Posted by Crissy Calhoun | September 25, 2010, 12:29 (EST) | 131 Comments
Category: TV Series
Any chance we’ll get to see a full moon episode once a month? I’m guessing there are a lot of fans who would be down with a repeat of the Mason Lockwood wolf action in Bad Moon Rising. Far from turning into The Werewolf Diaries, this episode managed to balance the introduction of a whole new rich mythology while keeping the things we love most about The Vampire Diaries front and center: the relationship between Elena and the Salvatore brothers, the tension between the human and supernatural elements in Mystic Falls, and the unexpected — be it a crossbow, a passionate kiss, or a devastating heartbreak. Add in the beautifully filmed scenes in the forest, great song choices, and the return of Alaric (albeit with puzzlingly long hair), and Bad Moon Rising maintains the high bar season 2 has already set for itself with its first two episodes.
The Werewolf Lore: While I have a feeling that most, if not all, of what we learned about lycanthropy from the crossbow-toting grad-student extraordinaire Vanessa Monroe will turn out to be accurate, for the time being let’s keep it in the category of legend. What I loved most about the werewolf mythology established in Bad Moon Rising is how neatly it ties the various supernatural elements of Mystic Falls together in a way that fits with all that we already know. A quick recap: 600 years ago, the Aztecs were plagued by pesky vampires and werewolves so a shaman got his magic on and protected his people by controlling vampires with the sun and werewolves with the moon, a.k.a. The Curse of the Sun and Moon. Werewolves are more interested in hunting vampires than humans (behavior Mason exhibits in chasing Stefan and Caroline rather than Matt), and that’s led to them becoming an endangered species — as vamps have killed them off. (And with Damon’s approving nod at this course of action, can we expect some vamp vs. were action between Damon and Mason in the future? Please, can we?).
With Great Power . . . : Just like the Aztec magic-wielders of yore, the witches of Mystic Falls (historically and presently) make protecting human life their number-one priority. Which brings us to Bonnie. Time and again, we watch Bonnie make decisions that are morally motivated but come off as overly righteous. Bonnie’s initial reluctance to allow Caroline to walk in the daylight and her stipulation that Caroline can’t harm anyone (or the daylight ring will be de-spelled) are reasonable and understandable (who would knowingly encourage murder?), but the coldness with which she treats her former best friend makes it difficult to sympathize with her plight. How can Caroline prove to Bonnie that she’s more than a just vampire with an instinct to kill if Bonnie doesn’t give her the chance to try? I haven’t figured out where the writers are going with Bonnie this season (any theories?) but it feels like there are very deliberate choices being made with her: it wouldn’t be too hard to show us things from her perspective (as we’ve seen with Caroline these past two episodes) but we’re being kept at a distance from Bonnie. She’s isolated, a powerful witch trapped between a supernatural world, increasingly occupied by her best friends, and the human world under constant threat from those unpredictable forces. It’s interesting that Bonnie still puts her trust in Stefan, making the daylight ring for Caroline because she’s under his care. Is there anyone in Mystic Falls who doesn’t implicitly trust Stefan?
“It’ll Take Over”: As Alaric tells Vanessa (who was totally flirting with him, right?), Isobel became her research; the supernatural world has a way of taking over a person’s existence — we’ve seen it with Elena, Alaric, and Bonnie as well as our vampires — and Alaric warns Vanessa to walk away from it while she still can. (Who’s betting she won’t heed his advice?) While Alaric decides to finally let go of Isobel and grab hold of the very human Jenna (felt like we’d been waiting for that kind of passion between these two for a long time), Bad Moon Rising features our other characters overtaken by the power and pull of the mystical in Mystic Falls.
The episode starts with a promising turn for Caroline: she gets a daylight ring. She can stop dodging Matt. She goes on a bunny-hunting expedition with Stefan. (Love this scene so so much.) She can go to Tyler’s party and have fun. But as Caroline says, “My entire personality is killing me”: fighting against her instincts — to be jealous of Aimee with Matt, to use compulsion impulsively, to lick that tasty, tasty tantalizing blood from Matt Donovan’s wrist — proves too much and she lets the vampire inside take over and ends up hurting the person she cares the most about. Caroline continues to be a fascinating character to watch and one of my favorite parts of the season so far. Because all aspects of Caroline’s personality have been amplified in her transition — not just her jealousy and insecurity, but the best parts of who she is — she makes a heartbreakingly selfless choice, one that Stefan doesn’t have the strength to make himself. Pissing off Matt by playing the part of a jealous drama queen girlfriend, she gets him to dump her. It may be cold comfort, Caroline, but walking away from the person you love to protect them makes you a lot deeper than a kiddie pool.
The Wolf in Black Sheep’s Clothing: It’s pretty easy for a werewolf storyline to get cheesy fast, but save one too many wide-eyed investigative looks from Tyler, the whole full-moon experience had me on the edge of the couch. Without showing the actual man-to-wolf morph, Bad Moon Rising gives us the lowdown: Mason makes sure Tyler and company will be out of the woods when he’ll be a threat to them; he locks himself up in a chamber that’s clearly been used for that purpose before; and, when he hears Tyler and Aimee approaching, he hightails it out of there, improvising with his Bronco as a cage. Mason seems like a “good wolf” so far, trying to minimize the damage he causes, but it’s still scary as heck when the wolf leaps at Stefan through the windshield and when he attacks Caroline, giving her a big drooling snarl. As much as this felt like the “big reveal” episode, there’s so much more I’m still dying to know: Tyler stared down wolf-Mason — does that mean he’s the alpha to Mason? Or does Mason retain some or all of his humanity while a wolf, and he recognized Tyler and understood his command to back off? Now that Tyler knows that the Lockwood Curse is lycanthropic, what will this mean for him? I cannot wait for this story line to keep developing.
“Have I lost you forever?”: So the road trip to Duke wasn’t as successful a Damon-Elena bonding experience as the one to Georgia was in Bloodlines. Elena’s anti-Damon position remains unchanged — from her special goodbye-to-Stefan smooch for Damon’s benefit, to Damon taking an arrow in the back for her, to him backing down from killing Vanessa after her “I’ll never speak to you again” threat, to Damon giving her the Petrova book as a symbol of his friendship. She tells him that “Friends don’t manipulate friends; they help each other” and Damon throws that comment back at her in their final scene on the porch, feeling she used him to get info on Katherine out of him. Did she use him? She certainly implied there was a possibility of future friendship between them, but Elena’s made no secret of the fact that, because of his actions, she no longer considers Damon a friend. He’s the guy who killed her brother in a fit of rage and, as he admits, did not know that Jeremy was wearing the magic Gilbert ring. Damon’s apology isn’t enough for Elena to forgive him, and she tells him their friendship is gone forever. Setting this conversation on the porch made it such a beautifully heartbreaking echo of Damon’s epic moment with Katherine-as-Elena in Founder’s Day; though only one of the look-alikes is in each scene, the other’s presence is undeniable. Is Damon right: does Elena have more in common with Katherine than her looks? Did she blur the line between right and wrong in how she treated Damon? Or does the seriousness of Katherine’s threat more than justify Elena misleading Damon with a vague allusion to future friendliness?
If a doppelganger’s mission is to “torment the people they look like” and “undo their lives,” as Vanessa portentously explains, what lies ahead for Elena now that Katherine has re-resurfaced in Mystic Falls? Elena seems as obsessed with finding out why she looks exactly like Katherine as the Salvatore brothers are with the Lockwood Curse, and I’m a little worried her search for answers will lead her into dark and dangerous situations.
Compelling Moment: Mason Lockwood struggling through his change, clawing at the ground and groaning. It didn’t take Taylor Kinney long to fit right in on The Vampire Diaries, and it’s not just because he looks absurdly handsome shirtless in chains. (But it helps.)
The Rules: Though we’ve known about daylight jewelry since the pilot episode, here we see the magic take place (somewhat anti-climatically) as Bonnie creates a daylight ring for Caroline. The spell comes from Emily Bennett’s grimoire and draws its magic from the sunlight. As the witch who spelled the ring, Bonnie has the power to de-spell it, which she’ll do if Caroline hurts anyone. Mason’s transformation from man to wolf is defined as a curse; it’s not voluntary or controllable like vamping-out can be. On the night of a full moon, Mason shifts into a wolf, returning to his human state by morning.
Foggy Moments:
- Is Aimee Bradley any relation to Amber Bradley (of Miss Mystic Falls) or are they just short on surnames in the writers’ room?
- How did Katherine get into the Caroline’s house? Did Sheriff Forbes invite her in thinking she was Elena? (Oh hi curly-haired minxy Elena, I invite you into my home. Caroline’s still sleeping but you just go and stand in her room like a creepy evil lurker.)
Other Thoughts and Questions before we take a stroll down Memory Lane (EP204):
- “This is the South, honey, but no one likes to reminisce about the old slave days.” Carol Lockwood acknowledged that slavery existed in Mystic Falls! For a great argument on why exploring history more deeply on The Vampire Diaries would make the show even juicier, have a read of Claudia Gray’s essay, “The War Between the States,” in A Visitor’s Guide to Mystic Falls.
- According to legend, reports Elena, a werewolf bite is fatal to a vampire. Will that prove true? Are there any special requirements for killing a werewolf? (We saw Mayor Lockwood killed with the tried-and-true neck snap in Founder’s Day, but was he an active shifting-monthly werewolf?)
- What did Mason pour into his water bottle? Was he about to drink it then (when Tyler and Aimee’s approach interrupted him) as a means to delay or prevent the change, or is it a morning-after concoction?
- Dear Tyler, taking a girl to a creepy underground chamber in the dead of night is also on that “Steps to Becoming a Serial Killer” list.
- Did the background noises in the forest near end of episode sound like the Lost smoke monster to anyone else?
- Since Caroline attacked Matt, will Bonnie reverse the power of her daylight ring?
- Damon informs Elena that Katherine’s originally from Europe and her name was Katerina Petrova. Petrova (Wikipedia tells me) is one of the most common surnames in Russia and Bulgaria. Since Nina Dobrev’s a Bulgarian-Canadian, perhaps we’ll hear a little of Katherine speaking in her native tongue in a future episode.
- Katherine conveniently waited for Caroline’s most vulnerable moment, post-breakup, to show up in her bedroom. What does Katherine want with Caroline? A new best friend to wreak havoc with? A pawn for games with the Salvatore brothers and Elena? A little of both?
What did you think of Bad Moon Rising, fellow TVD fanatics? Did the wolf in Mystic Falls satisfy the lycanthrope-lovers among you? Did the episode raise any head-scratchers that I’ve overlooked above? Are you keen to see more of Vanessa and/or Aimee? Comment below!
Crissy Calhoun is the author of Love You to Death: The Unofficial Companion to The Vampire Diaries. When not obsessively re-watching CW shows, she works as managing editor at ECW Press in Toronto. She blogs on TVD, Gossip Girl, and other random things she falls in love with at crissycalhoun.com and tweets @crissycalhoun.
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