The Vampire Diaries: Stay (6x14)

Aw man. Another tearjerker. I've been watching a lot of sad TV lately, and it's bumming me out. Let's just dive right in.

Okay. In this episode, Jeremy is getting ready to leave to go to art school. Elena and Damon compel the principal of his high school to let him graduate early so he can actually get out of town. Jeremy says goodbye to his friends, celebrating with drinks, and smoking pot with Elena. (The pot was apparently from Jo's stash, but Damon was the one to give it to Jeremy as a going away present). Elena then has to leave to help the sheriff and Damon with something (I'll get there in a second), and Jeremy is attacked by Enzo, who uses Jeremy as leverage to get Matt to do what he wants (again, I'll get there in a moment). Elena insists that Jeremy needs to get out of town, because he shouldn't be subjected to all this vampire drama anymore. Jeremy leaves town, but it turns out the whole art school thing was just a ruse - Alaric drives Jeremy away from Mystic Falls and wishes him luck on his new life as a vampire hunter.

Damon spends the day with Liz, helping her to close some of her old cold cases. She doesn't want to leave anything unfinished. Damon is able to close a lot of the cases by informing her that he was the murderer, but there's one case that's a little more complicated: the Gilberts. Was anything weird going on when their car drove off the bridge? Was there foul play? Damon has Elena and Jeremy help out, and eventually the pieces are put together. Elena's mom had called Liz earlier with an urgent message, which just turns out to be her trying to bust Jeremy for smoking pot. The reason they were on the bridge instead of the safer, quicker route was because a storm had put a power-line down across the road. The trunks in the car were because Elena's father was going to plan a surprise trip for the family, but the storm stopped them. The storm also explains the lack of skid marks on the road. Liz is oddly disappointed that nothing mysterious happened. She wanted there to be a reason for the deaths. That would make it easier to handle.

Caroline and Stefan are busy setting up a cabin for Liz, making everything comfortable for her to spend her final days. Caroline is stressed about what book she should have her mother read as her last literary experience on earth, and all sorts of other details like that. Stefan calms her down and tells her that it doesn't matter - life isn't about your final moments, but about all the moments leading up to it. Caroline and Stefan share a kiss. They then get a call from Damon, who tells them to get to the hospital. Liz fell asleep and Damon couldn't wake her up. Caroline is distraught that she can't say goodbye to her mother, but Stefan helps her to enter into her mom's memories and thus share a final goodbye with Liz, as she dies.

While all of this is going on, Enzo sends Sarah to Mystic Falls. Matt is instructed to have her take pictures of the Grill, and then to take her to a tunnel near the outer edges of town. Matt doesn't want to take Sarah out there, because he's afraid of what Enzo is going to do, but Enzo uses Jeremy to threaten Matt. Matt complies, bringing Sarah out there. Enzo runs Matt over with his car and then drives off, badly injuring him. As Sarah frantically tries to hep him, Enzo shows up, pretending to have heard a commotion. He feeds Matt his blood and heals him, as Sarah looks on in astonishment.

There's your plot summary. I have two rather large problems, and a few smaller ones.

First of all, I cannot stand all of this stuff going on with Enzo, Matt, and Sarah. I think I talked about this last week, but isn't Enzo supposedly doing all of this for Damon? Why haven't we seen Damon and Enzo interact? At all? And what is this convoluted plan supposed to achieve? I just don't get it. And I want Matt to have something more interesting to do. All I can say is - this better be leading to something good. So far, I am unimpressed.

Secondly, was anybody else rather irked by how little time Caroline and Liz actually spent together in this episode? Don't get me wrong - I loved all the Liz and Damon stuff, and I loved all the Caroline and Stefan stuff. But because of the way this episode was set up, it seemed like we were just using Liz's death as a way to push Caroline and Stefan together. I can't approve of that. I wanted more mother/daughter stuff in this episode, and I felt a bit cheated by all we didn't get.

Then there's this Jeremy business. I'm not upset that he's lying to Elena, but I am upset that Alaric is going along with it. What the hell, man? I'm also a tad annoyed that Matt hasn't told people what's going on with Enzo. I mean, yeah, Enzo threatened Matt's mother. But how would he know if Matt told people on the down-low and they worked to help him?

But I do want to talk also about the good stuff in this episode. Like I said at the beginning, this was a real tearjerker.

Candice Accola killed it once again as Caroline. Her grief at her mother's dying is so, so potent and hard to watch. More than anything else, her saying that she didn't get to say goodbye to her mother is what made me cry during this episode.

Caroline and Stefan! Oh my God, it happened! I already mentioned that I'm annoyed by the use of Liz's death in order to bring them together, but the actual moments of closeness between them in this episode were just so sweet. They kissed! It was sweet, and gentle, and just absolutely perfect. I couldn't have asked for a better moment for the two of them.

Again, despite my annoyance at the lack of Caroline/Liz interactions, I did truly love all of the stuff with Liz and Damon. Their friendship is one of the most surprising and lovely things this show has to offer us. I loved the darkly humorous moment when Damon helps Liz close her cold cases by revealing himself as the killer in most of them. Then there were also the sweet moments, like Damon telling Liz that Caroline knew how proud Liz is of her. Ouch. I might start crying again.

Elena and Jeremy getting high together was the comedic highlight of the episode, for sure. Nina Dobrev is a really talented actress. She doesn't go over the top with this stuff, but she still manages to make it amusing. The fact that she gets a call from the sheriff while high is so fantastic. I liked this moment of levity in this episode, since a lot of it is so bogged down in the depressing stuff. Also, it's fantastic that Damon is the one to give Jeremy the pot, and that he also makes a joke about killing Jeremy. Leave it to Damon to try and make that funny... He's such a piece of work.

Saying goodbye to Liz was much harder than I expected, but I did, surprisingly, take comfort in the fact that she died from normal causes. In the chaos of Mystic Falls, a quiet moment of normalcy is sometimes just what we need. (I also can't help being reminded of Joyce's death from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's the same sort of thing - a mother figure dies of natural causes, creating a lesson about the true horror of death that can't quite come across when every other character is dying from some sort of supernatural cause. In this episode, we parallel Liz's death with the deaths that started the show, that of Elena and Jeremy's parents.)

I think that's all I've got to say at this point. Damn, I'm going to miss Liz. I hope that this Enzo plot starts going somewhere. And - need I say it? Give me more Damon/Stefan broments!

7/10