The Vampire Diaries: Promised Land (5x21)

What. The. Actual. Fuck. Is. Happening. Right. Now. I cannot wait for next week. I seriously need this finale like right the fuck now.

Stefan and Elena have been captured by Markos and the other Travelers, and they are slowly being drained of blood. Maria, Julian's wife, frees them, and they start to make their way back home. Damon, meanwhile, has been collecting the bodies of Travelers, with help from Matt and Jeremy. Tyler, aka Julian, is trapped in the cellar. Damon tries to figure out Markos' plan, but Markos, who shows up when he notices his friends' bodies are missing, refuses to trade them for anything. He says that he doesn't really care if the Travelers get put back into their own bodies or not.

The Travelers are gearing up to enact the spell that will allow them to remain in Mystic Falls, but that will also undo all Witch magic. Daylight rings will stop working, Vampires will be "cured," as in killed, and everything will basically be awful for our main characters.

Elena and Stefan get picked up on the side of the road by Maria, but as she is driving them back home, Luke and Liv show up. Unfortunately, they know of only one way to stop the Travelers now: kill the doppelgangers. They don't manage to succeed, but they do kill Maria in the scuffle.

Meanwhile, Enzo is determined to hitch a ride back to the land of the living, but Bonnie is forced to tell him that Liv doesn't have a way of saving her or the Other Side. It's all coming down around their ears. At one point, Enzo goes to the recently deceased Maria for help with a Traveler spell that might work, but she is ripped away into the void before she can help.

Damon and Markos are at the Salvatore house, and Damon has realized that he has nothing to bargain with. As a last-ditch plan, he releases Julian from the cellar. However, it's all too late. The Traveler's spell starts to take effect. Magic is failing everywhere.

Our protagonists escape and decide to regroup elsewhere. Damon and Elena reunite with a kiss, and drive off, while Stefan says he'll wait for Caroline and Bonnie before joining them. Caroline and Stefan wait for Bonnie, who is busy freaking out with Enzo over their last plan with Maria falling through. Julian shows up, and Stefan tells him that Maria is dead. Julian, in a fit of rage, attacks them. Stefan, still weak from all the recent blood draining, is unable to defend himself properly. Julian rips out his heart, killing him.

Bonnie sees Stefan, and realizes what must have happened. In despair, Stefan passes through Bonnie to the other side, knowing there's no way back.

Uhhhhh. Did they just kill Stefan Salvatore? Actually? Damn, I'll admit I did not see that coming. But let's start with the annoying stuff about this episode, because yeah, I have things to complain about.

First of all, can someone explain to me why the Travelers want to kill Julian? This isn't actually a complaint - I think I missed something in here somewhere, and I need help. A piece of the puzzle is not clear to me.

But on a more critical note... what the hell is up with Enzo? I know I keep harping on this, but he killed himself. Why is he so insistent on coming back to life right now? It would be one thing if he had... I don't know... buyer's remorse about his suicide. But that's not what seems to be going on right now. It's like he really thinks Stefan killed him or something. And so does Stefan. Why doesn't he understand what the hell is actually going on here? Stefan. Didn't. Kill. Him! I'm gonna keep being annoyed by this.

But, the good stuff. It was there. Yes indeed.

First of all, they set up Stefan's death so well. They had the Stefan and Elena friendship moments, where they're joking around, and talking about Caroline (setting up Caroline/Stefan, I think), and just generally establishing their close relationship. Stefan even tells Elena to just be with Damon already, since it will make them both so much happier. And then there's that brief moment of Damon and Stefan talking in this episode, where Stefan promises to keep Elena safe, and then Damon says to make sure that they both stay safe, and that he wouldn't want to have to punish Elena for losing Stefan. How cute is that? Damon basically declares that he loves them both deeply and would be crushed if anything happened to either one of them.

And then Stefan dies! Mwahahahaha. This is going to be filled with angst. I loved that Caroline was the one who witnessed Stefan's death. It seemed to be further proof that they're pushing for a Stefan/Caroline relationship. Her grief at his death was really hard to see.

I also enjoyed the Maria/Julian relationship, even though I didn't quite grasp why they were running from the Travelers. It seemed odd to me, but then I also feel like I'm just missing something... in any case, it was nice to see the lengths they were both willing to go to for one another, and I felt really bad for Julian when Maria died. That is, right up to the point where he ripped Stefan's heart out.

Also, Bonnie was considerably less useless than she has been in the recent past. The Other Side falling down is now having much bigger A-plot ramifications, since Stefan himself is going to be wiped away into nothing if they can't find a way to fix this problem. Bonnie's conversations with Enzo had the perfect mix of humor with drama. I really enjoyed that. And her heartbreak when she saw Stefan was fantastic.

In all, I think killing off Stefan is about the best, most shocking move they could have made, and it makes me really excited for what's next.

8/10