The Vampire Diaries: The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get (6x06)

Oh! I did not see that coming! But I'm also sort of irritated! Okay, okay, let me write the plot down first.

Damon is back. Stefan is thrilled, Elena is... not. She's confused about what she should do. She doesn't want to see Damon, and she doesn't want her memories of him back. She says she's happy now, and there's no reason to mess that up. Besides, she's starting something with Liam. Damon insists that he must see Elena. He thinks that seeing her will break through the compulsion, but Elena won't see him. Damon talks to Alaric, who says he'll only lift Elena's compulsion when she asks him to.

Meanwhile, Alaric asks Elena to do some investigating as to why compulsion didn't work on Jo. She takes a sip of Jo's coffee, but there's no vervaine inside. Jo later confronts Elena, telling her that she knows that Elena is a vampire, and she knows about Rick, too. Turns out, Jo is a witch. She tells Elena that she won't ask questions about Elena's life, if Elena doesn't ask questions about her life. However, Jo does tell Elena to stop stealing blood bags.

As Damon hangs out in Elena's room, Jeremy shows up and asks why Bonnie didn't come back. Damon lies and says that Bonnie found peace. Damon then calls Bonnie's cellphone just to be able to talk to her again. He thanks her for what she did, since now he gets to see Elena again. Jeremy, however, is not doing so hot. Matt and Sarah watch as he breaks his phone, frustrated that he can't remember Bonnie's pin to cancel her cellphone plan.

Elena calls Damon, and says she wants to meet him. Before that can happen, though, Damon is kidnapped by Tripp. Matt comes clean to the group about Tripp having Enzo, and Stefan and Caroline set out to go rescue Enzo and Damon.

The plan? Get in his way before he can cross the town border. Things get a little chaotic in the execution of this plan, however. Alaric tries to stop the truck with Damon and Enzo in it, but the car gets pushed over the border into town. Elena has just decided she wants her memories of Damon back, since she can't make decisions without all the facts. However, it looks like Alaric, Damon, and Enzo are all done for, as the magic is stripped away and they start dying.

Stefan crosses the border and begins to die from his bullet wounds. He manages to make it into the truck and get Damon and Enzo out. The three of them make it back across the border. Alaric, however, is in bad shape. Jo, who followed Alaric, manages to save him... without having him cross the border back out of town. What does this mean? Alaric is alive - and human!

Of course, this means that he won't be able to compel Elena to remember her life with Damon. Stefan tries to apologize to Caroline, but Caroline says she doesn't want to be friends with him anymore. Damon complains to Stefan about how close he was to getting Elena back, and Stefan tells him to go see Elena. Damon does. The episode ends just as Elena opens the door to meet Damon's eyes.

Okay, so... to start with some complaints.

This first one is more of a question. Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong, but I thought it was canon that when an original vampire died, the compulsion that they put on people would fade away? So, when Alaric stops being an "original" vampire, wouldn't that make Elena remember Damon again? Also, I thought Alaric's life was totally tied to Elena's humanity. Remember? When Rick was all evil and then Elena died and that made Rick die? So how the hell is he even alive if Elena is a vampire? Gah. This show hurts my brain.

The other complaint I have is about Sarah, who we barely saw in this episode. So barely, in fact, that they should have just left her out of it altogether. She ended up being a distraction, to be honest. It was just this brief little moment of her, as if to say "remember me? I'm still here!" I could have done without it.

Also, why does Jo have to be a witch? I mean, my God. Can't we have normal human characters on this show? We had Ivy for like two seconds, and then she was a vampire, and then Tripp killed her. We had Jo, who seemed really cool and normal and like a good love interest for Rick, and now she's involved in all the supernatural goings on? When will it end?

But there were a lot of praiseworthy moments in this episode.

First of all, go Caroline! I'm so happy that she's not forgiving Stefan for everything right away. Hopefully these two can go back to being friends (or maybe more?) eventually, but for now I want Stefan to suffer a little bit for what he did to her.

But I don't want him to suffer for giving up on Damon! That was totally reasonable and normal! In fact, we get an awesome scene between Alaric and Stefan to rectify their fight from last week. I loved how Rick reassured Stefan that he had given up on Damon, too. Stefan wasn't the only one.

Alaric and Damon didn't get much of a reunion, not even a hug, but I still really loved what we did get. Alaric's big smile, and Damon stealing the booze from him as he left... that was priceless.

Of course, I must squeal about the fact that when this episode started up again, we got to see more of that now-famous Stefan and Damon hug. Damon said the "eternity of misery" thing, and it was super cute! I also loved how Damon goes out drinking with Stefan to whine about his life. Not Rick or Enzo. Stefan. Yay!

Damon calls Bonnie's phone. Ouch. My heart hurts. I really don't know what to expect, moving forward. Is Bonnie coming back? I'm not up on the PR for this show, so I don't know if the actress is contracted for the season, or what. But in any case, this was really sweet. Is Damon going to try to get Bonnie back? Or are they all just going to give up on her?

One of my favorite parts of this whole episode, oddly enough, was Stefan and Elena's brief conversation on the phone. I love the solid friendship between them now. There's no longer any hint of romance, in my opinion, and I would be really weirded out if they tried to do any of that again. It seems like they really care about each other as friends, and that's a good thing. It made me smile when Elena shyly admitted "I kissed Liam!" Stefan is worried about Damon's probable reaction to this, but he doesn't chastise Elena or tell her she was wrong, either.

It seems like Rick turning into a human should have broken the compulsion on Elena, and I feel a bit annoyed about the plot hole. But, as a plot device, this actually works really well. I assumed that Elena was going to refuse to get her memories of Damon back, because she wanted to try things out with Liam, and she doesn't want to remember loving a serial killer. I assumed it was going to get old, really fast, watching Elena refuse to do what we knew she'd eventually agree to. Instead, we get this twist where Elena wants her memories back, but she can't have them. Even if it doesn't make sense in terms of the rules of compulsion as I understood them, I still think this is ultimately a good plot device.

And even though I'm annoyed that Jo is a witch, I still find myself really drawn to her, and her relationship with Rick. I was actually pretty choked up when Jo was sobbing over Alaric's body, trying to get him to wake up. I can't wait to see what's in store for these two!

So, there you have it. I wasn't really sure what to think of this episode until I started writing down everything that happened. Even the parts that annoyed me weren't so bad, and I think overall I'm pretty happy!

8/10