This episode carries the powerful message that allowing
this silly silly womenfolk make their own decisions is such a terrible idea.
Because Vampire Diaries.
Bonnie is infected by Raina’s spirit which means she now
feels a desperate urge to kill all vampires. In her sleep, her history replays
over and over with terribad vampires she must kill. Time for the collected vampires
to use the ability to enter dreams to convince her not to (remember this power?
They bring it up like once a season and then forget it).
Since they need to convince everyone that vampires are
good (MUAHAHAH On this show! Vampires are good! Oh that’s hilarious!), Damon
opts out of being the one to enter her brain because he is the worst
Again, yes, Damon is an utterly terrible person. But so
is just about EVERYONE on this show. Everyone. Having Damon opt out because he’s
the worst but Enzo – ENZO! – decide he’s totally not?! Even Caroline is hardly
pure here. But the writers have decided to force this message of Damon is the
worst and we’re all to accept this.
Going into Bonnie’s brain just gets Caroline and Enzo
marked for eternal hunting. Caroline makes the firm decision that she’s going
to stay with Bonnie, she’s not going to run away or go on the run and leave
Alaric and the girls behind. She asks him outright “respect my choice not to
run away.” So Stefan injects her with Vervain, kidnaps her and takes her out of
there forcefully because women making their own decisions is not to be tolerated.
Faced with Stefan deciding her future for her, Caroline is angry, pouty and,
ultimately admits he was totally right completely validating his decision to
ignore hers with this episode’s motto:
If you love someone you’ll make their decisions for them
even if they don’t want you to. It’s an extract from Aesop’s fables – if Aesop
ever released the bumper book of trolling.
This leads to them not talking about their relationship
while Caroline gets all woolly about whether she loves Alaric and a general
foreshadowing of Caroline and Stefan getting back together again which we know
is going to happen and why let a little thing like sabotaged choices get in the
way
Caroline strikes out. Enzo also fails but they do get the
message that Bonnie actually wants to die- that’s why she’s not waking up. She
plans to die so she doesn’t wake up and kill everyone. This is her choice. I
don’t agree with it largely because I value Bonnie more than every vampire and
Matt on the show (yeah she doesn’t have to kill Matt but I can dream) but that
is her decision. After all, Bonnie has literally no friends. If she kills all
the vampires she knows she’s left facing a future with Alaric and Matt. Yes, I’d
choose the sweet embrace of oblivion as well.
Faced with Bonnie making an actual decision, Damon
decides it’s his turn to invade her head and countermand it. This involves
being a complete arsehole, talking about Bonnie dropping dead so he can be with
Elena again and generally taunting her until she wakes up in order to stab him
repeatedly
Which she does, tracking him down but stopped by Matt who wants to try and keep her human and not go on a killing spree. She agrees – so long as she gets to stab Damon The Worst first, reminding Matt that Damon killed her sister
Yeah, no. I’m not having that. In fact hell no. Yes, way
back in season whatever Damon did kill Matt’s sister Vicki so Jeremy could have
All the Manpain, but in the seasons since then absolutely no-one gave a shit
INCLUDING Matt and Jeremy. Damon became a drinking buddy and no-one cared about
the blood on his hands. There was even an unintentionally hilarious yet
repellent moment where Damon
blames Katherine for Vicki’s death. So no, do not belatedly decide to care
here.
Matt goes along with it and when Damon has a rather epic
apology speech for Bonnie about wanting forgiveness but still doing the very
best he could for her (regardless of her decisions) Matt intervenes and saves
Damon’s life
Not for Damon, of course, but because Matt has decided
that Bonnie won’t be able to deal with killing Damon. For her own sake he drugs
her. And takes her prisoner until Damon and Enzo can find a “cure”
Which means, after torturing a Native American no-one cares about (of course) they’re going to break into the Armoury (remember the Armoury that is now full of big bad vault-released evil) and destroy the last eternal that kept Rayna ticking
So Caroline and Bonnie both made choices. They
may not have been choices we agreed with (but even that is part of the problem),
but they were informed passionate and very personal choices about their own
lives. And Stefan and Damon and Matt said “lol nope!” and pretty much overruled
them for the women’s own good. Because the menfolk know better. And now we’re
going to set up season 8 with moooooore bad decisions
