Caroline is cleaning, much to Enzo’s bemusement because
she switched her humanity off – but Caroline again shows us that even with her
humanity off she’s still more sensible than the rest of the cast combined. And
she’s still joining the school musical (she’s a drama major. Yes it says a lot
that she’s been in college for this long and this is the first time we’ve heard
about her major).
Oh she also tells Enzo about her master plan last episode
which seems to rather worry Enzo. Though whether that’s because he’s afraid of
her evil awesomeness or that his own petty revenge plans would be scuppered
with a humanity-less Stefan and a dead Sarah I don’t know
Sarah is in hospital with her mind all compelled and Jo
feeding her some lies. She’s not very happy about this and lets her new fiancé Alaric
know. They’re keeping her in hospital so she doesn’t die with vampire blood in
her system – which says a lot about how dangerous they think the area is. Jo’s
also running through baby names in full on mummy mode. This seems all kinds of
pointless but it does allow Jo to say “anyone named Alaric should not be
allowed to name another human.”
Domesticity is ruined by Enzo shaming Alaric into helping
capture Caroline. This means lots of Alaric and Enzo snarking at each other and
pretending to be relevant.
Damon tries to vervain Stefan so they can re-humanity him
but gets his wrist broken in the process. Stefan’s out and about with a lot of
weapons so this is likely to get messy. Damon decides to break things to deal
with this; he explains his frustration to Elena that the more people Stefan
kills while a Ripper, the more guilt and whining Damon has to deal with when
Stefan is human again. I almost like how Vampire
Diaries isn’t even trying to pretend with its morality any more.
Damon also tells Elena about his dangerous evil mother.
Elena, being Elena, decides this is the best way to get Stefan back – unleash a
THIRD murderous evil vampire on the town. Damon objects but then decides to go
ahead despite already saying what a terribad idea this is. But they’re going to
need witch help for it
Which means Bonnie, who has barely been back 5 minutes
and has already been treated appallingly by her so-called friends, is now being
pressed into service. Bonnie is not amused because not only is Damon asking her
help, he’s asking her to work with Kai
Bonnie, just murder the whole town. All of them.
Of course she agrees and they go see Kai who makes this
even worse and demands that Bonnie goes with him to the prison world because this
show just wants to make Bonnie suffer. At least she keeps telling everyone how
terrible they are
Elena also decides to join (because they want to make
Bonnie suffer, remember and she always has to be involved).
In the prison world they split up – Damon and Elena look
for mummy dearest while Bonnie and Kai look for the witchy key out. And because
this show has to pair Bonnie and Kai because it wants to make Bonnie suffer.
Damon and Elena, after lots of Elena’s fluffy love of the
area and baby pics and how Damon should totally embrace his evil mother, they
run into Lilly. Damon is not best pleased with the mother who let him think she
was dead, but he does snark at Elena’s reversion to being a teenager. Lily has
been desperately grabbing every drop of blood she can from this prison world
and is down to almost nothing – she lives in 2 drops of blood a week. They do
share a little laugh over her husband’s murder at Stefan’s hands.
There’s also some details that Kai didn’t know or
neglected to mention – like the fact that Lily had been imprisoned with 6 other
vampires; all of whom are now withered and immobile due to lack of blood. Lily
also claims to have conquered her Ripper blood lust because she would have starved
(and been unable to revive her friends) if she had just guzzled all the blood
around. Damon is not reassured by the vampire doll house- but Elena spots the
Ascendant, which Kai and Bonnie are looking for… but they went the wrong way
Meanwhile Kai keeps trying to reach out to Bonnie who isn’t
having it. She’s luring him off into the woods so she can stab him. I approve.
Sadly Kai does the Gemini vanishing trick
Without both witches, they don’t have the power to bring
Lily’s vampire dolls so say they have to be left behind. She refuses and
vanishes. Damon tries to drag her but she says she won’t abandon “her family”.
Ouch.
Damon drags her along and they cast the spell to leave –
Kai yells for Bonnie as she does, but she smiles as she abandons him.
In the real world Lily tries to build some bridges with
Damon while also adding that she really does want to go back for the others.
While in the prison world, Kai looks for food and finds the mummy vampires. One
of which has been partially revived.
And Elena decides to be all fluffy and hopeful about
Damon bonding with his mother. They’re interrupted by Bonnie thanking Damon for
helping her find closure (apparently he was in on the plan) though Damon is
wary because Lily wants to go back and that’s not happening. And she has a gift
for him from the mirror world – the cure for vampirism. She gives it to him for
Elena if he wants – as was once his goal
Back to Caroline whose plans aren’t quite working because
her wonderful performance for the musical is ruined when Stefan kills the
director. See, evil Stefan is pissed. He knows that when his humanity comes
back on he is going to be super tortured and guilty for all the bad things he
does now, he also knows he can’t actually stop himself from doing the bad
things. This is Caroline’s fault and, to make matters worse, she actually has
enough self control to get through a year without humanity without having
legions and legions of guilt weasels to deal with afterwards so she isn’t going
to end up paying the same cost he is
So he’s going to blame her not just for flipping his switch, but also for having self control and is going to do his very best to destroy all her careful routine and ensure she has plenty of guilt weasels as well.
After such a dramatic and sinister speech, Caroline
destroys his bike; Stefan isn’t amused by her lacklustre revenge. He decides to
up the ante by showing her how “real” humanity less vampires act and attacks
her. This ends up with Stefan with a stake in him. She smacks him a bit more
and generally adds what a terrible, ridiculous idea this whole “letting go” is.
Her rant is curtailed by Enzo and Alaric arriving on scene with weapons (and
pretentions of relevance).
After Enzo and Alaric are duly knocked out, Stefan wants
to kill them and Caroline stops him demanding he think for five damn seconds.
Killing his brother’s best friends and Elena’s guardian is just designed to set
Damon and Elena against them, or, as Caroline puts it “did you like being
tortured until you got your humanity back?”
Stefan responds by accusing her of overthinking – and tempting
Caroline into biting a fellow student before they have sex. He convinces her
that his way is more fun
Anyway, Alaric’s snarking against Enzo seems to have got
through since he goes to Sarah and says he’s going to stop playing games with
her. But he also calls her Sarah Salvatore, a name she recognises. Alaric also
gets a smack from Jo for nearly getting himself killed before their baby
reaches the age of 18 – then he can go be a fool
I’m curious and actually intrigued (yes, but the Vampire Diaries) with the concept of a
humanity-less vampire RECOGNISING that one day they will have their humanity
back and feel all the guilt and pain. It’s an interesting thing that could be
developed really well as a form of controlling factor for this conscienceless
beings and it also shows just how GOOD Caroline is at being evil. This has more
interesting layers when we bring in Stefan not being happy being “free” of his
humanity, but angry because he knows the full consequences of what Caroline has
done to him. Of course, I that begs the question of why Stefan is so
unrestrained in his evil. He knows the cost, even if he has an addiction or
compulsion, a casual killing just because seems to go against his own logical
deduction; we need more development (like Stefan realising that he’s going to
feel guilty anyway so why bother restraining himself).
It is a nice twist on the expected storyline of
humanity-less vampires running amok together. Just because vampires don’t have
their humanity doesn’t mean they’re going to co-operate or even like each
other. Also, evil vampires pranking each other may be the most fun thing this
show could ever do. Which is why it’s sad that Stefan converted Caroline to the
side of the senseless
Oh Alaric, falling for the coward line? Refusing to get involved
in a vampire v vampire contest involving 2 without humanity and Enzo and Damon
whose humanity is pretty questionable even when it’s on is not cowardice, it’s
sensible.
And Bonnie. My gods could she be treated any worse by her
“friends” on this show? She’s barely been released and they are constantly
using hr as a tool again and making her work with Kai. There’s no focus on her,
despite what she’s been through. I’m glad Damon was finally in on the plan to
bring revenge on Kai but it’s a small crumb next to the rest of the enormity
One element I think is being touched on but needs so much
more is whether Kai’s continued claims “I changed” actually mean anything. He changed
– and? And Bonnie is supposed to forgive? Did it mean he didn’t do all the
things to Bonnie? Does his change give her one iota less reason to hate him?
Why WOULDN’T she seek revenge against him? This isn’t Bonnie going bad, this is
a very reasonable response from her and Kai most definitely is not the victim
and I’ll be annoyed if it’s treated that way
The cure for vampirism is back in play – that’s never led
to good storylines in the past. Also I don’t even slightly like the idea of
whether giving the vampire cure to Elena or not is Damon’s choice.
