After a brief aside of Damon and Elena being cute in a
completely-unfitting-to-the-scene manner, we return to the scene of destruction
where the entire Gemini coven can do little more than scream and die when faced
with Kai and Kai alone – and Damon tries to wake up the unconscious Elena. He
tries to give her vampire blood but I don’t think that works with the cure.
Among the wreckage Alaric sobs holding Jo who has completely ruined that dress
with her blood.
Damon zooms Elena to the hospital and Kai breaks Caroline
and Stefan’s necks to get them out of the way (the room is literally scattered
with shards of broken wood – it would actually be easier to stake them than
anything else).
The Gemini finally decide to do something – prison world
time. Seriously, get a new trick. Like stabbing him in the head! To be fair, in
this one instance it makes sense not to stab Kai since, as coven leader,
killing him would kill all the Geminis (which I am totally ok with). Kai makes
an attempt to explain himself – Jo’s kids would be competition for his position
(expected to merge and become the next leader). And his previous attempt at
redemption is hand waved – since his family decides he’s irredeemable, he’s
decided he might as well be
Kai then stabs himself in the neck. Well that’s one way
to get rid of a villain on the last episode of the season when you have no
grand arc for them.
We have some angsty dream scenes with Elena and Alaric
which I think will be a theme and a recovered Bonnie calls Damon in the
hospital for some recapping. Elena’s unconscious (without any physical ailment
according to the doctors), Jo is dead and Damon needs Bonnie to do something to
fix it all.
Liv, along with the rest of the Geminis, is dying from
dead-Kainess and Tyler has a big shard of glass in his stomach. Tyler declares
how much he loves Liv and she insists that he kill her – she’s dying anyway, it’s
a full moon he will heal his wounds if he turns into a werewolf. They kiss,
there’s more “I love yous” back and forth – and she holds his hand over her
mouth and nose. He starts shifting as he desperately calls Matt to warn all
vampires to run – there’s a venomous wolf on the run.
Enzo has grabbed Caroline and Stefan for a road trip so
he can add to the recaps (Kai is dead as well now – and all the Geminis are “going
down with him”) and Enzo needs their help. He takes them to Lily who is looking
for her witchpire friends who Kai promised he would bring back with him. Stefan
points out that Kai is not the most trustworthy of fellows. Honestly Stefan,
you might want to stop building up this whole mother connection, this isn’t a
genepool to be proud of. But he keeps trying, keeps trying to get her to side
with her son over the people she calls family. She doesn’t even hesitate.
She also reveals she gave Kai her blood
Which means Kai is now rising as a proto-vampire (he has
to drink blood to complete the change). His dying dad will do.
Alaric decides to load his deceased wife’s body into the
back of his car… what are they so used to hiding bodies in Mystic falls they
now do it habitually? Granny’s just snuffed it, let’s go out to the woods in
the dead of night and dig a shallow grave?
When Kai emerges Alaric decides to shoot him. It doesn’t
do much against a witchpire – yes, Alaric, ALARIC of all people, is not packing
wooden bullets. Alaric then tries to shoot himself but has run out of bullets.
Damn Alaric, this really isn’t your day but kudos for some excellent acting of
utter drunken despair there. Alaric’s day gets a little better when Tyler leaps
on Kai and bites him.
Kai staggers his way to Damon to ask why he is feeling so bad (just after Damon gets the text to Beware the Werewolf). Damon demands the cure for Elena – and Kai tells him it. What is it?
Wellll… Matt catches up with Bonnie who has found a video message from Kai explaining how he escaped and how he wants everyone to suffer now, especially Bonnie. He has cursed Elena so that she will stay asleep so long as Bonnie is alive. And they’ll both die if they try a magical get out (doesn’t mean a cure doesn’t exist). Matt realises Bonnie has to head for the hills because Damon is probably already on his way to snap her neck.
More angsty dreamy goodbye scenes from Elena
Caroline and Stefan talk by Elena’s bedside and Caroline
has already seen a kind of loophole in the curse: Bonnie is human and mortal
and Kai specifically said Elena will remain young while under the sleeping
curse – so Bonnie lives her natural span and when she finally kicks the bucket (and
has her body hidden in the woods somewhere per Mystic Falls tradition) Elena
wakes up and rejoins her friends, most of which are unaging vampires. (Or maybe
Bonnie could become a vampire which, if Kai is anything to go by, satisfies the
whole “death” part).
Stefan reflects on his relationship with Elena and thinks
the best thing about meeting Elena wasn’t about loving her, but the way her
ability to love Damon brought his brother back into Stefan’s life. Which is
really touching – the Salvatores don’t get enough brother moments. He and
Caroline then discuss their relationship by Elena’s bedside (that’s karma,
right there Elena).
Bonnie catches up with Kai to torture him a little (for
him to undo the spell but also for funsies). Kai can’t undo the spell, it’s permanent
with his death. Unfortunately, Kai’s power to suck magic, a Heretic/witchpire’s
power to suck magic means he can drain the magic from the werewolf venom and
therefore cure himself. He knocks Bonnie across the room with magic
Damon arrives to find her injured on the floor. She’s
dying – and Kai encourages Damon to let her die. Damon apologises to Bonnie…
and walks away
Even Kai is a little put out that Damon made the decision so quickly – he was supposed to angst over it. Then zoom, Kai gets his neck broken and Bonnie gets a drink of vampire blood. AND NO-ONE TAKES THE 10 SECONDS NEEDED TO STAKE KAI!
Whhyyyyyyy?!
The whole cast gathers to have an Elena funeral. They’ve
put her in a coffin? Wow, morbid much? Couldn’t you at least get a glass one?
She’s not dead! She’s only resting! She doesn’t want to go on the cart! She
feels fine! She thinks she’ll go for a walk!
Bonnie’s turn to have a goodbye vision – all of these are
courtesy of the vampire dream-reading/manipulation power they hardly ever use
but is down there at the bottom of the power list (along with “consume own wait
in whiskey without having to urinate). Elena asks Caroline and Bonnie to write
diaries for her to read when she wakes up. It’s a beautiful goodbye really –
and Elena says goodbye to her by saying that Bonnie has spent her entire life
making sacrifices for her – and now it’s Elena’s turn. Except she’s not exactly
sacrificing but it’s a nice thought
Couldn’t they do the dream thing like 3 times a week or
something? Is there a limit?
We have goodbyes from Matt and Alaric and Stefan and
Damon and Jeremy - yes he returned for the goodbye – and Tyler (including her
telling him to leave town and embrace wolfness)
Stefan and Damon box Elena up and put her in the crypt
(NOT DEAD!) The rationale is they need to protect her from vampires who realise
she has the cure (why do they want it? And how would they know, it’s not like
it was that common knowledge?). Damon and Elena have their goodbyes – and interestingly
she refers to Bonnie as Damon’s best friend.
Caroline and Stefan have a moment, with Stefan promising
to wait for her until she’s ready.
Over to Lily who has finally realised she’s been had and
Enzo goes to her. She worries he’ll think badly of her but everyone’s evil on
this show so who cares? Except a new building appears – one that was hidden
under Kai’s cloak. Turns out he wasn’t lying – her witchpire family are alive.
And we close to a fastforward montage of a lot of time
passing, the town becoming very run down and Matt becoming a cop and Damon
looking ominous
I feel… torn. Part of me feels that Elena is the
protagonist on this show and, out of respect for Nina Dobrev (who is a more
than decent actress and I hope will go on to roles that are so much better than
this one. So very much better) I should commemorate her leaving or mark it or
express some level of regret for this being her last absence (other characters
have left and are leaving but Elena is the protagonist which is a pretty big
deal).
But I have to say I’m actually quite eager. Again, no aspersion on Nina Dobrev who did a great job with often terrible material and pulled off the multiple-person thing really well (sure, not as well as Tatiana Maslany – but she is a freaky acting mutant. And she had much better material to work with) but the show’s focus on Elena has not been good. It has forced her into too many situations where she didn’t belong, but her front and central when it wasn’t necessary, dragged attention away from far more dramatic/important/meaningful scenes and characters. It wasn’t even a matter of Elena being self-centred (well, not always. There have been some STUNNING “make it all about me” moments) – it was the show being ELENA-Centred, no matter what was going on we were always dragged back to Elena no matter how relevant she was or how unimportant her storyline was (and, for so much time, her storyline is often love-interest-angst related).
Without Elena the show loses this black hole that sucks everything in. The show loses its protagonist and is, therefore, much more free to let the entire cast tell richer and fuller stories – because they don’t have to shoe-horn Elena into centre stage or dragging the camera away from them. Elena wasn’t just a character I didn’t like much, but her presence and the focus on her was becoming increasingly destructive on the entire show.
I am curious what Vampire
Diaries will do now, and actually somewhat hopeful. And they did give her a
beautiful send off.
This season seemed too much on many levels. There were
too many characters – Matt, Tyler, Alaric, Jo, Sarah, Enzo, all ate more screen
time than was necessary. There were too many plot lines which hurt many of the
decent ones: Alaric & Jo, Kai, Bonnie in Wonderland, the vampire cure,
Lily, dead sheriff Liz, trip the vampire hunter, Matt the wannabe hunter, Jeremy
the whatever, Sarah Salvatore, the Geminis, Liv & Tyler, Enzo doing
everything – SO MUCH STUFFED IN but no real overarching plot line holding it
all together. Future seasons are badly in need of more focus
And better inclusion. We’ve already spoken about the
appalling treatment of Luke. While I greatly appreciated the latter parts of
the season where Bonnie FINALLY started pushing back against the constant use
and abuse of her - It actually says everything about Bonnie on this show that
when Kai explained his curse I expected Bonnie to be slitting her own wrists
before the echoes had died. (Bonnie got to live this episode only ONLY because
Nina Dobrev was leaving this show. Don’t even try to convince me Bonnie would
have hesitated for a demisecond to sacrifice herself for Elena AGAIN if that
wasn’t the case) – it followed a season where she was continually plot boxed.
Locked away from everyone else and often forgotten and certainly not a priority
– Bonnie was not a priority. Other POC were limited; we had Sarah Salvatore but
I still have absolutely no clue what the point of her was. And that’s about it –
we have Tyler Lockwood but while Michael Trevino is certainly a POC, I don’t
think you can say the same of the role he is playing
Lily raise some interesting points about motherhood – and
I respect her rejection of biology as the sole definer of family which Stefan
continually tried to foist on her. Of course, it’s all rather undermined by the
fact she and her family are, well, evil. We did have some strong female
characterisation – really I think this was Caroline’s season. Even when she was
evil she was immensely good at it. It actually worries me a little – are we going
to see Caroline step into Elena’s black-hole shoes?
