Bonnie still exists! This is shocking news since everyone
else seems to not only have forgotten this, but even forgotten that she ever
existed at all
But no, she’s still there in the alternate dimension –
and it’s now her birthday.
Over to Jeremy and Elena – and Elena has also belatedly remembered Bonnie’s existence and wants to have a birthday party for her! Yes, she wants to have a party for the woman who is incapable of attending or even knowing one is happening. But Elena knows Bonnie would have wanted her to have a party without her.
…
..
.
Do I even have to say anything about this? I mean,
really? Really really? (Oh hey, how about invite
Caroline-who-nearly-watched-her-mother-die to the party as well!?)
Jeremy points out how terrible this is. And they also
talk about whether Jeremy can get into art school because he has talent but a
terrible academic record; this actually implies Elena had a decent academic
record to get into college despite never ever attending school. (Hey,
these guys are talking about art school while a magically charged serial killer
runs around, just reminding everyone. Oh, and Bonnie’s still stuck. Maybe
we could free her rather than talk school?). Jeremy does remember Bonnie and
says he doesn’t actually want to leave the area until they actually save her
because she does actually matter and not just as an excuse to party.
Of course, the word party has been uttered so Caroline is
all over that. She does share a childhood story with Stefan (who is just there
to keep their romantic tension at a permanent slow simmer; kind of like my
nana’s vegetables that have been boiled for hours and hours and hours until
every hint of flavour and nutrients have been ruthlessly annihilated) about how
she once hid Bonnie’s teddy bear. She decides to go find it. They flirt over
each other’s coping mechanisms. Which is kind of disturbing.
In between Caroline digging random holes since she doesn’t
actually know where she buried the bear, Stefan decides to taunt her in her
pain because she needs to vent. Y’know not every emotional pain needs
expressing through violent rage – maybe Caroline has her own way of dealing
Stefan? Also, when Liz asked you to look after Caroline and help her move on, I
think that was meant to be AFTER she died. They do find the bear and Caroline cries.
Time for Elena and Damon to be romantic. And Kai drops
in. I’m sorry why is this character not already dead by vampire? Anyway, he
wants to give a letter to his sister Jo who he can’t find. He also tells them
how his usual sociopath self seems to have developed some kind of conscience
after absorbing Luke; he has guilt weasels and has no idea how to deal with it.
Hilariously, he also points out Elena should look past his bad deeds because
this is the Vampire Diaries and this
is what they do (even mentioning Damon). Elena realises they can exchange
services – and get Kai to bring Bonnie back.
They decide they can use the weird broken Ascendant thing
to send a message to Bonnie (now people are actually trying) and with that
message they can help her find a big stash of magic with which she can get home
– a
lot of Qetsiyah’s blood in a gravestone. Jeremy arrives to doubt the whole
change of heart but this would require actual reasoning and common sense and such
things have no place on the Vampire
Diaries.
They use the spell and all go to haunt Bonnie. Literally
since she can’t see them. This is not an entirely useful communication spell,
it has to be said. They find Bonnie watching over the old footage of her and
Damon together and Bonnie tapping into the oldest bottle of booze in the house;
something she and Damon said they’d do when they could no longer stand being
trapped and were considering suicide.
They’re flipped back to the real world with Kai having a
nosebleed, lacking the juice to keep it going. Everyone asks whether Bonnie can
die in that world since Kai couldn’t but it was his personal prison (Damon has,
apparently, forgotten that Bonnie was stabbed by Kai and seemed to come back
from the dead because everyone assumes that Bonnie can actually kill herself.)
To Tyler and Liv and Liv is finally belatedly caring
about Luke’s death (which, as I said last episode, I don’t have much time for).
She also wants to kill Kai for vengeance (about damn time). She uses a spell to
see through Kai’s eyes (well, Luke’s once) and sees he’s at the Salvatore house
and is not happy. Tyler reminds her of the whole kill-the-leader-kill-them-all
clause of the Gemini coven (which I still say someone should have mentioned
much much earlier – and have killed Kai before the serial killer became a Load Bearing
Boss.) He declares he will support whatever her decision is. But then she
makes the decision he doesn’t want so he tries to stop her and she magics him
unconscious
Using some belated common sense, they realise that if
they send just one person back rather than a whole crowd, they could have
enough focus in them to do something useful and point Bonnie in the right
direction. Elena gasps “no” – I know Elena, a good idea is completely anathema
to your whole existence. Doing this may take more woo-woo than Kai has,
resulting in him being squished (yay) and Jeremy also being stuck in Bonnie
world (hey Jeremy, trading in all these folks for Bonnie is actually a bit of a
win).
In what could be a very touching scene, Damon declares he
can’t watch this risky endeavour and goes to where the ancient suicide booze is
stored. He and Bonnie made a pact to drink it together and he’s going to do it.
This powerful, emotional and understated scene then has an Elena inserted to
also drink the booze and make the whole scene about her and whether she likes
bad guys because she’s a vampire. Really? Elena for one scene let it not be
about you. Damon says that if she weren’t a vampire, she probably wouldn’t be
with him.
Anyway the spell is working, Jeremy sends the message – and Liv stabs Kai in the stomach which rather interrupts things. She begins magically killing him using all the lethal magic that, for some reason, not one single witch could muster before Kai killed Luke. He manages to stab her with a fork which apparently renders her unable to do more than yell “stop it Kai” when he throws flammable liquid on her. Kai prepares to burn her but new compassion-enabled Kai can’t do it. She stabs him again and Jeremy joins in the throwing of lethal cutlery and stabs Liv. Damon and Elena hear all this but someone has managed to magically lock them in their room, from a distance and without a ritual. Now that could have been impressively useful earlier in the series.
Jeremy drags the bleeding, sweating and generally
suffering Kai away and persuades him to send Jeremy back. There they find
Bonnie drinking and crying with very sad music in the background. In rage and
grief she goes into the garage and turns on the car – planning to suffocate
herself. She records her last, tragic thoughts. But while recording it she
remembers her grandmother’s words and tries to stop it – but this car has the
worst CO2 standards in the world and the huge garage is already full of toxic
fumes and she can’t get up. Jeremy manages to work the garage door.
Back in the real world, the vampires ride to the rescue,
Damon feeding Kai his blood and Elena… well Elena was there.
All is saved – except Bonnie all alone – and they clear
up the detritus of Bonnie’s party. Jeremy also has a sad moment reflecting that
he’s also trapped (except not) and that he needs to move on (encouraged by Elena)
and go to art school. On to Damon who snarks that Jeremy isn’t that good.
Liv wakes up in her bed with Tyler being super-duper
pissy – he dumps her for having an emotional reaction to her twin’s life.
Elena, in a moment of stunning wisdom, declares that it
doesn’t really matter what human Elena would have done. She isn’t and never
will be human Elena again – who she is loves Damon.
And Bonnie finds Damon’s clue and drives off to
hopefully, finally escape
Over to the even more pointless characters now. Enzo is
menacing Matt to make him help Enzo stalk Sarah Salvatore for reasons that make
little sense but it’s a desperate attempt to keep these two characters
relevant. Matt tries and fails to flirt with her and Enzo is duly scathing at
his inability to seduce women.
Plan B involves turning Matt into a lost, sad puppy for
Sarah to save. Yes, Enzo decided that Matt plays pathetic way better than sexy.
All of this is Enzo’s test to prove that Sarah is a good person and therefore
Enzo will corrupt her because he is epicly bored and super obsessed with Stefan
They remembered Bonnie existed! They finally tried to
rescue Bonnie! Though even then it has to be said that they “tried” to rescue
Bonnie because the opportunity to do so just fell into their laps. Also a large
part of it seemed to be about Jeremy moving on and leaving the show rather than
focusing on Bonnie. But hey, Bonnie exists and she’s finally on the path to
escaping! Please make this happen at long damn last. Then have her leave the
show and be part of a spin off with interesting characters. She could take… um…
err… actually does Vampire Diaries even
have interesting characters any more?
As for Kai? Aaargh that was awful. Kai comes swanning
into the room and Elena and Damon’s reaction isn’t “aaargh, super powerful
serial killer” but more “ugh, you again”. Like he’s the guy who got messy drunk
at the last party and vomited on the cat rather than an actual serial killer
who killed someone just last episode. And Luke having no characterisation and
just being killed off was offensive. No-one caring that Luke could be
sacrificed was offensive. Luke dying and his death being used as a form of
redemption for his murderer? Oooh well done Vampire
Diaries you made this train wreck even worse.
I don’t know whether to be amused or horrified that Vampire Diaries so completely recognises
its own deeply broken morality that it is openly lampshading the
ridiculous redemption of the evil characters.
I kind of don’t like Caroline and Stefan’s storyline. It
has some sweet moments, some nice moments – but a lot of it seems to revolve
around Stefan pushing Caroline to grieve/deal with the emotional pain she’s in
in way he thinks is best. There’s also the underlying love interest element
that leaves me mildly creeped out. They’re not partners, but it’s clear we’re heading
that way – so Stefan lurking around and getting closer while Caroline is at her
most vulnerable with all this underlying romantic tension feels like it could
go in a very bad place. I don’t want them to head down the romance path WHILE
Caroline is hurting
Why do Enzo and Matt even exist?
