#tvd rewatch

+I like how close they are able to show us Stefan and Lexi are in just the one episode. There’s an ease in their friendship that we’ve literally never seen Stefan have with anyone else on the show. Even his dynamic with Elena, which he has thrown his whole self into, is an entirely different dynamic. Like they were always going to be “an epic love” and therefore they couldn’t just be friends and laugh in the beginning. That would happen later, but they had to be dramatic first. LOL. Which I guess fits with his logic later that “you can either be friends with someone or in love with someone, not both”. Which he changes his mind on, but damn man, you need some therapy.

+It is funny to see how they changed things with Lexi. Here she’s drinking blood bags and offering them to Stefan. She’s talking about how she tried it his way and couldn’t last very long on the animal diet. That’s handled a lot differently later. But I did like that they showed a vampire that fit in the in-between of Damon and Stefan; she wasn’t hurting humans but she wasn’t denying her vampire nature either.

+Man, Damon didn’t just kill Lexi on Stefan’s birthday, he carefully orchestrated every bit of it and made himself appear the hero. On top of that, it looked like Lexi could have actually survived the attack from the council/cops if he hadn’t intervened. Like, he could have orchestrated things so that the town had its vampire, knew who it was, and was trying to find her, AND she couldn’t have come back to Mystic Falls or been near Stefan, which was obviously a part of this, but still not been killed. But nope, he had to stake her. On his brother’s birthday. His one friend. But yeah, Stefan’s the worst brother because *checks notes* he talked Damon in transitioning with him over a hundred years before, when he had just turned himself, was high on blood, and was scared of living without his big brother. Like I don’t think Stefan is a good person in the sense that he isn’t capable of a bad things or hasn’t done a bunch of unforgivable things. He has and does over the course of the show. There is no good Salvatore brother in that sense. I mean, really as the show goes on, there are fewer and fewer good people, and mostly just survivors of Mystic Falls. BUT if we’re talking about just whose the better brother in the sense of how they treat each other….Well, lets just say I don’t get how people pick Damon.

+Liz, you have Damon in your office, why are you not questioning him about dating your teenage daughter? You literally saw them together and questioned her about it just a couple of episodes ago. Why are you not questioning him. I mean, I get, he would have lied or possibly compelled her to forget about it (don’t know if Liz actually had vervain yet, since that’s literally what they’re talking about here), but you know, sometimes the point is that you tried. And Liz didn’t try. All the parents just failing their children so early on. Tanner was on Jenna in like episode three for not doing enough, but she at least seems to be putting an effort in. Its not her fault she’s only been a parental figure for two seconds. She also has no idea about the supernatural when everybody else seems to know.

+This episode is exactly why Caroline needed a vervain necklace as well from Stefan. At this point he does have access to Zach’s vervain, so he should have been doling it out. Caroline tries to stand up to Damon, wants nothing to do with him, but then he compels her and she just doesn’t have a choice anymore. And he’s so unnecessarily mean to her. HE can’t get the pendant from Bonnie and he’s a freaking vampire, how is Caroline supposed to get it when he can’t? The fact that he continues to use her as his emotional punching bag even after he stopped using her physically as one is so frustrating. And he’ll continue to do that even after she’s a vampire. And the people around her tell her to ‘not let her treat her like that’ Like she has a choice? I know Bonnie doesn’t know about vampires yet, and she was well within her rights to be mad at Caroline for trying to forcibly take the necklace back (Bonnie doesn’t know she’s been compelled, so yeah, seems like a pretty sucky friend move), but she does know that Damon’s been abusing her and messing with her mind. Caroline’s “as opposed to how my best friend treats me” is also very earned.

+Matt rides that wave between nice guy and “nice guy”. I mean, he doesn’t have to take Caroline home, or help her out. He could pass her off to Bonnie or Elena, or call her mother, or just leave her to her own devices altogether. So, it is nice that he’s sympathetic and willing to go out of his way to help her. But also, dude, she is obviously upset maybe confirming to her that you see her as shallow isn’t really necessary? I mean, as it pointed out in the next few episodes, they don’t actually know each other very well. Their periphery friends and while they might spend time together, its because of other people not their own connection. So he doesn’t actually know her very well. So maybe don’t go around telling upset drunk girls that they are in fact shallow, when you don’t actually know that much about them. I mean would he appreciate it if she told him that he just seemed like a dumb jock? I’m thinking he wouldn’t.