The Vampire Diaries - The Downward Spiral - Review

This episode was utterly fascinating, mainly because we got to see what no-humanity Caroline is like, and quite a complex, amusing, worrisome creature she is!  Meanwhile, Damon and Bonnie had their first major falling out since their friendship began, as Kai dropped beguiling hints about Mama Salvatore's origin story.  "The Downward Spiral" managed an intriguing dichotomy by examining two characters - Caroline and Bonnie - recovering from harrowing ordeals and both forever changed by those experiences and trying out new versions of themselves.  How others reacted to those changes was fascinating as well.  

"I turned off my humanity.  I didn't turn into an idiot."  Indeed, no-humanity Caroline was an impressive marvel to observe, embracing every opportunity to drop a hilariously on point quip or indulge in her sexy party-going ways while being perfectly blunt with her friends about her intentions and demands on them.  In fact, when Caroline told Elena she just wants a year without humanity to do what she pleases, without killing anyone, and all she asks is that no one attempts to bring her back before she's ready...I have to say, I thought that sounded fair enough.  Would Caroline have been able to control herself to that extent, without spilling innocent human blood, for a whole year?  That's arguable, and surely part of Stefan's reason for being unwilling to wait and see if Caroline could keep her vow...though his inability to deal with being without the real Caroline for that length of time was probably a factor, too.

The scenes between Caroline and Stefan this week were excellent, and showed that while their potential romantic relationship may have seemed a little forced at the beginning of the season, the bond they share is really a deep and complex one worthy of exploring in the amount of detail this episode does, and promises that subsequent episodes will continue exploring.  Aside from Stefan's somewhat juvenile (albeit adorable) declaration "I like you," his speech explaining his feelings for Caroline and asking her to come back to him was really touching. And Caroline's reaction of immediately launching into bloody vengeance for his trying to get her to flip the switch back on before she was ready showed a couple of important factors.  Firstly, she's well aware that Stefan is capable of succeeding in getting her to change back, and she was already wavering a tiny bit on his first attempt.  And for someone who's supposedly an amoral being incapable of caring about anything, Caroline seemed to expose a myriad of feelings in the wake of Stefan's tender words...anger, resentment and spite, beneath which a vulnerability flickered.  While Ripper Stefan managed to pass himself off with a smooth veneer of cockiness and casual lack of feeling, Caroline's more volatile version of inhumanity is thoroughly unpredictable.  It feels like she could turn on a dime and show her softer side or go totally dark and start killing people left and right at any moment, with zero warning.  

Since Stefan betrayed her request to be left alone, Caroline retaliated by compelling Liam to perform surgery on poor pawn-like Sarah Salvatore, chirpily reminding Stefan and Elena that she'd warned them of the consequences of hassling her.  That is actually completely true, though it was hard to feel prepared for the level of remorseless and relentless violence Caroline was ready to inflict upon Sarah.  Incidentally, the way Liam was used in this episode was awesome, a near-meta acknowledgement of how completely pointless his character turned out to be, with the writers letting him succumb to being a ditzy source of comic relief.  I also absolutely loved all of Caroline's funny comments, and the contrast between her enjoyably sassy attitude and the real threat of her state of mind.  

By the end of the episode, although Elena managed to find and stop Liam (in a relatively Elena-light episode, her swift move of breaking Liam's wrists to halt his removing Sarah's heart was fantastic), Caroline had already frightened Stefan enough to convince him to switch off his humanity in exchange for her sparing Sarah's life.  This sets up such an intriguing situation.  Obviously, if Caroline knows that Stefan is capable of getting her to change back to her normal self, by getting rid of his humanity, she has prevented this brilliantly.  Yet also, now Caroline has united herself and Stefan in a way that lets her continue to behave as if she doesn't need him emotionally, yet teams her up with him all the same.  Part of me questioned if Stefan was faking turning off his humanity, which would have been a cool twist as well, but it doesn't look that way from the preview for next week's episode.

"Coming back to life is complicated. Trust me, I've done it before." While Elena and Stefan struggled with the emergence of the new Caroline, Bonnie was feeling rather transformed as well once she returned from the 1994 prison world.  Even as she enjoyed a warm reunion with Elena (and a chuckle-worthy one with Caroline!), Bonnie couldn't quite acclimate to the real world, seeming to find champagne hard to swallow and experiencing a quicker-than-usual temper.  After the intense trauma she endured, it's easy to see why Bonnie would have a short fuse, and it's also fun to see her show off her badass side, such as quipping to the creepy guy at the rave, "I can't help it, I'm hot," after burning him to halt his advances.  Yet I wonder if this is merely a completely understandable reaction to everything she's been through, or if there are also physical, more complicated consequences to having been in the prison world for so long. 

I hated to see Bonnie and Damon having such a sad and terrible turn in their friendship after their new bond made them both so happy.  I was even hoping that Damon would find it in himself, just this once, to put someone else's (someone whose name is not Elena) feelings above his own agenda, and he almost got there, but couldn't quite resist the need to find out about his mother.  Of all motives for Damon to force Bonnie to confront Kai, this is certainly one of the only ones we could sympathize with at all, but it still hurt to see how betrayed she felt by Damon when Kai showed up, though Damon paid the price as Bonnie later made him experience all the agony she did while in the prison world.  

"Congratulations!  Everything you know about your mom is wrong." Speaking of Kai, his continued presence as a still-quippy, yet seemingly reformed villain character feels like a fantastic baddie going out with a whimper instead of a bang in a disappointing way.  However, he was useful in revealing some big facts about Lily Salvatore, ones that cut Damon to the core.  The belief that their mother was an ordinary human being who died a natural human death so many long years ago was one of the few aspects of normalcy and certainty in Damon and Stefan's lives.  Having that stripped away is rough enough, never mind finding out that Lily was a) a vampire who faked her own death, and b) a brutal ripper who had to be put away in the 1903 prison world by the Gemini coven to prevent yet more deaths at her hands.  As disturbing as this is to Damon, I can only imagine how hard it's going to hit Stefan, who struggles with his own ripper tendencies - when he comes back to himself after this latest no-humanity romp, that is.

And in Enzo's subplot...things proceeded much more smoothly and entertainingly this week.  Due to Caroline's happening by in the midst of Enzo's machinations with Sarah, this part of the storyline felt much more attached to everything else that's happening, instead of like a weird tangent as it has felt in previous episodes.  I have to say, the removal of Matt's involvement, and finally just getting to the Enzo/Sarah interactions, was a major improvement as well.  It was even interesting to see Enzo rebuff Caroline's advances, remarking that it's not as much fun when she's not herself.  I like how Enzo was thrown off a little by seeing someone he's only known as purely good acting out and behaving more like he usually does. Caroline was able to discern that Stefan must have instilled a lack of interest in vampires in Sarah, explaining Sarah's blasé response to Enzo's "I'm a vampire" reveal.  Serves Enzo right!  Let's see where this is leading...maybe it will surprise us by being better than expected.

In closing, I have to include a list of Caroline's best quotes from this episode, because she was on fire!

-“Oh Bonnie, how we all just missed your commentary.” 

-Liam: "Caroline Forbes, the girl from the swimming hole."
Caroline: "Liam! The boy I forgot existed!"

-"But you have an accent! Anything you say is automatically fascinating."

-"I compelled a student to perform surgery on Stefan's niece and you found a way to make this about you? God, you truly have a gift, Elena."

What did you think of this episode?  Any theories about what will happen now that Stefan has also apparently turned off his humanity?  Share your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to catch an all-new The Vampire Diaries, Thursday at 8/7c on the CW.

About the Author - Virginia Mae Fontana

Virginia is happy to be reviewing The Vampire Diaries and Beauty and the Beast for Spoiler TV. She 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 @VMaeFontana

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