The Vampire Diaries: I Could Never Love Like That (6x18)

Stefan's back! That was a short little detour... whatever. Let's go through what happened here.

Stefan and Caroline are still on their humanity-less rampage. They end up at a coffee shop, where Caroline annoys all of the studying students by singing karaoke. When Matt and Tyler show up, they're kept prisoner by Stefan and Caroline. Caroline quizzes them both on trivia about herself. She and Stefan then decide to have some fun and kill both of them. Tyler tries to fight back, but Caroline winds up grabbing Matt and using him as a shield, so Tyler inadvertently stabs and gravely injures Matt.

Meanwhile, Damon and Elena have an oddly pleasant morning with Lily Salvatore. She makes them breakfast and everything. However, Damon insists that he's done with his mother - she is only a tool to get Stefan's humanity back. Lily reveals that she doesn't feel anything for Damon and Stefan anymore, even though she's tried. Damon has to coach Lily through what to say to Stefan. She still seems hesitant, but Damon hands over the Ascendant so that she'll be able to get back into the prison world and free her vampire friends once she's finished helping Stefan. Damon and Lily show up and find Stefan and Caroline just in time to save Matt and Tyler. Tyler rushes Matt to the hospital. Lily makes a speech to Stefan, and Stefan turns his humanity back on. Now, Stefan has to go find Caroline, who ran off, and help her to flip her switch back.

At the hospital, Elena tries to offer Matt some of her blood so he can heal immediately, but he refuses. He lets Western medicine fix him up. Later, Elena asks him why he refused her help. He says that he's tired of almost dying at the hands of people who are supposed to be his friends. He hates vampires, and he can't say that and then accept their help when it's to his advantage. He refuses to be a hypocrite.
 

Enzo decides to drop Sarah Salvatore off at the Salvatore house and force everything out in the open. When they arrive, however, Lily answers the door. Enzo freaks out and takes Sarah away with him. He tries to compel her to forget all about the Salvatores and go back to her life, but it turns out that she's on vervaine, courtesy of Matt. She forces Enzo to tell her the whole story. Turns out, Lily Salvatore is the person who turned Enzo into a vampire. He tells the story - Enzo was dying of consumption, when Lily found him and took him with her on a ship bound for America. On the ship, Lily and her other vampire friends slaughtered the entire crew, but spared Enzo, turning him into a vampire and offering him a life with their companionship.

Elena finds out that Jo is pregnant. She's happy for her and for Alaric, but she finds herself feeling jealous as well. She's missing her life as a human. She confides these feelings to Damon, who feels really guilty for not telling Elena about the cure for humanity that he has hidden away.

Jo tells Elena and Damon that they need to stop Lily from bringing her vampire friends back to this world. Turns out, they're not ordinary vampires. They're vampire-witch hybrids, and especially brutal. But it's too late! Lily is already in the prison world and is freeing her vampire-witch friends.

Complaints? Okay. So obviously I've heard the news that Nina Dobrev is leaving the show. I think it's absolutely stupid that they're even bothering to make future seasons without her. But whatever. Clearly, we're gearing up for Elena to exit the show as a human, maybe run off and go find Jeremy and live as a happy family forever more. Or maybe she dies. I don't know. What bothers me about this is that we haven't heard Elena angsting about her vampirism for a long time, and then suddenly, conveniently right after we reintroduce the cure, Elena is whining about not being human. Not only that, but she's making everything about her! Jo announces she's pregnant, and Elena has a crisis over it. Normally, I love Elena. But when people complain about her being selfish, it's moments like these that they can use to back up their claims.

Also, I don't understand the point of Enzo and Sarah's plot arc. The flashback was cool, I guess, and I like Enzo just fine, but he seems totally pointless. You could lift all of this stuff about Sarah right out of the plot and it wouldn't change anything. All I can say is, they'd better be building up to something good for the end of this season. Otherwise... why did they waste my time?

But hey. We got hilarious karaoke antics from Caroline, so this episode was clearly not all bad.

I love evil Caroline and Stefan. They're fantastic. Stefan makes fun of Caroline for not being able to scare somebody to death, so what does Caroline do? She compels the guy into thinking he's having a heart attack. That is so evil! I also appreciate the fact that they're finding ways to incorporate Candice Accola's singing skills into the show. Her trivia game with Matt and Tyler was funny. I'd almost forgotten that she dated Matt. It was also crazy evil to make Tyler hurt Matt like that. So not cool, Caroline.

Speaking of Matt: I love him so much. I understand exactly where he's coming from. It's about time somebody in this damn town starts standing up for the humans. It makes me sad for Elena's sake, but I can completely sympathize with Matt's position. And hey, Elena admits in this episode that she has that capacity for evil within her, and she always will. Whatever, Elena. Not everything's about you. And go Matt! Stick to your guns.

We didn't get a ton of Defan moments in here, but I loved the way that Damon knew exactly what Stefan would need to hear in order to get his humanity turned back on. It's so heartbreaking. And then that moment afterwards, when Damon tells Stefan that he gets to have one night to wallow, and then he has to go after Caroline. Damon is so understanding!

Damon actually had a lot of emotional stuff to carry in this episode. There's his worry over Stefan, and then there's his angst with his mom. That moment when he realizes that his mother doesn't love him anymore is particularly hard to watch. Because Damon said he was done with Lily - that he was just using her as a means to an end. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt him to hear that Lily feels nothing for him and his brother! Ouch!

And then there's Damon and Elena. Damon is behaving like his old self, selfishly hiding the truth to get what he wants. He'll get over himself soon, probably, and tell Elena about the cure. But in the meantime... every moment they have together is tinged by this terrible sadness and longing. Ian Somerhalder is doing a great job playing with these conflicting emotions.

I'm cautiously optimistic about these vampire-witch things... this could be really scary and threatening! In any case, I definitely want more Lily. She's really intriguing.

That's all I've got. It's going to be so weird to watch this show next season without Elena Gilbert in it... hopefully they'll find a believable way for her to make her exit. Honestly, if they kill her off it won't make any sense, because realistically Damon would probably commit suicide if that happened. And then Stefan would become totally useless and run away again because Damon was dead. And then Caroline would be all alone without Stefan. Elena dying would leave an irreparable chain reaction of mourners. So... we'll have to see what they come up with! Human!Elena fleeing from Mystic Falls?

7/10