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Okay, so here's where we are in fair Verona: Rebekah is Esther, Alaric is Evil Alaric, Damon and Elena made out in a hotel hallway and Elena immediately had buyer's remorse, Klaus is in love with Caroline, Tyler's pissed Klaus made Caroline a drawing, and Bonnie's single with a brand-new vampire mom.
1) 1920s Decade Dance! I am starting to think the school officials want this year's graduating class to be like eleven kids. You'd think they'd eventually notice that every time they have a night event, like four kids go missing. (On the other hand, drinking water = bourbon, so maybe not.)
2) Is it wrong that I love that Klaus is so frustrated about the way things have gone down that he's painting? "GRRRRR! ART!"
3) You know, I am kind of iffy about the Originals--Kol and extremely boring Finn really brought the average down--but I love that you really get the sense that they're a family, even when, you know, their mom is trying to kill them all. Klaus stays because he's indulging who he thinks is his sister! Shut up, that's sweet.
4) And then Evilric calls Alaric Damon's only friend, and my stomach does terrible things. You guys, when Alaric Saltzman is not in control of his own body at a decade-themed dance, bad things happen to him, okay? There's precedent.
5) Aaaaaaaand Rebekah's daggered again.
6) The first thing I thought when Caroline was all "well, that's what you get for telling me about hotel make outs"? DID ANYONE TELL BONNIE? Oh my God, I bet no one told Bonnie. PHONE TREE. Haven't said it in a while, so maybe you forgot! Since that town has the attention span of hummingbirds.
7) Jamie's bringing Bonnie! ...that's a shame, he seemed nice.
8) You know, I am fully on Team Elena, with a minor in Team Threesome, but I will tell you straight up: when Stefan Salvatore is on--and not, you know, being a coked-up asshole--he is fucking on. I am having Stefan/Elena feels like a champ tonight.
9) Until she said it, I really didn't get that the witch house is the same place where Klaus killed Esther. That place makes a lot more sense now.
10) Aaaaaaaand then Esther binds the Gilbert ring to make the white oak stake indestructible, because otherwise the power of staking one Original would destroy it. No, this doesn't bode poorly at all.
11) For the record, this is where I started tearing up. Alaric is actually sadder than Matt, to me; Matt, at least, has people who love him. So does Alaric, you can't discount that, but: Alaric lost his wife. He's not close with his parents, he's an only child as far as we know. He came to town to do one thing and failed at that, then wound up being an erstwhile vampire hunter/history teacher who befriends vampires instead of killing them. This is the second time he hasn't been himself for one of these little shindigs; last year, he was Klaus. And now he's--well, himself, but the bad parts, the worst parts, the parts who hate and are angry and anonymously talk shit on the internet. He's what lives in the bug house.
This isn't going to end well.
12) LET'S TALK ABOUT THE CLOTHES: Caroline and Bonnie look good, though I am not a fan of the pin curl; Elena...looks like Katherine, probably because we've seen her in flapper outfits before; and every man on this show except Alaric and Damon looks totally fucking swank. Like, a combined five million bucks. (Excepting Klaus. We'll get to him.) Possibly this is because of the waistcoats, because every man I have ever met looks amazing in a waistcoat, but still: THE HIGHEST OF FIVES.
13) "I'm suggesting we put him out of his misery."
And see--that, right there? That's bad. When Damon stops pretending he doesn't give a shit if Ric dies or not, because hey! magic ring! The last non-Elena-related time he sounded like that was Rose. Oh, hell.
14) Jeremy is opposed to this. Temporary cessation of hostilities, Littlest Gilbert!
15) Elena! Do not willingly go with anyone named Mikaelson! Elijah is include in that from here on in!
16) Aaaaaaaaaand Esther's bound all supernatural creatures--including possibly Bonnie? It's not clear--inside the gym grounds with salt. Again, this will not end well.
17) "This whole circle of people, it's kinda crazy." Okay, I now officially hope Jamie sticks around. Any man who can roll with vampires and werewolves and gleefully make out with Bonnie Bennett is a keeper, in my book.
18) GET SOME, BONNIE.
19) "I'm going to remake him."
Yeah, you know how I used to think Esther was better than her kids? That's gone now. You can forgive her for doing it the first time; she just wanted to keep them safe, and she made a mistake, and things happened she didn't expect. That's fine. Everyone makes mistakes, but being people, we have to live with them. We can't use witch powers to do a cosmic do-over with ALARIC GODDAMN SALTZMAN.
Doing it once was a mistake. Doing it again, trying to correct that mistake? That's monstrous. That's worse than the first time, because at least you had ignorance behind you. This is hubris.
20) Hey! Esther's plan is to make Evilric another Original, and use him to kill the rest of the vampires! Did I mention there's a time-delay of some vague, nebulous sort on him that'll kill him too? Did I mention she can also go fuck herself forever?
21) --no, yeah, Klaus in that suit looks like he owns a really prosperous moonshine still in 1896. That is--did that come with a rattan chair, or did you have to go buy one special? Wow. WOW.
22) Shut up, I got a little sniffly at the idea of Klaus being okay with pining for Caroline 'til she wises up and comes after him. (Not that he won't have fun in the meantime. He's dead, not dead.)
23) "Small-town boy, small-town life. You'll tire of it one day." Well, statistically she has to, as eventually people will notice Sheriff Forbes' daughter isn't aging, but I get your point, sir.
24) It is weird how much better this show is when we cut down the love triangle stuff to the minimum. Kind of how Eclipse is the best Twilight movie, because it has 900% more Jasper. (DO NOT JUDGE ME, OKAY.)
25) I think it was Jamie smacking Klaus' hand to get him to let him go that made me realize I liked him. Please stay! That is kind of amazing!
26) "There's always a choice." And again, someone's telling Damon that, not that he's listening this time any more than he was previously.
27) I have to say, I appreciate that they just evacuate the dance now. "CODE SEVEN, GUYS, NOT A DRILL. EVERYONE WHO ISN'T FRIENDS WITH ELENA GILBERT, TO YOUR HOMES."
28) Caroline! Tyler! Maybe stop yelling about how you're fooling Klaus re: the sire bond, because he lurks like a champ and HE HAS VAMPIRE HEARING, JESUS. Do you guys all forget that? Is it like how you all forget about the dream inception and shit?
29) Of course I teared up hearing that Jenna was okay, are you kidding?
30) Ahahahahahahahha and then Evilric kills Esther after she makes him a vampire. Who didn't see that coming? Besides possibly Esther?
31) Klaus and Stefan bitch at each other like an old married couple. (Actually, hilariously, a lot like Stefan and Damon do. The Salvatores: being weird with people since 1864.)
32) "Well, there were moments." That--Klaus just admitted they had sex, right? Did I hear him wrong? Because that's sure as shit how Joseph Morgan said it.
33) "I'm not gonna complete the transition."
Aaaaaaaand this is where I lost it again, because: of course he's not. If there's one person in town who'd least like to be a vampire--other than Bill Forbes--it's Alaric Saltzman. He has friends who are vampires; his wife was one, in the end, and so is his best friend, but that doesn't mean he wants it for himself. And that's fine, and I'm not surprised, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
34) "Maybe I had this coming." Alaric! No! Shut up! No one actually deserves to be a pawn in grand supernatural machinations! How is that even a thing? Do not talk like an idiot!
35) And then after Jeremy and Elena say goodbye, Elena leads Alaric outside--to where everyone else is, surrounded by whatever candles they could scrounge, like a vigil or a church service, and that's when I just fucking lost it.
36) And then, just as I composed myself a tiny bit, Alaric's trying not to cry as he turns and walks into the crypt, and I fucking lose it all over again.
37) So of course Klaus undaggers Rebekah and freaks out at Esther, but--uh, Stefan? I would maybe get Elena out of town right now, dude looks pissed.
38) "You really are pretty amazing." JAMIE, STAY FOREVER. People legit do not tell Bonnie that enough. Her friends don't tell her that enough.
39) Matt and Jeremy toasting Alaric in a closed Grille! Oh, look! Crying again! (Also, that whole shot--the lighting, the wardrobe--is goddamn gorgeous.)
40) And of course Elena immediately begins freaking out about cleaning out Alaric's stuff, because a) hey! vampire hunter! and b) it's something she can control. She's just lost her fourth parent in two years, let the girl freak the fuck out for ten minutes, Jesus.
(Though for real, if that janitor found anything and tried to talk, Liz or Carol would have him killed.)
41) "You shouldn't leave him alone in there."
"Alone is how he wants it."
"...you really think that's what he wants?"
GODDAMMIT MEREDITH STOP MAKING ME CRY LIKE DAMON'S FACE ISN'T BAD ENOUGH.
42) "I don't have anyone anymore." Well, in terms of actual legal guardians, no, you should get on that. But in terms of people who love you--honey, no. And I don't have the energy for the argument tonight, so we'll just leave you with Stefan. Stefan is really good at this shit. Damon is...Damon is busy.
43) And then, sad-laughing, drinking, trying not to cry, Damon slides over next to Alaric. Alaric, who's been given a sedative by Meredith. He looks like he's just going to sleep.
"You going to give me a dream? Rainbows and rolling hills?"
"I was drunk when I told you that."
"And I said I'd use it against you."
(Any other night, I'd bounce because he can't tell Elena--"that wasn't for you"--but he could tell Ric, even drunk. Not tonight.)
Damon looks very young. He hasn't looked that young since the night he died, though thank God he has better hair and isn't dressed like a fop. It's warm outside. He's with his friend. He won't make him do anything he doesn't want to do. Stefan talked him into this once, and he hates it; he won't do the same for Ric, wouldn't even if it didn't mean Ric would come back evil and impossible to kill.
And he sits with him, in the dark, and softly stoppers his bottle. He lets him sleep.
44) Alaric Saltzman was tall. He was sort of a dork. He had an angry childhood in Boston, for reasons we don't know; he got over it, and went to North Carolina, and fell in love with the woman he'd one day marry. He loved her a lot, and when she died, it broke him open, made him a little crazy--crazy enough to move to Virginia, where she'd grown up, on the trail of the man who he'd thought killed her. (And he had, but that was just half of the story. A lot of these stories are just halves.) He found out all those old stories were a little true, and that vampires were real.
And then something funny--well, no, not funny: the man who killed his wife? Killed Alaric. And he should have stayed dead, but she'd given him a ring years before, something she'd gotten from a man she'd loved once (and loved her still, as it turns out), and it was magic. Magic! Like in the stories! (You know, like vampires.) Ridiculous, on the face of it...until it worked. He stayed, because he was a good man, and he'd met a woman--a lovely woman, with two children she was raising as her own, and he made friends. He actually made friends with the man who'd killed him, because the town where he lived was simultaneously the most ridiculous and most amazing place in the world.
Terrible things happened to him, because terrible things happen to people in stories where there's magic, and mostly to the humans. And when his lover died, he raised the children she'd been raising as his own. He loved, and was loved. He did dumb things. He did brave things. He developed a drinking problem, and had his car burned down by a ghost, and died a lot. His best friend in all the world was the man he'd come to kill.
And when death came, he wasn't afraid.
45) That was the plan, anyway.
46) And then--AND THEN--Esther and a hundred dead witches (all of whom have some explaining to fucking do, now) grab hold of Bonnie like they're Emily and haul her ass out to the crypt, and Alaric feeds on her and stands there, body in his arms like some fucking 1920s movie monster (appropriate!), suddenly bigger and bloody-mouthed and holding his stake, and--
--that guy? The guy we loved? He's dead. This is something else.
Next week: Damon saves Bonnie in an ironic echo of three years ago, Klaus goes for plan B, and New and Improved Evilric gets his footing in "Before Sunset". Thursday, 8 PM EST.
1) 1920s Decade Dance! I am starting to think the school officials want this year's graduating class to be like eleven kids. You'd think they'd eventually notice that every time they have a night event, like four kids go missing. (On the other hand, drinking water = bourbon, so maybe not.)
2) Is it wrong that I love that Klaus is so frustrated about the way things have gone down that he's painting? "GRRRRR! ART!"
3) You know, I am kind of iffy about the Originals--Kol and extremely boring Finn really brought the average down--but I love that you really get the sense that they're a family, even when, you know, their mom is trying to kill them all. Klaus stays because he's indulging who he thinks is his sister! Shut up, that's sweet.
4) And then Evilric calls Alaric Damon's only friend, and my stomach does terrible things. You guys, when Alaric Saltzman is not in control of his own body at a decade-themed dance, bad things happen to him, okay? There's precedent.
5) Aaaaaaaand Rebekah's daggered again.
6) The first thing I thought when Caroline was all "well, that's what you get for telling me about hotel make outs"? DID ANYONE TELL BONNIE? Oh my God, I bet no one told Bonnie. PHONE TREE. Haven't said it in a while, so maybe you forgot! Since that town has the attention span of hummingbirds.
7) Jamie's bringing Bonnie! ...that's a shame, he seemed nice.
8) You know, I am fully on Team Elena, with a minor in Team Threesome, but I will tell you straight up: when Stefan Salvatore is on--and not, you know, being a coked-up asshole--he is fucking on. I am having Stefan/Elena feels like a champ tonight.
9) Until she said it, I really didn't get that the witch house is the same place where Klaus killed Esther. That place makes a lot more sense now.
10) Aaaaaaaand then Esther binds the Gilbert ring to make the white oak stake indestructible, because otherwise the power of staking one Original would destroy it. No, this doesn't bode poorly at all.
11) For the record, this is where I started tearing up. Alaric is actually sadder than Matt, to me; Matt, at least, has people who love him. So does Alaric, you can't discount that, but: Alaric lost his wife. He's not close with his parents, he's an only child as far as we know. He came to town to do one thing and failed at that, then wound up being an erstwhile vampire hunter/history teacher who befriends vampires instead of killing them. This is the second time he hasn't been himself for one of these little shindigs; last year, he was Klaus. And now he's--well, himself, but the bad parts, the worst parts, the parts who hate and are angry and anonymously talk shit on the internet. He's what lives in the bug house.
This isn't going to end well.
12) LET'S TALK ABOUT THE CLOTHES: Caroline and Bonnie look good, though I am not a fan of the pin curl; Elena...looks like Katherine, probably because we've seen her in flapper outfits before; and every man on this show except Alaric and Damon looks totally fucking swank. Like, a combined five million bucks. (Excepting Klaus. We'll get to him.) Possibly this is because of the waistcoats, because every man I have ever met looks amazing in a waistcoat, but still: THE HIGHEST OF FIVES.
13) "I'm suggesting we put him out of his misery."
And see--that, right there? That's bad. When Damon stops pretending he doesn't give a shit if Ric dies or not, because hey! magic ring! The last non-Elena-related time he sounded like that was Rose. Oh, hell.
14) Jeremy is opposed to this. Temporary cessation of hostilities, Littlest Gilbert!
15) Elena! Do not willingly go with anyone named Mikaelson! Elijah is include in that from here on in!
16) Aaaaaaaaaand Esther's bound all supernatural creatures--including possibly Bonnie? It's not clear--inside the gym grounds with salt. Again, this will not end well.
17) "This whole circle of people, it's kinda crazy." Okay, I now officially hope Jamie sticks around. Any man who can roll with vampires and werewolves and gleefully make out with Bonnie Bennett is a keeper, in my book.
18) GET SOME, BONNIE.
19) "I'm going to remake him."
Yeah, you know how I used to think Esther was better than her kids? That's gone now. You can forgive her for doing it the first time; she just wanted to keep them safe, and she made a mistake, and things happened she didn't expect. That's fine. Everyone makes mistakes, but being people, we have to live with them. We can't use witch powers to do a cosmic do-over with ALARIC GODDAMN SALTZMAN.
Doing it once was a mistake. Doing it again, trying to correct that mistake? That's monstrous. That's worse than the first time, because at least you had ignorance behind you. This is hubris.
20) Hey! Esther's plan is to make Evilric another Original, and use him to kill the rest of the vampires! Did I mention there's a time-delay of some vague, nebulous sort on him that'll kill him too? Did I mention she can also go fuck herself forever?
21) --no, yeah, Klaus in that suit looks like he owns a really prosperous moonshine still in 1896. That is--did that come with a rattan chair, or did you have to go buy one special? Wow. WOW.
22) Shut up, I got a little sniffly at the idea of Klaus being okay with pining for Caroline 'til she wises up and comes after him. (Not that he won't have fun in the meantime. He's dead, not dead.)
23) "Small-town boy, small-town life. You'll tire of it one day." Well, statistically she has to, as eventually people will notice Sheriff Forbes' daughter isn't aging, but I get your point, sir.
24) It is weird how much better this show is when we cut down the love triangle stuff to the minimum. Kind of how Eclipse is the best Twilight movie, because it has 900% more Jasper. (DO NOT JUDGE ME, OKAY.)
25) I think it was Jamie smacking Klaus' hand to get him to let him go that made me realize I liked him. Please stay! That is kind of amazing!
26) "There's always a choice." And again, someone's telling Damon that, not that he's listening this time any more than he was previously.
27) I have to say, I appreciate that they just evacuate the dance now. "CODE SEVEN, GUYS, NOT A DRILL. EVERYONE WHO ISN'T FRIENDS WITH ELENA GILBERT, TO YOUR HOMES."
28) Caroline! Tyler! Maybe stop yelling about how you're fooling Klaus re: the sire bond, because he lurks like a champ and HE HAS VAMPIRE HEARING, JESUS. Do you guys all forget that? Is it like how you all forget about the dream inception and shit?
29) Of course I teared up hearing that Jenna was okay, are you kidding?
30) Ahahahahahahahha and then Evilric kills Esther after she makes him a vampire. Who didn't see that coming? Besides possibly Esther?
31) Klaus and Stefan bitch at each other like an old married couple. (Actually, hilariously, a lot like Stefan and Damon do. The Salvatores: being weird with people since 1864.)
32) "Well, there were moments." That--Klaus just admitted they had sex, right? Did I hear him wrong? Because that's sure as shit how Joseph Morgan said it.
33) "I'm not gonna complete the transition."
Aaaaaaaand this is where I lost it again, because: of course he's not. If there's one person in town who'd least like to be a vampire--other than Bill Forbes--it's Alaric Saltzman. He has friends who are vampires; his wife was one, in the end, and so is his best friend, but that doesn't mean he wants it for himself. And that's fine, and I'm not surprised, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
34) "Maybe I had this coming." Alaric! No! Shut up! No one actually deserves to be a pawn in grand supernatural machinations! How is that even a thing? Do not talk like an idiot!
35) And then after Jeremy and Elena say goodbye, Elena leads Alaric outside--to where everyone else is, surrounded by whatever candles they could scrounge, like a vigil or a church service, and that's when I just fucking lost it.
36) And then, just as I composed myself a tiny bit, Alaric's trying not to cry as he turns and walks into the crypt, and I fucking lose it all over again.
37) So of course Klaus undaggers Rebekah and freaks out at Esther, but--uh, Stefan? I would maybe get Elena out of town right now, dude looks pissed.
38) "You really are pretty amazing." JAMIE, STAY FOREVER. People legit do not tell Bonnie that enough. Her friends don't tell her that enough.
39) Matt and Jeremy toasting Alaric in a closed Grille! Oh, look! Crying again! (Also, that whole shot--the lighting, the wardrobe--is goddamn gorgeous.)
40) And of course Elena immediately begins freaking out about cleaning out Alaric's stuff, because a) hey! vampire hunter! and b) it's something she can control. She's just lost her fourth parent in two years, let the girl freak the fuck out for ten minutes, Jesus.
(Though for real, if that janitor found anything and tried to talk, Liz or Carol would have him killed.)
41) "You shouldn't leave him alone in there."
"Alone is how he wants it."
"...you really think that's what he wants?"
GODDAMMIT MEREDITH STOP MAKING ME CRY LIKE DAMON'S FACE ISN'T BAD ENOUGH.
42) "I don't have anyone anymore." Well, in terms of actual legal guardians, no, you should get on that. But in terms of people who love you--honey, no. And I don't have the energy for the argument tonight, so we'll just leave you with Stefan. Stefan is really good at this shit. Damon is...Damon is busy.
43) And then, sad-laughing, drinking, trying not to cry, Damon slides over next to Alaric. Alaric, who's been given a sedative by Meredith. He looks like he's just going to sleep.
"You going to give me a dream? Rainbows and rolling hills?"
"I was drunk when I told you that."
"And I said I'd use it against you."
(Any other night, I'd bounce because he can't tell Elena--"that wasn't for you"--but he could tell Ric, even drunk. Not tonight.)
Damon looks very young. He hasn't looked that young since the night he died, though thank God he has better hair and isn't dressed like a fop. It's warm outside. He's with his friend. He won't make him do anything he doesn't want to do. Stefan talked him into this once, and he hates it; he won't do the same for Ric, wouldn't even if it didn't mean Ric would come back evil and impossible to kill.
And he sits with him, in the dark, and softly stoppers his bottle. He lets him sleep.
44) Alaric Saltzman was tall. He was sort of a dork. He had an angry childhood in Boston, for reasons we don't know; he got over it, and went to North Carolina, and fell in love with the woman he'd one day marry. He loved her a lot, and when she died, it broke him open, made him a little crazy--crazy enough to move to Virginia, where she'd grown up, on the trail of the man who he'd thought killed her. (And he had, but that was just half of the story. A lot of these stories are just halves.) He found out all those old stories were a little true, and that vampires were real.
And then something funny--well, no, not funny: the man who killed his wife? Killed Alaric. And he should have stayed dead, but she'd given him a ring years before, something she'd gotten from a man she'd loved once (and loved her still, as it turns out), and it was magic. Magic! Like in the stories! (You know, like vampires.) Ridiculous, on the face of it...until it worked. He stayed, because he was a good man, and he'd met a woman--a lovely woman, with two children she was raising as her own, and he made friends. He actually made friends with the man who'd killed him, because the town where he lived was simultaneously the most ridiculous and most amazing place in the world.
Terrible things happened to him, because terrible things happen to people in stories where there's magic, and mostly to the humans. And when his lover died, he raised the children she'd been raising as his own. He loved, and was loved. He did dumb things. He did brave things. He developed a drinking problem, and had his car burned down by a ghost, and died a lot. His best friend in all the world was the man he'd come to kill.
And when death came, he wasn't afraid.
45) That was the plan, anyway.
46) And then--AND THEN--Esther and a hundred dead witches (all of whom have some explaining to fucking do, now) grab hold of Bonnie like they're Emily and haul her ass out to the crypt, and Alaric feeds on her and stands there, body in his arms like some fucking 1920s movie monster (appropriate!), suddenly bigger and bloody-mouthed and holding his stake, and--
--that guy? The guy we loved? He's dead. This is something else.
Next week: Damon saves Bonnie in an ironic echo of three years ago, Klaus goes for plan B, and New and Improved Evilric gets his footing in "Before Sunset". Thursday, 8 PM EST.
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