Vampire Diaries
tries to do its level best to make me dredge up one teeny tiny fuck to give
about Jo and Alaric’s upcoming nuptials. They fail – even when they throw in a
male stripper and Alaric manages to invite the whole damn town to his party.
Of course in the middle of Jo’s now rather pathetic hen
night (hey, doesn’t Liv get an invite? She is Jo’s sister) Bonnie decides to
ask Elena about the humanity cure. C’mon Bonnie, you’re already throwing a Hen
Night here you’ve managed to drag a total of 3 guests (INCLUDING the bride) and
now you’ve got to talk about Elena too?
Honestly, at the wedding the priest is going to break off mid ceremony to talk about Elena. All the speeches at the reception will be about Elena. She will throw herself onto the dance floor, shoving Jo and Alaric aside so she can have the first dance.
They continue to talk endlessly about Elena taking the
cure and Elena briefly raises that there are actually some really fun elements
of being a vampire and Bonnie hits the elephant in the room – human Elena may
not love Damon.
Damon and Alaric also talk about this at Alaric’s
ridiculously huge stag party. C’mon, the wedding is the coming up and everyone
is talking about Elena? They care about this wedding even less than I do!
Tyler, Matt and Enzo show up because everyone else was
invited and we have to be reminded there are actually characters more pointless
and superfluous than Alaric and Jo on the show.
While Stefan decides to call Caroline and whine. Ok I
don’t like the characters but I’m feeling bad for Alaric and Jo now, absolutely
no-one cares about them at their own parties. Anyway Enzo’s at the party to
recruit Stefan to help his ripper mother
Who is currently hunting a Luke look-alike. Don’t tease me
like that Vampire Diaries, it’s not
cute. So Stefan goes to intervention her mixing lots of dubious addiction
comparison with a heavy dose of passive aggressive spite over the whole she
doesn’t really want to be their mother thing.
Stefan calls Damon to tell him all about it but Damon is largely uncaring (which I don’t disagree with – is there a reason he should?) of course Enzo has heard about Damon wanting to be human (somehow? Because it’s in the script I guess? Apparently because he got Alaric drunk which is ridiculous because everyone on this show drinks enough to be drunk all the time). After much snarking Enzo drops his own opinion on Damon turning human – he’s far too selfish for it.
Stefan continues to try and connect to his mother but
Lily tells him why she’s not exactly warm and fluffy towards him – she doesn’t
dislike Stefan but she doesn’t like who she was when she was his mother. She
lived with an abusive, cruel husband and considered herself broken and weak –
she’s not a very different woman and doesn’t want anything to do with who she
used to be or any connections to that time – including her children. She then
stabs him and runs off after killing a waitress. The lady likes her dramatic
exits
Back to Matt and Tyler and their big plan to become cops
is running awry because Tyler has realised he has a chance of killing someone
as a cop – which means he’ll become a werewolf again. Matt decides to pick a
fight and accurse Tyler of needing self-control (what, to not kill people in a potentially
violent profession? To suppress his werewolfness? Because being a werewolf is
controllable now? What does Matt know about it anyway?) Tyler hits him and
walks away.
Elena and Damon meet up for more turning human discussion
and Elena finally touches on an important element: Damon loves being a vampire
and may resent her for turning him human (Damon also talks about being able to
eat fatty food without any concern)
Of course Damon and Elena having a heart to heart leaves Jo and Bonnie alone (seriously on Jo’s hen-night? Elena you’re a terrible terrible friend. Do Jo and Bonnie even know each other?!) And Lily arrives all pissed at Bonnie for not rescuing her friends but Bonnie isn’t impressed – no she won’t rescue them even if she could. Lily tries to eat her and gets angry witched – but Bonnie lets up for some bizarre reason and Lily throws something at her neck, stabbing her. Witches vs vampires, the powers change so randomly. Lily then goes to eat Jo who screams that she’s pregnant. This is a line for Lily, especially since she realises Jo is carrying twins and she zooms off.
Damon and Elena talk some more and finally decide,
against all common sense, to take the cure. Elena takes the cure and all her
memories of Damon which Alaric removed come back. She’s human. And is both
ecstatic about it – and still in love with Damon. Which is when Stefan calls to
say they can’t take the cure because Lily is too dangerous – and she arrives
and breaks Damon’s neck
Oh fun Elena, you get to be a hostage again! To be fair she was pretty good at being a hostage while vampire as well. Elena now has to run from a dangerous vampire without all the wonderful advantages that being a vampire brings.
Stefan catches up with Damon and in the middle of the
crisis of Lily running around killing people decides now is the perfect time to
tell Damon what an arsehole he is for making the decision to become human
without consulting him
He then goes to Lily who has given up her attempt to kill
Elena for an epic bout of self-pity and blaming it on Stefan (I miss the logic
behind her current mess being Stefan’s fault). She contemplates suicide and for
reasons that escape me, Stefan tries to talk her out of it, appealing to her
maternal instinct… she tries to murder him instead and Damon vervains her
Bonnie does get to a hospital and Damon’s vampire blood
fixes her up. And Jo tells Alaric about the twins – which isn’t all good. She’s
part of the Gemini coven, which means her family (what’s left of it) will all
want to grab the twins and make them do the twin merge. Alaric pledges to
follow her into obscurity so they can hide from her family and, hopefully, so they
can trim some excess characters
Trimming the excess doesn’t meaning killing Lily, but it
does mean imprisoning her for a “winter’s nap” in Damon’s words. But Elena has
a bombshell – with all her memories back she remembered she and Damon debating
taking the cure together in the past (I don’t remember this but I’ll take their
word for it). Then Damon really really didn’t want to be human – and she’s
realied that Damon has kind of rushed into the decision this time. She wants
him to talk to the other people in his life, she wants him to think about it –
she wants him to be sure that he really wants this. Damon seems pretty angry by
this.
Lily is in one of the Salvatore cells where Enzo leaves
her, calling it a “family matter” to Stefan. Because he intends to imprison her
for eternity until Lily sees him as her son – while she pledges to get her people
back and unleash carnage.
And in the prison world, Kai is still alive and seemingly
leading the heretic witchpires. And planning an escape
Can we pause for a moment and consider how grossly
inappropriate this show can get due to casting actors in their 20s as
teenagers? Because here we have Elena, technically a student of Jo’s, hiring a
stripper for her
I don’t know about anyone else, but my university frowned
on students hiring strippers for the professors. And never mind that Alaric
was, kinda sorta, for some time Elena and Jeremy’s almost guardian.
I am glad we looked at Tyler’s ridiculous plan to become
a police officer - because someone living in terror of ever becoming a werewolf
again really shouldn’t be picking a profession that involves carrying a gun. I’m
glad the show rather belatedly recognised the foolishness of this.
On Damon taking the cure – I think it’s a terrible idea.
I think, of all the vampires on this show, Damon is actually one of the few who
has nearly always loved being a vampire. He lacks the level of angst and moping
that just about every other vampire has had at some time. He is the vampire who
most enjoys being a vampire and the vampire who most clearly realises there is
NO DOWNSIDE TO VAMPIRENESS (yes I will keep repeating this). If he does this
for Elena it may sound like an epic romantic sacrifice, but I think 10 years
down the line (and remember Elena is considering irrevocably changing her
entire life, at the age if… what, 19? 20? Maybe 21 on the outside? To be with a
guy) or 20 years down the line when the spectre of mortality raises its ugly
head there’s going to be some hellish resentment there.
And Stefan has a point. Sure, becoming human has to be
Elena and Damon’s decision, but they’re acting like the only people in their
lives are each other, like they have no friends or family they may want to
listen to first
Which is why I do agree with Elena stopping him – though I
think she should have done the same herself before becoming human. Damon’s
decisions does make no sense an hasn’t been thought through – if they’re going
to have any kind of relationship this needs to be resolved.
Stefan, Lily has said repeatedly that motherhood and the
memories it brings does not give her any joy or comfort. Repeatedly invoking it
to try and get her on side seems… not smart. I’m actually really glad it doesn’t
work. Lily has given powerful, emotive reasons why motherhood is such a source
of pain for her and why she doesn’t embrace Stefan and Damon. To have all that
vanish because MOMMYNESS would disregard what she has said or decide it’s all irrelevant.
Which is also why I hate that Enzo left
her calling her imprisonment a “family matter”. Enzo is the only person around
who Lily has embraced as family – she has repeatedly rejected Stefan and Damon
as family. Stefan doesn’t claim ownership because he insists that he wants her
to be his mother. Stefan needs to stop trying to force a family template on
Lily that she herself has rejected – he’s 150 years old, time to get over
needing mummy when mummy doesn’t want to play the role.
I am actually vaguely hopeful that a number of these storyline suggest extraneous characters are soon going to be culled from this series - it's just too big, with too many people who are just too uninvolved in any main plotlines
