S03.E07: Yup, It's a Leprechaun, All Right

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Lizzie suggests holding a fundraiser for the school; Cleo helps Hope cope with her emotions; MG seeks help from Alyssa; when a leprechaun shows up at the school, it might be what they need to turn their luck around.

Promo:

Original air date: 3/18/21

[Chris24601]

Calling it now; Cleo is a monster... probably one of the various Greek triple goddess sets (Fates, Furies, etc.). Given her statue deal, I wouldn’t even be surprised if she turned out to be a Gorgon (and distant aunt of the Medusa who turned up in season one).

She’s just a little too creepy with the “let’s use your dead lover’s remains to make art,” a little too pushy about wanting Hope to not going looking for a portal to the Prison World, a little too against harming the monster then “accidentally” blowing it up when Hope might have been able to use the Leprechaun to track back to the Portal. A little too vague on just who her sisters were and who killed them.

As to what they’re after; I’m gonna say that Malivore wants the Ascendant to escape the Prison World.

[Lyinfait]

Your thoughts are far more developed than mine (well done!) but I agree, Cleo is suspect. There is definitely something being left out when she speaks. I think she knows a lot more than she pretends to and she is there with a purpose. Hopefully, it is a fun journey. I'm enjoying Caleb, MG, and Lizzie. Hope angst and Josie drama not as much. Something other than Landon is missing but I don't know what. 

[twoods]

Raf! I miss Raf! I miss his bromance with everyone especially Landon, and even how he was pretty much into all the main female characters (had second, dated, crushed on). Why did he have to leave?

[Kmr]

Oh show why do you hurt me like this? This could have been a fun episode but again this Landon storyline is choking the life out of the show. 

Everything revolves around him, Hope's obsession, why the school is in financial trouble, why MG is going to be getting flack in the next episode, and hell you can even connect Josie's storyline to Landon since she isolated herself because of the dark Josie period but that came about because of Landon's brother and Josie being jealous and protective in regards to Landon. 

We need more MG and Josie scenes along with Kaleb and Lizzie scenes. Best parts of the episode. 

[tennisgurl]

This was so close to the fun episodes of this show that I usually really like, and this was certainly an improvement on the last string of episodes, but its dragged down by Hope's angst and Josie's dull subplot with the boring school and its boring students. The leprechaun was a fun MOTW, and I do enjoy when this show does a holiday episode, but this season is really struggling to gel. I also thought some of the directing and staging felt weird, there were a lot of scenes where I really struggled with following the action

I get that Hope is devastated by Landon's apparent death, but its all made rather hallow by the fact that we know that Landon is not dead and will get back eventually, which means all of this will end up being rather awkward later on. There is also something clearly up with Cleo, the whole "use your dead boyfriend remains for art" is just not something I would expect to hear from a teenager, even a magical one, and she was way too interested in hearing about Malivore and the prison world. I like @Chris24601 idea that she is the last surviving member of the fates, or the furies, or the Gorgons, or some other triple group of female deities or monsters. Her comments about who her sisters were and who killed them, plus telling Aleaic that it was just her when she signed up for school, makes me definitely think that she is hiding something. 

I really don't care about Josie dating some new random girl, especially one who is so sensitive that she gets so angry about her missing one study session. The only kind of interesting thing is the comment about there is something "about" her, makes me wonder if she might be supernatural. 

There was stuff I liked though. I am happy that getting rid of a bunch of extraneous characters has let the supporting cast get more screen time, especially Caleb who is always the best. I like that they went back to the conflict between him and Alaric about when the students should use their powers or not, I always love their scenes together. Really, almost everything out of the boring romance subplots were actually pretty good, its just too bad those boring romance subplots took up so much time. 

[Chris24601]

To be fair on the Hope angst... in universe it’s been maybe a bit over a month since Landon turned to goo and maybe two weeks since Hope consciously accepted that he’s almost certainly dead.

No one who isn’t a TV character grieves that quickly and, no, already losing her mom, her dad and her uncle (not to mention the kid she helped make a hybrid who got his heart ripped out for it) would not make it go faster. Each one is its own unique pain.

Frankly, it’s amazing Hope is as well-adjusted as she is... though you see the damage poke through from time to time (ex. since Dana’s mom turned up this episode; when she was telling MG what to compel Dana’s friend to remember you could tell it was coming from someone still carrying a lot of grief and loss). Those and the fact that she can forgive the guy involved in her mom’s murder or give MG her blood to save him right after he killed Landon (before it was known he was a phoenix) without even being asked to are why I cut her a LOT of slack.

The fact that no one has the slightest concern for MG’s head still being attached to his shoulders next week after Hope found out he’d been hiding the ascendant for weeks now is testament to just how far from the protagonists of TVD and TO she is.

As to Cleo, upon a little bit of research I’m going to guess that she’s a Muse.

For starters, one of the traditional ones is named Clio who’s portfolio includes history (i.e. truthful recountings of events... and Cleo is big on people telling her the truth).

Next, depending on the recounting there are either three or nine (three sets of three) of them so Cleo’s two dead sisters would add up to at least one version.

Explains her general interest in art and Hope (as an artist who’s been blocked by her grief) in particular and why so much of her efforts with Hope are about trying to get her past her grief (i.e. back to her creativity).

So, I’m gonna go with a Muse and that, like the Leprechaun and Cupid’s brother, Pothos, their mythology is a bit darker than popular culture implies... like maybe instead of supplying inspiration, they actually glom onto artists and feed on their creativity... which is why her sisters were killed and she got a Malivore timeout. 

She probably got out of the prison dimension the same way the Leprechaun did and there’s probably either something associated with the portal or in the prison world she’s worried will expose her... or she doesn’t want Hope to find Landon because she’s glommed her parasitic self onto Hope.

Bonus points too if Cleo once acted as a Muse for Klaus just because of Puck’s mention of having met him and that he was a horrible painter (maybe Muses suck talent out of people) while Hope is quite proficient despite far less experience.

 

[Jack Sampson]

This season seems cheap.  I know Covid restricted the number of people but even the sets look different and the writing is substantially worse.  Scenes and reactions are drawn out and it feels like it's mostly filler.  It makes the pacing even slower. 

And a few of the actors have aged to where they can't convincingly play teenagers.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Cleo was on my monster radar as soon as she told Hope she needed to move on from Landon. Cleo said she's only known Hope for a few days which means that this episode takes places right after the previous one. This means that Landon has been dead for a week or two at this point. Maybe a month at most if I'm being generous with the show's ambiguous timeline. That is not a long time to process your grief, so I was already like ugh, STFU, Cleo.

But when she suggested that Hope couldn't move on as long as she still had his remains, I was like, excuse me, Cleo, who made you a grief counselor? Some people keep ashes or remains for years. That doesn't mean they haven't moved on. And again, it has only been a matter of weeks since Landon died so I don't see anything wrong with keeping his ashes.

Even worse, her idea to use his ashes to make art? JFC, Cleo!

Now Cleo knows that Malivore is Landon's father AND she has the bust made out of Landon's ashes. I don't find that totally suspect at all. I'm sure that won't end up playing a role in whatever evil fuckery she's up to.

Since she said her two sisters died, I'm guessing she's one of the muses (and one of them is named Clio!) and like the German guy, she's possibly at the Salvatore School for revenge. Whatever her plan is, I'm sure it's nothing good for Hope or anyone. The fact that she blew up the leprechaun sealed the deal for me.

But I can't argue with the fact that she said (1) in the few days they've known each other, Hope had not asked her a single question about her and (2) she's obsessed with Landon. TRUTH.

I can't wait to hear why MG stole and hid the ascendant and kept it a secret from Lizzie/Hope.

While I like seeing Kaleb have more screen time, I don't like that they're trying to turn him into a Dorian replacement who is being treated like a quasi-adult. It seemed like an inappropriate responsibility for Alaric to put Kaleb in charge of the fundraising day and make sure that no one used magic.

On a shallow note, the fact that they thought they could raise $91,000 in one day by having a car wash/bake sale/art auction seemed absurd to me. I know some of the founding families have money but sheesh. Even if they charged $20 per car or cookie, that's still over 4500 cars and cookies. Does Mystic Falls even have that many people?

[nilyank]

1 hour ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

On a shallow note, the fact that they thought they could raise $91,000 in one day by having a car wash/bake sale/art auction seemed absurd to me. I know some of the founding families have money but sheesh. Even if they charged $20 per car or cookie, that's still over 4500 cars and cookies. Does Mystic Falls even have that many people?

I thought it was absurd that they couldn't sell one of the many relics that they have hanging around or more important why couldn't Hope reach out to her aunts/uncles/Marcel for an advance to help the school out.

[foxfreakinmulder]

First thing I noticed was the coloring this episode had, I mean was it just me or did it have a yellow hue?

I also noticed Lizzie looked like she had her own hair instead of that awful wig.

I agree with others that something is off with Cleo. I think it's strange her clinging to Hope like she is after knowing her for only a couple of days too. And she did watch the Leprechaun strangle Alaric for a while before doing anything. So maybe she is there for revenge for her sisters death?

How did they get the money did they scoop it up after the Leprechaun exploded? Why wasn't there any police following that truck? 

So, Alaric still got it. LOL 😉

[Chris24601]

27 minutes ago, foxfreakinmulder said:

First thing I noticed was the coloring this episode had, I mean was it just me or did it have a yellow hue?

Its another side effect of COVID... specifically, you can get away with a lot sins with the background and props as long as you have a bunch of people milling around to keep your focus on.

So if you can't hide it with warm bodies, hide it with lighting.

They pulled the same trick in Star Trek Generations where they had to use a set built for old TV resolution in an actual big screen film. To hide how cheap a lot of the sets actually were, they switched from the even lighting of the television series to extremely saturated single source lighting to create lots of shadows and color patterns so you wouldn't notice (then blew up the ship at the end because they had no intention of ever using that set in a motion picture ever again).

27 minutes ago, foxfreakinmulder said:

How did they get the money did they scoop it up after the Leprechaun exploded?

Alaric mentioned, along with "still having it" that he was reminded of how corrupt mundane governments could be and so went back on his initial idea of wanting to solve the issue without magic.  Once magic is in play, getting the $91,000 paid off would be trivial. Heck, just have a vampire pay the tax assessor a little visit and compel him to write a new letter saying the lien was a mistake and all taxes are current. Or do some alchemy and turn lead into gold.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

2 hours ago, foxfreakinmulder said:

How did they get the money did they scoop it up after the Leprechaun exploded?

Alaric said the leprechaun’s belly was full of money and all the other stuff he’d eaten (like Kaleb’s cufflinks and the ascendant).

[foxfreakinmulder]

10 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

Alaric mentioned, along with "still having it" that he was reminded of how corrupt mundane governments could be and so went back on his initial idea of wanting to solve the issue without magic.  Once magic is in play, getting the $91,000 paid off would be trivial. Heck, just have a vampire pay the tax assessor a little visit and compel him to write a new letter saying the lien was a mistake and all taxes are current. Or do some alchemy and turn lead into gold.

Thanks Chris24601, I must have looked away for a minute because I totally missed this 🙂

Thanks ElectricBoogaloo, I did hear Alaric say that but missed the part of how he got the lien settled 🙂 

[Kmr]

From what Alaric said they must have scooped up the contents of the leprechaun's belly and paid back the townies. Not sure what they were paying back but he did say they still had enough to pay the lien off.

This and last week's issue bring up a problem the show has: Caroline. There is no way in hell she would have allowed these issues to have occurred. Hell I doubt she trusted Alaric to pay the taxes. 

Regarding MG and the ascendant, the reason was briefly mentioned in 3x4. As long as the Necromancer remains in the prison world Alyssa was safe since technically she is still bound to him and could do to her what he did to Chad and almost did to Raf. I think that everyone was willing to believe Alyssa had destroyed it. I think MG did lie because he cared for her and wanted to protect Alyssa. I think he kept it a secret not wanting others to get mad at him but also because he had searched the prison world and couldn't find Landon. 

I agree that there is something up with Cleo but not sure she will be bad. Also have a theory about Finch. She is kind of giving off the Tyler vibe season1. I think she will end up a werewolf and will end up activating her werewolf side after killing Ethan. He won't die as will get turned so that those two can be brought to the school and bring Josie back. 

[Chris24601]

I don’t think there’s much point to bringing Ethan into the school as a vampire or such unless Landon ends up not coming back.

Bottom line is they’ve had multiple opportunities to make Hope/Landon a passing thing... They could have kept Landon gone long enough after he was voted out of the school for Hope to start a thing with Raf. When everyone forgot her, they could have just left those memories gone and hooked Hope up with Ethan or Raf (or sold a love triangle with both while Landon/Josie stayed a thing). They could have let Landon’s goo-ifying actually be his end and told a story about Hope moving past her first epic love where Ethan might have worked.

At this point though there’s just no way to plausibly sell any alternative romantic arc with Hope as long as Landon is still in the picture. Which pretty much means Ethan is only there as a potential alternative to Finch for Josie and only one of those two can end up supernatural since the logical romantic dilemma for a show like this is “normal vs. magical life.”

As for Cleo, I’m going to bet on “Muse as creativity vampire” just because she seemed so intent on getting Hope to move past Landon and start focusing on her... so my hunch is that to feed the Muse needs the mortal to focus on and be inspired by them and not some other source (Landon in this case).

Basically, Cleo’s annoyed that Hope’s feelings for Landon are “all consuming” because she can’t sink her metaphorical fangs in for that creativity hit she craves until Hope lets go of Landon (though given its been maybe a month since Landon turned to goo and probably only a week since Hope finally allowed herself to admit he could actually be dead... all consuming feelings doesn’t even sound emotionally unhealthy at this stage).

Basically, if they wanted Cleo to come off as just an empathetic person interested in really helping Hope, they’d have needed a bigger time jump (a year+) with Hope still holding onto the loss. Pulling that when Hope is barely a week past leaving the Denial stage of loss just makes it look like she’s got an agenda that isn’t actually in Hope’s interests.

Now, I do admit there’s a possibility that this could just be the disconnect between how we’re viewing the story (where Landon melted just a month or so ago real time) and how the writers feel (Landon melting was written more than a year ago since it would have originally been the s2 cliffhanger), but that’s its own issue.

[Kymmi]

- I miss the hustle and bustle of school. A boarding school without borders is just ... boring. 
- very distracted by Lizzie’s eyebrows. A lot going on there. 
- I guess this is the end of Alyssa Chan?  Too bad, she was an interesting character. Losing both Penelope and Alyssa leaves a larger hole than I would imagine.

- Killing off Raf makes no sense, especially when the cast is just regulars  he added a lot and had relationships and connections with everyone  

- Finch reminds me of Lila Potts (from the Umbrella Academy) but without the fun. They tend to throw Josie at love interests too fast for my liking. 
- I didn’t watch TVD or The Originals, but what is up with absent Caroline? Beyond time to come home and get things settled. 
- I am ready to get Landon back, let’s get this done. 

[Chris24601]

11 hours ago, Kymmi said:

- I didn’t watch TVD or The Originals, but what is up with absent Caroline? Beyond time to come home and get things settled. 

After 8 years of TVD and another year of guest spots on TO, the actress who plays Caroline decided she needed to take a long break from playing the character. She’s been willing to do some voice work (such as narrating the letter to Lizzie in the musical episode), but not to return in the flesh at this point.

All things considered, they’ve written around as best you could short of killing Caroline off; which I don’t think would add anything even if they did it... they’ve already got Hope for all the dead parent angst you’d ever need.

As for Alyssa Chang; they’re pretty lucky they got her actress for long enough to finish out that arc with a “video” appearance since she’s now the lead on the CW’s new Kung Fu series. They’d have had to put the actress into a roll on par with Danielle’s Hope to get her to turn down that opportunity.

I’ll also agree that the mostly empty school is jarring; but I think they’re doing a reasonably good job of using that to their advantage by having it affect the characters and not just the viewers.

They could have just as easily ignored the effects of the Covid restrictions in the writing and had scenes in deserted hallways without explanation. Instead they leaned into it and made it a notable issue for the characters... Lizzie’s obsession with losing the Smoothie Bar these past two episodes has been humorous and the general ‘down’ attitude reminds me a bit of the world in Lizzie’s first wish where Hope (and Klaus’ big check) never came to the school and so they were struggling for membership and funding.

Side-note: Josie in that world remarked on how having Hope/a Tribrid at the school would help put it on the map and encourage others to attend... and in this world everyone not directly exposed to the memory restoration spell has forgotten Hope exists twice now and they’re now struggling to retain students.

And it makes sense... without Hope in the story the only explanation is that Alaric has been sending ordinary students up against these monsters... whereas the truth is that almost all of the monsters were dealt with by a “tribrid badass and possibly ‘the most powerful witch the world will ever know’* with a little help from Alaric and a few of the more experienced students.”

There’s a world of difference between “I’m sending my child to a school protected by an immensely powerful supernatural being” (where the number of student deaths was basically nil) and “I’m sending my children to a school where the headmaster sends students out to fight monsters” (and that there haven’t been any deaths yet is a minor miracle and better to get out now before the odds catch up with them).

In other words, there’s actually some reasonably deep causality in what’s occurring and I actually appreciate that.

* word-for-word the assessment of Dahlia (herself labeled the most powerful witch in history) of Hope’s potential.