The Vampire Diaries – An Eternity of Misery

By starrymag | November 17, 2016

By: Luke Joseph

 

 

Siren’s Song

Look around

Look around

There’s so much evil that is in this town

The Siren Sisters

 

Alright, before I break out to TVD’s version of Hamilton let’s discuss what last week’s episode of “The Vampire Diaries” was. The title of the episode was An Eternity of Misery and now after watching the episode it’s easy to understand why this episode title had been so fitting. If you recall, back in the pilot Damon (Ian Somerhalder) had promised to deliver Stefan (Paul Wesley) an eternity of misery. The biggest reason for why Damon wanted to make his brother’s eternal life a living hell is because back in 1864 Damon had made the choice to not complete the transition (believing Katherine to be dead, he found there was nothing else keeping him here), but Stefan refused to accept that choice causing Damon to give into the lure of blood – feeding on a victim and completing the transition.

 

The episode opens up with two young girls (yeah it’s a flashback) living in 750 B.C., one of the girls ends up requesting a story and the other girl begins to tell the story of Arcadius. Summed up, this Arcadius fellow was man who possessed psychic powers but because he was different from the rest of his people he was later stoned and burned alive. Why the hell is this important? Pay attention to the choice of words and you’ll see shortly. So. who were the girls? Well, as the flashback comes to a close the camera pans out showcasing an island all on its own…ah Sirens.

 

Meanwhile, back in the present. Stefan is taking a catnap (or vamp nap?). His fiancée Caroline (Candice King) calls to check in explaining how just because she stayed the night with Bonnie (Kat Graham) doesn’t mean he can’t sleep in his own bed. Gasp! Is Stefan already in the dog house? Was Stefan with another woman? Yes, but not the way you think because it seems he ended up staying at the armory all night on Siren duty. Alaric (Matt Davis) enters the armory with two coffees and it seems like coffee is the main topic because enter intern Georgie (Allison Scagliotti) who doesn’t seem the type who follows directions. Unfortunately, Ric isn’t having any of it causing Georgie to turn on her heels and exit stage left.

 

We find Damon pulling into an auto-shop and he approaches the hired help Lou (Ted Huckabee) to ask where Pete Maxwell is. From the conversation with Lou it seems that Damon is very much aware of Sybil (Nathalie Kelley) screwing with his head, but sadly for him even though he wants to resist one pull of his strings from the puppet master makes him do the opposite. With Damon talking gibberish to Lou, the mechanic realizes that Damon might not be right in the head. As Lou begins to brush him off Damon flashes in front of him, pupils dilated and compelling him say the worst things he’s ever done. The man that’s been married five times answers with how he murdered one of his wives and made it look like an accident. Damon douses him with lighter fluid and suddenly it’s shish kabob a la Lou.

 

Back at the armory Sybil is disrupted when Stefan hits the tuning fork against the wall causing the siren to immediately cease her song. Stefan and Ric proceed to ask Sybil why Damon is still a servant to a siren in which she explains that if Damon is still serving her it means it’s because he wants to (Evil Sea Witch says what?). The questions continue to be fired away to which Sybil isn’t a fan of asking Stefan if he’s the least bit curious about her story (the fandom will answer with no we just want to know how to kill you). Thankfully, Stefan for a change relates with the fandom as he answers with no stating how he just wants to know how to save his brother. Unfortunately, the only way to get the answer is to endure Sybil’s story (drat) which means its story time with Sybil….

 

Once upon a time in a little Mediterranean village there was a girl who possessed psychic abilities. Remember the story about Arcadius? Well, having psychic powers was frowned upon which resulted in her being banished from her village. The punishment was being exiled and the young girl ended up on a raft that carried her to shore. So while this young girl is crying thinking she’s all alone, enter some other girl who walks out like being exiled is no big deal. The young village girl meets the girl of the island – thus destiny will one day make them known as the sirens. Sybil then begins to tell Stefan she understands how he will do anything for his brother because her sister will do anything for her. Good thing Stefan is brushed up on his grammar skills because he picks up on the present tense meaning that the sister is still alive. Not pleased with Sybil’s cryptic answers, Stefan once again relies on the tuning fork hitting it against the wall causing Sybil to request him to stop.

 

Elsewhere intern Georgie clearly can’t take no for an answer as she picks the lock of Ric’s house, enters and causes the alarm to start to beep. This woman is on a mission though as she hastily enters the study and starts to look snoop. It’s not the police that catch Georgie – it’s the Nanny who walks into the room stating that she will get Ric involved in this. Looks like Seline (Kristen Gutoskie) isn’t buying it as she prepares to call Ric only for Georgie to snatch her hand warning her not to do it. So, is Georgie the other siren? Will Seline be a nice nanny and offer to make her a snack?

 

Peter Maxwell (Joel Gretsch) comes onto the scene only to encounter Damon who has been waiting on him. This time Damon doesn’t really have time for small talk heading straight to compulsion to ask Pete if he has any idea about Sybil. Pete ends up admitting to Damon that his grandma has a box of stuff tucked away that Damon deems might be useful. Where is it? Somewhere in the storage room, Pete’s son had been looking for it awhile back (store that part in your head) causing Damon to tell Pete to make the call and get the son here.

 

Back at the armory, Ric gets a call from Seline to which Sybil subtly says very sireny (so is she the siren?) but Stefan doesn’t pay mind to it because he’s a man on a mission. This means it’s story time again as we travel back to the island with the sisters who share one thing in common, hunger. The girls spot a boat in the distance and Island Girl requests to Village Girl to call out to them, but how will they hear them? By raising their voice which is exactly what they do. With the dangerous rocks, the ship got wrecked (Island Girl knows this game well). Since the tides weren’t in the girls’ favor Village Girl weeps for the men that died (ironically from their village) asking Island Girl to promise her to never do this again.

 

Damon is playing a classic game of pinball while Pete looks around the garage. Is it sad that this is probably the happiest Damon’s been in a while? Playtime is disrupted because Pete is being useless by not yet locating the item. This causes Damon to glance over noticing a watch asking Pete where he got it (son gave it to him). As he tosses it over to Damon, Damon is greeted to that burning sensation – vervain! This means means whoever Pete’s son is they are well aware of vampires. Just as Damon is about to put an end to Pete for lying to him BOOM a shot rings out. Damon drops to the floor revealing Matt Donovan (Zach Roerig) who has come to the rescue and is Pete’s son. Not ready to lose his dad (who hasn’t been present in his life for seven seasons) he instructs him to drink after cutting Damon’s wrist open. Even though he’s hesitant, father listens to his son and all is healed.

 

How long is this story? Back on the island Village Girl still continues to believe that the island and God himself will provide, but when nothing happens it causes her faith to suddenly be shaken. Since God didn’t provide her sister stepped in making Village Girl believe that she had hunted and brought them wild boar to feast on (liar, liar). So, an innocent girl became a monster because her older sibling forced her to adopt a lifestyle that if she had known the truth she never would have accepted. Once again Sybil asks Stefan which girl is he but he’s still not budging. Looks like story time is about to be halted as someone vervains Stefan revealing Georgie standing behind him (so is she the siren, is she the other sister?). No, wait! We’re back on the island and Stefan is there? It looks like Sybil is in Stefan’s head or their head. Sybil wants to give Stefan a front row seat to the climatic ending of the story that is nearing.

 

Sybil tells Stefan that “the boss” thinks he’s worthy of hearing the whole story. They walk around the island and end up going into a cave. The cave is actually a tomb because it’s where Island Girl had been depositing their food, I mean sailors. Sybil reveals that the naive Village Girl stumbled upon the cave finally revealing what her dear sister had been up to. So, Stefan figures out that Sybil isn’t the Island Girl but rather the Village Girl. Sybil goes onto admit to Stefan she had tried to be good to which he point blank tells her he’s not going to have sympathy for her.

 

Matt isn’t playing any games and he proves just that when he breaks the end of the broom and stabs Damon demanding answers. Damon begins to taunt Matt saying that if he doesn’t play along Tyler (Michael Trevino) dies. Of course, Matt fires back with no one would forgive Damon for killing Tyler especially Elena, but it doesn’t work. “Apparently you’ve been out of the loop for awhile so allow me to bring you up to speed Elena and I are through in fact I’ve been seeing another woman,” supplies Damon. Let’s backtrack to 8×03 at the start of the episode with the accident when Sybil says, “How sad, did you know her,” as Damon look son watching the scene of the after result of the accident. Returning back to this episode, Damon proceeds to tell Matt the rundown of what he did to Tyler and where he left him. In anger, Matt strikes at Damon before leaving the scene only for Damon to later and skillfully break out of his chains and find what he had been looking for.

 

“Dear Stefan and Caroline,” Ric begins to say as he records his version of a dead man’s journal because he’s still locked in the vault. He warns them that Georgie might be the second siren and that the only way he can make his escape is through a tunnel system through one of the walls and the only way to navigate through that is removing sight and sound. Wait, wait Ric what are you doing? Why are you putting a blade inside of your ear? Ahhh, that’s not pleasant but it seems to do the trick with the end result of Ric making his escape and ending smack in the middle of the town square.

 

It feels like it took forever, but Sybil is finally ready to reveal to Stefan who her sister is and it’s none other than Seline. The Nanny is crazy and now back in the present she looks seemingly normal as she tucks the girls in before slipping away to answer the phone to tell Georgie that she will meet her. Coming back into the bedroom the girls request Seline to tell them a story, which results with Seline retelling the story of Cade (she tells the girls to keep the story between them). With this new info, Stefan wants nothing more than return back to the present and warn everyone, but when has defeating the big bad’s ever been easy? Stefan wakes up and it’s almost like he’s experiencing a hangover because he remembers only part of the story, not including the second sister’s identity. For the last time, Sybil presents the question to Stefan of which sister are you – the victim who tried for years not to feed on human flesh or the sister who sealed her sister’s fate by forcing her to adapt to a style she didn’t want? Both. Stefan realizes this as he’s the victim who tried not to feed on humans for years and the monster who forced his own brother to turn because he couldn’t face forever without him. Thanks for playing Stefan and what’s his door prize? The final part of the story.

 

After learning what Sybil had actually been ingesting back on the island she found she couldn’t live with herself so she threw herself off the cliffs (Seline discovered her) wanting to be greeted to death. Sadly, she sees no white light and instead it’s darkness and it’s not God that answers her prayer. It is the other guy, Cade (Wole Park) Refusing to let her sister die Seline makes a deal with Cade and he promises to deliver them immortality, youth and beauty for a price. Accepting the deal, Seline also accepts that she and Sybil will now be servants to Cade by eating the flesh of their victims and letting Cade collect the souls of the wicked in hell. Ah, now it makes sense with the whole “What’s the worst thing you’ve done?” “Hell as in literal hell,” Stefan asks (no Stefan Disneyland, what other hell is there?). Who is Cade? What is he? Well, apparently he’s the answer to all their problems because if they want to save Damon they have to kill the devil. The Siren’s story came to an end and now it’s time to close Cade’s story as fans find out that it was in the moment of him being stoned, heckled and burned that he saw the wickedness of those villagers. Cade saw them for the monsters that they were so with his last and final breath he released a psychic blast so powerful that as he screamed it created its own world – hell.

 

Now, knowing that past sins still stay with you and that he’s going to hell Stefan tells Sybil to keep Damon out of it because he’s responsible for making him what he is. Doesn’t work like that though and thanks to Sybil she gave Damon a glimpse of what awaits him and it was enough to shake him to the core and flip the switch.

 

Any Tyler Lockwood fans out there? Anyone not a fan of seeing Matt Donovan cry? Well bad news guys because Tyler is in fact dead and Matt cried upon seeing his friend dead. The closing scene has Georgie and Seline meeting. Georgie relays the message that Sybil and Seline won’t be sister, sister anytime soon. Time to kill the messenger and that’s exactly what Seline does – snapping Georgie’s neck and having a midnight snack.