The Vampire Diaries - Episode 5.19 - Man on Fire - Review

So, remember that time when Stefan accidentally ripped Enzo's heart out?  Right, some fairly ridiculous events went down on last night's episode of The Vampire Diaries.  But in some ways, it was also a pretty good hour.  Let's review and discuss!

Stefan was helping Elena study because this is in no way that awkward time on a previously high school-set show where the writers sporadically remember that the characters are taking classes.  Anyway, they had a cute rapport going as he tried to help her get over the stress of her blowout with Damon (you know that whole thing where he doesn't want to see her anymore) from last week's episode.  Bonnie joined them and Elena vowed that they would not let her die again, despite the impending collapse of The Other Side.  Poor Bonnie's life always seems to be forfeit and this latest plot twist is no exception.  However, I'm always glad for any storyline that gives us a shot at glimpsing dearly departed cast members, so here's hoping that we get to see some more returning friends or foes as this issue continues to escalate.

Having been informed by the Travelers that Maggie died in 1960 and was viciously beheaded, Enzo assumed that Stefan was the killer due to his ripper ways.  Liv, blackmailed by Enzo's capture of Luke, helped him hold Elena, Bon Bon, and Stefan prisoner.  While Stefan claimed innocence as he was not in a rippery mood that year, Enzo refused to believe him, probably because he didn't want to consider that Damon was the next likeliest suspect.  Sure enough, it turned out that Damon had killed Maggie after she confronted him for abandoning Enzo in the fire.  As we learned via flashback to 1960, since Maggie revealed herself to be associated with Augustine and Damon's emotions were shut off, he didn't hesitate to remove her head horribly in the street, making it look like a Stefan hit.  Seeing Damon emotionless was an effective foreshadowing of Enzo's decision to switch his own off, and there were also some references to Elena's own trip down no-feelings lane that capably emphasized the severity of this move on Enzo's part.

Back in the present, Enzo couldn't cope with the concept that his only friend had murdered his true love.  So it was time for, as Damon quipped, "Emotion free, bye bye humanity."  Enzo had to flip the emotion switch to black out the misery that eclipsed him with Damon's confession.  We know from past experiences that hitting that switch just never pans out well!  As nutty as Enzo was in this episode, I felt for his grief and inability to cope with these revelations.  He's also, in his comfortably stereotypical hot British bad boy way, a wonderful character who is captivating to watch in all of his struggles.

There were some terrific little moments in this episode, such as a tied-up Elena mouthing to Damon, "what are you doing?" and Damon's reply "I don't know"  while he tried to reason with Enzo.  It was nice to see hints of humor interwoven with the desperate situation where everyone's lives hung in the balance and Enzo went from angry to worse - hollow and unrelenting in his need to make Damon suffer.  The scene in which Enzo dragged Elena into town was beautifully shot with a red-purple sky looming ominous.  He gave Elena the old vampire neck crack and she was later retrieved by Damon.  Stefan arrived to tussle with Enzo and then, kind of unbelievably, Enzo leaped backward at the perfect angle to cause Stefan's hand to remove his heart, all so that Stefan would have to deal with the aftermath of killing Damon's best bud.  This scene was one of the weirdest and least believable of the show, but I have to give it brownie points for undeniable creativity.

However, probably because Caroline wasn't around to give him some solid advice, Stefan decided it would be best for Damon not to find out about Enzo's demise, but instead to allow him to think his erstwhile cellmate had simply absconded to Cape Town.  But Damon still wants to find Enzo and make amends, so even though it would have been bad for him to find out about the death in the wake of re-breaking up with Elena, this deceit simply can't hold for long.  Moreover, Enzo's ghost showed up to taunt the brothers as they had a Winchester-esque powwow at the end of the episode.  The Salvatores couldn't hear him, but we were privy to the fact that Enzo is very much still in the picture.  I wonder if the fluxed state of The Other Side has lent him greater access to our world than usual and how that will play out.  At any rate, I didn't want to see Enzo go, so I'll take any excuse to keep him around.

Matt and Jeremy spent most of the episode inefficiently searching for the Traveler knife and then looking sheepish about being slow on the uptake of Tyler's Traveler possession and theft of said weapon.  I love these guys.  Bonnie did show up to tell Jeremy what Liv had revealed to her, that with the end of The Other Side, she was definitely going to die, and there didn't seem to be a feasible prevention.  But she stopped short of confiding this sad truth, and I can hardly blame her after everything the two of them have already gone through before finally getting her back, just for this to happen.  Sigh.  

In the meantime, we'd gotten bits of further exposition regarding the Travelers, as Markos revealed to a chained-up Tyler/Julian that he could turn Sloan from vampire to human using doppelgänger blood.  However, unluckily for Sloan, Markos' next step was to use her newly returned humanity to immediately slit her throat and leave her dead on the floor, apparently just because.  Meh.  Even when he's being a bloodthirsty psycho, I still can't feel much interest in Markos as a Big Bad because he's sort of boring.  But as far as the vamp-to-human transition we saw,  that is a fairly huge deal that would have rocked everyone's world last season when they were obsessed with The Cure (not the band).  It should at least be interesting to see how that develops in the remainder of Season 5.

All in all, there was an equal mix of the silly (Markos' shenanigans, Enzo's organ donorship) and the fun (Enzo getting more backstory context and screen time; Stefan and Elena bonding; some bittersweet Damon and Elena moments such as his carrying her home and putting her to bed; interesting snippets of hints about The Other Side and what the doppelgänger blood may mean for the story arc moving forward).  I also always enjoy a TVD historical flashback (the cheesier the better) and the costumes that come along with them.  It felt, especially with no Caroline, kind of like a filler episode, but I enjoyed it just the same.  

What did you think of this week's episode?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

About the Author - Virginia Mae Fontana

Virginia is happy to be reviewing The Vampire Diaries, Hart of Dixie, Nashville, Beauty and the Beast, Elementary, Witches of East End, Covert Affairs, and Continuum for Spoiler TV. She is a college English instructor and enjoys obsessing over films and pop music - in addition to tv shows, of course! You can find her blog, SugarRushed, at http://virginiamaeblog.blogspot.com/ and her Twitter handle is @SugarRushedBlog