'Growing Pains' - The Vampire Diaries, Season Four

The Vampire Diaries

Season Four

Episode One

'Growing Pains' - 7.5

It's a hard choice between death and working with Ian Somerhalder

After last season's stellar twist there was a lot riding on the Vampire Diaries' follow up to the death of its protagonist, Elena, and a lot of hungry fans thirsty to see how she'll handle becoming one of the creatures of the night. Of course, in typical style the show gives us only a few minutes of a vampire Elena, but this season premiere is an action packed instalment that really delivers, even if it felt a bit superfluous at times. I mean, like she wasn't going to complete the transition, right?

As this episode went on I realised how much had happened during the previous one, despite the little amount of info the re-jiggered 'previously on' gave us. Caroline and Tyler were supposed to go on the run after an evil Alaric gave away every last detail about the vampires and hybrids in town, except Klaus ended up being supposedly killed meaning that Tyler believed his bloodline was about to die out. He started experiencing pains and forced Caroline away, only to reveal that Bonnie had put Klaus' spirit into Tyler. Meanwhile, since Alaric's only weakness lay in Elena, Rebekah kills her by forcing her car off the road and into the river, with Elena waking up on an autopsy table as 'the Departed' came to a close. 

And so we come to the morning after, with transitional Elena awakening in her own bedroom, once again with Stefan by her side. At this point the episode could have gone either way, presenting itself as an action-packed episode hell-bent on avenging Elena's death or a more subtle, character-building instalment that aims to establish a real reason for her to want to become a vampire. In the end, 'Growing Pains' is a combination, as the arrival of a new head for the Council heralds an immediate string of anti-vampire attacks. It doesn't take long for Caroline, Rebekah, Stefan, Elena, Liz Forbes, Carol Lockwood and Meredith Fell to all be taken in, as both vampires and vampire sympathisers. 

Rebekah's scenes throughout the episode were probably the highlights, but not just because Claire Holt is amazing, rather it was just luck of the draw. Her capture comes while Damon tries to stake her for murdering Elena, only for a barrage of bullets to come flying through the window out of nowhere. She turns to face her attacker, only to immediately get a hefty stake propelled into her heart, desiccating her immediately. Later on, she wakes up in the back of a transport van with Caroline, who had been caught straight before making her escape from Mystic Falls. As the two ladies contemplate the coming trial-probably-by-wooden-stake, the van crashes in a fantastically shot action piece that could have come out of a high-budget explode-y movie, showing them caught in the anti-gravitational moment of deceleration as glass flies around and the van flips. A second later, Tyler/Klaus rips the door off and pulls Caroline to safety, leaving the woman who's really his sister behind, of course after revealing to her that it is in fact Klaus. I don't know why he did that though. 

Klaus has always had a thing for Caroline, and that is very understandable, but I'm not sure how I feel about this Tyler-thing. Michael Trevino is a fine enough actor playing his normal character, but there wasn't anything special that he did to really get the fact that it wasn't Tyler across. He very occasionally started using English terms like 'love' and 'bloody', but mostly he talked in his normal accent and did normal things. He didn't even have that slow, dignified walk or the sly facial expressions that are purely Klaus. I don't know about you, but I'd have to call Trevino's performance possibly the worst part of 'Growing Pains', but a part of the blame has to go to the director. Also, his temporary housing in the body of the lesser hybrid is annoyingly short-lived and unused, there was so much that they could have done with one character living inside another, including having that Caroline/Klaus hook-up everyone's been waiting for. They get pretty close, but a long and later awkward make out session isn't enough. Once Klaus was back in his own form by the end, I was mostly asking what the whole point of it was. Joseph Morgan didn't even get an episode off.

Obviously this episode belonged to Nina Dobrev, which was a bit sad because I don't think she did that good a job. Occasionally she's able to pull off some great moments, but mostly I find her crying forced and artificial, and boy did she do a lot of that. A surprisingly good scene involved her remembering Damon's admission of love from 'Rose', which was filmed with Elena pretty much walking in on the past version of herself hearing it, then having it compelled away. I thought it was particularly well done for a show that doesn't - and shouldn't - pride itself on doing things any differently. This isn't no Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I was still impressed by this quirky way of depicting the effects of Elena's transition. 

She is taken in as a human when Stefan is apprehended at her house, and the new head of the council - an apparent long-time resident Pastor Young, who we've never met - has a chat with her while her symptoms begin to worsen. All of a sudden it all becomes too much for her and Young's jugular seems far too tempting, forcing her to make a dash for the fresh air, only to be knocked out by one of the guards. When she wakes up, she finds herself in a cage with Stefan and Rebekah in similar predicaments, only without the transitional clock ticking down around them. 

Over in the world of Bonnie, there is obviously a theme going on with her increasingly frequent delves into the dark magic inside of her. After learning about Elena's condition and failing to petition the spirits at the old house, she decides to use the darkness to stop her own heart and travel to the other side in an attempt to bring the human Elena back. It seems to be working like a charm, with Bonnie lifting Elena from her prison cell floor, to the confusion of Stefan and Rebekah, only for the spirit of Bonnie's grandmother to appear and forbid her from using the dark magic, forcing her to return to life without saving her friend. She at first seems prepared to forgo the magic inside of her, only for Klaus to appear before her, demanding that he be returned to his desiccated body, choosing to pull out some of Tyler's werewolf claws and threaten to rip his still beating heart from his own chest. Weak willed Bonnie agrees to do the ritual, quickly zapping Tyler back into his body, only for him to collapse in Caroline's arms while Bonnie's Grams appears again, this time being tortured by the powers on the other side, wrinkling and writhing in pain as her granddaughter's forced to watch. Intense.

I was oddly impressed by Dobrev as she prepared to let her life slip away from her, all the while saying her possibly last goodbyes to Stefan in the cell next to hers. Neither can see one another, but that only adds to a well crafted and well performed scene. Even Rebekah, who watches the lovers prepare for the worst, was clearly moved, and she is motivated to do something about it. When the guard comes in next she lunges at him, making him jump backwards and into Stefan's reach. Stefan kills the poor guy then lets his body fall to the floor, the blood seeping out and towards Elena. It was a tense few minutes waiting for the blood to reach her range, as it felt like the rest of the guards could burst in at any moment, even though they just don't. In the end she is able to dip her fingers in and take a good suck, completing her transition and becoming the Elena we've been waiting for.

Damon did some shit tonight, but I don't give a fuck about Damon. All I know is that he gets attacked by vampire Elena while he's preparing to kill a guilty and self-loathing Matt. I was a little surprised Matt made it through the episode, but looking at his state at the very end, I feel like he probably should have died. I really badly don't want to watch him moan around like a fucking ghost for the rest of the series.

One question; how the hell did Rebekah, Elena and Stefan escape the cells? They got the guard down, but Elena was closest to him and she couldn't reach him. I don't even know if he had keys, yet when Matt is saved by Elena before he or Damon have a chance to free them. Did I miss something? Did they simply want us to be shocked when our protagonist does her first vampire-y thing? I don't know. 

As usual for this episode, Rebekah got another good scene, bursting in to find her brother packing his bags. She tears into him for leaving her in the van to which he reacts with disdain. She does make a good point though: following his apparent death, she was the only person who grieved for him, and he left her to die. Doesn't help his case that I prefer Rebekah, especially when she has the guts to pick up Elena's blood bags and strew them over the room, causing him to break and snap her neck, after denouncing their family ties. Awww, that was sad, but awesome. Joseph Morgan and Claire Holt work beautifully together, even though one of them is pulling a fake English accent all the time. I'll be a little disappointed if they don't get many more scenes together. 

The final scene was pretty confusing. To be brief, the evil Pastor Young gathers the council together in his farm house, only to unhook the gas line then blow them all up, including himself. Excuse me? What the fuck was that? It was marvellous, but felt like something you'd see in True Blood, not the Vampire Diaries, in that it was... a little controversial. He's a pastor who just initiated a mass homicide, which may be a risk factor the writers weren't able to comprehend, but tell me that isn't a little risqué? Anyway, I don't know if he's dead, but he was given so little dialogue that we clearly have to learn more about him, so my guess is that he'll be brought back stronger than before.

And so Elena is a vampire, Klaus is back in his body, Bonnie's heading towards Dark Willow territory, Tyler's unconscious, Matt wants someone to kill him, Rebekah's awesome. It's a lot to deal with, but I can't help but feel like a lot of it was unnecessary. We always knew that Elena would complete the transition, and like the show would be rash enough to save her from vampirism. There was only one way out of this mess that wouldn't disappoint the fans, and that would be a vampire Elena, so it's no surprise that that is what we get. For the Klaus/Tyler body switch, I couldn't see a single purpose other than having Bonnie delve into dark magic despite not wanting to. Was there another, more reasonable point to the switcheroo? It can't be that important for people to know he's alive, he was pretty keen to tell everyone who wanted to hear. What am I missing?

Anyway, it was definitely enjoyable and I couldn't think of anything disappointing specifically, except the illogicality that is always rampant in this show, as well as the show's unwillingness to get rid of its awful characters. They get rid of Alaric and Jenna, but not Jeremy or Damon? Yeah, I get they'll never be rid of Damon, but Jeremy is so utterly unimportant now that Elena's a vampire. The whole point was that he was her last family member, but now she has to be somewhat aware that she is going to watch all her human friends die, and that surely takes some of that drama away. You can kill him now. Please?