S03.E06: To Whom It May Concern

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

After a sudden mass exodus of the school's student body, Alaric and the squad desperately try to recruit new students to keep the school afloat. Hope agrees to help Lizzie with the new student orientation. Josie enjoys a fresh start on her first day at Mystic Falls High, while MG begins his semester of “no.”

Promo:

Original air date: 3/11/21

[GaT]

So are they resetting the series with new students?

[Chris24601]

2 hours ago, GaT said:

So are they resetting the series with new students?

Nope... COVID restrictions on shooting limit the number of extras so they needed a way to thin out the school and I’ll commend them for at least having a logical reason for most of the students not returning after two years of monster shenanigans.

Nothing changes much in practice. The show has always been focused on a select few students, plus a few recurring and a bunch of background extras. Hope, Lizzie, Jo, Landon, MG, Kaleb, Jed and Wade are about 80% of the Salvitore students who showed up in more than one episode and hadn’t already been written out (Raf, Jade coming and going). We’ll have to see if Alyssa Chang returns in the flesh in a later episode since she was heard but not seen last episode and seen but not heard on MG’s mirror. If Pedro pops up among the 22 other returning students we’ll have 100% retention of the named regular and recurring students. Likewise, Dorian is still around and we’ve never really seen any teachers onscreen except Emma.

Landon being mostly solo and Jo having essentially her own set of characters mean they can do some social distancing and shift shooting schedules around depending on COVID factors because you’ve got essentially three completely separate plots of indefinite length going on.

[Kmr]

For the love of God let this be the end of the Necromancer and the grieving for Landon with full flashbacks. Both have overstayed their welcome. 

Like Cleo so far but will need to see more her and how the writers write for her.

Not feeling Finch and Josie. It feels like they are trying too hard with them. Hell at this point I prefer Josie and Ethan together based on their interactions so far. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hahahaha, I love that Malivore's punishment for the Necromancer was to give him Chad's job and get him to sing just because he knew how much the Necromancer would haaaaaaate it!

Ethan makes no sense to me. He is choosing to eat his lunch in the hallway by himself because he thinks he can't hang out with the football team until he "earns his spot back"? What kind of self-martyring garbage is that? If they're your friends, they're going to want to be your friends even when you're injured. At any rate, I'd rather see Josie hanging out with him than having to watch her new romance with Finch which feels very forced.

I kind of loved that Gunter came all the way from Germany masquerading as a prospective student just to try to kill Alaric. I feel like Klaus would have appreciated the effort.

So far I prefer Cleo to Gaby but I think that's mostly because Gaby comes off as so immature and I'm not really interested in having a character like that around. Cleo seems like she will fit in well and hopefully make them realize that being honest with each other is better than constantly hiding things in the name of "protecting" someone they love.

[Chris24601]

3 hours ago, Kmr said:

Not feeling Finch and Josie. It feels like they are trying too hard with them. Hell at this point I prefer Josie and Ethan together based on their interactions so far. 

I suspect a Finch/Josie/Ethan love triangle is almost inevitable once the COVID filming restrictions are taken into account. I don't think there's going to be much crossover between arcs this season for pretty much that reason. I also think that, just like the past two seasons, the second episode of the new season (the first four of season three were originally the conclusion of season two) sets the course for the rest of it (1x02 established monsters are real, 2x02 reconnected Hope with Alaric and that monsters were still coming).

So, basically this season it looks like the main arcs are;

- Landon Alone: solo character growth arc. He'll probably meet some humans that got eaten by Malivore over the years during his time in the prison world; possibly even a reunion with his mother at some point. This has the potential to run half-dozen episodes, maybe even to the end of the season if they skip episodes.

- Josie Love Triangle: what it says on the tin; Josie gets feelings for both Finch and Ethan. Dorian is there to act as adult authority figure to provide advice and/or complications as needed.

- Monster of the Week Crew: Hope, Alaric, Lizzie, MG, Kaleb, Jed, Wade and the two new kids (though based on past seasons I expect everyone but Hope and Alaric to skip an episode here and there) continue to deal with monster-related shenanigans (first and foremost why they keep turning up despite Malivore now being in a prison dimension). Hope gets over her grief, Alaric deals with the fallout for the school of two seasons of regular monster attacks, Lizzie learns to be her own person separate from Josie, MG stands up for himself, Kaleb pursues the new girl, Jed and Wade provide comedy relief.

[foxfreakinmulder]

8 hours ago, Kmr said:

For the love of God let this be the end of the Necromancer and the grieving for Landon with full flashbacks. Both have overstayed their welcome. 

YES, Pleeeeeease!!!

I actually liked this episode except for the Josie part. I found that boring and I have no interest in her love life.

I was laughing at the Necromancer and Landon fighting over who was going to get to the freezer first when they're chained together, lol.

Who here didn't know as soon as Landon walked away that note was going to fly off the spike raise your hand.

So Landon went from the prison world to the empty space with the Necromancer and back to a prison world?

The vampire from the old country and Alaric trying to reason with him. Bahahahahah!!

So the show got rid of actors they already had and replaced them with new actors?

Wouldn't Hope have a large trust or inheritance from her dad that she could use to help save the school if they needed money?

 

 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

7 hours ago, foxfreakinmulder said:

Wouldn't Hope have a large trust or inheritance from her dad that she could use to help save the school if they needed money?

Hope isn't 18 yet so I'm guessing that any money Klaus left to her is being held in trust until she reaches a certain age. If Klaus had any brains at all, he wouldn't let her have access to all the money as soon as she turns 18. Hopefully she gets installments at specific ages so that she can't burn through it all at once.

Money would help with the teachers' salaries but they still need students in order to stay open. Alaric explained that the charter for the school states that they must have a minimum of 30 students. I can't imagine there are THAT many schools for supernatural students so you'd think they could have mustered up more than a handful of prospective students just to get two more.

I was trying to figure out who the other 28 students are. Obviously we have the main characters (Hope, Lizzie, Kaleb, MG) plus the students we see often (Jed, Wade) but that is only six students (and when Kaleb, MG, Jed, and Wade showed up for the tour, they said they were the ONLY returning students). So who are the other 22 students who we didn't see at all this week? Alyssa? Pedro?

7 hours ago, foxfreakinmulder said:

I was laughing at the Necromancer and Landon fighting over who was going to get to the freezer first when they're chained together, lol.

That totally cracked me up. It was like the worst elementary school relay race.

[Chris24601]

17 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I was trying to figure out who the other 28 students are. Obviously we have the main characters (Hope, Lizzie, Kaleb, MG) plus the students we see often (Jed, Wade) but that is only six students (and when Kaleb, MG, Jed, and Wade showed up for the tour, they said they were the ONLY returning students). So who are the other 22 students who we didn't see at all this week? Alyssa? Pedro?

We saw at least two other wolves with Jed during the tour... so that’s 10.

I figure the odds for Pedro and Alyssa coming back are pretty good too. They needed to cut down on the number of extras for COVID reasons, but ALL the main students who’ve appeared often enough to be named are back so there’s no particular reason to write the other named ones out unless the actor found a better gig over the extended hiatus.

That said, I expect the reduced numbers and both the two named new recruits apparently being witches to be because that way they can show a reasonably full (for a student body of 30) witch class that Hope and Lizzie would attend along with the new girls and Wade (was in the witch program until figuring out he was a faerie) and why the hallways are empty instead of bustling with extras).

Come to think of it... social distancing probably also explains why they filmed Jo and Ethan sitting alone in the hallway to eat lunch instead of at a table in the lunchroom with a bunch of school extras.

As for Hope’s trust fund; hopefully she went to visit her relatives again to restore their memories of her... again; otherwise everyone responsible for said trust fund wouldn’t even remember there IS a trust fund to give her.

Come to think of it; that means no one at Mystic Falls High School, including Ethan, even remembers that Hope spent some time enrolled there last season (and Dorian might not have gotten the restoration blast either since he’d already departed the school by then).

All the more reason that the Mystic Falls High and Salvitore School plotlines are unlikely to cross much.

[tennisgurl]

Saying that a bunch of the students were pulled from the school because of its students constantly being in danger and pulled into fights with monsters is actually a really clever way to deal with COVID while also showing consequences for what all has happened with the constant monster attacks. Yeah, hard to blame parents for not wanting to send their kids to a school with even more monster attacks than theme dances, even though I am curious about what schools they are sending their kids to. Are there other magical schools? I thought that this was pretty much the only one, or are there more just they're more specialized? One is a witch school, ones a werewolf school, etc. 

If your trying to sell your school as a nice and not at all dangerous place, maybe don't have a girl who's boyfriend, another student, was just killed at the school doing the campus tour? So we get two new witches, and I like the teen witch that Hope bonded with, although I don't know how long they will end up sticking around, this show has often hyped up a new character only for them to disappear pretty quickly. This seasons tone has been so weird, and not all of it can be chalked up to COVID. Its been rather dour and self serious, with people dying and crying and a lot of general misery, and when it tries to take a break from the sad it can sometimes feel callus. I get everyone wanting Hope to be happy and not wallow in grief, but everyone really is acting like Landon and Hope just broke up and he moved away, not that he turned to goo and died. Obviously we know he isn't dead, but they don't know that. 

The Necromancer is hilarious and definitely their best villain, but he is being seriously overused at this point. So now we are going to have more of him and more of Landon wandering around in his own plot, which just sounds super boring. Although not as boring as Josie regular school having some kind of love triangle. I just do not care and I do not buy that she will actually stay with either of these normies. Also, if you want a life free of monsters and magic, why would you even stay in Mystic Falls at all?

I do find it funny that the Necromancer was forced into his old ice cream job. As well as Alaric still trying to sell the school to the vampire that just tried to kill him.

Edited March 16, 2021 by tennisgurl

[Kymmi]

This episode was super slow for me.  While Landon & the Necromancer are somewhat amusing, we’ve seen this before. I need a break from the Necromancer, to be honest. Hope is always emo, but Landon being dead has made it unbearable. Hoping this is wrapped up soon. 
I don’t understand the hair on this show. Lizzie clearly wore a platinum wig in previous episodes, but now she has darker hair with roots. Confusing. 
I don’t feel anything for the woman Josie is interacting with, but like Hope, I do like Josie with the sheriff’s son. 

[Chris24601]

A good chunk of the weirdness is simply that, were it not for COVID, this would have been Episode 3x02 (and last week 3x01, and the four before that 2x17-2x20).

With effectively the start of three seasons now under our belts it’s pretty easy to see the formula now. The first episode establishes a status quo (The Salvatore School before Landon turned up; the world without Hope in it; everyone searching for Landon) and ends with an inciting incident (the burned up bus; the cyclops shows up and the realization monsters are still coming; the magic box works right after Hope throws it away and Landon comes across a door). The second episode sets up a new pattern (this is a fantasy monster of the week show; monsters are still coming and Hope not being remembered presents complications; the school crew is struggling to keep it open in the face of losing probably 75% of its students and faculty + Josie’s love triangle + Landon’s solo journey of discovery).

Thematically, I think this season is going to be about dealing with changes. Everyone’s status quo is off kilter due to loss (Hope lost Landon, Lizzie lost having Jo always around, Jo lost her magic, Alaric lost most of his students) and now they have to decide how they adapt to it.

So it makes sense if the show feels a bit off and unfamiliar... because that’s right where the main characters are at with their situations too.

[paulvdb]

19 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Are there other magical schools?

We know there is one in Belgium where Penelope went after she left the show. One of the new students in this episode mentioned going to school there with Penelope.

[Chris24601]

I believe the pilot also mentioned the existence of other schools; but the Salvatore School is the only school that accepts more than one type of student. So there are witch schools, vampire schools and werewolf schools, but this is the only one that has all three interacting.

And when you think about how the school got started it actually makes sense... you’ve got a mortal and a vampire with siphon witch daughters who got an early check from a vampire/wolf hybrid to see to it that his vampire/wolf/witch daughter had a place to go. That basically requires a full curriculum that dealt with all three.

Caroline, Josie, Lizzie and Hope are the reason the school was established in the way it was; which is also why its about the only school that could even consider an unknown like Landon and continue to provide an education to Wade after he was revealed to be a Fairy.

Dig a little deeper too and while Alaric was able to get 22 other names to stay... Hope and Lizzie grew up there; the school is literally their home. There is no school for fairies so where else could Wade go? MGs mom works for an evil organization and his dad and the rest of his old life think he’s dead... so the school is now his home too. Kaleb declared himself MG’s family and is extremely loyal so it makes sense he’d stay to look after MG.

The only one of the students who returned without Alaric’s pressure/wooing who doesn’t have a solid in-universe reason for returning is Jed and, now that his actor has been made a regular, I suspect we might get some backstory on him in the near future that might explain that too (including some basic info like his last name).

Alyssa also pretty much had the school as her home, but given her actress got a gig as lead on a new CW show, I now doubt she’ll be returning and expect we’ll get news she’s transferred to a different school.

But, as a result, the Salvatore School is now a bit of an Island of Misfit Toys; a school with a bad rep for a bunch of supernaturals who don’t have anywhere else to go.

And while I can’t blame the parents, I will point out that despite a LOT of monster attacks none of the Salvatore students actually died from them except Landon and that wasn’t because of a monster attack either (Alyssa was killed by Josie and it didn’t even stick an entire episode). So in terms of keeping the students safe, Alaric actually did a solid job.