Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT A Little Of Both
By Cindy McLennan | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 01.05.2012
Gilbert Gables, Night: Elena arrives home just as Alaric is getting back on his feet. While she fills him in on Jeremy, she realizes Alaric doesn't look well. When she asks if he's okay, Alaric coughs up blood and falls to the floor, so that'd be a big, "No." After a quick cut, EMTs arrive at the door. Elena informs them Alaric was hit by a car and then started coughing up blood. She leaves out the part where he was dead half the day, like you do, and...
Sidebar: Okay, here's where the human protect-o ring mythology is going to get even more muddied, because now it's not working. Sure there are a few reasons that might be. For one thing, it's changed hands many times. John to Isobel to Alaric, back to John, to Elena, and back to Alaric again. Maybe the poor ring is just damned confused. It's also been used a lot. I don't even bother keeping track of how many times that ring has saved Alaric's life (and John's before him). My favorite suggestion I read (maybe on TWoP, but I can't remember) is a joking one that the ring is bound to some poor cat that has just about used up its nine lives. It could be the dead witches interfering, a living witch we don't know about, or the ghost of the Original Witch screwing with it. It could be a lot of these things, but at this point, I wish the damned rings would just get destroyed, because my eyes are tired of rolling back in my head. End of nitpick.
Anyhow, the EMTs are ready to transport Alaric, when Tony the Hybrid (who I keep wanting to call Tony the Tiger) shows up and compels the EMTs to leave without their patient. Tony offers his blood to heal Alaric, but Elena will have to invite him in, to get it -- or at least, that's what Tony thinks, but then Jeremy shows up, and shoots Tony in the back, with the crossbow. Woo hoo, Germ!
Jeremy is all business as he stands over Tony. "He's not dead yet." I think Germ is heading toward the kitchen to get a glass or something to take some of Tony's blood for Alaric, but no. When he gets there, he grabs a meat cleaver. I rationalize that the arrow wound is probably an awkward spot from which to juice hybrid blood, and so maybe Jeremy's going to cut Tony's wrist or something. He should have gotten a glass, too, to put the blood in. BUT WAIT, THEN JEREMY GILBERT TAKES THAT MEAT CLEAVER AND CUTS OFF TONY'S HEAD! Elena screams. Jeremy's breath is heavy, but his voice is calm as he says, "Now he's dead." When I see his face speckled with the blood that spurted from the hybrid's arteries, I want to write Buffy/Jeremy crossover fan fiction, but I won't, because no good would ever come from that, Mr. Plot-bunny. Do you hear me? No good! Jeremy stands, drops the cleaver and says they have to get Alaric to the hospital now. He brushes past Elena who is still paralyzed in the doorway. Commercial.