Can you believe we’ve gone through 100 of these? I started reviewing The Vampire Diaries during the tail end of season two. Ah, season two. Good times. That was back when I, and everyone else, was trying to convince people that The Vampire Diaries is a show that is worth watching unironically. And it was. Characters’ actions were defined, the plot moved forward, and the mythology mostly made sense.
And now we’ve pushed through another 50 episodes, and well, I can’t believe how much time has gone by. For “500 Days of Solitude,” it appears the series can’t believe it either. As for the characters, they’re too busy blaming Katherine about everything that has gone wrong in their lives on the person dying upstairs. Weirdly, Katherine comes off as the most sympathetic character here. Yes, I’m sure that my bias is showing, but a character that doesn’t blame her actions on other people, who basically says, “Fuck it, I was trying to survive” gets points in my book against the characters that continuously say, “The buck stops… there.” I mean, some of their justifications are just laughable.
That’s kind of where we’ve gotten at this point in the Vampire Diaries‘ story. Everyone is just stuck in blaming someone else for their actions. So much so that Elena Gilbert finds it totally selfless to forgive Katherine on her deathbed. I’ve never understood the complete irrational hate for Elena — besides moments like these — but I do understand people bored by her passiveness. Most of the series is spent on other characters pushing the plot forward and being much more active. Katherine inhabiting Elena’s body just solidifies that Elena will be at her most passive yet, and I’m sure the show will continue operating just fine. Let’s be honest: we all guessed this plot twist. I guffawed when it happened, as I thought spending an entire episode redeeming Katherine to just not kill her off anyway was somewhat wasteful. But as I’ve said in the past, if Katherine is ever going to bite the dust, she’s going out in a blaze of glory. And her slowly decaying on a bed is just not that. If nothing else, this should be fun for a few episodes, but now that Elena literally can’t do anything, it’ll probably be a repeat of the Salvatore brothers coming to her rescue yet again.
Though it bears repeating that The Vampire Diaries has a mortality problem. The cameos by everyone on the show just reminded me of times when you really didn’t know who was going to be killed off next, when suspense worked because you truly believed someone would die. These days, there’s none of that on The Vampire Diaries. But I will say that this episode tricked me; I just really thought Katherine was done for by how they were setting it up. But then you think, can they really kill off their most dynamic character? I don’t think so.
Other important highlights of the episode: Klaus and Caroline get busy in the woods. I don’t understand what just happened, because to me it always seemed like the show was setting up for Caroline to move over to The Originals whenever Vampire Diaries ended or whenever the writers wanted to. (I also don’t understand them as a couple, which was even more evident this episode when everyone was like “Ugh Katherine is the worst” meanwhile Caroline slept with the psychopath that has actually caused them all a lot of pain and heartache.) If this was just total fan-pandering, then so be it. It was the 100th! Who cares? But Caroline’s face when Tyler walked in tells me this is going to have actual repercussions. I think we’re all over the seesawing. But Klaroline fans, tell me, did you like the scene? I would have liked some more interaction there. Ham it all the way up, Vampire Diaries!
And that’s about it for this episode, really. I understand the need to recap some of your greatest hits, so for a 100th episode, maybe that’s OK. But ultimately, I was underwhelmed. It’s unfair, perhaps, but I wanted something huge to happen. Something game-changing. A death to stick! I wanted “Founder’s Day” and what I got was “As I Lay Dying.”
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The very fact that Klaus and Caroline EVEN HAVE SCENES TOGETHER makes me glad I dropped this show before this shitload of character assassination happened. Ughhh, excuse me while I go and block a bunch of tumblr tags to never ever see it.
As for Katherine situation - now I have not seen previous season, but is it not just another retread again? Didn't the show already spend the whole season on Elena being absent ?
As for Elena hate - not really unwarranted. Elena as character did not provide any reason for the viewer to care about her, nor like her, nor understand her. Season One TRIED to do something, but come Season Two she was the second coming of Jesus Christ with entire show shouting at viewer to praise her holiness, her dedication, her care and her love(neither of which we ever saw on screen, as the show just told us she apparently has those traits). I liked Elena for litterally ONCE - that is the whole Elijah trickery in S2 and EVEN THAT was a passive action of her stabbing herself.
Elena's litteral purpose seems to be all about blurting self-righteous nonsense, whining and pining over her two romances and completely failing react TO ANY Of the increasingly horrifying shit in her life("My aunt got killed, and I DIED? Let's go see a movie!~", "I just got kidnapped for the 100th time? Oh well, let's do the frowning thing I always do", "I became a vampire? Oh noes someone spilled coffee over the blankets :[",).
The problem is that all this horror is going on around her, half the town are crazy freaks, there's a woman wearing her face murdering people, she just found her FATHER(that she found out about few days ago) stabbed in the kitchen, there's a thousand year old creep making loveydovey eyes at her best friend(who also happens to be undead thanks to the said woman with her face), her mother(who is a vampire oh by the way) immolated herself right in front of her, her aunt got killed in magicplotdevice ritual and her two romance options are hundred year old serial killers who occasionally go murdering random people. Oh and then there's a family of thousand year old loosers with mommy problems and bunch of people who look like other people...What does Elena do? She shrugs, frowns and pines over her romances, while handing off comments how baaaad people and how they should all be gooood.The show litterally just takes the stance that everything Elena does is 100% right and the viewer should just shut up and like that And then the show keeps telling us how supposedly awesome she is and how full of personality(which we never see) and care(which we never see to the point that she barely even has interactions with her own brother) and how SPECIAL (well Elena does come off as special, but in a different way) she is and that just comes off irritating, because that's basically what Bella Swan and every single other mary sue character has been made of.
And yeah. The mortality problem. The ring in S1 was okay because it was an enigma and only two people had them and there were plotline possibilities from it. But then Katherine just got pointlessly locked up through S2 and then Bonnie went all "PLZ DONT LET HIM DIE" about Jermey and the narrative answered with "OK LOL" and it became incredibly obvious that none of relevant characters will ever die. If they did they died DOZENS of episodes after they stop being relevant (Jenna was pointless and offscreen for most of S2 to the point that my reaction was "YAY!" and Alaric has not been relevant since end of S1, to the point that as he "died"(after that awful storyline), I was too busy dreading how they will bring him back into show to care...and of lo and behold LOLGHOSTS happened then).
Frankly I struggle to remember ANY other show that has disregarded the aspect of DYING AS A THREAT so much. Even freaking Heroes at their worst(when a little blood would heal a bullet wound through the head) was not this badly written in that aspect. How are people supposed to care about ANYTHING that is going on, if its pretty much obvious NOTHING will change in the show? And nothing ever changes.