Vampire Diaries: Rose

“It’s Elena.”

This was not the best episode ever, and it had some glaring inconsistencies, but the Massive Information Dump pretty much set up the rest of the season and contributed a huge amount of (relevant) lore to the world of the Vampire Diaries.

We got so much new information about the Originals and about what Elena is (and why she matters) that this almost feels like a new series with a wider scope, which should help VD segue into its third year without too many everyone’s-at-college growing pains. Interestingly, VD also finally went back to high school in this episode—I had started to wonder if this entire season would be the summer between junior and senior year, and next year senior year itself.

In the meantime, though, we’ve met two new vamps: Rose the Rogue Vampire, who has spent 500 years on the lam, but is now sans best friend, and Elijah the Original, who is so superpowerful that even a giant coat rack won’t kill him. Elijah wants Elena, because she’s a Petrova doppelganger, which means that her blood will break the sun/moon curse that the moonstone keeps in place.

Rose wanted to trade Elena for her liberty, which is a fascinating way to introduce this new scope: it’s sort of like Elena got kidnapped from a small-town soap opera and landed in an epic narrative that spans continents and millennia. If I’m right, and this geographic, temporal, and personal widening is part of the larger plan to keep this show interesting post-high school, I hope it never loses its real strength: the interplay between characters that we love.

Some of those characters were a bit weird tonight, though. Writer Brian Young has written some great VD episodes, from “Isobel” to “The Turning Point” (my conversion episode), but I really didn’t like Caroline’s fear when Damon grabbed her in the hallway—she’s kicked his ass before, and seeing her again reduced to a scared girl really didn’t appeal to me, even though her getting ready while he watched was a nice way to indicate that they’re becoming closer. Elena, too, seemed more complainy and weak right after her kidnapping than she usually is, even if she did bounce back quickly. Plus, I’m a little confused about Bonnie’s statement to Jeremy that he and Elena are blood relatives. Did Elena not tell her best friend that she was adopted? Did Jeremy not feel like that might matter for the spell?

Damon, however, was right on point. Last week, Paul Wesley did an incredible job weeping his way through a real break-up with Elena. This week it was Ian Somerhalder’s turn to make me cry when he told Elena that he loved her, kissed her on the forehead, and then made her forget. (Tragic sexy vampire, do you need a hug? I’ve got your hug right here.) I think Damon did this not just for his own “selfish” reasons, but to try to reconcile himself with Stefan, even if Stefan never knows. Erasing Elena’s memories of his declaration is his own way of giving some sort of closure to their non-relationship, which will help him team up with Stefan to keep her safe. Stefan may be willing to die for Elena, but Damon is willing to live in unhappiness for her.

More development of the potential Bonnie/Jeremy romance, which I still think is strange. And what’s going on with Caroline and Tyler Lockwood? Caroline, you can do so much better. Really. Although, if Caroline hooks up with Tyler and then the Salvatore brothers decide to take him down, it could be a spectacular vampire smackdown.

Bites:

• Caroline: “That werewolf road leads straight to vampire boulevard.”

• Damon: “Alaric sure likes his weapons. What the hell is it?”
Stefan: “It’s a vervain bomb or grenade launcher or something.”

• Damon: “Can we not do the whole road-trip bonding thing? The cliché of it all makes me itch.”
Stefan: “Oh, c’mon Damon. We both know that you being in this car has absolutely nothing to do with me, anyway.”
Damon: “And the elephant in the room lets out a mighty roar.”

• Damon: “Keep it up, Stefan. I can step out of helping as easily as I stepped in.”

• Stefan: “I can’t think of a better reason to die.” Aww.

• Damon: “What I’m about to say is probably the most selfish thing I’ve ever said in my life…I just have to say it once. You need to hear it. I love you, Elena. And it’s because I love you that I can’t be selfish with you. It’s why you can’t know this. I don’t deserve you, but my brother does. [Kiss] God, I wish you didn’t have to forget this. But you do.”


And Pieces:

• Rose is a sucker for bad boys. There’s a bad-boy vamp in Mystic Falls who could certainly use some cold comfort.

• Although evidently Stefan had a wild phase. Did we know that? How bad was he? (Like, Angelus bad?)

• One last quibble: the action sequence in the old North Carolina house was horribly staged and shot.

• Bonnie’s magic message was like supernatural texting.


Three and a half out of four roaring elephants.

(Screencap thanks to http://vampirediariesweb.com/)