4x01 Growing Pains
‘You feed or you die’
– Damon Salvatore
Damon’s words underlie
this premiere episode. After the shock of Elena waking up as a vamp, we follow
her transformation, sensitivity to light is the first one to which she responds
by breaking a light bulb with her hand.
As it is Elena, the gang
embark on a method of trying to reverse the vampirism. Damon is not optimistic,
voicing the audience’s opinion. It is a bit of a pointless storyline as we know
Bonnie will not be able to succeed. But it allows progression of Bonnie’s
storyline into her use of dark magic. This allows us to see Grams again,
warning Bonnie to stay away from dark magic.
In the season 3 finale,
Alaric outed the gang to the council, and the pastor is on a mission to round
up all the vampires. He captures Caroline and Rebekah and transports them to a
modified cattle ranch. Klaus (In Tyler’s body) catches wind of this and rescues
Caroline, whilst revealing his true identity to Rebekah. Caroline is relieved
to find Tyler alive and they engage in a make out sesh. She uncovers that it is
infact Klaus after he calls her love. This will make for an interesting
secondary love triangle this season. Klaus will probably be sticking around as
Rebekah destroyed his bags of doppelganger blood as revenge for saving Caroline
and not her.
The pastor captures
Stefan and Elena, he keeps Elena prisoner in order to draw Damon out. Again we
see Elena struggling with her urges, looking hungrily at the meat the pastor is
cooking. The cinematography for this episode is really excellent; it really
heightens the audiences emotions whilst following Elena. The pastor suspects
that Elena is a vampire after she tries to escape and puts her in the cells
with Stefan and Rebekah.
Rebekah is pleased to
learn that Elena has not fed and she can watch her die all over again. However,
she softens when she sees Stefan and Elena saying goodbye and helps lure a
guard in so that Elena can feed. Damon brings Matt to the ranch and uses him as
bait. New vamp Elena bursts out though and attacks Damon. They then discuss
Elena’s choice and she informs him that she remembers that they met first and
asks why he did not tell her. He argues that he would have saved her over Matt
because he wanted her to have a life and grow old. This shows his change as a
character wanting only the best for her. The dialogue in this scene was brilliant
as Damon says to Elena ‘I’m selfish but you already knew that’ in reference to
when her compelled her to forget him telling her he loved her.
Klaus meanwhile is
forcing Bonnie to put him back in his own body. But she has been warned not to
perform dark magic, he threatens Tyler’s life and she has no choice. This
results in the spirits taking it out on Grams on the other side.
The last scene shows how
the pastor has gathered all the council members in his kitchen and blows them
all up, leaving the audience to wonder for what purpose.
An explosive premiere,
with everything that is good about the Vampire Diaries, and maintains the
momentum by leaving a cliff hanger ending, A few things could have been left
out such as Bonnie trying to save Elena’s soul, but I see how it was essential to
her individual storyline. Praises to the acting from Nina Dobrev and Micheal
Trevino played Joseph Morgan (Klaus) brilliantly. Though I am glad he was not
Klaus for too long.
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