Vampire Diaries: Founder’s Day

“I came to this town wanting to destroy it. Tonight, I found myself wanting to protect it.”

Last week, I made a few predictions. What I didn’t count on was this show’s willingness to kill off so many people. Sure, I should have known: some of the early cast members have already died, after all, and in the course of one season, the vampires and the secret council have nearly destroyed the entire town (some with the goal of saving it). But still...color me impressed. Either way, let’s run down what I got right, and what I got very, very wrong:

We got way more than one death. Anna, The Mayor, and all the Tomb Vampires are certainly dead. The Mayor is no big loss, although I do wonder about his werewolfism (I’m just assuming that’s what it is.). He must have known that he’s a werewolf—wouldn’t his hackles perk up when he learns about “a frequency humans can’t hear”? The bigger question is whether he knew that his son was following in his father’s paw-steps.

Anna’s death actually felt like an appropriate ending for her character: she was in so much pain over her mother’s death that she finally agreed to turn Jeremy. For Anna, death might have been a release. Then again, she obviously didn’t want to die: despite being so old, she has something of a young outlook on the world. (Do vampires sort of retain the maturity they had when they were turned in this universe?)

We got way more than one cliffhanger maybe-death, and one maybe-turning. Caroline’s injuries from the car accident sound fairly awful, but I assume that she’ll live. After all, Mystic Falls is running out of people. Uncle John seems doomed: that finger-slicing thing was gruesome, to say the least. And Katherine isn’t known for her mercy. Jeremy, meanwhile—well, what is his plan, exactly? Won’t he need a live vampire at some point, even with the vial of Anna’s blood? Impracticality aside, his pain was so obvious, and so obviously manageable from the perspective of no-longer-a-teenager, which just made it more poignant. Yes, life sucks and is painful and awful. People die, and they go away, and they lie. But there are also kittens and chocolate and other goodies. Jeremy just isn’t in a place where he can see that: he wants to die so that he can live without emotion.

That’s what I got right. Well, sort of right. What I got wrong, though: I predicted one tearful goodbye that felt permanent but wouldn’t be. Nada. I also predicted that Jeremy and Elena would reunite and re-discover their affection. But as Jeremy said, this isn’t just something that goes away: he feels her betrayal too deeply. She lied to him and stole his pain. Damon and Jeremy had a touching talk, but it didn’t feel like a goodbye—at least not to Damon. If it had felt like a goodbye to Damon, I don’t think he would have left Jeremy alone. Damon has come too far.

I also predicted that ‘Katherine’ would be the last word. I was off by about 40 syllables. I’m tempted to class this as something that I got completely wrong, though, as I really didn’t see the Elena/Katherine fake-out coming. I was surprised that Elena kissed Damon, but it was so very darn sexy that I thought maybe she just got caught up in the moment. Even when she grabbed the knife, I still wasn’t sure. It wasn’t until she cut off all of Sark’s fingers that I realized Elena would probably not have the nerve to do something so gory with her aunt and brother in the house (shudder).

Speaking of fake-outs: Bonnie. I haven’t talked much about Bonnie so far in these reviews. I can’t really get a handle on her character, and the fact that she got her magic PhD off-screen just makes her more impenetrable. She’s trying to do what’s right, but her vision is skewed by her grandmother’s death. She also seems to be on something of a power-trip: just because she is Elena’s best friend (and not a very good one, lately) doesn’t give her the right to kill vampires. She’s enough of a loose cannon that I wasn’t sure if she would let the Salvatores out of the burning basement. And I think she did it to prove something to herself, not because it was the right thing to do.

How could I get this far without talking about Damon and Stefan and Elena? Their love triangle, and its uneasy resolution, got a bit lost in all the bloodshed. But even though Stefan was grumpy at his brother (really, that’s his predominant emotion, isn’t it?) he was still willing to run into a burning building to save him, possibly risking his own life. Damon is finally realizing what we realized last week: he’s opening himself up. Turns out, he’s a protector-type. Opening himself up to Katherine-as-Elena, though, is only adding fuel to a whole ‘nother fire.

And that kiss? Damon wanted it, but he looked very uncertain as he walked away. Is he willing to hurt his brother? That’s one mystery they’ll have to answer in Season Two. The mystery I’m more worried about is the fall-out from Katherine’s visit: will Elena think Damon turned Jeremy? Will the town think Elena killed Uncle John? What will happen to Elena’s aunt? Bonnie’s threat to “take down” Damon if he “spilled so much as one drop of innocent blood” is pretty much foreshadowing writ large. Damon, watch out!


Bites:

• Stefan: “It’s only real when it comes from your desire to do the right thing, when there’s nothing in it for you.”

• The Sheriff: “You want to use our town as bait?!”

• Damon: “I’m a vampire. What’s your excuse?”

• Elena: “I’m asking you not to.”
John: “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Elena: “As my father, it should.”

• Damon: “I saw her killed. I was watching her, and all I wanted was to help her.”

• Damon: “Life sucks either way. At least if you’re a vampire, you don’t have to feel bad about it if you don’t want to.”


And Pieces:

• Damon inserting himself into Elena’s line of sight. Cheeky vampire.

• Elena confronted her bio-dad, but she didn’t seem to have very high expectations that they would suddenly bond. A lifetime of hating Uncle John, and an evil vampire mother, will do that to a girl.

• Was Bonnie using Elena as an ‘anchor’ in the Latin Anti-Fire Spell?

Four out of four silly parades

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(Season One, Episode Twenty-Two)

(Thanks to vampire-diaries.net for the screencap!)