The Vampire Diaries - The New Deal / Our Town

The New Deal, for me, is a strong return off of my hiatus to The Vampire Diaries, back where I left off in the third season. It further continues the rivalry between Klaus and Stefan, each trying to outwit and out-harm the other. Klaus compels poor Jeremy to stand in the middle of a street as his sired hybrid drives an SUV towards him (compelling him to remove the ring that ultimately Alaric places on his finger in order to save the kid from splat). Stefan retaliates by beheading one of his hybrids. Tyler insists to Elena, Alaric, and Damon that he has control and won’t harm them, especially Caroline. Elena, concerned for Jeremy’s safety (Klaus’ threat to her brother worked), takes him to his impaled sister, a truce between them, brother for sister, life for life. While Klaus keeps his sister in her “dead” stasis, or the “deep, controlled sleep”, Elena decides that compelling Jeremy (through Damon’s help) and sending him off to Denver relatives for a while (until the whole “Klaus thing blows over”) is for the best. Following The New Deal, Our Town has Caroline arriving to school as Tyler awaits. Tyler wants her to know that he loves her, offering her a bracelet (think Pandora) as a gift (later Klaus leaves behind a very expensive bracelet, seemingly establishing his own pursuit for her affections!). When Caroline dismays at Elena, Matt, and Bonnie’s birthday party for her, commenting on her never leaving 17 due to being a vampire, they decide on a “funeral”, an alternative she considers okay, with Tyler eventually invited by her. Klaus “urges” Tyler to bite her, knowing the hybrid bite kills a vampire. So Caroline is dying, as Matt returns her to her bed and mother is greeted by the one responsible, needing to be invited in so that his blood can cure her. What pushes Klaus to do this?

The New Deal has Jeremy using this on another hybrid before beheading him!

Stefan has become a very complicated character. In The New Deal and Our Town, he holds the coffin family of Klaus’ Originals hostage in the basement of a witches’ “spirit house”. Bonnie helps him conceal the coffins so that they can’t be found. Damon, of course, eventually convinces Stefan to allow him to see their location but Elena is shooed away, left to frustration, infuriated at not only his distance but difficult behavior towards her. At the end of Our Town, when he comes to a stop at the bridge where her parents were killed (and nearly her), Stefan had forced his blood into her mouth, threatening Klaus across the phone that he would drive the car off said bridge and turn her vampire…Klaus needs her to remain as is, as his power to make hybrids derives from her staying human and alive. Klaus relenting from a plan is a rarity…he normally is always one step ahead, the smarter chess player. But Stefan seems to be throwing caution to the wind, as if he’s got nothing to lose, and that strategy, risky to Elena’s loved ones (Stefan tells her he doesn’t care what she thinks of him anymore, driving away, leaving her a frazzled wreck), does seem to be working. While Damon can’t help but admire Stefan’s current strategy, Elena is left obviously emotionally tattered…can’t blame her really.

Klaus has been up to Our Town slippery and elusive. His arrival has been a bone of contention to Elena, her family, and friends. Elena continues to fear for all she loves because he doesn’t seem to hold a care at all for any human being. Although her friends are a witch and vampire, Jeremy, Alaric, Matt, and many others are always in danger as long as Klaus is around. Stefan needed to find Klaus’ weakness,  exploiting the importance of his making hybrids, and knowing Elena is key to that is what he utilizes to his advantage. Again, Klaus is so often the one turning the screw, but for once Stefan has turned the tables. Klaus approaching a dying Caroline in her bed, it does appear he feels some sympathy, and perhaps even attraction. He offers her the idea that she can go anywhere, for as long as she wants, and see so much. She drinks from him. She wants not to die. We will certainly see how that goes!

Bonnie is not happy about Elena having Jeremy compelled, feeling he should have a choice whether to stay in Mystic Falls or go. But Elena, despite the agony of losing her teenage brother, just wants him to get a chance to live a life without the fear of Klaus or any of his nonsense. This was a good way to reconnect that previous failed high school romance between Bonnie and Jeremy and ease the tensions, allowing the two to have a friendly, affectionate departure. Bonnie, meanwhile, tries to use whatever spells she currently has available to try and open a coffin that seems to remain sealed from any kind of physical or spiritual means…as if what is inside is kept there for a purpose and perhaps should remain sealed.

But The New Deal will be most talked about for the kiss. Damon just says screw it and kisses Elena at her door, and Elena kisses back. At the end of Our Town, much to chagrin, I’m sure, of Damon fans, Elena tells Damon they cannot kiss again. I imagine fans of that coupling idea felt she was trying to deny how she truly feels while Damon is rather sure she desires him. All of that sexual tension is quite palpable. Elena and Matt meet up at the bridge where Stefan nearly drove them off (although he tells her that he wouldn’t have, it is hard not to believe he might not have), and she questions whether or not she failed her parents and her own self prior to the accidental crash/drowning. Matt gives his two cents and tells her he thinks she is just too hard on herself and shouldn’t feel so ashamed. Yes, this is all quite Dawson’s Creek and soap-opera plotting, but I like Matt and think highly of him as a decent human being thrust into the same sort of dramas he doesn’t deserve (much like Jeremy). Elena sure needs friends like Matt, considering the supposed love of her life has done everything in his power to repel her away, while his brother tries to seduce her.

I admit I have enjoyed Klaus and Stefan’s adversarial back and forth, with Damon sort of a surrogate hero (well, anti-hero) although he never quite seems to fit comfortably into that position. With Elena needing someone like Damon as an ally, his love for her is an asset. Stefan, the asshole, is kind of fun, too, considering we spent a majority of the first and some of the second season with soft, sensitive boyfriend vampire. The shifting of roles can work in a long-term series. This is all still very much akin to a Twilight stylized vampire series, but there is plenty of darkness that I welcome in the show that doesn’t necessarily function much in the films that were popularized in teen novels. If anything, Damon ripping out hybrid hearts and Stefan beheading hybrids left and right is startling and admittedly amuses the horror fan in me.

The Alaric and Dr. Fell subplot I’ll briefly mention as it does appear the latter may be set up as a serial killer, her former beau found stabbed in the chest and left dead in the woods on the outskirts of Mystic Falls. Oh, and the regeneration ring "losing its power" is a neat development I didn't see coming and welcome...I like the idea that the spell-cast objects lose their mojo after some time. Not every spiritual gift is eternal.

The New Deal  -  3/5

Our Town - 3/5