Vampires, Witches, and 1994 Hell! -The Vampire Diaries || TV Friday

Hello my friends, it's Friday. Which means it's time for TV Friday.

This particular Friday we're only going to be discussing one TV show, because.. It needs it's own post. Yea, I'm talking about TVD. Also yes, I'm a little late getting this up today. I knew on Tuesday that I was writing about TVD for TV Friday, but I didn't start this post until late, late last night, because procrastination. Once I started the post though, I realized how much I actually had to say and it took me forever to figure out how I was going to organize all of my thoughts. Unfortunately I fell asleep mid-post at 1am, which is my long-winded excuse for why this is late. I'm sorry, yo.

The Vampire Diaries

*spoilers all over the place*

If you've been reading my blog for the last year (ish), then you know that I thought season 5 of The Vampire Diaries was absolutely the worst. I mean, so awful that I was almost, very seriously, done with the show. I stuck it out, for reasons, but it was a long season full of shit. Actual shit. So if you knew all of these thoughts I had been having, then you're really going to be surprised by my next sentence.

Season 6 of The Vampire Diaries has been top notch.

Honestly, not sure it could've gotten worse and my expectations were very low, but wow. This season has been incredible and reminded me why I used to love this show. So let's break it down.

To quickly recap the finale of Season 5 - Mystic Falls is a magic free zone, Bonnie and Damon are on The Other Side somewhere, maybe, Enzo is back, Alaric is also back, but as a vampire, and Tyler isn't a hybrid. Boom, you're caught up.

The Good
-The Season 6 premiere. I was a really big fan of the first episode this season for a lot of reasons. First of all, the writers took a risk and started us off with a 6 month time jump. Practically all of the main characters had separate story lines going on, but yet, things felt more cohesive than all of Season 5. It was good stuff and really started to give the viewer and idea of what's been happening for the past 6 months, but also start up some story lines. I love that Stefan had just given up and was MIA, especially while so many of the other characters were working hard. Elena taking witchy magic herbs to hallucinate Damon was brilliant storytelling, honestly. But then.. THEN the end. The last scene. We finally see Damon and Bonnie. They're wearing flannel, reading a newspaper, and eating pancakes. It was just so.. I just loved that scene.
-The 90's. Bravo to the TVD writers for knowing when to exploit something. The 90s are so, so in right now and transplanting Damon and Bonnie into 1994? I mean, how freaking perfect. GOOD writing, people. Also, such a different and interesting plot line, because I don't think anyone was expecting something like that. I mean, we all knew Damon and Bonnie were going to be alive, but I think all of us thought they'd be in a different PLACE not a different DECADE. It's been fun.
-Damon and Bonnie bonding. Again, such a good plot point because they took 2 characters who openly didn't like each other and threw them into a different decade together, alone (mostly) for over 6 months. I mean, come onnnnn! I loved watching their love/hate relationship and I want so much more of that! TVD, give me more Damon and Bonnie. Also, this is coming from the girl who wanted Bonnie to die for forever.

-Alaric is back. I'll take him back anyway I can get him back. I think this was a situation where TVD got rid of a character and realized they F'd up. The craziness at the end of season 5 was the perfect excuse to bring him back. He did come back and an Original vampire, which.. okay TVD, kind of interesting how we were supposed to follow your shotty explanation of why he's an Original, but still Vampy Alaric was fun for a little while. But homeboy is back to human status now and I'm not mad.
-Yellow Ledbetter. Episode 2 of this season was definitely in my Top 10 of the best TVD episodes ever. The storytelling was just so spot on! I particularly loved the Damon and Bonnie scenes, because this was the episode where we really found out where the hell they were and what has been going on for 6 months, also the big twist at the end - They aren't alone! So good. Enzo stabs Stefan with a fork in the most awkward dinner scene and I loved it. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to stab Stefan with a fork. We have a new character who is a founding family member, surprise, and is casually murders vampires. Really liked that storyline, while it lasted. Oh, and then there's Elena, who in typical Elena fashion, wants Alaric to erase all of her good memories of Damon. Which brings me to my next point..
-HOW they erased Elena's memories of Damon. Specifically how they wrote into the storyline that Alaric had to find the specific memory where Elena fell in love with Damon. Really cute storytelling AND it gave the TVD writers a chance to show some of her memories and have Elena talk about why she loved Damon and talk about the good things about him. This was smart, because there are still a love of Stelena lovers and not Delena lovers, so this was a chance for Elena to really tell the audience good things about Damon and why she loved him. Really, really good storytelling. Also, it let us have cute flashbacks and I'm a sucker for a good flashback scene.

-Kai. Do you know what Kai is? A perfect villain for TVD. The kind of villain TVD lacked after The Originals left for their own show. I am so obsessed with this character. I truly love to hate him. He's straight up psycho, but has a wonderfully dry sense of humor and in a few moments you almost really feel for him.. But then he does something psycho, because.. psycho.
-The Gemini Coven storyline. Everything that TVD lacked in season 5. Also, downright brilliant of the writers to incorporate the twins they introduced to us in season 5, who quickly became fan favorites. I love that this season they introduced us to the characters separately, even mentioned the Gemini Coven in the first and second episode quickly, and then 8 episodes in? Bam, they're all connected. I have to say, I kind of saw all of that coming, BUT I was still really, really happy with it. Complicated families of supernatural beings is what TVD does best, so they need to stick with that.
-That Bonnie is still stuck in 1994. One, I'm really not ready to say goodbye to the 1994 prison yet, because gosh, that was just such a good plot line and something totally different! But two, it's SAD, really sad to see Bonnie completely alone now. Which means there are a lot of different ways the writers could take that and I'm excited. I've not liked the Bonnie character since Season 1 and I really, really wanted her to be a character that dies for good. BUT this entire season has made me love her!! I love.

-The Stefan and Damon reuniting scene. I don't have too much to say about that other than I'm just such a huge sucker for a bromance scene. Stefan finally confronting his feelings about Damon being gone and then Damon actually coming home in the same moment and the hug and ugh.. Perfectly done.

-Stefan and Caroline. I really like this new sort-of love storyline. More than that, I loved that Caroline told Stefan off for being an ass not once, but twice. Atta girl, Caroline! I'm a fan of them together though, I just hope that the TVD writers take it slow. No need to rush it all, ya know? Then you get them together and that's that. Slow build, much better.
-Cancer. How awful am I, but I'm glad we're killing off a character. TVD neeeeeeds it. This one is just plain sad too, so the death will have some serious impact. I have some issues with this storyline too, but when I overlook those, I love this. I'll be so, so sad to see her go though. The last of the parents.
-How they made Mystic Falls into a safe zone again. The magic barrier is down and the gang can head back to Mystic Falls. But mostly, I love how they did that. Good writing that we had a character who can suck magic from people, why not from the ground? Good writing. Also, it says so, so much for the writers that I hadn't spent all 10 of the first episode wondering when they were going to get back into Mystic Falls. I think they no magic barrier was a good plot device and they kept me distracted enough that I barely missed them being in Mystic Falls at all. Good writing.

The Not-So-Good
-Elena erasing her memories. I'm so torn on this, because now that she's aware that she's erased her good memories of Damon, she's a little easier to deal with. I also think it was a cute trick of the TVD writers since this almost made a clean slate for Damon and Elena, so now the audience can watch them fall in love again, basically from scratch, so that's a good trick to keep people interested. I did see it coming that once Alaric erased her memories and they kept talking about how he could un-do it if she wanted, I knew that meant that soon there was going to be a reason that Alaric couldn't un-do it. I mean, obviously. All good stuff. BUT, Elena erasing her memories of Damon is just so.. Elena, and I don't mean that in a good way. The first few episodes after that when she wasn't aware she had erased anything and her friends were pretending for her? The worst. She was almost unbearable to watch. Not Nina Dobrev, I mean the character. Nina is a rockstar. The only thing that made this all okay, was when Damon got to tell Elena that he would never erase his memories of her because he'd rather suffer from missing her then let go of one good memory of her. Boom. Basically he was saying "Elena, you bitch".

The Bad
-Enzo. Just when I start to almost like him again, they make him really annoying. I mean, does his character have any purpose right now other than to be the character who kills everyone so that our main characters don't have to? No. Stop. Our main characters are vampires. They need to kill a person or two or I'm going to think they've lost their touch. Instead, the writers have just made Enzo incredibly annoying.
-That the TVD writers forget their own lore. This happens a lot, but I specifically want to talk about the cancer situation. Stefan made some half-ass attempt to tell Caroline they can't cure her mom's cancer because "if our blood could cure cancer, don't you think we'd have heard about that by now". *side eye* Okay, BUT earlier THIS SEASON, Elena healed that girl at the corn maze and then a few episode later her temporary boyfriend told the audience that the girl Elena healed had had this shoulder injury thing for years and years, but now it was gone. We're supposed to deduce that it was because Elena healed her, right? So now you're trying to tell us that Caroline couldn't heal her mom? I read in some comments on a TVD article that people think we're supposed to believe that actually vampire blood can only heal injures and not diseases. I mean, I'll try to buy that, because I really, really like that Sheriff Forbes is going to die of semi-natural causes instead of something supernatural. It's something different and so good of TVD to acknowledge cancer, but I hate how they explained it and how they muddied the waters with Elena healing that other girl and curing her injury thing. Also, I'll have to rewatch the episodes, because I don't actually remember if her's was a shoulder "injury" or "disease" type thing. Which will annoy me if it wasn't an injury.
-Alaric and Damon are in a bro-fight. I'm so irritated with the writers for this. The whole time Alaric was "dead" we spent time talking about how much Damon missed Alaric and how Alaric was Damon's only really friend and Alaric even said he missed Damon in that one episode. Remember? "I miss you too, buddy". One of my favorite scenes on TVD ever. So when they brought Alaric back and then when Damon came back form 1994 hell, I was pumped for some serious bromancey best friend scenes! Instead, they made Damon take about 342 steps back as a nice guy and compel Alaric, which grrrr, pissed me off. So now they're in a bro-fight. And I'm so angry about it. Not good character development, TVD.

For old time's sake.. Sigh

-TVD writers character development. I talked about it a little in the bullet point above, but it really applies to multiple characters. The writers have an awfully bad habit of progressing a character in a certain way, but then making them do something that their old self would do. Sometimes I kind of get it, because that's real-life too and sometimes it felt right in that storyline. Usually though, TVD does it almost like they forgot they've spent 25 episodes taking their character in one direction. It's always like 4 steps forward 3 steps back kind of thing. It's starting to get a bit annoying for a show that is in it's 6th season. I don't want to watch the characters act exactly like their season 1 or 2 self. Otherwise what was the point of all of the other seasons? Ya know?


So there you have it. I have a ton more I could say, but I really just have to leave this here, because I've written a novel at this point. The Vampire Diaries will be back on The CW next Thursday with a new episode and I am so excited to see where they take things from here.

See you right back here on Monday, friends!