TV Review: Vampire Diaries 3.02 “The Hybrids”

Spoilers!

The episode title sounds like a band name – and like a lot of bands, at the end of the day, someone had a hissyfit, people binged, and some ended up dead. Now that we’ve gotten through the “where are they now” reintroduction of the show, the luxury to concentrate on just one storyline is surfacing. We know Klaus is looking for werewolves, and now he’s found them – this is the Plot Thing of this season (one would imagine – last season was the Year of the Kat, this season is the Winter of Klaus’s Discontent, I can just feel it), and though it’s important, most of the episode is spent on character development elsewhere because Klaus’s one-at-a-time super soldier conversion is a bit of rinse-and-repeat that would be boring to watch for forty minutes. But worry not, there is more than Klaus to fill this episode – it was like Gretchen Wiener’s hair…full of secrets.

Those rooting for Damon and Elena might’ve felt a bit left out to dry after the season premiere – all that simmering sexual tension of the last two seasons (particularly last season), Stefan goes baddie and finally the window is open for Damon to jump through, right? Andie’s dead, no more hoops to jump through! Except here’s the sticking point: Elena still loves Stefan and so does Damon. I admit it was hard for me to believe because Stefan never seemed a particularly loveable guy, being trapped in his own sorrow most of the time, but we’re forced to confront that maybe before this whole Elena thing, Damon had something to envy in Stefan: lasting friendships, enjoyment of his life, while Damon spent all his intervening years angry with the world. However, Damon and Elena fans, worry not – if Damon can’t have her, he’s going to make sure she’s alive and kicking just in case Stefan comes to his senses. After Andie’s death, Damon was convinced that there was no bringing Stefan back – “not in your lifetime”, he informs Elena. But now Elena is on a crusade to get him to come home – Damon has been cured, and she does not share Stefan’s sense of honor regarding his vow to Klaus; she convinced he just has to see her and listen to her very logical argument, and in no time at all, he will come back with them. After guilt-tripping Alaric (he’s the only parental figure these kids have left, after all) into taking her to find the same werewolf pack Stefan and Klaus are after, Elena’s trip is cut short with the appearance of Damon. In one of my favorite moments, he pushes her into a nearby lake, as though it will bring her to her senses. But we all know Elena’s not having any of this “danger Will Robinson” malarkey when her sort-of-evil boyfriend’s soul is at risk. (Who does this girl think she is, the Buffster?) Because Damon is a pushover for Elena, he accompanies her, only to be once more pursued by a werewolf and encountered by Stefan as Elena makes her getaway. It gives Stefan and Damon another chance at a heart-to-heart and I have to give it to Stefan, I thought his message via Andie’s dead body to stay away from him was pretty clear, but Damon is championing for Elena and when he’s in champion mode, he doesn’t take forced suicide for a final answer.

Meanwhile, back in Mystic Falls, Jeremy and new best buddy Matt are trying to put together a seance so that Matt too can see and speak to Vicki, who seems to be trying to get Jeremy’s help. Though, in classic ghost fashion, she doesn’t give him enough information to work with about why she needs help, just that she does. On the cusp of really trying to make something happen, Ana appears to Jeremy and informs him that he must not help Vicki. This storyline only caught my attention at this point, because to be perfectly honest, though I am intended to empathize with Matt as one of the only totally human characters with no funny business in his life, I never really care about him. Whether that’s the writing or the performance, I can’t say. Maybe Matt isn’t ready to be in the spotlight, story-wise. Or maybe I just can’t stand to hear him talk about how wonderful Vicki was and how much he misses her. For a sister who would actually have thrown him in a tub of icewater and removed his kidneys if it meant getting a fix, I don’t really think Vicki deserves the dedication these two guys gave her. I’m waiting for Ana to be a bigger part of the picture.

In the Lockwood house, Tyler seems a little upset but covering it well that Caroline has snuck out in the middle of the night. I’m pleased that he jumps to Caroline’s defense when Mrs. Lockwood asks that if he has girls over that they not sneak out like prostitutes; Caroline and Tyler are both better and worse than Damon and Elena – they acknowledge their friendship, but any chance they have at something more always seems interrupted by someone being in mortal danger. Unlike Damon and Elena where most of the time it’s Elena, Caroline and Tyler seem to split it fairly equally. When Mrs. Lockwood confronts Tyler with Caroline’s vampirism, he informs her he knows, but chastises his mother for a pot-kettle situation…only to discover his mother doesn’t know or hasn’t realized he is a werewolf. Considering the clean up after the first season finale where it was revealed Mayor Lockwood was wolf-blooded, and Mrs. Lockwood’s expert handling of why he wasn’t immune to the vampire device, it was easily assumed she knew she was in league with werewolves. Tyler forcing her to confront this as he changes in front of her (while she’s safely locked away, of course) makes it clear she had no idea. I haven’t decided yet whether I want to call this a story-telling inconsistency or if there is some other secret Mrs. Lockwood thought her husband had. Turns out, Mrs. Lockwood had called in the big guns, a mysterious man (played by the fantastic Jack Coleman of Heroes fame) to ‘take care’ of Caroline, and suddenly with her own skeletons out in full force, she’s rethinking this.

The writers know how to write a fantastic final scene, because Mrs. Lockwood has made abundantly clear that this man is in charge of killing Caroline Forbes in every discussion, yet when her pleas fail to solicit his mercy, he informs her that no vampire should be allowed to live. After hanging up the phone, he enters the cell where Caroline is trapped and the recognition is instantaneous. He acknowledges her by her name, and she him by fond epithet and confused tone of voice as she says “Daddy?”

We know her father has been talked about for two seasons – he’s been painted as a much nicer person than her mother, more indulgent of Caroline, and someone with whom Caroline shares more of her life than she shares with her mother. I got a delicious sort of thrill at the idea that once again, people are keeping secrets. This town is bursting at the seams with secrets and to be honest, I don’t even think they need vampires, werewolves and witches (oh my!) to shake things up – all they have to do is start talking to each other and telling the truth, for what might be the first time in all their lives. I’m even questioning if Mr. Forbes left town because he’s gay and couldn’t be married to Sheriff Forbes anymore – heck, that may have just been another lie because they were disagreeing over some supernatural SECRET.

Back in the forest, Klaus’s hybrids are going crazy and dying, which upsets him terribly. Apparently now that he’s killed the doppleganger, the vampire, and the werewolf and done the special dance, he should be able to feed his blood to werewolves and turn them into hybrids. Since we all know he didn’t do all the steps, and Klaus isn’t long on the uptake, I think it’s safe to assume he at least suspects that Elena still lives. There goes another secret. Though what happens after that is the secret everyone knows, but I was pleased and surprised to see play out like it did. Now that Damon has acknowledged that Stefan can be saved and he and Elena are on the warpath to rescue him, one might assume that for the heightened drama, Damon would go back to his own special brand of brooding about how he will never have Elena. But oh no, he cradles her face in his hands and asks her to remember, when she gets Stefan back, that while he was gone, she felt things (things meaning, obviously, Damon-related fuzzy feelings). It’s scenes like this that make me appreciate Ian Somerhalder as Damon all over again – he never drifts into the broody vampire trope because he insists on confronting everything head-on.

Perhaps that is the root of the difference between he and Stefan. Damon confronts. Stefan closes his eyes and hopes it goes away.

Damon confronts Elena about her feelings and asks her that when Stefan returns, to remember the things she felt while he was gone. (I checked embedding capabilities on at least 36 versions of this clip. Apparently everyone on YT is against embedding this single scene. The rest them are okay, but not this scene. But after going through so many, I couldn’t leave you hanging. So here, have a link instead of embedded content because the entire internet is against me. This is how much I want you to watch this show.)

Next Episode: Put on your best suspenders, it’s time travelling…time! Klaus takes us on a walk down Stefan’s memory lane, Poppa Forbes tries to cure vampirism with judicious application of sunlight, and Damon mouths off at Klaus. Good times.