The Last Day

Vampire Diaries Episode Review

In which it's time. Having finished the info dumps - here's the action, both practical and emotional on The Vampire Diaries.

What Happened

Elijah produces an elixir that can supposedly bring Elena back to life after the ritual. Damon decides that this is one of the dumbest ideas he's ever heard (and that's saying something in this town). When Alaric appears with a message that Klaus expects the sacrifice to take place that night, Damon forces Elena to drink his blood so that if Klaus manages to kill her, she will come back as a vampire.

After Elena tells Damon to get lost, Stefan takes her away from the house to spend the day doing something that does not involve death and despair. Stefan quietly urges her to talk about what she's feeling, until Elena tells him that she never wanted to become a vampire, even if it meant that they would be together.

Klaus' witch Maddox puts Tyler's mother in the hospital, luring Tyler back to town. Tyler and Caroline meet and exchange some awkward before Maddox and Greta knock them out and take them off to be Klaus' other sacrifices during the ritual. After a run-in with Klaus, Damon decides to make up for his actions be getting rid of Klaus' werewolf - forcing him to delay the ritual for a month to find a new one.

Damon manages to free Tyler and Caroline - with an assist from Matt - but it's too late. For one thing, Elena has already gone with Klaus. For another, Tyler's turning into a werewolf a little ahead of schedule. Sending Caroline and Matt to hide in the old Lockwood cellar, Damon confronts Klaus.

As big a believer in Plan B as Katherine ever was, Klaus explains that he has a back-up werewolf in the form of Jules. And he'll have a back-up vampire as well when he needs one. It isn't Katherine, for reasons left unexplained. And it isn't Damon, because he got bitten by Tyler and is going to be Dead Soon.

It's Jenna.

The Good

• Matt and Liz arguing over Caroline.
• "Thanks for the advice." Klaus and Damon.
• "I was supposed to grow up." Stefan and Elena's talk. Loved how patient he was. Loved how mature Elena was.
• Klaus testing Katherine.
• Matt! With the save. Didn't see that coming.

The Bad

• As touching as Caroline's insistence on not leaving without Tyler was - she kind of missed the point. Vampires are a dime a dozen in this scenario. The werewolves are the rare commodity. Damon wasn't leaving Tyler behind unless Tyler was dead.
• Speaking of a complete lack of communication - did anyone tell Bonnie and Jeremy what's been going on?

The Cliche

• All the best rituals take place in a tomb.
• Tyler and Caroline get all soulful-gazing and stuff in a near-death situation.
• Cell Phone Fallacy. Seriously. Damon. Call your brother and let him know what's going on. Talk to people from the start and Stefan and Elena might have made completely different choices when Klaus showed up at the house.

What Did I Think?

More and more twists and turns, pulling everyone into things in a way that didn't even really happen in Season One. (The exception being Bonnie. I imagine someone was keeping her informed, but there was still some TV Story Jazz Hands going on regarding her part in things.)

Damon's actions are at once entirely in line with his character and a massive demonstration of why he and Elena don't belong together. Giving her his blood, forcing her to drink, was an assault and I'm glad they didn't gloss over that. Though... if I had a nickel for every time Elena said she wouldn't forgive Damon and then went right back to trying to make him a Better Person, I could afford a mid-priced latte.

And then there's Stefan - knowing what Elena needs to hear and to say. That's a healthy relationship. Although I do wish his call with Damon hadn't ended with Stefan standing there mournfully. Take action! Stefan shouldn't go completely off the rails, but some indication of motion would be nice.

Elena's confession was very Buffy-esque - lamenting the fact that all these adult choices are being forced on her unprepared. It's a recurrent theme in this genre, probably because it resonates with teens in general and young women in particular.

I was half-expecting Elena to be secretly relieved and I'm so glad they didn't go that route. It would have played to the "Well, he loved me so that makes it okay." Elena's reaction reinforces that this wasn't a grand romantic gesture. Okay. It kind of was, but Damon really should have realized what Stefan seemed to: if Elena had wanted to take that route, she would have asked.

Love the way all the pieces are coming together. We also have Matt becoming active, just as Tyler returns. They took Matt's character to an interesting place here: he killed Maddox. (Where'd he get a rifle, anyways?) First example of violence from a non-supernatural teen character.

So. Jenna. I get just how callous Klaus is here. Also makes me wonder why he doesn't use Katherine for the sacrifice. Is she disqualified because she was once the doppelganger? Is there still a connection there, warped as it might be? Or does he have other plans? Or is Klaus just being cruel because he can?

And how do I feel about Jenna being a vampire? She's nominally Elena's authority figure, but she's been remarkably useless in that capacity. Either absent or purposefully kept in the dark. When I think of Jenna's character, I think "well meaning but clueless." I don't really see her adapting well to this, even though I suppose I might have said the same about Caroline at the start.

I don't want to seem completely callous here, but if I was putting money into a death pool, I'd bet on Jenna and Jules.

But it's been demonstrated that my predictive powers are pretty pathetic, so maybe I'll just go back to waiting for Thursday.