The mid-season finale of The Vampire Diaries gives as good as it takes. If you’ve been paying attention over the course of the last 8 episodes, you’ll notice that in true CW fashion nothing really seems to be happening if you look at it from an episodic perspective. However, when you put everything together, the plot is clearly gearing up for some pretty gruesome times ahead. Along the way we’ve learned bits and pieces that made this episode make pretty perfect sense – giving us a much clearer view of what’s coming. At the same time, there’s still obviously a big piece of the puzzle, which is probably hanging around in plain sight, but not yet exposed keeping the mystery intact.
Professor Shady was in full view tonight as he attempts to help Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) with his whole not-wanting-to-kill-his-sister problem. The arch of his story is coming into view between what he reveals at the lake house to Damon and Elena, and what we’ve already found out about dark magic and lucky number 12. I wouldn’t take his sob story at face value though. There must be more behind his motives to finding the cure and the immortal witch, Silas, then purely the accolades of a scientific discovery. Honestly, how would he explain an immortal witch buried for centuries to an academic community without revealing the existence of an entire supernatural world entwined with the human world anyway? And, it doesn’t seem like this particular plan of his involves being a whistle blower on what lurks in the dark, especially at the cost of being on the very top of every vampire and werewolf’s ‘to-torture for eternity’ list. He seems to intent on whatever he has planned to risk being deterred with something silly like death, or the like.
Although Damon (Ian Somerhalder) was supposed to put an end to his brief new fling with Elena (Nina Dobrev) after his brother bonding road trip, Elena was very persuasive in the postponing of this inevitable event. If you still haven’t watched the episode, you might want to skip ahead to the next page at this point while I take a few lines to rant about the current state of Delena. It’s infuriating the way that the Damon and Elena’s relationship is being written. It’s seriously like they can’t catch a break. Why wouldn’t Elena fall for Damon? Why is it so hard for her friends to accept that her feelings are genuine and not the product of a supernatural bond? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Damon has ALWAYS been there for her when it mattered. Every time that Stefan (Paul Wesley) went off on one of his self-sacrificing binges, Damon was the one left behind taking care of Elena’s heart. Damon has been a far better wing man than Stefan deserved. It can’t have been easy being the ones to reapply the bandages to Elena’s shattering heart. Actually, if you want to get down to brass tacks, Stefan practically pushed them together in a very non-intended way. Actions like almost driving her off the Wickery Bridge on the last season of The Vampire Diaries in hindsight seems like a fairly large indication that their relationship had issues, to put it mildly. Even though, Damon forces himself to put his happiness aside convinced that if there’s even a chance that Elena’s feelings might be clouded by the syer bond, he is doing the right thing. Just when you start to let yourself think that we’re in for a real Damon/Elena relationship, the door slams closed in your face.
While Damon’s letting Elena “be free,” Stefan chooses to spend another day giving Klaus (Joseph Morgan) the run around. At this point, I’d have to agree with Klaus that he’s the best friend Stefan has at the moment. Caroline (Candice Accola) is a close second, but she’s emotionally compromised. She has lived in Mystic Falls her entire life and everyone is someone she has history with. Between that, and her undeniable attraction to Klaus, she has certain biases that she can’t control no matter how disciplined she’d like to believe she has become. Yet, Stefan can’t let himself trust Klaus after everything that’s been done and knowing Klaus’s penchant for the unpredictable it makes at least partial sense. The way I see it, it’s only a matter of time before Klaus, Stefan, and Caroline become the three amigos. After Caroline revealed the nitty gritty of Damon and Elena’s exploits to Stefan, he won’t be able to stand being around either one of them with his “anger issues.” Caroline and Tyler (Michael Trevino) are on the outs with his sacrifice-myself-for-my-pack plan coupled with his relationship with Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) whose “fix it” plan left Caroline dead and un-dead in the ladies room. It might be a tough alliance at first, but what an interesting trio this would make.
The only thing that might put a kink in the love fest would be the mayhem that Klaus was practically forced into by the end of the episode. It’s not exactly a secret how Klaus takes to betrayal, and his actions – for once – seemed completely predictable. Part of me wants to say that Tyler had the climax of this blood bath coming, but how cliche is it that now [spoiler alert] another character on The Vampire Diaries is down a complete set of parents? On the other hand, he couldn’t exactly make her a vampire as punishment with the growing population of supernatural creatures that already exist in Mystic Falls. Plus, that would have just added one more overprotective super strong person with a revenge plan to the mix, and I’m just staring to like Klaus so it would be a shame to have another Klaus-hater around. The death will look like an accident, but the people who need to get the message will. Once again Klaus will be the bad guy and everyone will be united against him.
The Vampire Diaries character who wins the crown this week for being the most awkward is definitely April (Grace Phipps). She is an odd bird to say the least. It’s not hard to see where her story is going next. She will undagger Rebekah (Claire Holt) and they will become BFFs. It’s been a minute since we’ve seen Rebekah in action so it’ll be nice to have her brand of heightened teen angst back in the picture. Maybe she’ll even cure, for lack of a better word, April of some of her awkward tendencies by giving her some immortal grace. At the very least, Rebekah has been without a true friend long enough – it’s about time she gets a break. April seems genuinely interested in being her friend and no one in town stays oblivious to what’s going on after-hours for long. Time to fill April in on how the world really works.
Now we just have to sit back and wait for The Vampire Diaries to return on January 17th. What are your predictions for how the next chunk of season 4 will play out? Let me know in the comment section below.
Until next episode. Have a fantastic hiatus!
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