Oh yeah, Caroline . . . it’s happening, all right!
Oh, my dear sweet Fangbangers! How I’ve missed you, during this one week interminable hiatus. And what an episode to come back to! Let’s see, there was another Miss Mystic Falls Pageant, Mini Gilbert hopped a ride on the Crazy Train, Klaus got all mushy gushy over a teeny tiny bird with a big nose, and . . . wait . . . I know I’m forgetting something. Hmmm . . . what could it be?
Was it about Nosebleed Bonnie?
Nahh . . . she wasn’t even in this episode. Good riddens!
How about that dead hybrid from last week? Did he return as zombie to exact revenge on our Scooby Gang?
Nope . . . not him either.
Oh, I remember now! DAMON AND ELENA HAD SEX . . . WITH EACH OTHER.
THEY BONED. THEY WERE NAKED. SHIRTS WERE RIPPED. BODICES WERE TORN.
DAMON ROAD THAT NEWBIE VAMP ALL THE WAY TO POUND TOWN . . .
I’ve really gotta lay off on the capital letters . . . and the caffeine.
Anywhoo . . . let’s rewind a little bit, so we can see how it all went down. [By the way, welcome back, Andre! Many thanks for the rockin’ screencaps . . .]
Stefan and Caroline: Gossip Girls
“She dumped me, Bro! And now I have this strange urge to write bad poetry, and cheesy diary entries, while showing off my muscular physique to no one in particular.”
“Wait . . . don’t you do that every week?”
Everybody needs a good girlfriend. And I’m not speaking in a romantic context either. We all need someone we can call, after a bad day, who will listen to us, while we bitch and moan about our mean teachers, our awful bosses, and our inconsiderate significant others . . . someone who will say to us, “Hey Girl! You are SO right. That guy of yours is total toolbox. You can do so much better than him” . . . even if it isn’t exactly . . . like . . . true and stuff.
“That bitch! I’m going to totally kick her ass. How dare she dump one bloodthirsty vampire for another one? I’m going to really give her a piece of my mind . . . once I get back from my hot date with the evilest, most bloodthirsty vampire on the planet.”
Damon used to have that with Alaric . . .
. . . you know, before Alaric went psycho and started trying to murder Damon on a regular basis. Stefan sort of had that with his boy toy Klaus.
“You can be my bodyguard. And I can be your long lost pal. I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me, you can CALLL MEEEE KLAUUUUSSSS, call me Klaus.”
But, let’s be honest, their relationship was always more homoerotic than it was mutually supportive. So, as much as I was annoyed by Caroline’s and Stefan’s “Mean Girls” act this week, seeing Stefan bitch and complain about being dumped by Elena to Caroline was probably the most “human” thing I’ve seen the guy do in about three seasons.
Make that the second most Human Thing. Looking goood, Steffy!
For once, Stefan wasn’t busy being either “good and honorable” or “ravenous and psychotic.” He was just the girl who didn’t get asked to the prom by the high school quarterback. So, instead, he stayed home crying to his girlfriends (who also didn’t have dates), while shoving Ben & Jerry’s ice cream down his throat.
Well, except for the fact that given how ripped Saint Stefan is, it’s pretty clear to me that Paul Wesley has never met Ben or Jerry, in his entire life.
But hey . . . it’s a start right?
Speaking of Mean Girls, whoa Caroline! When exactly did your Season 1 self come back to literally bite you in the ass? For someone who spent the entire episode bitching about how much Elena had changed, since she went full on vamp, Caroline sure was acting like someone other than the Perky Little Vampire Barbie we had all come to know and love. Perhaps, Bonnie’s absence left an opening in the show’s obligatory “Judgy Girl / Cockblock Quota.”
Whatever the reason, Caroline was 100% Regina Georging Elena for most of the episode, disregarding her choice of men, her choice of clothes (more on that later), and even her personality. Honestly, I kept waiting for Elena to show up at the Miss Mystic Falls pageant wearing sweat pants, so that Caroline could banish her from the lunch table.
Oh wait . . . I forgot, these kids only actually attend school once every two months. So, lunch tables are not an option . . . In other romance news . . .
Klaus whispers sweet nothings in Stefan’s ear, causing sexual frustration in our “hero”
That Klaus sure is one kinky vamp, isn’t he? Here we have Stefan, in his tight bodice-busting wife beater tee, just brooding, and minding his own business. Then, out comes Klaus to put his big manly arms around Stefan, place his lips near his neck, and whisper in his ear, all the naughty things he will do to him, if Stefan doesn’t obey the elder vampire’s desires (i.e. make Jeremy a mass murderer so the Etch-a-Sketch on his arm produces more of those pretty pictures Klaus adores so much . . . but no ponies, unfortunately).
Talk about tough love! A ridiculously small part of me really did believe that these two were going to hump, right there in the woods like the sexy savage beasts they are. But instead, Klaus leaves Stefan with a massive case of these . . .
Dumped by his girlfriend, denied by his gay lover, can you really blame Stefan for being a little snippy with his brother, back at La Casa de Rich and Awesome?
DAMON: “You’re bitchy today! Who crawled up your ass and died?”
STEFAN: “Not Klaus or Elena, that’s for sure.”
DAMON: “Bummer, you should see if Matt Donovan is free . . .”
My how the tables have turned! This time around it’s Stefan, offering up the half-cocked, impulsive plan that’s going to put everyone’s lives in jeopardy, while Damon is being the more conservative one, opting in favor of protecting Jeremy’s life and his sanity, over the quick fix of using his hunter mark to rescue Elena, no matter how many people get hurt in the process.
“I know, it kind of surprised me too.”
And while for three seasons, Damon has bore the brunt of his Elena-sized rejection with quiet broodiness, and pleasant self-deprecation, Stefan is just one big ole’ sour grape about the whole thing. “Don’t pretend like this isn’t the best day of your entire life,” Stefan remarks snidely, when Damon expresses sympathy toward his brother over the breakup.
In Stefan’s defense, while Damon might look calm and collected on the outside, upon hearing this news, on the inside, I suspect he’s doing this . . .
. . . and this . . .
. . . and maybe even a little of this . . .
Meanwhile, back at the pageant . . .
This is your brain on Professor Boo Radley (and these are your muscles on Vampire Hunter Steroids) . . .
“GRRRRR!”
“Rawrrrrrrrr”
Matty LIKE!
Apparently, having a new nifty new tattoo has turned Jeremy into the frat party version of a super hero. He LIFTS HEAVY KEGS with a single orgasmic grunt. Matt pretends to be concerned about Jeremy’s “mental health” and stuff. But you know that deep down he’s impressed, kind of jealous, and a little bit turned on . . .
Meanwhile, even feuding femme fatales, Caroline and Elena, agree that Professor Boo Radley is mega creepy, and always seems to be putting his annoyingly curly head of hair where it isn’t wanted. Therefore, it’s a kind of a good thing Damon wants to kill him, right?
He even has serial killer eyebrows . . .
Speaking of making a killing . . .
Eeny, Meeny, Miney, MURDER!
Stefan’s scouring the hospital for humans with a very specific set of medical conditions. At first, I assume that this little hunting trip was brought on by breakup-induced stress eating . . .
But nope. Stefan’s looking for “bad people” to turn, just like Elena was looking for “bad frat brothers” to much on, during her campus excursion with Damon, a few weeks back. After all, everyone knows that Bad People taste better (much more flavor!).
Stefan finds what he’s looking for in a hospitalized killer who completely lacks remorse for his misdeeds. You know, kind of like Stefan and the rest of the Scooby Gang, when they killed Poor Hybrid Chris to cure Elena of Night Terrors. Stefan promptly turns Killer Guy, into a vamp, in hopes that he can later force Jeremy kill him.
“You will MAKE OUT WITH MY ARM, AND YOU WILL LIKE IT, BITCH! In case you haven’t heard, my girlfriend dumped me, and I haven’t had sex in two weeks. I’ll take what I can get.”
And hey, if doing that just so happens to transform Jer Bear into a raging lunatic, so be it. Because . . . let’s all say it together now . . . WE’RE DOING IT TO SAVE ELENA!
Except, here’s a new wrinkle in that plan . . . This time, Elena doesn’t really need saving, you know, being IMMORTAL, and stuff . . .
Because unlike CRAZY!DERANGED! Elena, Caroline doesn’t have a thing for Bad Boys at all . . . does she?
Oh Sweet Caroline! You aren’t fooling anyone with your “Go away I’m busy,” “Don’t buy me dresses,” act with Klaus. Everybody knows you want to hit that hybrid booty, and hit it HARD.
“Do you think he’s looking at me? He’s TOTALLY looking at me. Play it cool, Caroline. Maybe he won’t notice that you’re reading your clipboard upside down . . .”
And hey, none of us blame you for looking. That smirk of Klaus’ could melt the polar ice caps.
But you know what they say. Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t pick on Elena for lusting after a bad boy, when you are lusting after a worse one.
Wait. . . that’s now how it goes . . . Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t . . . be hypocrites? No, that’s not it either. Ooh nevermind.
But my poor analogies have purpose! They actually bring me to two rather interesting, and oddly parallel, scenes in our story: one featuring Lady Elena, and the other starring none other than Caroline Forbes herself . . .
The Tale of the Tell Tale Dress and the Phallic-Looking Bird
“Hey Caroline. We’re supposed to be helping April pick out a dress. Stop staring at my boobs.”
April Young is running for Miss Mystic Falls, like Elena and Caroline before her. I suspect we are supposed to like care or something. But I’m still having difficulty getting invested in April. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I keep waiting for her to get brutally murdered.
Also, I want Matt to be with Rebekah. There, I said it. Matt is just such a “nice guy,” and April is such a “nice girl.” And as “nice” as it would be if they were a couple, it would probably . . . no, definitely . . . put me to sleep watching them on my screen.
But I’m not here to talk about Matt and April, or even Matt and Rebekah, for that matter. I’m here to talk about Elena, and her reaction to April’s choice of dress. At first, she agrees with Caroline, and is all about the blue. Then Damon swoops in, and suddenly she’s agreeing with him, and she’s all about the red.
“Because Red is the color of Blood. And if you look like Blood, everyone in this town will want to eat you. And, in case you haven’t noticed, we all equate eating with sexual attraction around here . . .”
Now, of course Caroline is morally aghast by the whole situation. Later on, she’ll use it as evidence that Elena is “sired” to Damon.
I don’t know, I just see it as evidence, that Elena doesn’t have many strong opinions about fashion. I mean, Caroline certainly didn’t accuse Elena of being sired to her, when she agreed to her choice of dress, did she? Beyond that, I’d just say that Elena was acting like a girl who’s recently discovered she has a crush. We’ve all been in those first stages of puppy love, before, haven’t we? Suddenly, everything this person does is friggin adorable, and every word out of their mouth is pure gold.
There’s nothing supernatural about it. Sometimes a dress is just a dress . . . Now, a hummingbird . . . that’s another story . . .
Remember that time when Klaus told a dying Caroline this beautiful, inspirational, story about the perks of being a vampire, and that same story inspired her to LIVE?
Well, this hummingbird story wasn’t that. So, wait, let me get this straight. Big bad Klaus decided he envied humanity, all because some bird with a big schnoz looked at him cockeyed?
Shake that ass, humming bird! Klaus loves you!
Really? That’s funny, because, last I checked HUMANS AREN’T BIRDS!
And yet, as Klaus’ date to the Miss Mystic Falls pageant, Caroline just ate that stupid hummingbird story up, like it was delicious blood-covered chocolate brownie. And why? Because puppy love can make you approve of some very stupid things . . .
“That bird story is the stupidest crap I ever heard.”
“But you’re so yummy. Wait . . . tell me that amazing story about the bird again.”
Think about THAT the next time you are Judgy McJudgersoning Elena, CareBear . . .
Speaking of puppy love . . .
Elena confesses! Damon swoons! Professor Boo Radley cockblocks!
Yes, yes, yes. It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for, since we saw it in last week’s promos. Elena calls out to Damon from the top of that romantic spiral staircase. She meets him at the bottom, and finally confesses to him the words that this vampire has arguably been waiting to hear for about 150 years, from the girl who looks like Nina Dobrev, and whose name is alternately Katherine and Elena. She has FEELINGS FOR HIM!
She dumped STEFAN for him!
She may even . . . wait for it . . . LOVE HIM! And just in time for the holidays too . . .
I just loved seeing Damon’s expression, upon hearing this. I love how he didn’t even really try to play it cool, and casual, like he usually does. Damon was overcome with emotion. He was ecstatic. He was . . . just like every Delena fan watching at home . . . minus the girly screams, and the screechy choruses of “OH MY GAWWWWWWWWD!”
And then that bastard Boo Radley had to come and frack it all up. KILL HIM ALREADY, WILL YOU WRITERS! I don’t care if he’s Silas!
“Look, Damon and Elena are having a Moment. This looks like a job for COCKBLOCK OF THE WEEK, MWAH-HA HA!”
Damon leaves to have a little conversation with Mr. Creeper Man. And it’s a pretty typical scene, where the pair shower one another with innuendo, and thinly-veiled threats. YAWN! Professor Boo Radley bores me. More Delena please . . .
In, more exciting, non-Boo Radley, related news . . .
Mini Gilbert pops his vampire killing cherry . . . again.
“Why can’t I just have wet dreams, like normal teenage boys?”
“In my dreams, this was much bigger . . . just like my weiner.”
Poor JerBear . . . he’s having dreams about murdering his sister. I wonder, maybe if the Scooby Gang kills a hybrid, they can cure him of these night terrors. Oh wait . . . we only do that for Elena. When it comes to Mini Gilbert, we do things to make him MORE crazy, not less. To his credit, Jeremy definitely seems morally aghast by his own unfulfilled desires. But then his “bro” Stefan texts him. And he ditches out on the Miss Mystic Falls pageant to go see him about killing a newbie vamp.
“Remind me to delete this asshole from my contacts list. He’s always getting me into trouble.“
Stefan was a real jerk, in this scene, wasn’t he? The way he manipulated Jeremy into making the kill, knowing full well that there was a major possibility that doing it would turn our mild mannered former emo kid into, as Damon cleverly put it, “Connor 2.0?”
Was I the only one who was cheering just a little bit, when Jeremy, not only didn’t show Stefan his pretty new tattoo, but immediately turned on the vampire, and staked his ass? Come on, admit it, dude had it coming . . .
I find the way the writers dealt with Jeremy’s Vampire Hunter transformation interesting. It was as if, the minute he killed vampire number 2, the guy became a completely different person . . . like he was a man possessed . . . like he had an alter ego . . . like his former self lacked free will over him . . . like he was Evil!Alaric . . .
And it kind of makes me wonder what kind of guy Connor was, before he became a vampire hunter . . .
While Jeremy’s Presto Chango Personality Transformation made for good television drama, part of me wished for a little more subtlety, and gradual metamorphosis, on the character’s part. I find this is a frequent complaint I have with the show. I recall having made similar comments about Stefan’s “ripperness” and Alaric’s “psycho-ness,” not long before. And here is my general feeling. When you give a character an “alter ego,” you enable him or her to disclaim complete responsibility for all acts committed while in that state. And that gives your characters a sort of moral “easy out” clause, that I don’t necessarily think they deserve.
Part of me would much prefer to see Jeremy gradually struggle with his feelings about vampires, and the ways they conflict with the love he has for his family and friends. But that’s just me . . .
And the winner is . . . zzzzz
Meh . . . I would have gone with the blue dress.
April won. Jeremy bailed at the last minute, because he was out being “naughty,” just like Stefan was, back in Season 1. Matt then stepped into Damon’s Season 1’s shoes, by acting as April’s last-minute Knight in Shining Kmart suit. Plotwise, it did little to advance the main story. But it was a kind of clever way to send up, one of the most popular episode’s in the show’s first season.
Not to mention, those looks that Damon and Elena were giving one another, as they recalled their days of Unrequited Passion / Mating Dance past? PRICELESS . . .
Breaking Bones and Taking Numbers
“Hurry up and break your sire bond, already. I want to watch Honey Boo Boo!”
I like Hayley. I really do. I know I’ve bitched about not warming to April. But I started enjoying Phoebe Tonkin’s part in this series, almost as soon as she appeared. Maybe it’s because I liked her in The Secret Circle. Maybe it’s because she’s just a good actress. Or maybe I like her tension with Tyler and Caroline, and feel like she’s the type of “tough girl” we don’t see enough on this show. Whatever the reason, I thought the scenes where she boredly “coached” that hybrid chick through breaking her sire bond were pretty darn hilarious.
Not for this chick though, I imagine . . .
And I was disappointed at the end of the episode, when I learned that she was in CAHOOTS (love that cheesy word), with the detestable BOO RADLEY. And no, the fact that she begged for “Tyler not to get hurt,” did little to endear her in my eyes. You know what they say, you lie down with creepers, you start giving people the creeps.
So, I hope they redeem this chick soon . . . and not just by making her die a dramatic death, as they tend to do on this show.
Speaking of Boo . . .
Shane, Shane, we know your name “It’s Silas Professor Boo Radley.”
Evil eyebrows at work again . . .
So, now we have a reason to keep Boo Radley alive . . . umm yay?
So, basically his whole connection to this thing is that he can make Bonnie Bennett regain her witchy powers, so that she can help find the “cure” to vampirism . . . because apparently the Map Tattoo and pretty stake aren’t enough.
Wait a minute . . . is THAT A HUMMINGBIRD ON HIS SHOULDER?
Ugh! So, in other words, we’ve yoked a character I don’t like to another character I don’t like. And had that same first yucky character (Boo) taint a character I actually DO like (Hayley).
GO AWAY SHANE!
So, much for that whole “not murdering your sister” thing, huh, Jer Bear?
Things get pretty tense when Elena finds her brother at the Salvatore mansion, all bloody and stuff, from killing That Guy. Long story short, she vamps out, he stabs her neck . . . (perhaps as payback for the time when she killed him last week). Matt comes to save the day, which was nice of him, I guess, since Elena’s saved him quite a few times.
All kidding aside, I thought the scene was pretty nicely done, in the sense that it was TRULY shocking to see Jeremy revert to a character this depraved, almost on the drop of a dime.
At the end of the episode, Jeremy plans to leave town, so he won’t, you know, kill his sister and stuff. But Savior Matt convinces him to stay, and promises to “watch out for him.” Personally, I think that’s a terrible idea. Matt Donovan couldn’t “watch out” for a half-empty beer keg, and he’s supposed to prevent Jeremy from murdering all the undead in Mystic Falls?
It will make for a good story though, I guess . . .
And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for (if you are a Delena fan, at least)
So, with Jeremy staying at La Casa Gilbert, Brush-with-Death Elena finds herself without a home. And though she could probably just check into a hotel, or stay with Bonnie or Caroline, she decides to make an already awkward situation that much more awkward, by moving into the Salvatore House, with the guy she dumped, and the guy she wants to bone, both under the same roof.
It’s like that old 70s show Three’s Company, only with lots of biting, and less Suzanne Somers . . .
But then Stefan decides to move out, thereby giving Elena and Damon about 20 free rooms, not to mention a ton of bathrooms, in which to screw at their leisure. I LOVE IT!
Damon and Elena sit by the fire, where they’ve had many an intense conversation in the past. She makes a really good point, when she notes how all her so-called friends have been judging her, telling her she’s not as good of a person, as a vampire, and trying to cure her of the person she’s become.
But it seems like, finally, whereas Elena spent the first few weeks of her vampirism mired in self-loathing, she’s now coming to terms with who she’s become, and is OK with it. It’s like she said to Stefan in an earlier scene. “You don’t have to love me like this,” because, at least it’s implied “I love myself.”
Who would have thought it would take vampirism to convert Elena into a role model for positive teen self esteem? I think that’s what Damon means, when he tells her that he’s never seen her more alive. Things get romantic and sticky sweet, when the pair decide to relive their EPIC Mystic Falls dance. Only whereas last time, the pair weren’t allowed to touch one another, this time, the dance ends with a dip and a passionate kiss.
And then they pretty much bone one another’s brains out . . .
In short, it was F*&KING AMAZING, after 3 years to finally watch these two F*&K. LONGEST FOREPLAY EVER. And while certain “other things,” happened during the scene to taint it’s “purity.” I choose to view it the way the person who made this video did . . .
HALLELUJAH!
Yes, yes, I know, the REAL SEX SCENE was inter cut by a high strung Caroline and smug Stefan chalking Elena’s newfound vampire urges up to a “sire bond,” but I’m trying not to let that get to me.
Blah, blah, blah, interrupting my Delena sex blah . . .
To me, chalking up Elena’s inability to drink blood from a bag to her supernatural connection with Damon, as opposed to her status as a vampire, is simply replacing one far-fetched mythology for another. It doesn’t change things for me. Many vampire tales, the TVD book series included, have posited the “blood bond,” as a reason for closeness between vampires and their mates. And this supernatural anomaly hasn’t managed to foil the genuine closeness of the couple, in those situations. And I hope the writers won’t cop out, and allow it to do so here.
Aside from which, this so-called sire bond between Damon and Elena, is clearly very different from the one Klaus has with his hybrids, as Hayley explains, earlier in the episode. Tyler and company yoked to Klaus, not because they wanted to get into his pants (though some of them might have), but because they “appreciated,” his freeing them from the pain of monthly transformation. And yet, they must not have “appreciated” him all that much, because if they did, they wouldn’t be so intent to break the sire bond, in the first place.
“HAHA! Gotcha writers . . .”
Elena “appreciates” Damon too. But she does so because he’s been accepting of her new self, when no one else she cares about has. She appreciates how he loves her, unconditionally, whether she’s human or vampire, pristine or monstrous. And she also appreciates him because well . . . he’s hot and sexy. Let’s be honest.
So, if Stefan wants to make himself feel better about the breakup, by chalking it up to a once-in-a-lifetime siring, good for him.
But I for one, hope that Elena and Damon see this through to the end, sire bond, or no sire bond. And that, if such a bond does exist, that Elena finds a way to break it, so that she can prove to herself that her love for Damon is pure, just as Book Elena and Sookie Stackhouse have done before her . . .
But hey, enough about all this mythology crap, Delena fans. Let’s just bask in the glory of the fact that our SHIP FINALLY HAD SEX. HOORAY! Next time on TVD . . .
Until then . . .
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