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Vampire Diaries: Disturbing Behavior

“So you’re not, like, switching Salvatores, are you?”

Episodes like this make me worry about the fate of the Vampire Diaries. No show should be this consistently, persistently, wonderful. They’re setting the bar way too high. There should, at the very least, be some sort of limit on how many jaw-drops the show demands of its viewers.

I’m not complaining, of course—although the sheer volume of quotable moments (and entire scenes) makes reviewing this episode nearly impossible. I really just want to type out each line of dialogue accompanied by a smiley and a few dozen exclamation points. As that’s neither feasible nor particularly interesting, I’ll just point out the need-to-knows and OMGs.

Caroline has inherited her parents’ best qualities: her mother’s strong will and ability to bounce back from even the most difficult situations, and her father’s ability to control desire, no matter how strong. Sheriff Forbes realized last season just how wonderful Caroline is (and Caroline’s own maturation has certainly helped).

Daddy Forbes, on the other hand…What a jerk. And, sadly, a powerful jerk. Immune to compulsion, even without vervain, Caroline’s dad is a rather considerable force to be reckoned with—far more than the impotent, corrupted, infiltrated council. He’s the ultimate hypocrite: unable to see that his daughter is actually a powerful, capable, friendly, and generally awesome young woman. Damon played up the “gay” parallels, and it’s nice to see VD address that idea in a way that only affects one character’s reaction to vampires. The parallel isn’t forced, either, as Caroline is certainly a good vampire.

Perhaps I’m just a bit too gung-ho about my adoration of Caroline, but I was really rooting for Damon to kill Bill Forbes. Then, once I saw the fight between Damon and Caroline, I realized that was a much cooler solution. I wish Caroline were given more chances to beat Damon up. I could watch that for hours. Maybe there could be hot oil of some kind.

If Caroline could beat some sense into Damon, that would be even better. The centerpiece of this episode was his vacillation between wanting to be the good brother and knowing that, by doing so, he is possibly intruding on Elena’s future happiness with Stefan. As I understand it (and I am obviously a bit biased), Damon wants to be good despite his urges to cause trouble and mayhem. He finds the possibility to be good when presented with the possibility of being with Elena, but he is resistant to actually being with Elena, because he doesn’t want to betray his brother or push Elena further than she wants to go. Plus, he’s an impulsive guy who likes to push people away just when they offer sound advice—hence the killing of Alaric. So Damon uses his grief, his anger at Alaric pointing out the risks, and his discomfort with taking on Stefan’s domesticated role as an excuse to go bad. Again. With Katherine. Woo-hoo!

Katherine is in the odd position of being the one person who seems to know everything: Stefan’s plan to make Rebekah want him, the reason Klaus’s hybridization isn’t working, Damon’s dissatisfaction with being the good brother, the importance of the hunter who has been tracking Klaus and Rebekah—and she has the necklace that Klaus wants so badly.

Klaus and Rebekah are not my favorite villains. They’re sort of…boring? Sure, they’re intense and hardcore and beautiful, but they seem to do a lot of lounging in warehouses eating people beautifully. In other words, they seem to have been in the avant-garde of sexily louche vampires: Ann Rice to the tune of drum-and-bass. I’m more interested in watching dissipated semi-reformed serial killers make chili.

Having said that, Klaus’s (and Rebekah’s, by proxy) primary function is to cause trouble. By episode’s end, nearly everyone is back in Mystic Falls (I think). Klaus and Rebekah are inches closer to finding out the Elena is still alive, Bonnie’s witchy power and Anna’s secret intel are doing something, Alaric has infiltrated the council in anger at Damon’s reckless neck-breaking. Bill Forbes looked poised to leave town, but I suspect that he and the mysterious hunter played by Sebastian Roché will team up to defeat—or try to defeat—some set of vampires, if not all vampires. Or something. Katherine and Damon might be leaving, but they can’t be gone for too long, right? Unless they’re searching for the hunter Michael, to bring him back to Mystic Falls…oooh. What a wonderful idea that is.

Bites and Pieces:

• Klaus: “You wore trousers so women today could wear nothing.”

• Damon: “I actually happen to love mind control myself.”

• Rebekah: “I am not a brat!” Shouting that doesn’t really prove her case, does it?

• Damon: “So, Bill, I hear you’re into the whole daddy-daughter-vampire-torture thing.”

• Damon: “He threatened to out me. I won’t get started on the irony of that.”

• Katherine: “I saved you from Hilda the High-Voodoo priestess.”

• Damon: “I’m stronger than you, little girl.”
Caroline: “And I’m angrier!”

• Caroline: “Just admit it, Elena! You are attracted to him in all of his bad-brother glory.”

• Alaric: “So who is looking after the actual people?”

• Bonnie has returned, Jeremy is happy, and Anna is still haunting him. Congratulations to Jeremy, who really manned up when he admitted to Bonnie what was going on. By the way, what is going on with this plot and the threat from the other side?

• The question came up in the comments last week of whether Klaus knew Damon back in the Chicago days. The “previously on” included Klaus saying to Damon, “I’ve heard of you…”

I tried to be choosy with some of my favorite quotes, but I definitely missed some of the best ones. Add your favorites in the comments!

Four out of four post-mortem, morning-after screwdrivers.

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

8 comments:

  1. Your first paragraph made me laugh. And I would absolutely have gone with the same opening quote.

    This show is so much freaking fun. It isn't enough that the brothers are switching places; they have to continue showing how Damon is struggling with it. "Killing" Alaric, fighting with Caroline, pushing Elena away -- he's just fascinating. Could he maybe push Elena away *after* they have a reckless and violent affair, though? :)

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  2. How many times can Katherine get me to scream at the top of my lungs. The writers are so sly about her switcheroos I never see it coming.

    Looks like Stefan is going to be in rehab sooner than expected as his time with Klaus seems to be over.

    Caroline makes me happy. That is all.

    Four out of four pots of secret family recipe chilli.

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  3. This was a great episode. I adore Caroline.

    My favorite quote
    Caroline: Drink my blood, it will heal you.
    Bill: Hesitates and starts to refuse
    Caroline: Oh, grow up! Forces blood into Bill

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  4. Katherine at the end!! That was a great bit; I was not expecting that. She literally had everyone fooled. And now our two bad boys are back in mystic falls! Did everyone see the preview for next week..? Exciting =)!

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  5. This episode was awesome! And Billie I absolutely agree with you about the reckless violent affair :)

    My favorite quote this episode was when Katherine said "Well, this is creepy" or something of that sort when she came up to save Stefan. It was off screen but the way she delivered it was just really great.

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  6. One of my favorite quotes was the dialogue between Elena and Damon, followed by the Lockwood's party scene when Damon sees all the chili in the world, hahaha:
    Elena: "It's an old family recipe, okay?"
    Damon: "I knew your old family. They made sucky chili."
    I loved every single second of this episode for "oh so many" reasons: Anna, seeing her is so cool, but talking and touching her, wow Jeremy that must be really amazing. katherine: perfect timing, perfect lines, perfect acting. Damon: I love him even when he's bad, or espacilly when he is bad - can't decide. And of course, Damon getting his ass kicked by Caroline fight, followed by his saying: I love girl's fight.
    Four out of four cargo trucks carrying badass vampires in it.

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  7. I kind of wish Caroline and Damon would just get together already.

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  8. "I kind of wish Caroline and Damon would just get together already."

    They did: in the first episodes of first season. Admittedly it was a long time ago, but they sucked (ha!) as a couple. Caroline was a boring, bitchy bad girl and Damon was killing people left right and centre.

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