No Mazzy Star in
“Fade Into You.” Season 6’s only gimmick is mid-90s nostalgia. Kai listened to
the Gin Blossoms at his home, where he prepared a Thanksgiving meal for Bonnie.
“Fade Into You” would’ve fit during the flashback scene to May 10, 1994, in
which Jo tricked her brother and soon watched him disappear into a hellscape,
orchestrated and executed by their father, a man with a salt-and-pepper goatee,
Joshua Park, who disappears into thin air and lives in a cloaked house. The
tragic history of that family, which includes Liv and Lucas, the other set of
living twins from group of siblings split in half, is similar to The
Originals--murderous parents, a psychopathic brother, other powerful family
members, etc., etc. Along with that is a convoluted plan that takes an entire
episode of exposition to set up.
The Originals,
now its own series airing Mondays, were engaging, interesting characters for a
dozen or so episodes. The story continued despite reaching an endpoint
somewhere in season three. The Original family overtook the series. Characters
revolved around Klaus and Rebekah rather than story happening for and because
of Elena, Stefan, and Damon. Klaus always threatened Elena, Jeremy, her
friends, and lovers, but The Vampire Diaries’ writers continued to write for
him and his sister, and the rest of the Originals, because they loved the
family, the history, the drama, the romance, the intrigue. Scholars say William
Shakespeare told someone that, during the writing of Romeo and Juliet, he
needed to kill off Mercutio lest he take over the play and take it from his
Romeo and his Juliet. Perhaps the Gemini Coven family storyline is a way to
re-invent or redo the Originals story before it spiraled into New Orleans and
its own separate thing.
Kai killed his
family because he wanted to make a statement. The convoluted history of the
Gemini coven includes a thing with twins and merging those twins at the age of
22 to create a super person that becomes a leader of the coven. The stronger
one lives while the weaker one dies. Liv’s sad throughout Friendsgiving because
of her 22nd birthday and her perceived imminent death. The women
seem to think the men will live while they die. Liv’s a stronger character than Lukas—more importantly, she’s a stronger
witch. She went she-hulk on Bonnie last season during the poorly conceived
Travelers arc. Kai’s motivated to return and merge with his sister, killing
her, taking her power, and then destroying the coven. He’ll also need to kill
his other siblings, I think. His father doesn’t want Kai to return and will
kill his children to prevent it. Joshua created Kai’s hell because of Kai’s
murders, but he’ll murder the rest of his children to prevent his escape. It’s
not the greatest plot.
Plot devices
abound in “Fade Into You.” Friendsgiving lacks genuine friendships. Alaric,
Stefan, and Damon acknowledge they’ve experienced a plot device, in one of the
niftier pieces of storytelling. A stoned John Barth may’ve allowed a begrudging
smirk. Friendsgiving brings Jo, Liv, and Lukas together and they remember they
are related and nearly murdered together by their brother. Liam’s there until
he’s not and then he returns again only to finally disappear after he reacts to
Elena’s vampire confession like Scott Hope reacted to anything-staring blankly
ahead of him. Elena learned from Stefan she’ll know if Liam loves her by his
reaction to her vampire truth. Liam fails. The revealed connection of the
siblings reeks of bad daytime soaps. The siblings immediately exposit the hell
out of the family history, the convoluted merging thing, the murderous father,
the ascendant, et al. Liv’s plight brings her and Tyler closer. Her decision to
kill for Tyler happened because the writers needed a character to give a damn
for her besides Lukas, and because a character can’t die without someone in
love with that character being destroyed (or turned into a werewolf again).
I sort of loved
the unnecessary trip to Portland taken by the Salvatore brothers and Alaric.
They went in search of the ascendant and failed. Jo has the ascendant in
safekeeping. Damon meets Joshua. Joshua soon fries Damon’s brain and tries to
kill his own daughter. They find Jo’s magic in a rusty, bloodied knife. Joshua
disappears. They accomplish nothing. Stefan remarks that they traveled to a
place for something they could’ve gotten at Friendsgiving. The writers
essentially conveyed, through Stefan, that, ‘Hey, we need a B story, and we’ve
done the new powerful character has what we want before to very mixed results;
so, we’ll subvert it, make it clear we subverted it, and that’ll be that.”
Alaric doesn’t want to find the ascendant for Jo’s sake, but Damon wants Bonnie
back. He compels Alaric to do whatever it takes to take the magic object from
his new girlfriend, which sets up conflict between lovers and between best
friends.
“Fade Into You”
flashes back some, moves the story forward a lot, is very soapy and
melodramatic, and not a great set-up for the long arc of the season. The
Vampire Diaries already struggles in its sixth season, and now they’re doing
another type of originals story. Also, Elena trusts Damon now and wants him to
help her find Bonnie-trust she has because he talked about her for four months.
Maybe “Fade Into You” would’ve worked for that scene. “Strange things you never
knew…” as Elena learns to love her guy again and the camera fades…out.
Other Thoughts:
-Every house in
this show looks similar to Leery Manor in Dawson’s Creek. Elena’s looked like
Mitch’s castle and so does the home of Joshua, Kai, Kol, Liv, and Lukas.
-Matt and Jeremy
didn’t join Friendsgiving because of the Tripp cleanup. The Friendsgiving device
failed. It was a mess. It served multiple purposes, including the
Caroline/Stefan separation. Stefan apologizes to her at episode’s end, and
Caroline thanks him. She walks away, friendship not fixed.
-TVD cast a
different actress for young Jo-a sobering moment for me. I remember younger
Jodi Lyn O’Keefe in late 90s/early 00s movies.
-Nina Fiore
& John Hererra wrote the episode. Joshua Butler directed it.
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