Before you ask if I’ll be doing a photo recap for this episode: the answer is yes! I’m going to try with all my might to do one. I apologize for not doing one this week. But Price does his and it’s hilarious, so as I say, no big loss. Also, no on really reads them anyway. Moving on to the (hopefully not unintelligible) review…

On tonight’s Vampire Diaries, the show returned to some good ol’ familiarity: insanely coupling every character they could and throwing a huge party. It’s been some time since they did the latter, but it’s only been two episodes prior since they did the former. Everyone and their mother knows I’m not a fan of how insanely they’re making every, single love interest under the sun a storyline… so instead I’ll just skip that.

Except for two things: Caroline and Klaus are technically gross (I mean the guy tried to kill everyone she knows) and since when does Matt say “yes” to Rebekah only because she’s a vampire and not because she’s hot? Didn’t he invite her to the homecoming dance? Also, non-couple related, does everyone in this town just know how to waltz?

Anyway, removing any reviewing about all the coupling (except of course the Damon-Elena-Stefan triangle) kind of makes this irrelevant to the episode. So here is my short review:

The Original Witch Esther invites Elena to a ballroom party to ask her for her blood… she’s truthfully only, like, the 98,574th person that needs blood from Elena, so it’s really no big deal. Esther says the blood will bind all of her children and kill them all if she kills one — including Klaus. Elena just trusts her for no reason. Weirdly, they’ve made Esther the Bonnie of this episode.

“Oh, crap. We need to kill these people. Oh, let’s just make up a spell!”
—Every conversation in the writers’ room.

Except the problem is that apparently Bonnie and her mother are still passed out in that cave since no one really cares about them, so they had to make Esther the one to activate the spell this episode.

I know a lot of people are mad that Elena didn’t tell Elijah that his mom plans to kill him, and his other siblings, but I can only be proud of her for continually being smart these past episodes. She’s making plans, she’s staking people, she’s removing wood from vampires’ hearts — and now this! Listen Elijah is cool and all, but if you’re Elena, would you rather he be dead or you? Exactly.

Meanwhile, Rebekah is toying with the idea of killing Matt to get back at Elena who stabbed her in the back — both literally and metaphorically, that last one is the reason she’s so upset, such a diva! Except, someone forgot to tell Rebekah that Elena couldn’t care less about Matt. These past two episodes they’ve shared one hug and have walked in close proximity to one another. That’s it. And unfortunately writers, that doesn’t make me think Elena would be affected by it. I mean, I know she would, but they were obviously trying to set up the past two episodes to meet with this storyline. Now, if they had only kept Jeremy and had Matt leave town, then it would have made more sense. But of course, again, they needed yet another couple on this show.

But I digress. Esther is going to try to kill her family, which I know everyone hates her for but she’s just BAMFy for me in that way (look we needed another threat, okay?). All good progress there. Why she can’t just kill one of them right away is beyond me. Guess we have to wait, let the anticipation build. And that’s about all that happened in this episode.

Oh, except for the usual Stefan vs Damon stuff that I write in my reviews often. I love what the writers continue to do here; blurring the lines between “Ripper Stefan” and Damon could have gotten tricky (and it made me groan in this episode) but they continuously make these subtle differences between both brothers. Stefan is still looking towards a longterm goal, that’s always what he’s set his sights on. So, he almost foolishly lets Elena talk to Esther (even having to lie and tell her that killing Klaus is the most important thing to him). Meanwhile, Damon loves Elena in a way that’s much more immediate (he doesn’t want her to talk to Esther because she could die in the process). And the writers show their love for porch scenes yet again by having Stefan and Elena do one. I found it almost out of place that they would write Elena almost begging for Stefan to admit he loves her for two reasons: (A) She obviously knows he still does; but perhaps more importantly (B) that I felt she was almost gone from that mentality of wanting so desperately as usual for Stefan to validate his feelings for her (like the beginning of the season) because of… well, everything. She decided episodes ago that she wasn’t going to try to bring Stefan back, then she acts horrified that he kidnapped her (Stefan’s words), and then she’s all googly eyes when she kisses Damon and “not sorry it happened!” Believe me, and you guys know this, I love me some Stelena but it was weirdly placed there.

I think a bit more subtlety (as in not having her be inches from his face with her hands coupling his mouth and stress-whispering her lines) would have gone a much longer way. It shouldn’t have been an epic love story moment; it should have been much more understated, much more sweet, and therefore much more in tune with their dynamic in this episode (never mind much more sensical with the arc).

Meanwhile, Damon’s love confession getting shot down by Elena (who was somewhat right in that moment) was just a way for him to spiral down with a shot of whatever liquor and a little strange. I thought we were past this whole Damon’s-insecure-about-his-feelings-for-Elena thing?

Overall an okay episode but I sort of felt like not much happened, unlike the last episode when definitely nothing really happened but the scenes were written out well so the drama was so intensely heightened. I’m still intrigued by what I think is the show’s best storyline, the murder whodunit, so that’s a plus.

And whoa, that wasn’t a short review by any means was it?

A couple of other thoughts:

  • Does it make me a bad person if I wanted Kol to actually kill Matt? I feel like at least then he’d be interesting. Still crossing my fingers that he’s the town murderer!
  • Stop being good-looking, Original Family.
  • Someone needs to make a GIF of the Damon/Rebekah sexy times. K, thx.