Posted by Crissy Calhoun | November 7, 2010, 12:07 (EST) | 176 Comments
Category: TV Series

Katherine may be a chronic manipulator but it turns out she wasn’t lying last week when she said Elena’s in danger. Getting kidnapped in the Lockwood driveway isn’t such a big deal when it turns out that she’s the key to the whole mysterious curse. Luckily for Elena, she’s one of the only characters on The Vampire Diaries who doesn’t struggle with being alone — she’s got more love and attention than a girl can handle, friends and family who are unfailingly loyal, and more than one handsome vampire who can’t think of a better reason to die than in saving her life.

Spellbound: The Bonnie storyline continued to simmer this week, getting more and more interesting without boiling over too soon. In a promising development, she reveals there are limits to her powers: when she pushes too hard, she suffers the consequences — a bloody nose, losing consciousness, and who knows what else if she keeps pushing. She opens up to Jeremy about her “weakness,” revealing that she’s not invincible and that she feels all alone. What began in Masquerade, with Bonnie reaching out to Lucy, felt more fully realized in Rose: Bonnie’s finally getting the kind of well-rounded characterization the writers have given the rest of the cast. (She even talked about her parents!) I know it oogs some of you out, but the possibility of romance brewing between Bonnie and Jeremy is working for me. He’s clearly more into her than she is into him at this moment — he pulled the telltale stare-at-her-sleeping move — and Bonnie is responding to the companionship and understanding Jeremy can provide her. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that an older girl fell for Jeremy: Vicki had a couple of years on him, Anna a couple hundred. But my favorite Bonnie moment this episode (and perhaps my favorite BFF moment since the feathers spell in 162 Candles) had nothing to do with Jer: sending the message to Elena so she’d know she wasn’t alone and the hug fest when Elena returned home was particularly sweet.

Werewolf Road Meets Vampire Boulevard: The Tyler-Caroline scenes in this episode hit that great TVD mix of humor and intensity. Seeing Tyler accidentally pop the lock off his locker or Caroline burst into giggles after Tyler’s super-serious “I know what you are” speech gave Rose its moments of levity while the makeshift memorial outside Sarah’s locker and the missing person notices for Aimee Bradley reminded us of the collateral damage of our characters’ actions. While I worry about Matt getting the wrong impression about Caroline and Tyler in a future episode (and poor Matt does not need any more awful in his life), the bonding moments between the wolf and the vamp in this episode built on their moment of understanding last week. Every storyline in this episode touched on feeling alone versus finding connection with another person; Caroline and Tyler were no exception. He opens up in a way we’ve never seen before. Compare Tyler admitting his fear to Caroline to his reactions last season when Jeremy tried to talk to him about Vicki or his father. Hopefully Caroline can be there for Tyler as he struggles with his new supernatural identity, in a way similar to how Stefan was there for her. It’s just too bad about the whole werewolf-vampire natural enemies thing . . . could get violent more violent.

Vampire History 101: This was an exciting (and rather exposition-filled) episode for those of us into the lore of the vampyre. Not only do we meet some 500-year-old vamps with Rose and Trevor (R.I.P.), but we learn of the Originals — the vampires’ Founding Family — and we meet one of its members, the calm and cool, suit-wearing, head-removing, stakes-won’t-kill-him Elijah. What I particularly loved about meeting the three new characters was how they immediately upped the intensity of the show. There’s been danger and mortal peril but this is a whole new world. Besides the epically awesome decapitation (now the frontrunner for best death scene on TVD), it’s apparent in the cavalier way they treat Elena. Rose doesn’t hesitate to smack Elena into silence when she refuses to do as she’s told. Elijah just yanks off Elena’s precious vervain necklace and compels her to get what he needs from her. And, of course, when Elena sees that some of the strongest vampires she’s ever met are terrified of an Original, we get how deadly a force Elijah and company must be. And now the Originals know there’s a Petrova doppelganger to hunt down as well as where the moonstone and Katherine are.

That Katherine is not the original but a doppelganger herself was a genius twist, in my opinion. Not only does that open the door for another doppelganger should either of Nina’s characters ever bite the dust in the distant, distant future, but presumably there is also an Original Petrova — the one who was doppelganged, for lack of a better word — who we could meet in a future flashback (or who is still kicking it with the Originals?). The best part of this, for me, is what it reveals to us about Katherine’s origin story and how it completely alters the relationship between Katherine and Elena. Elena is now in the very same life-threatening danger that Katherine found herself in 500 years ago; her number-one enemy just became the person who can understand her situation best. They are doubles way more than just physically, and who knows in what other ways they are tied together. Limitless possibilities! Thank you, writers, for giving us a Katherine flashback episode immediately after this multiple-doppelganger revelation.

Family Forever: The bond that can develop between two vampires over hundreds of years is almost incomprehensible from our mortal viewpoint. Rose and Trevor have been together, and on the run, for 500 years (and who knows how long before that). Their loyalty to one another came with life-or-death consequences. While it wasn’t explicitly stated, the feeling I got from them was that they were not blood related but they were family, forever, because of the special strength of their bond. Seeing their familial tie, Elena responds to and understands that relationship — it was fitting that she returned home to both Jeremy and Bonnie — and she opts to let Rose go free, the woman who had her kidnapped and was willing to give Elena over to her “worst nightmare.” It’s the kind of shady moral ground that we’re often on in The Vampire Diaries: protecting your loved ones at any cost is a respected idea in Mystic Falls, despite it often having deadly consequences for others.

While Rose and Trevor were tired of literally being on the run from Elijah and the Originals, Stefan and then Damon, following his little brother’s lead, decide to stop running from the things they can’t admit, giving Rose a pair of heartbreakingly awesome speeches, on from each brother. The brother-bonding road trip conversations culminate in a moment in the Salvatore library, a place we’ve seen them relax with a glass of bourbon many a time after an adventure. But this time, Stefan apologizes for the act that got Damon into this immortal vampire mess in the first place. It’s a simple and honest apology that Stefan felt he needed to say to Damon and have him hear it, just this once. We’ve talked about how markedly different the Salvatore brothers’ relationship has become this season, and their time together in Rose is no exception. Despite the complications and challenge, with their history, their loyalty, and their brotherly love, they’re family — forever.

With Stefan’s admission that he acted selfishly in turning Damon — just like Tyler, Bonnie, and Jeremy in this episode, he didn’t want to be alone — Damon decides to echo his brother’s words. He tells Elena he loves her and then erases her memory of his confession. After giving himself this one selfish moment — the catharsis of actually admitting his love to Elena — Damon then acts nobly: he puts his brother’s happiness and Elena’s safety before his own feelings. In his act of selflessness, he becomes more deserving of her love — and ours. It was only a mere seven episodes ago that Damon was standing in that same room killing Jeremy, and here he makes a personal sacrifice in order to better protect Elena from being sacrificed.

Compelling Moment: This week’s is literally a moment of compulsion — Damon making Elena forget his declaration of love.

The Rules: This week on The Vampire Diaries, we learned another way to kill a vampire: chop off his head. Very efficient. Just like the other supernatural elements on TVD, we learn that witches have rules that bind them. There is a price to pay for doing witchcraft; if Bonnie does too much, she’s physically incapacitated. Bonnie performs two spells that we haven’t seen her do before: a tracking spell (similar to what Grams must have used to find Elena and Bonnie in Fool Me Once) and a “send a message to your bestie in danger” spell. (Probably not what it’s called in the grimoire…) Expanding on the established idea that the older a vampire is, the stronger, the Originals cannot be killed as easily as your garden-variety vamp, with a wooden stake (or coat rack) through the heart. Which raises the question with a sure-to-be-interesting answer: what does it takes to kill an Original?

Foggy Moments:

• When we last left the tomb in Fool Me Once, the seal had been lifted, allowing Harper and all the tomb vamps out. In last week’s post I made the assumption that it was Bonnie who did the tomb spell now binding Katherine inside, and though she doesn’t explicitly state it in Rose, I think that’s still a safe assumption. Bonnie tells Stefan that it’s too difficult to take down the seal by herself, not that it’s too hard to put it up in the first place.
• In Bad Moon Rising, it seemed like Damon and Stefan were learning about the Sun and the Moon Curse for the first time. Near the end of Rose, Stefan says to Damon that Rose told Elena about the curse — as in, the bit about her being the key to breaking it. It didn’t seem like this Petrova doppelganger sacrifice thing was news to either Salvatore. Did they just find out about this curse and its implications for Elena, or were they holding back on teaching Elena her vampire history?

 
Other Thoughts and Questions before Katherine’s Diaries: Origins — a.k.a. Katerina (EP209):

• As happy as I was to see the halls of Mystic Falls High again, the stunning and creepy derelict plantation estate where Rose and Trevor are camped out is perhaps the coolest location ever on The Vampire Diaries.
• We see Trevor sizzle a little when the sun hits him as he’s blocking the light from the windows — but what about Rose? Is she a daywalker?
• Bonnie, next time you need a few drops of Gilbert blood, please don’t cut so deep! That was a serious slice into Jer’s hand.
• In case you’re thinking about the timeline of the Sun and the Moon Curse: the Aztec shaman placed the curse on vampires and werewolves 600 years ago (or so goes the legend we heard in Bad Moon Rising); the first Petrova doppelganger, Katherine, appeared on the scene 500 years ago; and Elena, another doppelganger, pops up in present day.
• How did Rose and Trevor find out that Katherine was in Mystic Falls, or that there was another Petrova doppelganger? A gossipy tomb vamp who left Mystic Falls before the Founder’s Day purge?
• Elijah is certain (until he gives Elena’s neck a good sniffing) that the Petrova line ended with Katherine. Why did he consider that a fact? (Cue flashback scene…)
• What was Trevor’s relationship to the Originals before his betrayal? Why did he owe them his loyalty? While it’s generally a free-for-all among the vampires, it seems there are laws or a code that governs them and is taken very seriously. Elijah, who Rose calls “old school,” will honor a promise he makes — just be more careful to get precisely the promise you want from him in the future, Rose Marie.
• Adding Trevor to the list: just how many guys has Katherine screwed over in her half-millennium of existence?
• One word — “Klaus.” — and L.J. Smith fans everywhere fall off their couches. Why are the Originals chasing down the doppelganger for Klaus — is there something preventing him from doing it himself? When, oh when, will we get to meet him?

 
And while we’re still reeling from Mr. Damon Salvatore’s tear of selflessness, why don’t we match his selfless act with one of our own: contribute what you can to the Ian Somerhalder Birthday Project!

 
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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