By Carla Lee

For this episode, history repeating also means confronting the histories they’ve been trying to forget. This duality makes the episode both interesting and dramatic, though there were some flaws in the fun.

History #1: Bonnie and Emily. While I enjoy the dreams Bonnie has about Emily and the way she keeps waking up in the woods after sleepwalking, I’m not sure why Emily didn’t just possess her from the beginning and get it over with. If Emily was able to possess her after Bonnie threw away the necklace and refused the power, why couldn’t she have been possessed much earlier? It doesn’t make sense.

The most frustrating part of this plotline was the way Bonnie simultaneously reaches for the power of her family and at the same time tries to reject the part which frightens her, the part that comes from the necklace and Emily. That’s not really how it works, Bonnie; if you want to accept the power of your ancestors, you can’t really pick and choose which powers you get. Bonnie trying to choose which powers she uses does echo the way Stefan is rejecting some of the vampire powers he was given. If Bonnie can’t ignore the powers she doesn’t want, if they eventually break free, as they do, does this mean Stefan’s powers will eventually fully break free?

History #2: Stefan and Damon. Though obviously, Stefan had ulterior motives for befriending his brother again, it was nice to not only have the humour of them making fun of each other but also them being friendly and drinking together and playing football and basically bonding. Most fun is that Damon goes along with all the brotherly bonding even though he knows that Stefan has ulterior motives and even though he could have spent the time trying to get the necklace from Bonnie.

History #3: Stefan, Damon, and Katherine. The story has been building to Damon’s attempt at bringing back Katherine, of course, but it was also interesting to learn that both brothers have been keeping secrets. Some seem inconsequential: Stefan was the last to see Katherine the night she died and so, he knew about the necklace. Some are of utmost importance: Damon paid Emily to save Katherine. And some bring up issues which echo all the way through to the present: Stefan says he believes he never loved Katherine, but instead, she controlled his mind and made him love her, and so he believes she did the same thing to Damon. What this means for Stefan and Elena – could he be controlling her unconsciously? – isn’t really addressed, though it could be part of why Stefan decides to leave at the end of the episode.

History #4: Damon, Emily and Bonnie. I love that Damon paid Emily to protect Katherine and is now bound by that agreement, so he can’t kill Bonnie in trying to get back to the necklace. That explains why Damon hasn’t just killed Bonnie, since he’s shown no qualms at killing anyone else. What this doesn’t explain is why Emily, after she’s possessed Bonnie’s body, doesn’t stake him. It’s obvious from her little show of power that her magic is stronger than Damon, at least when he’s not had human blood – though it’s not been that long since he had some, since this is the night that never ends – so why doesn’t she simply stake him and then destroy whatever magic she left at the church?

History #5: Gilbert Family. This is only just beginning, but has opened a number of threads. Why does Alaric Saltzman, who gives Jeremy the project which will hopefully introduce more information about the Gilberts, spend so much time explaining his name to his history class? (And if he turns out to be the vampire who lives, after all the female vampires die, I will be pissed.) Damon removed Jeremy’s suffering, including the suffering he felt after his parents’ deaths, but Jeremy still hesitates when given the opportunity to dig into the family history his father collected. Is this maybe foreshadowing that Damon’s changes to his mind won’t last forever?

History #6: Bonnie, Emily, Elena, and Katherine. Though not a perfect repetition of the relationship between Emily and Katherine, at least as far as viewers know, the relationship between Emily and Katherine does cast some interesting shadows on the friendship between Bonnie and Elena, especially because we don’t yet know if Elena and Katherine are related. If the past does keep influencing the present, as it frequently does in this show, will Bonnie then end up making a huge sacrifice for Elena?

(One technical thing I found interesting is that, while Nina Dobrev plays both Elena and Katherine, Bonnie and Emily have different actors, Katerina Graham and Bianca Lawson, respectively. Of course, Bonnie hasn’t been called a dead ringer for Emily, but I still found it an interesting choice to make.)

The odd one out in this scenario, at least from what we’ve seen so far, is Caroline and frequently, I do not believe her friendship with Bonnie and Elena at all. First, I am bothered by the way Caroline keeps calling Bonnie a thief because she won’t return the necklace that Caroline gave herin the first place. That’s not a thief, Caroline. Second, Bonnie’s right when she confronts Caroline and says that Caroline doesn’t listen when they try to talk to her. She also frequently acts like a jerk to them.

However, Caroline leads to my favourite part of this episode, the séance with the flickering candles and the chill in the air, which in turn leads to the delightfully creepy scene where Bonnie becomes Emily.

Finally, the plotline which bothered me the most isn’t really historical, especially in light of the fact that Stefan doesn’t think he ever really loved Katherine but that she manipulated him into it. Elena and Stefan’s relationship is still one of those frustrating on-again, off-again relationships and for no good storytelling reason. It frequently comes across as if it’s being used to add drama and tension to the show, but there are plenty of other plotlines which add legitimate drama and tension; it doesn’t need to be forced with these relationship swings. The show has made it clear that the reason Stefan return to Mystic Falls is because he wanted to get to know Elena, so why is he now abandoning her? Is it another attempt to appeal to fans of Twilight? It seems like it is, especially because, visually, it was an echo of the scene in the New Moon advertisements and it’s very frustrating. The Vampire Diaries can stand on its own; it doesn’t need to be written and filmed as a Twilight knock-off.

Though I like where the episode ends, with the drama of Logan’s return and the very clear vampire movie language, I am frustrated that we have potentially two new male vampires after two episodes in a row where female vampires died. It also brings up my final quibble with this episode, which is why is Mystic Falls such a vampire haven? There were 27 other vampires with Katherine when she died and vampires keep arriving in Mystic Fallsalmost daily now. What’s the appeal?

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 Print | Filed under: Reviews, The Vampire Diaries by Paula R. Stiles