Get some happy music ready and top up your drinks,
because it’s time for another episode of Vampire Diaries. You might want to
open a window to let all the angst out.
We start a year ago – with Professor Shane running
through the woods. Boo Vampire Diaries, all these people running through woods
and none of them get killed and eaten. He is being followed by someone with
long black hair and white face paint but doesn’t seem overly concerned about the
matter and is more happy that he finds a mine. It has graffiti on the wall (or
possibily ancient significant writing. Makes you think that in 2,000 years some
archaeologist is going to ooh and aah over “bazza iz a tosser” sprayed on some
subway tunnels) and a big, ominous hole.
Cut to the present and the whole gang has gone on a boat
trip – an island 200 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia where the cure is
hidden. And the immortal, Silas. (Isn’t it amazing how all these ancient
immortal beings from Eurasia somehow wind up in the US?)
Elena and Rebekah still hate each other. The fact Rebekah
now has a reason to loathe Elena for killing her brother would mean something
if she hadn’t already hated Elena for so many petty reasons. Also, can someone
remind me why she isn’t killing Elena? Especially with Klaus not being overly
fussed with the whole hybrid thing any more? Damon dodges questions about
whether he’ll take the cure or not.
Bonnie takes photos of Jeremy’s tattoos and tells the
story they show: Silas approached a witch for a spell to make him immortal –
but she then learned he meant to share that with another woman, not her. She
became Rather Miffed and killed the other woman and imprisoned him in a cave
for all eternity. This is Important Information and not in any way an excuse
for Bonnie to rub her hands all over Jeremy’s rather impressive torso. Honest.
Now witchy exposition requires you to flex a bit more, Jer… no? Awww… Shane
interrupts with a much less fun exposition – Ketsya, the woman scorned, created
the immortality cure and buried it with Silas in the hope he’d use it, kill
himself and join her in the afterlife (y’know I can’t imagine why anyone would
want an afterlife of eternal angst and bickering. It’d be like being locked in
a small room with a television that played the Vampire Diaries on permanent loop).
When he didn’t her descendants created the hunters to go find him, cure him and
kill him.
Brief Klaus and Tyler interlude in which we have a vague
discussion on whether curing an Original means that their entire line is cured
or just them (and if just them, can you kill them without killing their line)
ending with Klaus taunting Tyler about his dead mother.
Back to the island hike where Rebekah still hates Elena.
And there’s legends of a well nearby that lets you see the lost souls of dead
loved ones by bleeding into it – Shane tested the well to see his dead wife and
son. Thinking he heard his dead wife whisper, he lowered himself into the well,
fell and saw his wife, Caitlin. Damon sums up this story as “don’t eat the
poisonous flowers.”
There’s also traps around the well – and a man tries to
shoot Jeremy with a bow and arrow, but is stopped by someone else throwing an
axe into his back.
Shane leads them to a camp (where college kids once camped before they were all drained of blood. Seriously, does every inch of this island have a creepy urban legend attached) and Damon doesn’t understand why they’re stopping just because it’s dark. And we have another Damon, Elena “I’ll till love you after I’m cured” moment.
Time for another Klaus interlude and now Caroline has
come to join the party. Klaus tries to play good guy to her, bigging up the
nice things he’s done, Caroline has a litany of the evil he’s done in response
(shame no-one has one of those litanies for Damon and Stefan) and Klaus uses
the furnishings to stab Caroline in the stomach and drag her into his little
prison and bite her.
Back at the camp and Rebekah is afraid of ghosts and she
and Stefan talk about the cure and being normal. Honestly, how many heart to
heart talks about things that have already been long established do we need to
have? And Bonnie is concerned that there’s no spell in Jeremy’s tattoos. Shane
reassures her that she can use Expression which doesn’t need spells but Bonnie
doesn’t trust him. So to build that trust he tells her about his wife being a
witch (which he never told her before) who tried to use Expression to bring
their son back from the dead and was overwhelmed and died because of it.
Why he thought this would build Bonnie’s trust and
confidence is rather bemusing but I think the point is that she needs his help
if she doesn’t want to die (personally the message I get is “hell no, I’m out
of here!”) . This is apparently Shane’s proviso against being killed – force Bonnie
to use magic which may kill her which they need Shane to control. I have to
say, it’s lacking and does get himself a prime place on everyone’s shit list.
During the night, Jeremy is taken by one of the shadowy figures.
Klaus interlude again, Caroline is panicking because
Klaus bit her – and hybrid bites (well werewolf bites) kill vampires unless
they can be cured with Klaus’s blood. Klaus makes Tyler beg, repeatedly – but ultimately
refuses to help.
The camp wakes to find Jeremy missing and go off
searching except for Bonnie, Jeremy and Shane – and Damon confronts Shane for
the truth. Shane tells Damon about his dead wife telling him all about Silas
and his ability to bring back the dead when Shane fell down the well of souls.
All he needed was the spell off the Hunter’s mark and empower a descendent of
Ketsya to perform it. Yes, Bonnie is a descendent. Are all witches in the world
related? How many witches have been relatives of Bonnie now?!
Oh and the spell needs 3 massacres - but they’ll be resurrected, honest – to bring
Silas back because the amount of power needed to be channelled is unnatural. By
using the wish to see dead loved ones again, Shane manipulated people into performing
the massacres for him – like the
Pastor who blew up the farmhouse. Damon then does that maths and realises they’ve
had 2 massacres – the Pastor’s farmhouse fireworks and the Hybrid
Holiday Massacre – there’s one more to come. And they’re all isolated in
the middle of nowhere. Damon spies some rope and pulls 8 levels of menace out
of somewhere – see, see, this show can give us some great acting.
Bonnie performs a finding spell to find Jeremy – and follows
a trail of flame heading off into the forest (only you can stop forest fires!) And Rebekah and Elena still hate each other,
yet Rebekah still saves Elena’s life from a trap – WHYYY?!
Klaus interlude! Caroline and Tyler are all gooshy
together. And he leaves Caroline with Klaus saying if he’s going to kill
Caroline, he will have to watch the consequences.
Back to Damon torturing Shane and Shane trying to use his emotions to fight back. It doesn’t work so well, and his safeguard doesn’t help him either because, as Damon says, “he doesn’t give a crap about Bonnie Bennet”. But before he can kill Shane, Elena intervenes. Damn it Elena. Hey where’s that sire bond when you need it. Elena releases Shane and leaves – and Shane has a nasty grin on his face. Oh Elena, never one to make a good decision, are you?
Time for Elena to go to Damon and do they discuss the third
massacre? Which is, y’know, sort of relevant? No, of course not! Never mind
mass death, it’s never bothered them before – it’s time for more relationship
angst! And Damon doesn’t want Elena to be cured because she’ll leave him and
Elena says her feelings are real and Damon wonders about a vampire/human
relationship and waaaaaah this is so much worse than a THIRD MASSACRE from the
man who is even now, untied and roaming free to plan and prepare it. Elena
wants Damon to become human with her but Damon says he doesn’t want to be
human. Finally! A vampire who doesn’t have a curious, desperate desire to grow
old and die!
Time for some plot? NO, it’s time for more relationship
angst with Rebekah and Stefan. Oh gods help me. This time Rebekah objecting to
being cast as the bad guy bullying poor Elena when Elena has been involved in
killing 2 of her brothers.
Plot, please plot! Aha, Elena discovers that Bonnie and
Massacre Happy Shane have both disappeared. Hey maybe she should find Damon and
they can earnestly talk about it while lamenting over their relationship?
Stefan and Rebekah arrive and they find that the tombstone is also gone.
Shockingly, leaving the mass-murdering and plotting Shane alone in the camp
with the precious items is a Bad Idea.
Time for a Klaus interlude, we’re getting far too close
to actual shit happening and we can’t have that. So angst angst, dying, angst angst,
Klaus you’re still human, moan groan, you’re still capable of love, angsty face
angsty face, you can still be saved because of that, dying Caroline, Klaus
saves her life. I am surprised. Truly. This is my surprised face. It is very
surprised indeed.
Back to the camp, Rebekah hates Elena. Rebekah is worried
that Stefan and Elena are betraying her, Stefan has another “waaah I’m a
vampire” moment. Elena demands they have a truce because they’re the only 3
left and she gives Rebekah the White Stake as a peace offering.
To Shane and the minion who brings Jeremy to him in
chains. Shane thanks him for saving Jeremy from the other islander but he
denies it was him. And Bonnie arrives, confused by the path behind her
disappearing, thanks to Mas’ak the minion, a witch. Shane tells her it’s to
stop her finding a way back. Oh look, Evil Shane is Evil.
Damon wandering in the woods is attacked by a hunter – one
of the five – who snaps his neck.
I’m going to poke the Vampire Diaries extremely fragile
canon here
So we have immortal Silas and the very pissed off Ketsya. She wants him to off himself so she can spend an eternity bickering with him, he decides that’s not a whole lot of fun. Ketsya’s descendants, who really know how to hold a grudge, decide they’re not putting up with this shit so create 5 hunters to find Silas, use the cure and kill him. Ok, I can get that. But the way to find the cure is to create a map on their bodies? Did the descendants not know? And if they didn’t know, how could they create a map that lead to Silas? Why not create 5 super beings and say “he’s over there, make with the stabbing!” And where does vampire killing fit into this? They’re going to create 5 super beings who will pass on their powers to hunt down and kill the guy who pissed off granny and they decide to throw in vampire slaying for, what, shits and giggles? Because they just watched a Buffy marathon and thought it’d be cool?
Then we have the well. They complete the hunters mark
(which involves killing vampires because funsies!) to find the location. Except
Shane already knows it. No it’s to find the spell, except Bonnie says there is
no spell. So they need it… why? And the grave stone? This is going to take some
patching up.
And why did they even get this far to cast magic that requires THREE MASSACRES?! Seriously, is the moral compass of these characters so completely broken? And don’t even get me started on the whole all witches are related to Bonnie thing because this is getting beyond a joke.
Vampire Diaries can also cut the endless earnest
conversations that add nothing to the plot except to let everyone practice
their earnest-heart-to-heart faces (your grandmother was right, Stefan’s face
did, indeed, freeze like that. Or so it seems). This episode was a buttock numbing 42 minutes
long and 90% of that was spent in endless conversation, most of which trod the
same emotional ground we’ve trod so many times before they’re building a 6 lane
motorway over it to handle the traffic.
And can someone please explain to me why “we can grow old together” is preferable to “we can live together forever young for all eternity”? Anyone? Why is growing old and dying so damn desirable to these teenagers?!
Best moment: Damon threatening Shane. That was truly excellent acting.
Oh and I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest the that
the mysterious figures with long black hair, face paint, bow and arrow and the
thrown small axe is Vampire Diaries’ not-even-remotely-subtle way of including
Native American characters. It’s so overwhelming, they’re just a bunch of
feathers and a tepee away from a full set of stereotypes.
