Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Vampire Diaries Season Three: Episode Twelve: The Ties That Bind

Since Stefan stole the coffins from Klaus, Bonnie has been having terrible dreams.  Her latest dreams lead her to believe that the key to opening the mystery fourth coffin lies with Abbey her long absent mother. This leads to an all girl road trip, though Damon does initially try to tag along.   Once there they learn that Abbey has raised the son of one of her lovers, though she had no problem walking out on Bonnie.  It seems that Abby was the one who initially imprisoned Micheal to save Elena at the behest of her best friend, Elena's mother.  Alright taking a pause to point out that for as strong as the Bennett line supposedly is, they spend all their time serving the White women that they are friends with.  Even Emily the strongest of them all served Katherine.  Would it really be so hard to have one strong independent Black female character on this show? As it is, I already believe that Abby is dead witch walking because it seems that the CW has a problem with allowing more than one Black female witch to be a part of the cast for any extended period of time. In fact, Abby will be lucky if she avoids becoming snack food for Caroline.

Speaking of Caroline, Tyler still feels that he has the power to make things work between them and so he shows up at her home to apologize.  Unlike Elena, Caroline does not go into immediate forgiveness mode.  When Caroline expresses disbelief in his ability to change, Bill Forbes enters the room and shares his plan to do yet another round of aversion therapy.  I don't understand why the writers don't understand how gross it is to have a gay man suggest, let alone participate in leading an aversion therapy session. It's Bill's contention that if Tyler can change forms at will painlessly, he will have broken his sire bond with Klaus.  He believes the fact that Tyler feels beholden to Klaus for taking the pain away of transition.

Tyler, Bill and Caroline head over to the old Lockwood plantation where Tyler is secured to the bars by metal chains, shirtless (yes, that's one thing I can thank the CW for)  Tyler says that he has to break every bone in his body in order to shift and he is reluctant to face the pain.  When Caroline begins to protest as he screams in pain, they both order her out of the room. Sure enough, Tyler does shift, breaks his bonds and ends up mauling Bill almost to death.


When Bill is brought into the hospital, he saved from death with an injection of vampire blood that Dr. Fell has previously stolen from Damon.  Alaric believes that this is proof of Fell sharing her secrets with him and so he reveals that not only is he a witch hunter, but that he possesses a ring which renders him impervious to death at the hands of an immortal.  She immediately reaches for it an attempts to take it off his hand.  Alaric has known this woman all of five seconds and the potential to get a bit of booty is enough for him to spill his secrets.  For a moment, it was like he switched brains with Elena and inherited her stupidity.

 As all things planned by Elena, the big plan for a sweet family reunion turns terribly wrong when Stefan shows up and is knocked unconscious by Jamie.  It seems that he was compelled to kill himself if Klaus was not given the location of the coffins.  Abby kidnaps Bonnie while Jamie ties Elena up.  When Jamie and Bonnie meet up with Klaus' hybrid.  Bonnie refuses to give up the location of the coffins initially and says that there is more at stake than just their relationship.  Really?  What's at stake there?  What sense does it make to continually provoke an original vampire?  What chance does Stefan have of outsmarting him?  Bonnie finally tells where the coffins are but not before she warns Damon who removes the fourth coffin.

After knocking Jamie out, (yes, Elena had an action moment) Elena and Stefan have a heart to heart.  He recognizes that she has changed and grown stronger, and she points out that she was forced to so.  Uh huh, yeah, yeah, I don't see what he sees and I still think she does not have the sense God gave cabbage.  Even though she knocked out Jamie, Stefan still takes the time to tell her that she cannot go running off by herself and Elena acknowledges that he is correct but we all know that by the next episode she will be heavily engaged in yet another ridiculous plan.  Elena finally tells Stefan that she kissed Damon and he is visibly upset  and says that she is better than the both of them. I have to agree with him there, but only because Elena is not a mass murderer.

When Stefan returns home, Damon gives him the bad news about the coffin.  Things are fine between them until Damon asks him how Elena is doing and Stefan sucker punches Damon.  I guess moving on your brothers girl is not cool.  Damon stands up and reveals that he is in possession of a stake.  Finally, someone had the good sense to return Klaus' coffins with one of his siblings alive.  He chose to awaken Elijah whose opening words were to ask Klaus what he had missed.