaric) in the ‘I care’ group?

• I love that Damon heard the entire break-up. It makes him feel like a part of it in a way (a part of their relationship that is.)

• “Hey, judgey. (pause) Thank you.” – Damon to Bonnie I think this was the first episode that actually made me feel Bonnie/Damon a little. I really loved this little moment. That he thanked her but also his nickname for her.

• Bonnie once again finding herself involved helping the vampires and once again it’s all because someone invoked Elena’s name and safety. I love that.

• I love that Elena seeing Damon and Bonnie’s names together in the same text has her going ‘fill me in now!’

• Caroline’s “I’ve got you” to Elena before lowering her into the well just made me feel all warm and happy. She was so serious and... It’s just her assuring Elena she has Elena’s back and it made me happy.

• Caroline turning away in the background when Elena cuts her hand to feed Stefan was a nice subtle touch and shows how much she has advanced as far as her control.

• Jenna happily inviting Stefan to dinner and her “Ric will be there” and then her amusement at his attempt to pretend to be having problems with Elena amused me.

• Alaric and Elena’s silent moment of conversation when she returned home was fabulous. I’m sold – Uncle Alaric, please! ... Okay, and Alaric/Jenna are pretty adorable which is probably even more important.

• Stefan not thinking for even a second that Bonnie’s vision of Mason kissing Elena could be true was great.

• I’m pleased that even though she was freaking out about the snakes Elena made sure she had the box before leaving the well.

• “Why would you involve Jeremy?” / “He’s playing Indiana Jones, he involved himself.” LOL! It’s all in the visuals – Stefan’s expression when he said his line, Stefan hitting Damon on the shoulder as he walked past, Stefan’s exasperated hand-waving off Damon’s excuse, Damon’s expression as Stefan left (perplexed with a bit of irritated but mainly baffled). I loved it all.

• Jeremy holding Elena and comforting her at the hospital was really nice to see.

• I love that Katherine had Jenna under compulsion for a couple episodes now. It’s totally the sort of awesome deviousness I expect from her at this point.

• Once again we have Stefan being not as ‘good’ as it first appears. He comments when he arrives home and sees Mason’s wrapped body that Damon used ‘his usual restraint’ – but Stefan had to have known how things would end when he sent Damon off with Mason. And yet he sent Mason off to be ‘questioned’ by Damon all the same while he stayed at the Lockwood Estate... even though his purported reason for being there was no longer relevant. Why didn’t he go instead of Damon or with Damon to question Mason? Because he knew Mason had to die and had decided to leave it to Damon to handle as he does best? It does make his snarking at Damon later, for doing something Stefan knew he was going to do and tactically approved of, kind of hypocritical and unfair. But overall it’s very much a reason why I love Stefan – his layers and depth. He may be a ‘good’ vampire when compared to Damon, and a good guy all around but he is a vampire, he is a hunter and killer, and he is very practical and will not hesitate to do what he feels necessary. Ruthlessness cloaked in an easy going package. ♥

Questions / Neutral

• Caroline states to her mother that she drinks only from blood bags that she steals from Damon’s stash – does this mean that Damon is only drinking from blood bags now (a la Lexie)? Because it’s a throw-away line but a huge thing if true.

• Mason’s death has left me rather eh. I wasn’t expecting it this episode but it wasn’t a huge deal either. I liked that he knew he was going to die and that one of his last thoughts was about Tyler and keeping him safe. Damon killing him by tearing out his heart made me wince (ouch, and also it made me think of Bree who’s death I actually felt more despite how much longer Mason’s been around).

• Jenna stabbing herself made far more of an impression. The tension of that scene kept building and building. As soon as we heard Katherine’s voice I was all ‘watch Jenna!’ The way that Jenna so casually stabbed herself, the blank look on her face... it was very creepy. So are they going to tell Jenna the truth now? I don’t think knowing the truth would have saved her but at this point she really deserves the truth and keeping her in the dark isn’t doing anything to keep her safe either.

• “Aw, did I put a kink in your master plan? I’m so sorry.” – Damon
“Do you honestly believe that I don’t have a plan B? And if that fails a plan C then a plan D and... you know how the alphabet works don’t you.” – Katherine

Did Damon really think that Katherine would be ruined by Mason’s death? That Mason’s loss would destroy her plans so much that it would get to her? His expression says yes and that’s just... oh, Damon.

• I understand why Katherine had Jenna try to kill herself but I think long term it would have been smarter for her to keep her spy and instead do something fatal to, say, Matt. It would have had almost the same impact as Jenna by letting Elena et al know that Katherine wasn’t to be messed with. That she can get to those Elena loves whenever she wants and that she will punish them for defying her (though without the added creepiness/freak out that Katherine had a loved one under her control and no one knew) and it would have left Katherine still with her spy. I don’t think the loss of her spy is worth that little bit more creepiness. Well, I suppose there’s also Katherine taunting her as Elena is forced to watch her aunt stab herself, exactly where Elena found her uncle/dad stabbed, and being helpless to stop it. But I still think having a Jenna spy is better. Killing Matt would also have been perfect for punishing Caroline as well (there is no way that Katherine is just going to let Caroline’s defection go unpunished). ... I’ve kind of ended up arguing that Katherine should have killed Matt which I wasn’t planning but it makes a lot of sense to me.

• I find I’m not worried about Matt dying. Perhaps I should be because this show so loves to kill off characters and he’s certainly expendable and yet I’m not. Katherine setting him up to attack Tyler and repeating what she did with Mason might seem like a good plan since it worked once but Matt and Tyler have something Mason and his poor friend didn’t – Caroline, the Salvatore brothers and Bonnie aka supernatural help. I see one of those four stopping the upcoming Matt/Tyler fight before it ends in death. (Though I do think the next episode could very likely end with Tyler accidentally killing someone else and triggering his curse.)

• When Tyler walked into his house and his mom smiled at him I was suddenly just hit with the thought – ‘Tyler is going to accidently kill his mother (possibly by some plan of Katherine’s)’. I’m glad I was wrong and hopefully that won’t happen.

• Damon reacting to Mason taunting that he’s jealousy of Mason/Katherine by shoving wolfsbane into Mason’s mouth was a pretty big reaction. That’s not the response of someone who doesn’t care; even for Damon who’s usually on a hair-trigger. So it appears that no matter how much Damon might want it to be otherwise he isn’t completely over Katherine. I’m glad. He devoted 100 plus years to her and constructed his whole persona and being on what she would have wanted so it shouldn’t be easy for him to shake off her hold on him. But is it that he was a little jealous and was pissed at Mason pointing it out/hitting the sore spot (it’s important I think that he shoved the wolfsbane into Mason’s mouth, to stop him from talking) or was it just mainly Damon and his anger at Katherine and what happened between them (which we see later with Damon taunting her)?

• Has Stefan’s re-introduction to human blood really worked so well and so fast that he could eat from Elena’s hand with no problem even when seriously injured?

• When Elena got out of the well she was covered in vervain water which would have hurt Stefan when she touched him but I suppose he was already so bad off a little more pain wouldn’t have made that much of a difference. Now Caroline helping Bonnie pull Stefan out should have burnt her hands and yet it didn’t appear to cause her any pain. Having Caroline hiss or shake her hands in the background would have been nice.

• Um, why would the doctor’s update Alaric on Jenna’s condition and not her niece who she’s the guardian of? That didn’t make sense.

• Matt/Tyler have been stuck in the background for awhile now so it felt a little weird to see them being all BFF. So I guess they fully made up off screen?