It’s safe to say this is the beginning of the end of The Vampire Diaries as we know it. Not only because it’s the last stretch of episodes for the season, but also because the groundwork is already being laid for Elena’s exit. This episode in particular felt repetitive and underwhelming for a big return from a month-long hiatus. I can only hope the rest of the season picks up the pace before the finale!
The biggest eyerolls of the night came courtesy of Stefan and Caroline, still both humanity-less and torturing innocents on campus. While this might have been a good idea to show off this carefree side of Caroline, the charade is getting tiring by now. I’m more than ready for her to go back to her normal self. It’s jarring to see how heartless she really could be when threatening to kill Tyler and almost actually kill Matt. Now Matt has all the more motivation to hate these “friends” of his, and I can’t wait to see what his next move will be.
Enzo and Sarah are still around for some reason. Sure, I guess it was cool to make the connection between Lily Salvatore and Enzo, but he’s still ridiculously useless right now. It felt like too little, too late to give the backstory on how Enzo was turned. Unless he’ll also inherit Lily’s witch powers as a result of her turning him, Enzo and Sarah seem to do nothing but waste screen time.
Okay, this episode wasn’t entirely bad. One hugely interesting plot twist was revealed by the end, introducing yet another supernatural term to add to the dictionary: heretics. Lily and her family of misfit vampires are also witches. This all adds clarity to why the Gemini coven locked them up in a prison world, while also adding a much-needed threatening power to the show. Kai was a pretty good villain to begin with, but softening his character then trapping him in another prison world felt like a cheat. Here’s to hoping the Heretics stir up some unpredictable trouble, because Lily has nothing to prove in terms of being a mother to Damon and Stefan. She really angered me when she had to be fed the lines from Damon that would get Stefan to switch his humanity back on.
By now you’ve heard Nina Dobrev announced she will be leaving the show at the end of the season. That pretty much leaves Elena’s fate wide open: will she die? If so, will she die as a vampire or human? Or will she just take the cure (most obvious route right now) and willingly leave town to live a normal life? Like I said, all signs point to her taking the cure. That’s fine and all, but I’m disappointed if that’s the way the writers go. Elena’s conversations with Jo, Matt, and Damon all indicate her unhappiness with being a vampire all of a sudden. All that’s left now is for Damon to make the ultimate sacrifice for the love of his life and tell her about the cure. He’ll be letting her go and breaking millions of fans’ hearts in the process.
Notable quotables:
-”Imagine Kai with the bloodlust of a vampire. Now imagine six of them.” -Jo explaining the Heretics.
-”Do you know how many times I’ve died or nearly died? Most of those times were at the hands of people I thought were my friends. Not people, vampires.” -Matt foreshadowing a change in his life.
-”I just had to let myself be sad for a minute.” -Elena to Damon after expressing her sadness over not being able to live a human life, prompted by Jo’s pregnancy.
What did you think of the episode?
[Photo via The CW]
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