Posted by Crissy Calhoun | May 2, 2011, 8:38 (EST) | 149 Comments
Category: TV Series
Above the desk where I’m writing this (my bride-to-be bestie has kindly loaned me use of her office) is one of those posters: Keep Calm and Carry On. (Yes, I’m in England.) And after The Last Day I imagine something along those lines is what’s repeating in Elena’s head as she is faced with an impending sacrifice and all sorts of complications — those twists and turns the evil, evil Vampire Diaries loves to throw our way so we scream and cry at our television.
Always Have a Back-Up: Just as Katherine had her plans A through Z, and Klaus believes in having back-up supernatural creatures for sacrifice just in case of pesky vampire subterfuge, Damon isn’t comfortable with Elena’s plan — that Elijah is telling the truth, that his no-expiry elixir will work, and that she will be revived post-sacrifice and not just dead-dead. Unwilling to consider the alternative — Bonnie killing Klaus and dying in the process — from Elena’s perspective she has no choice but to have faith that things will work out as planned, to keep calm and carry on, and she planned to enter into the sacrifice fully knowing the risk it poses her. Dying. Forever. Her choice is to take that chance in the hopes of saving those she loves and to serve the greater good (keeping Klaus from becoming even more super-powerful should his werewolf side be set free).
To understate the situation, the Salvatore brothers react in different ways to her plan. Stefan urges his brother to trust Elena’s instincts about Elijah — that Elena put her faith in them and so they should respect her faith in Elijah. Damon rather hilariously points out that Elena’s faith in him shows questionable judgment — and then minutes later, proves that statement by pulling one of his classic Damon act-without-thinking-and-then-immediately-regret-it moves. Though Damon feels as though his opinion doesn’t matter, Elena wants him to understand her choice and to respect it. But for him, losing Elena isn’t an option; it’s not an acceptable risk. So Damon does the thing that Stefan wouldn’t even raise as an option with Elena: he force-feeds her his blood, ensuring that she’ll come back to life — as a transitioning vampire.
That the subject of Elena becoming a vampire has barely been mentioned in nearly two seasons is a remarkable feat for this show — and as for Stefan and Damon and Elena, it’s certainly something we have all thought about when considering the future of the series and how Elena could get out of her current mess. In The Return Elena didn’t understand why Jeremy would want to become a vampire, a subtle moment that reminded us that for Elena, eternal life as a 17-year-old girl isn’t that appealing. She didn’t seem to even consider the option what Katherine posed it to her in Katerina (particularly since vamping out doesn’t save your family from Klaus’s vengeance). As much as we thought we knew how she felt about it, it was a beautifully honest and crushing moment built up to over the episode, having Elena tell Stefan that she doesn’t want to be a vampire and never has. For me, in this episode Elena looked more like she did in the pilot episode than ever — a similar outfit, the falls and the wooden bridge (harking back to Stefan and Elena’s first real conversation), and in finally admitting how she felt at the top of the mountain, it was clear that though she’s tough and can handle so much of the grief and horror thrown her way, she’s still a teenager. She’s still young —considerably so when compared to Stefan and Damon, who are teenagers themselves compared to Klaus and Elijah.
On their walk up, Stefan tells the inquisitive Elena that the two hardest things about being a vampire are the bloodlust and the heightened emotions. Stefan is just now learning how to manage his bloodlust, after denying himself human blood for so long, and though he still struggles with the extremes of emotion a vampire feels, he says the good outweighs the bad. He manages it. And that’s evident in how he carries himself: just like Damon, he wants Elena to be by his side forever, but he won’t even bring up the option of her turning because he knows it’s not what she wants. He respects her right to decide for herself, and because he loves her, he can’t be selfish with her. Even when saying goodbye to her, when Klaus comes for her, though everything in him is fighting against letting her go, he does. On the flip side is Damon, who has control over his bloodlust but is only now learning to manage his humanity, the overwhelming nature of anger, love, rejection, and hurt now that he lets himself feel. Though there’s some truth in Damon saying to Stefan, in their fight in Damon’s room, that Stefan’s angry because he wishes he had the balls to turn Elena himself — it’s what both brothers want — Damon lets his impulse take over in a selfish action, one that Stefan is able to fight off. Where Stefan has impulse control, Damon gives into a frenzy of passion. It’s telling that Damon immediately sees the error of his ways (as he did after snapping Jeremy’s neck), he knows he screwed up and is willing to die trying to make it right to Elena. And with that bite from wolf-Tyler, dying is a distinct possibility for Damon — after a frightening descent into madness, of course.
And that’s what I love about this show: our heroine is in danger of becoming a vampire, our anti-hero is slated for a harrowing death, recently not-so-clueless Jenna is about to vamp out and then be sacrificed — and we still have two episodes left in the season. What are they going to do to us??
Should they survive their current trapped-with-an-attacking-werewolf situation, Caroline and Matt have some serious conversations to have. Loved the turn Matt took in this episode: presented with a hollow argument that all vampires are evil and Caroline still being Caroline, Matt realizes that she’s not the enemy — and that he’ll fight to protect her, even if he has no idea what the hell he’s getting himself into. Matt has faith in Caroline. And Liz is faltering in her long-held beliefs that vampires are demons, soulless creatures who put on a show of humanity to trick their victims. She’s not entirely wrong, some vampires are; it’s just as with any other group — humans, werewolves, witches, vampires, in real life as in Mystic Falls — a blanket characterization is never accurate and is often a very, very dangerous idea to subscribe to.
Matt is proving himself capable in a crisis, just as Alaric sees Jenna is. I love this new Jenna-in-the-know, wielding crossbows, fetching blood bags, and realizing that when the stakes are this high, problems are put into perspective. Though she wasn’t on speaking terms with Alaric just yesterday, today she sets aside her anger and feelings of betrayal to let him know she loves him. (Also: how Alaric proved he wasn’t Klaus anymore? Hilarious.) And that same sentiment is echoed in Caroline and Tyler’s scenes. With sacrifice an imminent possibility, Caroline wants to clear the air between them. Tyler tells her why he left without saying goodbye — and she lets him know she was hurt, but could never hate him. (Perhaps in the forgiveness shown between Tyler and Caroline and Jenna and Alaric, Damon can hope for the same from the perennially forgiving Elena?)
Not one to be overshadowed by the new and awesome Jenna and Matt, Tyler returned to Mystic Falls with a sense of control and calm that he didn’t have when he left, and that he certainly didn’t have last season. Like Caroline and Jeremy earlier this season, Tyler seems to have grown up after facing loss, pain, and life-altering supernatural complications.
While the rest of the characters are banding together, protecting each other and making sure the ones they love know they are loved, our two resident villains keep fighting for themselves. Klaus has a thousand years of determination and experience riding on this curse-breaking plot, and his calm menace is impressive and not a little bit terrifying. Equally impressive is Katherine’s resolve: she’ll stand in sunlight and burn if it helps her chance of escape. For Katherine, it’s a competition — both to live (willing to throw Jenna under the proverbial bus in order to not be the vampire sacrificed) and for love (willing to betray Klaus’s secrets to take out Elena as her eternal competition for Stefan’s heart).
So what the hell is going to happen in the next two episodes? There seems to be a deliberate amount of information and plotting that we’re not in the loop on. Where oh where is my favorite Original as night falls? Elijah is missing in action, and Bonnie and Jeremy are surprisingly absent from The Last Day. Uncle John is on an ill-timed, unexplained sojourn somewhere or other. That elixir? Doubt we’ve seen the last of it. I, for one, cannot wait to see the missing pieces of the puzzle come together.
Compelling Moment: Elena’s tearful speech, mourning a lifetime of choices she’s lost.
The Rules: Elijah theorizes that the Gilbert ring will not work on Elena because as a doppelganger her origin is supernatural (and the rings only work on humans). Tyler’s transformation into a wolf is happening faster, though it is still beginning earlier than Jules’s as the more mature werewolf (unless Klaus wasn’t watching a live feed of her transformation?).
Foggy Moments:
- Klaus tells Katherine he needs her to do something for him long before he knows that Damon has been bitten by a werewolf and is useless to him. Did he decide to turn Jenna as a punishment for whichever brother ended up trying to stop his plan?
Other thoughts & questions before The Sun Also Rises (EP221):
- How did Maddox make Carol call Tyler? Was that compulsion by proxy (sort of what he did with Isobel) or was that a spell?
- Elijah explains that Klaus has to kill a vampire and a werewolf, representing the two halves of his bloodline. Then he drinks the blood of the doppelganger, to the point of her death. Is there any clue in that as to how the original Petrova is connected to Klaus? Did she die at his hand? Does he have to be willing to kill her (or a replica of her) in order to take such great power? (Implying she is, in one way or another, a person Klaus once loved.)
- What is the deal with Greta? She seemed pretty friendly with Klaus in the previous episode, and in The Last Day she tells Elena that her father and brother were wasting their time looking for her — she wasn’t lost. We’ve heard that turn of phrase from a missing loved one before: Isobel said it to Alaric. Is Greta similarly enamored with the dark side? Does she know her brother and father are dead?
- Does Klaus have to sacrifice the werewolf in wolf form or does it matter?
- Do you think Elijah’s right — that Elena will never forgive Damon for taking away her self-determination?
Sound off below with your thoughts and theories below! And for those of you interested, I’ve just posted the cover for my book on the second season of The Vampire Diaries over on my blog — have a look and let me know what you think!
Crissy Calhoun is the author of Love You to Death: The Unofficial Companion to The Vampire Diaries and is writing a follow-up book that covers season 2 (due out in September 2011). 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 at crissycalhoun.com and tweets @crissycalhoun.
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