Vampire Diaries is ordinarily at its best when it focalize on the core characters and their ever - shift relationship — especially the fundamental love triangle . And when it finds new things to say about its core themes of power and mind - command . So in all likelihood no surprise that last night ’s amnesia instalment was the near in ages .
Spoilers out front …
The matter of Stefan lose his computer storage looked as though it was going to be ridiculous — the way 99 percent of amnesia plots are , generally . But instead , it turned into a clever exam of the psychology of Stefan , as the newly tabula rasa Muppet Angel tries to figure out who he actually is .
We sort of run for through the whole history of Stefan in an hour , starting with the original moral force between him and Damon — as they jest , Stefan is the “ safe brother ” and Damon is the “ fun brother . ” When Stefan tries to swap that around , Damon bust up the car they ’re tease in . And before long enough , Stefan is trying to figure out his whole “ Ripper ” deal . And that ’s where thing get interesting .
Originally , Stefan was the “ respectable brother ” because he did n’t toast human bloodline — but over time , Damon suggest an alternate theory : really Stefan just does n’t fuck how to indulge in temperance , so he ’s actually just the buddy who miss self control . Now that Stefan has amnesia , though , it ’s not clean-cut whether his leaning to rip the heads off his victim will persist , or if that was a psychological condition make by Stefan ’s experiences .
There are a lot of “ nature vs. nurture ” caper in this instalment , as we taste to plumb the depths of Stefan ’s pathology — was he a serial sea wolf out of guilt feelings for toss off his own beginner and turning Damon into a lamia , actions he no longer remembers ? In that case , he should be fine now . Or is it something biological , or all-important to his nature ?
Elena shows up and essay to cark Stefan from killing any innocent waitpersons — basically by reminding him of their courting , and we run through the whole Stefan / Elena relationship in about five minutes . ( Got ta love how fast this show movement . ) But if Stefan is no longer centered around guilt , thanks to his amnesia , then what is Elena to him ? She ’s the one who deflect him from his bloodlust , patently .
All of this head to the kicker — when Stefan finds out that Elena is dating his sidekick Damon , he ’s royally pissed , more raging than he let himself be the first clock time around . And this leads to him going “ Ripper , ” not out of sublimated guilt or ego - detestation , but out of pure anger . It ’s more of a Damon move than a Stefan move — but it suggests that peradventure the Ripper thing was always Stefan ’s suppressed ire coming out , all along . Maybe the ire is what always lay underneath Stefan ’s guilt .
In the end , ego - execrate ( and ego - control ) reassert themselves , and Stefan decide he ’s going to be a whole Modern person , without all his sure-enough luggage to obligate him down . He even burn the titular Vampire Diaries ! ( Damon ’s line , “ Did we just get dumped , ” is priceless . ) And we end up recapitulating the most recent development in Stefan ’s journey — he ’s found that the only soul he can really count on , or communicate with , is Caroline . Who ’s arguably the only good somebody on this show .
run through all of this is an interesting question of personal identity , as Stefan endeavor to figure out whether he ’s a demon and why he should bother to essay and be good . He ’s no longer motivated by any of the things that move him before — although he right away has a thing for Elena — so he ’s reasoning from first principle instead . He ’s a lamia , so why should n’t he feed ? And what debt should he owe to a past he no longer remembers ?
When a show ’s been on the aviation for five years , as TVD has , then it ’s potential to get count down with all its excess continuity and long time of wacky secret plan eddy . ( Who has n’t Damon murdered , at this stop ? ) But you also get to take vantage of those years of character ontogeny and human relationship - building , for an episode like this one , where all of the past dish out as touchstones for reexamining the show ’s core dynamics .
And meanwhile , in the episode ’s main subplot , Bonnie ’s death is finally revealed , and this leads to a spate of freaking out ( including Elena making a spoken language where the only nouns are “ I ” and “ me ” ) and a beautiful funeral scene , where Tyler randomly re-emerge . The best bit of the “ divvy up with Bonnie ’s dying ” subplot , though , is probably how Damon reacts — you think he ’s about to throttle Jeremy but instead he gives the Gilbert kid a really intense hug . Awww .
In other news show , Matt manages to videotape the Traveler who ’s hijacked his eubstance , who admit vantage of this fact to bluff Matt and to reveal that his charming knife is tiptop - of import . Matt ca n’t call on Bonnie for help , and nobody else seems too worried about him — too spoiled Matt does n’t recognize an Original Vampire who he just spent the summer traipse around Europe with and whose fault all of this arguably is . That really is too bad .
And also , Caroline has a really sweet date with Jesse , the hot T.A. from Professor Evilpants ’ Evil Biology Class . Who , this being TVD , is now attacked , and later turned into a lamia by Professor Evilpants . Oh well .
All in all , though , this was a really powerful emotional installment , where the emotion came from a inscrutable cognition of the characters and how they make — when these characters surprise us , even after all this time , it ’s because they have such a vast store of past result to draw on , not because they ’re acting randomly . ( For the most part , anyway . )
Oh , and I ’m still watching The Originals — which is still watchable , for sure . This calendar week ’s episode , with its hard - handed speechifying about the Nature of Evil , was fun and moved a luck of stuff forward . I ’ve develop a possibility about that show — I think Cami , the barman / psychologist , was supposed to be the one normal human that we key with , our way in to all of this lamia / witch / wolfman melodrama . But for whatever reason , the writers changed their minds and Cami just became another instrument on the board . Probably a good thing she ’s suddenly got her own supernatural backstory and a cause to want retaliation on whoever compel her brother to go spla , then .
HorrorTelevisionVampire DiariesVampires
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