Hey! I actually got this review posted in a reasonable amount of time! As we draw closer to the finale, I’ll try to maintain this pace.
While I have always stated that I prefer Elena and Stefan – and I do enjoy the moments that seem to indicate that they belong together – I also really appreciate the moments that show how important certain other relationships are to their lives. For example, nothing Elena did would trigger an emotional response from Stefan when he was forced to turn off his humanity last year. None of Elena’s efforts worked – ultimately, it was Stefan’s brotherly bond with Damon that snapped him out of it. For the past several weeks, Damon and Stefan have both tried everything they could to get Elena to turn her humanity back on. They negotiated with her. They tried to remind them of their past love. They even tortured her. Yet, in the end, it was seeing her childhood friend, former boyfriend and perennial innocent victim Matt get his neck snapped that brought her back from the dark side. I thought this was the right decision, and I appreciate the fact that the writers don’t feel the need to hammer home the importance of certain romantic relationships. We know Elena loves Stefan and Damon, but it’s nice to know that they aren’t always the center of her world.
The conclusion of this episode leads me to believe we’re heading towards an Elena/Katherine showdown for the finale, and that had me thinking: Is it me, or has the villain situation been a bit all over the place this season? When the season kicked off, it seemed like it may be a battle between Elena/Damon/Stefan and the Originals, due in no small part to Rebekah and Klaus’ role in Elena’s death. Then it seemed like the real obstacle would be the Founders Council and the vampire hunters. Those stories quickly died down, however, and they more or less settled on the Silas story. It still feels a bit weird seeing some of the focus shift to Katherine vs. Elena, though, because Katherine has been pretty MIA for the past couple of seasons. And while she has done some pretty terrible things (as noted by Elena this episode), I have to say that most of her appearances haven’t been ALL that tense. Elena’s “Katherine must die” attitude isn’t without justification (she did, after all, help kill her brother and did torture her as well), but it doesn’t resonate with me as a viewer as an epic battle to build a finale around.
While I did actually enjoy the Silas mind games, did the tone of Caroline’s interactions with “Klaus” seem off to anybody? I understand that Caroline is developing feelings for him and that she’s been generally nicer to him as of late, but she seemed a bit TOO tender hearted with him. She just seemed way too warm and joyful to see him, a stark contrast to even their nicest moment together. Also, I’m glad that they didn’t kill off Sheriff Forbes as she’s one of my favorite auxiliary characters. Plus, this show seems to love killing off parents, so it’s nice to have at least one positive parental figure in the mix. But by that same token, I can’t help but feel like it was a bit of a cop out. Admittedly and as I just noted, this show hasn’t hesitated to kill off characters, so they have earned some goodwill by having characters miraculously return from the dead. But at the moment, the primary focus should be to show how dangerous and severe Silas’ threats are, and having Caroline save her mother seemed to negate that. But, again, I’m glad she’s alive.
I am curious to see what happens with Bonnie and Silas, and whether this wall between worlds does come down. And if it does come down, whether we’ll see fallen characters like Jenna (!!!!) and Alaric again.
Perhaps more than anything else, I’m eager to see the fallout following Elena regaining her humanity. Will things remain tense between her and Bonnie, who she had tried to kill? Or how about Elena and Caroline, who spent the better part of the last several episodes fighting (whether physically or verbally)? And will there be any consequences behind Damon telling Elena to turn off her emotions in the first place? That decision, which was really just to avoid actually dealing with the issue, did eventually lead to her killing an innocent person. And how will Stefan and Damon react to the things Elena said to them while they were trying to get her to turn her emotions back on? I hope these issues are all dealt with in the upcoming episodes.
