I can’t decide between opening up with “THIS SHOW” or “YOU GUYS” so I’m just going to go with, “You guys, this SHOW!!”
This week’s episode was like an Oprah episode. “YOU get a doppelganger, and YOU get a doppelganger, EVERYBODY gets a doppelganger!” I mean this literally and figuratively because we already know about Silas/Stefan and Katherine/Elena but now we have so much more thanks to Qetsiyah. That’s right, THAT Qetsiyah, former great love of Silas, who has shown up to help a wandering and starving Stefan while treating the rest of us to some SERIOUS backstory!
(Also, I think I sort of love Qetsiyah. Already. I don’t do halfsies when it comes to my emotions.)
Last week we saw Stefan escape from his underwater tomb (although now I’m pretty sure that had to do with Ms. Q) with Elena and Damon trying to find him. After attacking some poor unsuspecting bartender he winds up in the cabin of Qetsiyah. She needs Stefan to help her find Silas – and not because she loves him but because HE betrayed HER in order to get an immortality elixir. Basically Silas played her like a damn fiddle and I say he gets whatever’s coming to him. The woman he was actually in love with was her handmaiden, Amara, who was – you guessed it – the original doppelganger of Katherine and Elena. Qetsiyah created The Cure and “gave” it to Amara and then promptly slit her throat. She then offered it to Silas, hoping he would take it, become mortal and spend a lifetime with her. Uh yeah. That was never going to happen.
Damon, Elena and Katherine are all searching for Stefan and while Katherine is still Empress Snark of Snarkville, I do believe we are seeing the tiniest smidge of a softer side of her. She claims to care about Stefan but she also thoroughly enjoys sowing seeds of doubt into the minds of Damon and Elena as to whom is Elena’s One True Love. This is a strong theme in this show, this idea that you have one great love (apparently even if you live for hundreds of years) and all of the questions presented this week tug on the seam of that idea. When Damon finds Stefan unconscious and tied up at Ms. Q’s House o’ Spells she takes no small pleasure in recanting her two thousand years of experience watching the doppelgangers of Silas and Amara find each other over and over and over again.
“Century after century I watched versions of Stefan and Elena find each other. The universe is conspiring against you. You and I are the same. We’re the conflict that makes it interesting. As long as Stefan is in the way you’ll never be with Elena.”
Damon isn’t Ms. Q though and after she finishes channeling her spell through Stefan in order to fry Silas’ brain (no more mind control, yay!), he takes his brother home. And all of our hearts SWELL. Qetsiyah is bitter, crazy, paranoid (and also impressively self-aware of this). Damon could be driven to the brink if he has to watch Elena fall in love with his brother again. Instead of hiding this fear from Elena he tells her that he’s not the universe’s bitch and he IS the master of his own destiny and it HAS to be that way because…she is his life. (This scene was brought to you by Kleenex.) Earlier Qetsiyah tells Stefan that “Love bends the rules of what’s possible” and I hope for Damon’s sake that it means more than just being able to entomb your treacherous fiance for two millennia.
Meanwhile Nadye has conjured up her dead lover Gregor through Matt’s head and in case you were wondering, yes, it’s very hot to hear Matt Donovan speaking in a Czech accent. She says she’s keeping him safe from Silas. She snatches Katherine after having “Matt” phone Elena to find him but of course Silas trusts no one, least of all his new cohort and so put a GPS on her car. Still, they manage to escape thanks to Ms. Q’s brain-frizz and our lady Katherine is forced to stay in a cheap motel and eat potato chips. Silas phones up and tells her that the reason he wants her (duh) is because SHE is now The Cure as it runs through her veins.
So while we have new ACTUAL doppelgangers, we now have emotional doppelgangers too. When Qetsiyah was telling Stefan how her One True Love ripped her heart out you can’t help but know that in his head Stefan is like, “OH I THINK I KNOW A BIT ABOUT WHAT THAT’S LIKE” and later she tells Damon that he’s a sidenote for Elena just like she was for Silas. So which brother will allow their disappointment and heartbreak make them like Ms. Q? This enquiring mind REALLY wants to know and I’m now officially excited to see where this storyline is going to go. (Sidenote: I was thoroughly bored by the Silas mythology last season so well done, writers!)
So as this excellent chapter comes to an end we have Elena and Damon in a tender embrace and brain-frazzled Stefan coming to on the couch. Except that he has no idea who either of them is and all I can do is PANIC because Brand New Stefan will most likely fall for Elena and I AM FLAILING OVER HERE, GUYS. KERMIT-STYLE.
Moments of Hilarity:
Katherine (to Elena): “Do you really think that I want to go on a road trip with America’s Most Boring Self-Righteous Vampire?”
Stefan: “That’s a second chance??”
Qetsiyah: “I’m a complicated person.”
Qetsiyah: “Probably don’t want to get on my bad side.”
Damon: “You realize you’re not the only one with a bad side.”
Damon (to Qetsiyah): “Well I guess the rumors are true. You are a ray of sunshine.”
Moments of Heart-swelling:
Katherine: “Why didn’t you kill me?”
Elena: “Because I value my humanity.”
Damon (to Elena): “You are my life.”
Let’s dish! What did you guys think of Qetsiyah (or, as she wants to be known, Tessa)? Amnesiac Stefan? Do we even care about the gypsies anymore? Were you pining for Caroline even though this show had a serious overflow of sass without her? Do you think that Qetsiyah rolling up may mean a glimmer of hope for Dearly Departed Bonnie?
About the Contributor:
Amanda Reid is an East Coast girl living in California who will never stop missing a true autumn. She’s a bookseller who specializes in kid and teen lit, and she bakes a damn fine pie.
