Posted by Crissy Calhoun | November 16, 2011, 10:00 (EST) | 63 Comments
Category: TV Series

Ba-boom! The first part of Season 3 has come to a close, my friends, and it wouldn’t be The Vampire Diaries if it didn’t leave us hanging with a million questions, theories, and relationship statuses to debate.

While the plot was a tad on the unnecessarily convoluted side (anything that requires an explanatory flashback within an explanatory flashback is) and the back half of the episode in particular benefits from a commercial-free re-watch (far less of a bumpy ride), what Homecoming did elegantly was set up moments between our characters — Rebekah/Mikael, Rebekah/Elena, Mikael/Klaus, Caroline/Tyler, and the twin Salvatore and doppelgangers scenes at the end — that were enormously emotionally complicated, surprising, and beautifully acted.

First Dance: Someone please sneak into the Salvatore holding cell and remove that dagger from Rebekah. Thank the writerly gods that there are (reportedly) no more Original killing weapons out there, because may Rebekah live forever. Her character has been a great surprise of this season — how do you follow up the double wins of Klaus and Elijah? — and seeing her face-off with her father after 1,000 years was stunning. Though humans are her playthings and supper, it’s Rebekah’s humanity that drives her, and the broken bonds of family — with Mikael in turning them into vampires in the first place, and with Klaus for murdering their mother — devastate her. But our girl ain’t broken: she stands up to her father, she does what she must do to lure Klaus back, and she’s all dolled up and ready for her first high school dance. Will she regret her willingness to be vulnerable with Elena? As much as Elena seized the moment and literally backstabbed her, she did so while returning the necklace and actually prevented Rebekah from tricky decisions later that night — to either let her brother be killed or save his life. That may be too fine a point for a girl who’s apparently got quite the temper.

Father and Boy: A predator who feeds on predators, the grandpapa of all vampires, the sire of all sires: gone too soon. (Let’s hope his ghost haunts Klaus and company some time, say Season 5.) It was interesting to watch Mikael confronted by Rebekah — he stood there and took it, telling her he was never after her, just Niklaus — compared to his attitude toward Klaus. Why did Mikael not reach out to Rebekah or Elijah with the truth about Klaus killing Esther? It seems that there was still a part of Mikael that valued family — his quest of a 1,000 years was to avenge his wife’s death — but the self-hatred that comes with creating the world’s greatest predatory coupled with amplified tendencies to be prideful and angry prevented him from having any allies. The showdown between Mikael and Klaus was electric, in part because though the two of them are not blood-related they are incredibly similar — both sires of a “master race,” both essentially alone for a millennium, both willing to do whatever it takes to see their own dominance. I love that this show gives us these incredibly fraught emotional moments for our villains: Klaus stands there, tears streaming down his face but he’s no less a threat because of it. With this victory over Mikael, Klaus is set free of the ties that have bound him. His belief that his remaining family members, once undaggered, will “let bygones be bygones,” is bold — but what choice do they have? And Klaus has grown accustomed to forcing people’s loyalty and he’s ready for a family reunion. Of course, sneaky little devil Stefan has other plans for Klaus, and the question of whose team the Originals will join when (if?) they are undaggered will wait for another day.

Sired: Remember right after Tyler turned hybrid and he was all hyped up and Caroline made her concerned face? Turns out our girl was right to worry. The relationship between Caroline and Tyler slowly built since Tyler became a werewolf, as the two leaned on each other and saw each other through the worst. But with Tyler loyal to Klaus — a loyalty that is forced — the choices he makes aren’t the same ones he would make if he had free will. He vervains Caroline to “protect” her, but by doing that he’s taking away her free will, her right to take the risk of battling Klaus and the sired hybrids. While Tyler is right — he can’t change the fact that he’s sired, he’s free from the pain of changing, and he used to be tied to the full moon (which took away his free will, like, for 12 hours a month, as opposed to 24/7 for eternity) — he doesn’t seem to realize how fundamentally upsetting it is for Caroline to have her boyfriend switch sides and lose control of his sense of right and wrong. A sad moment for these two, and another one of these heartbreaking ‘but they still love each other’ breakups that TVD does so well.

Oh, the Humanity: No matter how hard you try, you just can’t think of everything. While our heroes brainstormed all the possible angles, betrayals, and outcomes in an effort to safeguard against the master kill-Klaus plan going off the rails, Klaus did the same — he had his hybrid army, a house safe from Mikael, and insurance that if he was taken out, Damon would be too. Nothing was left to chance. But who can predict what Miss Katherine Pierce will do? I love that the sister episode to Homecoming from Season 2, Masquerade, featured a diabolical plan to take out Katherine and now she’s the one who saves both Salvatore brothers, letting her humanity get in the way of murdering her oldest enemy. Humanity may be a vampire’s greatest weakness, but it’s also what makes their eternity worth living (in my humble opinion), and seeing Katherine let her love for the boys guide her was an awesome twist. And even when you know a doppelganger hijinks scheme is in play, there’s nothing like a Katherine smirk upon the reveal — and the double grenade kaboom is classic.

So what happens to Stefan now? He’s free of compulsion: it’s up to him now to decide which Stefan he’d like to be and how much of his humanity he’d like to re-embrace. Katherine urges him to at least let the anger in, as she seemingly eggs him on to take revenge on Klaus for making him his puppet.

Meanwhile by the fire… Damon and Elena don’t know why Stefan “betrayed” them, stopping Damon from killing Klaus, and they seem finally ready to let Stefan go. If Stefan and Katherine have no reason to let the two in on what really happened, where does that leave Damon and Elena? In an episode consumed with issues of trust, these two find comfort in at least having each other.

Compelling Moment: To Joseph Morgan and Sebastian Roché for the threshold showdown between Klaus and Mikael. Perfection.

The Rules: We are reminded of the rules of daggering (yes, it’s a verb in the world of TVD): a vampire can’t dagger an Original, but a human or another Original can. Anyone can wield the ancient white oak tree stake. An Original can compel a hybrid (because of its vampire side), but not a werewolf (remember Klaus couldn’t compel Ray). Does that mean a strong vampire could mess with a weak hybrid’s mind, like we’ve seen a strong vamp do to a weak vamp, or does the werewolf compulsion-resistance cancel that out?

Foggy moments:

• Damon puts a tarp over the daggered Rebekah, but when we see her in the last moments of the episode, she’s just thrown on the ground in the dirt in her homecoming dress. C’mon, guys, at least put her on Sheriff Forbes’ cot or something. Even Klaus has the decency to provide cushy coffins; Originals are used to a certain degree of respect.
• Why did Mikael go along with the revised plan, going to the Lockwood mansion he can’t enter and turning his only Original-killing weapon over to Damon? When you wait a thousand years to take revenge, would it matter to wait one more day? Pounce on Klaus on his way to the coffin truck. From Mikael’s perspective, would it matter if Klaus killed Stefan and company? Collateral damage!

Other thoughts & questions to ponder over the hiatus:

• Who doesn’t want to stay home and overanalyze ancient hieroglyphic thingies with Alaric? Loved the Bonnie-Elena scene in this episode. Such a good BFF conversation, and how very Elena to actually listen to someone, think about what they said, and apply it to another situation in her life, as she does with Bonnie’s Jeremy insight to the Klaus-Rebekah dynamic. More please!
• Did Matt know that Katherine was his date to homecoming? (I’d say yes.)
• “Here’s my RSVP.” A classic Damon moment.
• Will Momma and Poppa Original be united on the Other Side?
• Where is Stefan hanging out with the Original Coffins? Was it his idea to steal them, or Katherine’s? How did they steal them?
• Is it January 5th yet?

What did you think of Homecoming? How will you survive the hiatus — time for a re-watch? 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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