A Case of the.... The Vampire Diaries - Episode 3-21

My apologies, but I actually missed the first 10 or so minutes of this past week’s episode (thank you, local chicken wing establishment!)  But I think I got the gist of the episode, with Bonnie wanting to do a spell to stop Alaric’s heart, similar to the spell done to Mikael.

The introduction of Alaric as the supreme vampire hunter resulted in some fun – albeit brief – alliances.  Notably, Stefan, Damon, Elena, and Klaus banding together.  Of course, this quickly fell apart once Elena realized that she’s Alaric’s lifeline – once she dies, he dies.  I actually really enjoyed the way Elena pieced that together.  It’s unavoidable to make her a damsel in distress, but they do a good job of not making her look completely helpless.  Nonetheless, upon learning this, Klaus kidnapped her with the intention of draining her of her blood.  And he almost succeeded, if not for Tyler’s intervention.  Speaking of which, I really enjoyed Tyler’s “I’m not your little bitch anymore” line.  It was just delivered so perfectly, with the background music intensifying before coming to a complete halt before he said it.

Alaric has always been one of my favorite characters, but it seems like his time on this show is nearing its end (that’s not a spoiler, just an assumption on my part).  While I liked Alaric’s flawed hero character, his recent dark turn has been enjoyable as well.  I especially liked the cool and collected way he outted the mayor and sheriff for hiding and protecting the very evils they’re supposed to combat against.  I’m actually intrigued by what is going to happen with the Founders Council moving forward.  It seems like all of the founding families, slowly but surely, come to the realization that these supernatural entities that their families have spent their lives fighting are not inherently evil.  Elena’s uncle reluctantly accepted this, as did Caroline’s parents.  The mayor, too.  Alaric brought up the guilt-trip inducing comment of whether Elena’s parents would be proud of her.  It’s a good question, but I tend to believe that they’d come to the same realization as the characters above (and even Alaric himself).  Part of me, however, suspects that I’m reading too much into this and the Founders Council will remain a convenient plot device and an excuse to have parties.

The apparent demise of Klaus was handled very nicely, though.  I liked how they turned the plot of the unlikely alliance with Klaus – to stop Alaric’s heart – against him after he had turned on them.  And scenically, the “death” worked as well.  When somebody as significant (both contextually and as a character) as Klaus dies, the proper emotion needs to be conveyed.  If he’s lying there convulsing before turning veiny and deteriorating, the visual isn’t quite there.  What we got instead – Klaus staring into the eyes of Stefan as his heart slowly stopped beating – was far more impactful.  Stefan was actually the perfect person for that role.  Because of their time together – and their former friendship – Stefan is the one person who might have a shred of compassion for Klaus.  I don’t buy that he’s actually dead, but it was a well done scene.  It really conveyed the emotion of an Original vampire seeing his life come to an end.

I’ve also concluded that no matter the dynamic, the Salvatore brothers are absolute gold together.  One thing I couldn’t help but laugh at, though, was Damon’s remark about how Elena will choose, one of them will leave town, and in 30 years the brothers will reunite as if nothing had happened.  Uh….what?  30 years?  Do they really only expect Elena to die before she even turns 50?  Oh, and my money is still on Elijah being the beginning of their bloodline.

So the finale promises that Elena finally makes a choice between Stefan and Damon.  Any regular reader would know that I’m rooting for Stefan, but if I were a betting man, I’d actually guess she’s going to pick Damon.  The past couple of weeks all of the characters have been so (strangely) pro-Stefan that I feel like they’re setting us up for a surprise.  Additionally, I honestly do believe that the end game is going to be Stefan/Elena, so this is a little reprieve to delay and complicate that (similar to Kate’s brief romp with Sawyer in the middle seasons of Lost).  Plus, we’ve seen several seasons of Elena being with Stefan while Damon pines over her, so I suspect they’ll want to mix up that formula.  I wouldn’t mind if I’m wrong, because I like the (generally speaking) good guy to get the girl.  Hey, Elena did tell Tyler to call Stefan when she needed to be saved.  But that’s what I’m guessing will happen.

Anyway, I’ve seen some promotional photos for the episode and it has me pretty excited.  It looks like it’s going to be an exciting conclusion to a stellar season.