The Vampire Diaries: The Cell (5x09)

Okay. Okay, I just don't know. I liked a lot of the individual elements of this episode. A lot, actually. But other things felt really heavy, really forced, very exposition-y again... and you know what it is? Overall, I just don't know what the focus of this season is supposed to be. There doesn't seem to be any clues to tell me where my attention should go most heavily. Also, I'm desperate for some Salvatore brother bromance moments, and Stefan and Damon didn't even interact in this one. I know, I know, that's my own hangup. Let's take a look at this plot.

Okay so Damon is still being held captive by Wes, who plans on using him for his experiments now that he doesn't have Jesse as a test subject. Elena goes to find Aaron, because she's worried about Damon. Aaron is grieving Jesse's death (he's been told it was a suicide), but when Elena mentions that Damon is missing, he agrees to help find him by going to find Wes. The two of them go to the Whitmore house, where Aaron invites Elena in, and then reveals that his own last name is Whitmore, and that he is the last remaining member of his family.

Wes finds them in the house and injects Elena with vervain. He then puts her in the cells with Damon. While down there, Damon tells Elena the story of the Augustine organization, and how he has been here before. Basically, back in the 1950's, one of Damon's relatives sold him out to Augustine. He was put in the cells and experimented on by Dr. Whitmore (Aaron's grandfather). While there, he met and befriended another captive vampire named Enzo. He and Enzo created a plan to escape. However, in the end Damon couldn't get Enzo out and he abandoned him to die, escaping by himself.

While Damon is telling Elena this story, Aaron is upstairs demanding answers of Wes. Wes tells him that his parents were part of Augustine, and explains the existence of vampires. Aaron goes down to the cells and starts accusing Elena of murdering his whole family. Damon steps in and says that he's the one who did that. He was a captive of Dr. Whitmore for five years, and for his revenge he decided to slaughter everyone in the Whitmore family, leaving only one alive to continue the line. Then, years later, he'd kill that family, and repeat the process. Damon tells Aaron that the last person he killed was a woman a few months back named Sarah. Sarah was Aaron's aunt, and the last family he had left. Elena is horrified to hear that Damon is still up to this slaughtering thing, and that he killed someone while they were together over the summer. Aaron shoots Damon, who loses consciousness. When he wakes up, Elena is gone. We then cut to Elena, who is strapped to a table, about to be experimented on. She looks over and sees another captive: Enzo.

Allllrighty, then. A big info dump in this episode. Lots of interesting stuff, though. What made this plot a lot more clear and interesting than anything with Silas/Tessa/Amara blah blah blah is that we get to see actual flashbacks of Damon and learn more about his past while we get our information overload.

Things I liked: Enzo was an amazing character. I'm so glad he's not dead. I'm excited to see more of him. I loved Damon's whole flashback story and the way he had to betray Enzo to get out alive... ugh. Such an amazing scene. I also like the fact that Aaron is confused by everything that's going on... he wants to trust Wes, but at the same time this is all a bit much for him. I liked that he didn't immediately jump to the mindset that vampires were pure evil. After all, he was pissed at Elena for killing his family, not for being what she was. When he found out it was Damon, he turned his anger on him and left Elena alone. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens as we move forward... will Aaron support Wes and Augustine, or will he think the practices are inhumane? I gotta admit there were also a lot of good Delena moments in this episode, what with them both being really concerned about the other.

Things I didn't like: Well... Damon is still murdering innocent people? Really? At first I thought he was lying to Aaron about killing his aunt as a way to keep the focus away from Elena. But it actually doesn't seem like that's the case. I understand that both of the Salvatores have done some terrible things, but killing an innocent woman as part of a fifty-year-old revenge plan is pretty far over the line. I also thought, as I mentioned earlier, that all of this was just a bit exposition-heavy. I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I wish they wouldn't talk on and on as much.

Then we've got the other plot, which was all about Stefan's PTSD. Katherine and Caroline decide to try and help Stefan get past what happened to him over the summer. Caroline helpfully supplies the safe that Stefan was locked in. Stefan gets into said safe, and predictably, he's not doing so well. Katherine has the brilliant idea to force him into a decision. She climbs into the safe with him, and basically pushes Stefan to the edge. She believes, correctly, that his instinct to "save the day" will overcome his blood lust. Indeed, that is what happens, and Stefan stops himself from killing Katherine. Actually, he does a lot more than that... they end up having sex!

Ultimately I thought Katherine and Stefan were fantastic in this part of the episode. I am constantly amazed by Nina Dobrev's acting abilities. Something about the way that human!Katherine acts around Stefan is just so... sweet. I'm not sure if I want Steferine to be endgame or whatever, but I do think there's something so intense and meaningful about their relationship. These two have a real history. Katherine knew Stefan before he was even a vampire, and in some ways that makes her more qualified than almost anyone at getting through to him. I think this episode did a really good job of showing that interesting dynamic.

That being said, I thought this part of the episode had its weaknesses as well. Mainly, Caroline seemed pretty useless. I love Caroline. A lot, really. But in this episode she had nothing to do but awkwardly interrupt Katherine and Stefan and hover about anxiously. I guess I'm hoping for a more focused story for our dear Caroline very soon. Things have been rather out of balance for her this season thus far. I also think a lot of stuff from this plot thread trivialized mental illness and PTSD. Now, I know we're in a world of vampires, so things are bound to be different, but I thought it was a bit much when Caroline said that the slow approach "wasn't working." God, they'd only been trying a few hours! To shove Stefan into a precarious situation with Katherine like that was... well, I'm glad it worked, but I'm also a bit skeptical about it, if you know what I mean.

Alright, so there you have it. I'll admit that I really did love a lot of this, in terms of the individual elements. Overall, I just can't tell where all of this is going yet. I want something a bit more cohesive.

7/10