Episode 4×16, “Bring It On.” The title of a cheerleading movie, co-starring Famed Vampire Slayer Faith. Caroline is (probably) still a cheerleader, and maybe Rebekah too if the two lengths of time she was temporarily daggered since joining didn’t interfere with her slot on the squad. This show needs more answers! Anyway, after last week I’d hope this episode isn’t actually about cheerleading, just because that would be horrible tonal whiplash. (ATTN writers: I would definitely like a vampire cheerleading episode at some point in the future). So anyway, I assume the title means that they’re taking the fight to Silas, or something. Although Elena really owes Katherine a good ass-kicking too. Shrug.
No human emotions apparently means parties, girl fights, cheerleading and exhibitionism. This is bad news for some of the real-life teens watching along.
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Cold Open
- Okay, this whole ‘lying on the street pavement’ definitely showed up in a football movie I saw when I was ten. Maybe this really is a sports episode.
- Yay! Elena’s bad! She needs a new name for the Reactions, like Elena 2.0 or something. nEwLena? Nah….alright, “Elena” unless I think of something clever.
- I love that Katherine taught Damon about lying in the road until you have the opportunity to eat some good Samaritans, and now Damon teaches it to Elena, Katherine’s great-great-descendent.
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Everything up until the first commercial break.
- I actually wonder who would win in an honest-to-goodness fight between Katherine and Klaus. I mean, if she was allowed to use cunning and he wasn’t allowed to use compulsion, anyway.
- How is Caroline not sneaking a peek at naked Elena? She’s perennially happy and competitive. I’d think she’d be like Jane in Coupling, just smiling hugely the whole time. Meanwhile, interesting implication regarding nudity, that privacy about one’s body = having human emotion.
- Holy crow, it really is going to be an episode about cheerleading. Five minutes ago I thought that would be a bad idea but this is really fun so far.
- “I just came up with a list called ‘things you suck at.’ Number one, finding Katherine Petrova, ever.” says Damon to Klaus. Ha! That line kills me.
- Did we ever know before that Liz Forbes and Miranda Gilbert were best friends in high school? I mean, why not. But we already know that Elena’s mom and Bonnie’s mom were best friends. Is it really that common that a) three best friends have (or adopt) a daughter each who end up best friends throughout their whole childhood, and b) three best friends have children the same year? Maybe there was a shameful pregnancy pact somewhere back then….
- Anyway, poor Liz. She’s the only cop in town since Caroline and Connor Jordon and Damon and who knows who else have murdered all the others. I kind of want a bonus episode showing a day of her life at the switchboards.
- Caroline: the worst A.A. sponsor ever.
- Maybe the MFHS cheerleading uniforms are in red so that bloodstains would be harder to spot. I know you might be saying, “but Recapper, they were red before anyone knew about vampires.” And I’ll respond that the football team was called the timberwolves before anyone knew about werewolves. I bet it was like Hogwarts where all these certifiable personalities got together and designed a school. They were supes themselves, or at least secretly loved them.
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