The Vampire Diaries: Because (6x19)

Well. We've got Caroline back! This was really depressing. Let's take a look, shall we?

Stefan has a plan to get Caroline to switch her humanity back on. First, he'll pretend that he's still humanity-less. He'll track her down and lead her to a hotel. Then, Damon and the others will trap them, with Stefan playing the trapped victim. They will drain Caroline of her blood by not allowing her to feed, and then bombard her with memories of all the things that matter to her. Elena has a trump card - a letter from Caroline's mother that she had written so it arrived after Caroline was gone. Inside the room, Caroline is having none of it. Elena tries to give her the letter, but Caroline insists that Stefan burn it. Eventually, however, Stefan is able to show Caroline memories of her mother, and they help break through Caroline's hard outer shell. She turns her humanity back on, and is utterly devastated by all she has done. To top it all off, she's lost her chance to read the last words her mother ever wrote her.

Meanwhile, Damon and Elena talk about what they would do in five years if they were human. Damon is scared, hearing Elena's hypothetical plans for a future, because he knows that their relationship will never work if Elena is human again. Damon breaks the news to Bonnie that she gave the Ascendant to Lily. They concoct a plan to get it back so that Lily can't free her "witch-pire" friends from the prison world. Bonnie agrees to meet Lily for lunch at the bar, and then while Lily is waiting, Bonnie goes into the Salvatore house to track down the Ascendant. Bonnie asks Matt to stall Lily, making sure she stays put. That plan all goes to hell when Enzo shows up.

Lily recognizes Enzo, and tells him that the night she changed him into a vampire, she and her friends were captured and sent to the prison world. Enzo is comforted to learn that he was not abandoned, as he had previously thought. As Lily and Enzo head to the Salvatore place, Bonnie manages to find where Lily has hidden the Ascendant. She escapes with it just in time. When Lily realizes that the Ascendant is gone, she calls Damon and demands that he return it to her. If he doesn't, then Lily will destroy the cure for vampirism. Damon goes to Bonnie and tries to get the cure back, but Bonnie refuses, saying that she's doing what's best for her this time. She doesn't want to risk Kai and the other evil people getting out of the prison world. Bonnie also reminds Damon that Elena taking the cure would mean the end of their relationship. Bonnie gets ready to destroy the Ascendant.

Damon rushes home in time to see Lily throwing a box on the fire. He believes it contains the cure, but then... it turns out that Lily wants to punish Damon, and she figures the best way to do that is to give the cure to Elena. Elena finds the cure, and is upset to find that Damon had been hiding it from her. However, the two of them have a talk, wherein Damon expresses his fears of losing Elena. Elena says it's too complicated, that they should give the cure to someone else. But Damon says no - Elena should take the cure, and Damon will take it with her.

So! Complaints?

Can they do that? I thought the whole point was that there was only enough of the cure for one person. If this was an option all along, why haven't they brought it up before now? That's a frustrating little plot hole if I ever saw one!

Also, Alaric and Jo were briefly in this episode, talking about wedding cake and honeymoon locations. That's sweet and all, but it was such a brief little footnote in this episode that it almost shouldn't have been there at all. I want Alaric to come back to the A-plot, please!

On the whole, this episode had two pretty serious things going on in it. One was the quest to get Caroline's humanity turned back on. The other was the whole cure business. Each of these ideas probably could have carried an episode by itself. I think it worked okay to have them both in the same episode, but at times I felt like my focus was being divided. Each of these plot threads could have packed a more emotional punch if they'd been given a bit more room to breathe.

But individually, both plot threads worked pretty well. Caroline totally broke my heart! At the end, when she can see her mother walking away from her, I almost started crying! She calls out to her mommy, but there's no answer. So heartbreaking. Paul Wesley gave a great performance as Stefan this week. He had to play a complicated role, what with being a vampire whose humanity is on, pretending it's off. He toed the line really well, affecting a bored, superior attitude, while at the same time avoiding having sex with Caroline due to his fear he'd be taking advantage. Caroline figured it out, of course. She's not an idiot.

I liked the fake-out, where for a moment you think Caroline has escaped. Instead, you see that it was all a vision, and that she's still trapped in the room with Stefan. I also liked that Caroline nearly killed Stefan - it was a nice way to cap off her humanity-less time. Luckily, of course, she came to her senses in time to stop herself from making a terrible mistake!

When Elena found out that Damon was keeping the cure from her, I was getting all ready to roll my eyes. I thought - here we go. We'll have to go through an episode of angst where Elena is all mad at Damon for not telling her, yadda yadda, been there, done that. But actually, I was rather pleasantly surprised! They went a different route. They had an actual conversation about what happened. Damon's speech to Elena was actually rather touching. He says he kept the cure from her because he's selfish, and so in love with her, and afraid of losing her. Aww! And is he serious about taking the cure with her? If that works, what does that mean for Ian Somerhalder on this show? Is he leaving too? Because if he is, I'm not sure I'm sticking around.

Bonnie! She is sticking up for herself! And I love it. She's done being the meek little girl who helps her friends and doesn't think of the consequences for herself. What she did, in taking the Ascendant, was actually pretty ruthless. She was taking away her best friend's chance for a human life. But she knew the price, and she was willing to pay it. That's intense! I hope to see more of this Bonnie moving forward.

I think that's where I'll stop. Lots of interesting developments in this episode! We're winding down on the end of Nina Dobrev's time on the show. It seems pretty clear that she'll be exiting as a human... but will Damon be going with her?!

8/10