hello, kait

I’ve been seeing a lot of people talking on Tumblr about how we’ve lost Alaric forever and that his bromance with Damon is over. But you know what, and maybe I’m really just living in denial, but I refuse to believe this. I refuse to believe that Alaric dies in this season or the next.

Yes, he is a vampire now (thanks, Bonnie!). He’s a vampire with a lot of anger and hatred for other vampires. But from what I understand, he’s an Original, created by Esther. It’s a magical change. This isn’t a normal vampire transition. And there’s only one stake left, right?

I think to kill him off now, after going through all of this for the character, would be one of the worst mistakes the show has ever made. And I’m not talking about like when they killed off Jenna. That hurt. That hurt a lot. But the show could still go on without Jenna. Killing off Alaric will not really help the show or the characters. 

I have no idea how the writers plan to play this, but if they keep him “alive” as a vampire, there’s a lot to be done for that character. Yes, he’s charged with the task of killing all the Originals. But guess what, if that happens the show fucking ends. And we know that won’t be happening anytime soon. He would die once he’s killed all the Originals (Julie Plec said as much in an interview). The only course of option would be for someone to kill him. But again, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Not anytime soon.

We know that he’s not the Alaric we knew. We know this is Evilaric as a vampire. But I don’t think the real Alaric is truly gone. I think he’s trapped inside his own head somewhere. And you know what? It’s possible for vampires to have feelings, to come back from being blood-thirsty and evil killing machines. That’s one of the central points of this show. So there is a story to be told. A redemption story. It will take time, but I have all the time in the world when it comes to Alaric Saltzman.

In my opinion, what I’d love to see happen eventually is a moment like the moment between Xander and Willow at the end of season six when Evil Veiny WIllow decided she wanted to destroy the world. Remember how there was only one person in the world who could break through all that hate and anger and destroying the world tendencies? And Xander was that person? And he did it with the story about Crayon-Breaky-Willow? I would probably melt inside if there was a moment in which Elena or Damon could bring Alaric back from the depths of his agony and anger. It would be a great story arc.

I don’t know. I just think there’s more story to be told regarding Alaric. If the writers truly kill him off next season (Julie said his fate at the end of this season is ambiguous) I’ll probably hole up in my bed for a couple of days listening to really sad pathetic music and then start penning angry emails to Julie Plec asking her how she could have betrayed me this way. But right now I am not going to jump to any conclusions. This show always throws curve balls at the end. And we just got one. I’m hoping the show doesn’t follow with the obvious plan - which would have to be that they kill him. This show zigs when I think it’s going to zag, and I’m hoping that’s the case again this time.

“It wasn’t about you.” – Damon

Contrary to popular belief, the world does not revolve around Elena Gilbert. I know that she acts that way sometimes, and it’s probably only because most of the time everything actually is about her – she is the show’s protagonist, after all – but she’s not what makes the world go around.

And though it usually appears this way, she’s not what makes the Salvatore brothers’ worlds go around, either. She’s just a girl. A girl who’s been thrown to the wolves, vampires and generally all things from the nightmares of children. But she’s so often the cause of, and answer to, the problems plaguing Mystic Falls that we forget, and she forgets, that she’s just one person in a world full of them.

Damon so often prioritizes Elena and her safety because of his intense love for her that we forget the dude once had a life that didn’t even include her. We’ve seen him go to hell and back for this one teenage girl and we forget that sometimes he’s got other things going on in his life. Like Rose.

Last season’s episode ‘Rose’ is fondly remember by Delena shippers because it’s the episode Damon confesses his love to Elena in the most selfless -  but also somehow selfish – way possible. He brings back to her the vervain necklace she thought she’d lost, but before he hands it over he tells her, “I love you, Elena. And it’s because I love you that I can’t be selfish with you. And why you can’t know this. I don’t deserve you, but my brother does.” And with that declaration he compels her to forget his broken confession.

But in order to understand that moment we have to back up a little bit further.

I never cared for Rose, nor do I pretend to care for her now even if she’s a Delena shipper. But Damon had a connection with the female vampire and he shared a moment with her at the end of her life. He took away her pain and suffering because he could and because he wanted to. This was one of the handful of times Damon’s chosen to spare someone misery, one of the few times he’s shown that he truly can feel things for people who aren’t Elena and Stefan. Sure, he saves the lives of the people of Mystic Falls every time he thwarts some apocalypse or whatever, but showing emotion is something he’s never been good at – or wanted to be good at – and that moment with Rose is not one to be overlooked.

And it’s why I think that in an episode where Elena basically attacked Damon with her lips in a motel hallway, it’s important to mention that Elena does not define Damon. Does she make him a better person? Yes, Rose was right about that. But sometimes there are going to be things that happen that Damon doesn’t share with Elena, and unless she’s willing to make that leap and be in a relationship with him, she doesn’t need – or even really have the right – to know.

I’ll admit that the noises that came out of my mouth when Elena finally sucked it up and gave into her feelings for the sexy older Salvatore were not human. I was cheering that kiss on with the rest of you – well, probably not the Stefan/Elena shippers. But I also understood that there’s still a lot of ground to be covered – a lot of meeting in the middle, if you will – before these two can be a happy couple. And that’s why I didn’t really flip out when they had a fight about their feelings towards episode’s end.

While I wanted to grab Elena’s head and shove it into the nearest wall when she told Damon she didn’t know if she had feelings for him (because, girl, clearly you do – you don’t just soberly attack people with your lips and then have a steamy makeout session against a motel wall if you don’t have feelings for them), I understand her reservations.

Elena was right when she told Damon that he sabotages things and lashes out at people whenever there’s a bump in the road. We’ve see it happen. We’ve seen him snap Jeremy’s neck when Katherine and Elena both denied him in the same evening. We saw the way he acted at the ball when Elena went behind his back and made the deal with Esther and Finn to bind the Originals. He went after Kol, breaking his neck and then jumping. off. the. freaking. balcony. It didn’t matter that we all cheered the return of Damon the Badass. He still lashed out. For a man who claims to not have emotions, he sure does lose control of them easily.

But what Damon said in that scene also held a lot of truth. He’s the one to make bold declarations of love. He’s the one to make decisions regarding their relationship. Elena never takes charge of her own life regarding Damon. She waits for him to do something and then reacts to whatever he’s done – usually finding herself on the disapproving side. Tonight when he told her, “This time I’m not gonna make is so easy for you. This time you’ll have to figure it out for yourself,” I cheered. I cheered Damon showing a little backbone, because it’s about time he called her out on how she’s always playing games with his head and just assuming he’ll always be there for her because he’s in love with her. Homegirl has got to figure this one out on her own, she has got to make a decision. And from the looks of it, she’s got to do it fairly soon.

There were some other very lovely moments between Damon and Elena in this episode, though. I particularly liked the part of the episode where they were lying in the bed (and not just because of Ian Somerhalder’s sculpted abdominal region) and Elena asked him why he never let people see the good in him. And his response is something that also fits in to what I was saying above. Damon said, “Because when people see good, they expect good. And I don’t want to have to live up to anyone’s expectations.”

I took this to mean two things. One, Damon is tired of dealing with the disapproving looks Elena throws his way when he does something she finds despicable. He’s tired of feeling like he’s not good enough for her. But two, I think he also meant that he’s done trying to change for her because he is who he is. He’s not going to change for her and she’s going to have to accept him for the man he is.

This was a huge episode for Damon and Elena’s relationship, but we’ve still got miles to go and there are only three episodes left this season. Julie Plec has said that there will be a resolution this season to the triangle (as much of a resolution that there can be), so I’m really looking forward to this final stretch of episodes.

Anyway, now that we got that out of the way, we can move on to discussing the rest of the episode (other things happened in this episode, WHAT?)

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There’s an episode in the fifth season of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ in which the First Slayer tells Buffy, “Death is your gift.” During the course of this episode I kept coming back to the idea that Elena hurts every single person that she touches and that maybe in a way death is her gift, too.

Think about it: Elena’s parents died, both biological and adoptive. Her brother has died several times (thanks, Damon!). Aunt Jenna was turned into a vampire and then sacrificed by Klaus. Caroline became a vampire, and then lost her father after he chose not to complete his own transition. Matt lost his sister. Tyler activated his werewolf curse and eventually was turned into a hybrid, and is currently of unknown whereabouts. Damon and Stefan, well, they’re both hopelessly in love with the girl but neither can seem to get it right which leads to a lot of furrowed brows and sad eyes. And Bonnie, well, she lost her Grams after opening the tomb and Damon turned her mother into a vampire in order to save Elena. That leaves us with Alaric, who, by the way, has been the show’s punching bag for awhile now.

Alaric has been killed several times over the course of the show (again, thanks, Damon!). He’s been possessed by Klaus. Both his wife and his girlfriend were turned into vampires and are now both real dead, not undead. And now he suffers from rage blackouts courtesy of that damn Gilbert ring that brought him back from the dead 9 million times.

I think it’s about time the writers cut the poor vampire hunter some slack, don’t you? Lord knows this show doesn’t need any more ‘Buffy’ comparisons, especially since I started this review with one, but I have to say, making one of the core group the Big Bad of the season, as it appears Alaric has turned out to be, albeit unknowingly and against his own will, feels like it’s been done. And it’s because ‘Buffy’ did it in season six when Willow went all vein-y and turned into Dark Willow (something the show had been alluding to for awhile with her interest in dark magic) after Warren’s stray bullet killed Tara.

Obviously the two situations are not all that similar. Willow chose vengeance and as I understand it, the Gilbert ring broke down Alaric’s psyche and allowed the darkness to come through. But I hate to see the show go down this path, if only because Elena and Jeremy need Alaric’s parental guidance. It’s all they’ve got. He’s all they’ve got left. And sure, Elena is 18 now (shouldn’t she be applying to colleges or something?), but everyone needs that parental presence in their lives, no matter how old they are. And if you won’t listen to me, Caroline told Abby the same exact thing in tonight’s episode when she caught her writing a Dear Bonnie letter in the kitchen. “No one is better off without their parents!” she sad. And yet Abby ignored her and left Bonnie to annoy us all some more.

And let’s face it, everyone needs a Caroline lecture. Every single character on this show needs a lecture from the All Knowing Caroline. She’s wise despite the fact she was introduced as the typical blond cheerleader in the first season. Becoming a vampire did wonders for her personality and for her intelligence it seems. Bonnie, however …. Well, Bonnie does nothing but mope around trying to make everyone feel sorry for her. And as evidenced above, Elena has it way worse than Bonnie and she doesn’t make me want to bang my head into a wall every time she’s on screen. Which is a very good thing because I’d probably be walking around concussed all the time if that were the case. But truthfully, I’ve never connected to Bonnie. In fact, the only time I ever cared about her storyline was when she was with Jeremy, and I think that was only because I desperately wanted Jeremy to find someone to love who didn’t end up a vampire and, also, dead.

Speaking of the other Gilbert sibling,  he made an appearance tonight” Granted, it was just a telephone call from Elena in which she basically just called to check up on him. But he was actually on screen. It wasn’t just a fake one-sided phone call. I hope this means Jeremy will be back in Mystic Falls for good soon. Because I’ve been missing Steven’s face a lot these past couple of months. (I may have actually squealed, “JEREMY!” while doing a fist pump when he showed up on screen.) Anyway, so Elena phoned Jeremy up to check on him. ANd I suppose she couldn’t very well say, “Hey, bro. Remember how I erased your memories and all that crap? And how I sent you away to live with “family” out in Denver? Cool. Um, are you also an accidental psycho killer? Because Alaric is. And I was just wondering.” No, Elena couldn’t say that. And even if Jeremy was suffering from those same rage blackouts as Alaric, I don’t suppose he’d know he was suffering from them. Which is another reason to bring him home, Elena! Let;s be honest. Denver is super lame and I bet Jeremy hates it. He was just pretending to be happy for your sake. Yeah, that’s it.

Meanwhile, while all of the stuff involving Alaric was going on (oh yeah, I forgot, he totally attacked Crazy Nanny Carrie and for a minute I kind of felt bad for her. I’m sorry, Torrey, I just have a hard time separating you from Crazy Nannie Carrie and Melissa Hastings - you play crazy evil so well!), Damon was fooling around with the worst two women on the planet, Sage and Rebekah.

I enjoyed seeing Damon seduce Rebekah again, even if he was doing it so Sage could pull some weird ‘Twilight’ shit and use her mind to find her weakness. “Rebekah may be an Original, but she’s a girl. You find her weakness and exploit it,” Sage told Damon. Sadly, what neither of Damon nor Sage know, is that it’s not because she’s a girl that she’s got a weakness. Being a girl is Rebekah’s weakness. Rebekah was turned so early that she carries with her that insecurity that comes along with being a young woman. She might have been around for thousands of years, but she’s still a young woman inside. It’s why she was so excited about the homecoming dance and why she took a liking to Matt after he gave her his Letterman jacket to foolishly try to keep her warm. Damon exploited that insecurity in her and after they had sex, Sage walked in and mind-raped her.

Later, Damon, wrapped in nothing but his sex sheet (did he just leave Rebekah up there naked without any covers?), decided it was time to peruse the old Salvatore library for yet another piece of the latest puzzle (those Salvatore’s certainly like to keep records - no wonder Stefan has a diary). He found the old milling ledgers that the Salvatore’s keep just hanging out on a shelf in their house, and discovered that the second white oak tree was cut down and used to build the Wickery Bridge. Yup, that same bridge that A) Elena’s parent’s drove off and died, B) Stefan tried to kill Elena on earlier this season, and C) just happens to be being restored this episode. Boy, what a lucky coincidence that was! So Damon tells Sage about the bridge, because he’s an idiot, and the next thing he knows, Rebekah’s burning the wood from the bridge. Should’ve seen that betrayal by Sage coming, dude.

“I told you I’d save your creepy boyfriend!” Damon yelled at Sage. But she was too smart for him. She used her ‘Twilight’ magic to get into his mind too. And she found out that the Originals are linked and that if Rebekah dies, so too does her One True Love Finn. By the way, I refuse to believe that a woman like Sage would love the weird, crazy-eyed, suicidal Finn. But whatever. Little does Sage know, but Damon’s got the new sign for Wickery  Bridge. And what’s it made of? That same white oak tree. BAM.

Some other observations:

• Elena: “You stood there and let him feed on an innocent girl.” / Damon: “I didn’t let him do anything. If you want to get nitpicky about it, I made him.” / Elena: “Why would you do that?”/ Damon: “Because we’re vampires, Elena. We need human blood to survive. We’re predators, not puppies.” / Elena: “Well, Stefan found a way around it before.” / Damon: “Stefan has built himself a delusional wagon which he’s repeatedly fallen off of. What he needs to learn is control.”
• “Ric, the world can’t stop just because you’re an accidental psycho killer.”
• “Unless you’re interested in a Sage/Rebekah sex sandwich, I suggest you make yourself scarce.” (Question: why hasn’t there ever been a Damon and Stefan sex sandwich? That would seriously solve this show’s major problem, the choice between Stelena and Delena.)

• Damon’s “he doesn’t love you” speech to Sage was very reminiscent of scenes from the first season in which Damon was told that Katherine never loved him. I thought it very nice to see him tell someone else that kind of thing, especially someone who seems to have spent much of her existence like Damon had until the first season; holding on to something that probably wasn’t real.

• I wish the writers would stop trying to make Bonnie happen. Because I’m never going to like her.

• I miss Tyler. And Jeremy. And Klaus. And Kol. And Elijah. BRING THEM ALL BACK, ASAP, PLEASE.

• Stefan seems to be making progress on the control thing, as he was able to withstand the hunger long enough to give Meredith some of his blood to heal her. Nevermind the fact he left Evil!Alaric downstairs with no guard, not knowing whether or not when he woke up if he’d still be evil or not.

• I think the only way to save Alaric this time is to turn him into a vampire. And I’m completely OK with this if it means I’ll still have Alaric on this show. He’s my favorite character, and I think I might die inside if he dies on the show. What would I do without my Damon/Alaric bromance? (Which has been back these past couple of episodes. Thank you, writers!)

That’s it for now. What did you guys think? Did you see the Sage thing coming? Do you like the idea of Alaric being evil?

(Source: kaitlinthomas.com)

First of all, this episode was titled “All My Children” and I spent the entire hour wondering when Susan Lucci was going to show up and put everyone in their place. Because that would have been epic. The writers really dropped the ball on that one. Could you imagine  her throwing Rebekah against a cave wall and been all, “Bitch, I’m the crazy one in charge around here.” Or her trying to marry one – or both – of the Salvatores? And then the rest of the male population in Mystic Falls? Oh! And Elena could have been her long lost granddaughter or something. I mean, Elena’s entire family is straight out of a soap opera anyway, so why not?  Seriously, writers, what were you thinking? What does the Luc’ have going on besides hawking her magical face stuff on QVC? Pine Valley closed up shop months ago; I bet she’s looking for work for the first time in, like, 30 years.

It’s clear to me now that I know too much about the Luc’ and ‘All My Children’ so I’m going to get on with the rest of the recap/review now. K? Cool. Let’s take it from the top:

Elena is still fighting an inner battle over which Salvatore Brother she loves the most. If she’d just consult the stinking Pacey Witter Theorem already she’d realize it’s high time she got her Bad Boy on and maybe we could put this love triangle to bed for now (terrible pun not originally intended, but I’m feeling pretty good about it now so I’m going to leave it). But no, she can’t choose, because she’s conflicted. And even though she called Stefan before she called his equally sexy brother, she definitely channeled her Inner Jealous Girl after showing up unexpected to Casa Salvatore and found Rebekah in her torn dress, looking like she had a sex hangover.

Which, by the way, can we talk about that for a minute? Elena. That is not what you wear to confront a man as sexy as Damon Salvatore. Like, ever. I don’t care if you’re just going over to his house to ask him to edit your history paper for accuracy, you do not just pull the first two things out of your seriously empty and sad looking closet and throw them on. You put some effort in to it. I get that you spend countless hours with the Brothers Salvatore on a daily basis, but do not let yourself get lazy. Just because Damon told you he loved you does not mean it’s time to cover up (though I’ll give the costume designers props for knowing the climate of their fictional town – most shows just put people in miniskirts in February and pretend we won’t notice). If you’re not sure what is suitable attire, ask Caroline. Seriously, when in doubt, call up the one female in Mystic Falls who is able to have hot supernatural sex with Tyler and then subsequently be held captive/tortured in a dirty, grimy cell for a day and still look fabulous at the end of it all. That girl won’t lead you astray.

Secondly, you do not just show up to a dude’s house like that. Because if we’ve learned anything from TV, you never know what you’re going to walk in on. And it’s almost never a sexy dance party. And it’s almost always awkward and something you wish you hadn’t seen.

So Elena is still conflicted about which Salvatore she truly loves, and is feeling extremely guilty about letting CrazyMamaWitch use her blood to bind the Originals’ Circle to link the Originals together. You see, she’s starting to realize that it might have been a bad idea because Elijah is flawless and perfect and couldn’t possibly do anything wrong. Like take her out in the middle of nowhere and trap her in a maze of underground tunnels with his crazy sister who is just salivating over the thought of killing Elena for literally stabbing her in the back and making her miss Homecoming and ruin her dress. No, he couldn’t possibly do anything like that.

So Elena spends most of the episode in the tunnels trying to convince Rebekah that none of this supernatural linkage is her fault (except it totally is) while pretending she’s not jealous of Rebekah for sleeping with Damon (except she totally is). And Rebekah spends her time torturing Elena with her words until she falls down like someone daggered her. Because Alaric totally daggered Kol at the Grill (and no one noticed) and they’re all connected now. Except for Klaus. Because he’s a hybrid and those sissy daggers won’t work on him. Damon and Stefan really should have seen that one coming. I mean, Jeremy saw that one coming and he’s all the way in Denver.

So the vampire side of Klaus is weakened from being link-daggered, but he’s still strong and mobile enough to be able to undagger Kol and throw Alaric around some, breaking a rib or two in the process. Klaus tells Damon he should have killed him months ago, to which Damon tells him to go ahead and do it because killing him won’t stop Esther from killing all of her children – hybrid or not (I’m not totally convinced he would have actually died considering he’s now part werewolf, but oh well). It was at this point in the exchange that Klaus uttered, “What did you say about my mother?”, a line that’s gotten plenty of use on the playgrounds and school buses of yore. Only when he says it he sounds very fancy and silly because of Joseph Morgan’s sexy accent and less like you’re about to get your ass kicked by the school bully. But despite Klaus’ bravado, he still sounded a bit like a very lost, very lonely little boy who’s got some major mommy and daddy issues. Plus, this entire daggering plot had just interrupted his second attempt at seducing Caroline the Distraction, so I imagine he was probably a little upset that he once again failed to make her see him as Potential Boyfriend Material.

Meanwhile, Elena is running for her life through Mystic Falls’ own version of the Underground Railroad, trying to put as much distance between herself and Rebekah before the latter can wake up from her dagger nap. But even after being daggered, Rebekah is still an Original and has no problem chasing Elena down. But wait, what’s that? Oh, nothing. Just that secret cave with all the ancient hieroglyphics on the walls that vampires can’t enter. How convenient! So Elena hides out there for a bit while Rebekah treks to the nearest BP station and gets a big ol’ can of gasoline, which she then proceeds to douse Elena in before lighting a match and threatening to end her right then and there. (I have to interject that I don’t believe for a second that none of that gasoline splashed on Rebekah. She should have caught fire as soon as the match sparked, but whatever, I’m just using my logical thinking skills and that is not the kind of thing one should do in Mystic Falls). Elena then calls her bluff, telling her that she knows Rebekah would rather prolong her revenge rather than end her quickly.

Rebekah, for all her sass, is a lot like Caroline. She’s very much a dramatic teenager acting out against the world. She plays the brave woman card very well, but deep down she’s kind of insecure. She was born in a very primitive time and she became a vampire so early in life that she never got to experience things that most woman do. I completely understand why she was excited to go to her first high school dance. I’d be pretty pissed off at Elena for making me miss that too.  And it’s obvious that her feelings were hurt when Elena pretended to like her only to literally stab her in the back. I’d want revenge if I were her. And that’s why I love Rebekah and this show as much as I do. Rebekah’s not just a cold blooded killer. She’s not just a vampire. She still feels emotions, she’s a complex character like the rest of the bunch.

But that’s not the only reason I like her so much. I like her because she finally pointed out something that’s been bothering me for awhile. She had the, “Fuck Elena and her precious doppelganger vagina!” moment that I’ve been waiting for. Because it seems like every single male in Mystic Falls would, and does repeatedly, bend over backwards to save Elena’s life. And I’m not saying they shouldn’t, but they also tend to fall all over themselves to do it. First Stefan, then Damon. And as we can infer from this episode and the letter he creepily left sitting in her room (very Damon like, I have to say), Elijah has also fallen for our heroine.

But not before rolling up to Dead Witch Central with Klaus and Kol in tow to attempt to stop Mama Original from killing them all. But while they had some lively family discussions outside, Stefan kept Bonnie occupied long enough in the basement for Damon to feed her mother his blood and snap her neck. Her human death made her not a witch anymore, and just like that CrazyMamaWitch was gone and the spell wasn’t completed – The Originals live to find their way to their sure-to-be-in-the-works spinoff.

Back at her house Bonnie’s all sad that her mom – who up until, like, two weeks ago wasn’t even a part of Bonnie’s life -  is transitioning into being a vampire and refuses to see Elena because of it. Caroline tells Elena that Bonnie is always the one to get hurt. WHICH IS FALSE. Because once again, by the end of the episode, Alaric is in danger. He wakes up from his place on the couch to find Crazy Nanny Carrie asleep in her bed. So what’s he do? Snoop around her kitchen. And it’s a good thing he did, because he found files containing information about Bill Forbes’ death, including photographs of the murder weapon. Which just so happens to be wrapped up in a cloth in her bag. Before Alaric even has time to think, “Oh shit, I was right the first time,” Crazy Nanny Carrie is aiming a gun at him, telling him he wasn’t supposed to see all that. And then she fires and the screen fades to black.

Stray observations:

• Tyler is still off learning how to break his sire bond.
• Jeremy is still off living the dream in Denver.
• Bonnie is still the most annoying character on the show.
• Kol and Elijah both skipped town by episode’s end, thus breaking millions of viewer’s hearts.
• Stefan is off human blood.
• Damon is still sulking about Elena not wanting him, even after trying to win her over naturally.
• Matty was absent.
• OH YEAH. AND THE WHITE OAK TREE THEY BURNED? THERE’S ANOTHER ONE. BAM.

What did you guys think? Did you like it?