The Vampire Diaries: Christmas Through Your Eyes (6x10)

Nice! What a way to go out before the break! Lots of intrigue, lots of action, lots of angst. And a Damon/Stefan hug! I'm happy.

Kai wants to merge with Jo and become all powerful, and Tyler wants to help him. If Kai merges with Jo, that will protect Liv and Luke from having to do it. Liv is all for going through with the plan, but Luke has mixed feelings, because if Kai wins, he'll be all-powerful and he will hurt innocent people. Kai actually needs the help of the twins to find the dagger with Jo's magic in it, since he has no magic of his own to do a locator spell. Kai kidnaps Jo out of the hospital, and then manages to find the knife, which Damon had hidden away. So, Kai now has Jo, Liv, and Luke at his mercy and he is ready to get this party started.

Damon has a plan - let's go find Kai, and kill him! He and Alaric go to find Kai. Alaric is still pissed at Damon obviously, but he's willing to help him. The two of them manage to trap Kai, but before Alaric can kill him, Jo tells them not to. If Kai is dead, it will force Liv and Luke into the merge, and Jo realizes that it's not fair. She thinks she can defeat Kai, if she just has a bit more time to gather her strength. However, Kai has other plans. He has been chained up by Damon, but he starts to suck the magical energy out of the land. There's lots of magic in Mystic Falls, due to the spell cast by the Travelers that's keeping everybody magical out of Mystic Falls. Kai becomes all powered-up, and breaks free. He throws Alaric around a bit, and then vanishes. However, there is one good piece of news here - the whole magic-less dome thing is over with! All the vampires can go back home now!

While all of this has been going on, we've been getting flashbacks to earlier Christmases, where Elena, Bonnie, and Caroline are all fresh-faced, human, and have living parents. Oh, the good ol' days. In their junior year, Caroline apparently got picked by Stefan for Secret Santa, and he bought her a snow globe key-chain (lammmeee). In the present day, Liz Forbes comes to help Caroline decorate her dorm room (does anybody else get annoyed by Caroline's unrealistically large dorm? I'm a college student. I know that's crap.) In any case, Caroline is happy to see her mom, since she can't exactly go home for Christmas without dying. Then, Stefan shows up to help decorate. It seems that Liz is trying to help mend some fences. However, Caroline doesn't have very long to stay angry at Stefan, since suddenly Liz collapses!

They rush her to the hospital. Elena shows up, having just left Damon. The two of them were trying to study up on ways to get Bonnie home. (From here, Damon meets up with Rick and they go on their Kai hunt). Elena and Stefan learn that Caroline's mom has cancer. Stefan tells Caroline about it, and she breaks down crying. After all this chaos, Stefan and Damon both finally go home to the Salvatore mansion, where they haven't been able to set foot all this time. Stefan surprises Damon with his car, which he repaired while Damon was dead. Damon talks to Elena on the phone and makes plans to meet up with her to talk.

When Elena shows up at the door, Damon opens it but doesn't seem to see her. He then closes the door in her face. Kai shows up and reveals that he put a cloaking spell on himself and Elena. He then knocks her out and drags her off. Rude!

There's also a subplot with Matt, Jeremy, and Enzo. Matt lures Enzo to him with false information about the real Sarah Salvatore. With Jeremy's help, they take him down. Matt wants to do what Tripp used to do and drive Enzo over the town border to kill him. Unluckily for him, Kai has just finished zapping up all the magic from that whole spell, so driving across the border doesn't finish Enzo off. Enzo declines to kill Matt, instead telling him that he needs his help to make Stefan's life miserable. Then, after that's been accomplished, Enzo will decide whether or not Matt gets to live.

We also briefly see Bonnie in this episode, as she drags a Christmas tree to the school parking lot and lights it on fire, missing her friends terribly.

My standing complaint with this show will always be its exposition over-loads. There's a whole section of this episode at the beginning where we go between Stefan, Damon, and Alaric, and then Tyler, Kai, Liv, and Luke, and then Matt and Jeremy, and all of them are just... talking. About all their plans. About who needs to do what in order for this or that to happen. It's just... too much!

I have a few smaller complaints. First of all, why can't vampire blood cure cancer? Like, it can heal bones in a matter of seconds, and save people with severe blood loss. What kind of convoluted logic is there to the thought that vampire blood wouldn't cure Liz? This is very, very clumsy. I can't believe they gave Liz cancer. Isn't this world filled with enough in the way of supernatural threats? Ugh. Can nobody on this show have a living parent? It doesn't seem fair.

Another minor-ish qualm... what exactly is Enzo's deal? Like, we get it, buddy. You have some sort of vendetta against Stefan. Don't you think Damon, your supposed bff, would be the tiniest bit upset if you decided to psychologically torture his little brother? Enzo is an interesting enough character, but his story line this season seems very erratic and strange. And why on earth does he keep Matt alive? So he can help him to hurt Stefan? What sort of sense does that really make?

However, despite these complaints, I loved this episode. Somehow it managed to toe the line between very, very depressing and oddly Christmas-y. For example, even though Bonnie's little Christmas ritual was super depressing, it was oddly also a moment of connection, as Jeremy looked up at the tree in his world, and Bonnie looked at the tree in her own. Aww. Even though everything's going wrong, nobody died, and there is one piece of significantly good news - they can all go home now! The wards on Mystic Falls are officially lifted. I gotta say, I'm impressed they kept it up for a whole half of the season. Those flashbacks were lovely, although of course it's testing my suspension of disbelief to say that any of those girls were 14 years old in the first flashback to freshman year. Still, it was sweet to see Caroline, Bonnie, and Elena together and happy.

I'm going to squeal about the tiny little Stefan/Damon scene for just a second, because it wasn't the focus of the episode and I really shouldn't go on and on about it. Stefan rebuilt Damon's car! They hugged! They're back home, and together! I'm so happy. Stefan jokes around that Damon should make sure not to die again, because he went to a lot of trouble to make the car. Damon agrees to stay alive. This was sweet, because it was Stefan's way of saying how much he had missed Damon and how lost he was without him, but without getting all weepy. Very lovely.

Even though Enzo's story arc is confusing to me, I still love what's going on with Matt. This whole "us" vs. "them" thing that he has going on is really dangerous, but I also totally get where he's coming from. There was a good conversation between Matt and Jeremy about it. Jeremy points out that they can't think about this thing like a binary, since they have friends and even family, in Jeremy's case, who are vampires. Matt refuses to let anybody forget about the lives that have been lost, though. He's tired of letting humans be the pawns in the games of vampires.

Caroline and Stefan! I love how Caroline is still digging her heals in with Stefan. She's not letting him off the hook. There's a part of me that wants Caroline to realize how much Stefan was hurting without Damon, and how much he's been trying to do better, but at the same time I'm proud of Caroline for not giving in, and standing up for herself. Even so, the fact that she kept the little snow globe key-chain all these years is really sweet. She's obviously cared for Stefan a long time. And great acting from Paul Wesley and Candice Accola in the scene where Stefan told Caroline about her mother. Very emotional.

Damon and Elena's relationship continues to repair, but very slowly, which I love. They aren't rushing forward here and giving us some contrived reunion. Even so, Elena seems to already really like Damon again, which I appreciate. If the compulsion had made her detest him permanently, it wouldn't have made sense. After all, Elena forgave Damon for all the horrible things he did. It makes sense that she'd be able to do so again.

Alaric's forgiveness might be a little bit harder for Damon to earn. The bromance is on the outs! Damon totally deserves it, though. Just like with Caroline and Stefan, I'm happy to see Rick standing up for himself instead of just caving and forgiving Damon on the spot. Alaric had a lot of great stuff to do in this episode, actually. I also really love his relationship with Jo. These two are growing on me more and more.

Oh boy. I'm rambling now. A few other things: I like the stuff with Liv and Tyler as well. They're getting more and more compelling as a couple each time I see them. Luke is adorable. I want him to get a cute boyfriend so that he too will want to fight to stay alive. Right now, he seems resigned to his fate, which is just not okay.

I want to see Damon's reaction to the news that Liz is going to die. The two of them have always been friends. I hope this whole Liz-has-cancer thing is more than just an excuse to write an actress out of the show. I want to see Elena and Damon finally get back together. I want to see Damon grovel some more for forgiveness, and I want to see Alaric finally give in. I want to see Enzo try to hurt Stefan, just so I can see Damon get really angry about it (though I doubt this is going to happen, unfortunately). I want more Caroline. I want Bonnie to come back. I just want more! Ultimately, for all its flaws, I keep coming back to this show for a reason.

8/10