Vampire Diaries Recap

            It starts with Caroline telling Stefan and Daemon of her experience of going to The Grill to see her “ex?” boyfriend, Matt. While there, she runs into Katherine who tells her to tell Daemon and Stefan that she wants the moonstone or she will “rip this town apart till it rains blood. Tonight, at the Masquerade ball.” Caroline wants to just give her what she wants, but Daemon and Stefan have other plans: to kill Katherine. 

            Jenna gets home from the hospital after being compelled to stab herself. She is confused and embarrassed of why she would do such a thing. Jeremy is insistent on getting revenge on Katherine, but Elena does not want him involved. Such a sweet, sweet older sis. She says Katherine wins, since her and Stefan are over (like that will last).  Jeremy says she is being naive.

            A new character is introduced, Lucy, an old friend of Katherines, who is a witch. She invites her to the Masquerade ball to help her get the moonstone back

                                                             

            Katherine decides she is going to impersonate Elena at the ball, by straightening her hair-like she doesn’t look identical to her already. Lucy realizes that Katherine wants her to break the curse

            Jeremy, Bonnie, Rick, Caroline, Stefan, and Daemon all gather to discuss a plan to kill Katherine. However, as usual, Bonnie seems uncertain. She thinks it is too dangerous. Isn’t it more dangerous to have Katherine alive?! Bonnie agrees to help, using a spell to trap her. 

                   

          Matt tells Elena that he has “something to do” tonight at the Masquerade ball, leaving her confused. Elena says she is staying home with Jenna tonight. Matt gets all sentimental towards Elena (when will he ever get over her?) telling her that he is always there for her.

            At the ball, Tyler asks his mom about Mason, who responds by saying we won’t be hearing from him (does she know what happened?) Tyler thinks the party should have been cancelled since it was his fathers idea.

            Katherine runs into Matt at the ball, who thinks Elena was not coming. She compels him to get Tyler Lockwood drunk, start a fight with him, then beat him up until he snaps, and won’t stop until Tyler kills him. Mischievous plan, Katherine.

                                   

            Bonnie and Jeremy find a room in the house to start the spell out of Emily’s book. Bonnie runs into Lucy, discovering that she is a witch too. Lucy is worried that someone else knows she is a witch. Bonnie finds Lucy later, and tells her to stop the spell she put on Elena. She says she will if they give Katherine the moonstone. Lucy says Katherine saved her life, so she owes her this favor and does not have a choice not to. Bonnie and Lucy realize they are related.

          Elena starts to become suspicious that she has not heard from anyone all day, and begins to think something is going on. Elena learns that everyone but her is at the party, Rick tells her to “let it go”. She decides to sneak off to the party anyway (shocker) and finds out that they are trying to kill Katherine.

           

            Stefan and Katherine dance at the party (hopefully their last dance, ever) while discussing the moonstone and Jenna. Katherine kills a girl who complemented her on her dress in the middle of the party (how did no one notice…)

                    

            Jeremy pretends he does not know Katherine isn’t Elena, telling his “sister” that Stefan wants to meet her at the edge of the woods to give her the moonstone. Katherine catches on, and asks Caroline what Stefan and Daemon are up to. Caroline tells her they are trying to kill her and that Bonnie has the moonstone, but is in reality, fooling Katherine, trapping her in the room where the spell took place. Stefan learns that the moonstone was Katherine’s to begin with, and that she had been checking up on him throughout the years. He asks her who she was running from when she faked her death, and she mouths the words “I love you”.

           

            Daemon shoots Katherine, but all goes wrong from here. As Katherine gets shot, Elena feels the bullet as well. Stefan and Daemon learn that Katherine had this planned out the whole time, through Lucy’s spell, linking Elena to Katherine.

           Matt starts to antagonize Tyler, saying bad things about his dead father. They start to fight, but Caroline hears it. Not being able to stop Matt, she knocks him out instead. A girl comes after Tyler with a knife, stabbing him in the shoulder. In self defense, she pushes her out of the way, killing her, which triggers the curse.

            Lucy comes into the room with the moonstone that she got from Bonnie, saying that Katherine is free to leave since the spell has been broken. When Katherine gets the moonstone, she falls to the floor, gasping for breath, dying. Stefan thinks this means him and Elena can be together again, but she thinks otherwise (nooo!) She wants to feel safe before they can be together again.

           

            Katherine wakes up (guess shes not dead, afterall) in a tomb and can’t get out. Daemon appears and goes to lock her in, but Katherine says that Elena is in danger, which is why she hasn’t killed her yet. Daemon locks her in the tomb anyway. The episode ends with a person in a mask taking Elena

            I used the models of tvgasm and televisionwithoutpity to write this recap. I liked how these write ups were personal and included the authors feelings about the episodes, while including the actual content of the episode. 

Spiderpig! Spiderpig!

          My dad is obsessed with comic books. Like literally, he still has all of his old ones from when he was a teenager. They are all neatly organized in a box in our basement, not haven been touched in years. My mom always yells at him to sell them, since they could be worth a lot of money, but nope. He won't budge. He loves em' too much. But why? Why would you keep all those useless (well, useless to me) comic books, when you could sell them for so much money?! These are the questions that keep me up at night (ha. kidding). When I got Neil Gaiman's The Sandman in the mail, he snatched  it up and read the whole thing. He went on and on about how great it was and tried talking to me about it (Listen Dad, I'm not into comic books!). But really, what is the fascination? Why are they so important to him?
          I wasn't shocked to see that the majority of our class hasn't read comic books before, or are not interested in them. It seems that in our generation, comics are not as important to us. Maybe this is due to the fact that we can read everything online. Or maybe our generation just does not like to read as much. Or maybe its just a fad in itself that died out awhile ago. But whatever the case, it was very important to my dad's generation. The comic book changed drastically during the 1970s-1980s. This was due to (according to Stephen Weiner's article): the creation of a direct market, and other factors. Which a direct market, publishers could sell comic books directly to comic stores, whereas before, they were sold to newsstands and news agents. With this, customers could buy and sell back comics, a cycle of sale-or-return. They were also a lot cheaper at comic stores, which would naturally lead to greater sales. This also led to the sales of comic related merchandise, such as t shirts and posters. With all of this promotion of comics, it only seems practical that future generations were so into comics. As for my dad, this was all happening during his teenage years- the 70's.
          So although I am not a fan of comics, I do have to say that so far I am kind of enjoying The Sandman. I do find it hard to follow, however, since I don't always know how to read the page, and find myself jumping around the panels a lot. I do like how kinetic comics are, though. Like we were talking about in class, when you read comics, the story just flows. It isn't just one picture with words, after another, like a kid's story book. The pictures are so detailed and are truly art forms. I never really looked at a comic before this one, so it is an interesting experience! It is much more interesting than just reading a novel. However, it does take away from the imagination of the reader, which I am not sure if I like yet. I am not a big super hero person (except for Spiderman. I LOVE Spiderman), which may play into the reason why I am not a huge fan of comic books. Maybe this is even a female thing. Even though there are girl comics, it just seems like a guy stereotype to read comic books. Maybe it is not a big part of our culture today due to the fact that it isn't look at as "cool". Or maybe our generation just genuinely do not like comics. Who knows?
          I do think that comic book culture has not fully gone away. Since technology has advanced so much in the last few generations, there is almost no need to read a comic book anymore. Instead, we have batman, spiderman, the avengers, superman, etc. all in movie form. There are even TV series about comic characters. So, why would any young boy want to read a comic when they could just watch it on TV? This is kind of sad in a way, since it is clear that older generations loved comics so much, and future generations most likely will not get to experience this. I guess thats the way society works, though.

Spiderman, just cause he's awesome

List of movies based on comic books:  http://www.imdb.com/list/4dJnAsPmHzw/