The Vampire Diaries, Season Three, Episode Episode 22: The Departed

 

We survived season three of The Vampire Diaries.  There were a lot of flashbacks this episode and for me they felt like empty filler, in a season that was riddled with filler and could not seem to find a direction.

Elijah made an appearance, and I was glad to see it. He is the only one who has consistently behaved like he is a thousand year old vampire.  That right there shows the sexism of the show.  Rebekah Vampire Cheerleader has the maturity of a 16 year old girl and her brother, who btw has been a vampire just as long is a mature man.

When we last left Elena, she had collapsed on her bedroom floor bleeding.  Jeremy calls 911 and she ends up in the hospital.  When he calls Damon and Stefan to inform them, they are upset and believe that he has just made her a target. Stefan and Damon demand that Jeremy get Elena released from the hospital immediately. By the time Alaric shows up, Elena is already gone and so he threatens Meredeth.  Alaric dumps Meredeth's supply of vampire blood, and promises to get her medical license pulled.

Back at the house, Matt makes tea for Elena and they have a little chat about the past and the ongoing trouble that they are facing thanks to the vampires.  In the meantime,  Caroline and  Tyler are approached by their respective mothers.  It's their plan to get the kids out of town, because they believe that now that the council knows about them, that their lives are in danger.  Caroline is resistant at first but Tyler insists.  Caroline agrees to go with him as soon as she helps her friends.  Of course, she cannot put her life first when Elena the precious is in danger.

In the meantime, Alaric approaches Jeremy with a plan.  He wants the vampires gone and suggests that Jeremy help by turning over Klaus.  Jeremy promises to kill the vampires, and then to allow Bonnie to put the same spell on him, that she placed on Klaus.  He uses the fact that their lives are constantly in danger to persuade Jeremy.  Jeremy concedes, but it is only a ruse.

Elijah wants Klaus back and though Damon says that this is a bad idea, Elena of course agrees.  I loved that he made a point of saying that every decision Elena made has been bad. Finally, someone is admitting that Elena's spunky agency is a problem.  When they get to the storage area, Klaus is indeed dessicated and bound just as his father was. Bonnie asks for a moment with him.

In the meantime, Matt has drugged Elena and put her in his truck.  He tells her that he did this for her own good and that they are leaving town.  I understand the reason why Matt did this, but it is absolutely controlling and manipulative behaviour.  Elena does not even get upset with him, because apparently if your attentions are good, drugging and kidnapping a woman is not a bad thing. 

Alaric shows up and demands to see Klaus. Damon and Rebecca manage to sneak Klaus out of the locker, but before they can leave the storage facility, Alaric finds them and stakes Klaus.  Rebecca moves to go after him, but Damon holds her back and tells her to run.  In the last episode, Klaus said that he was the originator of Damon and Stefan's vampire line.  Damon realizes that he is now living on borrowed time.

Secret Circle. Season 1, Episode 22: Family

Unfortunately we begin with Diana the endlessly mopey waking up with Grant and being so very upset that the life and death struggles are getting in the way of her teenaged romance. I am so past sick of this character’s drama.

While Diana is moping, Faye has been kidnapped and this Circle is meeting to discuss getting Faye back., Diana wants to use the Circle (first time ever it seems) but that idea is shot down. Eben (Evil Black Witchhunter) calls them with a deal – exchange Faye for 1 crystal, stopping them making the Indiana Jones knock-off skull. But Jake is quick to speak up against trusting witch hunters (oh how I laughed. It’s at this point you wonder if the writers are deliberately satirising themselves). More planning and plotting, distrust of Blackwell and more arseyness from Diana.

So Casssie and Diana go to see John who tells them to create the skull they will unbind the Circle (good! Lack of individual magic has been an extreme nuisance and it’s not like they use Circle magic at all!). After token angst from Diana they agree.

At the boat where the witch hunters are, Melissa, Adam and Jake are ready to attack – and we finally learn that it’s Melissa’s mother who died! Only took until the season finale! They all feel the Circle being unbound but don’t know what it means – until Adam accidentally spells Jake.

Faye, in the boat, of course, has her magic back and she is much much harder to hold prisoner with her magic and she manages to call her mother, pretty much revealing everything to the parents who, of course, already know

In Evil parent world Charles tells Dawn about his “haunting” by Amelia’s ghost (well, John’s magic). Dawn points out it was probably John and they have a really poorly acted realisation that she’s probably right and how little control they have over everything. Oh and I have to quote here:  “And our blind quest for power set it all in motion”. What, really? Really? Who speaks like this? And could there be more tell not show here – yes we know these parents set it in motion for the sake of power and are now regretting it – you couldn’t have shown this by, I don’t know, having them crying and worrying for their children or growling recriminations at each other? Instead you have overdramatic monologues that almost sound like a “previously on the Secret Circle” info-dumping?

To save their children they go to Charles’ mother (Evil Grandparent) and ask for their powers back, they need it to save their kids. But their power is gone – so she agrees to give them hers (or she could go rescue, just a thought). We have a wonderful line from Charles’ mother about family – and apparently Charles wants to kill the demons and find redemption

Cassie and Diana make their new gothic bling, but Cassie objects to John taking it from them (so would I – why trust him with this?) but in classic Secret Circle fashion it isn’t because she distrusts John, oh no, it seems to be her getting happy feelings from the skull. Diana’s suspicion comes in handy and they both say Cassie should hold the skull. John shows everyone that he’s evil and knocks Cassie and Diana unconscious – he has different goals. They wake imprisoned in a circle in the Magic Shack.

Melissa and Jake go to help Faye while Adam goes to check on Cassie and Diana – but Eben catches Faye, Melissa and Jake unawares and with his demon magic. And we have a dramatic tied to the stake with fire moment in which they all scream and panic (it’s the worst burning ever – the flames are in a huge circle around them)

Evil Parents to the rescue! Charles takes down Eben by summoning the demons out of him and into himself. Dawn puts out the fires and Jake gets to go and give the demon-less Eben a good stabbing. Evil Black Witch Hunter is dead. At last! If you’re not going to use lethal magic at least make with the stabbing! Full of demons, Charles throws himself in the water – since drowning kills demons. Noble sacrifice redemption time (or possibly new enemy to fight in Season 2, hey keep your options open)

Review of Phoenix Rising: Book one of A Ministry of Peculiar Occurences by Pip Ballentine & Tee Morris

 

Miss Eliza Braun first meets archivist Wellington Books when she saves him from captivity.  Like all missions involving Braun, she does not completely follow orders, and leaves behind a trail of destruction.  Her punishment is to be sent down to the archives to assist Books with cataloging the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences case files. For someone who loves to be out in the field, chasing down bad guys, this is punishment.  Books for his part is not happy to have someone meddling with his case files.

It isn't long before he catches Eliza investigating the last case that her former partner worked on. Books knows that he should not get involved and that he should return to his much loved archives, but he gets drawn into the intrigue when he discovers that an ancient secret society is behind several unexplained deaths.  Eliza loaded with guns, and a bullet proof corset urges Books on as they go undercover in an attempt to reveal the depths of the depravity.

This book is easily one of the best steampunk novels that I have ever read. It had a blindingly quick pace, yet one never feels as though the story is being rushed.  The relationship between Eliza and Books grows from distrust to true partnership with a hint of a romance, leaving the reader wanting more of the illustrious pair.  The banter between them flows between delightful snark, and true concern.  It is impossible not to adore either Eliza or Books, or hope that Eliza is successful in corrupting the moral fortitude of her partner.

Female Vampires: Children, Villains or Servants

Looking at Urban Fantasy we see a lot of vampires. A lot of vampires.  Sparkly vampires, sexy vampires, daylight walking vampires, sexy vampires, magic vampires, sexy vampires, viking vampires, sex vampires - did we mention sexy vampires? Yes, lots and lots of sexy vampires.

Who are men. Nearly always men - especially when we look at Urban Fantasy on television. Men men and more sexy men wall to wall - and very very few women. Of course, part of this is because most of the human protagonists are women and Urban Fantasy is extremely heteronormative and will only pair them off with a male love interest. But looking at the few female vampires we can dig up and it’s not a great sign - we seem to have 3 models: children, servants and enemies.

Much of the models that we see in vampire stories involve an ancient male vampire and a young, often innocently virginal human female.  You would think that when a relationship forms between a female vampire and a young human male that the pattern would simply repeat, but such is not the case. Female vampires are quite often infantalised, though they are at times well over a thousand years old.  The best example of this is Rebekah from The Vampire Diaries. She is 1000 years old and in comparison to every other vampire on the show, she is absolutely childlike.  Rebekah has thus far concerned herself with proms, dances and even becoming a cheerleader.  Why oh why would a person who has seen so much history be interested in these things, especially after spending so many years trapped in a coffin?

When Bill was forced to turn Jessica into a vampire on True Blood, she was just a young teenage girl who had not seen much of the world.  True to form, she was also a virgin. When she discovered that she had been changed, Jessica delighted in cursing, as this was something that she was not allowed to in her parents home.  It was the act of a child rebelling against that which she had been taught.  Much of Bill and Jessica’s relationship takes the form of father/daughter, based in the fact that Bill is her creator.  He only reluctantly takes responsibility for Jessica, after Eric makes it clear that he will not.  Jessica has matured over the years and has really begun to figure out exactly who she is; however, thanks to being turned into a vampire when she was still a virgin, her hymen reforms after each act of sexual intercourse, thereby constructing her as a perpetual virgin.

In Interview with a Vampire, Lestat turns Claudia into a vampire after finding Louis feeding from her, in the hope of forcing Louis to stay with them.  In the novel, Claudia was only about 6 years old at the time she was turned, though she was portrayed to be between 10-12 in the movie.  Even when Claudia has long past the age where she would find dolls interesting, Lestat continues to gift her with a doll on the anniversary of the day he turned her.  Claudia is desperate to grow up and put away childish things but she cannot because she is trapped in the body of a child, though she has the mind of a grown woman.  Her age means that she is forever dependent upon an adult vampire.  Claudia never does achieve her freedom and dies at the hand of the theater vampires, her very existence seen as a threat. 

Review: Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr, Book 1 of the Wicked Lovely Series

Aislinn is a mortal gifted with the Sight. She can see Fairies. The invisible denizens of the fairy courts stalk humanity, playing tricks, playing games sometimes cruelly and maliciously. They’re not to be trusted, she’s always been told by her Sighted grandmother. Not to be trusted and always to be avoided. Especially as a Sighted mortal – fae have been known to kill and blind mortals with her ability.

Mostly she tries to ignore them – but 2 of them, Keanan and Donia, have started following her and paying far too much attention. Worse of all, they’re not just fae, but nobility of the fae courts and Keanan is determined to insert himself into her life.

Aislinn is reluctantly dragged into a war between the Summer and the Winter courts, with a future being forced upon her, playing a game she doesn’t know the rules of – where she has to decide what she wants and how much the fae are demanding she sacrifice. Especially with her grandmother’s warnings still loud and clear

The world is interesting – the fae always allow for vast variety and variations and even more here where we have not just the classic 2 courts so often seen in stories – but several courts all with their own fae, their own customs, their own nature and their own problems.

The idea of invisible fairies, despite being such a major part of faerie lore, is still not something that has been overly developed. And I really love the idea of the faeries being everywhere invisibly and how someone with the Sight has to negotiate through that world.

The battle between Winter and Summer is literally epic on a world wide scale –while at the same time being deeply personal. While the knowledge that Winter is slowly taking over the world and is eventually going to destroy life it’s still a very personal fight. Yes the world is in the balance, but it’s also a personal battle between Keanan and his mother with Donia dragged along. It manged to balance both epic and personal together extremely well.

Storywise, while it’s an interesting world with interesting characters it was faintly predictable. There was a twist in that Aislinn maintained her own demands as well as with Donia’s fate and it was certainly a fun, interesting story – but it was a story where the ending could be seen pretty early on and I didn’t think there was much maintained tension. It was fun and interesting – but, perhaps, not exciting and tense. I also feel the ending was somewhat anti-climactic and seemed to end too suddenly. The epic confrontation was too short .

I really like the character of Aislinn. She manages to be strong without being perfect and without being impossibly aggressive and ridiculously reality denying.  Nor does the world magically change to fit her because she has defied it.

She is faced with a deeply unpalatable situation – but it doesn’t go away just because she’s insisted it should. She doesn’t want to be a fairy or the Summer Queen and never once relents in this. She doesn’t like Keenan and doesn’t want him – no matter how many times he pushes her and tries to seduce her, she doesn’t melt to him. This is a wonderful change from a genre that has oodles of reluctant women who are finally brought round by the persistent, stalking, can’t-take-no-for-an-answer heroes.

Blood Ties, Season 1, Episode 6: Love Hurts

Vicki has what seems to be a mundane case in her office – Mr. Hausen believes his wife is cheating on him and wants her to investigate. Mundane, bread and butter work for a detective. I do have to have a little cheer moment for Vicki for her truly excellent advice and attempt to send him to couples therapy before resorting to a detective.

We flip to the wife of said couple indeed sleeping with someone else – then the screaming happens and we cut to an obvious crime scene investigation.  Marcy Hausen is dead and Vicki and Celluci are on scene (yes Vicki is at another crime scene). Mr. Hausen is fully aware how guilty he looks without an alibi and asks Vicki to investigate who killed Marcy, since the police will likely focus on him. And sure enough, Celluci’s sidekick and Show POC token #1, Detective Graham, shows up to question  Hausen.

Vicki decides to go to a bar with Henry for some flirting, vampire hand tricks and so Vicki can tell him all about the case she’s working on (showing that Vicki has the professional ethics of a goat) in what is, no doubt, yet another convoluted way to drag Henry into one of her investigations. More flirting follows before Henry flounces out of the room because Vicki makes a sex joke to defend Henry’s unwarranted criticism of Celluci’s professional capabilities.

Vicki goes to question Marcy’s friends who all say what a wonderful person she was and how happy they all are while knocking back the booze and eyeing up the Latino gardener, Emmanuel (Latino servant, let me mark off a notch in stereotype bingo).  Time for Vicki to question/flirt with sexy Emmanuel who was arranging the ladies’ flowers during the murder (there’s a new euphemism!).  She also gets to meet Bruce Caldwell, a husband of one of Marcy’s friends who begins pumping her for information and she begins spilling things like how she died to him (Goat Ethics strikes again). She also gets to poke around his totally-not-a-plot-point anthropological sculptures left to him by his grandmother. And Vicki photographs them. Why? I have not the slightest idea.

More flirting between Vicki and Henry where she tells him everything she’s thinking about the case and her suspicion of Emmanuel and the ladies’ flower arranging (did I mention the Ethics of a Goat?) with Henry jealous of the poetry quoting Emmanuel. Vicki, as ever, is perfectly, wonderfully snarky about it. But that night she has a vivid erotic foreplay dream with a man running his hands up and down her. She wakes highly perturbed and runs to Henry’s to see if he was the midnight groper. He wasn’t and we have some more flirting and Henry is upset because she would be relieved that he WASN’T running his hands on her body and how could she think it would be horrible – and Vicki, who is awesome, says artfully that it’d be entirely different if he were invited.

Some more sexy investigating and, yes, there’s more than flower arranging going on between Emmanuel and the lonely housewives and Vicki suspects them of lying. Now she could do her old detective work, but instead she’s going to drag Henry along to use his vampire mojo (oh Vicki, really? At least it’s cute when she makes him promise not to bite them). But despite all of his charm, all agree they were arranging flowers with Emmanuel and all resisted Henry’s charms

Time for a plot surge – Vicki is walking home with Coreen, discussing Vicki’s lack-of-sex life, Correen suggests her vivid sex dream the other night was an Incubus (foreshadowing, take note) and then we have screaming and Vicki running to try and save Isabelle (one of Marcia’s friends), in her bedroom who is having blue energy sucked out of her mouth by a cloaked and hooded figure who vanishes when she tries to smack him.

On to Henry who confirms that it was an incubus – demons who can put a whole house of people to sleep and then drag women’s souls to hell (and this is why he couldn’t charm the women, his ego is salved). And an internet search finds a picture of an incubus idol – which just happens to match one of the anthropological statues Bruce Caldwell has (the one Vicki randomly took a picture of. Booo bad plotting, bad plotting).

Vicki confronts Cheryl another of Marcia’s friends and she cracks – and talks about how they drunkenly and accidently activated the statue, the sex dreams they had afterwards and then Emmanuel appearing – and that they were all having sex with the said gardener.

Cover Snark: And 2 Seconds Later, Our Heroine Fell Over

Now, Urban Fantasy covers go to many lengths to try and sexualise their heroines. Bodys care contorted, ridiculous costumes

And, sometimes, even gravity is defied! Yes, we’re not going to let a piffling thing like gravity prevent us from posing these women! I have a mental image of the camera snapping and then these women collapsing painfully into a heap.

Ok, maybe these women just have really strong thigh muscles after posing for different covers. But I still think they’re 2 seconds away from their arse meeting concrete.

Review: Bloody Bones by Laurell K Hamilton, Book 5 of the Anita Blake Series

Anita Blake has been called out to an animating job in Branson, far away from her usual connections. But she’s the only one in the country who may be able to do it – raise an entire graveyard full of 200 year old bodies, preferably in one night.

As if that weren’t a big enough problem, the motivations of the parties involved is far from clear – and the presence of fae magic in the graveyard, and faeries willing to guard it, raises many more questions.

And there are vampires running amok – as the neighbourhood vampire expert, Anita is called in but the local police are far from welcoming. The resulting lack of communication is beyond difficult when there seems to be 2 separate vampire killers.

Negotiating with the local vampires, of course, requires getting further involved with Jean-Claude and he never keeps anything simple

Like in previous books, this has several storylines intertwined – but also like the previous books, they all come together. From her original job to raise the graveyard, to the vampire death, to the serial killer all three plot lines are paced really well. If I had a slight criticism, it would be that her job to raise the zombies was put too far on the backburner. It was her actual reason for being in Branson in the first place and it seemed extremely low in her priority list. I can understand that since she was dealing with serial killer cases, but I’d have least expected Sterling or someone to ask where she was and what she was actually doing while they were paying her to complete a time sensitive project. Still, it was understandable given the circumstances and doesn’t bog down the story. I really like how all three storylines come together, how they’re all linked and make up important aspects of the whole – and can all be handled in one big finale that doesn’t feel contrived.

Having read both the books before and the books after this one, I’m left with the feeling that this book is vaguely filler. Because they’re pulled out of St. Louis we’re not advancing a lot of the plot or relationships. And the creatures in this book are fae. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like fae in a book, they’re some of my favourite supernatural beings. But the fae here appear briefly, with precious little foreshadowing or depth, do some shiny stuff then disappear again, never to be heard of again. Short of giving Anita an extra-special shiny vampire to kill, I’m not sure what the point of the fae even were – and a powerful master vampire could probably have filled Xavier’s spot just as well. Because of that, I don’t think this book added anything to the world building – while technically introducing whole new creatures, it just doesn’t fit the overall theme and shape of the series.

We had some development of her relationship with Jean-Claude, but it was mainly her letting him closer to her more than anything. Still there’s closer connections and we also see some more fleshing out of Jason as he grows further into the full character he will become. But largely that’s all it is, we don’t get especially new insights into either characters and they’re mainly around more to show that, yeah, they’re around more.

I’m still all kinds of uncomfortable with how the relationship between Jean-Claude and Anita began. He constantly ignores her “no” and keeps pushing. Then she forces her to date him by threatening Richard’s life (because she has to give him a fair chance to seduce him? Why does she?) and then we continue with the constant boundary pushing regardless

Finally, there’s an ongoing issue with how Anita relates to other women. Other than villains and victims, Anita deals with 2 women in this book – Dorcas Bouvier and Sergeant Freemont. And in both cases Anita strikes sparks. It’s like strong willed, independent women have territories that need to be defended against other women like them. She had a similar worry in Lunatic Café when she saw Deputy Holmes – she could be a friend or, equally as much, they’d hate each other and this is before she even spoke.

Both women were also aggressive and hostile for little reason – or they overreacted in an aggressive manner with little provocation in a way that made Anita seem almost clam. It’s a strong case of Keillie Independence.