The Vampire Diaries: Postcards from the Edge (7x12)

Well... yikes. I'm just going to jump straight in.

Cons:

This episode had two main plot threads that, for the most part, detracted from the main plot in an annoying way. While neither was totally terrible, they also weren't all that great. First of all, it turns out that Caroline's babies are syphoning magic out of her blood and slowly killing her. The thing is... this is getting to be too much like Breaking Dawn. Magical vampire pregnancy that's killing the mother? I don't know... it's just too much for me. Also, if we're to buy Stefan and Caroline's love for one another, you would want all of Stefan's focus to be on Caroline in such a situation. But he was (understandably) focused on Damon, and thus the focus of the whole episode was really split. On top of that, we know from the flash-forwards that Caroline, Alaric, and the babies are going to be okay eventually, so it really doesn't scare me to think about Caroline in trouble right now.

Bonnie, Nora, and Mary Louise go looking for the Huntress, whose name it turns out is Rayna Cruz. They track her to an insane asylum and find that the mythic vampire hunter is an old senile lady. That is, until she gets Bonnie by herself and reveals that she remembers everything about her old life as a Huntress. She tries to strangle Bonnie, but Enzo turns up out of nowhere and kills Rayna. Or so we think. Bonnie leaves to find Nora and Mary Louise so they can help hide Rayna's body with Enzo, but when they get back, Enzo and Rayna are gone. Enzo takes Rayna away and does some sort of a spell to release her into her true form - a young woman who looks eerily similar to Nina Dobrev.

So... I'm glad I saw the promo for next week, where Damon acknowledges that the new girl looks like like Elena, Katherine, Amara, etc. Because if not I was going to call serious bullshit. But even despite the fact that clearly it's part of their plan, I really don't like the idea of Rayna the Huntress. She's such a shoehorned in villain, and I'm not interested in her as a character, or in the threat she poses to our other characters.

Pros:

However, Bonnie's plot thread wasn't a total loss, because I do find myself really enjoying Bonnie and Nora's friendship. It makes the Heretics feel more like characters we can connect to, now that we have a relationship between these two women. And despite the sort of stupid will-they-won't-they thing with Nora and Mary Louise, there's a part of me that does oddly root for them as a couple. So they must be doing something right.

The flash-forward was slightly annoying, because everything is moving at such a slow pace. However, I do still like where they're going with Matt's character. This week, he meets Stefan outside, and pretends that they're still on the same side. He tells him that Caroline is safe, but that Damon is still inside, and then he vervaines Stefan in the neck before he can defend himself. You can tell that Matt's not exactly thrilled to be turning on people he once considered friends, but at the same time he's become firmly committed to the idea that vampires can only bring evil to the lives of humans. And he has a pretty good point.

And speaking of Matt, the one good subplot of the night followed up on his new relationship with the cop Penny, who finds Matt's weapons in his car and is getting mighty curious about what Matt is up to. She follows Matt into Mystic Falls, where Matt was checking on some humans who were apparently tricked by Julian and his gang into thinking that it was safe to come home. Penny learns that vampires are real, and that they have overrun Mystic Falls. I love that Matt has another human ally now, somebody that isn't all entangled with the lives of these vampires to the point of complicating the mission. Also, I loved Matt's explanation as to why he hasn't just left town and never looked back. Mystic Falls is the only thing he has left - he doesn't talk to his parents, his sister is dead, and if he lets go of this town, he doesn't even know who he'll be. That's a convincing - and depressing - explanation of his motives.

The main thing that I liked about this episode was the main plot, so that counts in its favor.

Basically, Damon has gone completely off the rails in the wake of killing Elena, and Stefan is really worried about him. Damon goes to the bar and confronts Julian, who decides, instead of killing him, to bring him to a vampire fighting ring, where the winners get to have vacated houses, and the losers die. Damon takes on vampire after vampire, until finally Julian agrees to confront Damon himself. Stefan shows up, having been tipped off by Valerie that Damon seemed to have a death wish. Stefan begs Damon not to go through with this and get himself killed, but Damon does it anyway. While fighting Damon, Julian taunts him about all that he's lost. Stefan and Valerie double back, under a cloaking spell. Valerie uses her witchy powers to incapacitate Julian, while Stefan begs his brother not to let Julian do this. Damon agrees, and they leave, with Julian furiously watching the three of them escape.

Stefan pushes Damon to talk to him, and Damon admits that he killed Elena. This causes Stefan to have a breakdown. He punches Damon and runs off to his car to cry. Valerie finds him, and Stefan decides that all of this is Julian's fault. Julian is the reason Lily is dead. He's the reason Valerie lost her baby, the reason that Damon was in that Phoenix Stone to begin with, and therefore the reason that Elena is gone. Valerie and Stefan use the cloaking trick again, this time cloaking Julian in the middle of his own headquarters. Stefan kills Julian.

Well, holy shit. First of all, my one small complaint is that killing Julian ended up being pretty easy, ultimately. Why didn't anybody think of cloaking him and isolating him before? But whatever. The fact of the matter is, Stefan is a bad ass. I continue to think that Elena's not really dead... but this episode really made me feel the pain of her loss, since Damon and now Stefan really do truly believe her to be gone. I loved Stefan's breakdown in the car. It was so clear that he was devastated not only because Elena was dead, but because he finally understood that this was something Damon might not ever be able to come back from. It was very effective.

Valerie played her part well, helping Caroline with the magic syphoning baby issue, and also standing by Stefan's side to help him bring down Julian. I like her much more when she's not antagonizing anybody.

Damon and Stefan's relationship got just the focus that it deserved. We start the episode seeing Damon reverting to his old trick of lying in the middle of the road and luring innocent humans to their deaths. He compels the human that he traps, and ends up talking with him a bit about his messed up life. He says that he can't imagine ever caring about anybody else ever again. Later in the episode, we see that this isn't strictly true. Even through the heart-wrenching pain of having killed Elena, he still cares for his brother. I love that Stefan understands that he himself is Damon's weakness. When Damon was about to let himself be killed by Julian, Stefan convinces Damon to run away by telling him that if Damon let Julian kill him, then Stefan would kill Julian in revenge. And if that happened, Julian's followers would surely kill Stefan. It's that thought, that his own death might cause his brother to die as well, that convinces Damon to fight for his life. At least for the moment. I absolutely love that.

So... there you have it. The strength of this episode rested entirely on Stefan and Damon. Because of all the other subplots going on, the episode as a whole can't be considered great. But it certainly wasn't bad either, and I'm still intrigued to see where we go from here. I leave you with one final question until next week: where the hell is Tyler??

7.5/10