The Moth Chase

Hello Natalie,

OK, let’s just talk about how much angsty teenage vampire promise The Vampire Diaries has! One episode in, having never read the books, and I’m willing to bet it’ll drive lusty, forlorn, brooding circles around Twilight.

First, teenage vampires with fangs – thank you, L.J. Smith. Vampires are still a cover for downright teenage lust and the danger of overcooked emotions, but at least they suck blood. If you need vampires to get your allegory across, at least they should pose some significant danger. Not sure what to make of the demon eyes and mottled face – too much of a stand-in for other bodily embarrassments of teenage masculinity? The dark, dangerous, “I will hurl you against the roof” brother pitted against the sensitive, reserved, “I like to journal” brother could either grow old quick or be a wonderful dramatization of the conflicted longings of all doe-eyed teenage girls (maybe like the two sides of Angel in Buffy externalized?).

And I can’t get much of a pulse on Elena. The “she looks just like my dead long-lost Civil War love” is kind of creepy and so far we haven’t seen much to demonstrate what sustained individuality she can maintain. I read on-line somewhere that in the books Elena is supposed to be snotty and self-absorbed before she meets Stefan and that the reader loves to hate her before she comes to love her. I wonder what it says that the books were written in the early ‘90s and that by 2009 we can’t have anything but a slightly wounded, lonesome, orphaned heroine? Forget a vampire slayer, could we even handle a self-confident, untraumatized, hold-her-own girl? I think we get closer with Sookie from True Blood (especially in the books), but even she is an orphan who loses her only parental figure early into the series.

Which brings me to parentlessness in general. I get it: teenage dramas are exactly supposed to navigate the world just prior to adulthood and full adult responsibility, but full of adult drama, tension, and decisions. Adults – parents and teachers – form a backdrop that provides the boundaries that allow the world to function without collapsing into external chaos that mirrors that within. All that said, did you find the complete absence of adults (besides a teacher who is totally emasculated by the centuries old vampire?) kind of disturbing? Aunt Jenna is a perfect example: she barely looks older than Elena (and, um, she’s a graduate student?!) and she is play-acting her guardian role self-consciously. The only adult we really see is Stefan’s relative (great, great nephew or something), but give the whole immortal life power imbalance, there is no real authority there. In fact, the teenage vampires usurp all the adult power so far. I remember your earlier dismay at the age/power imbalance between Bella and Edward in Twilight and can’t wait to hear what you think.

All this said, who doesn’t love watching a vampire hold his own at a teen kegger? I’d stick around and get another drink.

K

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Hey Kathryn,

Well, I’m glad you see such potential in this show; I can’t say I’m really feeling it yet.   But yes, thank God for vampires who are actually threatening! I loved the opening sequence allusion to so many ghost stories: the happy couple driving down the dark deserted road, so much in love, so happy…so about to die.  Between that, and our first meeting with Stefan involving some guidance-counselor mind-control, we had a good reminder that even teenage vampires are more supernaturally dangerous than they are broody pacifists.

I like your point about the absence of adults in these teenagers’ lives.  That absence is such an interesting theme in so many of the tv shows I love.  I think I first noticed it with Claire in Six Feet Under – the character Alan Ball describes as his favourite.  Her father dead and her mother totally self-absorbed, she is so often left to her own devices.  Then there’s Becca Moody in Californication who at various times pieces together a traditional family, only to consistently be the center that holds it all together.  Dylan in the original 90210 is another example – his position made possible by a massive inheritance.  And of course so many of those kids from Dawson’s Creek, who seem to be the precursors for these Vampire Diaries kids…fast talkers with uber-verbal angst and lives lived almost devoid of real and helpful adult influence.

But in most of these cases, the power doesn’t need to be stripped from parental or adult figures; rather, those adults have failed (or died) in some way, and that’s what undermines their power.  That’s what forces the kids to grow up too soon.  We have that theme here with orphan Elena, but your point that this show also involves intentional stripping of adult power intrigues me.  I mean, that teacher was so mean and snotty to the kids!  It was so annoyingly obvious that the character was being set up for a fall.  And why would two high school students need a panicked grad student to make breakfast for them?  Last time I checked, a 17 year old could toast toast.

So like you say, in the end this type of theme is a performance of a particular kind of teenage angst.  Teens face that moment when the adult generation who is supposed to lead them to adulthood fails them; that moment when they are forced into what feels like a premature independence.  And so, as both adolescent and adult, the teenage vampire savior figure allows the teenager to feel a hope rising from within her own generation.  And so it’s not just about lust and angst and brooding, although it is, of course, about all those things.  But it’s also about seeking someone or something that can help us grow up, move forward, come into what we are supposed to be.  The teenage vampire allows us the desire for our leader to come from our own ranks rather from the ranks of those who came before us without losing the wisdom of an older generation precisely because he is both.

That being said, this power relation is also what makes me tired of how all these fun new vampire shows have a female lead being led by a male vampire – why doesn’t a shy, confused, yet super sexy, prematurely adult teenage boy ever start a new year at school to find a super sexy female vamp in his chemistry class?

But I’m staying open-minded here.  The word on the street is that this show gets better.  And how can it not?  It’s got the promise of a psychic best friend, a sexy older brother, a lexicon of fun new phrases to use and a potentially great soundtrack (loved the use of the Placebo remake of Kate Bush’s ‘Running up that Hill’ in the wistful love diary scene!).

Natalie

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EPISODE 2

Kathryn,

Love another ghost story beginning!  Blood dripping from the tree onto the tent – that one terrified me when I was a camping teen.  And the ‘blood Mary’ evoking mirror scenes…I like them turning all these ghost and ax-murderer type stories into vampire stories!

So, this one seemed to be all about the male relationships to me: Stefan and Damon working out their brother stuff (did Stefan shouting, “Why, so we can be brothers again?” to Damon’s, “I want you to remember who you are,”  remind you of Dexter and his brother’s relationship at the end of season 1?); Stefan and Matt doing their territorial thing over Elena; Jeremy and Tyler doing their territorial thing over Vicki, and poor Matt trying to protect his sister from all these guys.  At some point, the girls in the show began to look like moveable pieces – characters flitting from male-protector to male danger to male protector without a moment to catch their own breath in between.

With Stefan and Damon’s fight being over feeding, it got me thinking of one way in which this series might be compared to Twilight and True Blood.  In Twilight, where Edward doesn’t feed on Bella, there is a similar type of male-definition of female characters.  Bella often gets defined somewhere between Edward and Jacob.   But with True Blood, where feeding (on each other) becomes a significant part of their sexual relationship, Sookie receives a power to move and function in vampire worlds that doesn’t require turning into a vampire herself.  Sure, she still requires protection at times, but I wonder if the feeding aspect of her relationship with Bill shifts the power dynamics more in her favour – somewhat counter-intuitively to what we might expect.

One last thing – still tracking the disempowered adults: Why on earth would Aunt Jenna, trying to look like a “responsible adult” wear a semi-backless dress (more in the style of Joan Holloway than June Cleaver) to a parent-teacher conference?  And again, why are these high school teachers such meanies?  Who really talks to someone like that?!

Natalie

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Dear N,

I want to pick up the point you make about vampires who feed and those who don’t and the humans who are fed on. There has been a huge push toward the existentially vexed vampire and the vampire who tries to hang on to some semblance of their humanity while struggling against murderous bloodlust for sometime. But the general rule of this internal struggle is a zero-sum game: you either feed off humans and kill them/give into your dark vampiric nature. Or you refrain from feeding off them entirely. This all or nothing approach leaves us with an extreme dualism and a sense that what it means to be a vampire, as opposed to a human, is to exert excruciating and practically impossible levels of self-control or to abandon oneself to (evil) nature entirely. Both Twilight and The Vampire Diaries buy into this dualism whole hog. Though at least Twilight plays with the idea that this kind of self-control is gradually learned, and that mistakes can be made without a complete capitulation to the darkness (and remember, Bella doesn’t struggle nearly as much as expected once she is turned and it is credited to her general self-control as a human and her preparation – suggesting that a virtuous human life can make the transition to a vampiric state). True Blood and the novels by Charlaine Harris are unique in subverting this dualism – vampires can feed off of humans without losing themselves in orgiastic violence. And you are so right that this changes the human/vampire power dynamic in profound ways. Not to mention, humans feed off of vampires in that world, which gives the humans, especially our heroine Sookie, a completely different level of agency. But we can talk more about that in a True Blood conversation.

What do you think of the premise that not drinking human blood makes Stefan weaker than Damon? It makes perfect sense given standard vampire lore, but it means his self-restraint has an added sacrificial dimension that sort of made me wish he would just go steal a few pints from the blood bank. I couldn’t help but compare this (again) to Twilight where not only does the “vegetarian” lifestyle not weaken the Cullens, it is even hinted that it makes them, if not stronger, at least clearer of mind and purpose (kind of like Daniel and his friends in Nebuchadnezzar’s court?).

I agree that this episode was really a parade of male posturing and wasn’t nearly as delightful in an angsty, glorious way as the first one was for me. I am holding out for when Elena learns that Stefan is a vampire. At least once she knows she will have to respond, and perhaps we will see her own agency in relationship to the supernatural world that opens up before her (the trailer for next week gave me some hope that she will find out soon).

By the way, have you found it strange that the show has gone out of its way to acknowledge the standard “vampire markers” – they can’t cross the threshold until they are invited; they can hypnotize people; they have super senses and are super fast and super strong – but they haven’t even alluded to how it is that these vampires can parade around in broad daylight? Do they ever sleep?

K

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EPISODE 3

Dear N,

Episode 3 really took off for me! Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the consideration of all adults in Mystic Falls to completely abscond from responsibility toward their young charges so as to allow teenage girls to have violent overnight guests and private dinner parties and midnight tête-à-têtes. The only consistent adult presence, Mr. Tanner (who was really just an overgrown high school boy jockeying for position like the Taylors of the world), was even conveniently killed in a display of Damon’s complete inhumanity. Perfect. Now the kids have full reign of the town and I can’t wait to see what they do with it.

An interesting theme began to emerge with this episode: the angst of individuality. All the exchanges between Stefan and Elena about being loners or joiners? And Stefan’s remark upon learning that Bonnie’s ancestors were witches: “Salem witches were stunning examples of non-conformity and individualism” (thank you Emerson, to whom Damon slyly compares Stefan when reading his journal). Isn’t this what most what teenage drama is really about: do I belong? Am I just part of the herd? How do I distinguish myself without being a loner or loser? (come on, we all wrote about it in our journals or bad English class “I am a mystery” poems). By dramatizing the eternal angst of the American teen, even serious life trauma (the death of parents, divorce, being attacked by a supernatural creature) is subordinated to the internal angst of self-identity and belonging.

The question is, who’s got it right? Damon, who is nothing if not self-reliant? Or Stefan, who is all “ra-ra team spirit”? Sure, our sympathies are supposed to lie with Stefan, but who doesn’t feel a little of that longing to be beyond good and evil when they see Damon exercise his super power? (interestingly, we can see reverse parallels in the women these brothers choose to consort with: Damon with Caroline the conformer and Stefan with Elena the loner).

So much more to say – the vicarious thrill of watching Stefan try to reign in his super strength on the football field to fit in with the boys (so Clark Kent of him), the unleashing of Caroline’s unguarded bitchiness under Damon’s influence, the building hints that all is not normal with the Salvatore brothers – but I will hold off and wait to hear from you, after all, it isn’t always good to be a loner.

K

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Hey Kathryn,

I absolutely agree; Vampire Diaries really came to life for me last night!  While still waffling last week, I believe I may be wholly committed to this show now.  This ongoing failure/absence/death of adult characters continues to intrigue as it continues to make room for the kids to grow into their own adult roles.  I mean, did you ever have such classy, adult-free dinner parties when you were a teen?  Maybe I’d get pizza with a boyfriend, but never set a table with a carefully prepared meal and matching glasses for a weeknight, non-anniversary related meal!

And while Mr. Tanner’s death offered that revelation of Damon’s inhumanity, he was also the character we as the audience were forced to hate.  In fact, in the grand scheme of fantasy drama, Damon’s murder of him seemed to be less of an utterly different act than Stefan’s repeated, brutal humiliations of him in history class.  Instead the murder was an extreme point on a sliding scale or slippery slope of the ways in which these two vampire-boys seek to demonstrate their particular modes of power.  Both want to destroy this adult figure, cut him down; Damon just takes it exponentially further than Stefan.

And while I’m with you on finding the joiner vs. loner, participation vs. self-reliance arc interesting, it’s Bonnie’s paradox that attracts my attention most.  Should she trust her gut, intuitive, somewhat psychic instinct in regards to Stefan?  Or should she trust the more socialized, ‘he’s a nice guy with whom I shared a meal’ feeling more?  I imagine we’ll see her torn between the two as the series progresses, both as a revelation of her own internal turmoil coming to terms with her gift (interesting parallel to True Blood’s Sookie Stackhouse, perhaps?), and as a truly external performance of Stefan’s own internal angst, as well as the oscillating danger and safety in which Elena finds herself.

Oh yes, so much more to say: like how much more so I enjoy Caroline’s character in this strange mode of enslavement/liberation she’s experiencing and the thrill of watching Elena slap Damon when he tries to manipulate her into seduction.  Two modes of power made possible by the intervention of the brothers.  Like you say, Caroline’s brainwashing lets her inner bitchiness out.  I’m even more intrigued by how that pendant frees Elena to act with loyalty.  In different senses, both experience those forms of control as liberation, and I’m excited to see how such power dynamics develop.

Ok, that’s it for now.  I’m travelling today and need to hit the road.  Have a great weekend!

Natalie

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EPISODE 4

Dear N,

So that’s what those rings are for! I can’t say that this episode was as explosive as last week’s, but it did a nice job clearing up some missing vampire lore and filling out back stories and relationships. Stefan’s cleverness in spiking Damon’s “drink” was also pretty fun – especially after the indulgent scene where Damon is reading Twilight in Caroline’s room. We see just how wrong Stephenie Meyer’s got it with her fangless vampires.

What I really loved, though, was the history repeats itself motif. Half the fun of vampire mythologies is trying to imagine what it would be like to live for hundreds of years with something like human consciousness. The “I’ve seen it all” world-weariness is part of the vampire’s angsty allure and there is something so fantastic about watching hundreds of years of history compacted in one memory (like Damon finding the crystal he hid 150 years earlier). Especially when this compressed memory in one mind is contrasted with the fragile process of communal memory keeping – uncle/nephew Zach growing vervain as part of an alternative family tradition (digression: I want to know more about Zach and the strange Salvatore family lore in general) and the big revelation at the end of the episode that the founder’s descendants have been keeping the anti-vampire flame burning. Obviously, handed-down communal memory is a shaky prospect, prone to gaps and holes and the ill-fated agency of many human actors (like Jeremy keeping the watch that is somehow necessary to rid the town of evil forces), whereas Damon and Stefan have the advantage of *actually having lived through the history that is being repeated.* But the fragility of humans in the face of nearly omniscient foes is what makes the struggle so great – the humans have to piece it all together in common if they stand a chance. Then again, the gung-ho human collective is always more prone to make speedy judgments and stake the good vampires along with the bad, so what do you want to bet we’ll see another struggle for individualism in the coming show-down?

I want to know more about Katherine too, if only to see if she really was as passive as the back story is making her sound. In which case, will history repeat itself with a twist by giving us a more powerful Elena who doesn’t just wait to be the pawn between the waring brothers or between the town and the vampires?

I’d drink to that.

K

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Dear Kathryn,

Not as explosive as last week?  Really?  I think I liked this week’s even more – it was sexier; more tension built within the broader community; and overall it was just funnier than previous weeks.  You’re right, though: that Twilight reference was priceless!  Not only does Damon think Meyer’s got it wrong, but Bella ‘ain’t that special and Edward’s whipped – a pretty fun read of those texts, I’ve got to say.

Memory and Class Structures
I’m excited to see that the townspeople are in on things too, and especially that the human resistance will involve the terribly dressed local news anchor/ex-flame of Aunt Jenna, Logan Fell (that’s a great soap opera name if I ever heard one!).  Which gets me to this question about memory.  Yes, communal memory depends on the consciousness of those who participate in the events and the shaky passing on of that consciousness to the thoughts of others.  But I loved how this episode connected the agency of memory to things other than human consciousness.

Collective memory here is also connected to the ways in which human beings hold positions of power.  Because the ones in the know about the vampires are the current power players in Mystic Falls, and because the current power players are the descendents of the original founders, it seems that the survival of this small town will depend upon maintaining its class structure.  It will depend upon the families who pass around the positions of mayor, sheriff and perhaps (I hope!) even the lineage of witches.  And so such dependence on a class-based power structure like this makes me really eager to see how a social outcast like Vicky will fit into the ongoing narrative of salvation from vampire invasion.

Memory and Objects
And second, collective memory in this episode depends on objects – not just the way objects are remembered, but the power of objects themselves.  Last week I assumed that Elena’s necklace brainwashed her in a particular way; it turns out that it was actually weakening Damon’s powers.  We think that the family jewelry is being loaned to the heritage society because it bears the memories of the community (which in part, it does), but it’s also because they want to get their hands on this magical watch.  Zach’s vervain dungeon carries not only passed-down family wisdom for how to control unruly family members, but also creates a space that will exert that control for them.  These objects become characters themselves, exerting force, creating memory, bearing wisdom and shaping the narrative.  In other words, like human consciousness, they too have agency.  And it makes me wonder how much objects participate in our own daily networks of agency and power in ways we only recognize in the midst of fantasy stories like this one.

I’m with you – very excited to learn more about Katherine.  But right now I’m most excited to learn more about Bonnie, and I think that’s where the story might go next week.  That scene where she manages to light the candles of the whole dining room was great!  And I love watching her step tentatively into her own power, surprised at each turn how much she actually possesses.

Generally, and totally hooked on this show now,
Natalie

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EPISODE 5

I’m a Believer

Dear N,

So how about the “take matters into her own hands” Elena?! For the first time we start to see some spunk and backbone. While I don’t want to see her lose her introspection, I loved when she picked the journal up, sighed, and then put it aside, determined exactly not to be “that girl.” But best of all I loved seeing her capacity for duplicity – she suspects something is up with Stefan and she follows her instincts, sneaking away from the car wash, casting a half-guilty, half-suspicious glance over her shoulder at the “I just want to be normal” Stefan sudsing up a car.

Which is what makes her final speech – I’m not a believer – such an interesting set-up for future episodes. She wants to assert herself (perhaps a bit too pointedly?) as a modern woman: rational, self-sufficient, level-headed, and willing to stare brute reality in the face. Realizing her boyfriend is a vampire throws a major kink in this self-image and it is going to be fun to see how her acceptance of Stefan’s undead state changes her. Can she transition into the weird supernatural world she actually inhabits with her personality in tact? This is really the question most vampire mythologies are asking – and I can’t wait to see what this series does with it.

While we’re on the topic of girl-power: Bonnie! I know you’ve been following her growing awareness and control over her powers and it seems like we are finally going to see her come into her own. I loved that she starts to realize she can use her powers to act out – even though it clearly terrifies her.

As for the eternal struggle between Stefan and Damon, I loved that Damon has – thanks to Stefan’s machinations – fully become a creature of the night. I sort of hope he doesn’t get that ring back for a while so we can watch him sulk around in the shadows. Also, did you notice that the town folks don’t really understand what they’re up against? They clearly have legends passed down about how vampires operate, but no communal legend about how these vampires function. It makes we wonder if they will even know what to do with the objects they are trying to compile, or if the objects have in fact turned into kinds of totems – powerful in their own right, but exerting more power over the humans who wield them than the humans can exert over them (much like that creepy crystal hanging in Caroline’s room).

Mishmashed thoughts: what about that tidbit of vampire lore – without blood the vampire becomes a mummy, able to be tucked away for a while, but presumably restored to living death at any point? Didn’t you kind of want to meet the beautiful, funny, bitchy Katherine? I hear rumors we’ll get flashbacks next week and I am curious to see if Stefan’s mixed review holds.

OK, got to run, but the big question of the night: have we seen the last of Vicki?

K

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Hey Kathryn,

Yes, finally – I’m so glad Elena is stepping up her game.  At first I was frustrated that she put her diary aside, though.  While determined not to be ‘that girl’, she essentially became it by changing her normal habits (she did journal before she met Stefan!) because of boy troubles.  I was relieved that she returned to journaling at the end, refusing to give up her inner life but, more poignantly, journaling straight from it.

And I, like you, am excited to see where the series takes this non-believer storyline once Elena is compelled to believe.  This particular image of the modern woman – obsessed with rational, non-spiritual explanations – is less appealing to me than, say, a Bonnie type, for whom power will mean embracing mystery.  I loved seeing Bonnie’s unique skills develop this week, too, as she sought revenge on a mean girl (that girl got the best line in the show, by the way: “He’s a little Alzi-heimy” – terrible, but so perfect), and set the car on fire.  I’m eager to see what happens next week with her turn to an older mentor for help (seriously, was that Whitley from A Different World? She sure did look like her!).

Is Vicki gone? I don’t think so! I’m trying to remember the vampire lore bit from last week or the week before – Caroline asked Damon how someone becomes a vampire and while brushing off her answer he mumbled something about having blood drained once, surviving and having it drained again…which is pretty close to what just happened to Vicki.  I’m hoping this means we’re about to have a female, townie vamp join the undead team.  What an interesting way to continue the class commentary on this show: old, rich, settler Salvatore family and the town’s trashy loser family as the lead vamps.  Here’s hoping!

A couple of other things: I was intrigued that the stone used to keep the vampires alive (so to speak) in the sun was lapis lazuli.  Perhaps I’m reading too much in to this, but it’s worth noting (especially seeing as Stefan referenced its use in the Middle Ages), that this is the stone that was ground up by Renaissance artists to create the paint for renditions of the Virgin Mary’s cloak.  It’s a stone that has long religious significance, related particularly to women.  A random, but interesting association.  And the ‘oh my god my boyf’s a vampire’ montage was brilliant!  I love a good montage anyway, but this one really took the prize.  It summed up all the previous weeks episodes for any newcomers, reminded us of the little things we may have lost, included great fang flashes, multiple narrative arcs, music and diary writing.  That one goes down in my history of favourite tv montage scenes, for sure!

Also looking forward to seeing Katherine!  Although the zombie/mummy imagery tends to terrify me and I’d prefer it if this show didn’t go too far down that path!

-Natalie

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EPISODE 6

Vampire, Meet Thy Maker

The best revelation yet – Katherine is a vampire! I would have settled for a little bratty and self-absorbed but seeing her fangs was a bonus I did not see coming. Of course, the question now is where is she – surely she is still undead out there? Now that Vicki is a vampire, do we think there is any chance that we’ll see a female vampire rival fraction? Since Katherine is played by Elena, her return would be a fantastic externalization of the two sides of Elena we are beginning to see develop.

The whole idea of a female vampire maker is worth a post of its own (think about what chaos it causes in Bill Compton’s life in True Blood). There is something nefariously wonderful about a woman with fangs who plays life and death games with the men she finds most intriguing. But Lorena on True Blood comes across as a bit unstable and needy, so I hope we get to see more of Katherine and that she gets at least a fraction of the sassy screen time as Damon, who is the only other maker we’ve seen so far.

So let’s talk about Vicki post-transition. Good call, Natalie, on seeing her vampire-in-the-making possibility. I can’t wait to see what they end up doing with her, though I am a bit worried that she will function mostly as a child-figure in the battle between Stefan and Damon – which one can influence her upbringing more? But I look forward to seeing her let loose on the town – on Halloween nonetheless.

But what I am most excited to see is the possibility that the town’s teenagers will join forces as another kind of communal peace-keeping squad. Now that one of their own is a vampire, are they going to protect her from the town’s vigilantes? What better way to apotheosize the teenage self-sufficiency that has been running through the show so far. And we really have to get Bonnie back in the mix (why does she keep coming in and out of view?) – they are surely going to need a budding witch if they stand a chance taking on two rogue vampires and a vampire-hunting society.

I can’t wait to see all hell break loose…

Posted by Kathryn

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EPISODE 7 – You Are What You Want, According to Count Deepak

Dear N,

OK, maybe I should have seen it coming, but I was not expecting Vicki to permanently die! I was totally prepared for at least a several episode arc of her learning to control her new urges and living into her enhanced super sensory existence. And while she was a pawn in the battle of the Salvatore brothers, she allowed the show to tap into the heart of the vampire mythology: desire.

There’s a lot a vampire can do on the fantasy scene and today most vampires are so far from the soulless demons of Bram Stoker’s imagining one suspects Dracula wouldn’t recognize these existentially vexed vegetarian vampires if he met them in a vacant graveyard. But the one thing that seems to last from one incarnation to the next is the centrality of desire: vampires are no more, and no less, than a bundle of wants. For the vampire, these wants are pretty simple: they want to drink your blood. As Stefan tries to explain to Vicki, she is experiencing an enormous range of desires – anger, lust, confusion – that all boil down to hunger. A hunger he cannot promise her will ever go away, and that to control will require her to deny what she feels most strongly. All for the promise that in doing so she will discover another range of desires – for human connection, for fidelity, for love – that may or may not just be the product of guilt-driven delusion (if you listen to Damon, for instance).

This is one of the things I love about vampires – they focus the issue of desire without pretending that it is an easily understood reality. The human characters in the story have the chance – as do we – to recognize the primacy of desire in governing all that they do, even when they imagine it is rationally controlled or motivated. Vicki was an awesome addition to the cast of characters in this regard. As a human already caught up in, confused by, and at the mercy of her desires – for better or worse, and often both at once – she made the perfect transitioning vampire and I was ready to see her break away from the brothers and struggle through her own choices. I get it – she was a loose canon and competition to the central vampire characters – but I was sad to see her go.

Speaking of desires – being governed by them no matter what the future consequences might be – what about Elena asking Damon to erase Jeremy’s memory?! Putting aside the paternalism of Elena’s protection of her not-so-much younger brother, what a fantastically Gnostic moment: the good forces (Stefan and Elena) have to make a bargain with Damon whose superior power is gained through the very immoral choices they repudiate, but which power they desperately need. I hope we get to see more of this in future weeks. Like, perhaps, with the arrival of the old/new vampire next week?

If you are what you want, I want more.

Kathryn

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EPISODE 8: It’s not the sex, but it sure is the sexual tension

Why, oh why, do the hot, flamboyant, strong, personality-driven female vampires keep getting killed off? We’ve had a dozen hints that Katherine is really, finally dead (though we’ve yet to get the full story there) and last night we watch the super cool Lexi get stabbed in the heart by Damon, who she could clearly out power if she tried. Worst of all, her presence and personality actually brought Stefan out of his brooding, existentially vexed cave. Probably for the first time last night I saw just how attractive Stefan could be, thanks not to his burning love for Elena, but thanks to his playful, teasing, tension-filled hundred-year old friendship with Lexi. The moment he was at Elena’s side again he was all furrowed eyebrows and intense eyes and serious expressions of emotional sincerity.

Elena seemed to notice too. Not only did her bar-side chat with Lexi give her the confidence to re-approach her doomed and dangerous love for Stefan, but how could she help but notice that this smiling, joking pool shark was a lot more attractive than the graveyard brooder who normally professes his love to her? Which made me think that the problem with Elena and Stefan is not that one of them is dead and the other is alive – or even that one of them is tempted to drain the other of blood – but the paternalism Stefan projects toward Elena. And come on, how can he not feel a little protective or paternalistic? He’s 140-some years older than her. As Natalie pointed out in our original exchange on Twilight, the creepiest part of these vampire/human romances is the age gap. Which is also to say that real sexual tension, attraction, chemistry is not just about two hot people finding each other in a cemetery. It is about power – the thrill of feeling somewhat out of your league, enamored by someone whose very charisma is intoxicating and unsettling. In the best scenario, each partner can feel this toward the other, sometimes more, sometimes less. While I believe Stefan that he and Lexi have never engaged in any actual hanky-panky, their chemistry is exactly the chemistry of two near-equals enamored of the other’s uniqueness (and come on, they went skinny dipping in the Trevi fountain, so hot vamp sex or not, don’t tell me there’s not sexual tension). Seeing Stefan with Lexi drove home to me just how lopsided his relationship with Elena is. Not to mention Lexi’s pertinent observations that something is up with the Katherine/Elena doppelganger syndrome. Just how creepy will that plot line get?

One last thought: Bonnie! I love that she is embracing her witchy powers and letting Elena in on the secret. Next week promises to finally turn the spotlight on her, and I can’t wait!

Posted by Kathryn.

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Episode 10: The Dos and Don’ts of Vampire Sex

Dear N,

I couldn’t help but wonder if the clever producers over at the CW played their cards to perfection, airing the turning point episode where Elena and Stefan finally surrender to and consummate their steamy, on-again off-again love affair the night before the second installment in the great vampire chastity saga is released in theaters nationwide. As Damon so flippantly pointed out at the beginning of the series, if the Vampire Diaries have the mythology right, Twilight ends up looking like child’s play. Then again, compared to pretty much any other vampire mythologyTwilight reads a bit adolescent. Still, I have to admit, emo music, dim lights, and luxurious skin on skin montages aside, the chemistry in Stefan’s childhood bedroom left something to be desired.You might have to wait several thousands of pages to get to Bella and Edward’s consummation, but the sexual tension between them once she becomes a vampire rivaled anything I saw last night between Stefan and his lady love (more here on those same power relations I was harping on last week).  What does intrigue me is the way each mythology handles the idea of vampire sexual desire. Edward is terrified to go too far with Bella for fear he’ll lose control of himself and accidentally rip her throat out or at least crush, mutilate, or break her. His fear acknowledges the close connection between lust and sexual desire and the vampire’s unending thirst for blood. But what seems so frustrating about that mythology is the either/or-ness of it all. With Stefan (not to mention the oh so adult vamps in True Blood), the connection between lust, hunger, and general excess of emotion (cue Damon’s little chat with newly minted, not made for the afterworld, vampire Logan about the intensity of vampire emotion) exists in spades, but there is also an acknowledgment that as much as these passions exert control we can never full understand or eradicate, there are channels and habits and practices of control that allow some modicum of self-restraint. If Stefan can learn to turn down his lust for human blood he likewise seems to be able to keep his freaky eyes in check as he gets it on with Elena. Though interestingly, only with her care and acceptance. The scene where she insists on seeing his mottled face and gently strokes his mutating eye skin was the most provocative and intimate (if a bit over the top) – here we see what can make sex so amazing and so terrifying, really being naked under someone else’s touch and gaze. While chastity and self-control are far sexier than most people admit (and asTwilight is currently about to prove at the box office again), so too can be self-control in sexual expression. We’ll just have to see if there are more layers to this vampire sexual mythology.

But enough about sex for the moment – the Elena and Stefan finally do it plot was not even my favorite part about last night’s episode. What I loved best was the growing mystery of Alaric! Color me gullible, but I was sure he was a vampire and probably an evil one at that. Granted he might still be a vampire – he does have that mysterious ring and he sure knows about vampires – and he might be evil – though I think his whole “I’m not violent by nature” speech before he stakes Logan is meant to disabuse us of that idea. Maybe he is some sort of mysterious vampire hunter? Or vampire guardian? I want to know more!

And maybe it is just New Moon on the brain, but what was up with the long, lingering shot of the full moon as Tyler broods and bemoans that he doesn’t know what is happening to him. It was far too long a shot to mean nothing – any chance the mayor’s family is going to have a different kind of alpha male secret in its closet? [random possibility: could Alaric be a werewolf? Clues to this latter option: strange German name, and werewolves are often associated with German legend. Long shot, I know...]

OK, I’ll sign off here and go plot when to enter the vampire teenage frenzy at a cineplex near me, and leave you to ponder why things always go so badly for Caroline?

K

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Hey Kathryn,

Well, I am sorry to be a little late in responding to your lovely analysis today – you see, I hit my local theatre early this morning for New Moon.  Far from being filled with teenage girls, though, it was overflowing with middle aged women swooning at Jacob’s pecs and abs rather than Edward’s, but more on that this weekend once you’ve had the chance to see it too (stay tuned readers for the moth chase’s foray into movie critique).

I think you’re right – the CW absolutely timed their sex scene to coincide with New Moon’s debut!  And yes, Stefan and Elena have got nothing on Edward and Bella when it comes to heat (at least, as you say, in the final Twilight book, if not the movie).  And I wonder if that’s because Elena is way more badass than Bella.  I was reminded again this morning (and again, I’m trying to resist talking about New Moon, but it’s really difficult) how pathetic Bella can be with her desperate, whiny neediness in relation not only to Edward, but Jacob too.  Elena at least has a full life – friends, family, work, her writing, etc.  She loves Stefan, but he’s not her only love.  She has other people she cares about, including herself, and so she doesn’t let him walk all over her.

It seems that the heat between Bella and Edward grows out of their imbalanced relationship and their adolescent inability to control themselves, whereas Elena has self-control, as does Stefan, and they seem more evenly matched.  Their’s is a more level headed love (inasmuch as love between a hundred and something year old vampire and a teenage girl can be level-headed).  Of course, I’m not suggesting that sex between more balanced couples can’t be hot – of course it can.  But it seemed that sex between Stefan and Elena needed to communicate more of an acceptance, love and settling into a comfortable life together rather than a rip your clothes off, can’t resist your neck kind of boot-knocking.  It needed to let us feel like they were equals rather than imbalanced horny teens.

What I wondered though was why every time this show introduces a vampire I come to love, they kill them off?  First Vicki, then Stefan’s old friend, and now Logan.  I didn’t like that guy as a human, but he was pretty funny on the dark side.  Between his playful grappling to come to terms with his new status and his thirst to kill causing him to be ‘conflicted’, he just sort of played it all with a wink and a smile that made me wish he could stick around a little longer…even if it put Jenna in danger.  So what was up with the sheriff’s plan?  Why did she turn him and who will she turn next to keep her army strong?

I’m with you on Alaric – what an interesting guy.  He’s certainly blocked from entering homes (remember last week he didn’t pass the threshold when Jenna didn’t invite him in) and yes, he’s got that weird ring…so my hunch is vampire, but I’m intrigued by your vampire-slayer suggestion. I’m also wondering what his angle with Jeremy is.  Why does he care so much about him?  And why did he instigate this family history project for Jeremy that led to Jonathan Gilbert’s diary with all the stories about ghosts and vampires and the like?

Not to mention that Alaric got the best line in the whole episode last night – the idea of a local public school teacher in a sexy leather jacket calling the mayor an alpha male douchbag is sort of hilarious and awesome – so what gives him that courage and confidence?  I’m hoping we find out next week!

And no, I don’t think you’re reading too much into Tyler’s weirdness – they definitely lingered on that moon, following Jeremy asking him why he was so weird and him responding that he had no idea…we’re definitely going to get some werewolf action here!

Ok, please – go see New Moon so we can talk about it!!  Oof, and make sure you psych yourself up for lots of broody looks and Kristen Stewart’s panicked heavy breathing at everything or you might not make it through (seriously, there’s a moment when someone offers her a muffin and she looks and sounds like she’s going to have a panic attack – someone needs to get that poor girl some Zoloft!).

ox,
Natalie

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Episode 11: Eternal Vampire Teens Return, and it’s still all in the family

Dear Natalie,

After a long holiday hiatus, our favorite prime-time undead are back – and picking up right where we left off: Stefan and Elena have just consummated their angsty, destiny-driven love only to have Elena storm out when she discovers that her near identical appearance to Katherine might have more to do with Stefan’s wooing than her own special breed of teen independence. Damon saves her from a car accident caused when she tries not to hit another mysterious vampire who materializes on the road (we have yet to learn who he is or what he wants) and then takes her on a road trip to Georgia to meet his old flame, a sexy, leggy witch who has it out for him.Plenty happens in the episode, but what it really offers us is a whole new range of plotline promises and mysteries to be solved – how is Elena related to Katherine and why does it matter? will Damon unlock the terrifying tomb and unleash 27 starving vampires on Mystic Falls? what role does Bonnie have to play in aiding or hindering his devious plan? Will Jeremy and his new bibliophile lady friend (“I’m home schooled. I just hang out here for a mock school environoment.” Amazing) discover the town’s bloody secret?

Most of these evolving stories circle around questions of family and relatives: Jeremy and Anna both have ancestors who kept diaries about the mysterious goings-on of 19th century Mystic Falls and clearly Jeremy and Elena both are involved in these vampire plots because of their bloodlines. Though Elena, we learn, comes from a different bloodline from Jeremy and may in fact be directly related to a vampire. Bonnie is tied into the mess through her great-great grandmother, Emily, and Stefan and her grandmother have a tie back from the 1960s. Stefan reveals to Elena that their connection is based on more than happenstance: he is the one who saved her from the car wreck with her parents and then spent months spying on her to see if she measured up to Katherine. Even as our teenage heroes try to self-determine their lives, making independent choices and seeking to break from custom and expectation, they are caught up in a web of family relations that, to some degree, is determining their present. I’m really curious how these overlapping family tales will continue to unfold and enfold the characters in plots that are bigger and more complicated then them. Which, in a sense, isn’t that what all good teen drama is about – how to strike out on one’s own while increasingly realizing that one can never, not completely, escape one’s family, one’s home?

The central family relationship we’ve seen so far, and the one driving the main drama, is the tension between good and evil brothers Stefan and Damon, respectively. Now that his real motive for being in Mystic Falls is revealed, Damon seems to have given up some of his eternal brother-feud and has decided, at least for the time, to play nice. Watching Elena and Damon make some kind of peace, aided, no doubt, by her anger at Stefan, one has to wonder if the three of them won’t bury the hatchet – at least until Damon finds a way to free Katherine from her eternal resting place. But even as we’re given reasons to think that Damon might not be that bad, we see just how evil he can be when he cruelly and cold-bloodedly kills Bree by ripping out her heart (an overly symbolic way to fill an ex?). We’ve seen Damon kill before, but somehow that maneuver, on the heels of his flirty good-boy behavior at the bar with Elena, totally surprised me. No matter how nice he plays, he is still the bad vampire and we are just beginning to see how bad he can be.

To top things off we also have that strange flashback to Damon sucking the blood out of Alaric’s wife (if that is indeed what we were seeing). I don’t know about you, but I am not at all sure what we’ve got in Alaric. His whole speech about finally meeting and killing a vampire face to face seems to suggest pretty strongly that he is not a vampire himself. But he is super strong and he has a mysterious family ring and he has come to Mystic Falls to hunt down evil, so he is not just an “ordinary” guy. Whether he is just some suped-up vampire hunter or something more supernatural, we have yet to learn. Any guesses?

I will leave a discussion of Bonnie to you – though I am really excited by the prospect that she is about to play a major role in whatever cosmic battles go down. I only hope that her time in the tomb and Stefan’s promises that the vampires can’t get out (if that isn’t a challenge to fate, I haven’t heard one) cured her of her blockage so her powers will be in full effect next week.

Finally, I loved Jeremy’s line to Anna about how vampires are metaphorical substitutes for real historical fears: “a country at war doesn’t want realism, they want vampire fantasy.” Oh irony! here we are, a country at war, devouring our own bloodletting myths. But oh meta-irony! Jeremy is about to learn that he is so mistaken. What he mistakes as allegorical figures releasing psychological and cultural tension will prove to be only too real. Which raises the question of what we all think we’re doing when we watch these supernatural stories – releasing pent-up fear in fantasy or secretly hoping the fantasy will prove more real than whatever fears we already face?

Glad to be back and can’t wait to hear what you thought!
Kathryn

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Hey Kathryn,

Yes, yes, it is so great to be back!  I didn’t realize how much I had missed Vampire Diaries until I started settling back into it last night.  And what fun to have two guest stars from other female-directed programming I have loved – Vanessa’s mum from Gossip Girl as Bree, and Mia Kirshner (Jenny from The L-Word) as Alaric’s girlfriend, Isobel.

Yes, you’re right, Damon’s brutal killing of Bree was difficult to watch after he had seemed so nice all episode long.  And I had to wonder if there would be greater repercussions to killing a witch (who has angry vampires at a moment’s dial) than killing a human woman.  And of course, I balked at yet another fabulous woman being killed on this show!  But I’m a little embarrassed to say that I enjoyed Elena getting another love interest – or at least, flirtation-buddy – and I happily anticipate the unfolding of such a narrative.  It seems to be a standard with these vamp-loving girls: Bella’s got Edward and Jacob; Sookie’s got Bill and Erik (at least in the books – I’m not far enough into True Blood yet to know if they develop that in the show).  We noted (with a little annoyance) at the beginning of the series that Vampire Diaries might go down the same path.  Now we’re there, I’m kind excited to see how it all unfolds at next week’s sock hop (oh my goodness, I can’t believe we’re going to get a sock hop – I can’t wait!).

But this need for two competing lovers in the vampire stories has got me wondering.  Why the need for it?  The central relationships in these shows – Bella & Edward, Sookie & Bill, Elena & Stefan – have a destiny type quality to them.  They’re marked by unparalleled passion, a sense of irresistibility and a stamp of the eternal.  And I think it’s this stamp of the eternal that necessitates a competing love interest.  When Lexi’s boyfriend pointed out that if you want to date someone eternal, you have to be eternal, the pain in his eyes wasn’t just at his loss of Lexi.  It was also that he now had to walk alone without her for an eternity he had taken on for her.  So I think this second love interest plays out a number of relationship fears we might have – both the fear of committing to something or someone for life and the fear that whatever we commit ourselves to will leave us while our life endures.  Of course, this analysis all ties in nicely with your read of Jeremy’s psychological/cultural read of the vampire narratives – the tension between releasing fear and secretly hoping what we fear is real can certainly be applied to cold-feet around relational commitments.

Speaking of Lexi’s boyfriend – didn’t you just assume that he was the vampire in the road at Elena’s car accident?  I’m intrigued that you didn’t – do you think there’s another mysterious vamp out there besides the one we met?

So the fact that Isobel – Alaric’s dead girlfriend – is played by such a major actress as Mia Kirshner, makes me think this character is going to play a much larger role than we had originally thought.  I don’t think we’ll just see her in flashbacks.  I actually wonder if she is going to be a vampire, herself – if Damon was turning, rather than eating, her.  And if I’m right about that, then I’m definitely with you thinking Alaric is some kind of suped-up (as in supernatural’d-up?) vampire slayer, but who might be working with his now-vamp ex-lover to fight evil and track down her killer/turner.  Ok, that might all be a little far-fetched, but I think the answer might be in some combination of that.

This is getting long, so I think I’ll leave Bonnie for next week – when my hope too is that she’s going to break out.  I was home alone last night watching, so I was pretty pleased that we didn’t have to deal with the release of the vampires from the tomb, just yet.  And oh, didn’t you love that almost flirty, but sweet, exchange between Stefan and Grams!  And just what is it that Stefan is holding back from telling Elena about her adoption and why she looks like Katherine? I just can’t wait to find out!

I’ll sign off here – please oh please let the sock hop next week have some wonderfully ironic allusion to Grease!

ox,
Natalie

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Episode 12

Hey Kathryn,

Wow what a great episode!  It was full of fantastic moments of the horror genre – hair dryer covering the sound of danger; the scary phone call from inside the house; and even the fabulously creepy happy Mr. Sandman music playing as evil walked away at the end. Moreover, we got to see Elena kick some vampire ass (well, almost kick it), we got more story on Alaric with an interesting twist, and we got to see a whole new set of vampires start trooping around Mystic Falls.  Let’s take each of these in turn.

I loved Elena’s fighting back at Noah.  At first I thought she was silly for trying to run – of course he could out-move her and have her dead in a second if he wanted.  But then her resourcefulness kicks in – first a pencil and then the mop handle (wow on snapping that mop handle with her knee, by the way. That alone seemed incredibly strong to me!).  I was actually disappointed when Stefan and Damon had to come in to finish the job.  On the one hand, I suppose we needed to get the information out of Noah about the journal and Katherine.  But the brothers swooping in could also simply indicate that Elena, for all her toughness, just isn’t ready to kill yet.  But this almost makes me wonder if a time is coming when she will have to.

Alaric continues to intrigue!  He pushes it too far with Damon when he asks him where he’s traveled, and Damon realizes on some level that something is up.  In that moment I realized that the more natural question a man would ask another man who says he travels a lot is, “oh, so what do you do for a living?”.  And I was struck by how Damon never ever gets asked that.  Doesn’t anyone wonder?  When Damon followed up later by glamouring (ok, I know that’s True Blood, but I don’t know what they call it in this show) him, at first I thought Alaric was employing some special supernatural skill to resist the mind control.  I was almost disappointed to see the vervain crumbled in his hand.  Although, if Alaric were just a really resourceful human, he might be even more interesting…and that could certainly bode well for Elena’s own developing vampire-defense skills.  Wow, so on the relationship between Alaric and Elena – what are we to think?  Sure, there’s lots of Isobels in the world.  But of course this means something in a supernatural tv show!  If we are to think that Alaric’s wife was Elena’s mother, does that mean Alaric is her father?  Isobel would have had Elena before she married Alaric.  But what is the connection between Isobel, Elena, Katherine’s lineage and, of course, Damon?  It seems now that wasn’t a random kill for Damon, but that his murder (or turning? I’m not letting go of that yet) of Isobel might be more fraught with meaning than we imagined.

New vampires – yey!  I thought Anna was weird, but I didn’t quite see that coming.  How come she couldn’t just control Jeremy’s mind?  Between Damon’s previous advances on Caroline, Anna’s advances on Jeremy, Damon’s relationship with Bree, Ben’s hitting on Bonnie (I’m, of course, very worried about this – poor, Bonnie!), Logan and Aunt Jenna, and possibly Alaric and Aunt Jenna, I’m starting to wonder if anyone in this town dates for genuine affection and companionship.  Is sexuality really the only way to get close to someone?  Don’t any vampires just forge a friendship with someone and then look through their room later for whatever they need?  Why is sexual entanglement such an important theme?  Is it because it heightens the betrayal?  Is it because we need to see the victim be thoroughly objectified?  If that’s the case, what’s going on with someone like Anna, for whom the sexual advances are resisted and, tactically, a more friendship based approach would have worked better?

So, speaking of incredibly inappropriate things teachers say to high-school students in this show – it’s like porn for a history teacher!!  Who says that?!  What does that even mean?  I know I might be stretching this analogy too far, but it seems that in a narrative world where sex is so overused for manipulation and getting what one needs, everything has to become eroticized.  Whereas vampires might seduce humans for aid in the ongoing supernatural battle, even the use of the journal for one’s own vampire research has to get compared with auto-eroticism.  If you’re not using someone else to advance the war, then you use something else, and even that’s got a sexy edge.  And so it’s curious to me how deep this erotic drive in vampire stories needs to go.  Curious, and certainly intriguing.

Ok, I’ll leave the brotherly love/spats/betrayal to you, as well as Caroline and Matt – the only two crazy kids in this show who seem to be dating for their own desire and not to play some spiritual battlefield.  Oh, and the flashforward to next week with Katherine’s bloody lips and the guest appearance James Remar – Dexter’s Harry Morgan!  I can’t wait!

ox,
Natalie

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Dear Natalie,

I agree – it was a wonderfully packed episode with some of the creepiest moments yet. The Scream-esque scene where Elena is blow-drying her hair while the vampire-finding compass spins wildly out of control on her bed – so creepy! I think I probably get a little less freaked out by these things than others (than you?), but my heart was totally racing in that wonderful, suspense/horror movie sort of way. And then we see mystery-vampire hanging from her ceiling! Ahh!

I am really, really intrigued by this new band of teenage vampires. And let’s just pause for a moment and ask why is it that pretty much every vampire we’ve met so far was turned when they were young, most before they hit 20? I get that this makes them immortally attractive, but it is also kind of weird. It fits right into the on-going theme of the show of adults being displaced and teenagers taking on the both the emotional drama of their own development and the cosmic battles between good and evil. We haven’t seen a proper adult character for episodes and now we have this new band of undead youth show up, also tied to Katherine in some way. There are hints that once upon a time adults were involved in these battles – Jeremy and Elena’s ancestor, for example – but the center of the drama has shifted to the young, both dead and alive. So who are these new teenage bloodsuckers? Did Katherine prowl around creating her own mini teenage vampire army? And how does Ben fit into this? He can only have been turned recently, since everyone in high school still knows him as a former football player. So how does he know or care about Katherine? I hope we get some answers next week!

You will notice that I didn’t really count Jenna and Alaric as adults. Alaric has something of an adult-protector vibe about him and I am so curious to learn more about who and what he is. When the camera panned down to his hand after he was fake-hypnotized by Damon, I thought for sure we’d see his mystery ring and learn that somehow it has the power to protect him from vampiric influence. But no, he just happened to be holding a crumpled sprig of vervain. What? Does he just walk around clutching it all the time?I agree, I too was disappointed by this easy way out. Even though he promises to have a central role to play and his story line is a bit more “adult”, his showdown with Damon seems completely on a par with the other teenage dramas. Or maybe it is just that all the teenage dramas are so damn adult it is hard to tell them apart. And I agree completely – how many Isobels can there be in this supernatural world? I am not sure if Alaric is Elena’s father, but I definitely think we’ve just learned about Elena’s mother.

As for the fight-back Elena, I also loved it. Like you, I wondered if her days of innocence are numbered and she will have a death on her hands sooner than we think. I couldn’t help but think about a comparison with Sookie Stackhouse, who also discovers a capacity to kill that empowers and unnerves her. Sure, you can discover there are vampires and even live with them, you can witness all sorts of torture and horror and death. But things really change when you realize you aren’t above any of it and have  the capacity to give as good as you get. I wonder how Elena will handle it if she does have to kill, and what this will do to her comparison as evil Katherine’s opposite?

I was also really struck by the violence of the Salvatore brothers. There was something significant about Stefan being the one to wield that broken broom stick as torture device and stake. It was a whole new side to his sweet, I don’t drink human blood demeanor. Apparently his ethical impulses do not extend to torture and murder, at least not when Elena’s safety is on the line. I have to admit, I liked this Stefan. Or maybe I just like the fact that the line between Stefan and Damon is starting to blur a little. We are seeing Damon in more positive situations all the time and I have to admit, there was something pretty hot about the idea of the Salvatore brothers as a vampire-ass-kicking duo. I am still really struck by the juxtaposition between nice-Damon and Alaric, who serves to remind us just how un-nice Damon can be. But I wonder if there isn’t more to that story than meets the eye and if the line between good and bad won’t blur even further before all is said and done.

I am very excited for our flashback in time next week, and for the guest appearance of Harry Morgan!

As a final thought: who really thinks Stefan’s plan to trick Damon is going to work? I didn’t think so.

Kathryn

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With a title like “Children of the Damned” I was kind of hoping we’d get more juicy info on Elena’s birth parents. But we did see other familial relationships – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, brothers – in full dysfunctional glory. Our biggest reveal was that Anna is not only a smart-talking vampire posing as an overly eager home-schooler, but is the daughter of Pearl, the infamous Katherine’s vampire bff. We have yet to learn in this mythology what “vampire’s daughter” means – her biological daughter who was turned with her, by her, after her? Her undead daughter, namely the offspring of her turning? One way or another, she has just as many reasons to want into that tomb as Damon does. Which does beg the question Damon asked her himself: why didn’t she seek out Damon’s help? Now that Damon feels (yet again) betrayed by Stefan, perhaps another more practical alliance will be forged between these two bereft vamps?

The central family relationship of the episode was the Salvatore family, which took us back to the gorgeous period costumes and sad parody of southern gentility of Mystic Falls, 1864. Yay for a return of spoiled, selfish Katherine and her blood-sucking excesses! I loved how this episode let us see Damon in a less arrogant light – his sweet gentlemanly hesitation as Katherine urges him to kiss her blood-soaked mouth. It also illustrated Damon’s early insistence to Stefan that he was never compelled but knew exactly what he was getting himself into with Katherine, while emphasizing just how naive Stefan was. But the big betrayal felt a bit off to me: would Stefan really have given in to his father so easily and run after the sheriff once Katherine was revealed? Surely he couldn’t have hoped for clemency for Katherine at that time. Are we supposed to think he was either already uncertain in his love for Katherine or so under his father’s influence that he didn’t have the gumption to stand up for her for more than a few moments? I have to admit, given how recklessly Damon seems to have been in love with her, he has a pretty damn good reason to bear his eternal brotherly grudge. I suppose I really wish we had gotten more time with James Remar (after Dexter is he going to be type cast as the overbearing father trying to save his sons from homicidal impulses?) and more back story on the underlying tensions between Guisseppe Salvatore and his sons. Maybe this is for a future episode? We still haven’t seen the showdown at the church, after all, or the death of the Salvatore brothers that renders them immortal.

This episode also gave us another side of Stefan, following up from his turn as torturer/killer last week. Who is this tough guy who so calmly asks Alaric “are we going to have to do this the hard way?” I hope we see more of Stefan’s range in the weeks to come. And speaking of Alaric – do you think we have the whole story? He is the wife of a para-psychologist who went missing with Damon (nice call, Natalie, on suspecting Damon turned her. Though that does make we wonder why he never even saw Alaric until he showed up in Mystic Falls – wouldn’t his new vampire companion at least have lingered for a moment over her lost husband? wouldn’t he have at least paid enough attention to who she was married to before he made her a vampire?) and now, driven by grief and unknowing, has fashioned himself a modern day Van Helsing. Is that it? I mean, that is pretty cool, but what about that mysterious ring? Was it just a red herring? (speaking of rings, we learn that it was Emily who crafted the magic rings that let Katherine, Pearl, Anna, and eventually Stefan and Damon stay out in the daylight – I wonder what this means about Bonnie’s future?).

Final thought – we left this episode with Bonnie and Elena in the clutches of Anna (and her sad henchman Ben). There is no mention made of Bonnie’s plight on the preview for next week, but the photos on the CW suggest that Bonnie’s grandmother is going to get involved and that something is going to happen with that spell book. How much longer before the final showdown and how are those lines of brotherly affection, betrayal, and remorse going to be drawn?

posted by Kathryn.

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Dear Natalie,

What?! Another hiatus for over a month?! Naturally, we can’t see the opening of the tomb, the revelation of Katherine’s betrayal, and the creepy zombie vampire wake up after a little dribble of Damon’s broken blood bottle and expect to get more action – or answers – next week… Sigh. I suppose we have to start with what we’ve got. And for me, that was a lot of fantastic witch action, long waited for, and much appreciated. Though I can’t say I saw the ending coming. One of the most awesome things about the witches to me, was the sense that they had their own secret power, capable of keeping the vampires at bay, and even of overpowering the vampires (as we see with Gram’s head trick on Damon).Gram was the heart of that power – representing the experience and the confidence that Bonnie lacks, but can learn from her. I know it is one of the tropes of any good coming of age story that the hero has to be orphaned or otherwise left to fend for herself, and in that sense I hope we get to see more of Bonnie taking up Gram’s reigns, but I was still really shaken up to see Bonnie’s grief over her passing. She now joins the ranks of the other teenagers on the show (undead and alive), bereft of parents or betrayed by them.

But Gram didn’t go out before teaching Bonnie and all of us one of the most important witchy lessons – as Bonnie says, there are many sources of a witches power and many of them come from the ordinary life. One of my favorite moments of the episode was watching Bonnie and Grams set up for action, calling on the elements and laying the ground work for their ritual with the ordinary stuff of life. “What, just tap water,” Elena asks, to be knowingly mocked by Grams – what does she expect, the extraordinary springs out of the ordinary. This is one of the great things about supernatural fantasy worlds – they often hide within themselves a call to pay more attention to the power of the things of the world, which need not be special, exceptional, or strange. If a spell calls for tap water, a nice tupperware filled at the kitchen sink will do the trick.

Vampires often teach us the same kind of reverence for the elemental stuff of life – namely blood. This show, strangely, has really backed away from this part of the mythology. Sure, we know the tombed up vampires are going to need some blood. Sure, Anna brings her own live human (specially chosen for Gilbert genealogy) as a treat for her nearly dead-dead mom and we even see the bearing of teeth when she opens Elena’s vein. But for a show with two vampires at its heart, their bloodlust has been strangely absent. As has the bloodlust of most of the other vampires – Anna and Ben, for instance, aren’t seen preying on the town or craving the blood of their victims. Even Damon, our resident blood sucker, has fulfilled his needs, whatever they are, off screen. If vampires are fundamentally creatures of desire, these vampires seem to have sublimated their desires for blood into other longings – for love, for companionship, for reunion. I even found myself wondering if the entire plot could more or less stay the same if their were no vampires, just some other mildly supernatural plot that raises the stakes of ordinary teenage angst. I hope we rekindle the vampire-specific desires and all their messy implications after this second hiatus. What about you?

Speaking of ordinary teenage angst, though, how about Matt and Caroline?! I am loving this side plot and really rooting for both of them. Though I wonder how long it will be until they get pulled into the supernatural machinations unfolding around them. Surely they aren’t going to get a straight love story while all their other friends are fighting off an attack of the undead?

Final observation:  the jokes about Bob/Duke throwing wild keg parties anytime he comes home from Duke, even though no one likes him, were fantastic (this said from a UNC alumna who is suffering the shame and humiliation of Wednesday night’s rivalry game). Though they got a bit creepier when I realized the scene of Duke’s kegger was meant to be the feast for the tombed up vampires – the analogy between the violence of frat-style parties and vampire attacks seeming a little too pointed.

What about you? Favorite parts of the episode? Predictions for the return? Who was that person opening the tomb and why can they do it? Will Katherine ever make an appearance?

xoxo,

K

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Hey Kathryn,

I had the exact same response – why on earth is it going on hiatus so soon!  Grrr!  And yes, poor Bonnie…she finds out her boyfriend is a vampire and her Grams dies all in one episode, not to mention the guilt she may begin to face that her grandmother’s death is her own fault because she didn’t want to leave Stefan in the tomb.  Strangely, though, this death doesn’t actually leave Bonnie orphaned – she always traipses over to Gram’s house from, presumably, where she lives with her parents.  It’s just we’ve never met her actual parents…and I wonder if we now will?  Does the witch gene skip a generation, or will we find a witch mother or father at Bonnie’s home?  Can men even be witches?

Which leads me to my speculations on that person opening up the tomb and why they can do it.  I’ve wondered a few times why all the witches are black and all the vamps are white.  And of course, in Mystic Falls we can trace this back to Katherine and her various lovers and Katherine’s maid (slave?) Emily, and her subsequent lineage.  I’m never quite sure how intentional they are being about the racial tension getting visually loaded onto the vampire/witch relationships; both fraught and friendly.  But as Grams lay dying having saved some vampires, I wondered aloud if a witch could be turned vampire.  Only seconds later we see this African American male vampire able to emerge from the tomb as some sort of blend of race, gender and supernatural codes.  Did one of Emily’s witch-relatives turn back in 1964?  Is he both witch and vamp?  That’s my theory, at least – we’ve got some new being emerging from the tomb here and I’m dying to see whose side he’s on!

Speaking of the tomb, as Damon got stuck in there I realized that for all the ways I love this show, I’m not sure I’d love it nearly as much without him!  He is far and away the most interesting character to me, and the last few weeks have only heightened that.  His love for Katherine and what seems to be a blossoming affection for Elena certainly humanize him, as does Elena’s blossoming affection for him!  Packing that O-Neg bag in his pocket for his lover was so bittersweetly thoughtful.  And after learning last week that he ducked out of the Confederate army for ‘moral reasons’ (misconstrued by his father as weakness), Damon seems to have a moral core that is more complex than we previously realized.  Pair that with the fact that he has a really good reason to hate Stefan…it just seems that the show is starting to play with notions of good and evil and the beyond beyond each in some interesting ways.

Indeed, if we consider the show in light of a show like TrueBlood, Damon as a human was more like the open-minded, vampire-affirming humans typified in sweet Hoyt (able to entertain racial, sexual and supernatural difference in the way many of his hick neighbours cannot).  You mentioned last week how quickly Stefan turns on the vampires when they are revealed – I’m left wondering if Damon is truly the ‘good’ brother who was able to stay loyal, be non-judgmental and accept the other for who they are.

Speaking of blurred lines between good and evil – we’ve certainly gone through it with Anna.  First we think she’s a dorky home-schooled stalker girl.  Then she’s a powerful, evil vampire.  Now she’s just a girl trying to find her mama-Pearl.  I was genuinely happy for the two of them to escape.  But as you keep reminding us, parents and their children don’t really pair up in this show.  Abandonment is a key theme.  I’m hoping Anna and Pearl stick around for a bit so we can see some real mother-daughter reunion joys and tensions get played out!

I’m with you on loving Caroline and Matt, but I kind of like how they’re kept separate from the supernatural goings on.  As for my favourite moment – I think it was remembering my own teenage parties in the woods and the visceral feeling of something menacing hovering at their fringes.  For us it was fear that someone would overdose or need their stomach pumped…but that sort of liminal concern was captured so perfectly by the kegger-as-food-for-awakened-vampires just beyond the trees.  It was a great moment of allowing the supernatural to illustrate normal teenage angst.

So Katherine was last seen in Chicago in 1983…oh my, come on March 25^th!  I can’t wait!

oxo,
Natalie

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While I love this show, this episode didn’t feel so great to me.  It had all the things that make it fun – broody brothers, vampire/human show-downs, mysterious twists and a rigged bachelor raffle.  And yet it didn’t quite capture the greatness of some episodes past (and I’m not just saying that because they sent my beloved Bonnie away).  Nevertheless, we had some interesting reveals – all of which produced more questions than they did answers.

The main thread involved Elena’s attempt to track down her birth mother, Isobel.  It was a little tricky to keep track of who knew what at which moment, but in the end we got everyone caught up to speed.  Elena, Damon, Stefan and Alaric all realized that Elena’s birth mother was the same person as Alaric’s wife: Isobel.  And at last count, we at least have Damon and Alaric in the know that Damon turned Isobel – dear readers, I don’t want to gloat, but just remind you that this is what I predicted the first time we saw Isobel!

The problem is, Isobel clearly doesn’t want to be found – so much so that she has a complex system of friends and compulsed servants stopping Elena from finding her.  But what I’m left wondering is how this timeline works and what it means about Elena’s own supernatural status.  Trudy clearly worried that Elena was a vampire (wouldn’t invite her in…fed her vervain).  But Elena would have been conceived before Isobel was turned.  Which leads me to think that Isobel got pregnant by a vampire which, in turn, makes me concerned that Damon might be – somehow, and I realize this is far-fetched – Elena’s father.  Now, I don’t think this can be the case, because that would make Stefan Elena’s uncle (gross!)…but perhaps something like this is going on.  We still have the possibility that Elena and Isobel both are related to Katherine – but I can’t yet figure out where that plot is going.

Poor aunt Jenna – she sure can pick ‘em, eh? Aren’t there any bachelors in Mystic Falls she could date who aren’t somehow connected to this whole vampire situation?  I didn’t for a second believe Alaric was dead…but I didn’t think that it would be something like that ring that saved him.  I really hope they give us some more explanation on that one because I was left as confused by it as Alaric himself and Stefan both were.  We need that story filled out a bit more, and soon, if they want us to go along with it.  Because something in me keeps wondering about Alaric’s mad skills (which were oddly not on display tonight)…wondering if there is something supernatural to him that even he might not be aware of.  What I thought I did notice was some flicker on Damon’s face as he sat down to supposedly watch Alaric die.  Something in his expression made me think he didn’t really believe Alaric was dead either.   I can never tell how much Damon knows…but I think at the end of this episode, he knew more than he was letting on.

And then we had the plot line with Harper hanging ominously in the background.  For a starved vampire, he was quite calm approaching that man in the woods and then walking around town afterwards.  And so he strikes me as a somewhat more powerful or self controlled or something else vampire than others.  It wasn’t much of a surprise that he ended up back at Pearl and Annabelle’s house.  But I am left wondering if he’s something more than vampire…vampire-witch or some other supernatural being combined with a vamp that we haven’t yet imagined.

A few other points.  Matt and Caroline: I just need to say how much I love those crazy kids and, jerky mum or no jerky mum, I sure hope they  make it.  Bonnie: they better bring her back soon!!  Isobel: why did Alaric have that heavy-handed line, “You don’t want kids. You’re never home”?  Why didn’t she want kids? Was there more to that than the idea that she was about to get turned?  Damon: he really did seem to care that he had hurt Elena with his past actions.  I can’t help but love the bad-boy Salvatore brother!  Exploiting sorority sisters, drinking bourbon, darkly brooding while having his brother’s girlfriend button his shirts…he just cracks me up.  Plus he’s not too hard on the eyes!

Oh, and is anyone else out there starting to consider using Bing – now I know I can say, “I binged it,” I might just give it a try.  Oof, I love such heavy-handed advertising.  Hilarious!

Posted by Natalie

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Last night we had another good, not great episode.  Sure, it was fun to see Aunt Jenna let loose a little, and then resist the new evilest vampire’s persuasion with her trusty vervain.  Yet even though quite a bit happened, I didn’t feel like the episode really nailed it like it so often does.  I just can’t figure out what was missing.  Perhaps is because we’re being given lots of information right now, but we’re not being told what any of it means.

Take this vampire training house, for example. So it’s funny seeing what 150 year old vampires need to learn – how to use a tv remote control; how to text; how to use an ATM card.  But it’s not clear exactly what these vamps are up to.  Pearl – who by the way, is totally badass and my new vampire hero…that eye gouging scene was a new step of horror for this show – seems to pine for her old Mystic falls home.  It’s their land and these modern human folks have taken it.  But are they plotting a violent takeover?  Or do they just want to buy up some homes and businesses and integrate into the culture?  It seems these ones are fine in the sun, so how difficult would it be just to move to town?

Besides the one vamp’s seething hatred of the Salvatore brothers, it’s not quite clear what’s coming here.  And I would certainly be keen to here a little more about how precisely it’s Stefan and Damon’s fault that all those vampires got locked up in the first place.  We know they were dating Katherine and their dad figured out she was a vampire, but beyond that we don’t really know how they can be explicitly blamed.

Speaking of Katherine – it’s going to be interesting to see how Elena’s lookalike status will influence these new vamps in town.  Surely she’ll confuse them, or at least offer some embarrassing mis-adventures as they think they’ve found their friend.  And I’m still left wondering what the significance of Harper is – they repeat his name so often that I’m half expecting Elena or Jeremy or someone else to come across it in an old dusty document somewhere…They’ve never worked so hard to make sure we know a character’s name before!

Perhaps the most interesting part of the episode was watching Jeremy’s development!  First we got the shocker that he’d figured it all out, paired with the shocker that he was willing to risk his life to find the truth, paired again with the shocker that Anna cares for him enough to resist her desire to feast.  But then we got the ultimate surprise that Jeremy actually wants to be turned!  I guess over the course of the episode we could come to see this coming, but we’ve hardly seen Jeremy in the last few episodes – and all of a sudden he’s jumping into the front ready to switch teams…I kind of hope Anna just does it quickly and we get to watch Jeremy become a more major character.  And it was nice to see that Damon’s old mind trick on him hadn’t erased enough of Vickie that he couldn’t piece the pieces together.  Such skills certainly make him a little more interesting to watch.  A turning would make him even more so.

I guess in the end my struggle with the show right now is that it’s not particularly clear which of all these crazy plots is the driving, central concern.  And so things feel a little scattered without a central organizing device.  Is it still the hunt for Katherine?  Or is it the new hunt for Elena’s vampire mother?  Is it whatever is brewing over at the vampire compound?  Or is it the ongoing Salvatore saga?  Right now I think the show is struggling to decide – but once it settles on its primary focus, I think we’ll get back to the tight, fun storytelling we had before the midseason break.  And I’m perfectly willing to hang on until we get there!

Posted by Natalie

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I feel like Vampire Diaries really came back last night.  After a few weeks of floundering while trying to cover anything and everything within it’s 42minute span, last night got a little more focused and offered a tighter storyline.  The writers dropped the training house of vampires, which is totally fine because we all know they’ll be back, and focused all the narrative drive on Stefan’s struggling blood addiction and the unbelievably knowledgeable (and creepy) Uncle John (what is it with adults talking about their sex lives in front of kids on this show in wildly inappropriate ways?!).

It’s not that I suffer from a bad-boy complex, but I actually enjoyed seeing Stefan loosen up a little last night.  Or at least, I enjoyed seeing more of an emotional range in his character.  Stefan is generally quite boring to me, but last night he became unpredictable and thus interesting.  What we ended up with in the end felt a little bit like an Edward/Bella storyline with him insisting he could hurt her and her insisting on her trust of him and refusing to back off.  But something a little more complex happened here as Elena actually did experience moments of genuine fear, anger and concern for Stefan throughout the episode as he became less and less himself.  Unlike Twilight’s Bella, Elena seems more aware of the risks she’s taking – most likely because she’s witnessed much of the violence and death that comes with these vampire friends.

I am left wondering, though, what’s the deal with vampires and whiskey?  We’ve always seen the Salvatore brothers enjoy the occasional imbibing of the brown liquids, but last night it almost seemed like they held a special power for Stefan.  At the very least, it seemed that getting drunk could serve as a distraction from his other addiction, or that indulging in irresponsible drinking (blood, booze…) are all of a part.  There actually seems to be an interesting little knot to untangle there that leaves me curious to see if Stefan will take up other vices in the next few weeks.  I do find myself surprised at the amount of teenage public drunkenness that takes place in Mystic Falls – seriously, isn’t the Founders’ Ball one of the year’s classy events?  And all the kids are drinking in less than secretive ways.  We’ve asked it before, but what is up with the parents in this town?!

In line with this knot of additions and vices with which Stefan is flirting comes the question that Damon has posed now two weeks running: is Stefan trying to get back to being himself, or is he finally becoming himself?  And it’s an important question for us all to consider – is our nature our truest self or is it our nurture and all the ways we curb our deepest cravings for the sake of living in society?  We took a turn last night that surprised me with Damon defending blood bank withdrawls and acting as if he rarely went on the hunt.  That’s not the Damon I know and love!  When he arrived on this scene he killed multiple humans and even a few weeks ago was still feeding off of the ladies.  I think this abrupt shift in his feeding habits signals an attempt on the part of the writers to let us feel like there are good options for blood-drinking that don’t involve killing people…and so something else is going on with Stefan’s self-denial.  It’s not just about wanting to avoid hurting people.  But there actually seems to be some stubborn, almost foolish element of self-control or desire to be something he’s not that is driving his decision not to drink human blood. It’s as if he’s at war with who he really is, refusing to accept himself as himself.

On that note, I’m a little tired of all these vampires who don’t drink blood – it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  I’d love it if they explored this with Stefan and came to the conclusion that strict self-governance is also not the best way to live – that a little play matters in the creation on one’s self too!

Let’s close on the Uncle John reveal – he, it turns out, is the link we need between Elena’s real mother (Isobel) and her adopted parents (the Gilberts), symbolized perfectly in the ring he wears that matches Alaric’s.  It turns out both Gilbert brothers had that ring, and John now wears Dr. Gilbert’s having given his to Isobel (who in turn gave it to Alaric).  And he’s the one who hooked Isobel up with Damon for her turning.  He seems to know everything about everything, including Katherine.  And, most interesting to me, he provides a common enemy for Alaric and Damon, further overcoming their enmity and drawing them together into some shared battle against, well, not evil so much as, some foe that they will, at some point, figure out together…but as of yet, it’s not entirely clear what that foe will be.  With only 3 episodes left, I can’t wait to find out!

Posted by Natalie

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Yeah, ok, so really – what the flip is Elena still doing with Stefan?  Now the whole, ‘he’s a good vampire who doesn’t eat human blood’ safety net is gone, Damon is so far the superior choice, and not least of all because he’s actually got his addiction under control to the point where it’s not really an addiction.  That being said, I like that they’re still dangling this possibility in front of us – as they’ve been doing all season – but not quite making it live.  Tonight we got closer than ever as the near-touch lacked appeal and even seemed silly when Stefan was the partner, but was speed-my-breath-up-a-little once Damon stepped in at the Founders’ Ball.  The heat is there, no doubt.  I’m just waiting for Elena to clue into it!  I suppose in the end, the show is giving us the experience of near-touch…so exciting to watch the impending possibility of attraction between those two, but not quite giving us the connection until they’re good and ready.

Stefan was quite terrifying and incredibly creepy last night.   First of all, he’s a great liar!  It was fun to see a little of Paul Wesley’s acting range as brooding gave way to self-assured, manipulative and even some twisted version of happy.  But lines like “I want to rip into your skin and feed on you” were so viciously violent and “I’ve been drinking the human stuff and it’s messing with my head” were so strangely blasé that I was surprised  by the level of ferocious, dark evil the show had escalated to instead of its usual more campy brand.  On the one hand, I’m shouting to Elena to escape what looks like an abusive relationship, and on the other I’m impressed with her for taking responsibility for her role in where Stefan now finds himself.  It’s a complex situation; one not easily resolved…especially not when we only have 3 episodes left!

It was good that Caroline won the ball, especially after she convinced Elena to stay in it, being the better friend.  Elena does get everything her own way most of the time in ways that leave Caroline out in the cold.  It was good to see the girl who actually deserved it win.  And despite it all, in the end the show doesn’t take itself entirely seriously, evidenced by the pageant candidate whose community service was due to her DUI!  Yeah, that was pretty funny, even if the non-founding family candidate almost wound up dead in a forest!

Thank God Bonnie is finally back, and badass at that with kicky new bangs.  I was getting worried that they were trying to take her out of the show.  Her new level of maturity, both as a woman and a witch, seems important.  First she is able to act with wisdom in her relationship with Elena, refusing to make her choose between a friend and a boyfriend.  But it seems she’s also developed in her magic skills as she was able to sedate Stefan’s fuming.  This will surely be helpful in the weeks to come with the three leftover vamps at the house.  Even though they don’t seem too threatening yet, I can’t help but think a showdown between Bonnie and Harper is on the way, while I also continue to wonder if as two descendants of a slave family that had close ties to the Salvatores and Katherine, they might be in some way related.

So was I the only one last week who thought that John and Isobel’s connection was in the past?  It seemed tonight that they might still be working together.  And what is that Pearl had, but which wasn’t the real watch (can someone please remind me where the real watch ended up…I can’t quite remember).

On a lighter note, outside of its vampire problems, I think Mystic Falls might have its own set of drinking problems, and I intend to start tracking them…last night, the first time we saw someone a bourbon was at 7:02.  That’s pretty fast!  No one does anything without some brown liquid in their hand in this town.  And this week it was creepy Uncle John who kicked us off.  Who will it be next week?  And how early will they appear?  I’m curious to find out.

Also, I love that the string quartet at the Founders’ Ball was playing Coldplay.  Just saying.

xoxo,
Natalie

—-

Dear Natalie,

It is me again – slipping back in for some on the sly commentary, in between eternally feeding baby and trying to decide which matters more to me, a shower or a nap.

As a reminder of how much we are still on the same wave length, if I had chosen a title for a post on this episode, it would have been exactly the same as yours. And for very similar reasons – the dance between Damon and Elena was a definite increase in the mounting sexual tension between them and I was very glad to see Elena acknowledge the tension, even as she tries to deny it. The real question for me is: how much does Damon both acknowledge it and want it? Earlier in the season I could see him trying to seduce Elena away from Stefan in order to punish and manipulate Stefan. But then I became convinced of his true and undying (if twisted) love for Katherine. However, he does not seem immune to Elena’s charms, even as he seems much more in control of the situation and able and willing to deny whatever attraction he might feel to honor her feelings for Stefan. I’m not saying he wouldn’t go for it if she made the first move, but do we think he would make that move himself? If he did, what would it mean for him?

I guess it all boils down to your point about control over his addiction. I was very compelled by his speech to Elena that Stefan’s compulsive denial of human blood for 150 years has led to the state of uncontrollable, immature addiction. And I agree with your point from last week: what is up with all these self-denying vampires? I’ve been re-reading the Twilight series on my Kindle while I nurse non-stop and I am finding it even more frustrating than the first time. Only if I think of the Cullen coven and their other “vegetarian” friends as some sort of allegory for sanctified eternal life does it make sense at all. That is, they are a wonderful cover for the life of self-denial and restraint leading to beatified eternal familial happiness (we’ve talked about this all before…). But the Vampire Diaries doesn’t pretend to offer any such allegory. As Damon says, vampires are supposed to drink human blood. It is in their nature. An existence that denies that nature entirely does not lead to sanctification, but rather to complete lack of self-control, restraint, or proper self-denial. While we’ve seen just how unrestrained Damon can be, it is true that he does seem to have much better control over his impulses, dutifully drinking bagged blood when the fresh stuff would draw too much attention to his presence. If part of the fantasy of the vampire is the incredible self-possession they offer – complete and utter control over their super-human bodies – then Damon is really the consummate vampire, extending his mastery to his own desires, while acknowledging them and honoring their reality.

It is interesting, therefore, that both Damon and Elena have decided that the way to proceed is to cut Stefan off cold-turkey. I get that a blood-crazed vampire is a bit much to deal with (for Damon) and not particularly attractive (for Elena), but if Damon is right, shouldn’t the course of action be to help Stefan learn to control his urges instead of pushing him toward greater self-denial?

I am intrigued to see how this plot line will play out alongside the brewing showdown between Damon and Uncle John and Jeremy’s new knowledge. Also, how long do you think we will have to wait until Bonnie and the vampires reunite for some larger purpose, or is the split eternal? (I am also SO glad Bonnie is back. Her more serious/mature attitude was a reminder that the show does intend at least some of the outlandish plot lines to have lasting consequences…).

OK, back to the nursing couch and more brooding reflections on the unreasonable restraint of bloodless vampires.

xoxo,

K

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Ok, let’s start with a couple of theories – first of all, Pearl and Harper aren’t really dead.  Or at least, Harper isn’t dead.  There’s no way.  First, we didn’t see him die.  Second, they’ve surrounded him with too much mystery to just kill him off.  And third, because Emily said in this episode that she has a brother and I’m pretty sure it’s Harper.  You all know I’ve been trying to track the connection for a while, here and I continue to be convinced that Harper is some sort of witch/vampire hybrid.  I’m even more convinced of it after tonight.  But on to the story…

We got to watch Stefan saved by the love of a good woman, the inverse of his original damnation.  Putting herself in dangerous situation after dangerous situation, Elena proves that love really does conquer all.  Kathryn (Moth Chase Kathryn, not Vampire Diaries Katherine) noted last week the oddness of Elena and Damon trying to kick Stefan’s addiction cold turkey given that we learned he needs to be weaned to survive.  But apparently it worked.  After their big kiss and make up it seems that Stefan is right as rain…addiction gone, suicidal tendencies gone – sadly he’s still got a super-lame giant rose tattoo on his shoulder, but I guess love can’t fix all one’s past errors.  Redemption only goes so far.  But seriously, the recovery seemed a little speedy and flat to me, but perhaps we’ll see it’s not as full a recovery as indicated tonight.

Finally getting the backstory on why Damon hates Stefan so much was great though.  So after dear old dad attempted to kill his own sons (seriously, family shame was a really big deal back then…wtf?!), a noble Stefan ready to fall on his sword ends up feasting on his father instead.  Talk about buzz-killing all the fun eroticism that usually accompanies a vampire’s first feed. Whereas a vampire’s stepping into eternity usually entails a significant loss of innocence – symbolized in the sucking of a virginal beauty’s neck – Stefan’s turn to the everlasting future entailed a true break with the past, a literal slaying of the father.  Freud would be proud!  But in so doing, he got the thirst for blood (and the subsequent ability to compartmentalize guilt), learned how to compel damsels, and delivered an irresistible gift to his brother.

Ok, so I’m a theologian, and I tend to try to avoid too much theological talk on this blog…but it’s too much to resist on all this!  Having fallen himself, Stefan can’t resist taking his brother down with him…not because he’s an ass, but simply because he doesn’t want to be alone in his new existence.  Just as Adam and Eve faced the punishment of expulsion together, so too Stefan and Damon exit their paradisiacal existence, not into Hell, but into a world that is a shadow of their former lives.  Sure they gain power and speed and ability and muscles (like Adam and Even gained a secret knowledge they weren’t supposed to have), but they forfeit communion with their prior reality.  Further, like Adam and Eve, their expulsion drops them into a world of ambiguous morality.  Having tasted the forbidden fruit/blood, and true to St. Augustine’s interpretation of the Genesis narrative, their desires become disordered.  They can justify anything.  They no longer know how to will the good.  And as Adam and Eve’s sin left their sons, the brothers Cain and Abel in enmity with each other, so too this narrative ends with Damon’s promise to make Stefan’s life an eternity of misery.  And then Elena offers some form of atonement – redemption not through blood but through love.

Of course, I’m not saying that Vampire Diaries are self-consciously incorporating these Biblical themes.  Narratives of fall, broken community, redemption and salvation are myths common to numerous religious and philosophical, even secular traditions. What’s interesting to note is that the Salvatore yarn puts a new spin on an old tale.  In the end what we have here is an argument for the power of individual agency, not communal or universal sin or redemption.  Damon tells Stefan that his guilt is his own; Stefan can no longer bear it for him.  And Elena convinces Stefan that his kindness outweighs his evils (not that she has any sense of what precisely all his evil amounts to – ah, young love!).  Thus while playing with Western, Jewish, Christian and other mythologies, the show also offers some version of good old American, individualistic self-determination.

Speaking of, are you as excited as I am to see Isobel next week!

Despite all this brotherly anger, Damon seems to be finding a new BFF in Alaric, as the two bond over their lost loves or, more accurately, their shared stubborn-headed desire for answers.  I love these two – between Lost’s Jack+Miles in Alterna world and Damon+Alaric here, I’m really getting a hankering for some buddy-cop/odd-couple type humour.  Thank God for Bradley Whitford’s new upcoming show, The Good Guys, coming soon, because there’s just something in the air around this…perhaps we can trace is all back to Judd Apatow, Paul Rudd and the bromance!

Before we close, we have to mention how cute Anna and Jer are.  Seriously, while I don’t want Pearl to be dead, I do want Anna to stay in Mystic Falls…and I think I want Jeremy to turn.  Call me crazy, but it just seems like the best path for him right now.  Last time a vampire/human war brewed, the Salvatores got screwed (read: turned) while the Gilbert’s came out in power, on top and scot-free.  This time I’m wondering if it’s the Gilberts who are going to have to sacrifice their children in the battle for blood (sorry, couldn’t resist that one!).  Will Jeremy right the wrong of his ancestor’s spurned love?  Or in Anna’s words, will he end up being her weakness?

xoxo,
Natalie

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Hey Natalie,

The babe won out this week and I wasn’t able to write a full on response, but I wanted to add one tiny note to your awesome analysis. The note of good old American self-determination has been with the show from the beginning. Remember all those references to Emerson and self-reliance in the first few episodes? It is going to be interesting to see if there is a real theme emerging…

And yes, I cannot WAIT to see Isobel next week!

xoxo,
K

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