Discussing Ep. 2.15
Wow! So much to get into in this episode. Some good, some bad. And a rather shocking ending.
I've got to say, I do love Dark Josie. I like her hair (so much more volume to it than Good Josie), her style of dress, her attitude and her powers. I mean, she was just popping up out of nowhere. Kind of like Batman, but with magic! I found it rather funny how hard they seemed to be trying to make her different than Dark Willow. Right off the bat, they had MG try and reach Good Josie by reminiscing about when they first met, almost like how Xander recalled when he and Willow were in kindergarten together and she broke a yellow crayon. Here, MG is recalling when he borrowed a book from Josie when he first attended Salvatore School and ruined it, so he was replacing it.
Well, it didn't work, at least not for this episode. The preview for the next one seems to launch from the stories in this book. Anyway, it was nice that Dark Josie wasn't buying it and even tried to desiccate MG while hugging him. I kind of got a laugh out of that. Then there was Lizzie.
I liked this too, that they acknowledged that they had done this mea culpa dance before, with Dark Josie rightly pointing out how Lizzie always "tries to change and it never sticks!" So I liked that they eliminated Lizzie as a potential saviour. But then they went and changed, somewhat, the canon established on TVD.
I remember seeing this in the preview for the episode and I didn't know where they were going with it. So in order to make it possible for them to merge now rather than 5 years from now, Dark Josie surmised that the rule that the Gemini Twins had to merge on their 22nd birthday wasn't a rule, but merely a 'suggestion?'
The whole concept of the Gemini Coven and twins and all that revolved around the number 2! Like, Gemini...TWO. Twins....TWO. Both merging at the age of TWENTY TWO! I could go with this alteration IF they do it like they did with Kai and Luke. When Kai was ready to merge with Jo, his actual twin, Luke came and took Jo's place, figuring that because he and Kai were both 22 years old (thanks to Kai being locked in the prison world and having never aged), they were siblings and both twins (just not each other's), that the merge could conceivably work. And it did...sort of. Kai got some power, but he also started to feel ill and didn't feel better until he started siphoning from Jo, his actual twin. If they make it that the merge didn't exactly work because they did it too soon, then I'm okay with them merging now.
But before the merge, we got a whole lot of drama in between. First, it's funny because I had asked Jenzy in the comments section from the last episode as to what happened to Alyssa. Well, now I got my answer....sort of. It made little to no sense why she was once again just another student at SS given what she had just pulled by sending Alaric and the Wonder Twins to that prison world, which was what led directly to Dark Josie emerging in the first place! Why was she not banished from the school? Why was everything back to normal with her? Why would Lizzie even trust her to tell her any kind of truth after what she did? Makes no sense. Maybe that's why Dark Josie killing her felt rather satisfying! Of course, it didn't last as Ted resurrected her again, but at the very least, this pretense that she's just another student again is gone and I'm happy about that.
Speaking of Ted, it looks like we finally got some insight into his grand scheme. They made it sound like it was his plan to have Josie absorb all that dark magic, though I'm curious to know as to why. It would have been a bit of a gamble on his part to create Dark Josie and assume that she would want to work with him at all. He wants to resurrect Malivore, but as Josie stated, once Malivore absorbs Landon, he would then be invincible. It seems like Ted doesn't want that and enacted another plan, one that I found really intriguing.
I kind of wish that Raf had been used better throughout last season and this season because his death and subsequent resurrection would have been far more impactful. I was actually starting to feel something when he was explaining what had happened to him, how Ted and Chad had hunted him down and killed him and how he is now, essentially, a member of the undead, no doubt dependant upon Ted for his reanimation. You could tell that that really hit Landon hard but the impact of all that was lost because Raf really hasn't been around that much for us to care about the bond between him and Landon. Nevertheless, Raf did his job and it seems like Landon is potentially down for the count.
This was somewhat shocking although having said that, the way they brought Alyssa back (who isn't even a full time cast member) kind of lessened the suspense of this. You know they have a loophole to this somewhere. Had they actually killed off Alyssa, then I probably would have been more shocked by this ending because killing Alyssa would have taken some courage at the hands of the writers. So you know that either the Sphinx's riddle was misinterpreted or that wasn't the actual golden arrow that would kill Landon. They found a loophole for Lizzie so they'll find one for Landon too.
Speaking of the loophoole for Lizzie, I will say that I thought it was clever the way they tied Lizzie's life to Landon's, so that when Lizzie died, so did Landon but because he's a phoenix and would rise up again, so would Lizzie. That was clever. However, I have mixed feelings of the journey there. I thought we were done with Lizzie and MG being this couple-non couple whatever it is that they are. Either have MG be a friend and nothing more or have them be a couple. Make up your mind! And it was odd that Lizzie would run away. Not that it's surprising because she is rather selfish, but that she would leave all her so-called friends high and dry like that? Dark Josie wasn't playing around when she killed Alyssa and then threatened to kill all of Lizzie's friends. Like...really? First it was Dorian and Emma, and now Lizzie. What is it with this show and these people who are willing to leave their "friends" to the hands of death? With Lizzie, it's somewhat expected but disappointing nonetheless. The one thing I will say that made me laugh throughout this whole side story arc with MG and Lizzie was how he rightly pointed out that Lizzie's nerd insults are too knowledgeable for her not to be a fan. Then she admits she's into all that nerd porn! I loved that.
Speaking of side arcs, what the hell was this about? I didn't get this at all. Was this to showcase Kaleb's British accent? Was it to have Alaric don the Indiana Jones outfit once again? I'm hoping this somehow connects with the main storyline because this really seemed out of place with what was going on. Alaric was talking about an elixir or something for his daughters but I totally didn't see the connection.
Nor did I get this. Hey, don't get me wrong. I love that Alexis is at least making small cameos on the show now. Some Vardemus is better than no Vardemus. But....where is he? It was hilarious how he was telling Alaric that he was happy to help because Alaric is now short staffed (thanks to Emma and Dorian fucking off and leaving him high and dry) and yet he wasn't even there! He's somewhere, but not there. What....is Vardemus under quarantine because of COVID-19? Why isn't he there? Why does he have to appear remotely like he's the Emperor from Star Wars or something? For fuck's sakes, make him a regular part of the cast. This show could use a guy of Alexis's calibre to bring it up. Because they have one massive flaw, and I am somewhat surprised by her performance here.
I don't know.....maybe it's just me. But I felt like DRR was TOTALLY phoning it in this episode. Was that her decision or the episode director's decision? Either way, it looked and felt bad. But this is what happens when you neglect the "main star" of the show and when you finally need her to step up, it feels like she doesn't want to or that she can't. Throughout the episode, the various characters kept SAYING they were looking to her for help, looking to her for decisions, looking for her to save the day....as she always does. Essentially, they kept saying she was the star of the show. But it was all lip service. Hope's acting made it feel like everything that was happening was more of a nuisance to her than anything else, like she had bigger problems to deal with (like her relationship with Landon) and that the threat of Dark Josie or saving Lizzie or stopping The Necromancer were just chores that she didn't want to deal with but that she had to because she's a "hero."
Even her magical showdown with Dark Josie felt very underwhelming. Not only for the fact that, despite a nice little light show, they did only one spell each, but also because of her words to Josie. I said in my last review that it could not be Hope who got to Good Josie because she just doesn't have that deep connection. It wouldn't make sense for her to be the one to reach Josie. Well, the writers thought otherwise. Hope is there, blabbing away about what a good person Josie is and how Josie loves her friends and she would never do this and blah, blah, blah....and wouldn't you know it, it was working! Good Josie came out for a bit before Dark Josie resumed control. Fuck that! This really felt like they were trying to re-establish Hope as the main character, the main protagonist, the main hero of the show but it didn't work. They've neglected her character too much to turn it all around in one episode. In whatever it was that Hope was doing, it felt like she had zero emotional content. She felt like she was just going through the motions. Reminded me a bit of when Elena returned in S8 of TVD and had to do those scenes with Damon. It felt THAT empty!
Regardless, it looks like they're going to try and rebuild Hope's place on the show by having her invade Josie's mind and potentially bring Good Josie back. And from the preview for the next episode, it revolves around those fairy tales from that book that MG gave to Josie at the beginning of the episode. Another gimmick episode it is, then.
Btw, where was Jade? I know I said that Jade couldn't be the one to save Josie but she wasn't even there! She was there last week when they had to do that group therapy together, so why wasn't she there this week? How could she miss this whole spectacle that Dark Josie put on?
Makes no sense.
