One week you are protecting your human girlfriend from a swarm of evil crows, the next, you are on the road to splitsville. That’s exactly what happens this week on Carmilla. After Laura assumes that Carmilla will once again be her hero, Carmilla slams on the breaks. This time around, it involves betraying Mattie and that’s something Carm isn’t willing to do. The couple gets into it as everyone else scatters.
Carmilla, for all her brooding and bravado, wants to be loved for who she is, just like everyone else. Laura is so consumed with saving Silas, that she can’t see how she’s royally mucking up this relationship. Laura brings up Carmilla’s past, and Carmilla reminds Laura that all that awful stuff, the murder and the mayhem, that’s part of who she is too. Love is amazing and healing, but it doesn’t wipe the slate clean. And the L word is exactly what Carmilla says to Laura, who doesn’t even know how to respond at first. But then, Laura takes those words and tries to make them weapon against Mattie instead of embracing how hard it was for Carmilla to utter them in the first place. Now, I don’t want you to think I’m being hard on Laura here. Laura’s love for Carmilla is obvious and true, but she’s blinded by duty (and, let’s face it, a fair amount of guilt) right now. Those are all very strong emotions that work against each other in this circumstance. Carmilla just can’t take it, and she walks out on Laura.
Danny is there to witness that whole thing, and volunteers to rep the students on the board. Laura is trying to hold it together but she crumbles in Danny’s arms. Later on, Laura takes to the vid cam to take her pain to the students of Silas. It’s finally sunk in that she and Carmilla have broken up, and man, it sucks. Laura confesses to a very common and totally misguided expectation: that loving someone is enough to change them. That going into a relationship wanting to fix someone is ever healthy or possible. We all learn this the hard way, whether we fall for someone we desperately want to fix, or are on the other end of the equation. Very nice wok on Elise Bauman‘s part in this scene. Bauman is always at her finest when she has to play a conflicted Laura.
Laura goes through a breakup montage where she reads and cries over love stories, sniffs Carmilla’s leather jacket, and loses herself in the bottom of a carton of ice cream. LaFontaine arrives to try and pull her out of it, but sometimes an ice cream sadness spiral is called for.
Laura manages to pull herself out of it, run a brush through her hair and once again plot against the board, this time with Danny by her side. Danny and her side braid of virtue are overwhelmed with bureaucracy-evil bureaucracy, but still. Being the one student on a board of scary monsters sure does have a lot of paperwork. Laura thanks her for being a friend, but I can’t help but think that Danny still carries a tiny torch for our plucky leading lady.
Just then Carmilla comes back, and Danny gets the heck out of there because she values her life. Laura thinks Carm is back to reconcile but actually she’s there to stake a claim (heh heh, vampire humor) on the apartment. If you thought breaking up was bad enough, try living with your ex for a while. It’s a fresh kind of hell. The next morning, Laura looks worse for the wear as the next phase of break up emotions takes over: anger. Now that she doesn’t have hearts in her eyes, Laura remembers that Carmilla is kind of a slob who leaves her clothes and hair all over the place. They are attempting to co-habitate but it’s rough going what will all the tampons strewn around, naked nakedness, and sister dancing.
Laura gets all tape crazy and tries to put a physical barrier between them. Now if only she could tape up her heart. Carm stumbles in all blood drunk, and sees that Laura really means business, and the heartbreak sinks in a little bit more.
Natasha Negovanlis really nails this scene, getting to sink back into Carmilla’s dark side and truly revel in it. She grinds down her voice to gravel, which makes Laura (and us) focus on her every word. Blood mustache or not, Carmilla is compelling. Danny and Vordenberg interrupt the exes session to give them some unpleasant news. The board is voting on something big and sinister, and no one has the charter to look up exactly what it is. Oh, yeah-except they have J.P. who is a living Excel spreadsheet, which is kind of a turn on for LaF. He remembers the file they are looking for and it ain’t pretty.
Looks like Carmilla’s jealousy over Danny just ticked up a notch.
The only person using my dead mother’s apartment as a love nest is me.
– Carmilla Karnstein (@HeyCarmilla) July 23, 2015
Xena! I could definitely eat Xena. Or maybe that walking slab of manmeat that follows her around. Yeah. I’d feel fine about that.
– Carmilla Karnstein (@HeyCarmilla) July 22, 2015
How are your Hollstein hearts holding up?
