Damon and Stefan are now working for Cade, which means
finding truly bad terrible people and killing them so their souls go to hell.
And having a lot of evil fun while doing so
Their definitions of really terrible, evil people is
very… lapse though. Compelling someone to admit they’d rather 6 people die so
they can live? I mean, sure, it’s not the sign of moral rectitude, but “not a
saint” or “not a martyr” seems like a super low bar for evil here. And, of
course, it doesn’t bode well for the people they’re killing
Also perturbing Damon is Stefan’s feeding on human blood
from the vein. Stefan has a terrible history of ripper-ness where he just goes
completely off the rails and massacres people over and over. Stefan’s confident
he can test his self control, Damon not so much.
Stefan is definitely having fun and he decides to focus
on a doctor. A wonderful kind woman, who is definitely not evil – and he
promptly arranges an incredibly elaborate scheme to tempt her to evil:
basically to convince her that Damon is the man who killed her parents, put him
in her care and then continually prod and poke her to kill him. Not good?
Certainly. Worst of the worst? Maybe I just have a low opinion of humanity but
I think Stefan’s pushing people into murder this strongly isn’t quite killing
the worst of the worst: Damon’s certainly uncomfortable with it. Looks like
Cade was right about how much fun Stefan would have as his Ripper.
Of course, the doctor has been chosen for a reason, she
resembles Elena, her history is reminiscent of Elena – and she’s all designed
to poke Damon’s humanity. He’s been walking around with Elena’s necklace and
Stefan is convinced his conscience is poking through: his humanity switch it
inching to “on.” To prove otherwise Damon throws away the necklace and kills
the doctor
But afterwards goes looking for the necklace still.
I think it says everything about this show that we can
totally skip over the killing of a young doctor dedicated so much to helping
others, but finding a necklace is the emotional path-to-redemption moment
Oh, and Stefan succumbs to ripperdom and slaughters a
hospital: this is like his 9th massacre and I’m sure we’ll forgive
him this one as well.
Over to Caroline who is happily recapping everything for
us and now working as a journalist (apparently; not bad for someone who never
ever attended school). And she has a job to go report on Mystic Fall high
school preparation for Founders day
AAAAAARGH, the horrible flashbacks to early seasons where
all these characters ever did was prepare for one founders’ celebration or
another?! And my gods how little news can a town have where a story about a
high school preparing for a parade makes the paper? C’mon this is a town where
every supernatural thing in the world regularly massacres people and this is
the news they have?
Turns out it’s all a ploy and the town isn’t that boring
– though Caroline is very much that foolish for falling for it. The history
teacher is Sybil, the Siren
Because every supernatural thing is obsessed with this
flyspec town in the middle of nowhere
She has used her siren powers to control the whole class
– and can even shut off their minds with a thought (that’s new – and a very
convenient plot twist power) to stop Caroline just snapping her neck (as I
said, convoluted and convenient). She wants Caroline’s help to find a bell that
was thrown into a river and is happy to burn all the kids to death if she
doesn’t co-operate. And if Caroline doesn’t do what the hostage taker says and
Sybil kills people those deaths will be Caroline’s fault and totally on her
hell tally
I wish I could say this is just a lie on her part – but,
really, with this show’s morality who knows?
So what’s with this bell that as thrown in the river
during a Founder’s Day parade (hah)!? For that we have to turn to
he-who-should-be-dead:
Matt
Yes he’s still around. How a show with this many
casualties and this many actors leaving it has managed to cling onto someone so
pointless for so long amazes me. Matt is, yes, still around and drops in to see
Dorian (Alaric’s new student who is now looking after the Armoury and putting
his life at risk for reasons we’re told rather than shown. We could spend time developing
this-soon-to-be-snack-food but instead we have Matt. And his dad). While there
he meets, yes, his dad and all the daddy issues come out to play.
And, y’know I’m slightly annoyed at the whole recitation
of his family history – because he had a point about how their family were as
much founders as any others but because they had money they were reduced and
mocked. I can understand Daddy Matt throwing the bell in the river (a siren nuking
bell since it magnifies the tuning fork of doom) because it’s something his
family made for the town that had never acknowledged them. This is a good storyline
and a good analysis of class and needed to have been included in the useless
Matt’s story from the beginning. This is one thing the books actually did
better than the tv series (here ends the only praise I will ever ever ever give
those horrendously awful books) – Matt was the poor one who stood out starkly
next to the clearly affluent Elena but this was all pretty glossed over on the
TV show, touched on in passing. Similarly Matt’s daddy issues (or the fact that
everyone’s parents have been pretty much gone since they were 15) has barely
been brushed on. So this suddenly appearing? Well, nice it’s been addressed but
a bit late
And most of it feels like some kind of weird
justification for Daddy Matt for why he hasn’t been around – which makes it all
feel less like an exploration and more like a really dubious excuse.
They do do some research about the bell of anti-sirenness
and they know where it now is – which they tell Caroline so she and Sybil can
go bell hunting while Matt and Daddy Matt can untie all the kids from the
stakes before they’re burned by another mind controlled kid with a torch.
Personally I’d have taken away the torch first, but then you wouldn’t have the
tense ending.
When Sybil goes for the bell she finds her even eviller
sister Selene has got their first and left a snarky note. Rather than being
eaten by a vampire, Sybil suggests she may still have a connection to Caroline’s
kids and be able to do the remote brain death thing. She probably can’t but is
she going to take a risk
She also pokes Caroline’s love of Stefan – because Caroline is so sure Stefan will come back from whatever ripper rampage he’s on (again) and she will forgive him for all the deaths (again). But Sybil (speaking my mind) asks what will happen the next time Stefan falls off the wagon… especially if Caroline wants a life with him and her little kids?
