TVD 4x10

[pocochina]

This episode was FUN. I liked Rebekah’s and Klaus’s mirroring roles as truth-tellers. Klaus shows up at Camp Gilbert to remind Damon that picking on a couple of human kids doesn’t a Big Bad make. Rebekah’s scenes felt very much like they were about getting things straight - you know the rules; April, I want a flow chart. No lying, no repressing

Comments

[pocochina]

it's completely believable that she'd be vulnerable to that manipulation even after seeing April practically bleed out in front of her

Well, right. Because they saved April with vampire blood, and if anything were inherently dirty and wrong it'd be vampire blood, right? But Bonnie has that in her worldview as being just a tool. So why couldn't she make this work, too, in a way she's had to make everything else work?

Elena is much more of a realist about people than Caroline is.....Caroline, OTOH, expects people to be as transparent as she is, among other things--her ingrained naivete gets her in trouble so many times.I think there's a little bit of a role reversal coming up there. Elena seizing her own identity and losing the damsel-in-distress doppelganger facade is really exciting for her, but it also means she's losing a lot of that self-protective distance, and so she doesn't find it so intuitive to juggle all of those social games anymore. Whereas Caroline, in growing into herself and feeling more secure in her power, has

[pocochina]

Yeah. Caroline's sense of self-possession is much solider, I think? And so now that they're all in this more honest place, Caroline's having an easier time feeling confident within their group. Elena is feeling some sense of that insecurity Caroline has always felt, due largely to Stefan's whole set of issues about her vamping, and it is seriously messing with her head (and her game). Because where Caroline's had to develop some ability to rely on herself, whereas Elena's had all of her eggs in the Social Approval basket until now.

Stefan manages the situation very well indeed. Note the difference in how he talks about Elena in front of Caroline, vs. in front of Rebekah, or even Damon.

YES. He's very good at keeping her On His Side.

[waltzmatildah]

So, I don't watch the show anymore, but I do still like to keep up with the views of my flist after a new episode airs (just in case, you know, KATHERINE COMES BACK TO SUCK ME IN AGAIN!). Anyway, I just wanted to say that I found your thoughts to be super interesting! And nicely measured in a way that couldn't simply be broken down into

Stefan is the WORST!
Damon is the BEST!
Caroline is a BITCH!
Elena + Damon is TRULUV4EVA!

Reviews like that, which has been most iof them following this most recent episode, to be honest, just make me RME and keep on scrolling.

YOUR review on the other hand, really taps into the nuanced characterisation that I really WANT to believe has been deliberately constructed. Especially those for Stefan, Elena, Rebekah and Tyler.

In short, I almost wanna break my self-imposed ban and watch this episode. And that's entirely because of this review. So, thank you for sharing!!

[pocochina]

Thank you! What a lovely thing to say. And yeah, I think a lot of the lack of nuance comes from fandom, not from the show. I think that the writers...are more likely to be more charitable than I am (well, who isn't) about the good of the characters outweighing the flaws? But stuff doesn't happen consistently for 70+ episodes straight without some intent, so in fairness to the writers, I think the worst of it is on fandom.

Damon/Elena was complicated brutally in this episode. I actually thought it came off looking at least as unhealthy as Elena/Stefan, because Elena forcing herself to believe Damon is good for her is so chilling, whereas the issues with Stefan are finally out in the open. I really enjoyed it, but I'm not surprised that large swathes of D/E fandom are reacting so defensively.

In any event, it's a really great Rebekah episode which would make up for a lot to me, even if there wasn't so much interesting stuff going on.

[wheatear]

Loved the Originals, intrigued by the Silas thing, loved Shane and Bonnie. I agree about Bonnie as the key to everything being quite literal on Shane's part. He's got her wrapped around his little finger at the moment, but the thing about Bonnie is that she will always make her own decisions regardless, so it really depends what side of the moral dilemma she falls on when it comes to crunch time, and what that looks like.

[pocochina]

He's got her wrapped around his little finger at the moment, but the thing about Bonnie is that she will always make her own decisions regardless

Yeah, exactly. And I really enjoyed the irony of that, that the thing that's started cluing her into his game is what happened when she tried to save his life.