The Vampire Diaries: While You Were Sleeping (5x16)

Gahhhhh. I'm nearing the end of my patience with this show, to be honest. Why don't the writers understand that I only come for the Salvatore brother bromance? You'd think they'd be able to read my mind by now, honestly. Okay, okay. Not everything's about me. Let's look closer at this episode.

Elena is back in her own body, but she's trapped in the college dorms. Bonnie had Liv (the new witch) seal her in there so she won't attack anyone, now that she's all bloodthirsty and crazy. Damon is also trapped back at the Salvatore mansion. The two of them talk to each other about how excited they are to reunite once they're free of the virus. Things start going wrong for Elena as starts hallucinating her worst fears. Aaron keeps turning up in her hallucinations, and she comes to the erroneous conclusion that she must have killed him.

Stefan's hunt for the cure takes a step forward when Enzo turns up and says that the Travelers have the cure. The only problem is, Elena's strand of the virus is different from the one that Damon has, so the Travelers will need to make a new cure for Elena. In exchange, the Travelers need a favor from Stefan: they need to hunt down another doppelganger, and they want to link Stefan to his doppelganger in order to track him down.

Since Elena is totally freaking out, Damon realizes that he needs to get to her quickly. He lures Matt into the room and traps him, threatening to kill him if Jeremy doesn't let him go. Elena meets a man who apparently befriended Katherine while she was pretending to be Elena. Elena very nearly turns him into a vampire to feed on him, but manages to compel him and send him away. She desperately tries to get out of her confinement, and finally manages it: she gets Bonnie and Liv to come over, and then throws a stake at Liv. Liv is forced to let Elena out so she can drink her blood to stay alive.

Stefan lets the Travelers use him by linking his brain with his doppelganger. It causes him a lot of pain and might have killed him, but Caroline stops them before it gets that far. As a consequence, however, Caroline has to go help Enzo kill Stefan's doppelganger, because that's what the Travelers want for some as yet unknown reason.

Damon and Elena find each other and Damon feeds Elena some of Stefan's blood. He also confesses to killing Aaron. Enzo shows up with the cure for both of them, and they drink it.

Luke, the student that Elena nearly turned earlier, is revealed to be Liv's brother. Turns out, Liv is no amateur witch. She's actually quite good. Also, Luke only pretended to be compelled when Elena sent him away. The two of them are up to something nefarious...

The episode ends as Damon and Elena agree that their relationship is very toxic. However, even as they decide to end it, they jump into bed together.

So, what do I think? I think lots of things. Some good, a lot not so good. Here are the annoying parts:

What's up with this Liv and Luke nonsense? You don't think we have enough cards on the table as it is? Why does this show always try to be so confusing? I suppose I should reserve judgment, but at the moment I'm just feeling annoyed.

Are they trying to set something up between Caroline and Enzo? Because I'm not okay with that. I'm actually starting to think Stefan and Caroline should seriously get together. I'll be annoyed if they try to put her with another bad guy.

Lack of bromance has already been noted, I suppose, but I want to restate it: why not more Stefan and Damon interactions? Whyyy??

But there were some parts of this episode that worked pretty well, too.

Caroline and Stefan, for example, have an awesome relationship. I loved seeing how worried they both were for one another. This Traveler plot line in general is actually not too bad. I've been annoyed about the wishy-washy plot this season, and the lack of a consistent A-plot. But this new doppelganger thing has a lot of potential, and I'm willing to see where it goes.

I also liked the stuff with Damon and Elena, in particular their final conversation. It's nice to see them both acknowledge how unhealthy they are. I loved it when Elena said that Damon makes her compromise her morals, because she loves him. It was nice to see this obvious truth acknowledged.

I still like Enzo, too, even if I don't enjoy what they seem to be doing with him and Caroline. I'm not going to judge anything prematurely.

There you have it. Not my favorite episode by a long-shot, but there were still some good bits here and there.

6/10