Ok, this show angers
me. It actively angers me. Not the teen drama not the classic CW obsession with
a main character Hope and her specialness. No, what annoys me so much are the
so-called teachers in this school who are utterly terrible (also there’s like
only three of them? Three for all these students?) and this episode is pushing
me over the edge
So, this is
Remembrance day at the school where everyone writes letters to dead loved ones
and can they maybe address the fact that most of student body has a herd of
dead people to write letters to. Is one school councillor sufficient?
Also someone may want
to maybe cancel this whole ceremony focused on death thing when you have an
actual necromancer in the basement. Maybe? Because he does what is entirely
predictable and summons a dead person to hit people in the feels. In this case,
he summons Cassie, Raphael’s dead girlfriend
Hey, remember how Jo
buried Josie alive because she was controlled by the necromancer? Well a good
thing everyone’s learned from this and carefully guards Cassie and are also
prepared for more murderous zombies running about
Oh, they’re just
going to let Cassie walk around and not have any preparations for more zombies?
Ok, that totally won’t come back to bite anyone at all.
So Raphael is
obviously super emotional about this but Hope leaves him because she’s busy
with her own things. That leaves Raphael to beg Alaric to do something about
making her permanent but Alaric has SOME capacity for learning and points out
she could be evil or used for evil. I mean he doesn’t take any precautions
against her, but he recognises the evil. Soooo…
Cassie does talk to
Raphael about her death - she blames him. But as they talk she also forgives
him: she isn’t trying to punish him or make him feel bad but trying to get him
to see the truth. She died in a car accident which happened because he got
jealous, got angry and drove recklessly. And while he tries to put his rage
down to being a werewolf and he’s better now she points out he just had a rage
moment. He has a lot of growing to do and he needs to acknowledge that.
He turns to Alaric
for this. Good luck with that
While I roll my eyes
because we have a Black teenaged girl rather convolutedly like an after school
special about how Raphael needs to be a better person. She takes less than 10
seconds to deal with actually being dead. Doesn’t she have any actual
personhood or is she just a narrative tool?
Over to Hope, she has
decided that since Alaric is completely useless at Necromancer questioning
(mainly involves threats of violence to a being that cannot feel pain which is…
not useful) she’s going to use woo-woo to do it for him
And yes Alaric is
going to pout about this. But can you blame Hope? This is how Alaric works -
using the magical gifts of his students to do anything. This is how Alaric
operates!
So she recruits MG so
he can do that vampire mind reading stuff which this world setting remembers
like once every 20 episodes and MG agrees despite it being against his better
judgement. Because that’s also how MG works - a servant to the other cast
members who need his shiny vampire powers
There follows much
diving into the Necromancer’s subconscious, Hope mocking him rather well for
his over dramatic posturing, the Necromancer poking Hope’s worries a lot, in
particular where her dead daddy is right now. While she pokes him for being
completely forgotten because that’s what happens to all the creatures of
Malivore. They piece a lot together: Malivore is a place of utter annihilation.
By sentencing a creature to malivore - which happened to the Necromancer with
someone killing him with the knife, you doom that being to the void and
everyone forgets they ever existed. They’re gone and no-one remembers they were
ever there.
This all sounds
dramatic but I can’t get the past that a knife like this existed and no-one,
not once, tried to use it on the Original vampires.
Oh he also
resurrected Nazis to torment them because he may be an evil monster but he’s
not a nazi.
The knife is one of
the three keys to Malivore and if he can get hold of it and destroy it then
Malivore is one step closer to being open which is something he wants in order
to be free. There’s also a lot of muttering about MG’s nana and Klaus because Necromancer
can see the dead, of course.
In the middle of this
info dump things go wrong and Hope ends up trapped in his mind for a little
while before he lets her go in order for him to pursue him own nefariousness.
And Alaric learns
what she’s doing and has a temper tantrum because he has it handled. And HELL
NO. This is what enrages me so about this show. “Keep out of it I got this
handled” is bullshit when he asks her for help ALL THE TIME. The way he gets
through every day is with the magical interference from MG, Hope or other
witches. He cannot handle anything in the school and constantly gets them to
“interfere”. He cannot turn round and tell Hope (and MG and everyone else) to
stay out of the drama when, inevitably, he will be demanding their help later.
HE CANNOT RUN THIS SCHOOL.
Hope also points out
the two empty bottles of whiskey in his desk as evidence of how he’s “handling”
things. And I’m not even going to raise my eyes that students feel they can
confront the headmaster on his day drinking - Alaric has no respect because
he’s done nothing to earn it. He snipes back, in a way that, again, shows his
inappropriateness as a teacher, that he’s grieving and she should try it
Ok 1. Headmaster, you
don’t make snide remarks about one of your students being an orphan. For fuck’s
sake, Alaric.
2. You don’t get to
advise people on the appropriate way of grieving when your method is BINGE
DRINKING. She’s been gone a day at most and you got through two bottles of
whiskey. THIS IS NOT HEALTHY GRIEVING
3. You. Are. A.
Headmaster. You do not sit in your office drinking yourself to oblivion while
your school faces this much risk!!!!
Alaric fails on every
possible level. He also tries to play disappointed parent to Hope which doesn’t
fly because he’s not her dad. Hey, how about he try this with Lizzie and Josie,
y’know his own daughters he has little time for.
Alaric enrages me.
Hope goes back to the
Necromancer but he’s actually distracting her so he actually has chance to get
his zombies to claim the knife and teleport it to Malivore (including an undead
Bennet witch) where it is destroyed. This frees the Necromancer and means
there’s only 2 more locks for Malivore left.
This is apparently
Hope’s fault… because why? He was distracting HER while he did his nefarious
deeds. Distracting her doesn’t change that Cassie has been allowed to walk
around freely by Alaric from the beginning and that Alaric. Why was this Hope’s
fault that Alaric has, yet again, failed to do any reasonable preparation.
Alaric you fail on every level
But he’s not the only
one. MG worries that he’s not actually very powerful as far as vampires go,
especially since his friends rely on him to be a constant servant. He’s notably
much weaker than Kaleb so they realise it’s probably because of Kaleb’s diet so
Kaleb takes MG out hunting for humans. Where they refer to humans as food -
including “chocolate fountain” and the writer who put that line in a Black
man’s mouth needs a slap
They feed - and MG
needs control and Dorian needs to intervene. To which Dorian gives Kaleb an
angry lecture about Rippers (he lost his own family to Stefan). Like Kaleb
should be ashamed. Oh, if only there were a place, like a school, where
vampires could learn the basics of what it is to be a vampire, the risks and
the… oh wait!!!!
Dorian doesn’t get to
shame and attack Kaleb for taking MG feeding when he, as Kaleb’s teacher, has
failed to convey the basics of vampirism to him. They’re not teaching these
vampires how to be vampires and these holes in their education can get people
killed. This is on Dorian and the eternally failing Alaric!!!!
So conclusions -
Alaric is terrible. The show misses that though and instead has Hope deciding
to be more friendly and she opens up to Raphael. Raphael asking Alaric to help
him being a better person which is also laughable.
And the big bads
going after the second key to Malivore - which involves Landon
