The Vampire Diaries - Plan B
*** / ****
To have a really good antagonist, he or she has to one-up
our show’s heroes. It keeps us coming back, hoping to see that evil-doer pay.
Nina Dobrev was given a golden opportunity to both play the protagonist and
antagonist. Dobrev had to add enough to each character to differentiate them. I
do believe that Dobrev perhaps lacks the acting chops to significantly separate
the two, but she does enough to give the two characters, Elena and Katherine,
two personalities. In Memory Lane, Stefan awakens to find Katherine snuggling
up with him, thinking it was Elena. Dobrev applies a certain particular facial
change and subtly alters how she talks with the wickedness within her (and how
the dialogue furthers her scheming and dangerous agenda) towards those at odds
with Katherine while Elena is soft-spoken, gentle, and offers affection and
friendship to those she loves and likes. Katherine is actually honest in what
she says to Stefan: she is in love with him and always has been. Stefan had
been warned not to continue his romance with Elena. They defied her and Elena’s
Aunt Jenna pays for it. While away, Katherine has been “influencing” Jenna to
spy on Elena. While Caroline was off with Elena and Stefan, Katherine took the
time to “enchant” Jenna in secret, looking to discover if Stefan obeyed her
warnings.
Meanwhile, Damon can’t help himself. No matter how he tries
to not hurt Elena, his behavior always seems to eventually cause her grief.
Elena and Stefan’s romance once again is undermined by Jenna stabbing herself
in the stomach at Katherine’s command. This comes after Damon calls Katherine
from Mason’s phone, mocking her after killing him. Mason bids the show adieu
after being kidnapped—once Bonnie reluctantly applies her “brain on fire”
aneurism, painful but to those who heal recoverable, to him—by Damon. While
Stefan learns of the moonstone’s whereabouts in the well (told to him by Bonnie
in a text), Damon sets out to torture Mason over his ties to Katherine and
reasons for her wanting the moonstone. Because Mason is a werewolf, Damon shows
no mercy, telling Jeremy while holding him in a chokehold (Jeremy finds himself in
a chokehold a lot, doesn’t he?) that if the roles were reversed he’d do the
same. Mason truly loved Katherine and believed he loved her, while Damon
assures him that she was just using him. A hot fireplace poker is used by Damon to torment (and stab) Mason during his interrogation…this is rather sadistic, with Damon
not at all bothered by his actions. He rips out Mason’s heart, considering this
an act of benevolence, seeing as Katherine had capitalized on his naiveté. Well,
Damon called him stupid, despite the fact that he had been just as much a patsy…the
irony.
Jeremy just wants to be in the action, it seems. He arrives
at Damon’s home, feeding him information about Tyler. Jeremy tries to keep
Damon from following through with the murder of Mason, his efforts were in
vain. And Damon continues to bully Jeremy, either with verbal jabs or physical
altercation. Jeremy is often on the other end of animosity. He does promise
Elena, as they agonize in the hospital after Jenna stabbed herself, that
Katherine would suffer for what she done. That is kind of the chum to lure us
back to the show over and over: seeing Katherine get what’s coming to her. That
is where the ultimate satisfaction lies. Poor Stefan, in tears and aching in
heart, just breaks as Elena tells him they must split up. And she departs as
Damon tries to apologize for antagonizing Katherine. Elena, tears welling up in
her eyes, just accepts that regardless of Damon’s actions, Katherine “won”.
And so how will Stefan respond to the loss of his beloved?
At the beginning Stefan is lying in bed, under the covers with Elena. After a night
of passionate sex (as implied later by Jenna, who is a “light sleeper”), the
two of them seem happy and comfortably alone despite Katherine’s orders not to
be intimate or together. Katherine was rolling around in bed with Mason. These
two juxtaposed together, one is real while the other a façade. Katherine just
wanted the moonstone, while Elena and Stefan just want to be a couple. And it
is the love denied gothic soap
staple, a textbook refusal to give the viewers what they want: their young
couple being allowed to have a relationship without interference. That is part
of the attraction as forces working against two who love one another often
succeed. Viewers dedicated to the show want to see Elena and Stefan persevere
the obstacles blocking their desire to be a couple, but Soap Opera 101 realizes
that romance pitted against seemingly impossible odds, often under quite a
tumult, keeps them coming back for more. So Elena and Stefan part ways as Damon
remains frustrated at how his impulsive decisions have repercussions that hurt
others.
While Bonnie finally gets a little time on the show, it is
spent talking with Elena about their friendship suffering in the wake of
Caroline’s vampirism thanks to Katherine. Katherine’s “if I can’t have Stefan,
no one else can” grudge, vindictively orchestrating opposition against Elena;
it has led to collateral damage. Katherine blatantly told Stefan that Elena
would watch those she loves harmed. So Jenna is in the hospital and Caroline is
a vampire. Bonnie helps Damon because she likes Stefan. But her witchcraft used
to help Damon is out of courtesy only to Stefan. Bonnie is more of a device
than a character further developed while caught within the
vampire-werewolf-Katherine story arc. Besides opining to Elena about their
friendship suffering, Bonnie is given very little. I hope for more. I have felt
Bonnie has been the character undervalued and underdeveloped during the show up
until this point. I think she’s much more than a plot device that helps propel
the story of the Salvatores and Elena forward.
Caroline, on the other hand, is given a little screen time
yet receives some good support by the writing team, allowed to bond with her
mother (who realizes that since being turned, her daughter is emboldened with
strength and isn’t as insecure or wrought with vulnerability) before blanking
out the last few days, placing lies about having the flu and still enduring her
estrangement with her daughter, purposely ignoring her in place of developed
understanding between them. Painful as it was to “blind her mind”, Caroline
felt it necessary to protect her mom.
So Mason is dead and Liz no longer remembers discovering the
Salvatores are vampires, removing serious threats against the show’s principles.
But Katherine is still out there, and her diabolical mind can concoct plenty of
misery for those keeping her from the moonstone. So without Mason, Katherine
eyes a “new werewolf”, putting a hold on Matt, ordering him to be the victim of
Tyler! Can she be stopped? How long can she continue to torment Stefan and
Elena?
The sequence with the well has Stefan dropping down into Vervain spiked water, gradually diminishing as Elena panics, requesting Caroline's help. Bonnie can do very little, as well. But with Caroline extremely strong, working a chain as Elena is descended into the well to rescue him, help was indeed arriving in the nick of time. Caroline speed racing to the rescue is just awesome. While down there she encounters snakes, seemingly bitten, yet no signs of effects ever show. I thought that peculiar. She does feed blood to Stefan. Agreeing to let Stefan feed from her to gain real strength, Elena was willing to give. But in order to keep her loved ones safe, she will remove herself from Stefan's life. So he'll feed from elsewhere...or from someone else?
The sequence with the well has Stefan dropping down into Vervain spiked water, gradually diminishing as Elena panics, requesting Caroline's help. Bonnie can do very little, as well. But with Caroline extremely strong, working a chain as Elena is descended into the well to rescue him, help was indeed arriving in the nick of time. Caroline speed racing to the rescue is just awesome. While down there she encounters snakes, seemingly bitten, yet no signs of effects ever show. I thought that peculiar. She does feed blood to Stefan. Agreeing to let Stefan feed from her to gain real strength, Elena was willing to give. But in order to keep her loved ones safe, she will remove herself from Stefan's life. So he'll feed from elsewhere...or from someone else?
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