Review of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES – Bringing Out The Dead (2012)

Who gets to decide who lives and dies?

Klaus, being the invincible hybrid that he is, cannot be killed — and his curse is to live for eternity.  But he cannot bear to live it alone, and since we found out that his mother sacrificed the only woman he truly loved so that he and his siblings could live forever, Klaus’ only true love left is his family — which he keeps carefully tucked away in coffins.  Thus, in Klaus’ perfect world, he is the one who decides who lives and who dies.

But even Klaus cannot play God forever.  Turning the tables on Klaus and stripping him of some of his power over life and death, Damon had the audacity to remove Elijah’s dagger and persuaded Elijah to set Klaus up.  Maybe Damon’s offer to let Klaus leave Mystic Falls with the rest of his Original family was not enticing enough, as Klaus was not about to leave Elena behind; but it would have allowed Klaus to keep his family intact.  Instead, because Klaus rejected that offer and counter-proposed that Stefan and Damon should leave forever, and he would protect Elena — the stakes had to be raised:  Klaus’ family was going to leave without him and they were going to leave him to live alone for eternity.  That was actually a brilliant plan — alas, opening the sealed mystery coffin proved their undoing.  Instead of the deadly weapon to kill Klaus like they were hoping, it only held mommy-dearest — the same woman who killed her sons’ only love to get them to stop fighting over the original Petrova doppleganger and then fed her blood to them; and she’s also the same woman who turned her entire family into vampires because she couldn’t bear to let them die.  Their father Mikael may have wanted to kill all the Originals as they were an abomination against nature; but Esther only wants to save her children and live with them forever.  They are the epitome of a twisted family.

All in all, an enlightening evening.  Who knew that dinner parties could be so peaceful and elegant and with a minimal amount of bloodshed?  This is breaking with the tradition in Mystic Falls that at least one dinner guest should be killed.  But it was also highly entertaining.

However, the real story in this complex, multi-layered episode was the story of the death of two fathers:  Bill Forbes and Rick Saltzman.  Bill may have been Caroline’s actual father, but Alaric had stepped into the father-figure role in watching over Elena in the absence of any other parental figure since the dead of both Jenna and John Gilbert.  The dual death of Elena and Caroline’s fathers was much more poignant and affecting.  Those death scenes will haunt us much longer than the back-stabbing shenanigans played at Klaus’ house at the dinner party.  That was but dinner “theater” while the real action was going down off-site.  But when death comes a knockin’, what do you do?  Do you capitulate and allow it to enter, or do you fight with every fiber of your being against the natural order of life?  Was Bill Forbes right to say that this was simply his time?  Does death by a human hand seem more natural than death by a supernatural one?

The real question of the night was:  who decides who lives and who dies?  As we surely saw, it was not Klaus — as much as he may wish that it was.  Klaus is not invincible.  He knows that he can be killed, which is why he asked his mother if she had arrived to kill him.  So if not Klaus, then who?  Who is playing the Grim Reaper in Mystic Falls?

Points of Interest

1.  Gotta love that all the Originals are back and not too pleased with dearest brother Klaus.  That family drama is going to sizzling hot to watch play out!  Can’t wait to also meet Kol and Finn.  It has been such a pleasure getting to know Elijah and Rebekah that we’re sure to be enthralled by the newest family members to awaken.

2.  Nice to see that they also didn’t kill off Bonnie’s mother.  Undoubtedly she is going to want to redress the problem she unleashed by opening the sealed coffin and it will be cool to see a smack-down between Abby and Esther.

3.  With Tyler M.I.A., we have to wonder is he running away or is he just lying in wait for a chance to strike back at Klaus?

What Worked

With so many deliciously wonderful scenes to choose from, it was hard to pick out just a few to highlight.  But starting off with the scene that caught my breath, it was when Elena confronted Stefan, and you have to appreciate the straight-forward way that Elena just flat out asks Stefan, “Did you kill the medical examiner?” The look on his face was priceless.  It was a mixture of incredulity and sadness as he softly asked, “Why would you think I did that?”  And Elena replied, “Maybe because I don’t know what your capable of any more.” This is when Stefan began to realize how much his charade with Klaus had cost him.  He then resignedly said, “Well, believe what you want, Elena.” To which Elena admitted, “I don’t want to believe any of it, Stefan.” And he retorted, “But you had to ask me anyway? Did you ask Damon if he killed anybody lately?”  It was never really about Elena falling in love with Damon, it is all about Elena falling out-of-love with Stefan.  This was the scene that showed how far apart they have gotten, all because of Klaus.  Whether Klaus actually successfully compelled Stefan to turn off his human emotions and give up his love for Elena, or Stefan just played a better game of pretending he had given up his feelings for Elena in order to protect her, the end result is that Stefan lost Elena.  She believed Stefan had stopped loving her and would kill her to get back at Klaus.  So the real price was Elena’s love.  Stefan needs to find a way to win her back and this was the moment he realized it.  That she believed he would kill an innocent human, that he had lost all sense and reason.  Stefan may have felt pain when he heard that Elena had kissed Damon, but the greater pain was realizing he had lost her love in this moment, so much that she believed he had killed a man without reason.  It was a magnificently portrayed scene and what was unsaid was felt more than what was.  Fantastically done.

Underlining Stefan’s anguish was when Klaus dared to mention Elena at dinner.  When Klaus asked,  “Where’s the lovely Elena tonight?” and Stefan flippantly replied, “I don’t know.  Ask Damon,” the barely contained pain and boiling anger was just beneath the surface. Then as Elijah gestured wondering what their exchange was about, Klaus merely laughed and said,  “I’m sorry.  You missed so much.  Trouble in paradise.” Which prompted Stefan to softly threaten, “One more word about Elena and this dinner is over.”  Wishing to dispell the quickly rising hostility from the brink of ‘no return,’ Damon interjected, “Probably better to keep Elena in the ‘do not discuss’ pile.”

Damon had already stepped into that hornet’s nest by mentioning earlier to Stefan, “The way you’ve been acting, I trust [Elijah] about was much as I trust you.” To which Stefan had snapped, “Guess that goes both ways, doesn’t it?” Then realizing that Stefan was not talking about Elijah anymore, Damon noted, “Oh yes, this is about me kissing Elena.”  Stefan is clearly sensitive to the subject of Elena and her muddled feelings, and anyone who gets in his way of claiming the one thing he has been fighting for is going to get a whole lot more pain than they bargained for.  He even gave Damon fair-warning at the end of the episode.  As Stefan curiously told Damon, “You could have left me there and Klaus would have killed me and you’d have had Elena all to yourself,” Damon interestingly said, “I wouldn’t do that on her account” (as he turned off his phone ignoring a call from Elena).   Not sure whether to believe Damon, Stefan simply said, “I love her, Damon,” and with a firm sigh, Damon replied, “So do I.”

It is the Doppelgänger Curse — not to be desired for her blood to make hybrids and free Klaus from his curse — but to be desired throughout the generations by two brothers and unable to choose between them.   It was exactly what happened with the first doppelgänger, Tatia — who Klaus and Elijah loved so much that their mother killed Tatia to stop their feuding.  It was nearly repeated again with Katherine, who Klaus desired and Elijah felt some stirrings of the former passion he had felt for Tatia centuries before.  And so it is with Elena, but this time, it is not Klaus and Elijah falling under her spell, it is the Salvatore brothers.  Perhaps it was lucky that Stefan returned to Mystic Falls when he did and saved Elena from the car accident that claimed her parents lives.  By doing so, Stefan prevented Klaus and Elijah from being the brothers enamored with her charms.  But it cursed Stefan and Damon to fall in love with her instead.  However, Klaus still felt some of the residual effect as he wistfully noted, “It’s just the allure of the Petrova doppelgänger is still so strong.”

Klaus’ offer that Stefan and Damon should leave Mystic Falls only sounded absurd on the surface. But his rationale made perfect sense.  Klaus is in the better position to protect Elena and he would ensure that she got to live a full, human life — whereas, because Stefan and Damon are both in love with Elena and she may be in love with both of them, they are cursing her to live a half-life — one where she may not be able to fall in love with a normal boy and have a family of her own one day.   As Klaus noted, “The worst thing for Elena Gilbert is the two of you.”  He was only half right.  Elena may be safer and guaranteed a normal human life, but would she be happy?  Even Klaus has learned that life without those you love is nothing at all.   Love is the only thing that matters.

The other magnificently done scenes of the night were the parallel stories of the deaths of Bill Forbes and Alaric.  Both survived their attacks, but only one ultimately lived.  Bill Forbes had Damon’s blood in his system when he was attacked at the hospital, so it meant that if he fed on human blood after he revived that he would turn into a vampire and he could live again.  But Bill knew that such a fate was worse than death.  It was not natural and he would not accept it.  He had already been furious that Damon’s blood had saved him from his mortal wounds sustained when Tyler attacked him.  Cheating death and forced to live a life that he did not choose was agony for him.  It would have been a prison sentence for him and he would be tormented for the rest of his unnatural life by it.  He would rather die rather than willingly become a vampire.  As Elena tried to explain to Caroline, “He doesn’t want to.  The only thing your dad has is his choice.”  Caroline was never given a choice.  Katherine stole that from her; and Damon nearly stole that choice from Elena.  To be forced against your will to be something you abhor is the worst thing to do another person.  But even knowing that she cannot make her father want to be a vampire, Caroline still desperately tried to persuade him, “You are strong enough to handle being a vampire.  You’re the strongest person I know.”  Yet, in the end, Bill could only sigh and tell her, “Caroline, my strength is all in my beliefs. Becoming a vampire is wrong.  People are not  supposed to cheat death . . . This is life.  This is what it means to be human.”  He valued his humanity more than life itself.  To him, humanity was the reason we live.  We live to be human. It is worth fighting for — even if it means dying to protect that privilege.

So as Caroline and her mother wept for Bill’s right to choose the life he wanted, and a death with dignity, on the flip-side there was Elena and Alaric.  Alaric had never really volunteered to be a father, but through a twist of fate, he became one anyway.  His love for Jenna propelled him to move in and watch over for Elena and Jeremy after Jenna’s death, and that’s when Alaric stepped up and chose to be dad.  He would do whatever it took to watch over and protect the Gilberts — and because they had no other family left, Elena and Jeremy embraced him as part of their family.  Thus, when Elena arrived home to find Alaric had been stabbed and was dying, unlike Caroline who still had her mother, Elena fought to keep the last remaining family member she had — she heeded Alaric’s request and killed him.  For she knew that by doing so, it would be an unnatural death and he would be able to return thanks to his invincibility ring.  In this case, Alaric and Elena chose life.  But the distinct different being that Alaric was able to come back as a human, whereas Bill Forbes would have been forced to come back as a vampire.  Who knows if Alaric would have made the same choice if his only option was to return, but only as a vampire.

It was fascinating to see the choices each father-daughter combo made in these heightened circumstances.  But, in the end, each honored the request of their fathers.  Watching both Caroline and Elena weep over the bodies of Bill and Alaric, we had a sense of how alone they both are.  In their time of grief, neither Stefan or Damon was around to console them.  Not even Klaus.  There was only Liz, who watched helplessly as her daughter grieved, and Matt, who watched just as helplessly as Elena prayed that Alaric would revive.  It was a visual and visceral reminder that when death comes, not even vampires can stop it and they may not always be there to ease the pain away.  Stefan and Damon may have been preoccupied with negotiating for everyone’s safety, but is that enough?

Like Matt so aptly noted, “It’s this town.  It’s messed up.  None of us should have to live this way.”  Just like Elena’s horror after watching her younger brother Jeremy casually behead a vampire-hybrid, Matt is horrified that their lives are consumed with these distinctly unnatural events and deaths.  Matt had to watch Elena cooly kill Alaric, all because she believed it was the only way to save him.  It is not normal and definitely not natural.  But this is what their lives have become.

Should we weep for Bill Forbes because he chose the honorable way to die?  Shouldn’t we be weeping more for the way those left behind and the lives they are being forced to live?  Which is worse?  Anyway you look at it, it is haunting and it should give you nightmares to think about.

What Didn’t Work

There is a serial killer loose in Mystic Falls and no one is freaked out enough to think Elena could be a target?  After all, each of the three victims so far are known vampire-sympathizers.  The killer may think they are simply “taking out the trash.”  Elena would therefore be next on the hit list as the number one vampire-sympathizer.  It may be time for Klaus, Elijah, Damon and Stefan to team-up to ensure Elena doesn’t find herself on the wrong end of a stake or knife — particularly as there are so many of such easily obtained weapons lying around the Gilbert house.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

“Bringing Out the Dead” written by Turi Meyer and Al Septien and directed by Jeffrey Hunt. ‘The Vampire Diaries’ stars Paul Wesley, Nina Dobrev, Ian Somerhalder, Joseph Morgan, Steven R. McQueen, Candice Accola, Katerina Graham, Michael Trevino, Zach Roerig, Matt Davis, Daniel Gillies. ‘The Vampire Diaries’ airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on the CW.