Posted by Crissy Calhoun | September 25, 2011, 14:14 (EST) | 86 Comments
Category: TV Series

Even when you’re the oldest, meanest vampire in the history of time, sometimes the best-laid plans go awry. Like, bleeding-from-the-eyes awry.

It’s Lonely at the Top: Poor Klaus. His attempt to create more hybrids fails: instead of being “true hybrids” like him, he winds up with shivering, suffering, rabid not-a-werewolf-not-yet-a-hybrid creatures, and they all end up dead. In a rage, Klaus goes over what he was supposed to do, the steps of the sacrifice, confused that it all went wrong when he did everything right — he killed a werewolf, a vampire, and the doppelgänger. And here’s where the magic gets tricky. The sacrifice ritual was successful enough to unleash the bound werewolf side of Klaus. In The Sun Also Rises, Elena died and Klaus became a true hybrid. But now it seems that because Elena was resurrected shortly thereafter, the sacrifice ritual no longer holds the power it should — Klaus remains a hybrid, but he can’t create any more comrades with his potent hybrid blood. However, he does have one comrade. . . .

The Stefan-Klaus banter in The Hybrid gave me so much joy — Stefan acts the sullen, mouthy put-upon foot soldier to Klaus’s leader. (“Some master race.” Oh, Stefan.) But by episode’s end, Stefan has obeyed Klaus’s order to “lose the attitude” (at least temporarily); he supplicates to Klaus and is shown mercy — in the form of blood in beer. (This show, man.) Klaus calls Stefan his only comrade, and it seems that next on his To Do list is getting Stefan to lose that self-loathing, brooding thing that Klaus can’t abide. Will Klaus manage to get Stefan to truly give in to his vampiric impulses and enjoy himself? Is it only then that Klaus will reveal to Stefan his true purpose for dragging him around the Smoky Mountains and curing him of his werewolf bite? (You know, besides fueling our Klefan dreams.)

The Salvatore brothers meet again when Stefan rips Ray’s heart out to save Damon from being mauled. That act convinces Damon that Stefan can still be “saved.” Stefan tries to deny that he called Elena, but Damon sees through it; Paul Wesley’s a great actor, but Stefan? Not so much. Without saying much of anything, Stefan manages to admonish his brother for allowing Elena into the werewolf-filled woods on a full moon, and Damon seems to be newly committed to protecting Elena while simultaneously finding a way to deliver Stefan home to her.

The scene where Damon hustles Elena back into Alaric’s car as they bicker while Stefan watches from a distance worked as a nice echo of a moment in The Sacrifice. Stefan was trapped in the tomb with Katherine, listening to Elena and Damon struggling with each other in their heightened, emotional way. Once again Stefan is trapped with a villain (Klaus now, instead of Katherine), the result of his “insufferable martyr” instincts, and he’s forced to stand by as his brother sidles up to Elena.

And I think the way Damon’s approaching Elena this time around may prove more effective: he knows he loves her, she knows he loves her, the whole world knows that Damon loves Elena. The question that no one, including Elena, knows the answer to is how Elena truly feels about Damon. He forces her to think about her feelings, whether her insistence that they get the heck out of the mountains was about more than not wanting her friend to die. Last episode, Elena called the “deathbed kissy thing” a goodbye, a relatively uncomplicated characterization that could unravel if she continues to be more conscious of how Damon makes her feel. I love the Damon-Elena banter, loved seeing him toss her into the water for her wildly dangerous plan, and love the messiness of her having feelings — however different — for both of the Salvatore brothers.

Not a Lost Cause, Just Lost: It takes Stefan ripping the heart from a “hybrid zombie mountain man” for Damon to realize the truth of what Elena told him that morning: Stefan wouldn’t give up on her or on Damon, so they owe it to him not to give up either. And she’s determined no matter how reckless her plan is. But since it’s The Vampire Diaries — there’s no such thing as a bad idea, just poorly executed awesome ones — she manages to get both Alaric and Damon on Stefan’s trail.

A slightly easier rescue op for Elena comes in the form of Alaric. Since leaving the Gilbert household at the end of The Birthday it seems Alaric’s been boozing it up, eating pizza, and falling asleep (pants open, boots on, shirt off). Elena needs the information Alaric has about Stefan and Klaus in Tennessee, but she also needs his help. The Boy Scout-slash-Vampire Slayer is better at helping people than he thinks, just as Elena tells him in the car at the end of their Smoky Mountain field trip. What I loved about the Elena-Alaric scenes in this episode was how clear it was that these are two people who know each other well — they’ve lived through crazy supernatural trauma and adventure together, they’ve mourned Jenna and worried about Jeremy, and they share the weird connection to Isobel. Alaric was already Elena’s pseudo-stepfather (as her birth mother’s former husband), but in Elena giving him John Gilbert’s ring and in him keeping it, Alaric becomes an honorary Gilbert. I’m so happy that he’s back at the house and sleeping upstairs. And from Alaric’s “Know what you’re doing there?” to Elena about the Damon situation (and her honest reply that she doesn’t), he may prove to be just as much of a sounding board for Elena as he can be for Jeremy.

At the moment, Jeremy is keeping his secrets from his sister and history teacher, and instead confiding — at least partially — in his new BFF, Matt Donovan. Let me say once again: I love that Matt has a plot line. (It doesn’t even have to involve gratuitous shirtlessness, but that’s cool too!) As we see with the piles of boxes in the garage, Matt hasn’t let go of Vicki; his grief is still right there on the surface and he’s at first unable to help Jeremy contact her, the possibility being too painful. We know very little about the ghosts so far, but Ghost-Vicki’s reaction to Matt felt very authentically Vicki. (Yes, my heart broke a little when she called him “Matty” and that big tear rolled down her cheek.) What does she mean about coming back? As a human or as a vampire, and at what cost? There are so many possibilities with this storyline — should Jer trust Anna or Vicki? Are they actually the ghosts of Vicki and Anna, or something/someone else? Will Matt and Jeremy end up wishing they had settled for not remembering their last moments with Vicki? Is it best to let the dead rest in (relative) peace? I’m dying to see how this ghostly business develops.

As a diehard Caroline fan, it was not cool the way we had to wait ’til the very end to see what had become of her. Not cool. But at least our girl’s alive and not being tortured, and she’s looking pretty well put together for spending the night in bed with a werewolf and then in a creepy holding cell. Carol Lockwood’s realization that monsters are loveable too felt to me a little bit like a super-compressed version of the Caroline–Sheriff Forbes story arc from last season, but there was a lot to love about the Lockwood stuff in this episode. Tyler stood up for Caroline — when his mom likened her to a prostitute, and when he realized what his mother was up to with the vervain in the coffee. Last season, we saw Tyler fail to stand up for Caroline in a life-or-death moment, and I love that here he wasted no time in confronting his mother and getting straight to the point. (But I was more than a little concerned that his werewolf demonstration would take too long, and Caroline would end up in graver danger by the time he was finished showing his mom the monster in him.)

There are so many missing parents on The Vampire Diaries and we’d been asking when we’ll meet Caroline’s dad — all we knew of Mr. Forbes was that he’d left the Sheriff for his boyfriend Stephen. Well, now we know that he’s got some old-school Mystic Falls attitudes towards vampires! He tells Carol not to feel guilty — “they’re not human.” Is Bill Forbes as big a threat to his daughter as he seems to be? Will Mrs. Lockwood step up and fix the situation she created?

Compelling Moment: A small moment but one that speaks to Matt’s character — despite the distance and awkwardness between him and Tyler and his desire to stay away from the supernatural stuff, Matt offers to help Tyler get through the full moon. Oh, Matty.

The Rules: Making further use of his excellent online research skills, Jeremy discovers that family members and personal items help make a connection between the living and spirits. Jeremy can see and hear the ghosts, while Matt can’t. But, in addition to making the lights flicker, the ghosts can make physical objects move: Vicki’s ghost sets the photo of her and Matt upright, and one of the ghosts (I’m guessing Anna) smashes the back door at the Gilbert house.

Klaus’s attempt to create more hybrids fails: instead of being “true hybrids” like him, he winds up with shivering, suffering, rabid not-a-werewolf-not-yet-a-hybrid creatures, which end up dead by the end of the episode.
 
Foggy moments:

• There’s been some debate over the wolf that Elena comes face to face with. Is it Ray? Damon, Elena, and Alaric see Ray start to transform, so it seems logical that Ray would be the wolf. But when Ray and Damon fight, Ray’s wearing his clothes. If he’d transformed into a wolf and back, wouldn’t his clothes have been destroyed and left behind? His shirt sleeve is totally shredded, so maybe this was a bit of a fake-it situation, so that Damon and Ray could have their awesome stand-up fight scene (which would have been a little difficult for broadcasting on TV if one of them was stark naked). Or, is the wolf another of the not-quite-hybrids? Or is it Klaus?

 
Other thoughts & questions to ponder before The End of the Affair (303):

• Okay, that newscaster lady reporting that Andie’s death might be a suicide? Not cool! Would you really spread unfounded suicide rumors about your coworker on a newscast? C’mon, girl.
• I choose to believe that the writers wrote the “Damon chucks Elena into the water” scene with its GIF potential in mind. It’s just too funny.
• Bill asks Carol if she’s told the council about the Caroline situation. Is there anyone else in the council now, besides Sheriff Forbes and Damon? Members we haven’t yet met?
• More evidence that Nina Dobrev’s hair always looks good: the wavy, I-was-thrown-in-the-water-and-it-naturally-dried-this-way locks totally work for Elena.
• Where did Klaus get his information about breaking the curse and creating hybrids? Witches?
• Matt tells Jer that he doesn’t remember the last moment he had with Vicki before she was a vampire, when she was still his sister. . . . Seems like Matt is still holding on to his perception that vampires = monsters, that Vicki as a vampire was no longer his “real” sister. And he likely feels the same way about Caroline — that she’s no longer the real Caroline he fell in love with.
• Now that Matt knows (and believes) that Jeremy is seeing Vicki’s ghost, will Jeremy tell Matt what Vicki told him? Will he admit that he’s also seeing Anna’s ghost? Which of the ghost girls do you trust— or would you trust either of ’em? Will Jer tell his sister or Alaric or Bonnie? When will Bonnie be back?

 
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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