The Vampire Diaries: Dead Man on Campus (5x08)

A lot of stuff happened in this episode, continuing the trend for busy and crowded episodes from last week. I think what this one lacks that last week had is connection. A lot of things were going on, but the plot threads were very disjointed. I don't know who I'm supposed to be focusing on. New twists are introduced, but old ones linger and seem to take up too much time. Let's go through the plot, shall we?

Bonnie is back from the dead (sort of) and Caroline and Elena want to throw her a party. Jeremy is happy to have Bonnie back, too. However, Bonnie has to deal with being the anchor, meaning that whenever a supernatural being dies, she feels them go through her, and it causes excruciating pain. Regardless, Bonnie is happy to be alive again.

Jesse escapes from Wes and goes to Caroline for help. Caroline and Elena teach him about being a vampire. At Bonnie's party, Caroline and Jesse dance and have a good flirtatious time. Meanwhile, Elena talks to Aaron. Aaron reveals that he too lost his parents, and that Wes is his legal guardian, and also the closest thing he has to family. This revelation is slightly concerning to Elena, who knows that Damon is currently trying to force information out of Wes about why he turned Jesse into a vampire. Elena calls Damon to make sure that he won't kill Wes. Things go wrong when Jesse realizes that he's drawn to Caroline's blood. Wes reveals to Damon that Jesse had been genetically altered to crave vampire blood instead of human blood. When Jesse shows up to confront Wes, he is irresistably drawn to Damon's blood, and he attacks him. Apparently, Jesse has also been altered to be stronger than a new vampire would ordinarily be. Elena has to kill Jesse to save Damon. Damon later learns from Wes about the Augustine organization, and Damon remembers something about it from his past. It is revealed that at one point he was involved with the organization in some way. Wes manages to overpower Damon with Vervain. Damon is then seen in a cage, where his initials are carved into the wall.

Now for the other plot. Stefan is struggling with his memories of his horrific summer, and when he's out at the bar drinking his sorrows, Katherine shows up to offer him company. She too is miserable because of her accelerated aging. Since Katherine has recently learned about what happened with Matt and Gregor, she decides to investigate. Katherine, Stefan, and Nadia are all present as Nadia calls forth Gregor from Matt's body. Gregor reveals that his original instructions from the Travelers were to kill Silas, and then once that was done, go after Katherine and kill her too. Katherine stabs Matt, killing Gregor, although Matt will be fine. Nadia tells her mother that she never wants to see her again. In desperation, Katherine decides to kill herself. She jumps off of the clock tower, but Stefan catches her, preventing her death. Katherine tells Stefan that she's dying, but Stefan tells her to suck it up and move on.

Alright. Let's start with the stuff I didn't like so much. For one, why on earth would you kill off Jesse? He was an interesting character, and now he's gone? That annoyed me to no end. Secondly, this whole Gregor business makes no sense to me. Is he really dead? Is Nadia really gone for good? If so, then what was the point of any of it? These Travelers are potentially interesting, but thus far they have not lived up to their potential. At all. Then there's the whole Wes and the Augustine organization thing. Slightly more interesting, and I am interested in how Damon is involved, but again, it's sort of an unfocused story as of yet. We spent the first seven episodes with the Silas plot, and now it's like we're supposed to completely erase that and move forward. This entire season has lacked a focused A-plot, and we still don't have it. The most annoying part of this episode, though, has got to be the Bonnie thing. Not Bonnie herself. I actually rather enjoyed the stuff with her as the anchor. But the party that Caroline and Elena threw was supposed to be in her honor, and yet these three supposedly "best friends" don't ever spend any time together. It's ridiculous. Now that Bonnie's alive again, she's gone right back to being ignored in favor of more time spent on Elena and Caroline. This girl better get an interesting plot of her own, and soon.

However, there were things I liked. I liked Katherine's plight in this episode, and I loved Stefan telling her to get over it after her suicide attempt. All of their stuff together was quite lovely. I think my favorite thing, though, is Caroline's continued dislike of Damon. I know that some fans get really pissed at Caroline for continuing to be angry at Damon, but we have to remember that when they first met, Damon abused Caroline. He has hurt a lot of people. Caroline isn't trying to get Elena to break up with Damon, but she does want her to acknowledge Damon's flaws and makes sure she's satisfied with the person she's invited into her life in such an intimate way. I love Caroline so much for this. Yeah, I think Damon has changed quite a bit, but at the same time, he is very one track mind about his motivations. Most of the good things he does he does because he knows they will make Elena happy. I'm not saying that he doesn't care about Jeremy and Bonnie in his own right, but when Jeremy almost dies earlier he does try to hide what happened from Elena, and he repeatedly mentions that saving Bonnie is so that he can give Elena her best friend back. Now, in essence these actions are still good. But his motivations aren't as pure as one might believe. One thing I would really love to see is a Damon and Stefan moment wherein Damon expresses all of his guilt to Stefan about what happened over the summer. Separate from Elena, I want Damon and Stefan to talk and see if there's any way to patch up their brotherhood.

So, there you have it. This episode ultimately didn't do a very good job. This season in general has lacked so much in the way of focus and continuous plot threads. I'm hoping that this episode is an indicator of better things to come, though. It seems like maybe this episode felt unbalanced because it was trying to shift so many things around and start us on a completely new track. This new track is promising. This new track could be great. But shifting over to it has been a pretty messy business.

5/10