Posted by Jessica Rae | December 5, 2011, 11:45 (EST) | 14 Comments
Category: TV Series

If you’re anything like us, you live for the frenzy of Vampire Diaries recaps that emerges every Thursday night/Friday after the show airs. We decided it would be fun to ask some of our favorite Vampire Diaries recappers to share their top three moments of Season 3 so far – oh, and we were right! It is fun.

In this Top 3 Moments installment, Jessica Rae pays tribute to Vampire Barbie, picks her favorite Damon and Elena scene of the season, and her favorite Stefan and Elena scene as well. You can check out her TVD recaps at Small Screen Scoop.

Check out previous Top 3 Moments: Thomas C. Galvin, Dianne Sylvan, and Erin Frazee.

And don’t forget to vote in the Mid-Season Finale Poll: Your 3 Favorite Episodes of Season 3 (So Far)?

Caroline and Damon Smackdown (EP304 – Disturbing Behavior)

I’ve held onto a bit of a grudge for the way Damon treated Caroline in Season 1 – and in Season 2. (Remember how he just wanted to kill her after she turned? Psh.) He has often been a royal jerk to our favorite Vampire Barbie, and he has always thought he could get away with it. But in Disturbing Behavior he learned that Caroline won’t be put in a corner. (I’m kind of making a Dirty Dancing reference, but I’m not committed to it…)

Even though Mr. Forbes spent some quality Daddy-Daughter Time torturing his daughter to “help” her with her vampirism, Caroline doesn’t waste even half of a second in stopping Damon from attacking her Dad. Caroline’s loyalty to her Dad helps her give Damon the smackdown he’s had coming for a while. And she’s in a floral dress and sweet pink cardigan, no less!

But despite her outside persona of sweetness, her power is intense. In fact, she’s even all business with her jerk of a dad. Her father’s been fed on and needs to heal. There’s no time to go about things the “easy” way so she orders him to “grow up” and forces him to have some of her blood so he doesn’t die/pass out/etc. (Even though she knows he’s considered killing her, she’s not gonna let him die.)

The fight continues and Damon reminds her that he’s stronger than her. Caroline replies (in a classic type of moment where a heroine finds a way to channel their inner power to beat the big bad much like Buffy and the Master), “Well I’m angrier!” That anger helps her dispatch Damon to the floor. Much as she’d probably love to keep fighting Damon while she has this edge up, she knows that’s not is what important and she gets her father to safety. (And the saddest thing is that after all of this, her father still can’t thank her or give her anything but contempt.)

Caroline’s love for her father overcame his open disdain for her. And that proves that she has much more than just superhuman strength. Even as a vampire, Caroline has more love in her heart than certain humans. In this scene, boundaries were broken, prejudices were wiped away, and I was left ready to vote Caroline as the president of a campaign where she is the Queen of all Vampires!
 

Damon Forces a Confession from Elena (EP302 – The Hybrid)

Yes, I’m a Delena fan. But I didn’t want to shove a million Delena moments into my top 3 TVD scenes here. So, I picked one. Which meant it had to be my favorite of all Damon and Elena scenes from Season 3. You might think this would be a difficult task, but in the end there was only one scene that I felt I could pick. It’s this one. And if you remember, there’s a song that goes along with it (Jason Walker “Echo”).

Alaric, Damon and Elena had gone into the mountains to try and find Stefan, but guess who didn’t want to play along? Feeling defeated, Elena showers and returns to her bedroom for Sulking 101, only to see Damon standing near her window. Tall, dark, and handsome delivered to your room, Elena! But I know, I know she doesn’t feel for him the way he feels for her in this episode. She’s still in love with Stefan. But she does care about Damon. And that’s important to him. So much so that he wants to hear her say it.

What I love about this scene is that Damon isn’t just trying to get Elena to fall for him all this time. He doesn’t want to win her affection by default because that’d be cheap. So he tells her the truth, that Stefan can still be saved and she should have hope.

“I’ll help you bring him back. But before you do I need you to answer one question.” He presses her to know what changed her mind about everything suddenly being too dangerous out in the woods. “I didn’t wanna see you get hurt, okay? I was – I was worried about you.” Elena has just bared a tiny piece of her soul, and Damon is looking smug. It’s perfect.

“Yes, I worry about you. Why do you have to hear me say it?”

“Because when I drag my brother from the edge and deliver him back to you, I want you to remember the things you felt while he was gone.”

Okay, sorry to just quote at you but I thought that was a really good line. And the execution if it, where Damon is gently holding onto Elena’s head (that sounds creepy, but he is trying to make her focus without running away from FEEEELINGS.)

Damon leaves, Alaric comes upstairs and he asks her “Know what you’re doing there?” Elena shakes her head and admits that she doesn’t. For a Delena shipper, this is a goldmine.
 

Stefan and Elena Snark on the Bleachers (EP306 – Smells Like Teen Spirit)

Now that I’ve admitted that I ship Damon and Elena, you may wonder why my number one moment is something with Stefan. But, honestly, this is just a really amazing moment.

Elena’s playing drunk and that allows for her to act sassy, which is a perfect counterpoint for this new, snarky Stefan. Between all of the snarking and sassing there’s also a moment of sweetness which, okay, I found a bit overly melodramatic. So I actually prefer this scene right up until Elena falls off the bleachers. When she says “I knew you’d catch me” it seems like a “duh” moment, because he had to catch her to keep her alive for Klaus. It does not prove his undying love to her. Although, I do believe there is a flicker in him where he recognizes how much he used to care (and, no doubt, will care again.)

All in all, I think I really liked seeing Elena be a bit more like Katherine and show some initiative while bravely going toe-to-toe with her ex who is now a sociopathic vampire crazypants face. She had to play him, and play him she did. Like a fiddle! Or, whatever instrument of choice you’d prefer. (I’m partial to the flutophone.)

This scene represents several reasons why we all love this show. There’s always an element of unpredictability and our characters are always forced to change. And Stefan’s always going to be Elena’s Superman in some way. There’s a lot of perks to having your own personal Superman. And when you’re a human blood bag, you need to find your perks where you can.
 
 

You can read more of Jessica Rae‘s TV reviews on Small Screen Scoop and via Twitter (where she happily follows back everyone who isn’t running a spam account to promote something evil like whole grain pasta). As a member of the Council of Media Tastemakers for the Taste Awards, you can trust she has a good eye and should check out the Vampire Diaries jewelry she writes about on RingOBlog.com and her smart product reviews on ShesSmart.com.
 
 

Thanks to Vampire Diaries Web for the HQ screen captures!

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