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I loved Katherine and all of the flashbacks and I was overall very happy with the episode, but it was hard for me to enjoy some scenes because Damon (and Matt!) were making me rage so much.

Okay first of all, Damon was never compelled by Katherine, he told Stefan this himself. He choose to learn from Katherine how to feed and kill innocent people when he was still human. Damon does have the right to dislike Katherine for messing him around when she clearly preferred Stefan, but blaming his entire life on her is just too much. Damon choose to develop a 150 year obsession with opening the tomb, that's why Bonnie's Grams was endangered. If anything Damon's obsessive tendencies were an inconvenience to Katherine when she was trying to fake being dead, she never asked for him to became completely obsessed with her when she'd just been looking for some fun. He has a right to be mad at her for playing him back in the day, but to blame Katherine for his own obsessions and failings, umm no. I couldn't stand the hypocrisy when they were all sat there blaming everything that ever happened ever on Katherine. Matt was doing shots with Damon (who killed Vicky purely for sport when he was bored), and Damon's going to raise a glass to Matt's saying that was all Katherine's fault?!?!?!??!

Both Klaus and Damon planning to torment Katherine on her deathbed was just really gross and sadistic, although at least Klaus never got there in the end. Stefan was the one brother who actually was compelled and mislead as to Katherine's true nature, but you don't see him blaming his entire life choices on Katherine and saying that she was the one who killed his father or whatever, the same way that Damon makes ridiculous analogies about all of his actions should really be owned by Katherine. I just couldn't stand him this episode, urgh when he was deliberately trying to torment Katherine by injecting her again so that he could keep going back to the flashbacks of her dead family, what a creep. And it was for the best that Elijah wasn't there frankly because he also tried to blame his rift with his brother on Katherine, and their arc in season 4 was mostly about whether Elijah can learn to trust Katherine after all of the terrible things that she's done, even though Elijah was the one hunting down human Katherine because of her not doing what she was told and agreeing to be sacrificed in a ritual by two men.

Really the other characters viewpoint of Katherine is so disturbing that I can never tell if we're meant to recognise it or not because in this episode especially they all seemed to see it that way when they were doing shots and tracing all of their problems back to Katherine ~the root of all evil~ Just as season 4 played it totally unironically when Elijah was having doubts about whether he could trust Katherine and how much he missed "my Katerina", and she had to prove herself by handing over the cure, yet there was no acknowledgment of their actual past and that maybe Elijah owed it to Katherine to give her that cure right back so that she could finally protect herself from his sadistic brother

There is just such a ridiculous double standard with Katherine. With both Katherine and Rebekah actually to an extent. Rebekah also constantly had it held over her head that she caused Elena's car accident and is therefore a bad and unforgiveable person, yet Damon's past deeds are almost forgotten and he gets to join in funeral rituals in 402 without the characters even acknowledging that he killed half of the people that they are mourning! (The characters do hold more against Klaus granted, but only for things that he's actually done like kill Jenna, while Katherine gets blamed whether or not she even played a direct role in what happened)

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OMG, this flaw-free post. 100% WORD TO EVERY.SINGLE.WORD.

Particularly the bit about Kalijah which just...UGHHHHHHHH. I still get mad over that nonsense.

It would it have bothered me so much less with Elijah if the show hadn't taken it seriously that he was this great and noble man trying to decide whether or not he could still see his Katerina in there, I just couldn't tell if the writers did want us to remember the past with those two characters because there was absolutely no acknowledgement of Elijah being the one to betray Katherine and hunt her down for Klaus

I was happy with Elena's final moments with Katherine, and Caroline convincing Klaus to let Katherine die in peace, but all of the self-congratulating going on with Damon at the Salvatore's was way too much. This coming from someone who has been hunting down innocent people since the 1950's to slaughter because of what their ancestor did to him. From someone who has tried to kill Matt in season 4, Bonnie in season 1, Jeremy in season 2, and Caroline in seasons 1 and 2, who DID kill Vicky, yet he wants everyone to get together to celebrate how heinous and unforgivable Katherine is and they're just happily doing shots with him

Edited 2014-01-25 19:26 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me why I finally quit this show.

What season was it you quit? Urgh it just makes me really furious this episode, there's always this mindset of redemption for Damon with the other characters coming round to accept him, yet Katherine is just treated as the scum of the earth full stop!

Caroline is the only character who does call out Damon for being a bad person, and the fandom and the other characters constantly attack her for judging him. Sooo how dare Caroline fail to play nice with Elena's boyfriend, after he abused her and fed from her for months in her junior year of high school, but Damon can play the victim about what Katherine did to him 150 years ago all he likes and get sympathy for it.

(not been watching)

So did Katherine actually die?

And ugh to character inconsistency. I saw a quote from Ian Somerhalder about Damon blaming Katherine for things that were clearly his decision when he was human, and it made me go ugh then.

Yep, Ian talks here about Katherine compelling Damon and turning him into a monster http://www.wetpaint.com/vampire-diaries/articles/2013-11-27-spoilers-damon-wants-katherine-dead I was really surprised at him buying into the victimisation of Damon as well, it was a really big deal in season 1 that Damon was never compelled and he did work alongside Katherine to trap victims, finding the blood distasteful and getting his handkerchief out lol. Stefan was the one that was completely manipulated by Katherine and had to be compelled when he saw her true face, really when you look at a lot of what's happened with the characters I wouldn't even say that what Katherine did to Damon was all *that* awful in comparison. Stefan and Caroline were both actually compelled and mind-controlled when they were victimised, but Damon knew all along that Katherine was a vampire and made his own choices, he just let himself be mislead as to how much Katherine actually cared for him over his brother. He has the right to feel screwed over and want to avoid Katherine, but blaming her for everything that went wrong and acting like she's the devil incarnate in his life is just insulting. Damon was the one choosing to make Katherine his lifelong obsession and never move past her, it's not like he was compelled into loving her...

In this episode Damon even gets inside her head and tries telling her that her family being killed by Klaus is all Katherine's fault for not letting Klaus kill her, it's seriously nasty stuff. It bothers me because the show has seemed to endorse that mindset in the past with Elijah presented as being in the right for holding a grudge over Katherine fleeing Klaus. Not to mention Elena's willingness to sacrifice her own life being contrasted with Katherine in season 2, it's as if that makes Katherine the bad guy for just wanting to survive and valuing her life

And Katherine has been dying of old age all season, but at the end of last episode she swapped bodies with Elena. So technically her body is dead, but for now she's still around

Edited 2014-01-26 00:08 (UTC)

Yeah, the show has been increasingly bad on the messages it endorses. And like, I don't even know how to properly explain it? The characters do bad things, but the show also seems to be on their side? Like last season, with the no morality questioned decision to kill the Originals (and every other vampire they're connected to). And like, I don't have a *problem* with characters who are like "genocide, cool", but there's just almost no acknowledgment that this is a problematic things. Contrast that to say, Breaking Bad or Hannibal, where you have the protagonists doing horrible things, but the show just presents it, as well as the fallout from it.

But TVD has long annoyed me with characters judging other characters or rooting for other characters, because it's not skillfully done as huge character flaws, it's like I can hear the writers talking out of their mouths.

And Katherine has been dying of old age all season, but at the end of last episode she swapped bodies with Elena. So technically her body is dead, but for now she's still around

I hate to ask, but, how does that work? Where is Elena then?

Yes exactly! It's like Elena and the other regulars can do terrible things all of the time, like conspiring to kill Finn in order to kill Klaus by association, or kill Kol and thousands of vampires they've never even met in order to activate the hunters curse and save Elena, but the show doesn't even trust it as a big deal any more because hey they're the protagonists. Yet characters like Katherine and Rebekah get hammered for what they did over and over again, even though objectively it's not like Katherine was all that much worse than Damon when he came to town and killed couples in cars, killed Matt's sister, killed Jeremy, tried to kill Bonnie when he was mad at Emily, inadvertently contributed to the death of her grams, used Caroline as a slave and as a human bloodbag, yet that all gets overlooked and Caroline is told off when she keeps stressing that Damon is not a good person and Elena is indignant on how 'he's always been there for me when I needed him'.

And you can't really argue that it's because Katherine, Rebekah, and even Klaus are the only characters to personally harm the regulars, and so them being hated more makes sense. There's Damon and Stefan flipping a coin on who has to kill Bonnie's mother as late as season 3, Damon trying to kill Matt in the season 4 premiere for daring to survive when Elena died, yet everyone is just over events like that within a few episodes and never holds a grudge, while Katherine is treated as truly diabolical by characters like Matt and Bonnie who have been far less personally wronged by her then they have been by Damon???

And Katherine comes from a line of travelers apparently and they can take over someone's body. I think that she and Elena will share it? Although none of the other characters are aware of what Katherine has done so far

but the show doesn't even trust it as a big deal any more because hey they're the protagonists

I HATE protagonist privilege. And more than that, I hate what you've described, where the protagonists do exactly the same types of things as the villains, yet continue to act like the villains are just so ~evil, and narrative seems to be behind them. This didn't happen so much in S1 and S2. Like, sure, let's just all be amoral vampires, but let's not act like any character is ~worse than others, because they're all just as bad. They are all just as bad. But it's never framed that way.

And Katherine comes from a line of travelers apparently and they can take over someone's body.

Of course she does. lol.

It seems like the difference is whether characters prioritise Elena or not.... Elena will get prissy with Damon for a few episodes when he kills Bonnie's mother, but she never really stays mad at him when he does those things for her, and so neither does anyone else in her social group. But characters like Klaus, Rebekah, and Katherine who have tried to personally harm Elena, now they are REALLY bad and are forever thought of that way (and I don't even like Klaus particularly, but at this point is he really any worse than Damon?)

Look at how the show was totally un-ironic in presenting Elena as being justifiably furious when Damon sleeps with Rebekah in season 3 after 'she tried to kill me', and I remember being surprised at the time at the double standard because the show never made a big deal of Elena standing by Damon and Stefan when they hurt her friends (especially season 1 when Damon was an out and out villain to characters like Caroline and Bonnie, yet around that time Elena was hugging him in sympathy over Katherine and bargaining for his life), so I always assumed that it was something that you just overlook as part of the premise of the show, that when vampires are involved we should overlook a little more and not take things like murder and assault so seriously. But the show made a huge deal of it being a personal betrayal of Elena when Damon was the one to get involved with Rebekah after she harmed Elena, yet if Caroline or Bonnie say anything against Damon or Delena after what he's done to them in the past (and their love ones in the case of Bonnie) then it becomes about judging Elena's relationship and how unfair not to be happy for her when she was so excited to share the news

I'm never sure if we are we supposed to pick up on any of that?

Edited 2014-01-26 11:19 (UTC)

so I always assumed that it was something that you just overlook as part of the premise of the show, that when vampires are involved we should overlook a little more and not take things like murder and assault so seriously

Yeah, I remember having discussions about how the show has amnesia and you're just supposed to go with it. Because any character (except Stefan, who can defend himself and is on equal playing ground) would have to be INSANE to have anything to do with Damon after the things he did. Yet, it's all no big deal later. I just sort of figured that a suspension of disbelief came with the whole 'vampire' aspect. At least until S3 or so, when the show/characters starts dumping on other characters and holding a grudge over things that everyone has done.

I'm never sure if we are we supposed to pick up on any of that?

Honestly, I don't think it was intentional, because it's not done well enough. I mean, if the show was trying to paint the characters as hypocritical and horrible, well, I don't even know how to finish that sentence, because this is a CW teen show and they're not actually going to have a completely unlikeable protagonist. It just seems like sloppy writing to me. Characters are 'good' or 'bad', and it doesn't matter what they do. If they're good they'll be forgiven, if they're bad they'll have it held over their heads forever.

I think that also with Damon early on it's emphasised as being a special trait of Elena's to be so forgiving and a sign of how much compassion she has. And they occasionally did that with other characters, like Rose in season 2 after Elena wasn't too harsh on her about the kidnapping when she found out that it was to save Trever, but then yeah by season 3 it felt like the show had switched to judging the villains for ways they had personally harmed them or their friends which felt very jarring. Like should Elena really have been questioning Damon sleeping with Rebekka after she tried to kill her, Elena was hanging out with Damon as a friend in season 1 after he had done just that to Bonnie and Caroline!

Or I guess that you could argue that Elena and co overlook it more if other characters are doing them wrong for the ~right reasons~ , if it's to protect someone else, because they can also relate too that? Characters like Katherine are judged more harshly because they're just about protecting themselves and no one wants to admit that they have anything in common with that attitude

Although I should add that the end of the episode did redeem how awful Damon and Klaus are when Stefan was the voice of compassion and saying that Katherine shouldn't be blamed for Klaus killing her family when she was just a 17 year old girl, but the show has kind of taken a weird tone with that in the past with Katherine's survivors instinct being seen as a bad thing next to Elena being willing to martyr herself

I'm kind of LOLing that KLAUS was brought back for the 100th episode.

They brought him back to have completely random sex with Caroline :eyeroll: There were five second cameos from the other originals too, and a few dead characters making appearances

So they've actually had sex now?

I really shouldn't be so interested in a show I can't stand anymore, lol. Really, I quit reading episode reviews and everything.

It was strange because they haven't appeared together all season, so it felt like such fan service this episode. Klaus is looking for Katherine because he's heard that she's dying, Caroline argues with him not to keep pursing revenge, and eventually asks if he will leave her ( Caroline) alone for good if she admits her feelings for him, and then they suddenly just have a really rushed 30 second sex scene in the woods...It was weirdly unsexy too considering that I think they have had chemistry in the past, but this just seemed like something they wanted to get done and over with for the sale of fan pandering and ratings quite frankly

Well and I think that it was also there to cause conflict with Tyler who's now back in town. Also writers interviews have been discussing how Caroline will have to change her views on Delena since being honest with herself about her attraction to Klaus. I don't see why having sex with Klaus one time should change her views on Damon being a good person or not though, it's not like Caroline has ever argued that Klaus is a good guy? She's just sexually attracted to him and trying to fight that, but apparently she will be more accepting of Derena since having sex with Klaus anyway :shrugs:

Edited 2014-01-26 11:28 (UTC)

ugh, pandering.

I don't see why having sex with Klaus one time should change her views on Damon being a good person or not though, it's not like Caroline has ever argued that Klaus is a good guy?

It shouldn't. OTOH, I know I was pitching a fit in S3 when Caroline was lecturing Elena about how Damon was Bad News and how she should go get with Stefan again (who also murdered people, HELLO?), and then in the next scene she was giggling with Klaus as he teased her and talked about hummingbirds or something. You don't really have the right to call someone on their murderous boyfriend when you're also having feelings for a murderer. She's never said Klaus was a nice guy, but wearing the pretty dress he sent you and listening to him talk about art isn't exactly setting a high standard for a No Evil Guys policy.

Honestly I understood Caroline's attitude there because of her very different experiences with Damon and Stefan. Stefan helped her out a lot when she first became a vampire (and she didn't have much exposure to ripper Stefan), so she's always going to think of him as deep down a good guy. Whereas Damon was an extremely abusive boyfriend to her in early season 1, so I can understand her being really turned off at the idea of Elena being attracted to him.

The show doesn't emphasise that enough and have Caroline outright tell Elena the reasons for her repulsion over Damon as her friends romantic choice. But then at the same time I think that a lot changed for Caroline when she became a vampire, and she doesn't like to think of who she was as a human and remind her friends of that time (not that I personally ever had a problem with season 1 Caroline!), so she sticks to making vague comments about Damon being a 'man slut' instead. But I think that the issues must be more deep-rooted for her there as her reactions are generally so extreme whenever the subject of Delena comes up, even though she does work alongside Damon and tolerate him in other ways, so IMO her reactions only make sense if it's just a part of her reacting so strongly to the idea of anyone dating Damon after her own experiences with that

I really wish the show would have the guts to go there, then. But they don't. They barely acknowledge that anything happened to Caroline at all. Yes, she was under compulsion, but the show never gives it the more serious treatment (rape) that it deserved, so they just have Caroline being generally pissy with Damon. The thing is, and I haven't watched the early seasons in a while, she didn't seem to have a real problem working with him anywhere in there? But suddenly S3 hits and she's all "Damon is bad!" I get that her experiences with Stefan were better, but I can't believe that she's ignorant of everything he did. But really, S3 annoyed me with the championing of one brother over the other, as well *every single character's* sudden desperate interest in the triangle.

I keep waiting for the show to go there as I think that it would make for a really interesting scene if Caroline did ever confront Elena over doesn't it bother her how Damon treated her friend in the past, and at one point I did believe that the show was going there eventually as Caroline's reactions to Delena just keep on getting more vocal, so it did seem like the writers were building up to making a point. But then interviews lately have made me wonder if they're just going to sidestep the whole thing, give in to audience response, and have Caroline apologise to Elena and acknowledge that she also slept with a bad guy like Klaus

And I think that Caroline's attitude changed in season 3 after Elena confessed that she kissed Damon in the season 2 finale. I would say that she tolerated Damon before that, and even now she doesn't really say much to Damon himself, it's just when she's around Elena that she's so repulsed by the idea of Elena actually dating Damon or being attracted to him, and I do think that must be a subconscious reaction to thinking of Damon as boyfriend material and how he treats women that he's dating. The writers could tone it down a bit with 'Stefan is your epic love' definitely lol as that only makes it appear that Caroline is all about the love triangle, but I've just always figured that there must be more deep-rooted issues there for Caroline to spend the last three seasons shuddering at the thought of her friend dating Damon and never letting that go, even when the writers know how much that's making some of the audience turn against her and call her a hypocrite for favouring Stefan

At any rate, I'm reminded why I stopped watching the show, lol. I just don't know what the writers are doing half the time.

Heh same

Ew, ew, ew, that is so out of character for her.

It was ridiculous, and I bet that Candice wasn't very happy about it either. I can buy that some part of Caroline is also attracted to Klaus and secretly charmed by his fascination with her, but to just randomly decide to sleep with him (after not even having any contact with him for months) was so out of the blue and not in character. If they had to have a scene like that, it should have at least happened back when Klaus was still on the show and they could build up to it more

I guess Damon being such a bastard in this ep served to illustrate his point from the previous ep: that he's a baaaad person. Like we don't know that already O_o On the one hand, this is definitely not OOC for him, so I can make peace with him torturing Katherine (whoever says he has to be rational? he's mad at her, he blames her for everything, it doesn't have to logically be true), but ugh, that was such a low blow anyway. It made me want to snap his neck (which luckily did happen to him anyway XD).
Rebekah also constantly had it held over her head that she caused Elena's car accident and is therefore a bad and unforgiveable person, yet Damon's past deeds are almost forgotten and he gets to join in funeral rituals in 402 without the characters even acknowledging that he killed half of the people that they are mourning! This is sooo true, but apparently Damon gets a free pass now b/c Elena loves him. As much as I've always shipped D/E (originally b/c I just liked Damon more than Stefan, but now also b/c I found out I happen to like Stefan on his own but he turns into smth unbearable when he's having Elena-related drama), I feel that their ship is getting more and more unhealthy with each new ep. I understand that she can forgive the shit he did in the past. I don't even have a problem with that b/c well, love is a weird thing, etc. BUT he keeps doing shit! He's just told her he secretly killed some people while they were together! And her reaction was: ...that's ok, I love you? After that, it's really not all that strange that he gets pardoned for the type of things Rebekah or anyone else will never be forgiven for. *sigh*
maybe Elijah owed it to Katherine to give her that cure right back so that she could finally protect herself from his sadistic brother I have serious issues with Elijah in general. I want to like him because he often comes off as the sanest one of the Mikalesons, but GOD, his fixation on Klaus and family kills me! Yes, dude, we get it, family means a lot to you, but your brother is a major murderous selfish dickhead! Klaus is one of my top favourite TVD/The Originals characters, but I still don't understand where the hell Elijah's iron-clad faith in his redemption comes from. He's a douche, he doesn't want to change, so stop sacrificing everything for him. I feel like the show is going out of its way to set Elijah up as this noble, moral character but there is nothing noble about letting countless people die by Klaus's hand and then going all: Noooo, brother, this was baaaad, don't doooo that again.
LOL, sorry for the rant. >_< Anyhow, your post is great, the authors of this stupid show should see it and LEARN! :))

Yeah I think that there was meant to be a lot of carry-over from last episode when Enzo said that Damon was the most important person in his life and he ruined him and that he's a monster, so Damon kind of did the same thing this episode with saying that Katherine ruined him by teaching him how to kill. But I just don't see how he can make that argument when he said himself in the past that she never compelled or controlled him. It seemed like she affected his life the most in how obsessed he got with finding her again and how much he loved her, he never used to condemn her for being the one to teach him how to kill and making him into a monster, so it wasn't even a big deal to him until she rejected him and he started building her up in his head as the worst ever. Let's face it if anything Stefan was the one who first encouraged Damon to personally kill someone as a vampire anyway. I need to remind myself of those season 1 episodes, but from what I remember he never actually killed anyone with Katherine, she just taught him how to drink blood and how to get someone to pull over for you? Again yes bad, but Stefan was the one who WAS manipulated into drinking Katherine's blood and turning, Damon did it all willingly with the belief that they would be together after that, so I don't see how he can blame all of his choices on Katherine now. Blame her for misleading you over the strength of her feelings, but not the rest of it

And yeah I found it so awkward that Elena didn't even say anything to condemn Damon for pulling a total Klaus and killing people the summer that they were together based on some long-ago revenge plan, Damon is the only one condemning himself at the end of 510 for being a monster, all Elena will say is that she stands by her choice to be with him?!? I've seen speculation that Damon may have been the one that caused the crash that killed Elena's parents even as her father was involved in experimenting on vampires, and I bet that Elena would have something to say about that. Yet she's not even the one to break-up with Damon when she finds out that he's been killing people who had nothing to do with his original torture? I was cheering him on when he dug out the eyes of the man that was torturing him, but the rest of the story was really monstrous and you'd think that Elena of all people would emphasise with a survivor being left over and over again with all of their family dead and feeling like they're cursed. Instead she never even said much to Damon over it, just looked a bit sickened when she first found out that he was still doing it when they were together...

It might not sound like it from this entry lol, but I used to really enjoy Damon's character in season 1 when he was a villain and fun to watch, it just feels like the show is always making excuses for him now and having other characters give him a pass. It's season 5 now and he's still doing all of this shit and is totally unredeemed, really all that's changed about him in that time is that he's switched his obsession from Katherine to Elena and so he's protecting more of the regulars like Jeremy and Bonnie now to make Elena happy, but he still has less then no conscience when it comes to killing or harming people that don't mean anything to him

Edited 2014-01-26 11:58 (UTC)

ALL OF THIS. YES. I have become disillusioned with the show lately.

It's very confusing to me the lack of self-awareness that the show seems to have when it still frames Katherine as bad to the bone, yet the protagonists are valuing their own survival in the exact same way. What else can you say about Elena willingly coming up with a plan for Jeremy to kill all of Kol's descendants, and pointing out that will kill thousands of vampires and activate the hunters curse?

The only difference seems to be that it's justified more with Elena because and co because they're protecting loved ones at the same time usually, but then it's not exactly Katherine's fault that her entire family were killed and that turned her into a hardened survivor. Elena lost her parents too, but she still had Jeremy to look out for and was surrounded by people who loved her, while Katherine became a vampire with nothing else in her life but trying to prioritise her own life.

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