Katherine, after 500 years of running and hiding is now
free, young and healthy to do anything in the whole wide world. So she’s going
to pursue Stefan Salvatore.
Of course she is. Because leaving town and all the many people who will very very quickly realise something is up and try to get Elena back (for some bemusing reason, they like her) INCLUDING Stefan, the man she is pursuing, is just out of the question.
Of course she is. Because leaving town and all the many people who will very very quickly realise something is up and try to get Elena back (for some bemusing reason, they like her) INCLUDING Stefan, the man she is pursuing, is just out of the question.
To college – yes, we’re back in college – with Caroline
rhapsodising about being free and single and fresh starts etc etc (which
involves a party. Of course it does) while Bonnie continually reminds them that
she’s not actually single or bitter or broken hearted (keep that up Bonnie and
they’ll drop you back in the plot box). Rather than listen to Caroline’s
babble, she’s more interested in the girl next to her using rather obvious
telekinesis.
Stefan goes home to find a car full of dead Aaron
Whitmore, the house trashed and Damon crashed on the sofa. Stefan isn’t
impressed by Damon’s killing spree (c’mon Stefan – one body is hardly a spree),
is surprised that Damon and Enzo are such good buddies and is further unimpressed
by their plans to slaughter all things Augustine. Personally I’m totally on
board this plan. Stefan makes an attempt to save his brother from being all
evil and sexy but Damon is much happier with his murdering self.
Kathlena (yes I’m going that) is still using Matt as her
guide to imitating Elena and Nadia as a Matt keeper – which is vexing for Nadia
who thought she would actually get to spend some time with mummy dearest.
Surprise Nadia! Your mum’s not a nice person.
Over to Dr. Wes who has kidnapped some random guy called
Joey to continue his evil experiments (and evil exposition) and turn Joey into another
vampire-feeding-vampire while moaning about Aaron cutting off his funding. When
in drops mysterious lady Sloane with some mysterious blood that needs analysing
– she has money, she offers protection and before Wes gets all snippy, she also
knows Aaron is dead and Wes may be next on the list.
Cut to the murderous twosome – Enzo and Damon have
kidnapped Diane, head of college security, so they can drain the vervain from
her and ask her pointed questions about why she’s covering up for vampires.
Unfortunately she can’t point them towards Wes so she’s dead (and lo, another
POC dies on Vampire Diaries, the list is rather stunningly long).
Stefan makes another attempt to save Damon – this time by
menacing Enzo and trying to drive him off since he’s a bad influence (hah, like
Damon needs a bad influence). Of course, having been tortured for decades, Enzo
isn’t giving up Damon’s help on his quest for revenge (or mayhem afterwards)
nor does Stefan driving a shovel into his chest bother him unduly: he’s
suffered through far far worse. He gives Enzo a death threat which, on the
whole, isn’t all that menacing.
Kathlena is still floundering around with Caroline when
Stefan calls with his Enzo worries - Kathlena has no idea who that is but at
least uses the excuse to drag Stefan to the party with her.
At the bar Nadia gets a question from Kathlena about Enzo
and Tyler shows up wanting to drink – and wanting to drink with Nadia despite
Matt’s warnings. Frankly I think “she said she’s sorry” isn’t really a good way
to make up for locking Matt
in a safe and burying him alive. But hey, Vampire Diaries, absolutely
no-one is held responsible for their actions on this show. Anyway they have a
who-has-the-worst-mother drinking game and when Tyler steps away to go to the
toilet (which, apparently, hybrids have to do), Nadia takes the opportunity to
ask about Enzo; except Tyler’s super-hearing hears the whole thing.
When they’re alone, he gets Matt back on vervain
Bonnie grabs Jeremy to go to the dance with her (though
he isn’t sure why they have to go to the bitter break up party when they could
go have actual fun) when Damon shows up – to kidnap Jeremy. He wants a witch to
cast a locator spell to find Wes – which means Bonnie needs to find a witch to
cast it for him. Neither of them take Damon’s threats seriously until Enzo
arrives and makes it clear they are very very very serious.
At the party Kathlena dances with Stefan and manages to
turn the conversation about Damon going off the deep end to make it all about
her (wow, Katherine’s really good at imitating Elena) until Caroline notices
how close Kathlena and Stefan are getting and drags her off to the shredder
(bitter singles theme of the party – you get to shred old momentos of past
loves: Caroline shreds photos of Tyler and Klaus’s nifty artwork) where she can
make a not-very-subtle point about how rebounding to past relationships is a
bad idea hint-hint-you’re-getting-awfully-close-to-Stefan-hint. Kathlena makes
it awkward so it’s quickly dropped
Next Caroline gets to talk to Stefan about Damon falling
apart and Stefan’s theory that Damon is revelling in the hatred of others out
of some kind of need to confirm everyone’s worst opinion of him (my personal
theory is he’s playing a game where he sees what shit people will overlook this
time)
Which is when Damon shows up with a very worried Bonnie – who has already identified Liv (the witch she saw earlier) as one of the caterers. Damon explains the whole threatening Jeremy thing to everyone much to everyone’s shock and Kathlena’s irritation that she has to pretend to care. She calls Nadia to question whether she can just, y’know, let him die since it would be so convenient and Stefan would give her so much pity love. Nadia is shocked and appalled and really quite angry that her mother is, well, evil and outright orders Kathlena to save Jeremy since she actually knows where he is – especially since that’s Whitmore house where she has been invited in unlike Stefan and Caroline.
Kathlena has to agree – but she gets Nadia to check with Matt whether Caroline is competition for Stefan – Nadia asks Matt about it before trying to compel him into forgetting and leaving. Except the compulsion doesn’t work and Matt prepares to tell Tyler everything; when Nadia comes back and breaks his neck
Guys, vampires, super hearing, remember?
Bonnie goes to see Liv who is pretty hostile and has an
added bonus of not knowing anything about her grandmother or witches. Or, it
turns out, witchcraft or magic, she has no idea what she’s doing. Caroline arrives
to motivate her with a death threat which really shakes her since she didn’t
even know vampires were real. Bonnie talks her through the spell –
unfortunately all she does is short out all the electrics. Bonnie tries to get
her to try again but Liv cracks – apparently she has accidentally done all
kinds of terrible things with her out of control magic.
Enzo gets impatient and Damon says the delay is due to “lack
of motivation” (which is an awesome evil phrase) and decides to put Jeremy’s
head in a plastic bag. Wow, Enzo, decades of being tortured and this is the
best you can do?
Bonnie talks Liv round and Stefan and Kathlena arrive to
rescue Jeremy. Stefan pins Enzo while Kathlena gives CPR to the suffocated
Jeremy (who apparently has the lung capacity of a squirrel). She’s actually
gagging because she finds the whole thing so disgusting which is several kinds
of ridiculous and her CPR is so inept it’s almost funny (amounting to pounding
on his chest in frustration which would surely pulverise his chest given the
givens)
Jeremy lives though Enzo manages to stab Kathlena when Damon arrives. He has the location of Wes – road trip. Stefan tells Damon not to return (a statement that really needed more drama) and is outdone by Damon who tells him he wasn’t planning on returning (with a much better drama level).
Tyler wakes up after the necksnap and Matt assures him
everything’s totally fine. He then gets in the car with Nadia having guessed
the truth about Kathlena since he once played
host to Gregor. More death threats and Nadia planning to drain the vervain
from him.
Which leaves Stefan and Kathlena alone for more clumsy
flirting from her. And Stefan pulls out the one piece of heartfelt acting I
actually believe this episode: Stefan has waited for Damon to do something evil
and drive Elena away, but as he waited and watched Damon do endless evil things
that Elena continually forgive he came to like the person his brother became –
he doesn’t want to lose new Damon. Kathlena uses the excuse of Damon
threatening Jeremy to say how not in to reforming Damon she is (hah, Damon has
murdered Jeremy before now and no-one cared!) but she’ll help for the sake of
Stefan
And Caroline walks in on them hugging
Enzo and Damon arrive at their destination with Damon
edging in a bit of angst – but when they reach Wes they find him with Sloane
and a lot more Travellers. More Travellers? They chant away and this time their
powers are apparently sufficient to drop both Enzo and Damon to their knees
(never mind that the last
time Damon faced Travellers he was quite capable to tearing them into ickle
pieces – power fluctuation is a thing on Vampire Diaries) – and Wes injects
Damon with something.
Damon and Enzo wake up apparently alone in the building (an
abandoned hospital) until they hear movement. They explore and find Joey, still
tied up. Damon rescues him because of sudden altruism, but Joey is cut from his
chains. Damon vamps out and not only drains Joey dry but actually rips off the
man’s head.
Damon has been injected
with the vampire cannibal stuff.
Stefan is worried that Damon may go dark again. Y’know
what kind of annoys and kind of amuses me about the whole Augustine-isn’t-Damon-evil
storyline? It’s that out of all the many
many many evil things Damon has done that he should be judged and shunned for,
killing the Augustines isn’t one of them. Wes is continuing his evil
experiments, Damon and Enzo have huge understandable grudges and the world
would genuinely be a better place without the whole Augustine society. I’d jump
on board and just try to police their methods than their actions. Stefan’s
running a whole intervention long before he knows just how far into the deep
end Damon has lept.
By the way, does anyone remember that Jeremy is actually,
technically a hunter and probably shouldn’t go down all that easy? Anyone? No?
Ok, just me then.
Ok, I could go with a lot of things I don’t like about
Vampire Diaries – everything revolving around Kathlena, the excess plot lines poking
up etc, but that’s standard. My main irritation this time is that nothing felt
natural – I’m not saying that Vampire Diaries is the pinnacle of acting or
writing, but this episode really broke things. I can buy Damon’s descent and
wish to kill the Augustines, but even with Stefan’s little psych lesson I don’t
buy him jumping this far into attacking the group. Kathlena’s acting has been
appalling – unable to give CPR because it’s so nasty, the terrible fake
imitations, whining because she can’t leave Jeremy to die.
And I don’t buy that the Travellers are constantly skulking around them with endless nefarious purposes and NO-ONE feels the need to follow up on that. There was a vampire kill on campus and Elena and Caroline decided to play detective – but the Travellers repeatedly getting involved in their lives doesn’t need any attention at all?
It’s really clumsy – it’s not just poorly plotted, it’s
poorly executed.
