Posted by Crissy Calhoun | May 10, 2011, 20:42 (EST) | 103 Comments
Category: TV Series

After a season-long build-up to breaking the curse, it was a little surreal to actually see the curse broken. An episode that very much felt like the culmination of a season’s worth of mythology, backstory, characters’ choices and growth, The Sun Also Rises managed to pack in some serious action and slaying as well as poignant moments that won’t be soon forgotten. I know that I’m not the only one who’s been listening to “Skinny Love” on repeat since Thursday. As the sun rises on the day after the sacrifice, we’re left with a lot to grieve.

There was a lot that went wrong with the gang’s original plan, but one element didn’t —Ms. Bonnie Bennett. Hells to the yes, that was a serious display of power. In her every moment this episode, Bonnie is confident in herself — with Jeremy about saving Elena and in protecting him from the showdown and in taking down Klaus. Did she know that Damon would kill Greta? In the past, Bonnie’s been particularly upset about fellow witches losing their lives, and she certainly had a bond with Luka and with Jonas in him trusting her in his final moments. As we’ve seen in other major showdowns, the turn of power from one side to the other hinges on the strength of the winning side’s witch, yet the witches are never themselves the one instigating the battle. It’s an interesting dynamic and one that I hope we’ll get to see explored more in season 3 as “nature’s servants” have to deal with the existence of a hybrid bent on propagating his all-powerful species.

Never a Dull Moment: Is that the end of Matt and Caroline? As much as I want the two of them to be together, Matt’s decision not to embrace the violent world of the supernatural is understandable. Everything changes and rarely for the better when you’re in the heart of vampire country: the lives of Caroline, Tyler, Jeremy, Bonnie and Elena — not to mention those who’ve been longer familiar with the supernatural — revolve around its secrets and dangers. Normal doesn’t exist for them any more. But it may not be possible for Matt to stay out of it. Just as Elena first decided not to be with Stefan in You’re Undead to Me but later came around, Matt may find himself unable to deny how much he loves Caroline and change his mind. I hope he does. Every last one of his friends is supernatural in one way or another (err, with the exception of Dana), so Matt’s choice to stay out of it may prove impossible. In the meantime, a distraught Caroline has found herself in the arms of a shirtless Tyler. These two get each other, with their parallel experiences becoming ‘monsters’ and learning how to deal with their new realities, and they’ve proven their bond is stronger than an age-old mutiny between species and able to overcome the betrayals (both real and perceived) that each suffered from the other.

Another Grave to Mourn: Across many of the characters’ stories in The Sun Also Rises is the theme of failure. Both Elena’s parental figures feel they have failed in their duty to her — Jenna tells Elena directly and John in his letter to her — and they both make decisions that put themselves in harm’s way in an effort to protect her life. John knowingly gives up his life for hers, while Jenna realizes what she has to do: attack Greta to stop the ritual from finishing. In her last act, Jenna is brave and clever. She hasn’t long been in on the supernatural secret, but she does her best to outwit Klaus. Though I wish Alaric and Jeremy had a chance to say goodbye to Jenna, it would likely have been too unbearably sad to watch if Jenna’s final moments with Elena are any barometer. The bond between Jenna and Elena feels so real (thanks to Sara Canning and Nina Dobrev) and seeing Jenna killed for one man’s gain feels somehow more villainous than all the other terrible crimes we’ve seen committed on this show.

Time and again, characters have placed more value on Elena’s life than on their own, and John gives the gift of life to his daughter by making the greatest sacrifice he can. In that act and in his letter, which eloquently acknowledges all that held him back from having a connection with her, John proves to be so much more than the weaselly uncle no one likes, to be much more than ordinary. He made his sacrifice quietly and honorably, doing the right thing without fuss, even going outside so Elena wouldn’t see him die. He unselfishly doesn’t try to have a last moment with her, instead using the letter and the ring for her future child to make her believe his words — he sees the error of his ways and loves her no matter what.

In his sacrifice, John secures for Elena what she was so terrified of losing: a lifetime of choices, of being human, of growing up. But with his death and Jenna’s, as after Grayson’s and Miranda’s, Elena is forced to be more of a grown-up. She doesn’t face a normal 17-year-old’s problems; she faces a stunning amount of grief, danger, violence, and darkness. And she does it with perseverance, dignity, and a forgiving spirit that makes John’s description of her as an “extraordinary child” something that we all responded to . . . with tears and more tears. Elena’s friends have always been hugely important to her, but now more than ever she will need them — having lost an aunt and an uncle as well as a mother figure and biological father in one awful day. I only hope that Elena doesn’t carry any sense of responsibility — that feeling that she failed Jenna, as she tells her during the sacrifice — but keeps her rage aimed directly at the one responsible, Klaus. Like Elijah says, there can be honor in revenge. . . .

Elena and Jeremy moments always get me, and their moment together in Elena’s room was no different. So much loss, but at least they still have each other. The crucial thing that’s changed in Jeremy since we met him at the beginning of season 1 is he’s not afraid to reach out to his sister, to those around him, to Bonnie in order to find strength and companionship and purpose from them. As heartbreaking as Jeremy’s life has been and continues to be, I’m not worried about him pulling through: he now has the inner strength that his sister possesses as well as the instinct to seek solace in those who love him.

The bonds between siblings are strong in Mystic Falls, and the parallel between Damon and Stefan and Klaus and Elijah is once again emphasized with nice echo of the original “Hello, brother” moment between Damon and Stefan when Elijah and Klaus meet again. Though Elijah promises not to fail Stefan and professes to be a man of his word, he chooses to honor his bonds of family over that promise to Stefan. The tie that binds him to his other siblings and parents is more sacred. But is Klaus being sincere? Will he keep his word to his brother or was he just saving his neck with a promise as long lasting and reliable as one of Katherine’s?

By giving her vervain, Damon gave Katherine a choice, and she once again chose to protect herself over anyone else. Damon’s conversation with her felt like a Stefan-Damon conversation of season 1 and showed just how much Damon has changed. Like Andie Star (Action News) once wisely said, love changes us — and though Damon has faltered and made terrible mistakes as he finds his way, he is now making choices that don’t just further his own selfish interests, as Katherine and Klaus do, but makes choices in consideration of others ahead of himself, with no desire for reward. He got his werewolf nip by intercepting Tyler’s attack on Caroline. And he hides his impending insanity and death so as not to further burden Elena in her grief, despite his desperate need for her forgiveness. It’s this doing good for its own sake, this selflessness, that Stefan and Damon talked about in the season 1 finale, and that Damon is finally coming around to. The brothers are once again united — their animosity from the previous episode put aside — as Stefan resolves to find a way to save Damon, and Damon asks only that he not be the cause of any more grief for the woman he loves.

Please, writers, do not give us any more graves to mourn.

Compelling Moment: Not a moment this episode, but a character gone too soon. Rest in peace, Jenna Sommers. Sara Canning, we love you: TVD family forever.

The Rules: Found in Emily’s grimoire, Bonnie performs a spell that transfers John’s life force to Elena, so she comes back to life as a human not a vampire. Bonnie also puts a spell on Jeremy, knocking him out with a kiss. Jules is under a spell that slows her transformation into a werewolf (and causing her great pain). Greta also binds each sacrifice victim in a magic circle ringed with fire. Klaus breaks the curse binding him, becoming a true hybrid, by killing a werewolf and vampire (using their blood in the most witchy-like makeshift cauldron we’ve seen on TVD) and then by drinking the blood of the doppelganger.

Other thoughts & questions before As I Lay Dying (EP222):

• What would have happened if John had kept his ring on? My personal feeling is that it would have taken the ‘life force’ or ‘soul’ back from Elena when the ring’s magic resurrected him, killing her again; at the very least the risk of something like that happening prevented John from keeping his ring on.
• What will happen to Katherine? Will Klaus and Elijah take her with them (assuming they are leaving Mystic Falls)? Will she make her escape or is she Alaric’s permanent house guest?
• What does Klaus want with Stefan?
• What did Klaus do to the rest of his family? Presumably they are just as fearsome as Elijah: are there more weapons out there that temporarily kill Originals, like the ash and dagger? Why would Klaus go after the rest of his family? We know he has a motive to take out his father (for killing his birth father and family) and we saw the origin of the conflict between he and Elijah, but what of the mother and other siblings?
• How will the deaths of Jenna and John be explained to the world at large? Since Elena’s not yet 18, who will become her and Jeremy’s legal guardian?
• How will Tyler react to Jules’s death? Will he realize that his mother’s accident was just a way for Klaus to get a werewolf for the sacrifice?
• Does Bonnie get to keep the witches’ super power or does it lessen as she uses it (like a battery)?
• Matt tells Caroline that her mother will likely always hate vampires. Is he right or will Liz come around like she did in Plan B?
• Will Damon survive his werewolf bite?

 
An amazing episode with so much action and heart. I know I’m joining the discussion late, but if you still have any thoughts, theories, or comments, sound off below. We’re only two days away from the finale. . . .

 
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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