All it takes is words left unspoken and hasty action, and everything comes crashing down.
"Had I never met Juliette Fairmont, maybe I could've loved moderately."
"Had I never met Calliope Burns, maybe I could've loved moderately."
"And I never would've been in this much pain."
"Had I never met Calliope Burns, maybe I could've loved moderately."
"And I never would've been in this much pain."
— Cal and Juliette (voiceover), First Betrayal
The light of love casts a shadow. The light of a forbidden romance, feuding families, and societal expectations casts several shadows.
Beware of unmarked spoilers!!
- Ashley's murder. We don't know much about her, but we do know that she had a thing for theater (if her involvement in the school play is any indication), loved a good time (though that often required being drunk), and has a very sunny personality. No wonder everyone was sad to lose her.
- Her last on-screen words before she dies are "I love you guys!"
- It's at Ashley's vigil where it starts to hit Juliette that her friend is gone. As she listens to Ashley's father's speech, she looks around at the sad faces of her peers and begins to cry... before realizing she's crying blood and runs off.
- Cal's reaction to Tess telling the other hunters that she's having second thoughts about their line of work. Even if it was out of legitimate concern, it was still a bit of a betrayal.
- Margot's backstory. She's estranged from her family because she fell in love with a human. Her siblings flat-out hate her, she's never met their kids, and she rarely even speaks to her mother.
- Their disdain for her even extends to her own kids. Juliette has only ever met them once, and they only came to Elinor's debut because their mother told them to.
- There's something disheartening about Margot's subtly offended reaction to Talia spearing her through the heart without the slightest hint of remorse. Clearly, she meant it when she asked to be friends.
- Margot frantically trying to preserve Sebastian as he's dying from a silver impalement. The poor woman is even crying. Davina's apathy doesn't help.
- Tess finding her parents dead, pinned to a tree by their own spear. According to Talia, the poor girl now has nobody to take care of her.
- Ben finally realizing that Noah doesn't really care that much about him.
- Phillipa tried to open her classroom door when she heard Noah banging on it while Zombie!Ashley was attacking him, but her teacher forbade her for her own safety. Not only did she fail to protect her boyfriend when she had the means to, but she likely had to listen to the sounds of his gruesome murder.Phillipa (to a reporter): I didn't even get to say goodbye.
- Zombie!Ashley isn't herself, as her memories are scrambled and she doesn't even seem to comprehend what's happened to her. It's hard to watch such a kind-hearted girl turned into an undead berserker that needs to be put down.
- Juliette has to watch her friend go through a second death.
- During a night out, Juliette and Elinor feed on a random guy until they accidentally kill him note . Juliette is absolutely traumatized, especially when they dump his body into the river and watch an alligator eat him. She's on the verge of tears, desperately trying to get her sister to feel something for what they just did.Juliette: That man has a family, people who love him! How do you think they're gonna feel when they realize he's never coming back!?
- During Cal's severing, Theo becomes haunted by memories of his birth mother's murder, which he himself had to see with his own eight-year-old eyes.
- Theo's passion to find the legacy who killed his birth mother even causes him to snap at Talia.
- Apollo's reaction to staking Theo and his uncertainty of what to do next, only knowing that it's somehow his fault. Then Calliope sees it and it gets even sadder.
- 1x08: First Betrayal
- Juliette tears into Elinor after Theo's alleged murder. Even if she technically didn't start the fight, she's made it clear that she has no capacity for empathy. Juliette's pleas for Elinor's better sense turn into her disowning her big sister for being a hedonistic murderer. It's especially hard to watch when you remember how much Jules looked up to Elinor in the beginning.
- Elinor assaulting and blaming Juliette for everything going wrong, and Juliette crying afterwards.
- Throughout the season, we see Oliver being dismissed and even antagonized by his parents and even his grandmother. We finally get some clarification on why this is in 1x08. He killed his pet turtle, the family psychologist, and a camp counselor, all thanks to Elinor's goading. Not only that, she framed him as the unstable one in order to stay out of trouble. The result? The legacy community kicked him out and his parents shipped him off to Prague just to maintain their prestige. They hadn't heard from him in five years. No wonder he doesn't believe Margot when she says they've never denied his existence.
- Actually, that's not untrue. They do mention him in 1x02... by saying they don't want Juliette to be like him. Even worse, they're reluctant to even say his name, as if they think of him as a curse.
- To make it even worse, Davina all but cut Margot out of the family and left her with little-to-no contact with the family for committing acts outside the legacy society's standards. Margot wanted to be unlike her mother and wound up doing the same thing she did, but worse. And it's heavily implied that she'll do the same thing to Elinor.
- Oliver was clearly close to Elinor before it all went down, given that he can't wrap his head around this betrayal. To make matters worse, she only betrayed him because she felt like it, implying she never cared about him at all. He saw her as a sister while she saw him as a pawn in her sick little game. The look on his face really says it all.
- Oliver makes it clear that Elinor is basically stuck there and their parents fed her false hope. He knows this because they did the same thing to him when they got rid of him. Why? Because the matriarchy prioritizes the reputation of the Emerald Malkia's keeper above everything and everyone else, including her own family. And as we see later, Margot isn't planning to so much as see her bailed out of jail.
Oliver: Oh, let me guess: Dad told you to stay quiet, just be a good Fairmont. And mom told you that everything would be okay, right?
Elinor: They won't leave me here.
Oliver: They already did.- After Elinor is arrested for her countless murders over the years, Margot mentions that Oliver will "come around", implying that their perspective on him hasn't changed. Even after five years, even after it's become clear to them that Elinor is a dangerous, mass-murdering psychopath, they still don't even consider that he might've been telling the truth.
- Speaking of their parents, Margot receives a summons detailing that the Legacy Council has started to doubt Davina's ability to remain keeper of the Emerald Malkia and requesting her and her family to stand trial in 2 days. Given Davina's condition, she won't be there to defend herself, which means the Atwood/Fairmont family will lose their legacy prestige.
- Worse than that, they're in danger of losing their place in legacy society entirely. Because Margot married and had kids with a human, Sebastian was never born a vampire, Oliver and Elinor committed murders that endangered the secrecy of the community, and Juliette fell in love with a human and wants little to do with the legacy lifestyle anyway, pretty much everyone in Margot's nuclear family is in violation of at least one legacy taboo. The only thing guaranteeing them a spot in the community was that Davina kept Margot as the keeper-in-waiting, but that's now under scrutiny. Margot understands what's at stake here and breaks down in her husband's arms.
- Jack's reaction to Theo being turned into a vampire? Not only disown him, but kill him. Father of the Year.
- The only thing stopping him is Talia pulling a desperate Go Through Me.
- Then, of course, Calliope biting Juliette's head off after it's revealed she turned Theo by accident.
- Juliette drank his blood in order to make his death painless because she didn't think there was a way to save him. Cal points out that such an executive decision was never hers to make. While this isn't incorrect, Juliette's only alternatives were to call an ambulance (as if they could've done anything in time) or to ignore his calls for help (which isn't in her character). She was clearly trying to make the situation at least a bit better the only real way she could possibly come up with at the time, but this was going to go poorly no matter what she did.
- Juliette tells Cal that she loves her and calls out that she feels the same way. There's a brief moment when Cal appears stunned by what Juliette is saying. She doesn't deny that she loves Juliette and even seems as though she wants to validate it. Instead, she doubles down and swears to find a way to kill her and the entire legacy community. To see her go from being head-over-heels for the little vampire to actively wanting her dead is agonizing.
- Do you remember the promises Cal made to Juliette? In 1x05, she promised she'd never hunt her. In 1x07, the episode just before this one (and the same night), she promised to protect Juliette's heart forever. And in one sentence Cal has broken both of them with a new promise.
- Juliette established that she can heart Cal's heartbeat to confirm when she's lying. Here, it's implied that she read her heartbeat again to confirm if she meant what she was threatening and noticed no increase. Cal's emotions are high at the moment, so whether she meant it or not remains to be seen, but Juliette can only guess that she means every word.
- After Jules declares her love, Cal grabs a nearby silver spear and aims it at her. Jules merely taps the tip of the blade to her heart and allows Cal to impale her if it should make her feel better. Juliette has come to value Cal so much in their short time together that she'd literally let Cal hurt her just to make the hapless hunter feel better. What's worse, Cal only decides not to because it wouldn't kill her.
- To rub even more salt on the wound, Calliope even uses the word "monster" on Juliette. This makes it painfully clear that, for as much as she loves Jules, either she still doesn't entirely see her as a person or her recognition of Juliette's personhood is very conditional. In fact, the way she hurls accusations at Jules makes it seem like she's trying to justify not seeing her as a person. Ouch.
- She also refers to Theo as a monster, implying that she's starting to see Theo as less of a person now just because he's a vampire (through no fault of his own, mind you). One could easily see this as Juliette saving him, but Cal sounds like she would've preferred that he stay dead.
- Juliette has something of a heart motif throughout the series. She's shown to have a very sensitive heart, but her Nigh-Invulnerable physiology ensures that her heart can recover from almost any physical injury. Now, through verbal and emotional assault, her heart is shattered seemingly beyond repair.
- Juliette's only words at the end of the argument? The exact same words that she spoke to Cal when they first met, only much, much sadder.
Juliette: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.- Consider what this means for them. On Juliette's side, Ashley is dead, Noah is dead, Phillipa has been pulled from Lancaster Academy, and Ben is moving away, so that's four friends gone. Not to mention having cut ties with Elinor. Now, just as she'd feared, Calliope, the girl she loves, wants her dead. On the other side, Cal, who has no friends due to constantly moving and likely hasn't spoken to Tess since the battle of the Fairmont estate, has just given up her loving girlfriend while her family is unravelling. This means both girls are more alone now than they were at the start.
- Cal is immediately at war with herself over everything she just said to Juliette, seemingly aware that she greatly overreacted but now unsure what to do. She paces back and forth in the front yard and at one point screams her head off in agony. In the end, she runs off into the night, crying her eyes out note .
- Juliette slams her horn when Cal screams. And moments later, she turns her music all the way up. She can still experience Cal's anguish thanks to the psychic link. And whereas before she would've rushed over to help, now all she can do is try to drown out the noise.
- Cal can feel Juliette's pain as well, adding to the pain she's already in.
- As the final nail in the coffin of what the girls are going through, their voiceovers speak the quote atop this page as this
plays throughout the rest of the episode.
- Jack is noticeably more hellbent on killing Theo now. Apollo made a mutual agreement to kill him if he were to be turned, so he's nominally onboard with it.
- Talia is vehemently against it and begs Jack and Apollo to see reason, only to be heartbroken when both of them agree to kill him. Talia, ever the Mama Bear, sneaks Theo off to safety, which prompts Jack to go looking for them with weapons packed! Thus, the Burnses have become A House Divided, and there's likely no coming back for them.
- With his birth mother long dead and his birth father now against him, this means Theo has now officially lost both of his birth parents.
- It's up in the air where Talia can possibly go from here. She's broken a hunter's taboo by protecting a vampire (again) and Jack clearly isn't letting it slide again, so she can't exactly go back home.
- Juliette tears into Elinor after Theo's alleged murder. Even if she technically didn't start the fight, she's made it clear that she has no capacity for empathy. Juliette's pleas for Elinor's better sense turn into her disowning her big sister for being a hedonistic murderer. It's especially hard to watch when you remember how much Jules looked up to Elinor in the beginning.
