The Vampire Diaries: I Went to the Woods (7x17)

This was a pretty great episode, with one annoying thing that keeps me wondering where the hell they're trying to lead us this season. Let's dive right in.

Cons:

I'll start with a few housekeeping things - small complaints that don't ruin the episode, but nevertheless grate on my nerves:

Caroline and Alaric are creepy together. We don't see Caroline this week, which is also dumb, since she hasn't been around in a while, but we do learn that Alaric has fallen in love with her, while she just said yes to his proposal because it made sense for the kids. I'm sorry, but doesn't anybody else remember that Alaric used to be a father-figure for Elena? Elena, who is the same age as Caroline? And yeah, I know Caroline isn't really seventeen anymore, but her vampire body is frozen at that age, and Alaric is just going to keep getting older. In no time at all, this is going to start looking realllllly strange from the outside.

Still no Bonnie, and no explanation of what Enzo has been up to. And we did see Matt briefly, but that was just so he could clue Alaric in to what was going on, just before Valerie and Rayna showed up to mess up his domestic world. We still don't know the story behind Matt losing his girlfriend. I'm starting to get a bit frustrated with all these loose ends.

The big complaint is a bit more involved. So, the main plot of this episode, which I did quite enjoy, is that when the Phoenix Stone was destroyed, all the souls trapped inside it were freed, and glommed on to the nearest body they could find. Damon has to find Stefan, in somebody else's body, and also keep Stefan's body, now inhabited by another soul, close at hand so that he can reunite his brother's soul and body. At one point, Stefan is out in the cold, freezing, while Damon talks to him on the phone. They talk about how Damon has always been selfish and has never cared about anything but himself, until meeting Elena. Stefan basically says that he doesn't believe that Damon will come through for him, because Damon always makes the selfish choice.

Okay... let's unpack that for a moment. In what universe is Stefan actually some sort of selfless martyr, and in what universe is Damon actually a selfish jerk who has never cared about Stefan? I get what they're going for. I understand Stefan's anger, and I'm glad to see that he's not letting his brother off the hook for his mistakes. But what about Ripper Stefan? What about all the times that Damon protected Stefan, at the cost of his own safety, when they were kids? Damon is angry and bitter and irrational, but Stefan's hero complex often hurts people as much as it helps them. Damon has always loved his brother, and has always been willing to do anything to protect him. The problem isn't that Damon is too selfish to do the right thing for Stefan. The problem was always that Damon would screw up trying to do what was best, and would just say "screw it" and try to turn away from Stefan altogether. But he never could. For Stefan to have given up on him so utterly doesn't really jive with the characters we've been hanging out with for the past seven seasons. It's really bothering me that they're not diving more into the complexities here. Instead, it's just Hero Stefan and Villain Damon. It's like we're back at the beginning of Season One, or something!

Pros:

As much as I hate, hate, hate that Nora and Mary Louise were killed off, major kudos to Damon for the "Thelma and Mary Louise" joke, and also for pointing out that they were pretty much selfish monsters who cared for nobody but each other. That was a good way of emphasizing the dynamic between Stefan and Damon - Stefan accuses Damon of caring for nobody but himself, but when we compare Damon's actions with the way Nora and Mary Louise always behaved, we can see what true selfishness looked like. (Still. Stop killing lesbians 2K16).

Alaric and Valerie had a lovely conversation in this episode. They spend a good chunk of the episode sitting around waiting for Damon to track down Stefan, and they get to talking about the fact that they're both dating people who are still clearly hung up on their ex. Valerie has already sort of resigned herself to the fact that she and Stefan aren't going to last long-term, while Alaric knows that Caroline doesn't love him in the same way he loves her, but he's still trying to plan a future with her by proposing. I loved it when Valerie said she was rooting for Alaric and Caroline. Ah, yes. How very selfless of you, Valerie. I'm glad the show is acknowledging the fact that Valerie is pretty much a placeholder for Stefan, and that Alaric/Caroline isn't a pairing we're supposed to support all the way. It can get boring to see relationships that are obviously doomed within the narrative, but I rather like the fact that these characters know their relationships are doomed. That makes for some interesting drama, and makes me feel quite bad for Valerie. (Alaric, you're just creeping me out right now, buddy. Sorry).

The real meat of this episode is Stefan, with Damon playing an important supporting role.

Stefan wakes up in the body of an alcoholic bus driver. The bus has just crashed, and he runs off, evading arrest as the causer of the accident. He ends up in an abandoned cabin for a while, and then he ends up stuck outside in the middle of a snowstorm until Damon can come to rescue him. Damon finds Stefan's body, and at first thinks it's his brother with amnesia. He quickly realizes, due to Stefan's cavalier blood-drinking at a cafe, that he's dealing with somebody else. A quick chat with Alaric, Valerie, and Rayna confirms this. Rayna deduces that the soul inhabiting Stefan's body is a particularly dangerous one, and she escapes from Valerie and Alaric to go track him down. Damon reveals to fake Stefan that he knows he's not his brother, and the guy in Stefan's body escapes, leaving Damon with the task of finding the real Stefan, then finding Stefan's body so he can reunite them. They only have a few days to do all of this, because a vampire inside a human body can only last a little while, as evidenced by Jo's body failing when a vampire was inside of it.

With all of this, Paul Wesley gives what may be his finest performance ever on this show. He plays two characters - one, the serial killer who is inhabiting Stefan's body. He plays it off just creepy enough that we know something's wrong, but not so creepy that Damon would catch on right away. I loved the moment when Damon was rambling on about how Stefan had every right to be angry with him, and then "Stefan" interrupts: "Damon... I'm famished." Just the way he says it is so unsettling! And then there's his hilarious exit from the car. He just opens the window and basically flies out of it while Damon is driving. Peace out, I guess!

Stefan in the body of the alcoholic was seriously so tired and depressed and messed up. I loved the fact that Stefan was forced to go through withdrawal symptoms, and kept getting angry at the annoying irony. He's a vampire with bloodlust issues, and now he's experiencing a human's alcoholism. Yikes. Paul Wesley does a great job playing up Stefan's pain and desperation as he tries to run from the authorities and figure out his next move. I've got to wonder - when he tried to get the phone from the girl on the road, who was he planning on calling first? Damon? Valerie? Caroline? I guess we'll never know!

Damon and Stefan's phone call was maybe the biggest highlight of the episode for me, despite my annoyance with the show for ignoring Damon's many acts of selfless love for his brother over the years. Stefan really doesn't believe Damon is going to find him and rescue him, but even though Stefan's lack of trust must be breaking Damon's heart, Damon doesn't let it show. He stays focused on Stefan, getting him riled up to give him the strength to stay moving. He doesn't make it about himself. He talks to Stefan about their childhood games of hide-and-seek, where he remembers being scared when Stefan would hide in their father's office. Stefan accuses Damon of wanting him to get caught and punished, and Damon then reveals that he wasn't scared for himself - he was scared for his brother. All of this stuff just warmed my heart and made me super anxious about the future of their relationship. Hopefully by the end of this episode Damon will have worked through some of his issues and can remember how to be a good brother and friend even without Elena there as a security blanket.

Damon does find Stefan, but the next step is to find Stefan's body, which has been stolen by its current inhabitant. Alaric, using a few hints that this mystery vampire let slide, figures that the current inhabitant of Stefan's body might be a rumored serial killer from the 1880's, who trapped people in a room together and forced them to murder their friends. Nobody would believe the survivors' stories about another killer, and they would eventually go mad. We see "Stefan" show up at a college and immediately go to a frat party, ready to pick up his murderous plan where he left off.

I've got to say, I love the twist with the Phoenix Stone being destroyed and releasing all the vampire souls. I didn't really want to slough through another Hell-based episode, since I think we've already mined that setup well and good. Now, we've got the interesting dynamic posed by having Paul Wesley playing two different characters, and we have all the chaos of evil vampires suddenly popping up from where they've been being tortured in the Phoenix Stone's Hell. Remember how crazy Julian and Damon both acted when released from their Hells? This cannot be a good thing.

That's all I've got! I wish this show would treat its characters with a bit more complexity sometimes. I don't think it's a bad idea to have Stefan lose faith in Damon, but I do think it's a bad idea to somehow suggest that this loss of faith is totally justified. Stefan has every right to be angry with Damon, but I just don't buy him totally giving up. That being said, the emotional stakes in this episode still worked fairly well. I eagerly await more!

7.5/10