Hello, my lovelies! So sorry for the lateness of these reviews lately, but life has no pity for a girl who just wants to sit and watch TVD! Anyway, let's catch up on what our favorite fanged friends have been up to in the most recent episodes. One thing's for sure: it is not easy being Bonnie Bennett. Sure, we already knew that, but damn, it's been reconfirmed.
"Kill 'Em All"
This episode saw the prevention of Bonnie's impending doom, but also opened a door (literally, in one case), to two very big new problems. With more fun and fascinating interactions between Damon, Enzo, and Bonnie, a jaw-dropping final move from Rayna, and finally some clues as to what Alaric and Caroline are like as a couple, it was another quickly-moving, funny and often bittersweet, highly ominous hour of TVD.
What's in the vault? Virginia urged Bonnie never to open The Vault because even though her sister Yvette is trapped in there, something truly awful is in there with her, some kind of soul-sucking entity from whose grasp nothing human can reemerge. True to her wonderfully goody-two-shoes form, Bonnie immediately agreed not to open the vault, and accepted her imminent death, merely requesting Enzo's company in her final hours. She even bestowed forgiveness on Damon, but in probably the most emotionally resonant moment of the episode, Damon refused. He demanded that Bonnie "stay strong," holding off on forgiving him if she's just doing it because she's dying. I love the complicated Bamon friendship more and more with each episode.
I also loved, loved, loved that we were gifted with a truly meaningful and deep Damon and Enzo scene, finally. Did I mention finally? Damon explained to his frenemy that the kind of fear and eventual grief Enzo is experiencing is a sensation he knows all too well, before counseling Enzo to go and be with Bonnie, who needed his companionship and comfort so intensely at this time. This, of course, led to some more swoon-inducing Bonenzo moments, always a delight.
However, Damon's determination to save Bonnie was unrelenting. He made a last minute deal with Alex to hand over Bon Bon in exchange for The Armory helping to kill the rest of the vampires on Rayna's list. This led us into direct confrontation with the two major catastrophes born of Bonnie's rescue: the opening of the vault (to reveal a very dead Yvette and .......what else? Eep!), and Rayna's final revenge. In relatively few episodes, Leslie-Anne Huff breathed vivid life into the character of Rayna, making her a grittily determined vampire hunter with a wry sense of humor and undercurrent of sadness it was impossible not to like. I am genuinely going to miss her if this was indeed her last departure from TVD, despite the cruel trickery of her deceptiveness towards Damon and the gang. Unable to forgive Damon for all he'd done to her, Rayna announced that sure, her death would give Bonnie life. However, it will also turn Bonnie into a vampire hunter every bit as obsessive and unstoppable as she ever was. Gah! This is going to be interesting...by which I mean painful.
Elsewhere in the Episode: We found out that Stefan had compelled Matt to forget a horrible truth: that it was Matt himself who had accidentally killed his fiancee Penny. Not only could I not muster interest in this subplot to begin with, but sympathy for Matty was harder to come by than ever when he persisted in holding Stefan responsible for all of his personal tragedies. Even when Enzo had a nonsensical vendetta against Stefan last season (a popular hobby on this show), it never got to the ridiculously foolish levels of Matt's behavior.
Stefan told Damon that while they are still not all the way past their various, recent, traumatic differences, he has been noticing all the good Damon has been trying so hard to do, succeeding much of the time. And, Stefan assured his brother, "it means something." And a poignant Defan moment like that means something to me, too! A small, beautiful, important moment in the episode.
"Requiem for a Dream"
Bonnie remained in a coma while her true self warred with the emerging huntress within who was trying to distort her own memories of past interactions with vampires until she felt nothing but hatred for them. It was a hard battle to watch Bonnie endure as she even envisioned killing her best vampy friends in her Phoenix Stone-esque dream world. Characters confronting their inner demons, real or imagined by an outside intelligence (Phoenix stone, being influenced by the transition to a huntress) is certainly quite the recurring theme in Season 7. Damon mused that perhaps Bonnie couldn't wake up because once she does, she won't be able to help killing her friends. And if we thought it was tear-jerking enough when he realized that Bonnie can't wake up because...she's Bonnie, that was the tip of the Bamon emotion iceberg this episode had in store.
Caroline entered into Bonnie's dream to reason with her friend's better nature, but Bonnie couldn't hold off her feral rage against vampires and marked Caroline before the latter came lurching back to the real world, now forced to go on the run with Stefan. Could Enzo find more success? When he visited her dream world, Bonnie's love for Enzo shone through, but it only firmed up her resolve to die rather than become the huntress. As Bonnie explained,
"I have always wanted to be loved by someone in the way that you loved me. And I would rather have these memories than a future where I destroy them."
Sigh! Having made this tough decision, Bonnie sent Enzo home as well, leaving only Damon left to try and convince her to survive.
Of course, Damon's the only one who doesn't put Bonnie's right to make her own decisions above his own need for his best friend to survive (if his selfishness is ever his redeeming virtue, it's when he behaves like this). So he had to lie about that very affection in order to go into her dream and say horrible, cruel things about how he hopes Bonnie dies so that he can have Elena back. It was so amazing to see the Gilbert house again in this scene (how I've missed it!), although Elena's shadow in the window was a bit of a silly tease. I hated that Bonnie was far gone enough by then to actually believe Damon could ever want her dead, but her fury was vicious enough to wake her up, so his ploy worked.
Determining that her first goal as the new huntress would be to rid the world of Damon Salvatore, Bonnie recruited the ever-inscrutably-motivated Matt to be her little helper. It's interesting that Bonnie immediately put all of her energy into getting rid of Damon, as if the hate he inspired within her with his words was somehow a clue that underneath that, the reality of her true feelings for him, the power of their friendship, remains alive. And she needed to kill it if she was ever going to become what she had no choice to become.
Finally cornered by Bonnie in the woods, Damon pulled out all the stops and a few of my heartstrings to tell her how much he truly cares about her. Showing her the stump that represented one of her many brave and poignant resurrections, Damon reminded her that she is a survivor and she will go on. Then, as a crazed Bonnie plunged a stake ever closer to his heart, Damon told her that he wanted her to know that he admires her, he believes in her, and he loves her in the same way that Elena loved her.
Could you see the rest of the scene through your tears? Thank goodness for the rewind button, because Ian Somerhalder was perfect, and perfectly heartbreaking, in his delivery of this scene with the always-superb Kat Graham. Luckily, this was one of those wacky episodes where Matt decides to do the right thing, even though we're still not really sure why, even after he explains (he's making amends for accidentally killing Penny? Or something? Do we care?). Matt took Bonnie out of play and saved Damon so the gang can go back to the drawing board of finding a solution to their latest crisis.
The Everlasting and the Creature in the Vault. Enzo kept digging for answers, and found out from a shaman that Rayna, and therefore Bonnie, is somehow connected to a being called The Everlasting, who/which is housed in the Armory. Maybe if they can break that connection, they can get the old Bon Bon back. Yay! Um, except that The Creature from the Vault is also in the sealed-up Armory. And avoiding a confrontation with that Creature is pretty damn unlikely. Uh-oh.
Elsewhere in the episode, Caroline faced heartbreak of her own as she had to leave Ric and the girls behind to keep them safe, after she was marked by Bonnie. While ironically putting her in a similar position to the one Stefan faced three years ago, this twist didn't keep Caroline from holding onto her resentment towards him for abandoning her. Stefan's bland explanation didn't help much...the writers, for some reason, aren't doing him many favors lately. Still, it doesn't take a psychic to predict that these two will probably be back on the same romantic page soon. Caroline's defenses are only up this high because she's afraid to be vulnerable with Stefan again, in my interpretation at least.
I also really enjoyed Caroline's reference to Klaus and the idea of TVD and The Originals becoming more interconnected than they have been before. That would be so much fun to see next season!
Bonus points go to Damon in this episode for: teaming up with Enzo again -- I want to see Damon and Stefan working together too, but Denzo are so much fun. And every single time Damon made a crack about Matt, such as one's likelihood of running into friendly fire when accepting help from the Sheriff, it brought some much-needed hilarity to the bleak proceedings.
What did you think of these episodes? Share your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to catch the season finale (!) of The Vampire Diaries, Friday at 8/7c on the CW!
