There were quite a few moments this week when various characters, especially Matt and Stefan, had the opportunity to look nonplussed. And they had good reason: how are we supposed to react to Lily’s history with Julian? To Julian himself? To Caroline’s situation? It’s all madness. Madness, I say!
Of course, it’s always madness on TVD. The problem is, this madness seems to be taking its time. Each of the three main plots boiled down to wheel-spinning. All those spun wheels might be setting us up for something—and I hope they’re setting us up for the flashforwards—but this episode left me wishing more had happened. It felt, as Damon said, pointless. With pie.
Take the B-plot: Caroline and Alaric trying to figure out if she’s pregnant. This story was all about delay. Valerie dropped the bombshell last week, but rather than letting Caroline work out what this news means for her, the TVD powers that be decided to spend 45 minutes teasing out whether or not the news was really news. (It is.) This plot, in other words, ended exactly where it started: Caroline, pregnant with Alaric’s twins. It felt pointless. Or, as Damon said: “Pointless, with pumpkin pie.”
More did happen in the A-plot. Stefan’s fake-out with the “Martha Stewart strategy” for convincing his mother to kill Julian started off weird (family reunion) and got weirder (him tying her to a chair while lecturing her on her own history of being with abusive men). The result, though, is that Lily is now playing for Team Salvatore, which is where she should have been in the first place.
The C-plot was Lily-adjacent. Julian tethered his life to hers, which made Enzo’s desire to kill him deeply ironic. That Enzo didn’t succeed—since the sword only kills vampires when the stone is in it, like a hard drive of death—is just dumb luck. This vamp-slaying sword is smallish (evoking the great line from Buffy’s seventh season: “Scythe does matter”) but deadly, and appears to be the same knife the mysterious “Miss Stabby Pants” is using in the flashforwards.
It’s those flashforwards that are keeping me going with this show. I’m so curious to see who Miss Stabby Pants is. Valerie? Lily? Some woman who dropped off the radar a while ago but might come back? Someone we haven’t met yet? Lots of possibilities to ponder while we eat our pointless pie.
Bites and Pieces:
• Dallas?! Caroline’s in Dallas?
• Damon had a pet turkey?! A pet turkey?
• I wonder what’s up with the humans in Mystic Falls. Why would the heretics feed them but not feed on them?
• The flashbacks were clunky this week. The dialogue and the acting were both quite stilted.
Sorry for such a grumpy review, guys. This episode just didn’t do anything for me, but it is setting up some potentially fun plots down the road. So:
Two out of four pet turkeys. Yum!
Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)
So Lily, Damon and Stefan are now teamed up to murder the guy that took their father's place. Not working out any trauma at all there.
ReplyDeleteIf this episode was another attempt to make us like Lily or make the Heretic plot work, no and no. It did make me like Enzo more. And as always, I loved Damon being funny, angry, hurt, and matricidal. "Did you come back to get your dish?" made me roar, I'm not sure why. And I loved that little Damon had a pet turkey.
Why did they do flashbacks by candlelight? I think they wanted it to look realistic, but it just looked weird.
I'm really enjoying the Alaric Caroline baby thing. No idea why. It's so random. Maybe that's it.
Loved your review, as always. :)
Lucky Gemini coven to have Valerie there to uncloak the twins... otherwise Caroline might have given birth and not know.... Grr Arggrr
ReplyDeleteI thought maybe the mystery woman in the flashforwards was going to be Elena, somehow revived and out for blood. But Nina seems dead set against returning, so I guess not. Hmmm...
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