Last week, the problem was too much exposition. This week, a lot of stuff happened. So I guess you could say that's good. But on the other hand, wow. What a crowded episode. Let's go through the plot.
So, Silas decides he no longer wants to help Damon bring Bonnie back to life. His only goal now is to find Amara and kill her, thus destroying the other side. Then he can kill himself, and they can be together in the afterlife. Amara is being kept in the Salvatore basement, where everyone attempts to keep her safe. When Bonnie discovers that Amara can see and touch her, the group comes up with a new plan: if they can turn Bonnie into the anchor, then Bonnie will be alive again, and Amara can die, just like she wants. This of course will mean that Amara and Silas will be separated for all of eternity, but our heroes don't seem to care much about that.
They turn to Qetsiyah/Tessa in order to make Bonnie the anchor. She says she needs something powerful to do the spell, and she says that doppelganger blood will do the trick. While all of this has been happening, Katherine has been staying with Caroline away at school. Nadia shows up and tries to talk to her mother, but when Caroline tells Katherine her doppelganger blood is needed, she agrees to help. Katherine tells Tessa that she's only helping because she wants something in return. She's aging quickly (according to Wes) because she's mortal now, and nature is taking its toll at an advanced rate. She wants Tessa to fix it. Tessa says she will.
While all of this has been going on, Stefan has his memories back. He proves it to Damon and Elena by recounting memories of his early life with Damon, which my bromance-obsessed self found adorable. Anyways, he wants to kill Silas, and in his angered revenge-fueled state, he's not willing to wait for Tessa to save Bonnie first. So, that adds another complication. While Tessa is doing the spell, surrounded by some impressive editing that gives us three lovely doppelgangers in split-screen shots, Silas shows up. He uses magic to distract everyone, and during the distraction, Stefan runs off with Amara. Silas meanwhile attacks Qetsiyah/Tessa, and then receives a phone call from Stefan, who uses Amara to lure Silas to him.
Silas shows up, a fight ensues, and Stefan kills Silas. Amara then stabs herself, but Damon shows up, trying desperately to stop her from dying, because Tessa hasn't completed the spell. Elena finds the injured Tessa and has her finish the spell. Amara dies, but Tessa does finish the spell just in time. To everyone's delight, Bonnie is now the anchor, and thus alive once more. Silas is stuck on the other side, separated from Amara for all eternity.
Katherine tries to collect with Tessa, wanting her help to stop the advanced aging. But Tessa is ready to die. She kills herself without helping Katherine. Qetsiyah/Tessa appears to Bonnie, saying that every supernatural being will now die through Bonnie, and that it will be painful. Tessa uses Bonnie to cross to the other side, where she will be with Silas for eternity. Bonnie screams in pain.
Elena and Damon both go to talk to Stefan, who admits that he wanted so badly for it to be the two of them that rescued him from the safe, and that only thinking about them saved him from turning off his humanity. Alone, Stefan buries Silas, but is horrified to find that killing him didn't help him get over the horrible memories of the summer. He collapses in pain, reliving his experience of drowning again and again.
Allllright. So that's the plot. Qetsiyah, Silas, and Amara are all dead, Katherine is dying, Nadia has been rebuked, Bonnie is back to life, Stefan's memories are restored, Elena and Damon feel guilty as all hell, and oh my word a lot happened in this one. In all honesty, I think it worked out okay. Since we got such a heavy amount of exposition in last week's episode, most of the setup was out of the way, and we could focus solely on actually doing stuff. Since this review is already so long, I'll go ahead and be brief in listing the pros and cons.
On the positive side, I'm glad we're finally done with the Silas plot. Or at least we had better be, since I can't take any more of that. Nina Dobrev did an amazing job of carving three separate characters out in one episode... although hopefully we won't bring in any more for her to do. Amara's dead now, and I think Katherine and Elena are plenty to contend with. I'm glad Bonnie's back, and I think the complications with her return are bound to be interesting. I'm glad that Damon and Elena are feeling guilty as hell, because to be honest they should be.
On the negative side, I think Nadia is still a useless character, and her little part in this episode felt totally unnecessary and detracted from time spent on the main plot. Unless they have something interesting to do with her in the future, I'm not sure why she's even around. Same goes for the whole thing about Katherine dying. I like Katherine a lot as a character, but I wish her current story arc was a bit more complicated and less contrived. Also, I'm getting tired of Jeremy. His sappy romance with Bonnie is a bit hard to stomach, and he's been a pretty useless character all season.
I could say a lot more, but I'll end with this - Stefan is going to be sinking into despair in the following episodes due to his lingering resentment towards Silas and what happened to him over the summer. This could be an interesting arc. Or, it could just be more of angry righteous Stefan and guilty Elena, and Damon being more focused on Elena than on his brother. If the latter is the case, you're going to be hearing me complain about it very soon. However, for now I'll reserve judgment!
7.5/10
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