My Review of The Originals 2.08- The Brothers That Care Forgot

Klaus and Marcel try to persuade Finn and Kol to join them against Esther, Hayley and Jackson work on getting the wolves, Elijah leaves to protect Rebekah and Hope, Davina has her own plans, and Rebekah and Cami each discover an unpleasant truth…

Marcel and Kol *REALLY* do not like each other.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen Marcel seem to take such joy in torturing someone as he did when he was trying to “persuade” Kol to join him and Klaus.  Honestly, I don’t know if Marcel was the best person to turn loose on Kol, but he was the only real choice.  With Elijah and Hayley both gone elsewhere and Klaus taking care of Finn, there wasn’t another option.  Fortunately for Kol, he let slip his feelings about Klaus and Marcel which gave Klaus his opening to confess how he tried to get revenge for Kol’s death at Jeremy Gilbert’s hands but couldn’t and to reaffirm that they are brothers “always and forever.”  Kol was already inclined to betray Esther and that seemed to tip him decisively into Klaus’ camp.

Unfortunately, Finn was not nearly as tractable.  This personification of a mama’s boy wouldn’t turn against Esther and even told Klaus the truth about Freya and Dalia’s curse.  His reward for being a faithful lap dog for his mother?  He got himself locked into a coffin which Klaus assured him had air holes in it.  Is it wrong that I find that an almost amusing punishment?

Davina and Klaus are going to make for *VERY* uneasy allies.  She hates him and he isn’t too terribly fond of her.  Unfortunately, they need each other in order to take down Esther.  And with Kol, Marcel, and Cami as buffers between the two of them, I think the fireworks will remain at a minimum.  Davina’s magical powers are nothing to sneeze at, look at how easily she took down both Marcel and Klaus.  I am honestly not sure if she can take down Esther, but if she manages to work with Klaus, there is a definite chance.

Now that Hayley and Jackson have peeled the wolves away from Esther, that is one less group to stand in Klaus’ way.  I can’t believe that the wolves are still trying to insist that they rule the city.  Their bites don’t do anything to Klaus and he has shown that he can take them apart with astonishing speed and ferocity.  And by joining their two bloodlines, Hayley and Jackson will help empower the wolves without their needing to depend on witches.

Rebekah had an unpleasant surprise when she realized that Esther had found her and was watching her.  Or was it actually Dalia?  If Dalia is really that much more powerful than Esther and she has been promised the firstborn of every generation, it is entirely possible that she is looking for Rebekah and Hope.  Then there was Rebekah’s discovery that Elijah had slaughtered all of those people in the restaurant.  That was not pleasant.  We know Elijah is no saint, but that slaughter and his loss of control around Finn shows that he is clearly damaged from his time spent with Esther.

And poor Cami discovered that she has been prepared to serve as a vessel for Rebekah’s consciousness.  Yeah, that is exactly what I would want to learn from someone I might have had feeling for at one point.

There is no Originals next week, so I’ll see y’all in two weeks!

My Review of The Vampire Diaries 6.08- Fade Into You

Damon reveals the truth about Bonnie, Elena makes a decision about her love life, Stefan talks with Caroline, and we have a new contender for most screwed up family ever…

Well, everyone now knows that Bonnie is still alive in Kai’s hell.  Astonishingly, no one seemed particularly upset that Damon didn’t mention that he was with Bonnie, but we haven’t seen Jeremy react yet, so that could change.  Everyone seemed to appreciate that Damon actually thought she was dead and that is why he didn’t reveal that she was there with him.  That is a sign of progress for everyone, so that is good.

Speaking of Bonnie, that poor girl had a rotten day.  Not only did she have to eat dinner with a psychopath, but she then got herself stabbed in the gut because he got his hands on his sister’s magic (more on that in a moment) and only needed her blood.  And then he took the car he promised her, leaving her stranded in Portland (presumably Oregon, but they never actually said).  Yeah, her life pretty much sucks at the moment.

Jo is (as I predicted last week) Kai’s sister.  What I didn’t expect was the revelation that they are twins and that Liv and Luke are their siblings.  Turns out the Gemini coven is led by a twin.  When the twins up for the leadership reach their 22nd birthday, they merge their powers and the stronger one survives with both of their powers while the weaker one dies.  Kai wanted to be the leader and he wasn’t eligible, so he went to kill Luke and Liv, but failed because Jo protected them.  She then put her magic into a knife and hid it.  That is the magic Kai got and the reason he went to Portland.  Oh, and when Jo’s dad found out that Damon wanted to bring Bonnie back, he decided to do a spell to kill Jo so that Kai couldn’t merge with her.  And Jo used Kai’s desire to merge with her to lure him into the woods so that their dad could send him to the hell.  Definitely contenders for the most screwed up family tree.

You had to feel for Elena.  She has a good thing going with Liam, but he is getting too inquisitive and doesn’t seem to be handling the whole supernatural thing very well, so Elena decided to compel him to forget all about her.  In his defense, she didn’t exactly give him time to adjust before compelling him.  Regardless, I do think it was the right move because, while nice, he just didn’t seem to fit in well.  Elena also made the decision that she wants to get Bonnie back and is starting to reconnect with Damon as a friend, particularly after seeing that he does truly miss Bonnie himself.

Stefan and Caroline also seem to be on a good path.  He acknowledged why he pushed her away and seemed to hold out hope that there might be something in their future.  Not everything Caroline was hoping for, but it is definitely better than nothing, so there is a faint light at the end of the tunnel for Steroline.

Not quite sure what to make of Tyler and Liv.  She is making him almost tolerable to me, which is a miracle given how much I dislike him.  He definitely cares about her and will help her if he can, so maybe he is redeemable.

I’ll see y’all in two weeks.  Have a great Thanksgiving!

My Review of The Originals 2.07- Chasing the Devil's Tail

Klaus sets out to free Elijah from Esther’s spell, Cami proves her worth, Hayley takes a page out of Esther’s book, and Davina and Kol have some serious chemistry…

I have to admit that I was very surprised when Kol mentioned that he was a witch before being turned.  It does make sense given that magic runs in families, but you would have thought it would have been mentioned before now.  That would explain why he seems to get so much sheer joy out of magic.  Well, that and the fact that he is a sadist.  All that being said, I am impressed that he seems to be as close to Davina as he is.  I never really saw him being that close to anyone.  You know that he is using Davina, but there is definitely something else there.  I do have to agree with him, her resistance to his charms is somewhat baffling (particularly with the open shirt on display!).

So it was Kol who go the witches to create the dark objects that Cami got from Kieran.  That would explain the almost sadistic edge that some of them have (remember the star of 1,000 cuts from last season?).  It also gave him the opportunity to use magic again without having magic of his own.  Davina does need to be careful with him because he seems to be playing a very deep game.  It may not rebound on her, but you never know.

These past few weeks have not been good for Esther.  In the past few weeks, she has discovered that Mikael is back, Klaus refused her “offer”, and Kol lied to her about Mikael.  Then this week Finn and Kol are kidnapped, Ansel is killed by Klaus, and Elijah is brought out of his coma by Klaus.  Yeah, things are not looking great for her at the moment.  I have to admit to a certain perverse pleasure that Hayley is using the playbook of taking what means the most to your enemy on Esther.  She richly deserves it.

I ws very impressed with Cami and her willingness to play bait for Finn.  I think the best line of the night was hers.  You know the one, "I always thought having a woman's mouth on my neck would be more erotic."  When she clapped those magical handcuffs on Finn and let him know that she knew who he was, he looked almost completely shattered.  He honestly thought he had her and she disabused him of that particular notion in a spectacular fashion.  I just wonder how Klaus will feel about Cami putting herself in danger that way.

I am not sure who to feel sorrier for, Klaus or Ansel.  Klaus could have reconnected with his biological father, but his parental and trust issues run too deep.  Well, those and the fact that Ansel figured out that Hope is still alive.  Say what you will about Klaus, but if he counts you as a part of his family, he will protect you.  Right now that family includes Elijah, Hope, Hayley, and Cami.  I suspect that he’ll extend his protection to others who are particularly important to his family, but that will happen slowly.  Ansel is brought back for another life and loses it at the hands of his own son.  That has to seriously suck.

Josh and Aiden continue to flirt and be seriously cute together.  Please don’t kill either of them because they are the one semi-normal (if star-crossed) couple on this show…

Until next week!

My Review of The Vampire Diaries 6.07- Do You Remember the First Time

Damon tries to help Elena remember what they had, Enzo clues Stefan into Caroline’s feelings, Jo and Alaric have a good date, Kai and Bonnie have a confrontation, and Matt is shaken…

Wow, life really does suck for Damon right now.  The love of his life cannot remember what they had and is dating someone else.  In the good news category, she is trying to remember what they had and is even willing to risk death in order to force the memories to come to the surface.  I think the most frustrating thing for him is that he would not have erased the memories if their situations had been reversed.  Honestly, I do believe him.  That being said, I do think he would have turned off his emotions or done something else to dull the pain, so I don’t think he was being totally honest.  Leaving Elena at the end of the episode must have been one of the hardest things he has ever done, particularly since she was starting to have vague memories of their time together.  In the other good news category, he does know that Bonnie is alive and he is in possession of her bear which contains her magic.  I am curious as to how that is going to change things.

I feel almost as bad for Elena.  She likes Liam a lot, but she has the huge hole in her memories of something that she knows should be there but isn’t.  That has to be immensely frustrating for her.  I shouldn’t be surprised that she went over the border in an attempt to break Alaric’s compulsion, but I was.  She can be so focused on what she wants that she will harm herself in order to accomplish it.  Then you have her advice from Caroline, which is nowhere near unbiased.  Caroline (for good reason) has never approved of Damon and Elena together, so I am not expecting much from her right now.

Speaking of Caroline, I would have felt bad about the embarrassment she underwent at the hands of Enzo if it hadn’t been for the fact that the embarrassment was an honest attempt to help her.  A little mean spirited, but still an attempt to help.  Stefan has been so clueless about Caroline’s feelings that someone needed to give him that good solid smack upside the head with a 2x4 to get him to see what has been the elephant in the room.  I do think she was being a little unfair to Stefan when she said that if he felt the way she did he would never have left.  He did think he had lost his brother and his hometown, so he wanted to get away.  I don’t think he feels quite the same way about her that she feels about him, but I suspect that he has also never really thought about it because (until recently) he has been in the middle of Salvatore-Elena drama and hasn’t thought about *ANYONE* that way.  They do say that hate and love are two sides of the same coin, so the fact that she hates him is not necessarily a bad thing…

Bonnie was really smart.  Since Kai can drain magic to use on his own, she put her magic into her bear and sent it back to the real world.  Presumably, that should trap her and Kai in the hell they are in, but I am betting that Jo is somehow going to be instrumental in bringing Bonnie back.  I just hope that she can do it without bringing Kai back or somehow prepares herself to bring him back because, unless I am very mistaken, he is the brother who tried to kill her.  That is going to be incredibly awkward.

Then there is Liam.  Meeting a supposedly dead ex is very awkward.  And then said ex compels him and leaves with Elena.  Yeah, that is definitely going to be awkward.  Compound that with his knowledge that the girl Elena helped has undergone some seriously radical healing and that Elena knows something and the awkwardness gets ratcheted up another level.

Matt has been caught is a really bad situation.  He wants Mystic Falls to stay safe, but at the same time he wants his friends to be safe too.  Tripp, unfortunately, is not helping with the second and that is why Matt turned on him.  But when Enzo turned Tripp into a vampire so he would die when he stepped over the border, Matt was definitely upset and shocked.  I hope this doesn't portend some kind of revenge story for Matt, because that would end badly.  Also, when the heck did Enzo have time to turn Tripp?  The process normally takes a while, and wouldn't Tripp notice that his throat had been cut?  The other thing that gets me is that most new vampires feel different, so why didn't Tripp?  Sorry, but as much as I enjoyed Tripp getting his comeuppance, it felt like *REALLY* lazy and shoddy writing.

Until next week!

My Review of The Originals 2.06- Wheel Inside the Wheel

We see someone who scares Esther, Cami discovers the truth about Finn, Esther learns the truth about Mikael and Kol, Klaus meets his father, and Hayley sets out on a mission...

Wow, this was so not Esther’s week.  She may have her hands on Elijah, but Klaus (as always) is infinitely slipperier.  He also lays some truth on her that obviously has her rattled.  When he told her that Mikael was back and that Kol knew, she was shaken and he managed to twist the knife just a little bit more for good measure.

Seeing the past about her and her sister was definitely interesting.  Turns out Esther was having trouble conceiving and had given up magic, so she went to her sister Dalia to get a fertility spell.  As everyone knows, magic comes with a price.  The price for fertility?  Esther’s firstborn and the firstborn of every future generation of Mikaelsons.  Which, up to now, has not been an issue what with them being vampires and all.  But now that Hope has been born, she belongs to Dalia.  If Dalia does not get her price, she will come after all of the Mikaelsons and that has Esther worried.  If someone can worry Esther, that is someone who is so not to be trifled with.  Oh, and Freya (the first born of Esther and Mikael) did not die of the plague.  Rather, she was taken away by Dalia.  I so hope we don’t have another Mikaelson sibling on our hands because this is bad enough as it is.  Throw in another sibling and things will be even worse.

So Klaus’ true father is back from the Other Side, dragged back by Esther before it collapsed last year.  And he is one badass mofo.  He is also apparently a king among werewolves because he has no qualms ordering Hayley around and is super protective of his wolves, although he will kill them if he needs to.  Klaus, naturally, is not thrilled with the prospect of another parent coming back.  If Ansel ever runs into Mikael…I shudder.  Those two would have to hate each other with a passion that would be of a similar magnitude of Klaus and Mikael, particularly since Mikael killed Ansel and then hung him on a stake.  I don’t know if Ansel would stand much of a chance against Mikael, but he would probably make a good showing of himself.

So Cami now knows that her advisor is Finn and she is not happy about it.  But she also has a weapon she can use against Finn: herself.  Bat her eyelashes a few times and give him some winsome looks and he will be in her power.  Wonder what Esther is going to make of that development.  Cami does need to be careful about inserting herself in the middle of this Mikaelson war because she is the most likely to end up as collateral damage.  Everyone else has a supernatural advantage of some sort, which she definitively does not.  But she does have 2 protectors in the forms of Klaus and Marcel, so she might stand a chance.  And Davina seems fond of her, so she may not be so bad off after all.

Hayley is definitely stepping up to the plate.  She rescued Oliver this week and tried to get Jackson to help her (which is where she found Ansel).  While she couldn’t get Jackson to help, rescuing Oliver seems to have an impact on him, so hopefully he’ll step up now.

Oh and Esther, slitting your son’s throat is *NOT* good parenting.  Just FYI.

Until next week!

My Review of Vampire Diaries 6.06- The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get

Damon returns to some serious surprises, Jeremy deals with losing Bonnie, the gang sets out on a rescue mission, Jo has a big surprise in store for Elena and Alaric, and Alaric experiences a life-changing moment…

Poor Damon.  He has been struggling to get back for so long now and when he finally does, he discovers that his best friend (Alaric) has compelled his girlfriend (Elena) to forget all about him and everyone (including his brother Stefan) had given him up for dead and stopped looking for him.  To top it all off, he feels compelled to lie to everyone about what happened to Bonnie in order to spare them the pain, so he has to deal with it on his own.  Welcome back Damon, you moved right from one hell to another.  To make for a wonderful topper to all that, when Elena finally decides to see him (after fleeing out a window at one point), he is attacked by a group of vampire hunters and nearly killed after being taken into Mystic Falls.  Yeah, wonderful welcome back.

After Damon, I think Jeremy had the roughest week.  Fortunately, I suspect that this was rock bottom for him.  If he can finally accept that Bonnie is gone, maybe he can move on.  My heart absolutely broke when he broke down at the pool table.  That poor guy has been through so much and he really deserves a break of some sort.  The only thing is that when (not if, but when) Bonnie returns, he is going to be seriously pissed at Damon.  To be honest, I think Damon is doing the right thing.  Since there is presumably no way out of that hell now, he is giving everyone the best chance they have to move on from losing Bonnie.

Alaric’s week wasn’t great either.  At least he is still alive and no longer a vampire.  The downside to this is that he can’t do anything to unlock Elena’s memories of Damon.  She knows that the memories are real, but I am curious if she can (or will) do anything to restore them.  Since they were within the town limits and anti-magic border when Alaric almost died, I am assuming that Jo didn’t do anything magical to save Alaric’s life.  If she did, then she is one freaking powerful witch or she knows some way around the gypsies’ anti-magic spell.

I can’t really blame Caroline for not wanting to be friends with Stefan.  He seriously needs to wake up and smell the coffee.  She is so hurt because she loves him and things ain’t gonna be right until he realizes that and figures out what he wants to do.  At least Caroline and Elena have each other right now.  They are going to need each other to get through the final “loss” of Bonnie.

Hopefully Matt’s warning to Sarah will be heeded.  While I get that she wants to know about where she came from, if she ever figures out that Damon was the one who killed both of her parents, it is not going to be good.  Then again, she may be able to help Jeremy move on, so maybe she should stick around for that.

Until next week!

My Review of The Originals 2.05- Red Door

Esther plays mind games with Elijah, Mikael and Klaus continue their feud and others get involved, and Davina realizes who she has been hanging out with…

So, according to Esther, Elijah killed Tatia and it was only then that Esther used her blood to seal the curse that locked away Klaus’ wolf side.  Forgive me if I am more than a little skeptical about this new development.  Is it possible that it is true?  Sure it is, but given Esther’s powers and her oft-stated desire to convince her children that they are abominations and monsters, I wouldn’t put it beyond her to make that up in order to try and break Elijah down.  So until there is verification from a more trustworthy source, I am going to take this new development with a healthy helping of salt.

I must say that I found it interesting how quickly Davina accepted Kaleb as Kol and worked with him.  Granted, he did save her life, but given her dislike for all things Mikaelson, it was rather sudden.  Then again, Kol does have as much reason to hate his parents as Davina hates Klaus, so maybe it is not all that surprising.  Then there is the old trope about how the enemies of my enemies are my friends, so she may simply be being practical.  Or it could be good old fashioned hormones.  After all, Kol has always been devastatingly cute, no matter what body he happens to be inhabiting at the time.  Maybe it is a combination of these different factors or none of them, so we’ll have to wait and see what she does.

I was impressed with how Cami handled herself with Mikael.  He is a pretty scary dude, but she still managed to throw in a few good zingers and some psychoanalysis.  Granted, none of that really had much of an impact on Mikael, but it was still impressive.  What the kidnapping did manage to do was convince Cami that Mikael is beyond redemption and force the whole group to gang together to fight Mikael.  While Hayley and Marcel siding with Klaus was unsurprising and Kol siding with him only mildly surprising, Davina saving him was very surprising.  I get that it was the only way to save Marcel and Josh, but it was still surprising.

And Davina continues to show us why she is someone to be feared.  She has figured out how to delink Klaus from his line and would have accomplished her goal had Kol not interfered.  She also managed to keep the white oak stake from killing Klaus while simultaneously holding off Mikael for a good period of time.  She is smart, powerful, and determined, so it is best to be on her good side.  While I wouldn’t place high hopes on her lasting long in a contest with Esther alone, she would probably last long enough to allow others to try something to take Esther down if they worked together.

That cooperation is going to be vital to taking down both Mikael and Esther.  No one in the group is strong enough to take on either individually, but if they work collectively (like they did tonight), they have a better than even chance of taking them down.  Finn is a bit of a wild card, but I bet that he could be taken out of the situation early if they tried.  The wild cards at this point are going to be Elijah and Kol.  Kol seems to have thrown his lot in with Davina, but who knows what will happen with Elijah now that Esther is messing with his mind.

Until next week!