Oh, good. I was hoping we'd catch up with the flash-forwards soon. I think we might be in store for a very interesting final third of the season. Fingers crossed, anyway.
Cons:
Hm. I don't have a lot in the way of serious complaints, here. Except maybe the Valerie/Stefan stuff. I don't care much about them as a couple, even though Valerie has grown on me of late. Also, I'm sad to say that Caroline and Stefan's relationship still doesn't really get me. I know I'm supposed to be sad for Stefan that Caroline is staying with Alaric and the kids. I know I'm supposed to feel the tragedy of their separation. But for most of this season, I've found it hard to care about them together at all.
Pros:
Damon has decided to desiccate next to Elena for the next several decades until he can be reunited with her, but before that he has to take care of Rayna so she won't kill Stefan. Bonnie goes to the Armory again and meets with Enzo. She learns that Rayna has a limited number of lives, one each for the people who died to give her powers. Once she dies for the last time, problem solved. Bonnie tells Damon this via a text, but Enzo furiously tells her that she's made a big mistake. Turns out, Rayna's last life is linked to her targets. Anybody with the X marked on their chest will die if Rayna does.
Damon, who (with Matt's help) has already killed Rayna a couple of times and has left her buried to suffocate through her final incarnation, hears the news from Bonnie and rushes to try and save Rayna, and thus Stefan. He's nearly too late, but luckily he manages to dig her up before she suffocates. Stefan lives. Damon fights Rayna long enough for the Armory to show up and recapture her. Damon tells Stefan that he's safe, or at least as safe as he can be. Stefan despairs, because he knows there's still a chance that Rayna will get out and come for him. He can't be with Caroline and put the children in danger in case that happens. Damon then drops the bomb: he's planning on taking a sixty-year nap. Stefan begs him to reconsider, but Damon leaves. He leaves letters for Stefan, Alaric, and Bonnie; Bonnie shows up at the last second and tells Damon that he's hurting her, and that he'd better remember that.
Wow. So much stuff to talk about here. Rayna isn't the most interesting character to me in theory, and I still don't get why she looks so much like Elena. That being said, I did like the snarky back-and-forth banter she had going with Damon. We also learned that at some point, she had a vampire lover who she ultimately staked to death. Intriguing! That's a story I could totally get behind learning.
I also really loved all the stuff with Bonnie and Enzo, which surprised me. I talked last week about how the Armory doesn't interest me, and that holds true this week. But the focus wasn't really on the Armory as an institution. It was on Enzo and Bonnie and Rayna, and why the Armory wants to keep the latter alive. I guess I do have sympathy for their motives, since it looks like the Armory's information is the only reason Stefan is still alive. Bonnie was a bad ass as always here, putting Enzo in his place and refusing to forgive him for his actions.
Of course, the main thing to praise about this plot thread is Damon's goodbyes to the people who matter most to him. He writes a letter to Alaric, which is nice, since it reminded me of the good old days when their friendship was a part of this show. To Stefan, he gives a solid explanation for his actions: he's a bad brother without Elena, and Stefan always ends up getting hurt because of him. Stefan demands that Damon not do this, but Damon brushes it off as being "temporary." Damon has truly gone too far this time. The fact that Rayna has been locked up doesn't mean that Stefan's life is suddenly without peril. How does Damon even know that Stefan will still be around when he finally wakes up? What if something happens to him? Stefan's speech about how he had given up everything that had ever mattered to him for Damon's sake was really heartbreaking. He goes so far as to say that if Damon cares about him at all, he won't walk out that door. What does Damon do? He walks out that door. God, that's heartbreaking.
But what's even more heartbreaking is the Damon/Bonnie final scene. Damon believes that he'll most likely see Stefan again, and so he doesn't have to face the consequences of that goodbye. But Bonnie... he can't even bring himself to face her, instead writing out his goodbye in a letter. But Bonnie - brave, courageous, incredible Bonnie - won't let him take the easy way out. She confronts him. She doesn't let him off the hook. She tells him, in no uncertain terms, that his actions are hurting her and that she doesn't forgive him for doing this to her. It was brutal to watch, and you could tell that Damon's heart was completely breaking. It speaks to what a terrible place he's in that even after Bonnie's heartfelt declaration, Damon still decides to go through with his temporary suicide.
While this is going on, there's a subplot with Stefan and Valerie looking for an herb that can mask the magic of the X on his chest and prevent Rayna from finding him. They find a herb garden with a bunch of witchy herbs, but the old woman guarding it tells them that somebody else has taken the last of the herbs they need. Tough luck! Stefan collapses with no apparent cause, and Valerie tries to help him. Luckily, Damon saves Rayna and Stefan recovers. Stefan then goes home and finds Damon, who tells him his plan to desiccate.
This plot thread wasn't my favorite, but I still did like it. I mentioned that Valerie/Stefan doesn't do much for me, but I nevertheless liked their discussion of whether or not settling down sounded appealing. Stefan has always craved a home, while Valerie has resigned herself to the constant shifting excitement of a life on the move. I actually got a little emotional when she was trying to save him from his mysterious near-death. She really does care for him. Valerie is like the best person on this show right now, besides Caroline.
Meanwhile, you've got Matt and Penny (his new cop friend) who had an awesome subplot. They go around Mystic Falls killing vampires, until Damon recruits Matt's help in taking out Rayna. Matt explains to Penny that there are some good vampires, like Stefan, and that he helped Damon out to save Stefan. Penny points out that vampires seemed to have totally destroyed any chance for humans to live their lives in Mystic Falls. Matt goes to Stefan, who has just learned that Damon is leaving, and tells him that he and all other vampires need to leave Mystic Falls. If they refuse, Matt will show the rest of the world the footage he has of them doing non-human things, thus exposing the existence of vampires to the whole world. Stefan, who has just lost his brother, is now losing his home, the one thing he craves most desperately. He can't be with Caroline, or Damon, and he can't even be with Mystic Falls. Ouch.
My goodness, I love all this stuff with Matt. It's been a slow burn, but his turn toward hatred of vampires has been one of the most interesting things this show has ever done. Of course he would hate vampires. He has every reason to. Penny is shaping up to be an interesting character, and I love the fact that she's the one to push him to his final decision to confront Stefan and kick all the vampires out. I question whether exposing the truth would really be a viable option, as many people would think it was merely a hoax, and compulsion could take care of many others. But even so, I love the dilemma that Matt is in here. As he tells Stefan, he hates that he has to threaten his friend, but he also hates that he has a friend who's a vampire in the first place. And Stefan isn't going to kill Matt and be done with the threat, because he's ultimately a good person. And that's what Matt is banking on when he confronts Stefan without backup. That's some pretty twisted stuff.
We end with the final flash-forward, "final" in the sense that we seem to have finally filled in all the relevant information. From this point forward, I think we'll be sticking in the "three years later" time frame. Stefan is caught by Rayna who asks him which of her two lures, Damon or Caroline, actually brought him straight to her. Stefan refuses to answer. Rayna then offers to switch the X on his chest to another vampire, so that he can go free. Rayna says she understands that Stefan doesn't deserve this - Damon does. Stefan refuses to turn against his brother, but Damon then turns up and tells Stefan that it was his idea. He wants to sacrifice himself to save Stefan.
I'm so excited that we're finally caught up. I actually gasped when I saw Damon appear next to Rayna, offering to take on Stefan's deadly mark. Obviously it's not going to be easy to convince Stefan to let Damon die, but after all Damon has cost him over the years, you can see why it wouldn't be an automatic "no." Rayna's question to Stefan was interesting. Was it Damon or Caroline that brought Stefan running? My money is on Damon. I also liked seeing a rapid-fire recap of everything that's happened in the flash-forwards so far. We have most of the answers we've been waiting for - why Caroline and Alaric are together, how Stefan and Valerie came to become close again, why Alaric is so furious at Damon, and why Damon was in the coffin to begin with. We know why Caroline is pissed at Stefan, more or less, and we understand who Rayna is and what her mission is as well. The only piece of the puzzle we don't have is what Bonnie is doing in some sort of facility, and how her and Enzo became an item. I'm so curious about how this is all coming together! I can't wait!
9/10
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