Shawn Hill" />
Psycho Drive-In logo
Search
  • PDI Press
    Featured
    • BETTY WHITE VS THE STUPID WORLD: The Movie

      Shawn Hill
      January 17, 2022
      Fiction, PDI Press, PDI Press Writers
    Recent
    • BETTY WHITE VS THE STUPID WORLD: The Movie

      John E. Meredith
      January 17, 2022
    • Betty White Vs the Stupid World (Chapter Seven)

      John E. Meredith
      January 16, 2022
    • Betty White Vs the Stupid World (Chapter Six)

      John E. Meredith
      January 15, 2022
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    Featured
    • Heart of Stone (2023)

      Shawn Hill
      August 18, 2023
      Movies, Reviews
    Recent
    • Heart of Stone (2023)

      Nate Zoebl
      August 18, 2023
    • Obstacle Corpse (2022)

      Nate Zoebl
      July 20, 2023
    • Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

      Paul Brian McCoy
      July 16, 2023
    • Books
    • Comics
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
    Featured
    • Interview with Indie Horror Master, Chris Bickel

      Shawn Hill
      July 13, 2018
      Interviews
    Recent
    • Interview with Indie Horror Master, Chris Bickel

      The Final Girl
      July 13, 2018
    • David Black: Carnies, Carnage, and the Creative Chaos of Darkness Visible

      Dan Lee
      March 7, 2017
    • Jaiden Kaine joins the Marvel Universe as new Luke Cage baddie, Zip

      Andre Lamar
      September 29, 2016
    • SDCC 2016 Interviews: The Cast and Creators of Batman: The Killing Joke

      Jason Sacks
      July 28, 2016
    • SDCC 2016 Interviews: The Cast and Creators of Syfy’s Van Helsing

      Dave Hearn, Paul Brian McCoy
      July 27, 2016
    • Wondercon Interview: The Cast of Damien

      Gary Richardson, Laura Akers
      April 16, 2016
  • News
    Featured
    • Breaking Down The Upcoming DC Studios Slate

      Shawn Hill
      February 1, 2023
      News, Shot for Shot
    Recent
    • Breaking Down The Upcoming DC Studios Slate

      Paul Brian McCoy
      February 1, 2023
    • John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum arrives on Digital 8/23 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand 9/10

      psychodr
      July 30, 2019
    • X-Men: Dark Phoenix arrives on Digital 9/3 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD 9/17

      Paul Brian McCoy
      July 16, 2019
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise
Breaking
  • Heart of Stone (2023)
  • Obstacle Corpse (2022)
  • Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
  • Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
  • The Flash (2023) / Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
  • Evil Dead Rise (2023)
  • RSS
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Who We Be
  • Contact
  • PDI Press
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Comics
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise
Home
Reviews

The Vampire Diaries 3.12 “The Ties That Bind”

Shawn Hill
February 1, 2012
Reviews, TV

Warning: A non-numeric value encountered in /home/psychodr/public_html/wp/wp-content/themes/valenti/library/core.php on line 1104

Bondage. That’s the theme of this week. Klaus’s family is bound in their coffins in suspended animation. Alaric is bound to his magic ring that saves him from death, and was once bound to Jenna, who died. Elena was bound to Stefan, but is now more entangled with Damon. She’s also tied to a wooden post, all Perils of Pauline, for part of the episode. Bonnie is bound to the ancestral chain of Bennett witches, but a link is missing: her mother.

But more important than all of the above, Hybrid Tyler is bound by literal chains in the underground dungeon set that is never strong enough to actually hold any werewolves. In only his running shorts. By Caroline’s father, the serial torturer, which is just kinky. This episode has everything!

Bonnie’s dreams of the witch mansion and the coffins continue to get weirder and weirder, including that universal nightmare of waking up locked in one yourself. Even her magic won’t save her, but what does? A vision of her mother, whom she hasn’t seen in fifteen years, opening the lid. And this is a teenager, remember, so we might as easily say she’s never seen her.

The Ties That Bind

Elena, in her Elena way, puts everything else on blast and immediately is on board in getting Bonnie down to North Carolina (her mom was only ever a road trip away, apparently) to make that missed connection. The unfortunate thing is, she gets the address through the Sheriff’s office, where Klaus has a mole. And where Damon can compel anyone to give up any files at all. And she leaves all the paperwork on her kitchen table, where Stefan can come and go as he pleases. Elena has never heard of subterfuge unless someone literally reminds her to do it. This is one of her most tedious qualities, her naïve faith in doing the right thing. You’re living in a town of professional liars, girl!

The hybrids are all gone, except for that annoying blonde one, and everyone has faster magic powers than Bonnie’s slow old car. Making a phone call ahead never occurs to anyone. Would have helped, because by the time they arrive in NC, Bonnie’s mother Abby and her young charge Jamie (the entrancing blue-eyed kid she raised instead of Bonnie) are already compromised and laying a trap while pretending to help. Lucky thing Stefan shows up, except for how Klaus saw that coming, too.

The Ties That Bind

The most interesting reveal is that it was Abby who put Mikael in that coffin in the crypt that Katherine and Damon freed him from, using up all her powers in a desiccation spell after luring him out of town to protect Elena and her mother (as he was looking for the doppelganger himself way back then, long before Klaus got wind of her apparently). Now she’s just an herbalist, one who decided to start life over outside of Mystic Falls when she got the chance, leaving her daughter with her own mom. You may or may not blame her (Bonnie is still ambivalent), but you can sort of see why she’d want to. Mystic Falls is quite clearly cursed.

Damon, Alaric and Meredith have some fun shenanigans trying to figure each other out (and did she pocket Alaric’s never-say-die ring at the end?), but let’s get back to Tyler in that torture basement. They’ve never really focused so much on the horrors of the physical transformation (as he tries to change himself rather than be changed by the lunar cycle or change at Klaus’s bidding), with some quite impressive joint-bending squick-outs that are hard to watch/fear factory cool. I sort of miss when a werewolf transformation was just a series of superimpositions that got gradually hairier. Damn you, 1980s horror movies and Rick Baker! Now it’s always gotta hurt!

Still, any time Tyler is shirtless is still a good time. But the weird part is the 180 that Mr. Forbes has made, who now wants to protect his vamp daughter rather than change her himself. He seems to have seen the error of his ways there … or maybe he just couldn’t resist another chance to tie someone up.

The Ties That Bind

I’m not going into all the relationship mumbo-jumbo with Stefan/Elena. He acts marginally more human this week, and happily, it’s she that saves him from a chest full of wooden buckshot (“I can feel it scraping on my heart, Elena!”) after being just sneaky enough to free herself from the ropes Jamie used to bind her. Even Stefan notices she’s gone a little badass lately. Finally!

It was all about Klaus getting his coffins back, but now that he has, he wants to leave everyone bound just as they are.  So let me add, best cliffhanger ever! I think you’ll get it if I instead say, thanks to sneaky Damon, best return ever! Can’t wait till next Thursday!

(Visited 54 times, 1 visits today)
The Vampire Diaries 3.12 "The Ties That Bind"
4.5Overall Score

Related

shawn hillvampire diariesvampires

Top Ten Episodes of Chuck
Chuck 5.12 “Chuck vs. Sarah & 5.13 “Chuck vs. The Good-bye”

About The Author

monsterid
Shawn Hill
Day Walker / Master of Arts

Shawn Hill knows two things: comics and art history. Somehow that led to him writing the Harvey Kurtzman entry for Icons of the American Comic Book: from Captain America to Wonder Woman (2013). He also writes art criticism and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), an NGO of UNESCO.

Related Posts

  • 3.5

    Dracula 1.02 “A Whiff of Sulphur”

    Timothy Ashley
    November 3, 2013
  • 3.5

    The Originals 1.05 “Sinners and Saints”

    Shawn Hill
    November 5, 2013

Daily Top Ten

  • Haunted House on Sorority Row (2014)Haunted House on Sorority Row (2014) by Paul Brian McCoy
  • Uzumaki (2000)Uzumaki (2000) by Matthew Fantaci
  • Arrietty (2011) ReviewArrietty (2011) Review by Kelvin Green
  • Jason Trost Needs Your Help to Create A World Without SuperheroesJason Trost Needs Your Help to Create A World… by Adam Barraclough
  • Prometheus (2012)Prometheus (2012) by Shawn Hill
  • All Binge… No Purge: The X-Files S7 Part TwoAll Binge… No Purge: The X-Files S7 Part Two by Rick Shingler
  • The Final Girl: I Spit on Your Grave (2010)The Final Girl: I Spit on Your Grave (2010) by The Final Girl
  • Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) by Nate Zoebl
  • An Ode to LuciferAn Ode to Lucifer by The Final Girl
  • Venezuelan Horror Story: Calla (2019)Venezuelan Horror Story: Calla (2019) by The Final Girl
400x400 GI Joe Funko Banner

Weekly Top Ten

  • The Final Girl: I Spit on Your Grave (2010)The Final Girl: I Spit on Your Grave (2010) by The Final Girl
  • Haunted House on Sorority Row (2014)Haunted House on Sorority Row (2014) by Paul Brian McCoy
  • Adventure Time 6.06 “Breezy”Adventure Time 6.06 “Breezy” by Dave Hearn
  • Lost in Translation 435: Remaking Blue Thunder (1983)Lost in Translation 435: Remaking Blue Thunder (1983) by Scott Delahunt
  • The Hills Have Eyes (1977) vs The Hills Have Eyes (2006)The Hills Have Eyes (1977) vs The Hills Have Eyes (2006) by Corin Totin
  • Drive-In Saturday: Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)Drive-In Saturday: Heavy Metal 2000 (2000) by Alex Wolfe
  • Advance Review: The Legend of Tarzan (2016) Blu-rayAdvance Review: The Legend of Tarzan (2016) Blu-ray by Paul Brian McCoy
  • Dungeons & D-Listers: Barbarian Queen (1985)Dungeons & D-Listers: Barbarian Queen (1985) by Alex Wolfe
  • Night of the Living Dead 30th Anniversary EditionNight of the Living Dead 30th Anniversary Edition by Dan Lee
  • The Xeno File: The Man Who Stole the Sun (1979)The Xeno File: The Man Who Stole the Sun (1979) by Serdar Yegulalp
400x400 UA Affiliate Banner

Latest Reviews

  • Heart of Stone (2023)

    Nate Zoebl
    August 18, 2023
  • Obstacle Corpse (2022)

    Nate Zoebl
    July 20, 2023
  • Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

    Paul Brian McCoy
    July 16, 2023

psychodrivein

Today at https://psychodrivein.com Lost in Transl Today at https://psychodrivein.com

Lost in Translation 449: Gamera - Rebirth (2023)

Overall, Gamera: Rebirth takes the goofier aspects of the Gamera films and turns them into moments of awesome.
---
Read more of Scott's article at the link in our profile!

#LostInTranslation #Gamera #GameraRebirth #Netflix
Today at https://psychodrivein.com Anything Joes: Today at https://psychodrivein.com

Anything Joes: S01E66 - De-Classified Debt

Greg and Jaren talk news, acquisitions, and balancing the budget when all your toys are arriving at the same time.
---
Watch the @AnythingJoesPod guys at the link in our profile!

#Anything Joes #GIJoe #GIJoeDeclassified #WrathOfCobra
Today at https://psychodrivein.com Lost in Transl Today at https://psychodrivein.com

Lost in Translation - Defusing Bombs: Cutthroat Island (1995)

Cutthroat Island is worth a look, keeping in mind its weaknesses.
---
Read more of Scott's article at the link in our profile!

#LostInTranslation #CutthroatIsland #GeenaDavis #RennyHarlin #MatthewModine #FrankLangella
Today at https://psychodrivein.com Anything Joes: Today at https://psychodrivein.com

Anything Joes: S01E65 - Pyramid of Darkness (2): Rendezvous in the City of the Dead

Greg and Jaren continue their dive into the classic G.I. Joe mini-series Pyramid Of Darkness! 
---
Watch the @AnythingJoesPod gang at the link in our profile!

#AnythingJoes #GIJoe #GIJoeARealAmericanHero #PyramidOfDarkness
Today at https://psychodrivein.com Lost in Transl Today at https://psychodrivein.com

Lost in Translation 447: Batman: The Animated Series (1992)

Batman: the Animated Series demonstrates how to adapt a popular character without losing the character’s essence.
---
Read more of Scott's article at the link in our profile!

#Batman #BatmanTheAnimatedSeries #MarkHamill #KevinConroy #ArleenSorkin #WB #DC
Today at https://psychodrivein.com Heart of Stone Today at https://psychodrivein.com

Heart of Stone (2023)

It’s hard for me to envision anything Heart of Stone could offer that people would request a return visit.
---
Read more of Nate's review at the link in our profile!

#HeartOfStone #GalGadot #Netflix
Today at https://psychodrivein.com Anything Joes: Today at https://psychodrivein.com

Anything Joes: S01E64 - Pyramid of Darkness (1)

It's time! Greg introduces Jaren to the first episode of the iconic "Pyramid of Darkness" series from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero!
---
Watch the @AnythingJoesPod guys watch the cartoon at the link in our profile!

#AnythingJoes #GIJoe #ARealAmericanHero #PyramidOfDarkness
Today at https://psychodrivein.com Anything Joes: Today at https://psychodrivein.com

Anything Joes: S01E63 - Kentuckiana 2023 

Greg and Jaren discuss the new layout, the vendors, and their recent acquisitions from attending The Kentuckiana G.I. Joe Toy Expo! 
---
Watch the new @AnythingJoesPod video at the link in our profile!

#AnythingJoes #Kentuckiana #KentuckianaGIJoeToyExpo #GIJoe #Kentuckiana2023 #KentuckianaGIJoeToyExpo2023
Today at https://psychodrivein.com Lost in Transl Today at https://psychodrivein.com

Lost in Translation 446: Cowboy Bebop (2021)

One snag the live-action Cowboy Bebop has is trying too hard to look like the anime.
---
Read more of Scott's article at the link in our profile!

#AnythingJoes #CowboyBebop #Netflix #Sunrise #HajimeYatate #ShinichiroWatanabe #YokoKanno #Seatbelts #JohnCho #MustafaShakir #DaniellaPineda #AlexHassell #ElenaSatine
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Latest Columns

  • Lost in Translation 449: Gamera – Rebirth (2023)

    Scott Delahunt
    September 22, 2023
  • Anything Joes: S01E66 – De-Classified Debt

    Greg Engle
    September 13, 2023
  • Lost in Translation 448 – Defusing Bombs: Cutthroat Island (1995)

    Scott Delahunt
    September 8, 2023

Look Who's Talking

Barbie Worldwide
Barbie Worldwide - 8/5/2023
Lost in Translation 429: The Barbie Movie Teaser
Barbie still in the driver's seat and the movie is speeding past a billion by August 7, 2023.
John E. Meredith
John E. Meredith - 4/5/2023
EZMM 2023 Day 3.1: Zombie for Sale (2019)
Of course, I just woke up from an old-man nap and had a strong urination before reading this, so now...
John E. Meredith
John E. Meredith - 4/3/2023
EZMM 2023 Day 1.1: I Am a Hero (2015)
Oh hell yeah. Looks like one more thing to add to my watch list.
RSSTwitterFacebookinstagramtumblr

Archives

Large_rectangle_336X280
All work on this site is Copyright © each individual writer.
  • PDI Press
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Comics
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise