It seems such a long time ago, doesn’t it. That moment when – after staying with Stefan that first night – Elena wanders across to her boyfriend’s bedroom table and sees a faded, yellowing photograph of a girl identical, sitting there staring back at her with a dark but almost Mona Lisa smile. Indeed, for a long time, Katherine Pierce wafted like a heady but undiscernible perfume at the edges of what used to be this one main story: about a girl, and the two opposing supernatural brothers who loved her.
A world where Tyler Lockwood was still just a jock with a temper problem, Caroline Forbes was just another shallow beauty queen in waiting, and Elena Gilbert was just another human girl dealing with the pressures of life in love with a tortured vampire.
In Katherine’s case, we spent that season being teased mercilessly by the writers about exactly where, when and how she was going to emerge from the murky past to wreak her own particular brand of havoc. And when she finally did, her sheer heartless, conniving viciousness took our collective breath away like a hurricane. From the moment Nina Dobrev stepped into the doppelganger’s shoes, we knew she would be as evil as she was spectacular. (As an aside, I believe this whole second series could simply be re-named ‘Proof That Nina Dobrev Deserves An Emmy or Ten’ and I don’t reckon you’d find many people arguing. Cause wow. Girl, you are BLAZING.)
As such, I don’t know about you, but between Aimee Bradley getting her guts rearranged on the dance floor and Uncle John meeting his own end at the end of a carving knife, there has never been a moment for me where I was able to look at Katherine as a character, and wonder if there was as yet, still, a shred of humanity left somewhere inside her.
Until now. (more…)
