The Vampire Diaries 3x06 Review

[iaria]

Smells Like Team Spirit

• I love Elena training with Alaric. Okay, everything she’s doing – the running and weight lifting – isn’t going to help her against a vampire. She, and every other human, just can’t compete against their strength and speed. But keeping in shape is a good idea and practicing with weapons is an excellent idea. Plus I just have a lot of respect for her dragging herself out of bed hours before she has to in order to do it. I want lots more Alaric/Elena training. Actually maybe Alaric should just start offering a class in it.

• “Vampires with take whatever they want, they’ll hurt whoever they want and they’ll do it without remorse. It’s their nature.” – Alaric. Wow. Okay than. I guess someone really isn’t over being temporarily killed by his best friend. Alaric’s certainly never been vampire supportive and he isn’t really wrong but this... vitriol is unexpected. Elena brings up Stefan but I’m pretty sure Alaric was talking about Damon. He’s really not over it. Honestly I find it a bit – weird. I mean this is the guy who became best friends with the vampire who turned his wife and killed him. Now he’s angry and holding a grudge? I mean, yeah, he feels betrayed but it’s not like he didn’t know exactly what Damon is like. He’s been there the entire time – he knew about Jeremy, he watched Damon with Andi and he knows how casually violent vampires are. He's always known that Damon doesn't think like other people.

• "I think you found a way to get out of bed this morning, and that makes you the strongest person I know. I think that you can do -- pretty much anything." – Alaric. Awww. I am really liking the Alaric/Elena relationship. I've always loved how he treats her like an adult and I love how protective and supportive he is of her.

• Rebekah walking into the Manor – so all the protection granted by deeding Elena the house is gone then because of her death? I’d like that addressed. Also as soon as the Stefan situation is cleared up for them to fix that. (By her deeding back and then them deeding it back to her? Actually in that case – she and Damon can do it between themselves and that would kick Stefan and Rebekah out. Although that might not be the best idea.)

• I loved Elena checking the stalls and getting some paper towel in the background as Caroline was talking at Tyler.

• I really wish that we were getting more of Damon’s love/loyalty to Stefan than we have been. I know that Damon has centuries to wait for Stefan to come back so there isn’t necessarily the same urgency to do so that Elena has but some interest in getting his brother back for himself and for Stefan’s sake would be nice; instead of it all being for Elena’s sake. Stefan matters to Damon for being Stefan not just because Elena cares. Also since it appears that ripper!Stefan is planning to stick around for awhile it just makes sense to try and get him out of the way by locking him up.

• "I'll do whatever it is you need me to do, Elena." – Damon. That was hot. I love the way he rests his head against hers and how reluctantly he pulls away. Oh, also in that scene I loved him messing with her and the way that she just let go of the weight, expecting that he would catch it. Because of course he would but she trusts him completely. I love that.

• I love Elena making plans, that work, and just getting shit done. ♥

• The reason she’s keeping Bonnie out of it however makes me frown. It doesn’t make much sense – Bonnie can mind-whammy Stefan after all. She's done it before. It would have made the plan a lot safer.

• “Might have better luck finding a dagger.” – Alaric. LOL at Caroline’s laugh. I want Damon and Alaric to BFF again but snarky Alaric is fun. And Damon really needs to face consequences for his actions.

• “Take it easy. We both know you’re kind of a lightweight.” – Stefan. Except that we know that she isn’t. So are we supposed to think that Stefan was just poking at Elena, that he’s somehow forgotten things about her, or that he never knew that she could drink a lot (like Damon does)?

• I loved Rebakah. A List:

- Rebekah’s smug grin at Caroline after showing off at practice. Rebekah vs Caroline could be fun. I really want them to become frenemies so much now. I’ve wanted a female vampire mentor for Caroline since she was turned and I’ll totally accept Rebekah. I love the idea of Rebekah making Caroline’s life a hell, and Caroline giving back as good as she gets and them entering a cold war but one that also includes them rolling their eyes together over the Stefan/Elena/Damon situation, and Rebekah occasionally telling Caroline she’s doing something wrong and how to do it right and them sometimes working together. Oh, please show give me that!

- Rebekah’s amusement while Elena snarked at Stefan at the keg.

- Rebekah not chasing after or mooning over Stefan.

- Rebekah seeing through Damon’s flirting was great. Rebekah staking Damon through the stomach was awesome. I love when women kick Damon’s ass

• I am always so torn about Bonnie reactions. I can completely understand her being worried or jealous about Jeremy seeing his exs but her reaction felt like too much. She was mad at Jeremy. Which okay, he’s inviting them in but as Bonnie says he didn’t break up with them he lost them. I think him wanting to see them is very understandable and I guess I’d expect Bonnie to be more understanding of that? He loved them and they died of course he wants to see them. I can understand her frustration with him turning immediately to Anna about Vicki instead of to her but to be so angry at him over it feels like misplaced emotion to me. Like she’s worried and frustrated and perhaps angry at herself (her bringing him back caused it) and she’s reacting by lashing out at him/punishing him which is something we’ve seen before. I think that I just feel for Jeremy so much here – the idea that you could see someone you’d lost again – that her anger over it isn’t working for me. Hmm – actually looking at it another way I can see it not being anger over him seeing them but the way he’s been keeping her separate from it? That he didn’t tell her at first, that he went for Anna after overhearing Matt and Vicki instead of her.

• “Everything I like about me - is you.” – Tyler to Caroline. Aww.

• I love Elena faking drunk, perhaps a little drunk, but mostly faking it to trap Stefan.

• Elena dropping off the side of the bleachers as a distraction for Stefan – how very her. I think she was pretty safe in being sure that Stefan would catch her but still there was just the slightest chance that he wouldn’t. It reminds me of how hardcore she can be at times.

• I loved the moment between Stefan and Elena when he saved her. I love the USTy vibes Elena has with both the Salvatores in this episode. Also it definitely looked like Stefan was affected by that moment as well.

- How much of Stefan saving Elena was his compulsion to protect her and how much was it about Stefan and Elena and their relationship?

• So for the second time Vicki tries to kill Elena and for the second time its lead to her ‘death’. If she ever gets a third chance I have some advice for her.

• If this really is the end of Vicki I’ll be sad if only because there was no resolution to the Vicki/Jeremy relationship. In fact they’ve gotten barely any scenes together and it seems the show is pushing the Anna/Jeremy relationship. Now I liked Anna/Jeremy but Vicki’s absence was this ghost hovering over them. Jeremy only wanted to be a vampire because he thought Vicki was one. Of the two relationships, even though I liked Anna/Jeremy more, I feel like its Vicki/Jeremy that was the more important one and the one that needed to be resolved most.

• How did Stefan recover from the vervain so quickly? Has he been keeping up with ingesting tiny bits of vervain to create an immunity? Except that it’d have to take a hell of a lot longer than a couple months to actually succeed in it.

• Wow with the casual killing this episode. Stefan killing various girls at the beginning, Katherine killing random people to feed to Mikael, Tyler and Rebekah eating that poor girl together.

• I’m not worried about Katherine. At all. There is no way the show will kill her. I don’t buy it. Not in that way. _{omg, if they kill her I’ll be so mad.} The next episode better have Katherine giving him hell for drinking from her without permission.

• I saw Mikael only drinking vampire blood coming when Katherine was complaining about all the ways she’d tried to get him to eat. I don’t know that it actually is any better though. I mean if he really cared about not harming humans he’d drink animals like Stefan did since those vampires he drinks have been drinking humans. So yeah. I wonder if drinking vampires makes him stronger than those that drink humans? Weaker? Or maybe it doesn’t matter either way.

• Aw, I liked Elena encouraging Alaric to forgive Damon because “I think he kind of misses you.” Of course, not everyone forgives as easily as she does. Most people do not forgive as easily as she does. But I like her trying to help.

• “I know who you really are. Better than anyone, Stefan. And I’m not giving up.” – Elena. Okay, the not giving up on Stefan is good. The whole ‘know him better than anyone’ on the other hand – what? No. That’s just – surprisingly immature of her. It feels very teenage ‘soulmates forever’. She’s known him for a year and only recently got to see the darker side of him and chose to ignore it instead of accept it and seriously a year.

• “Elena, do you have any idea how pathetic you are?” – Stefan.
“No, Stefan, it makes me strong.” – Elena.
[She stakes him in the stomach.]

♥ That was awesome. Also I guess I don’t just love when women hurt or otherwise kick Damon’s ass because I loved Elena staking Stefan just as much. Hmm.

- Also this had a very similar feel to that horrible morning after scene between Buffy and Angel in Innocence, though certainly not as terrible, and it made me love Elena’s reaction even more.

• Seriously, I adore Anna but she had better not kiss Jeremy or return any advances without bringing up Bonnie. I liked her pointing out how messed up it was that Jeremy was thinking of her while calling Bonnie. As for Jeremy he is so on notice. I feel for him with the whole ‘dead girlfriend being back’ situation, and the whole tragic love between him and Anna makes me so sad for them, but that last scene pushes him right into emotional cheating territory and if the next episode doesn’t involve him having a talk with Bonnie and confessing his confusion I am going to be really unhappy.

• Wow this has been a really shitty episode for Damon. Ripper!Stefan back eating people on the furniture and ruining rugs, shot down and then staked by Rebekah, Alaric still mad at him (and he just doesn’t understand why), and now Mason is back and destroying yet more of his stuff and kicking his ass.

• OMG, does this mean we get all those killed back?! Oh, I hope so much we get to see Jenna. And Lexie. And Pearl. And John and Isabel. I doubt we will get to keep them but even one episode would be great and if we did get to keep one or two of them that would be awesome. Also if Jenna is back and we don’t get scenes between her Elena, Jeremy and Alaric I won’t be pleased. Jeremy got shafted at the funeral he should get to see his aunt.

I also want – Pearl/Anna (if we have to lose Anna I hope it will be with her and Pearl leaving together) and Lexie haunting Stefan (oh, that has to happen, has to) and John/Isabel scenes with Elena (for Elena’s sake), and Bonnie/Sheila (seriously - ghosts because of Bonnie’s magic, Sheila had better be there).

Oh, wait, damn it – Katherine isn’t in town which means I still won’t get that Katherine/Pearl scene I’ve been wanting since season one, nor another Katherine/Isabel scene.