Animation
Good Times
Netflix takes a classic sitcom, Good Times, and turns it into a vulgar, violent, sexually-charged TV-MA show.
They say blood is thicker than water, and that’s particularly true for the Salvatore brothers, born, raised and transformed into vampires in Mystic Falls, Va. The supernatural sibs have been lapping up the thick stuff for the last century-plus, feeding an undying rivalry from which neither can seem to shake free.
Or so it was for most of the show’s run, which concluded its eight-season run in 2017. This CW supernatural soap opera found a measure of redemption when the final bell literally tolled. But for most of its history, The Vampire Diaries was predicated on both a long-running lover’s triangle among “good” vampire Stefan Salvatore, bad brother Damon and the object of their shared affections, Elena—a Mystic Falls high schooler who turns into … well, plenty.
It’s not easy to keep a show like The Vampire Diaries, um, fresh for eight seasons. As Damon tells his sister in the closing episode, “after 153 years this banter we have it just old.” But featuring an attractive, apparently ageless cast, most of whom come equipped with super-supernatural powers probably helped lengthen the program’s shelf life.
These particular vampires are demigods—fast, strong and, of course, good-looking with few of the weaknesses traditionally associated with their kind. Crucifixes and holy water have no effect on them, and Stefan professes a love for garlic. Still, being undead isn’t quite the party it would seem to be. Newly “converted” vampires are very distraught over their transformation, and Stefan confesses to Elena that he never wanted this “life.”
It gets more complicated than that, of course. Much more. The Vampire Diaries has taken more twists and turns than a Marvel comic book saga. We’ve not even gotten into Caroline, Elena’s uptight friend who becomes a vampire before becoming another vamp’s main squeeze and turning the show’s long-running triangle into a … square? Or Bonnie, the budding witch with mysterious powers who holds the fate of Mystic Falls in her pretty hands. Or the legions of dead people who keep coming back to life. Or Katherine, the Salvatore’s somewhat demonic sister. Or the Lockwoods, a secret family of werewolves. Or the people who occasionally die and return to Mystic Falls like it’s reunion weekend. Or …
Now, if all this has your head spinning, just think how the folks in Mystic Falls must be feeling. Something strange has got to be in the water. And after decades—maybe even centuries—of supernatural beasts eating the locals, the townspeople are a little put out. Crusades against vampires abound. And you’d think all those nocturnal supercreatures would decide to set up shop in a place where, perhaps, their names weren’t plastered on historical documents, their faces weren’t captured in sepia-tone photographs, and where the townspeople weren’t forever vigilant of the walking undead.
But that’s just us. Nobody’s ever accused the CW of applying clearheaded logic to its teen melodramas. What CW did apply to The Vampire Diaries was a heaping helping of sensuality, muddled spirituality and just a whiff of derring do to keep people tuning in and applauding the right characters.
The town of Mystic Falls is about to be destroyed in a big ol’ cataclysm, thanks to Stefan and Damon’s evil, hell-residing sister, Katherine. Main character Elena is mostly dead (a spiritual catatonic state, Katherine tells us) and trapped somewhere in town, and while the witch Bonnie works on protecting the town itself with her magic powers, Stefan and Damon argue over who’ll stick around to save Elena’s body and make sure Katherine is killed permanently.
If anything this episode tells us, it’s that Katherine’s a hard lady to keep down. She’s stabbed to death four times before being consumed by flames, each time bouncing back with a certain swaggering zest. Another woman, also deadish, is thrown from a bell tower and has her neck broken before (ahem) snapping back to life. Bonnie also dies temporarily, but she’s sent back by her old, dead boyfriend to save the town. Fire rages. People are injected, sometimes forcibly, with hypodermic needles.
Characters smooch on occasion. Witchcraft is used to save the town. But the episode, for all its supernatural oddities, has an undercurrent of spirituality that at least contains a whiff of Christianity: Characters die and go to a pleasant afterlife, where they’re met by friends and family. And there’s a great deal of talk about hell, where not-so-nice folks go to be tortured. (Katherine tells one of her brothers that she has the devil “wrapped around my finger.”) Some women wear clothes that bear some cleavage or expose their shoulders. Someone pours a glass of liquor and drinks it.
“Know Thy Enemy”
In true vampire soap opera style, this episode is rife with double- and triple-crosses … without any actual crosses, of course. And all the pretty players’ current backstabbing and scurrying is apparently centered around the imminent arrival of an ancient Original vampire named Klaus.
Elena’s vampire mom, Isobel, shows up to offer protection for her little girl. But Elena is doubtful—as well she should be, since it looks like Isobel is really working to save doppelgänger Katherine by handing Elena and the mysterious curse-binding moonstone over to Klaus. Or is she? This newest threat to Elena causes the Salvatore brothers to start slogging along on the same team for a change. Damon even goes so far as to help witch-pal Bonnie find the spot where 100 witches were once burned. One witch-power-sucking spell later and Bonnie might just have enough invocation-murmuring juice to take down an Original.
A remorseful vampire burns. Blood is forcibly drained. A needle full of drugs is plunged. Youthful skin (shoulders and cleavage) is exposed. Alcohol flows.
“Brave New World”
Caroline is in the hospital and slowly turning into a bloodsucker. After feasting on stolen bags of AB negative, she savagely assaults a nurse for more, then leaves the hospital and kills a man for his blood. (Squirting sounds are included.) Stefan later teaches her how to control her thirst, but Damon just tries to kill her. Elena saves her friend by coming between the two just as Damon is about to put a stake through Caroline’s heart.
Trying to figure out what type of preternatural beings Tyler and his uncle are, Damon hypnotizes a hapless human and has him pick a violent fight with the rage-prone Tyler. (He wants to test Tyler’s physical abilities.) Later, Bonnie uses her witch powers to incapacitate Damon by setting him on fire. As he screams, Elena stops Bonnie, telling her they need to be above torturing others.
And that’s the moral of this story in an ash urn.
It’s lightheartedly set against graphic violence, gore and an extremely cavalier attitude toward human life. Characters drink alcohol. God’s name is abused and the foul words “d‑‑k,” “h‑‑,” “a‑‑,” “p‑‑‑ed” and “d‑‑n” are used.
“Lost Girls”
Elena confronts Stefan about his past and why elderly folks recognize him, saying he hasn’t aged a day. He tells all, including how Katherine changed him into a vampire around the time of the Civil War. In a flashback we see Stefan and Katherine in bed together right before she takes a bite out of his throat. We learn that she also turned Damon into a vampire in the hope that they could all be “together forever.”
Meanwhile, Damon is killing local drug addicts. He turns one of them, Vickie, into a vampire—for unclear but nefarious purposes. To do this he drinks her blood, then rips open one of his veins to let her drink his. He breaks her neck to seal the deal. She wakes as undead and soon kills a man for his blood.
Violence, gore and bad language mar this already flawed drama. One of Diaries’ motives seems to be pushing the notion that it’s cool to be preternatural, beautiful and superhuman—even if killing people to survive is occasionally disconcerting. Thus, we’re asked to relate to and feel sympathy for this morally conflicted bunch.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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