Masquerade
Vampire Diaries Episode Review
In which we go to a party. Vampire Diaries serves up another packed episode as Katherine, Stefan and Damon rip into each other face-to-face for once.
What Happened
When Katherine demands that Stefan and Damon attend the Lockwood masquerade and hand over her moonstone, everyone gets together and decides that it's time to trap and kill Katherine. (Like. For real.) They put together a pretty good plan: Caroline tricks Katherine into going into a room that Bonnie has "sealed," where Damon and Stefan are waiting to kick the crap out her.
That last bit doesn't exactly work as well as they'd hoped.
For one thing, Katherine dishes out some kick-ass of her own. For another, she's brought along a witch named Lucy, who casts a spell that causes everything the Salvatores do to Katherine to pass along to Elena. Who promptly doubles over and starts bleeding from all the stake wounds. (She's lucky Damon's such a crap shot he can't manage to hit Katherine's tiny heart.) Forced to call a truce while Bonnie goes looking for Lucy, the three settle down to inflict a little emotional damage.
Stefan guesses that the moonstone doesn't actually belong to Katherine. He also guesses that she faked her death all those years ago because she was running from someone. Katherine won't answer any questions and goes back to playing the jealous brothers card. Even Damon's getting a bit tired of jumping through that hoop.
Finally, Bonnie finds Lucy, who recognizes another Bennett witch - they are cousins or something - and promises Bonnie that she can trust Lucy. Taking the moonstone from Bonnie, Lucy delivers it to Katherine, telling her that this clears Lucy's debts. As Katherine takes the rock, she collapses. Apparently? Bad idea to lie to a witch.
Damon seals Katherine into the old tomb beneath the church, despite her protests that he needs her to protect Elena. Stefan finds Elena, who says that she's glad Katherine's "gone," but needs some time to process what's happened. Which is why Elena's driving herself home. Alone. Perfectly positioned to get herself kidnapped.
The Good
- Katherine killing random chick on the dance floor. Brutal.
- Bonnie and Jeremy bonding. Cute. Gives her someone to talk to that isn't Elena or Caroline and dialogue that isn't plot-related.
- Love Caroline's dress. And her taking charge of the Tyler / Matt situation.
- Katherine's spell and the effect on Elena. Effective and scary.
The Bad
- Alaric is so bad at this. He should not be left in charge of watching Elena anymore.
- Damon is not to be left in charge of shooting people anymore. How could he miss Katherine's heart from less than four feet away? And with that cool modified super-soaker gun thingie?
The Cliche
- The Big Plan that Goes Horribly Wrong.
- Elena driving herself home so that she is in a perfect position to get herself kidnapped.
What Did I Think?
Another lovely run. Locking Stefan, Damon, and Katherine in the same room for a bonding session was a great way to dig into their heads. I think Stefan went to his scary "just get it done" mode, while Damon was all over the place. I kinda hope Katherine is about to discover that pushing that "hate you want you" button too many times is just going to wear it out. But she does it so well!
As to why they let Katherine live? I mean, I know the real world reason they didn't just stake her while she was lying there and walk away. (No way the writers give her up that easy.) I just hope we get an in-show reason as well. And it needs to be something besides that Katherine turns out to be useful later on, because Stefan and Damon - and Bonnie and Jeremy and Caroline for that matter - don't know what's coming later on. They need a right-here-right-now reason beyond just making her suffer. It's also not clear who knows Katherine's still alive and who thinks she's dead - which is something that Vampire Diaries doesn't usually leave so vague.
Which brings us to the Elena being snatched bit. On the one hand, it's good for Stefan to respect her wishes and boundaries and not stalk Elena to her car. On the other hand, this seems to happen to her an awful lot and I would think that one aspect of Elena feeling safe would be to surround herself with people she can trust. And yes. That includes her boyfriend.
But the payoffs on this show are so good that I feel like I can overlook the minor complaints, because I get the feeling that when we find why Elena got kidnapped, it's going to be worth it.