iaria

The Last Day

• “It’s my life, Damon. My choice.” So says Elena. But this is Damon and since when has he ever respected her choices? Especially this season. Impulsive, scared, selfish Damon... of freaking course he would feed her his blood. I wondered if he would bring it up as an option during their argument but I didn’t expect him to force it on her. I should have. It is so Damon. It is exactly what he would do. I mean he tells her “I can’t lose you” and she holds his hand and tells him with tenderness that he won’t but he’s lost in his fear and he probably has her words from earlier – “then I’ll die” – running on a loop in his head and he just doesn’t stop to think.

“This way if you die at least I know that you’ll come back.” Oh Damon. It’s all about him. I actually did understand his feelings and I felt for him. He was scared for her. He was willing to do whatever he needed to do to save her. In that respect he was no different than Elena or Bonnie but unlike their attempts to protect each other Damon just had to take it one step further. I found it interesting that while his first reaction (to Stefan) was defiance he regretted doing it and realised it was a mistake pretty much immediately.

• Elena/Stefan were wonderful. I adored Stefan taking Elena to the waterfall and that he spent the day trying to help her work through her feelings about becoming a vampire. I loved how open he was about discussing being a vampire and that while he didn’t push her when she backed away from the discussion he also wouldn’t let her bury her feelings. I like that they smiled. That on what Elena thought was going to be her last day as a human she still smiled and laughed. I loved Elena finally breaking down in Stefan’s arms and telling him that she didn’t want to be a vampire. His expression was perfect. I love how mature she is and that she knows that at 17 she isn’t ready to make that decision. I loved their final scene and their goodbye.

• I have all these thoughts about ‘the plan’ and Elena and how Stefan’s reacted... But here’s the thing: I am all about Elena. She is my girl; I love her bestest of everyone (even when she does things I hate, like, what about the vampire and werewolf, Elena) So I generally go at things from her point of view. In these last few episodes while I haven’t understood her complete trust of Elijah (he is pretty awesome though) I do understand how frantic she’s been to protect everyone and her focus on Bonnie who seems to be in the most danger (and I love that she doesn’t just go ‘well, super witch, I’ll just let her deal with everything’) and I even understand her deluding herself that everything will be just fine and will work perfectly.

She looked at her options and saw: 1) run away/vamp and have Klaus kill everyone she ever cared about, 2) rely on Bonnie to take out Klaus which will end in her dying, or 3) trust Elijah in a plan that will give both her and Bonnie at least a chance to live. She decided to take option three. Stefan agreed to trust her and follow her lead, Damon – didn’t. And the only other option he offered was ‘let’s go with plan 2 – I’ll write a great eulogy for her!’ (I’m shocked Elena wasn’t won over.)

If Stefan had reacted at the beginning of the season, when Elena made her first deal with Elijah and was being basically suicidal, with a shrug and complete support I would have been had a WTF reaction to it and been irritated with him. But he didn’t. And now Elena has a plan that does have the chance for her to live, and perhaps it’s foolish to trust Elijah and it’s not much of a chance, but it’s not suicidal. So I haven’t been as bothered by how Elena and Stefan have been acting and the decisions they’ve been making as other people have.

• Elena and Stefan reminded me of Buffy twice this episode. When Elena was explaining she was seventeen and didn’t want to be a vampire I was reminded of Buffy’s speech to Giles that in Prophecy Girl that she didn’t want to die. Then when Elena and Stefan said goodbye and Elena told him to close his eyes I was suddenly back in Becoming part 2.

• I’ve suspected from the first season that Elena didn’t want to be a vampire and yet I firmly believe that the show is going to end with Elena as a vampire. So at some point in the future Elena has to choose to become a vampire (especially after this it has to be her choice) and it will be interesting to see how she gets from this point to one day wanting to be a vampire.

• “Go ahead, wish me an eternity of misery. Believe me you’ll get over it.” On one hand that made me want to smack him again. But on the other it made me pleased. That was what he promised Stefan but now 100+ years later he’s ‘gotten over it’? I mean we’ve seen that but I think this is the first time Damon has really said it. It felt like he was essentially telling Stefan that he has forgiven him.

- Similarly I found it interesting how Stefan defended Damon to Elena later in the episode. Stefan was horrified and pissed off, he was heart-broken for Elena and also possibly a bit mad about being staked but in the end Stefan’s default setting always seems to be ‘defend Damon’. And I was glad he did.

- Oh, and then there was the very short Damon/Stefan phone call at the end. I really loved that call. I loved Stefan and Damon’s expressions. I actually kind of love Stefan just accepting Damon’s “I’ll take care of it” and hanging up because it very much felt like Stefan calling his big brother in need and then expecting him to take care of everything and make it better. It was such a little brother moment.

• Damon being bitten by Tyler was a surprise. There’s no way that he’s going to die so for me the most interesting part of it was the fact that he didn’t kill Tyler. He could have killed Tyler but he didn’t for Caroline. He chose to risk his life, twice (letting Tyler go, not killing him when attacked) because Caroline wanted him to live. Nothing shows better that he has accepted her into his ‘family’ and accepted her as a real person who matters to him for me. It reminded me of Rose saving him and then made me think of early season one and how he treated Caroline and of early season two and how he tried to stake her and wow has their relationship come a long way. I wonder if this will mark the beginning of a change between them?

• Jenna being turned by Klaus was a complete shock. I’m not sure if this makes her more or less likely to survive the season but I have a sinking feeling that it’s less. They wouldn’t start her transitioning and then have her chose not to become a vampire would they? I don’t know. I’ve never actually considered the idea of her becoming a vampire. It makes me a bit sad because I really wanted Jenna/Alaric getting married and having children and basically continuing a family line like Zach Salvatore for Elena to come back to in the far future (because of course she’ll become a vampire in the end). I also wanted them to be this normal couple in the background of the show who provided this stable place for everyone else. And then with this episode for Alaric to teach her to be a badass vampire hunter.

• What if Alaric gave Jenna his ring to wear? omg, that would be so AWESOME. Alaric is worried about Jenna especially with everything going down right then so he gives her the ring. It makes complete sense. Klaus doesn’t know about the ring and drains her, thinking he’s making her into a vampire but because she has the ring she’s still human. Oh, I want that.

• I loved the moment were Alaric comes into the house and Jenna immediately turned a crossbow on him. She may be scared and probably still confused and in shock but she will kill her possessed boyfriend if she needs to. ♥

• I was pleased with Matt’s storyline. This episode finally gave his side and the evolution from his first reaction to choosing Caroline ended up being a sympathetic and believable progression and a good character arc. He’s a guy who discovered that the girl he loved died and is a vampire, that vampires killed his sister, and while he is still reeling over that he tells an adult he trusts and who has as much at stake in the truth as him – and she tells him that vampires are monster not to be trusted. And he believes her. He was vulnerable and ignorant and scared and hurt and uncertain. Why wouldn’t he believe Liz?

Except then he has to pretend not to know and even though Liz keeps telling him one thing, he keeps seeing something different. Liz keeps insisting, keeps pushing her views, that vampires “have no soul, no humanity” but that isn’t what Matt sees. He tells Liz “There is nothing about her that makes me believe that.” and in the end he accepts that she is still Caroline. So it took him a couple episodes to deal with his girlfriend being a vampire, a few episodes that had her mother whispering in his ear that she was evil but then he figured out for himself that she was still who she’d always been and he chose her. He was going to tell her the truth and he followed Damon to try and save her.

- That said I still don’t think that Matt/Caroline is a good relationship. I don’t think Matt is good enough for Caroline because he’s never really seemed to accept her for who she is. I also like the idea of Caroline/Matt being the opposite of Stefan/Elena. That while Elena accepted Stefan and vampires Matt just won’t be able to. It makes sense for him to react that way.

• “Imagine how much fun that will be competing with Elena for Stefan’s love for, I don’t know, ever.” – Damon. Hee. Katherine’s reaction made me laugh and I loved how similar their expression and body language was.

• Katherine walking into the sunlight by herself and then staying there until Klaus told her that she could stop was pretty hard core of her. I love her.

• “Do you think if I took his werewolf out of the equation she might get over the fact that I tried to turn her into a vampire?” LOL, oh, Damon.

I have this vision in my head now of Elena spending a couple decades being bitchy and snarky towards Damon, and just generally unwilling to move past Damon turning her, and Damon trying to get her to like him again and being all emo and sometimes mean back, while poor Stefan is now placed permanently as the go-between and peacemaker between them and he just wants them all to be a happy family again. Meanwhile, Caroline and Bonnie are rather amused and taking a bit of a thrill in Damon suffering, and are of course on Elena’s side. Jeremy and Alaric are all sympathetic but in a ‘what are you going to do’ sort of way, and they take him off to get drunk on bad days, and go hunting vampires for him to kill to feel better. That would be awesome. I want that.