Posted by Crissy Calhoun | November 6, 2011, 14:24 (EST) | 104 Comments
Category: TV Series

Flashback hair. Sword fights. Elijah. The origin story of a predatory species. A thousand-year-old lie. (Probably.) We got a ton of information in Ordinary People — if you haven’t already, make sure to read this rundown of the Original Family, complete with a boatload of speculation and interesting comments. As in every other good Vampire Diaries exposition session, it was done not only to satisfy our burning questions about how things came to be, but to push characters in compelling directions, provide parallels across storylines and centuries, and set up what is sure to be an explosive midseason finale next week.

Always and Forever: Mason Lockwood told Damon that the cave would lead to a weapon that could kill Klaus — is that weapon information? Setting aside speculation as to whether the cave’s story is any more reliable than Klaus’s, the story the symbols tell has already had a dramatic effect on the Original Family dynamics. Rebekah’s belief that she and Klaus were bonded always and forever, that her father was their common and fearsome enemy for killing their mother, has been shaken by the drawings that tell a different tale entirely, one of matricide. In the first flashback scene, Rebekah calls her brother “traitor” in jest; by episode’s end she has reason to believe that he is a traitor of the worst kind.

As when we first saw the Salvatore brothers as humans, seeing Rebekah and Klaus (and glimpses of Elijah) when they were ordinary mortals is a treat. Across centuries, the bond of family proves to be of the utmost importance, but that doesn’t mean those familial relationships aren’t fraught with power struggles, hurt, fear, and betrayal. We saw with Elijah that he was willing to kill his brother to avenge the rest of his family — an act that would sever the oath to be one with Klaus always — but he stopped in the hope of resurrecting his other siblings. Rebekah has been loyal to her brother for 1,000 years (minus some daggered time-outs), and we see the difference between what she’ll put up with from her brother, because he’s family, and what kind of treatment she’ll accept from the vampire she loved (loves?), Stefan.

Since her introduction in The End of the Affair Claire Holt has been the perfect Rebekah, but this is clearly her episode to show us who Rebekah is. And she is stunning as she creates a sympathetic portrait that exposes her humanity, her weakness, and her ferocious strength. Though we see her crumpled and sobbing, desperate not to be alone for an eternity, Rebekah has not lost any bite as a potential adversary — whether she join sides with Elena or stick with Klaus. And that strong performance makes Elena identifying with her completely believable. Elena, queen of empathy, sees similarities between herself and the murderous Original vampire: both are motherless girls with big hearts who love despite the risk, who prize the bonds of family, and who — in their epic stubbornness — don’t give up on a person easily, or at all.

Tragic Boredom: Not a second wasted in this episode: even outside of the two main storylines, we get the moment between Alaric and Bonnie, where he acknowledges Jer’s ghostly cheating, and we see that Elena’s still training and that Elena and Damon are getting closer and cozier with each passing day. This season in particular, each episode is full to the brim — and fun. The Salvatore brothers playing quarters and discussing how boring bunny-diet Stefan is? Not one but two brother-on-brother fights — and one with swords and a belt removal? This episode’s storylines were woven together nicely: as Elena’s final plea to Rebekah concerns breaking loose of the hold that Klaus has on her, Damon’s tactic with Stefan is to give him a taste of freedom. All vampires face the daunting reality of having to fill an eternity of existence, and there are choices about how to spend it — under Klaus’s thumb, letting him make the rules; joining the MFHS cheerleading squad and compelling some friends; becoming excellent at quarters while brooding about past violence; or living right on the edge between human and vampire, dancing on bar counters but making sure no blonde bartender is fed on too much.

Poppa Original: Nothing like tough love! A father who frightened his children into submission, whose pride was so great he’d rather risk the consequences of upsetting the balance of nature than move out of a werewolf-infested village, is the one who finds the loophole in Stefan’s seemingly unbreakable submission to Klaus — it’s the threat of a permanent hole in his brother’s chest. Mikael, in flashback and in his interaction with the “Salvatore boys” (admittedly, that made me swoon), is harsh and unyielding. Take his intervening in Klaus’s jovial overpowering of Elijah: from Mikael’s perspective the lesson is necessary — the reality is they are among werewolves; survival is a real concern. Klaus’s “foolish and impulsive” nature, as Mikael characterizes him, leads to Henrik’s death, when he takes the boy to watch the men turn into wolves. Interestingly, Mikael doesn’t direct his anger at Klaus (as far as we’re told), but instead launches a counterattack by making his family superior to the werewolf threat — stronger, faster, heightened in every way. You have to be at least a little bit deranged to come up with this plan and to carry it through despite the strong warnings from Ayana against creating a “plague,” the threat of costs and consequences, and the fact that you have to kill your children based on the strength of your belief in the magic working. It’s a huge risk and one that speaks to Mikael’s pride and how far he will go to see things play out the way he believes is right. When Rebekah tells Elena that he tore his wife’s heart from her chest for breaking his, it’s entirely believable — his rage over the shame of incontrovertible evidence that Niklaus is not his son, but his enemy’s drives him to massacre half a village. What drives him now? Is he innocent of his wife’s murder, as the cave drawings suggest, and is he seeking vengeance against Klaus? Does he believe that the species he created with Esther is an abomination and should be eradicated?

Elena makes explicit the connection she sees between her and Rebekah, and in the family dynamics among Originals there are further parallels to relationships between brothers and fathers that we’ve seen in the past. Mikael attacking Klaus for his foolishness could have just as easily been words that Giuseppe spat at Damon. While we’ve seen brothers save each other and/or decide not to kill each other time and again, we’ve also seen a father unhesitatingly kill his sons: Giuseppe shot his boys dead for siding with the vampires. On this show, it’s become easier to believe that a parent would kill their child than a sibling would turn against a sibling. Ordinary People reminded us that at its core The Vampire Diaries is a story about the bonds of family, particularly between two brothers, who are each other’s greatest strength and greatest vulnerability. The boys feel they owe each other their lives and will fight for each other until the end of time — all the while mocking their humanity. Will that same sense of family — together as one, always and forever — play out when the Originals have their homecoming?

Compelling Moment: “I think you’re going to be the one who saves him from himself. It won’t be because he loves me; it’ll be because he loves you.”

The Rules: We learn the origin story of our vampire rules: the spell that created vampires drew power from various things — the sun, the ancient white oak tree, blood — and in nature’s effort to restore balance, these elements became vampires’ weaknesses. The sun burns, the white oak tree can kill Originals (and regular trees take out regular vamps), vervain gets its anti-vampire properties from growing at the base of the white oak tree, and vampires have an insatiable craving for that which created them — blood. (But no solid explanation was provided for the invitation to homes rule.)

Foggy moments:

• In the opening scene, Damon calls Mikael “Poppa Original” based on his name being on the wall along with Niklaus, Elijah, and Rebekah. How does he know Mikael is the father and not one of the other Original siblings that Elijah told Elena existed?
• If Esther, Mamma Original a.k.a. the Original Witch, had the juju ability required to do the vampire-creation spell on her family, why was she begging Ayana to do it? (Other than to trick the audience into believing Ayana was the Original Witch, not Esther.)

Other thoughts & questions to ponder before the midseason finale, Homecoming (309):

• We learn that Mikael is the one who killed his children as step 1 in vampire transformation; who killed Mikael, or did he kill himself, Katerina-style?
• When Rebekah tells Elena her family history, she says her parents’ first child was killed by a “plague”; Ayana uses that same word when she describes what will happen if the parents go through with their plan to create vampires. Is that a meaningful detail? Or a repetition to point to how tragic it is that they escape one plague only to create another?
• Why is the cave protected from vampires entering? Who put that barrier up, or is the cave a residence of someone (and that barrier is part of the invite-only rule)?
• Who carved the story in the cave?
• Of Mikael’s heart-snatching technique, Stefan says now they know where Klaus and Elijah learned that trick. Are there other tricks the boys learned from their father? Like faking historical records?
• Were Damon and Stefan wearing identical leather jackets? (I like to imagine that Damon carries a spare in his car, just in case.)
• Klaus told Rebekah that her father killed their mother while he watched. But in reality, did Mikael witness Klaus killing Esther? Or did someone else?
• How does the following exchange from The Reckoning fit in to what we now know about Klaus, the Original Witch (a.k.a. Mom), and Rebekah’s opinion on their relationship? Klaus says to Rebekah, “You know how much the Original Witch hated me . . .” to which Rebekah replies, “A thousand years in the grave and she’s still screwing with you.”
• Now that we know the Original Family spent 20-odd years in proto–Mystic Falls and the hybrid curse was cast there, it seems somehow mystically fitting that Katherine, as doppelgänger, found her way there and that Elena, as doppelgänger the second, was born there. And that it’s been a good hometown for vampires, off and on over the centuries, considering the species was created there.
• Rebekah insists that if Mikael is awoken they are all doomed. Does Mikael pose a threat to non-vampires/hybrids?
• What became of Ayana?
• Will we discover Katherine’s fate in Homecoming?

What did you think of Ordinary People? Sound off below with your likes/dislikes, theories, and predictions. 

 
Crissy Calhoun is the author of Love You to Death: The Unofficial Companion to The Vampire Diaries and Love You to Death — Season 2. When not obsessively re-watching CW shows, she works as managing editor at ECW Press in Toronto. She blogs at crissycalhoun.com and tweets @crissycalhoun.

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