S02.E12: Kai Parker Screwed Us

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

When a series of events leads Josie, Lizzie, and Alaric to the prison world, they come face to face with the twins' evil uncle Kai.

Promo:

Original air date: 2/6/20

Edited February 8, 2020 by ElectricBoogaloo

[DietCokeJunkie]

Wow! That was a great episode. I hate Kai, but he sure makes things interesting. 

[Kmr]

Okay this episode really didn't change my mind about Ric sending those kids and Sebastian to the prison world. So we got a witch who likes fire, a werewolf with rage issues and a ripper who turned off her humanity who killed 5 people. Sure they may have been asses but they didn't deserve to be massacred. 

Oh and Sebastian continuing the TVD universe tradition of creepy doppelganger fetish whether it be figuratively or literally. Also continuing with this universe's men making 'romantic' gestures that are made without consent. 

Love the Josie and Kai interactions. She held her own but damn he had a move I didn't see coming. 

[UNOSEZ]

I've always loved Kai.. For his madness.. His humor.. His creepy obsession with Bonnie... He didn't dissapointed.. I was actually surprised he was working with the trapped kids. In hindsight I dunno why.. But I was..  I didn't care about the kids.. But an endless existence in some prison world is pretty horrible... If they could retool it somehow maybe it would be a better prison... Was cool how the wolf kid got so good at controlling his turn.. If there was ever a time for Caroline to pop up abd slap some sense into these girls.. It was this episode.. What was Lizzie thinking... And she's gonna be a vamp now or what... Sebastian is a creep.. But he was already a creep and him " doing it for love" ( not even with Lizzie)  plz let that be the end if him as a romantic option... So many ways to go next week.. Can't wait... One sour note... Didn't see Rafael in the preview.. Cmon show

[cherbitrary]

*squee* Kai Parker! I have been wanting this from the first episode and it didn't disappoint. Between this and Brooklyn 99 coming back, I had a very good night. Excited to see where it goes!

[ketose]

I found this episode stupid and I am so tired of Kai, but to each their own. Obviously, they couldn't have most of the main cast, but Josie was the only one who really had any characterization this episode.

Supposedly there are other schools for various types of supers, but they don't let in all of the big 3 at once. How do they deal with bad apples? Eternal solitary confinement? I guess Rick is supposed to be bad for using the prison world, but the dumbest thing was sending a bunch of kids who would eventually let Kai out.

[Lady Calypso]

What an amazing episode. Best episode of the season, for damn sure.

Kai Parker is always a highlight. Chris Wood seemed to be enjoying himself, and he slipped back into the role of Kai flawlessly. Always thrilled to see him around. The one thing that I didn't like is that Kai/Lizzie didn't interact. Maybe in his next episode?

Speaking of...Sebastian/Lizzie seems to be dead, which THANK GOD. Once they confirmed Sebastian to be completely insane, I was suddenly more interested. Him spiking Lizzie's drink with his blood just to turn her is exactly the twist I was hoping for, because it means that Sebastian won't end up with Lizzie. And as a huge Lizzie fan, I can only hope for better for her. Now, if I thought for a second that they'd turn Lizzie into a heretic this early, I'd be jumping up and down. But because I think it's too early...unfortunately for me, it's just a cliffhanger that will not go the way that I want. And that's too bad, because Heretic Lizzie would have been an awesome gamechanger.

Dark Josie is born, so there's that. Now, that should affect Lizzie too, right? So either way, Lizzie's getting affected by something. Otherwise, the Kai/Josie scenes were great to watch. I'm glad to see both of them one upping the other in their chess match. 

Alaric did some bad things, which is no surprise. Yeah, Alaric, you made some mistakes...some pretty big ones. The trapped students stuff was...not as bad as I was expecting. Now, I knew that Kai would never actually be their chew toy, so I'm surprised that Kai apparently WAS Jade's toy where she got to kill him a bunch. I know 10 years is a long time, but still, you'd think that Kai wouldn't take off halfway across the Prison Planet to escape them. 

But yeah, Alaric was 100% wrong. I'm glad the show actively acknowledged this instead of having all three students actually be irredeemable. No, it's because Alaric moulded them that way by trapping them here. And then Alaric didn't even get it by the end of the episode.

Seriously, a great episode all around. Is this the first episode Danielle's missed? Because I did note her lack of presence, but because I genuinely think she hasn't missed an episode before this one.

[GaT]

Hopefully Josie going bad means we will never have to hear her whine "this is all my fault for doing black magic" again. 

[UNOSEZ]

2 hours ago, GaT said:

Hopefully Josie going bad means we will never have to hear her whine "this is all my fault for doing black magic" again. 

Plz God.... Martyr Much? 

[ketose]

The problem is that these kids killed a bunch of other regular kids for the crime of mockery. There's basically three options, kill the murderers, imprison them or let them go free. Alaric (at Caroline's behest) chose eternal prison. That option ended up being torture. Rick's first instinct was probably correct, to execute them. Sebastian was the worst of all, because he was a real baddie with a track record and probably should have just been executed.

[Lady Calypso]

1 hour ago, ketose said:

The problem is that these kids killed a bunch of other regular kids for the crime of mockery. There's basically three options, kill the murderers, imprison them or let them go free. Alaric (at Caroline's behest) chose eternal prison. That option ended up being torture. Rick's first instinct was probably correct, to execute them. Sebastian was the worst of all, because he was a real baddie with a track record and probably should have just been executed.

Well, for at least Jade, it wasn't on purpose. Also, with Fire Witch, it wasn't on purpose. Now, Werewolf Boy deserved some sort of punishment. He was intentionally cruel and violent. 

We've seen Rippers on the show before who have lost control. Yes, Jade shut off her humanity so that makes things worse. But, like she said, she was crying out for help and Alaric shoved her in a prison world instead. He knows what a humanity switch off actually means and he didn't see the signs. He made a mistake there. At the very least, he should have found a way to get her to switch on her humanity again. Instead, he shoved her in the Prison World and then....seemed to forget about her immediately. 

Alaric...kind of accidentally created them to be monsters, in the sense that he never gave them a chance or tried to really help them. Yes, they killed people and that's horrible, but we now know that it was an accident for two out of the three. If Alaric had even bothered to spend more time trying to appropriately figure out why they did it, maybe Jade and Fire Witch wouldn't have been trapped in Prison World for 10 years. 

It's an interesting dilemma for Alaric. He's guilty for how he handled things. In certain cases, I think his idea of the Prison World entrapment could have been a good one...although, really Ric? Trapping them...with KAI? And not expecting him to be untied? And maybe for Werewolf Boy, the punishment was appropriate...although he also just created a scenario where Werewolf Boy can literally become half werewolf, half boy.

But, with Alaric being wrong, it adds more layers to a character we've known since the very early days of the universe...and I like that he was wrong about how he initially handled things. He made a mistake. It doesn't mean he deserves what he's getting NOW (being hunted and potentially killed) but he created this scenario for himself in the first place. Again, at the end of the day, these three students were still just kids. So the dilemma is certainly: what form of punishment is appropriate? Maybe Prison World was the best option eventually, but we don't know if Alaric could have saved at least one of them from this fate.

Alaric thought he went with the best one, but he should have simply tried harder. The episode definitely added some layers to The Trio (well, with Jade and WB, not so much with Fire Witch) so at least I could see two sides to this. 

[Diapason Untuned]

1 hour ago, Lady Calypso said:

Well, for at least Jade, it wasn't on purpose. Also, with Fire Witch, it wasn't on purpose. Now, Werewolf Boy deserved some sort of punishment. He was intentionally cruel and violent. 

Let's recall that Werewolf Boy wasn't firing on full cylinders. The other two knew this, but they let him out anyways. 

[Chris24601]

I really appreciated that it wasn't a clear cut "Alaric was definitely wrong" or "The kids were always monsters" situation. Heck, Caroline is even in the mix as the one who counseled to use the prison instead of executing them.

And I can see missing the humanity switch on Alaric's part. How do you tell the difference between a vampire with their humanity off and a sociopath who happens to be a vampire (ex. Klaus) without knowing their baseline? How do you really know their baseline when they're just one of a hundred students and their family and normal friends aren't around either?

So its a mess and everyone's got a side of the story and the truth is that even the most noble people screw up sometimes while the most wicked sometimes do something that turns out to help others in the process.

Life's complicated. Isn't that the message of damned near every "coming of age" drama?

What I also appreciate is that, unlike TVD and TO, the protagonists are least TRYING to do the right thing vs. excusing the horrible actions against innocents because they were done by their friends. Finding justice while needing to keep the existence of supernaturals a secret was always going to be messy, but at least being able to root for the protagonists as legitimate, if flawed, heroes is such a refreshing departure from its two parent series.

It also really puts elements of season one into perspective too... Alaric asking Landon who Raf had killed takes on a whole new context knowing about the prison world. So does MG going Ripper on Landon and the good fortune that he was part-phoenix.

It also creates potential for future drama in that, since we know Alaric and the adults WILL punish students who kill innocents, the tension when one is accused of (or actual did) such a crime takes on more weight than it would have in TVD or TO where the only question was how long they'd get the cold shoulder instead of whether they'd legit be punished for their crimes.

I'm also glad they put forward what was always the most logical backup plan regarding the merge for me; one of them becomes a heretic. Lizzie's reasoning that she'd be giving up on having children or growing old with someone and she doesn't even know if she'd want to give those up is totally valid and also, not something that even has to be decided for certain until the day before the Merge would need to happen.

But the show putting it squarely out there as "This is a potential Plan-B to stop the merge" does a lot to make everyone seem competent and rational about the situation instead of them overlooking the "obvious" solution until the last possible moment for drama's sake.

Plus, Sebastian + Lizzie is now 1000% dead and the guy isn't going to be turned into some Woobie tortured soul who eats up way too much time in the series (#Damian, #Enzo). Leave his desiccated husk in the prison world and move on.

Finally, why do I sense a shift in the power dynamics regarding the Necromancer? Oh yeah, its because Kai pulled a crazy-awesome stunt to escape the prison world via Malevore and Necromancer is just completely outclassed.

[ketose]

Also, good timing for an episode about a prison world where the same day repeats in the same week as Groundhog's Day.

[luckyroll3]

I don't think Alaric was 100% wrong.  They did exactly what he thought they did.  But instead of coming clean about losing control, they tried to cover it up and then lied about it. With their powers/abilities, that's dangerous shit and no one knows that better than Alaric.  Should he have recognized a potential flipped humanity switch situation? Definitely. But dude has a lot on his fucking plate!  And any decisions he makes about these kids have serious consequences for everyone outside of the school.  

Hey, I'm impressed he didn't kill them. Sending them to the same prison world as Kai, however, was a big mistake.  And I think he should have been checking in with them regularly and/or trying to rehabilitate them.  Sending them away indefinitely when they're still so early in the supernaturalness without trying to further help them is a problem.  

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Kai makes every episode better. I laughed so hard when Two Princes started playing and again when he quoted the Terminator. His love of Zima never fails to amuse me.

Why would Sebastian want to stay in the prison world? I mean aside from the modern world being too loud, why would he voluntarily decide to stay in a place where the only other inhabitants are trying to get out at any cost? His obsession with making sure Lizzie doesn't die because of what happened to Cassandra is creepy, but worse was the fact that he fed her blood without her consent. I hate that so many characters in the TVD/TO universe take away people's agency by doing shit like that.

Lizzie was smart enough to trick Sebastian but then she just threw him in the back seat without tying him up? I don't care how desiccated he is - I've watched these shows too long to think that "he's dead" is a good enough reason not to make sure a supernatural being is as incapacitated as possible.

Wow, so Alaric, who was friends with Damon, Alaric, and numerous other vampires who killed countless humans, put three of his students in the prison world FOREVER because he thought they killed five people? Mathematically that's 1.6 dead people per student which is way less people than Damon killed. Look at many TVD characters went on killing sprees of WAY more than five people (Caroline when she first turned, Elena when she turned off her humanity, Damon just because it was a Tuesday night and he was bored) and they were coaxed back from the edge.

Look, I'm not saying these three students were innocents. They killed five people which is of course bad. But Alaric's friends got away with far worse so it seems a bit hasty to toss these three into a prison world after one incident without any effort to give them counseling or teach them self control or ANYTHING.

[Lady Calypso]

11 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Look, I'm not saying these three students were innocents. They killed five people which is of course bad. But Alaric's friends got away with far worse so it seems a bit hasty to toss these three into a prison world after one incident without any effort to give them counseling or teach them self control or ANYTHING.

And that was just Caroline's plan! Alaric was just going to straight up execute them!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

10 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

And that was just Caroline's plan! Alaric was just going to straight up execute them!

Haha, well that tracks with Alaric's original MO of kill first, maybe ask a few questions later!

[Kmr]

Yep I'm agreeing with those saying this wasn't a clear case of right and wrong with Alaric. Kai's prison world might have been wrong but some place to put supernaturals that are too dangerous isn't wrong. Hell we have juvenile detention or depending on the circumstances even adult prisons for kids underage. 

Also just because Alaric allowed his friends to do things doesn't mean he thought it was right or that he would want to let his children think it's fine. Plus there is also the difference that he is responsible for the students and their actions where as his friends are responsible for their own actions. 

It is also unfortunate that the others like Caroline, Bonnie or even Emma aren't on the show because we know they are in contact and counseling Alaric but we don't know specifically what they know or advised. So Alaric is the one that faces the consequences when things go haywire. 

Also people keep mentioning counseling but these students had been getting counseling because that was what we saw last year was Emma 's job and we can assume she was counseling these kids because in the Alyssa flashbacks she mentioned to Alaric that Alyssa wasn't like the others. 

You know this would have been great use for Raf where we could have seen how they teach new werewolves through this so we can actually judge if this guy was just dark or if there was an issue with what was being taught. 

This does bring up the question about the parents. Were these three also orphans or sent away by their families? If not what do the parents know?

That's the big issue I have with this is the show won't go into the deeper levels and is just dealing with the surface level. Which just leaves us judging Alaric without knowing all the facts. 

I will this whole storyline with Dark Josie, Kai, the prison world have been the best part of the season as opposed to the villain of the week and the whole Hope/Landon saga. 

[tennisgurl]

So we find out more about the prison world and Alaric sending some of his troubled students to it and...yeah its a really complicated situation. On the one hand, its an understandable idea on how to deal with teens with supernatural powers who are seemingly murdering people. You cant just let them out into the world where they could hurt people, or let them possibly hurt other kids in the school, but its not like you can lock them in a normal facility for troubled teens, and seeing the people that were all horribly killed, seemingly without remorse from the students, I can see why Alaric would see this as the best option, especially if the only options presented are this and execution.

However...this was clearly a major screw up on his part. Not only is sending anyone, let alone teenagers, to some kind of eternal pocket dimension forever seem like a pretty horrific punishment, not only did he totally misread the situation (granted, the teens didnt do themselves any favors by trying to hide it and not explaining, but dumb kids are gonna dumb kid, magic or otherwise) and banish them for what was actually a tragic accident based on the kids being unable to fully control their powers (which is half the point of the school) but Alaric is the teacher here, the adult. Instead of trying to reach the students and help them, or work harder to find out what happened, he basically tossed them away and threw away the key, never to think of them again. Its clear that what happened in the woods was the students not knowing how to control their powers, with the werewolf boy losing control in anger (which he talked about struggling with) the fire witch accidentally burning one of the girls while trying to stop her from calling the cops, and Jade went all ripper. It really looked like it was an accident, presumably with a frantic attempt at hiding what happened, but because Alaric seemingly freaked out and felt like he had to act right away, the kids got sent to this prison dimension, which, shockingly, just made them crazier and more evil and bitter about what happened, and seemingly being abandoned. Again, its understandable, and they do need a system to deal with supernatural people who commit crimes, and everyone just letting murderous people with powers run around doing whatever they want isnt a good option either, but this could not have been the best choice. He could have done better by the teens, they needed to learn better control and to deal with their clear issues, which is one of the reasons why the school exists in the first place, and he didnt do that. I dont really blame them for being pissed. Especially being left with freaking Kai! I dont excuse them possibly hurting the twins, whatever evil they have planned next, or even covering up what they did to the other teens, but it does make them more complex than just being monsters who were always monsters and are still monsters. I like how complicated the whole situation is, and how willing the show is to let Alaric screw up, and admit to it. I also wonder, based on how Jade seemed to be implying that Alaric only really cared about his daughters and not the other students, that he was a bit harsher on them because they involved Josie in their escape plan? Knowing about this also does make some of his interactions with some of the current students, like Kaleb in early season one, or almost everyone during the whole "MG killed Landon and Raf almost mauled MG" debacle, a bit more intense in hindsight, knowing now that this was an option.

So can we finally put a stake through this Lizzie/Sebastian thing now? For real? Not only is he creepily trying to turn Lizzie into a vampire against her will so that he can be with her forever, whether she wants to be with him forever or not, but its all because he is still obsessed with his dead girlfriend! Oh my God, build a bridge and get over it dude! 

Its been a very very long time since I saw the mothership show, but I do remember Kai and I always remember liking him as a villain, and now I remember why. He is a freaking blast, all evil and snarky and crazy and screwing everyone over, you could tell that Chris Wood is just having the time of his life. Kai and the necromancer (and Chad!) are going to be a very interesting, and probably hilarious, dynamic. 

So begins the tale of Darth Josie! Now presumably with scary dark magic veins and a new evil haircut!

Edited February 9, 2020 by tennisgurl

[ketose]

On 2/8/2020 at 8:15 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Wow, so Alaric, who was friends with Damon, Alaric, and numerous other vampires who killed countless humans, put three of his students in the prison world FOREVER because he thought they killed five people? Mathematically that's 1.6 dead people per student which is way less people than Damon killed. Look at many TVD characters went on killing sprees of WAY more than five people (Caroline when she first turned, Elena when she turned off her humanity, Damon just because it was a Tuesday night and he was bored) and they were coaxed back from the edge.

Look, I'm not saying these three students were innocents. They killed five people which is of course bad. But Alaric's friends got away with far worse so it seems a bit hasty to toss these three into a prison world after one incident without any effort to give them counseling or teach them self control or ANYTHING.

On TVD, the concept of right and wrong was completely corrupted. Matt was the only one who even came close to trying to do the right thing and he slipped a lot. On The Originals, they never really had any respect for human life. This show tries to draw the line that killing teenagers is not okay and only rarely kills them off.

That's another thing. If 5 kids died in the forest, someone like Matt probably wouldn't let Alaric get away with just counseling them.

[Lyinfait]

Sphinx: There are two prisoners. One is the master of hiscage. The other returns home without power. The sins of the father are visited upon the daughters here. And not here. New hero rises but can be felled by the golden arrow. The wolf among you has many faces. When time fractures, darkness overwhelms. But the greatest destroyer of all is love.

 

The sphinx was on to something! I enjoyed this episode. I have no historical knowledge of the other shows so Kai was new and interesting to me. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Two small things I liked in this episode were Sebastian complaining about how loud the modern world is, particularly for a vampire (Rebekah had the same complaint when they un-desiccated her on TVD) and Kai’s petty note to inform the three Salvatore students thst he’d betrayed and abandoned them just thanked Jade for “all the sex.” 

Edited February 15, 2020 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Snow Fairy]

On 2/10/2020 at 4:50 PM, Lyinfait said:

Sphinx: There are two prisoners. One is the master of hiscage. The other returns home without power. The sins of the father are visited upon the daughters here. And not here. New hero rises but can be felled by the golden arrow. The wolf among you has many faces. When time fractures, darkness overwhelms. But the greatest destroyer of all is love.

Oh that was great. Lots of this happened.

I get the new hero and golden arrow. Time fractures, the clock.

Two prisoners, did the Necromancer the one who returned without powers? Second is Kai?

Wolf with many faces?

[Lyinfait]

On 2/12/2020 at 1:06 AM, Snow Fairy said:

Oh that was great. Lots of this happened.

I get the new hero and golden arrow. Time fractures, the clock.

Two prisoners, did the Necromancer the one who returned without powers? Second is Kai?

Wolf with many faces?

Kai definitely seemed to have mastery over his cage. I'm unfamiliar with his powers, if he has any so I was not sure how much the first half might apply. 

[nilyank]

11 hours ago, Lyinfait said:

Kai definitely seemed to have mastery over his cage. I'm unfamiliar with his powers, if he has any so I was not sure how much the first half might apply. 

If I remember correctly, Kai was a siphon witch like Josie. And he has the power of snark.

[Lyinfait]

On 2/15/2020 at 5:17 AM, nilyank said:

If I remember correctly, Kai was a siphon witch like Josie. And he has the power of snark.

Ha, I did notice the snark. Thank you for the information!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Dead doesn't really mean dead in the Vampire Diaries/Originals/Legacies universe so I have no doubt that if they decide that they want to bring Kai/Chris Parker back, they'll find a way to do it (no matter how convoluted the explanation may be).

[ketose]

On 2/15/2020 at 8:17 AM, nilyank said:

If I remember correctly, Kai was a siphon witch like Josie. And he has the power of snark.

I guess he's also a heretic (Vampire + siphon) which must have happened at some point.