TVD 2×13 Review: Getting annoyed again

I’m not going to quit just yet but it’s getting annoying. If I were to rename this episode I would call it “So Naive”. First with Caroline, then with Stefan, then with Elena, and then back to Caroline again. But before I get to that I would like to say I like that killing Mason is starting to blow up in their faces the icing on the cake would be that it gets brought to Damon which it never does because we know what show this is. I did like the confrontation between Tyler and Caroline and I like the development Tyler was showing by walking away when he was angry instead of hitting someone.

So back to the naivety of Caroline, she asks Stefan to talk to Tyler which I get the motivation, what I don’t get is a) why send Stefan, and b) what the fuck does she expect him to say that’ll convince him not to be angry about his uncle being murdered and everyone covering it up. That’s just stupid but the end of the episode kinda gives me the answer with her line, “you help your friends,” which I will get into why this annoys me later, but it all basically amounts to what I said in the 2×12 review which is that they don’t do family relationships well because they don’t find value in it which is a glaring issue.

Then there’s Stefan’s naivety. I get that he’s Stefan and willing to always help what I dont get is his approach which was a) very threatening and b) not empathetic at all which was both Caroline and Stefan’s issue from the jump when it came to Tyler. Caroline at least apologized but then immediately went to covering her ass more. All Stefan did was cover his, or more importantly, Damon’s ass, but what bothered me the most about it was he was quite apathetic throughout his whole encounter not to mention he basically trapped Tyler in a room with him.

Stefan is easily the better brother, but what this episode was showing me is that he wasn’t better by that much because he’s the one who is supposed to have more emotional maturity which he does in comparison to Damon, but there was no Damon for him contrast, so he seemed mostly self-centered and disinterested. All he did was tell Tyler to stay quiet while not answering a simgle one of Tyler’s questions which is almost a Damon move except he didn’t threaten or kill anyone. In any case I don’t understand what Stefan thought he could say to make it right especially with that approach. I also don’t understand how with Caroline or Stefan expected Tyler to listen to them when they haven’t explained shit to him and just keep telling him what to do, but I digress.

Then there’s Elena’s naivety which while annoyed me, annoyed me less because if there’s one thing she’s showed time and time again it’s that she doesn’t know any better, or better yet doesn’t want to know any better which is weirdly an argument for DE because he often suffers from the same syndrome.

I get that she’s wary of John, what’s annoying and naive about it is that she’s wary for all the wrong reasons which is basically an Elena trait. She’s mad at him for trying to kill Stefan and Damon in the season 1 finale which I get to a point but at the same time how does she not understand why he doesn’t give 2 flying fucks about Stefan and Damon, or why he thinks their dangerous and need to be killed. All they did in season 1 was get people killed or kill people, you’re the teenage girl who’s in love with them, so why would he take your opinion about them seriously in any sense when you ignore so much already. But again that’s Elena in a nutshell.

What she should be angry with him about is lying about being her father and that’s what the focus of their tension should be which it does come back around to by the end of the episode which I’m proud of them for BUT I know it goes mostly nowhere until the season finale when he dies for her (who is honestly the only person I have ever understood dying for her).

And on the John Gilbert note I don’t understand why no one trusts John to help save Elena, he’s the one with the most vested interest in her survival due to being her father which circles back to TVD and their lack if value in family relationships including the ones the emphasize so much like Defan, and Klaus and [insert sibling].

There’s this friends first mentality that doesn’t make sense because they don’t build up the friendships enough for such devotion. They try to build this “choose your family” dynamic that never hits home because they don’t seem like that good of friends. They make sure there’s absent parents and family, but don’t replace it with anything sufficient for a friendship bond so strong they’re like family. Also they continue to call each other friends which just brings home the fact that they friends not friends that are like family. The best you get is Bonnie saying she and Elena are like sisters which makes sense from Bonnie’s end as she treats her like a sister but not Elena because it’s never reciprocal. Bonnie’s always there for Elena, but Elena continues to always be absent when Bonnie’s going through something (or more like Bonnie is because that’s when she’s shoved off screen) or she make it about her problems and that’s something that’s been going on since the beginning.

This entire episode is a glaring example of this tone deaf approach with their “friends first” mentality. It was so bad that when Caroline is yelling at Tyler at the end of the episode I couldn’t muster up much sympathy because she said the wrong things and Caroline went through something that was worth sympathizing. It kinda reminded me of 4×06 when she’s just as tone deaf when she gets Chris killed. In her mind your supposed to help your friends no matter what, she doesn’t realize that there are more important things like trust–something she broke, in both instances, and didn’t bother to repair, in both instances, so she’s baffled as to why he’s wary of her. I think this episode made me realize that not only was Elena the exact same season 4-6, but so was Caroline–there is no character assassination they were always this dense. (It’s also making me wish there was Tonnie this season because Bonnie is a way more empathetic character.)

Anyway Bonnie comes back for exactly one scene that honestly could have been a deleted scene. It added nothing to the episode or Bonnie’s development. Seriously, this is her most deus ex machina season because she goes missing and then can do a whole slew of advanced spells and this episode is part of the reason why–because they don’t bother to show her magic improving she’s either missing or having meaningless interactions. It was probably there just to build Beremy which makes sense since that’s the only way characters have value in this show. At the same time they suck at developing romantic relationships especially this one. Also when she and Elena come to Caroline’s to cheer her up I couldn’t help but think where was this for Bonnie when Damon bit her, when Ben kidnapped her, or better yet, when her Grams died. This is the season where Caroline’s character gets more prominent but also for no reason when Bonnie–the one who actually saves the day gets shoved more into the background.

Although weird sidenote: I did not realize how skinny Kat used to be back then, it almost made me worried about her health like get some food into you.

I’m not really going to talk about Damon other than he annoyed me most of the episode. Also, not a great episode acting wise for Ian, it’s almost as though he knew that he was speaking complete bullshit so he decided his emotions were going to look like complete bullshit. Honestly I didn’t realize until now that the only time I find his acting genuine is when he was on screen with Kat meaning it’s going to be a long time before his acting gets even remotely good because he doesn’t have many scenes with Bonnie.

I don’t know if I’ll continue to review every episode it’s just that they annoy me so much I have to talk about it. Also I’m really worried, this is the good season of TVD, the one where Kevin Williamson was still a show runner and yet I find it almost as awful as the later seasons where it’s just Julie Plec. Has this show just always been bad and I just didn’t notice? I’ll keep you posted.