Watching The Vampire Diaries - Before Sunset

Another classic episode that rolls and flips along with great action, humor, and emotion.

I always liked Alaric, but I was never a huge OMG! fan!

Although I have been watching What About Brian simply because Matt Davis is on it. That should count in my favor. I mean, his character ran off to Vegas and married a stripper and then they had to have the conversation about whether or not she was going to still be a stripper. For three episodes. It totally counts in my favor.

Anyways.

The Vampire Diaries tried so hard to sell the moment when Alaric "died," and there was a maudlin pop song playing and all slow motion and a little blurry focus and candles and stuff. But I wasn't wiping away tears.

Because I was looking forward to Evil Alaric. He is really going to stir up trouble in a whole new way.

But.

Alaric's not really evil. Is he?

Alaric is right about vampires being a threat. The reason we're "not liking" him is that he is torturing the supposed "good guys," like Caroline. But Caroline's father tortured Caroline and we were still expected to cry when he died.

If we're giving Damon a pass on tearing Mason's heart out?

If we're forgiving Stefan for sending Andie off that roof?

Remember how Elijah beheaded that guy that time? Granted Trevor's flashback hair was a thing of horror and he was kind of a whiner, but you don't just whack him and his noggin goes flying. The obvious moral thing to do is to at least try to give him a haircut first.

And you just know that we were supposed to feel sorry for poor lonely Klaus who wanted to be loved and now he's going to spend eternity (or the summer break or until next episode - whichever is more dramatic) under the sea.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer set very clear boundaries between good and evil and then proceeded to merrily muddy them every way they could. Though they desperately clung almost right up to the very end to that thing about the soul, many of the lessons to be gleaned were about shades of grey.

It's as if The Vampire Diaries morality started from where Buffy left off.

This show comes from a place where good and evil are constant negotiations. No one is innocent - note the complete lack of concern with Elena's virginity - and everyone will at one time or another do things that are wrong. Caring for someone then results in situations where you overlook things, hand out free passes, and forgive the ostensibly unforgivable.

Now, I don't think that The Vampire Diaries' thematic framework is as well thought out as Buffy the Vampire Slayer's, but I can see bits and pieces here and there.

For example.

At one point, Alaric accused Damon of not caring what happened to anyone. Damon got all defensive and snotted that he "had a list." Meaning that there were a few people Damon cared whether they lived or died and that Alaric (by implication) was one of them. And I got up on my high horse and said that Damon won't have changed until he realizes that being a good person means caring about people whether they are on your list or not.

You can hear the idea again in Elena's declaration to Jeremy. "I don't care if it makes me a bad guy," she says. She's going to protect her friends and that includes Caroline and Stefan and Damon. Those are the people on her list.

Elena would probably even include "evil" Alaric if he gave her the chance. He is "evil" only in the situation where he threatens her and hers. And even then, Caroline forgave him for killing her dad that time. (Stefan cracks a joke about Klaus killing Mikael and Damon spits "Hey, Stef, remember that time you killed dad?")

So if The Vampire Diaries morality is less about Right and more about Right Now, then maybe I should be rooting for Team Alaric?

Alaric's got his reasons. Alaric is - in the bigger picture - standing up for the little guy in Mystic Falls. Alaric is also cute.

Nah.

Alaric wants to kill Elijah, and I think we've established who is on my list.

(By the way - did you hear how when Elena talked, she said Stefan first and then Damon? Shipper me is off in a corner determined to make something of that.)