I've realized that this show has a lot of plot. No matter how simple an episode seems, there's always so much that happens. I think part of the problem is that it's all so exposition-heavy. Lots of talking, lots of explaining, lots of stuff. I'm going to try to get everything down that was important. Here goes...
Katherine is happy being in Elena's body, since she now has everything she wants in life. Caroline is a bit suspicious of how cheerful Elena is behaving, since she thinks she should be more brokenhearted about Damon. Caroline suggests to Elena and Bonnie that they attend the Bitter Ball, to cleanse themselves and move on to a new chapter of their lives. Bonnie, despite being in a happy relationship, agrees to attend with her two single friends.
Stefan discovers Aaron's body, confronts Damon about it, and realizes that Damon has gone off the deep end. Stefan finds Enzo and tells him to stay way from his brother. He threatens to kill him if he doesn't get out of town. Predictably, this isn't very effective. Damon and Enzo want to find Wes and kill him, as he is next on their Augustine Hit List. Meanwhile, we see good ol' Wes continuing his sadistic experiments, even without Aaron's funding. A new woman (apparently named Sloane) enters and offers Wes additional funding. She also hands over some blood to analyze.
In order to track down Wes, Damon and Enzo need a witch. They kidnap Jeremy to force Bonnie to help. Bonnie doesn't have her witch powers anymore, so she decides to go for the help of a fellow student, whom she had noticed levitating a pen in class. Stefan, meanwhile, calls Elena to tell her about Damon and Enzo. Katherine, having no idea who Enzo is, asks Nadia to find out from Matt.
This becomes a problem when Tyler witnesses Nadia compelling Matt for information. Tyler tells Matt to look out, and Matt later comes to Tyler and says that the whole thing was a misunderstanding - Nadia just wanted to talk about Katherine. Tyler seems a bit concerned, but he's willing to accept this explanation. However, we then see Matt get into a car with Nadia, who threateningly leaves it unclear what she plans on doing to him. However, we do hear Matt figure out the truth. Now, at least one person knows that Katherine is in Elena's body. Too bad that one person is compel-able once he's got the vervain out of his system...
So, Stefan shows up at the Bitter Ball, because "Elena" asked him to. The two of them dance, and flirt a bit, and Caroline swoops over to pull Elena away from that situation, because what the hell is she up to? Katherine, because of this, suspects that there might be something between Stefan and Caroline. At this point, Damon and Bonnie show up. They tell everyone that Enzo has Jeremy, and that he'll kill Elena's poor little brother unless Bonnie helps them track down Wes.
Katherine, pretending to be Elena, acts all upset and weepy around Stefan. Bonnie goes to the girl from her class, but the girl freaks out and says she has no way of controlling her powers. Bonnie tries to talk her through a locator spell for finding Wes. This witch is no expert, and she's having a very hard time doing the locator spell. "Elena" and Stefan go to find Jeremy, since Katherine recognized the Whitmore House from a picture Enzo sent. Enzo, impatient, nearly kills Jeremy by suffocating him, but Stefan and Katherine show up in time. Katherine performs mouth-to-mouth on Jeremy, saving his life, while Stefan fights off Enzo. Damon shows up, declares that the locator spell worked, and Enzo and Damon leave to go find Wes. Stefan tells his brother to not bother coming back.
Stefan admits to "Elena" that at first he was waiting for Damon to do something to mess up his relationship with Elena, but that after awhile he began to enjoy the person Damon had become when he was with Elena. Despite the fact that "Elena" says she will never forgive Damon for threatening Jeremy, she still agrees to help Stefan save Damon, if that's what he wants.
When Damon and Enzo go to find Wes, they instead find themselves surrounded by a group of Travelers. Wes injects Damon with something. Later, Damon and Enzo wake up. Wes and the Travelers are long gone. Damon goes to free a vampire from where he had been tied up by Wes, but an uncontrollable blood lust overcomes him, and he drinks from the vampire. Enzo is horrified by Damon's new thirst for vampire blood, and admits that they might have a serious problem.
Okay. See what I mean about a lot of stuff happening? And it was all important stuff! I guess you could praise the episode for not having a lot of filler? But on the other hand to me it just seems like they should slow things down. Take a breather, and spend more time sussing out all of these elements. Since that summary was so long, I'll be brief in listing some pros and cons.
Pros:
Matt and Tyler's stuff. While I'm a little annoyed at Tyler's whiny attitude, it's definitely justified in terms of his character and in terms of the plot. And I love this new and terrible twist where Nadia has Matt, and Tyler knows nothing. Honestly, this is the first time Nadia has seemed like a proper threat to me.
Hints of Steroline? I love that Katherine thinks Caroline might be a threat to her relationship with Stefan. I also just in general love Caroline Forbes. She thinks her friend Elena might be acting on rash impulses where Stefan is concerned, and so she pulls her aside and says nicely, with no hint of accusation, that she might want to think about what she's doing. She tries to have a positive outlook about her own life as well, and seems to be truly taking a break from romance. She's just delightful.
Stefan's speech to Katherine/Elena at the end about Damon. Because their bromance brings me great joy. I just love how far Stefan is willing to let his own happiness fall if it means his brother is happy.
Cons:
Damon is actually wiling to let Jeremy die. Alright, so I just don't buy this one bit. This show has been wildly inconsistent with the whole "humanity switch" business, so I'm a bit unclear. Has Damon turned his humanity off? Or no? Because... it seems like he's acting really bitter and hurt, and yet he's willing to throw away Jeremy's life? I almost would have liked him to come in a little earlier and see Jeremy when he wasn't breathing. If we could have had some indication that he was worried about Jeremy, and that he had just been bluffing about killing him... just, I don't know. Damon has flipped too entirely to evil-mode for my taste.
Bonnie's new witch friend. Just... she was annoying. The entire plot was annoying. Like, what kind of stupid coincidence is that? Bonnie happens to run across another witch right when they need one? All I can say is, I hope they have a good direction to go with this.
The Bitter Ball. I really think this show needs to give up on the idea of using school dances as a setting for their drama. I mean, I get it, it's a chance to get all of these hot people into really awesome clothes. But really, it's being overused at this point. The dance really didn't serve any function to the plot at all. It didn't matter that they were at a dance. It didn't further anything.
I could keep going, but I'll wrap it up there, since I did promise to be brief. Honestly, I think this was an overcrowded episode. Like many of the episodes are on this show. And I think Damon's entire arc right now is bad. And I want Elena back, because as much as I love Katherine, she's not fun when she has to play nice. I just... I want more Stefan being a saint, and I want Stefan's love and devotion to be the one to bring Damon back from the edge. Please? Pretty please?
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment
I'd really appreciate hearing what you think!