A Case of the.... The Vampire Diaries - Episode 2-21

A few episodes I predicted that Katherine would do something very selfless in the season’s climax. Turns out she’s just a selfish bitch.

Then again, I guess we’ve still got one episode for her to redeem herself.

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I did really enjoy her scene with Damon, though. Damon’s relationship with Katherine has been very interesting over the latter half of the season. Katherine has made it abundantly clear that she’s always preferred Stefan, yet I can’t help but think that, to an extent, she’s just messing with Damon’s emotions. Despite the fact that Damon acts like he wants nothing to do with her, she still spent a majority of the time she was living at the Salvatore house stalking Damon. In fact, I’d say about 90% of the time Katherine is interacting with Damon, not Stefan. I think she recognizes that both Salvatore brothers favor Elena over her, and I think she’s far more bothered by Damon than Stefan. I don’t think she cares about him more than Stefan, per se, but I do think it upsets her that she doesn’t have him wrapped around her finger. And perhaps because of that, she has a greater appreciation for him. On top of that, she’s really only familiar with nice guy, humanized Damon. She hadn’t really seen the guy with the dark streak until recently. At the end of the scene, when Katherine seemed saddened that Damon was going to die, her feelings seemed legitimate to me. And I appreciated the fact that Damon brought up the fact that Katherine DID have a choice in the Jenna matter, she just opted to choose herself.

And as I noted last week, this week’s episode acted as the season’s climax, even though it’s not the official finale. And with that, we saw a number of key deaths – notably Elena’s aunt Jenna (who was sacrificed during the ritual) and her birth father John (who gave up his life to restore Elena’s soul). I’ve said this before, but I commend the show for killing off main characters. This was particularly true during the first season.

As a side note, I look at the epic battle that concluded the episode and it makes me wonder how a show like Heroes – which surely must have had a higher budget considering the relative star power and the network it was on (I’m pretty sure NBC is still higher up the ladder than CW) – repeatedly skimped on their climatic fight scenes.

In the past I’ve defended Nina Dobrev because I feel like she’s a far more talented actress than she’s given credit for. Much like Kristin Kreuk, she’s almost punished because she’s physically beautiful and she’s on a show that isn’t necessarily taken seriously, and as such people just naturally assume she doesn’t have the chops to be a serious actress. It certainly wasn’t fair with Kristin Kreuk and I don’t think it’s true with Nina Dobrev either (evident by the fact that she so wonderfully portrayed two very different characters this season). Having said that, the past two episodes have required Elena to break down emotionally and to be honest I wasn’t completely sold by Nina Dobrev’s performance. Last week she had to cope with the fact that her life as she knew it would be over and this week she watched her aunt (who had become a mother to her) die. Both times, it just felt like the actress could not “go there.” I still enjoyed the scene for what it was, but I think it could have been THAT much more memorable and powerful if she could find the proper emotional pitch.

I was also going to say that I wish we had seen more out of Elena and Jenna here, as far as a good bye goes, but in retrospect I think they did a fine job. It’s unfortunate that things with Jenna was so rushed – in the span of two or three episodes she found out about vampires, became one, and was killed – but I think that might sort of be the point. Elena and everybody went to such great efforts to hide the truth from her, which may very well have led to her death. Had Jenna been more enlightened, she may have reacted to certain situations with greater precautions. Hell, she may not have even been in town. But because she was bombarded with life changing information in such a short period of time, she wasn’t able to process certain things despite her natural instincts (like sensing that it wasn’t Elena on the phone, but still coming to meet her). In that regard, I can understand why everything seemed so rushed and abrupt.

Sure, I still wish that we saw Jenna receiving the news (this seems like a common trend on the show – they very rarely actually show the difficult conversations. The scene shifts as it’s about to begin) but that’s a relatively minor quibble. And a longer, emotional scene between Jenna and Elena would have been nice as well, but I do think they did a wonderful job with what they had. I enjoyed the way Jenna expressed her initial trepidation about taking custody of Elena and Jeremy, but the two highlights for me were when Elena corrected Jenna and confessed that she had failed Jenna (see the above paragraph) and when Elena realized that there was no saving Jenna, and instructed her to “turn it off” so that she wouldn’t be afraid. What a heartbreaking realization for Elena to come to.

I do have one complaint, though: Nobody seemed all that angered at Damon. His intervention didn’t really help anybody. Yeah, he saved Caroline and Tyler, but at the expense of Jules and Elena’s aunt (and his own well being). And while one could argue that he was only trying to help, the truth is that he knowingly went against Elena’s wishes. Had he listened, their situation could have improved slightly (same amount of sacrifices, minus Damon’s life threatening werewolf bite) or potentially significantly (Caroline has far more experience as a vampire than Jenna did, meaning she could have conceivably found a way to save herself given the opportunity). But now, because of his actions, Elena and Jeremy lost their aunt, Alaric lost his girlfriend, and Stefan could conceivably lose his brother. Yet, the episode seemed to conclude with this idea that Damon is somebody they should band together to save – and this his presence will make everybody’s loss easier.

So, with Jenna and John both gone, what happens with Elena and Jeremy? My best guess is that Alaric becomes their guardian, but I guess we may find out next week. Based on the preview, the main story seems to be Damon and his descent due to the werewolf bite. This is understandable, but I hope that it doesn’t happen at the expense of some necessary emotional scenes. I would really like to see Elena and Jeremy cope with their losses. They did a nice job of this in the final moments of this week’s episode, but I’m hoping it isn’t just brushed off in order to advance the Damon drama.