The Vampire Diaries: This Woman's Work (7x13)

Woah!! Okay this episode wasn't perfect or anything but one thing happened that totally freaked me out and got me really excited for the future. And yeah, it's not hard to guess what it is.

Cons:

As much as I truly love the flash-forwards, they cause a big problem in the main story - really dramatic stuff is going on here, such as Caroline's perilous birthing of the twins, and Damon, Enzo, and Bonnie's first encounter with the newly freed and vengeful Rayna. Only problem is... we know all of these characters are going to be fine at least for the time being, because we know where they end up three years from now. Sort of pulls the tension from the moment, doesn't it?

As intrigued as I was earlier in the season at the possibility of Bonnie/Enzo, right now Enzo's character is again dragging the story around to exactly nowhere. Why did he decide to bring Rayna back into the mix again? And how stupid is he that he let her escape from his clutches that easily to go chasing after old foes?

We learn Rayna's backstory here. It wasn't a bad story, but it all seemed hinged on revenge for her father's death, and her father was killed by Julian. Since Julian was already offed by an infuriated and bad ass Stefan last week, Rayna's mission seems sort of lacking. She's after the other Heretics, and even manages to kill the most useless of them (Beau). But a part of me just feels like... so what?

Pros:

That being said, there were things to love about this episode as well. First, let's talk about how the Heretics have actually become interesting to me. As Alaric races home, Caroline is in terrible danger from the syphoning baby witches inside of her. (God this show is weird). Valerie enlists the other Heretics - Mary Louise, Nora, and Beau - to come help generate a lot of magic so that the babies will hopefully be enticed by the new source and stop feeding on Caroline's magic, thus allowing themselves to be born. This seems to be working, but when Rayna sets her sights on the Heretics, they are forced to flee. Beau doesn't make it. Valerie stays behind to help Caroline deliver her children, and she is successful! Alaric shows up in time to show Caroline the children she helped to save. He names them Josette after their mother, and Elizabeth after Caroline's mother. I know we already knew that from the flash-forward, but it is still CRIMINALLY ADORABLE. I LOVE IT.

I loved how the Heretics were willing to step up and help Caroline, because it was the right thing to do. It seems more and more clear that their evil behavior was partly motivated by Julian's influence and an inflated sense of their own importance. They are not unwilling to do the right thing when it comes down to it. And Valerie's motivations are especially important - she wants to give these miracle babies the chance they deserve, since her baby never got that chance. Aww!

Meanwhile, in Huntress news, we learn that Rayna was imbued with magical powers through the sacrifice of some friends so that she could live a long life and kill the vampires who plagued her family and friends for so long. We saw the moment when she attacked Beau, taking his voice from him, and then trapped Julian in the Phoenix Stone in revenge for her father's death. While this backstory didn't really do much for me, and I'm still annoyed by the lack of reasoning for her eerily Elena-ish appearance, I did like one thing: Julian didn't just kill her father. He actually compelled her to kill him. That's dark and twisty, and Rayna's pain and anger feel very justified.

In the present day, Enzo blackmails Damon into handing over the Huntress' sword, with the Phoenix Stone intact. Basically, he tells Damon that if he doesn't get Bonnie to hand over the sword, Enzo will tell Bonnie that Damon killed Elena. However, once Bonnie and Damon bring the sword forward, they learn that Enzo had been caught by Rayna and used to lure them into a trap! The Huntress is thus reunited with her sword. Damon tells Stefan the news, and Stefan is not happy to hear that Damon screwed things up so badly. Bonnie is suspicious about Stefan's over-the-top anger, but Damon doesn't tell her what's really going. Damon is overcome with guilt for everything that's happened, so he lures Rayna away from the rest of the Heretics and fights her. Stefan, at Bonnie's insistence, goes to try and help Damon. Just as Damon is about to be stabbed by Rayna, Stefan gets in the way and gets marked with an X by her sword. That means that Stefan will always have to keep running. Rayna will never stop hunting him.

Damon does get some good news, though. Just as Damon is about to kill Enzo for letting Rayna get her hands on the sword, Enzo reveals that he and Tyler had a decoy coffin, and Damon only hallucinated that Elena was really inside of it. Elena is safe and sound, far away. Damon calls Stefan to tell him the good news, and promises that he won't stop until he finds a way to bring Stefan home.

So many good things were going on here. I liked the Bonnie and Damon friendship stuff. Bonnie kept making snarky jokes about Damon's random hookup, and how she would be writing a detailed description of what she knew for Elena to read when she woke up. Meanwhile Damon looks like he's about to fall to pieces with grief, knowing that he'd lose Bonnie on top of everything else if he ever told her the truth about Elena.

Like I said before, Enzo still doesn't quite fit into the story, but I did like the mention of Damon and Enzo's friendship. More of that, please. They had serious potential there for like two seconds.

And then of course you have Stefan and Caroline. Their romance was once again inconvenienced by everybody else's problems. I think maybe their issue is that they are both such good people. Caroline is incapable of being selfish, so of course she's focused on the babies. And Stefan, as furious is he is at Damon, is incapable of leaving his brother to die. Because of that, he has to run off and leave Caroline behind to avoid being killed by Rayna. Ouch. So depressing.

The phone call between Damon and Stefan was great. I loved Stefan's overwhelmed and relieved reaction to the news that Elena wasn't dead, and you could really feel the desperation in Damon's promise to get rid of Rayna and bring Stefan back home where he belongs.

Lastly, the flash-forward. Caroline, having escaped from Rayna's clutches with Matt's help, is now in the car with the three-year-old twins. She is fleeing to... New Orleans. To visit a friend. HOLY HELL IT'S KLAUS!! I think I've been missing Klaus more this season than ever before, because let's be real - Julian is just a poor man's Niklaus Mikaelson. He's not the real deal. As a huge Klaus fan who doesn't watch The Originals for reasons of not having time for yet another show, I'm beyond thrilled that we're going to be seeing him again. The whole Caroline/Klaus thing... well, I can take it or leave it. But Klaus himself is going to be so exciting to see.

Also, I loved seeing Caroline as a mother. She's obviously brilliant at it. But what exactly makes Caroline so venomous about Stefan? It has to be more than what we've seen so far... as problematic as these flash-forwards can be, I'm still beyond excited to see how everything turns out.

That's all I've got for now. RIP to the entirely pointless character of Beau. It looks like the lady Heretics are the only survivors, which I guess is kind of neat. We're approaching the final third of the season soon. We'll have to see if they can do something good with it.

7.5/10