So, last season ended
pretty dramatically – let’s see if this season undoes everything that happened.
And now we open with a double freak out – teenagers in
the woods not actually being murdered (and Sherriff Liz Forbes being rather
bored) looking all safe. Hah, no they all get mauled.
Now we have to go to Elena (alas) who is now getting a
medical degree and training to be a doctor (wouldn’t that have required her to
have attended at least one class in her entire academic life?) she’s also providing
is with a vast info-dumpy voice over to recap the last season.
Alaric’s back and is a vampire and now a college
professor as well (one of Elena’s no less) because of various plot reasons
(but, I think, mainly because Cult
fell through). Mystic Falls is still a mystical free zone – including vampires.
Matt is working out (and I recognised his trainer so that’s a new character)
and Jeremy apparently making out with a woman which troubles Elena (while many
sisters would be weirded out thinking of their baby brother’s sex life,
remember Elena had no problem with under-aged Jeremy and Vicki who was older
than Elena) so I predict lots of angst-sex is happening there. Stefan has
become a mechanic (seriously? When did Stefan pick up those skills in between
killing people and moping?) though Elena thinks he’s looking for a necromancer
or medium.
Tyler’s in college with Elena, Caroline has dropped out
and is lurking around Mystic Falls unable to enter. Caroline is obsessing on
breaking the spell on Mystic Falls and/or maybe getting Damon and Bonnie back
and upset that Elena isn’t more upset about Damon (ok, Caroline, you need to
make up your mind whether you like Damon or hate him because this is getting
weird). Caroline’s also spending lots of time with her mother which is starting
to creep Liz out – but she gets away when she hears of the two dead teenagers
with neck wounds – why it looks like a vampire attack (both teenagers were POC
so are we sure it wasn’t Caroline,
returning to her old feeding habits?)
Elena is dealing with all of this to drink some kind of potion and spend her time with Damon – apparently there and in the flesh.
To class in which Alaric is teaching about the occult –
why Elena who wants to be a doctor is in this class is a little beyond me (or
why a vampire feels the need to take a class on the occult for that matter) but
she’s actually in class so I suppose we should give some credit. Liv is also in
class because… reasons? Why are Luke and Liv in college with Elena? For added
bonus, Alaric is very much resisting the urge to eat his class.
Elena catches up with Luke after class because he’s been
supplying her with the potion she took, against his coven’s orders (as I
recall, their coven kills law breakers) which lets her see Damon. He also made
Alaric his daylight bracelet. And you wondered what everyone would do without
Bonnie to serve their every whim? Why they’ve got a new serving witch!
Time to do an angst round up. Caroline is upset Stefan hasn’t called her or said goodbye. Jeremy is dealing with his angst with computer games and casual sex (where do these people get their money from, again?) and not doing anything else – certainly not being a Hunter (magic-less town = nothing to hunt). Matt is part of some kind of defence force which looks like a creepy militia without guns that the town has set up AFTER it became magic proof. Great timing guys.
Anyway Luke is nervous about giving Elena more of her
potion so she appeals to friendship – uh, he’s not actually your friend Elena?
Since when is he your friend? And do all your friends give you happy pills?
When appeal to friendship fails (he protests he cares – since when does he care
about her? Why does her care about her?) she goes to threatening violence.
Sadly, Luke is a special kind of witch where all his magical power can’t
protect him (he was kidnapped repeatedly last season) only make shinies for
Elena. Elena gets her happy hallucination pills and even her hallucination
tells her that this is a bad idea. Her hallucination Damon also disapproves of
elena snacking on random passers by, she’s having problems controlling her
appetite and nearly killing people. Caroline arrives to distract her this time –
and her victim gets away, managing to make it to Mystic Falls where Elena can’t
follow. Caroline realises that Elena’s probably the vampire prowling the
borders of Mystic Falls. The whole magic potion thing is revealed and Caroline
disapproves of this non-way of handling grief.
The girl runs into town and collapses into Matt’s hands –
with the rest of his little defence force joining them led by Trip who is very disgruntled
when Liz and Matt run her to the hospital rather than treating him as some kind
of official force in the town.
Time for another little revelation – Tyler has being
brought back to life has reset his werewolf curse – which means he isn’t a
werewolf until he murders someone again. Tyler’s also crushing on Liv though
she isn’t interested. So that’s definitely going to happen.
Over to Stefan who is being screwed over by his
oh-so-compellable-boss and semi-dating/sleeping with a woman called Ivy who has
noticed how mysterious (secretive) he is.
And Alaric’s love interest is established as Dr. Jo, one of Elena’s teachers/mentors/whatever. Both of them are awkward but Alaric is 8 times more so.
Elena, all devastated, calls Stefan looking for hope and
he says nah it’s all hopeless, so hopeless he even gave up looking. This may
not be exactly what Elena needed to hear
Meanwhile, Caroline calls Tyler and they blame Elena’s problem on Luke before Matt brings the girl who was attacked to the edge of time so Caroline can mess with her memory (Matt also has a huge long speech about why he wants to protect people after being mangled quite thoroughly for the last five seasons). Tyler finds Luke and attacks him (again, that pesky magic problem where only has power when it comes to serving Elena) – Alaric has to move in and save him.
Liv goes to Tyler to object to him abusing her brother
for Elena’s dependence (and, again, Luke is blamed for not sacrificing Liv to
save everyone) which instead turns into Tyler’s angst and more of him trying to
get in her good books and him pouting because she outrageously doesn’t want to
be his friend/love interest/whatever
Elena tries to say her last goodbyes to the Damon hallucination which doesn’t quite work out well. She goes to Alaric and for a brief moment it looks like Elena is concerned about someone else’s feelings but it’s a preamble to her asking him to use his kina-Original-ness to compel her to forget she loved Damon
To Damon who makes Bonnie breakfast. Wait.. what? No, don’t
end there, for a brief second we were separate from Elena angst?!
Aaargh this episode epitomised so much of what I hate
about this show – ELENA Elena Elena Elena, everything revolves around Elena.
She is the grieviest griever who ever grieved and she repeatedly says how much
she knows grief and everyone marvels about how much she’s lost and – yeah, she
and everyone else on this show! This is an ongoing problem – we may have hints
of other people being upset or having issues or not being in a good place but
it is all overwhelmed by the yawning black hole of Elena angst that drags
everyone in – and everyone’s willing to accept it. Everyone runs with the idea
that Elena’s pain hurts the most, Elena’s grief is the saddest, Elena is the
chief sufferer.
Elena gets over her grief by hallucinating Damon. Bonnie?
Hello, Bonnie? No? (And don’t even try to talk about the month Elena apparently
spent being sad in the downtime because shoving grief off-screen is such a
major cop out). Damon is the pain she just can’t get over… Bonnie? Meh, dealt
with that.
Then again, Bonnie is in a
better place. Otherwise she’d be doing Luke’s job! Seriously, they had the
Black serving Witch and now they’ve got the gay serving Witch! He’s there to
provide magical help and services and he isn’t even their friend! I mean, they
were utterly awful friends to Bonnie but they always held onto that friend
excuse as it grew ever weaker. Since when is Luke their friends? He was sent to
hunt down dopplegangers and stop the Travellers – not risk his coven’s wrath
giving out happy drugs to Elena and daylight bling to Alaric. He’s doing all
this because he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his sister for the sake of Elena?
Which has bonus points of him being an abuse magnet as well. The
minorities-as-servant trope is getting old generally and doubly so on this show
(and it’s spin off, Originals).
I don’t like the Tyler/Liv thing because she’s disinterred.
Hopefully it will end here, but I bet it won’t and they’ll end up together and
we will have another fictional portrayal of female sexual disinterest being
just a temporary obstacle to inevitable humping. Maybe I’m being cynical… but I
doubt it.
