The Vampire Diaries: We're Planning a June Wedding (8x15)

I kind of can't believe they let Caroline and Stefan get married. And I kind of can't believe they just resurrected another character that's been dead forever. But on the other hand, I guess we're keeping with this whole "anything goes" attitude that's actually been working pretty well for these last few episodes. Just one to go!

Cons:

The bulk of this episode focuses on Caroline and Stefan getting married, and on figuring out what the heck is going on with Matt's mother, who has mysteriously returned to Mystic Falls. The one sliver of the episode that I didn't like was the one focused on Dorian and Alaric continuing to hunt down ways to destroy Hell. Yeah, that's their plan. Katherine is the Queen of Hell apparently, so they're hoping to cut her off from the source of her power by destroying it entirely. Every time Dorian opens his mouth to talk about creating a magic bomb or whatever the heck, my brain just switches off. It's an old complaint, but this show really loses me when it turns to its mythology and the nitty-gritty details of its plot.

Pros:

But that's actually a very small nitpick. The reality is, this is a great episode. Not sure if it felt like a penultimate episode... there's still so much to cover! But I loved all the stuff going on here.

Stefan and Caroline's wedding manages to be both tense and romantic. The whole reason for holding the wedding so soon is to try and draw Katherine out from wherever she's hiding. This means that Caroline has to put the thing together in a rush, and compromise on a lot of what she always hoped for. Things are tricky because her girls can't be there - too dangerous - and Bonnie can't be there either. She can't watch Caroline marry Stefan, the man who murdered Enzo.

Damon is the orchestrator of the plan to catch Katherine, but he's also there for his brother, and he treats the wedding as a serious and real thing. He gets ordained online so that he can be the one to perform the ceremony, which is just adorable. He manages to mix in serious words about his love for his little brother with his typical Damon-esque sense of sardonic humor. My favorite moment is when he straightens Stefan's tie just before the wedding, and reassures him that he won't let Katherine get away with anything: "Know this - if she lays a hand on you, I will cut her up into tiny little pieces, and I will serve her at the wedding buffet." The dynamic between Stefan and Damon is forever changed by the fact that Stefan is human now. But that doesn't mean their bond runs any less deep.

Even though this episode is ostensibly about Caroline and Stefan's relationship, Stefan spends more time with Damon, and that's the bond that we focus on. I don't really mind, though, for obvious reasons. I love that Damon gets Stefan drunk during his impromptu bachelor party. I love that Stefan tells Damon he wants to see him happy with Elena, the way he's about to be happy with Caroline. Damon tells Stefan that he needs to be his best man, and hopes he hasn't "lost his hero hair" when the time comes. These two just warm my heart. I love how the wedding was this balance between a legitimate plan to lure Katherine out of hiding, and an actual wedding that everybody takes very seriously.

Another highlight of the episode is Caroline and Damon talking the night before the wedding. She actually confides in him some of her frustrations. Her kids won't be there, Bonnie won't be there, Elena won't be there... Damon gives Caroline Elena's necklace to wear around her wrist as a reminder that Elena is there for her, but says he does want it back: it's Caroline's "something borrowed." This was such a great moment, and it gets even better for Caroline from this point forward.

Ric brings the girls, saying that a protection spell from the absent Valerie will keep them safe. Caroline gets to have her daughters be her flower girls, which is just precious! Ric doesn't attend, but he and Caroline have a lovely moment of closure, which I thought was nice.

Bonnie spends much of the episode in her little dream world with Enzo, unable to face the reality of Stefan and Caroline's happiness in the face of her loss. Enzo convinces her to be there for Caroline, and she shows up at the last minute. I'm so glad that Caroline ended up getting the wedding she wanted, even if it took some strange routes getting there. Bonnie's presence at the wedding ends up being a very important thing, as I'll discuss in a moment.

Then you've got Matt. I'm not exactly a huge fan of his involvement in the myth arc this season, but the return of his mother actually worked really well as a capstone to the season, and it lead into the twist perfectly. Turns out, Matt's absentee mother actually died two years ago, and Katherine brought her back from hell to wreak havoc. Katherine's plan? To burn Mystic Falls with Hellfire. How? Ring the special bell that only a Maxwell can ring. But Matt doesn't plan on doing that, and neither does Peter, so... what does that mean?

The most brilliant part of this episode is that throughout the whole thing, you see a shadowy figure, a silhouette of a woman who murders a random town member, someone waiting just outside the wedding and sending texts to Matt's mom. You assume, and why wouldn't you, that this is Katherine, but as the truth comes out about Katherine's plan, you realize: it's the Donovan she needs to ring the bell. Vicky. Like I said, I can't believe they got me again. That's three episodes in a row where I've gasped out loud at the return of a character I truly believed was gone for good.

And that's not the only shocking thing to come out of the end of this episode. Bonnie takes the twins inside the house during the wedding, and we then learn from Matt's mother that she's set the place up to explode by putting a gas tank in the fireplace. Caroline and Stefan rush to the house, but they're too late - the place goes up in flames, with Bonnie, Lizzie, and Josie still inside. Luckily, the twins siphon from Bonnie's magic and repel the flames. What magic, might you ask? The magic that has been keeping Bonnie connected to Enzo all this time. In allowing the twins to siphon it away, she has to say goodbye to Enzo once and for all. She promises him she'll live a good long life, and then they'll be reunited after she dies.

Which... might be happening sooner rather than later? As Vicky Donovan rings the bell that's destined to destroy all of Mystic Falls, Bonnie collapses, right in front of a startled Stefan. Is she dead? Elena's return next week would seem to suggest that as a possibility. But would they really do that? Also, with Vicky back, does that mean we won't be seeing Katherine next week? Because that would be kind of a shame!

This review is really disjointed. Sorry. I wrote it very piecemeal and I'm kind of sick, so... what can you do? I'm really pleased with this penultimate episode of The Vampire Diaries, and I'm also at a total loss as to how they're going to wrap all of this up. There's stuff with the Cure. Who gets it and who doesn't? There's Katherine. Vicky. There's Bonnie. Is Enzo really gone for good? There's destroying Hell. I just don't know how this all ends up, and I'm pretty excited about seeing it all go down! Nina Dobrev, we're just one week away!

9/10