Vampire Diaries Recap: That '70s Show
Thursday’s Vampire Diaries brought us one of the best character entrances in recent memory as Damon recounted his time in New York City circa 1977 to Elena.
Close your eyes and picture it: A couple walks down a dark, empty street – until they’re stopped in their tracks by someone lying lifelessly on the floor. Before they even have a chance to help, the mystery man is on his feet and feeding on the gal.
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“You’re that serial killer, aren’t you? Son of Sam?” asks the frightened man.
“Son of Giuseppe, but close enough,” replies Damon, as Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” starts to play. (Music supervisor Chris Mollere, you are a genius.)
Back in those days, the vampire had shut off his emotions and was so out of control that even Stefan and Lexi heard about his sloppy escapades back in Mystic Falls. (Side note: If Stefan was in town in the ’70s, wouldn’t some of Mystic Falls’ current, older residents remember him?)
So Lexi came to New York to stop him because both she and Stefan were concerned about him. (“You got Lexied?” marvels Elena.) Lexi partied with Damon. She drank with him. She tried to get him to spill his guts about Katherine so that he would start to feel again. And eventually, she slept with him after he revealed that he’d flipped the switch and started to care for someone else: Her. But the next morning on the rooftop of the club, Lexi was met with the harsh sun – and Damon’s lies. It was actually all a trick to pay her back for six months of nagging and righteousness. Then Damon didn’t see her for several decades until she showed up in Mystic Falls to wish his brother a happy birthday, and the guilt washed over the elder Salvatore. (But not so much that it stopped him from killing her. Doesn’t this whole flashback just add a heartbreaking element to what went down between the two in Season 1?)
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Damon tells this story to Elena as a warning. He doesn’t want her to do anything she’ll regret once she turns her humanity back on. But the new vampire has different things on her mind. She’s actually enjoying her new carefree state of being — fresh hairstyle included — and doesn’t want to take the cure or go back to feeling everything. In fact, she’s out to play Damon so she can get to the cure first and get rid of it. Rebekah offers up her assistance, but Elena rejects her, calling her an “emotional variable” she doesn’t need. Instead, she seduces Damon, trying to get the piece of paper in his back pocket with Katherine’s whereabouts. Having played the same trick on Lexi, Damon stops her. What he doesn’t see coming is Rebekah swooping in to snap his neck and the two gals taking off in his car to go after Katherine.
This cure business just got fun!
Meanwhile, back in Mystic Falls, Stefan enlists Klaus’ help with the Silas situation, and good thing he did because the mystical baddie has pulled one over on Bonnie big-time. She even knows Shane is really Silas, and she’s still working with him and plotting to kill the 12 witches! She fools the coven into believing that she needs to be expelled of expression, but Stefan shows up and spills the truth. Unfortunately, it comes down to saving the 12 witches or Bonnie’s life, and Caroline makes the choice to help her pal. With another massacre complete, Silas’ plan is done. But – twist! – Bonnie doesn’t remember anything that happened after Jeremy tried to pry the cure out of Silas’ hands. So does this mean she’s free of Silas’ control? Or is he just getting started with her?
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The events take an emotional toll on Caroline, who realizes she’s just murdered 12 innocent people. It looks as if Klaus is about to offer her comfort, but when you’re an Original, you tend to hold onto things – like Caroline’s earlier comment to him that “people who do terrible things are just terrible people” – for a very long time. So he replies, “Why don’t you find someone less terrible you can relate to.” Before he leaves the woods though, he senses Silas, who stabs him (partially) with a White Oak stake to get him to give up the cure’s location.
Vampire Diaries fans, are you as excited as I am for The Adventures of the Two Doppelgangers and the Original? What did you think of Damon’s 1970s fun and the new wrinkle to his history with Lexi (who needs to come back more often)? And has Bonnie lost her mind or is she finally starting to regain it now that she’s lost her memory instead?
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