The Vampire Diaries – You Made a Choice to Be Good

By starrymag | February 10, 2017

By: Luke Joseph

 

The episode starts with the devil strolling into a coffee shop. Yes, it sounds like some punch line, but really it isn’t. He encounters Bonnie (Kat Graham) and they have a brief conversation, but it’s enough for him to read her mind and get some juicy details (we’ll talk about that later).  Believing that he’s just a chatty stranger Bonnie exits the coffee shop leaving Cade (Wolé Parks) and what’s fast to follow, chaos. Since this devil can read people he reveals to the boss that his employee had been sleeping with his wife and because of it well it’s safe to say the employee got canned or killed.

 

Pancakes Served, Ripper on the Loose  

It’s refreshing for fans to see Damon (Ian Somerhalder) back in his snarky element. It’s plain sad that even after all these years Stefan (Paul Wesley) still has to get chained up because he sucks at controlling his blood lust. It’s alright though because Damon was Damon. It was like fans had taken a trip back to season one because Damon was back to taunting his brother in the most amusing of ways. Stefan isn’t having any of it, reminding his brother about Cade’s work. “Stefan Salvatore, dropping bodies is not part of a balanced humanity-on lifestyle…you know what is part of the balance humanity on lifestyle, pancakes”. This, this is the Damon that fans embraced and missed so much, nice to have him back, too bad we can’t say the same for Stefan.

 

With the intention of serving pancakes in the cell, Damon returns only to find that Stefan is nowhere in sight. Seriously? Thanks a lot Cade, now Stefan is back on the loose and pancakes won’t ever be served. Cade explains to Damon that Stefan has been given his freedom because Cade has a task that he wants Stefan to complete and unfortunately Damon is in that category as well. Dan can either kill one hundred people by sundown or kill Caroline Forbes. What happens if he disobeys? He gets a first class trip back to hell and gets to spend an eternity there. Not really much of a door prize but it’s enough to get Damon’s attention.

 

A Vampire’s Bucket List

With Caroline (Candice King) finding the old items Bonnie, Elena and her had buried in the time capsule (photos, letter to future selves and Bonnie’s bucket-list) it gives Bonnie an idea. Even though Bonnie and Enzo (Michael Malarkey) are on a mission to hide the Maxwell Bell, Bonnie has another plan in mind. Inspired by her old bucket list she finds herself wanting Enzo to create and do his own. Basically, Bonnie wants Enzo to enjoy the perks of immortality before saying goodbye to it. So what’s on the checklist? Being able to revel in the thrill of being behind the wheel when he races down the track and has Bonnie as his personal cheerleader.

 

Everyone Wants the Cure

 

Maybe before Damon would have killed one hundred people without flinching or killed Caroline Forbes without hesitating, but this Damon is different. This Damon is on the road to redemption and he has a girl to impress so he doesn’t really want to screw up. He’s a man with a plan and he’s also the only man who believes that he can take on the devil. Sadly, Cade is no idiot because he is able to read Damon’s mind and realizes that Damon actually has the desire to kill him. Wanting to remind Damon how truly powerful the devil is Cade sets himself on fire, rips out his own heart and proves to Damon eliminating him won’t be as easy as Damon believes. Great, we’re screwed.

 

All Damon wanted to do was serve his younger brother breakfast with a side of taunting. Instead, he has to serve the devil and when he arrives at The Grill he tells Caroline what is happening. Caroline’s brilliant idea? She wants to use the cure on Cade. What does this mean? Damon’s chance of a human life with Elena is now at risk. “No, no, no the cure is off the table. I’m not risking my future with Elena,” Damon asserts. I mean, it sounds like a good plan because if used on Cade he’d age rapidly and turn to dust. But, he’s the devil so could something as simple as the cure be enough to end him? With Damon’s humanity back we can see the struggle he’s going through when he realizes more and more he has to say goodbye to the promise he had made Elena. It’s quite heartbreaking, but once again it proves that Damon isn’t choosing himself – he’s choosing the greater good. To make matters worse Caroline accidently lets it slip that someone else wants the cure and it’s not Cade.

 

Enzo wants it for himself. He wants it so much that he’s telling Bonnie how he wants to hightail it out of the house, head to New York and get the cure straight from the source. Hold the hell up. Are you kidding me right now? So, Enzo just wants to take the cure without asking? He wants to steal Damon and Elena’s future together so that he and Bonnie can have their own. We can see that Bonnie is struggling with this when Bonnie says, “We were so close to everything we wanted it’s right here and we can’t have it…I never get to have my chance. I always do the right thing for everyone else,” she confesses.  Okay, Bonnie has a point she has made so many sacrifices for those around her from Grams, fighting Klaus, dying, etc., but the thing is Elena and Damon have too. They were close to getting everything they ever wanted. Damon was going to take the cure, be human, be Elena’s partner, husband and somewhere down the road the father of her kids. They had this ripped away from them in the cruelest of ways and to make matters worse Kai (Chris Wood) had linked Elena and her best friend. Rather than making the selfish choice to come back, she made the selfless one and said goodbye. It would have been ten times harder had it been a permanent goodbye, but Damon and Elena held onto the hope that someday they’d keep to that promise. Bonnie; however, has something to reveal to him. Instead of Elena’s body being at a warehouse safely in Brooklyn she’s actually residing in the house Bonnie had bought.  After Enzo and Damon had disappeared, Bonnie had used the money from her father’s death to purchase the house and hide Elena. “I’ll watch you grow old and gray and you’ll be as beautiful then as you are now. I don’t need the cure to be happy. I only need you,” Bonnie tells Enzo. Whelp, looks like Enzo too is giving up his chance at being human for the greater good of sending the devil straight back to hell.

 

All Hell Breaks Loose

 

Cade really likes to make a mess of things and its proven the moment he enters The Grill and kills three people right off the bat. This is what Damon is greeted to when he enters only things are much worse when Cade reveals to Damon the task that he assigned Stefan. Like Damon, his brother Stefan has to choose between killing one hundred people or his brother’s girl and it looks like Stefan chose Option B. It makes sense because throughout episodes Stefan has whined (which is ironic) that he’s a Ripper and he’s whined about how he wants his dangerous and reckless brother back. He had worked with Sybil (Nathalie Kelley) in hopes to remove Elena out of the picture and now he wants to remove her for good. Immediately, Damon kills the first people he sees and then flees The Grill hell bent on catching his brother.

 

Elsewhere, Stefan proves to be a dick. So what had he been up to? Tracking down Bonnie’s real estate agent. Why you ask? Because he wanted her change the lease of Bonnie’s house over to him, which would give him free entry into the house without being invited in. Remember Bonnie’s encounter with Cade at the coffee shop? The cure must have been on her mind because Cade had read it off her and that’s why Stefan knew where to go. With the house now being in Stefan’s name Bonnie’s protection is gone as Enzo is ripped straight out of the house.

 

Something Wicked This Way Comes

 

“That is why I want Elena gone,” Stefan reveals to Damon speeding down the road with the intent to kill Elena so that she’s no longer a bother to him. Stefan believes that as long as Elena is alive Damon will continue to fight to get his brother back which in Stefan’s diluted mind means he has to eliminate the threat. By killing Elena that will be the final straw for Damon to finally give up on his brother. “I mean she’s still coming between us, which is insane if you think about it because to be honest with you in the grand scheme of things she’s really not that special.” Ouch. You’re over one hundred years old and you still suck (no pun intended) at being a vampire who understands the meaning of the word control. “She’s just a stupid human girl who will be so easy to kill…I’m thinking of something symbolic maybe find a bath-tub to drown her in full circle kind of thing.” It’s chilling to hear Stefan say these things and honestly makes the viewer (myself happily included) want to throw him back into the safe and toss his ass back over into the quarry. Damon is pleading with Stefan not to go through with this, holding onto the small hope that his brother is still there. But in the last closing scene of the episode it only proves how monstrous he can be.

 

Bonnie and Enzo deserve their chance at happiness, but it was done the wrong way. They kept it from Damon and once again he would have been helpless to stop what was being ripped away from him. They were going to take the cure away from Elena; the one who gave up her future so Bonnie could lives hers. There’s nothing wrong with wanting happiness, but they were in the wrong for not getting a blessing from Elena or Damon – the two in this scenario who have sacrificed more than any of the others combined. “Just feels so weird to be doing this to her,” Bonnie explains because even though Enzo isn’t taking the cure they still need it which is why Bonnie is drawing blood from her. How much does she need she asks Enzo only to be met with silence. Feeling like something is up she exits the room and is met with Enzo standing in the doorway. Only he looks out of sorts. Seconds later he sags to the ground revealing Stefan who has holy s—t just ripped out his heart. With permission to enter the house he advances towards Bonnie deciding just for fun to kill her before Elena. Unfortunately, Stefan takes Bonnie for granted. “You’re going to be human.” Before Stefan can react she jabs the syringe into his flesh resulting in him dropping to the floor.

 

In the last five minutes of this episode we’re all taken on one hell of a ride. It felt like earlier seasons because the shock factor was one hundred percent there. The episode ends with Bonnie’s wrecked sobs as she drops to her knees beside Enzo. Her happiness now fully taken from her, screaming at the top of her lungs and it’s that scream that sends out a pulse – the kind of pulse Cade had sent out creating his portal. Had Bonnie done that or is her magic back? Stefan is now human. The cure that was meant for Elena now runs through him. He’s going to relive his past kills, get drowned in guilt. Are we supposed to feel remorse for him? Sorry boo, it’s not happening.