Exposing my inner nerd here but I hope someone in the show's target audience actually picks up a book and learns something useful after these eps.

Fallon is giving Idina a chance to redeem herself after an unfortunate Oscar performance. Trying to test out the "Nice guy theory" against his competitors.

I think its great that the show is eager to use not only new myths but largely untapped areas of history in its storytelling. It was even willing to forgo shirtlessness and teen sex to serve the story which means that as a show it wants to evolve.

Wondering if there are parallels going on here. Katherine pretending to be Elena and Damon pretending to be Season 1 Damon/ a version of himself that he thinks others perceive him to be. Or am I giving the writers too much credit and they've gone from morally complex characters to morally deficient ones.