The
death of Ivy has reminded Stefan he’s a vampire, so he menaces his arsehole
both, compels a raise and a holiday and leaves him compelled to bury Ivy in the
woods somewhere before heading off
Bye Ivy, you will now be forgotten
To college where Caroline is being passive aggress about
Stefan (and a little about Elena) and Elena who wants everyone to play normal
life with her. And since this is Vampire
Diaries that means an Inevitable Party. Also Caroline and Enzo are now
hanging around together.
Brief stop in on Jeremy and Sarah who moved into the
Salvatore house; they’re also going to the party and we learn that a) Sarah’s
mother is dead and b) her dad is in town but she doesn’t know who it is. I will
also lay odds that by the end of the season she will die and/or be an evil
weretapir (or similar).
So, time to rustle up the Inevitable Party cast – Matt is
coming with a fellow military neighbourhood watch guy (and we’re reminded of
Tripp being ominous and vampire killy), Liv is coming and also has the hots for
Tyler (nicely lampshaded by Luke in case we didn’t see the obvious result of
this – and despite Tyler willing to murder him in the pilot, Luke is now
defending him. Because Vampire Diaries).
Elena invites a guy called Liam who volunteers with her at the hospital (she
wants to be a doctor remember) who is clearly being set up to be her love
interest so when Damon returns we can have EVEN MOAR ANGST. Like Sarah, I
suspect his neck will be broken by the end of the season and/or he will be
revealed to be a vampire killing weretapir. Anyway, Elena wants to set him up
with Caroline – I still go with my interpretation because with Stefan and Enzo,
Caroline already has her obligatory love triangle set up. Stefan also drops in
Waaait, if Elena forgets why she loves Damon, does that mean she and Stefan are still a thing? I mean, part of the reason why she isn’t with Stefan is because she’s with his even-sexier and much less mopey brother?
Anyway, Stefan doesn’t tell Elena about the whole Ivy
murdering but does agree to go to the Inevitable Party so he can murder Enzo
over the punch (yes, he’s going. Because.) Caroline is hanging around with Enzo
and briefly expresses how she’s not happy with Elena’s memory messing because
it now means that she’s even more stuck as the only one trying to get Bonnie
and Damon back (which highlights really how little Bonnie seems to matter to everyone)
and how she can’t even talk about their loss any more without risking Elena’s
precious memories. It is only brief because this implies that one of Elena’s
deeply self-absorbed decisions may not be the right one. And Caroline is pissed
at Stefan still and vexed at Enzo because he’s still murdering people for lunch
Shunning Stefan for not returning her calls, while Enzo
gets a good talking to for, y’know, murder. Oh Vampire Diaries your moral code is so broken.
So, party at the… lake, pond, swimming hole? I have no
idea – let’s just say “leech hatchery” and hope. This is an excuse to show all
the men in knee length swim shorts to display chests and all the women in itsy
bitsy bikinis to display their everything-the-censors-will-allow-them-to. Elena
isn’t happy with Sarah being there because Elena tried to eat her. The guy,
Jay, who came with Matt is both nasty and sexist AND very suspicious of Sarah’s
compelled excuse of a dog bite. He has a run in with Tyler where we see Tyler’s
temper and Jay’s arseholery do not combine well
Elena and Caroline finally argue because Elena wants to
pretend everything is ok for her peace of mind and Caroline would much rather
actually fix the problems than pretend they’re not happening. Caroline is
lonely with all her friends gone – Elena says she’s still there. Except the
memory thing means Caroline can’t really talk to her.
And Liam kisses Elena. This is my shocked face.
Enzo and Stefan meet, there’s a brief fight and Enzo
kills Jay, who was sneaking up behind them with a big gun and no awareness of
vampire senses. This doesn’t stop Stefan, who just has a new weapon to kill
Enzo. And Caroline shows up – Stefan decides to mope off like a mopey thing
rather than tell Caroline that Enzo killed Ivy.
Enzo does it anyway so while he takes the body of Jay to
Matt for revelations and body burial, Caroline catches up with Stefan to tell
him that killing Enzo won’t bring Ivy back. Oh Caroline, you think Ivy matters?
No, it’s just that a dead Enzo will stop reminding him of Damon. Mope mope
mope, love triangle, love triangle, Caroline begs Stefan to stay for all their
friends (her). And Stefan leaves
Sad music play! And Elena appears so Caroline can do some
incredibly well acted grief and Elena can comfort her. This would actually be a
beautiful scene if it weren’t for Ivy’s not yet cold corpse everyone’s kind of
ignoring.
Back to the party and a revelation – Caroline compelled a
girl to get ice (because Caroline is a terrible person. Also, unsubtle note on the fact it was a Black girl she dispatched to do her bidding. At least she escaped being a snack) and she didn’t do it –
because the minute she went into Mystic Falls the compulsion stopped working.
Which means Sarah’s compulsion must have stopped as well – so she remembers
Elena’s attack (told you all, evil weretapir!). Back at the Salvatore house,
Jeremy realises Sarah has left, after trashing the place. However vampire
hunters around means Caroline takes the excuse to move back in with Elena. Both
of them belatedly remember some Bonnie angst before going back to
Caroline/Stefan (in case we missed the rather dramatic and not even subtle love
affair between them).
And back to Matt and Tyler and Matt realises that the guy
he knew since he was 10 (apparently) may have been turned into a vampire hunter
by Tripp, the Founding Family member creating his own militia.
... Really? You think so? See this is what happens to
everyone’s IQ when they drink as much as people on the Vampire Diaries do.
And Liv shows up to be a terrible person which is how she flirts with Tyler
In town, Tripp manages to inject Enzo with vervain which
doesn’t actually work on Enzo due to all that time he spent as a lab rat. But
before he manages to kill Tripp, Stefan shoots him in the back, twice. Stefan
greets Tripp as a fellow Founding family (really Stefan, allying with a
hunter?) and Tripp insists in killing Enzo slowly in a he-can-definitely-escape
kind of way.
To the other side/afterlife/groundhog hell Damon and
Bonny are snarking at each other and shopping (though, technically, since there’s
no-one else there and they’re not paying I guess it’s a very restrained
looting). They find more evidence of someone else there with them which Bonnie
considers hopeful and Damon is in full denial about. They argue and Damon makes
a joke about telling Elena he killed Bonnie because she’s useless without her
magic – oh Vampire Diaries
lampshading your bullshit does not make it smell better
Damon finds his car which makes him more positive. He plays
with it – it’s kind of cute – but Bonnie’s snark is better. After a brief
moment of hope though, many of the clues they’ve been seeing suddenly become
doubtful and Damon returns to despair. As he mopes, Bonnie demands he give up
his ring – if he’s going to kill any hope they have he might as well end it and
be done with it.
After which Damon runs into Kai in the liquor store – the
mysterious third person shows himself. He’s been following Damon and Bonnie
around for a while and he’s slightly odd; happily provoking Damon until Damon
is willing to kill him – and then quickly calming Damon down and suggesting he
have a drink. Turns out he has vervained every single liquor bottle in the
store.
He wants to kill Damon and grabs a convenient wooden
thing to do the stabbing (slowly of course). Bonnie shows up to protect Damon –
and Kai mocks her for having no magic. She’s angry, upset and… lights a candle.
With magic. Bonnie’s back (knew she couldn’t be useless for too long).
Kai, rather appropriately, says “uh-oh”. Damon, at Bonnie’s
suggestion, runs (in a blur? What did the vervain just wear off?). Kai gives up
and assumes a begging posture and Damon knocks him out.
Kai gets tied to a chair for Q&A session. He claims
the whole murdering Damon plot was to get Bonnie her magic back and they’re all
team mates. Bonnie’s magic is how they actually escape.
Ye gods, Ivy. She hasn’t even been fridged, that would
imply Stefan will grow and grieve over her – she’s just been tossed aside and
ignored. No-one cares she’s dead. Caroline was epicly annoyed at Stefan for
ignoring her calls – and doesn’t consider Ivy (or any other random woman Enzo
snacks on) worth more than a mild scolding. Everyone on this show is almost comically
evil. And we get Caroline being so beautifully, epicly sad over Stefan leaving –
and it’s beautiful and touching and so well acted until you realise that she’s
just made a not-too-subtle declaration of true love to Stefan the day after his
girlfriend was murdered in front of him.
Caroline and Elena is actually an interesting conflict
because it’s one of the few on the show that point out how Elena’s actions hurt
others. Her choice to erase her memory effectively removes her from both being
able to fix the loss of Bonnie and Damon AND makes it hard to impossible for
the other people who are grieving to actually talk to Elena. She has ended her
pain and is now having a happy party, but she’s only making everyone else’s experience
more difficult. I think it contrasts interestingly with Jeremy bringing Sarah
to the party because here we have Jeremy’s thoughtlessness making Elena
uncomfortable – yet her own is far more wider reaching.
Kai… I’m either going to really like this character’s
rather randomness, or really hate him. Possibly both.
Also many occasions in this episode where vampire
speed/senses seems to be turned on and off as the plot demands. Stefan allying
with a hunter? I have no words…
I'm almost tempted to give this episode a higher rating simply because of the amount of glee I got from laughing AT it. I can feel the predictable tropes lining up, the terrible decisions, the moping over lost boyfriends while corpses cool at their feet - it's so typically, awfully, Vampire Diaries
