About:
APOLOGIES, dear readers. Yours truly had the power go out last night and so I didn’t get a chance to watch til this morning. To make it up to you I have a photo of Ian Somerhalder cuddling his very pregnant dog, Nietzsche, right as she’s about to go into labor. He found her running around outside while filming for TVD and adopted her. I’ll give you all a moment to swoon accordingly.
NOW – LET US DISCUSS.
Last week’s episode had a lot of death; Tessa, Silas, Amara and so now I’m assuming we can wrap those plotlines up in a neat little bow and tuck them away in the corner of our crafting closets. NOT. I’m sure they’re going to find their way back somehow now that Bonnie is the new anchor to The Other Side.
Sidenote – LOVING Bonnie’s new ‘do!
So now we are back at good old Whitmore College, where apparently you can enroll for classes up to the point that those classes are NEARLY OVER. Bonnie is rooming with Elena and Caroline and also shagging the hell out of Jeremy. I am already jealous of her college experience. The 3 Besties are happy to be together again and to celebrate they plan a Normal College Party, complete with Jell-O shots. Aww. It’s so cute when they think that life is going to be normal. When Bonnie is busy snogging Jeremy on campus she also starts to see dead paranormals looking for her so that they can pass over. So, yeah, there’s that.
Also – is anyone even mildly invested in Bonnie and Jeremy’s relationship?
Back at Chez Salvatore, Damon is trying to convince Stefan to buck up and come to the party at Whitmore, only Stefan is in the middle of having a full on PTSD flashback in Damon’s favorite reading chair. You know who I bet could help Stefan as well as bring hilarity and awesomeness to any scene? Human Katherine!
She is drowning her mortality sorrows at The Grill with Matt cutting her off for being drunk. (Yay, Matt is back!) She notices that he’s watching a video in Czech on his phone (Yay, product placement!) and offers to translate – for another drink. She breaks it on down for him, telling him how he’s a host for a Passenger and how gypsies are all into spirit travelling as a means of getting their witchy shit done. Matt misses a great opportunity to brag about his international threesome but gives Katherine enough info that she now realizes that Nadia is also involved. Ruh-roh.
In Professor SnugJumper’s Lab o’ Doom we see poor Jesse trussed up like a lab rat with PSJ making all sorts of notations. He’s feeding him Augustine blood which turns Jesse incredibly strong and gives him a HULK SMASH moment. He locks the professor in the lab and hides out in his dorm, phoning Caroline for help (actually, probably to eat her) when his roommate Aaron (remember him? Sort-of-nephew to PSJ?) comes back and Jesse has a bite out of him instead. Caroline swoops in to the rescue and promptly engages Jesse in a bit of Vampirism 101. Elena assists by bringing in some of their blood stash and telling Jesse that he has to embrace his vampirehood. Which is very odd, coming from Elena but hey! Progress and growth!
Katherine continues to get unashamedly and infinitely drunk at The Grill (which I fully support) and convinces Stefan to join her. He confides that killing Silas hasn’t given him the closure or ability to move on that he thought it would and that he keeps reliving his Summer of Repeated Drowning over and over again. Katherine’s all, “Duh, you have PTSD and unless you deal with it it’s going to deal with you, big fella”. Nadia shows up and Katherine introduces Stefan to her daughter and Stefan’s face is all WTF? Give it up for Stefan’s face, everybody!
Elena and Caroline continue in their quest for College Normality and their party rages on! Boring Aaron shows up and he and Elena chat about how they’ve both lost their parents and Elena wins by having lost TWO sets of parents. She realizes that all Aaron has is PSJ (which is super sad because he’s kind of robotic, even if he does have fine taste in sweaters) and so ducks out to make a quick call to Damon. Damon, you see, has PSJ tied up in his lab trying to get answers out of him about all of his vampire experiments. He’s also making comments that lead us to believe that this is all feeling a bit PERSONAL for Damon (foreshadowing!). He’s having fun injecting him with all kinds of viruses and bacterium (because, sure, I guess a small liberal arts college would have access to that in their labs) and promises to cure him if only he gives him ANSWERS.
So it turns out that the gypsies want Katherine dead. Is there any supernatural faction that doesn’t? I mean, what harm is she now that she’s human. They only need to wait it out another few months, dang! Matt brings the dagger, Nadia brings forth Gregor from Matt and Katherine gets him to confess that his real reason for being in Mystic Falls was to kill Katherine as well as Silas. Katherine kills Gregor by releasing him from Matt with the dagger and guess what? Nadia is SUPER PISSED even though that guy was obvs totes using her to get to Katherine. Way to further alienate your kin, Katherine!
Bonnie’s highlight of this episode was learning how she truly helps those passing over. She sees the ghost of the woman she helped earlier and the woman confides in her that the pain she felt while dying is gone and that she’s happier on The Other Side. This seems to be what Bonnie does; suffers so that others can feel less pain, and it seems to bring her a bit of peace with her new life as Anchor. We have to wonder just how long she can cope doing this for dead supernaturals. Later on she and Jeremy’s sexy time in her dorm room is interrupted by another dead supernatural – only this time it’s Jesse.
WAIT, WHAT?
Oh, didn’t I mention that the reason that PSJ is doing experiments on vampires is to create a new breed of vampire that doesn’t actually crave human blood but vampire blood? Did I forget that tidbit? And that he attacked Damon and was about to tear his head off so Elena STAKED HIM IN THE BACK with not-very-subtle symbolism? And then Caroline shows up with a look of total disappointment on her face at Elena? You do NOT want to be on the receiving end of Caroline’s Look of Disappointment.
Let’s take a sidestep here because I really adore Caroline, but I also do not get why she seems to think that Damon is a Terrible, Awful, No Good, Very Bad Guy. Sure, he’s done some bad stuff in the past (like all vampires have) but she’s basically a Sponsor to someone who was known as THE RIPPER. So maybe we can dial back the judgment and vitriol when it comes to Damon? Hmm? Just a smidge? She obviously blames Damon for Elena’s zero hesitation in killing Jesse, and while it was really sad to see that happen to a newbie vamp with very little self-control, she also has to look at the whole situation for what it is. AND she also needs to see how Elena and Damon being together actually has improved Damon IN MANY WAYS.
End rant.
Back to Mystic Falls! Where I wish this entire episode was happening! Seriously, can’t they just do e-courses? Stefan finds a note addressed to Nadia from Katherine. Turns out Katherine Pierce isn’t going to wait for death to leave her brittle and broken so she’s going to leap from the clock tower in a blaze of glory. Only Stefan ruins that plan by catching her. She tells him that she’s dying. She’s not going to face mortality, or run from it, she’s going to end things on her terms. Stefan isn’t having any of it and tells her to suck it up. I kind of love this and so does Katherine.
Back to Whitmore Lab, aka, the CDC! Damon is making with the clean-up process when he finds a blood bag with a number on it, triggering a memory (OH SHIT). He remembers being a vampire lab rat 60-odd years ago. PSJ manages to activate the sprinklers, which are full of vervane and BOOM, Damon finds himself captive in his old cell, vampire lab-rat, prisoner to the Augustines.
Moments of Hilarity:
“You realize Damon is going to kill Wes, right?” – Caroline
“He’s not going to kill him, he’s getting information.” – Elena
“You realize you’re wrong, right?” – Caroline
“What’s the matter with you…?” – Stefan
“Other than the joint pain, receding gums and having to pee every five minutes? I’m dandy!” – Katherine
“You’re Katherine Pierce. Suck it up.” – Stefan
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.
