The title of this episode is ominous – I predict consent
is not going to be very well respected here.
Ivy and some other vampires are in Trip’s happy van of
death while he tries to pretend he’s doing the murdering for their own good. He
then tortures them with horrendous music. They enter Mystic Falls and all die
from whatever it was the vampires used to kill them when they turned them
Where does Tripp keep finding these van fulls of vampires?
Despite massacring vampires left, right and centre, Tripp has still kept Enzo captive and Matt is serving as Tripp’s errand boy and conspirator and decides it’s all ok because Stefan turned Enzo in. Enzo points out a few flaws in Matt’s awful plan: 1) Stefan is hardly the paragon of moral decision making and 2) Tripp is keeping him alive so he can spill about all the other vampires out there; all of which are Matt’s friends. Really Matt should have realised this. Just to remind Matt of this, Tripp shows up to be menacing
Anyway to the main characters and Damon is back – which makes
Stefan happy. Caroline tells Elena and to my utter shock Elena asks about
Bonnie. Alas, no she’s still stuck after pointlessly sacrificing herself for
Damon (actually, pointlessly sacrificing herself so Damon can go home one day
earlier). Damon has decided to make it “easier” on everyone by not telling
anyone about Bonnie except Stefan, instead he claims she wasn’t there.
Of course, Damon wants to see Elena but she still hates
him even though Alaric points out she only erased her own memory because she
didn’t think he was coming back and doesn’t she want to re-assess now? Alaric
is also pretty sure Damon is going to be really not happy with him. Elena
insists on keeping the compulsion because nothing good could balance the bad
(AHAHAHAHAH!)
Alaric is still concerned about Jo being all compulsion
proof last episode
Jeremy is not dealing with Bonnie being gone forever well
(he’s the only one because of that prevailing lack of giving a damn) and Sarah
doesn’t understand why he’s all upset
Matt finally realises how much he’s screwed up and
decides to tell Caroline and Alaric. He makes a pouty remark about not knowing
good vampires from bad vampires before admitting that Ivy is dead. And Stefan shows
up to tell them he made the whole problem worse.
More complication – Matt spying on Tripp gets a visit
from Sarah trying to find out who her parents are – having revealed that her
dad was a Salvatore last week (and that both her parents were killed by Damon –
she’s figured out a vampire was involved). As they snoop through his office
they find Ivy’s phone – which recently dialled Caroline so Tripp probably knows
what she is.
Caroline helpfully tells Stefan just how ridiculous his
whole plan to hand over Enzo was, just in case anyone missed it (oh Vampire Diaries you don’t need to
lampshade the bad decision making of your characters, we know. Oh gods do we
know). It being Vampire Diaries all
the killing et all Enzo did means nothing compared to Enzo being Damon’s friend
and Stefan upsetting Caroline – priorities!
Alas it’s back to Damon visiting Elena and them doing the angsty talking through a door thing (which would Elena be troubled or conflicted?) She decides to jump out a window and then call Stefan to angst about how she’s happy with her magical denial and she’s afraid she may actually feel what she doesn’t want to feel if she actually has to face reality rather than the nice, fake story she’s told herself. Also she kissed Liam.
Instead she decides to go follow Jo around to investigate her whole compulsion immunity thing; paying special note to Jo’s special necklace. Jo also wants to talk to Elena since she’s spoken to Liam and heard about the girl Elena miracle healed (with vampire blood). Jo makes it clear – she knows what Elena and Alaric are and she wants them to stop stealing blood bags. Elena is slightly freaked out by how utterly blasé Jo is about having vampires around and figures out Jo is a witch. Jo suggests they both refrain from asking personal questions about one’s supernatural nature. Also that Alaric should not use compulsion to avoid messy relationships.
And Damon goes to visit Alaric and rely on their vampiric
nature to protect them from inevitable liver decay. He wants to talk to Alaric
about the whole mind wipe which does not amuse him but Alaric won’t fix it
without Elena’s consent – something she won’t give because, of course, she can’t
remember why she’d want to.
Damon does not like this catch 22 and goes to stalk Elena
in her implausibly massive dorm room when Jeremy pops in to remind everyone
that Bonnie is also missing and someone on this show actually cares. Damon
repeats his lie and tries to offer some level of comfort but he starts caring
about Bonnie too – doing Jeremy’s thing of calling her voicemail to hear her
voice.
Elena decides actually she will see Damon so calls him,
but the lovey-doveyness is interrupted by Tripp (going to the room Caroline lives
in) trying to capture Damon which would have ended with Tripp’s broken neck if
he hadn’t brought back up. Elena arrives in the aftermath, realises what
happened and calls Alaric. He is delayed by Jo demanding he be honest so he tells
her exactly what he’s doing at the moment – rescuing a friend from a vampire
hunter and anti-magic death so she should stay away from him because it’s all
messy
Damon gets reunited with Enzo in the back of the van of
death for a brief catchup. Elena has a revelation about wanting her memory back
with Caroline and Alaric tries to convince Stefan he shouldn’t blame himself
while Stefan, rightly, realises yes it’s all his fault. Alaric shares his own
identity crisis angst before they prepare their hunter ambush
Which ends up a bit messy because Alaric joins the legion
of vampires who apparently can’t just kill Tripp – so a big van crash happens
that takes Damon and Alaric and Enzo into Mystic Falls and the messy anti-magic
zone. Stefan decides to follow and, more usefully, so does Jo (who followed
Alaric). Thankfully all of them died from slow-killing things (Enzo had
tuberculosis). While Stefan saves Damon and Enzo, Jo provides medical attention
to Alaric so she can move him (while also describing how awesome she is). After
a pretty good freak out, it actually works and she saves his life… because his
wound wasn’t fatal if he had medical attention. Technically that means he can
wander around Mystic Falls as a living human… Jo gets him to the hospital
(could he leave Mystic Falls and have the vampireness come back? Apparently
because Jo plans to transfer him out of Mystic Falls)
Tripp escapes. Of course.
Extra complication – human Alaric can’t undo the
compulsion for Elena. DOOOM AND ANGST
On to Matt and Sarah and Matt tells her that her family’s
still around – but Damon and Stefan are vampires and bad stuff tends to follow
them. Jeremy’s also in the house, smashing things in rage and grief over Bonnie
Stefan and Damon drink and Damon is really sick of
everyone saying how much Elena was hurting so it was ok to erase her memories
(he points out, rightly, that so was he. Because Elena isn’t the only one to
grieve, ever). He goes to see her and we have a cliffhanger over whether the
compulsion breaks (I’m going to bet “no”).
Stefan goes to see Caroline with the worst apology ever – basically insisting they just “get past this and be friends again”, unsurprisingly, Caroline decides that’s not ok.
I hereby cry great steaming elephant turds (because we’re
way beyond bullshit) on Damon not telling about Bonnie to make it “easier” on
everyone. That would require people to give a damn. But not just that, by
keeping it a secret he is not telling them all exactly where she is and,
therefore, not giving everyone a motive to get her back using the new
information he’s given. After all, they could now speak to the Gemini coven or
track down another Bennett witch or at least focus their research more… but unless
they know Bonnie is there they have no reason to.
I have to just laugh at Elena here; “nothing good could
balance the bad” uh huh? Actually I agree – after the things Damon has done,
nothing he has done comes close to redeeming it. But since when has Elena – or anyone
on Vampire Diaries – cared about that? I mean, she seems pretty friendly with Stefan
the serial killer. Caroline has piled up the bodies – even she has plenty of
blood on her hands.
But I was quite happy by the end of the episode that
Elena seemed to have changed her mind and we wouldn’t have it dragged out for
episode after episode of Damon and Elena angst
Then Alaric got de-vampired.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. WHYYYYYY?!
I’ll tell you why – so we can focus on Elena and Damon
and their endless relationship drama even though every other storyline here is
more interesting
On that note, just because Elena’s memories are “false” does
not mean Damon is entitled to mess with Elena’s head again, whether she wants
him to or not. Yes, Elena’s decisions are self-indulgent, foolish and
aggravating in the extreme – but it’s Elena’s decision to make.
Also on the de-vamping thing “you gave me your life back.”
Alaric, really? With the daylight ring there is quite literally zero down sides
to being a vampire – especially an Original vampire. Oh woe is me, being
immortal!
Matt and Stefan’s decision to keep silent about Tripp and
Enzo is ridiculous – Enzo shouldn’t have had to point out these obvious
problems. And his whole “I don’t know which vamps are good or bad” would have a
point (and poke at how they’re all bad) if he didn’t know Tripp was merrily
killing ALL vampires. Every one of these problems was predictable – including Ivy’s
death.
And yes she’s thrown away now. In some ways, this is even
worse than if they’d just left her to die when Enzo first killed her – at least
then her complete disposability wouldn’t have been extra emphasised by last
week’s episode where everyone treated her like a massive burden.
When did vampires stop snapping necks in seconds? They
can do it to each other when they want a time out, but humans and witches they
like to hold for a bit first. And how come Tripp is only interested in holding Enzo
captive? Until he has Damon and then Enzo becomes useless?
