It was another jam-packed episode of TVD, mixing flashbacks with flash-forwards to open up ever more tantalizing mysteries and possibilities, even as the action seldom slowed down in the present time scenes. While Damon and Bonnie tried to use wandering Heretic Oscar as a bargaining chip against Lily, Alaric continued his obsessive quest to resurrect Jo with the Phoenix stone, finally letting Bonnie know his plans. And as Caroline learned of Stefan's past relationship with Valerie, we found out that this past love story ended very badly.
This week's flash-forward to three years from now was definitely not as exciting as the first two, but was still pretty intriguing. Stefan, preparing to torch his car since his wound has reopened and he's on the run from the mysterious huntress, calls Tyler to touch base. The most interesting part, of course, is that Stefan is actually willing to destroy his beloved car. As Stefan clearly indicated to Lily in the present time, he prioritizes that car over a lot of other possessions. If he gets that desperate, the situation will be dire indeed. I can't wait to learn more about what's going on in the three year time jump.
The lost Heretic and the lost professor: Damon and Bonnie were ready to get the upper hand over Lily by grabbing her surrogate son Oscar and using him to make her give Elena back. These scenes formed a wonderful combination of tensions since Oscar (The Mentalist's Tim Kang, playing awesomely against the type of role we saw him in on that show) turned out to be a likable stoner soul searcher with a clear ability to turn deadly serious when things got real. Meanwhile, Bonnie was getting increasingly suspicious that Ric had not destroyed the Phoenix stone. When Oscar tried to take Bonnie's painful visions away, the sights he saw and the idea of the gem entering the game once more was truly terrifying to him. Clearly, the Phoenix stone is extremely dangerous. But Alaric has no intention of slowing down. While it's unfortunate that he felt Bonnie's ordeal was collateral damage in his attempt to resurrect his wife, Alaric has been through so much hell that it's hard not to sympathize with him in his darkest and weakest moments.
Oscar ended up back in Valerie's hands, unfortunately. Since Oscar could tell Lily of the evil Julian's location, Valerie felt she had no choice but to kill him, much to my disappointment as Oscar was a fabulous character! However, as I had previously suspected, it's hard to kill a Heretic, and I do believe those were some hints of Oscar's return I glimpsed in the preview for next week's episode.
Also, it must be said, what on earth does this show have against pregnant women and unborn children? As soon as Valerie's pregnancy was announced, I just had a feeling things would go in that devastating direction.
The way that Valerie became a Heretic was born of so much angst and misery that she now has quite a rich backstory to her. Let's hope the writers, if they plan to keep the Heretics around for much longer, can continue to build on that momentum.
Lily and Stefan: It was good to see Lily's hardened resolve of not feeling anything for her sons start to crack in this episode. For such a vulnerable and deeply emotional character, it seemed really crazy for Lily to try to blot out all of her motherly love for her children, though she tried to transfer it to her Heretic family. I did think that the casual and somewhat receptive way that Lily and Stefan treated each other at first was strange given what happened in the last couple of episodes, yet it was also pretty cute when Lily admitted her shortcomings as a driver and it seemed to break the ice between them. Clearly, since she had her "family" keeping tabs on Stefan and Damon over the years, it was never as simple as Lily just turning off her emotions for her sons. Now that Lily has also softened towards Caroline, maybe there's an end in sight to her feud with our scooby gang, though the deep resentment between Lily and Damon remains. And also, someone seriously needs to undo that spell that makes Caroline's skin burn other vampires. She couldn't even get a hug from Stefan after everything she'd been through during her captivity with the Heretics: meh!
What did you think of this episode? Share your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to catch an all-new The Vampire Diaries, Thursday at 8/7c on the CW.
