Previously: Kai wins the witchy merge and kills Luke in the process, Tyler leaves Liv, Bonnie heads to Greenland to find her way back home, Stefan and Caroline finally kiss and the death of Liz Forbes breaks our collective heart.
Seeing Caroline trying to navigate something as inconsistent and crushing as grief is something I can personally relate to; I lost my father to cancer about ten years ago and the hardest thing is how it takes over your entire body, making you feel like a pod person. You wander through your own life feeling like an impostor; even brushing your teeth feels robotic and inappropriate. Your reality is physically altering; life no longer contains this person and how is that even possible?
It seems Caroline and I share many coping mechanisms, such as surrounding yourself with friends, making lists and staying busy. Grief is also AWESOME at removing any filters you used to give yourself to make life pleasant for other people, as shown by her unabashed disdain for Damon as he tries to write her mom’s eulogy. He tries to reach out by sharing why he thinks Liz chose him and Caroline checks her pockets for f*cks to give. (Spoiler alert – she has none.) He gently tells her to prepare for the incoming wave of grief and loneliness that hits after your friends and family have mourned beside you and dropped off casseroles. It’s inevitable and part of the process but Caroline on her best day isn’t comfortable with the unexpected so this should go well. We see her making a list, determined to get this funeral ball rolling, and she assigns tasks to all of her friends.
Jo is vomiting with Alaric in earshot and immediately I think that she’s pregnant. Then I tell myself that’s crazy because Alaric is a vampire and can’t get her pregnant, right? (He IS still a vampire, right? I honestly can not keep up.) She insists it’s food poisoning when Newly Empathetic Kai shows up at her door, sweaty and sick, insisting that he’s dying because he doesn’t have her magic. If he dies, the entire coven dies AND the magic that is holding together the prison worlds? Also gone. So does that mean Bonnie comes home or is trapped forever or simply dissolves into the ether…? He never makes that quite clear.
Damon is trying on ties and we flash back to him helping his baby brother (seriously, how many years are between them? Baby Stefan is YOUNG.) practice putting on a tie for their mother’s funeral, which we all know he bails on. Their father has instructed Stefan not to cry (stupid Puritans) and Damon informs Stefan that their father is a heartless moron. I can’t believe these two let a woman get between them. ANYWAYS.
Stefan reluctantly asks Damon for advice with Caroline, which immediately sets off alarm bells. Are you actually trying to convince me that Stefan is not in love with Caroline because I’m not having a single ounce of it. You can sell that snake oil elsewhere. Damon tells him that he knows what love feels like (sure, first love which is crazy intense, and first CRAZY love with a manipulative vampire, he knows that THEY feel like) and that he’s clearly not in love with Caroline (SHUT UP DAMON) and needs to pull the ripcord (TERRIBLE ADVICE). The only decent advice Damon has to offer is for Stefan to wait until AFTER her mom’s funeral to break her heart. AWESOME.
Elena and Caroline are casket shopping (how is she even bearing this?) and Elena schools Caroline in Funerals 101; folks say the worst, most well-intentioned awkward shit to grieving people. You have to know when to smile, nod, deflect and call in back-up. The last thing we need is Caroline (literally) tearing off some poor woman’s head who thoughtlessly tells her that her mom is “in a better place now”. Caroline tells Elena about her kiss with Stefan and Elena is all, Leave it until after the funeral. Yeah. I think we all know that was never going to happen.
Meanwhile Bonnie is feeling like a total badass, having secured the bloodstone from Greenland and getting her magic back. SHE IS READY TO COME HOME. She gets all her assorted magical goodies ready down in the cave and waits for the eclipse, except all of a sudden there is no moon and it’s snowing. DAMMIT KAI. She makes her way to a cabin, passing under the Northern Lights as she traipses through snow. Inside the cabin there are many signs that Bon-Bon should be concerned, like no electricity and old-timey lamps. Unless she’s stumbled into a hipster’s retreat it’s clear that she’s in yet ANOTHER time/prison world. On the dresser she sees pictures of the Salvatore Brothers. My first thought was OH MY GOD SHE’S IN CATHERINE’S PRISON WORLD, and then I remembered that Catherine is in hell. (I bet if anyone could talk their way out of hell it would be Katerina Petrova, AMIRITE?)
At the church Caroline stands alone in front of her mother’s open casket. Stefan quietly comes in and Caroline moves forward with her plan to Discuss The Kiss and he suggests they talk alone after the funeral. His I Am Not In Love With You message has rang loud and clear to poor Caroline.
The mourners start to file in after she has one more moment alone with her mom where she assures her that she will be alright. Tyler shows up drunk and Matt Donovan is having none of it. The rest of the Mystic Falls Police are there to show their respect. They give out a Last Call to their sheriff on their police radio, draping her casket in an American flag. Damon took Elena’s advice: his eulogy is for Caroline.
“Liz Forbes was my friend. In her last moments she asked me to pass along a message to her daughter…Your mom wanted you to know how proud of you she was, and she should be. A beautiful, strong woman. A generous friend and a bright light in the darkness. She said you were extraordinary, and you are. And so was she. Liz was a hero to this town, she was a hero to all of you and she was a hero to me. Goodbye Sheriff. You will be missed.”
Caroline sings her mother home and Stefan is enraptured; it takes a special strength to be able to sing like that while carrying your grief. Something changes in the way Stefan sees her and he realizes that all deep loves are not necessarily built the same.
Post-funeral going’s on are at The Grill and Matt approaches a now sobered-up Tyler, telling him that he’s decided to join the police force. My heart flip-flops a tiny bit because any police force would be lucky to have Matt Donovan. He recognizes the lack of purpose and focus in Tyler’s life and slides an application across the table. It’s probably not the appropriate time to start fantasizing about a buddy cop spin-off but I might be anyway. (Matt and Tyler: Good Cop, Bad Cop.) Brotherly bonding ensues as Damon apologizes to Stefan for not being there for him at their mom’s funeral. Stefan tells him that what he and Caroline have is different and could be something very real. “I think this could turn into something even better.” Damon tells him to Go Get The Girl already! Today of all days Caroline needs to hear this, what are you waiting for??
Kai has absorbed Jo’s magic and is feeling like gahtdamn BOSS. He informs her that she’s pregnant. (TOLD YA) Alaric immediately proposes and Jo isn’t feeling his “pity proposal” at all, except that he bought a ring AGES ago and has been waiting for the right time. Alaric really deserves some happiness. His first wife left him to become a vampire (and a bitch) and then he lost Jenna. YAY for weddings!
Bonnie goes back to her cave and awaits the eclipse while the two prison worlds flip back and forth around her. She’s approached by someone in the cave who turns out to be Mama Salvatore. So does this mean that she was also a witch…? Should I be more excited about this plotline? Because I’m really not. Returning supernatural parents have NEVER worked out in the past. Let’s just all hope that she’s not as crazypants bananas as Mama Mikkaelsen.
Caroline comes home to the emptiest house she will ever experience. She picks up her mother’s blanket and holds it to her nose. She senses Elena behind her even though she asked her not to follow her home. Elena has realized why Caroline wanted the funeral rushed; Caroline wants to get on with the process of shutting off her humanity because her grief is unbearable.
Oh Caroline. That’s what grief is supposed to feel like but it’s not forever. Someone tell her that it’s not forever! Elena turned off her humanity AND had Damon removed from her memory so Caroline isn’t trying to hear any advice from her at all. Caroline has deluded herself into thinking that she’ll have more control than Elena did when she flipped her switch. Have I mentioned how grief turns you into a crazy person? She hugs Elena and then snaps her neck. Dammit Stefan, where are you??
Damon arrives home to find Bonnie in his kitchen and we get the cutest hug of this entire show:
She’s brought back the pictures of Damon and Stefan that she found on the cabin’s dresser and she shows him the videotape of the woman in the cave. At least this plotline means we’ll get more Kai.
Thoughts:
- Bravo to Candace Accola for an amazing performance. The little touches she imbued to Caroline’s simultaneous grief/trying to keep it together were so honest. Caroline gently patting her mother’s folded flag, her vulnerability while talking to Stefan, etc.
- Baby Caroline and her skinned arm. “But what if you die and I’m still here?…I think I’ll always need you.” Oh my heart.
- “Hey, I’m even a little bit nice now, in case you’re wondering.” I hope this isn’t the last we see of Kai.
- No silly Enzo plotline this week, thank GOD.
- The rushed funeral is a good excuse for Klaus to not have been there. Because he damn well should have been there.
- “This is the last call for Sheriff Forbes” Police/military funerals are like a punch to the gut.
Predictions for Mama Salvatore? How long will Caroline be off the wagon? Are we ready to see Matt Salvatore in uniform?
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.
