This episode happened. And so did my massive sobbing. I know I have recapped sad scenes before. That, in and of itself, is nothing new. I am not only snark and slashy innuendos. (Go ahead and laugh because I feel like it may be your last one.) This episode was devastating. I know people throw that word around for the silliest things. “My brother ate the last doughnut and it was devastating.” “I broke a nail and it was devastating.” “Beauty and the Beast is still a thing and it is devastating.” OK. I’ll give you the last one. This show has always been fond of making us suffer by killing off beloved characters. I was unsure how I could handle the death of Alaric (drink!), yet I came back and we all went on. This feels different. We watched Jeremy grow from a greasy-haired punk, to a forceful near-man who still had some maturing to do. He was just a boy who was sucked into all of this supernatural nonsense when he wished only to draw, maybe smoke a little pot, and find a nice girlfriend. And now he will never get the chance to go to art school. No more video game marathons. No more embarrassing his older sister with emo weirdness. No more inappropriate Jeremy hugs.
No more innocence. No more hope. Yes, fellow fangirls and fanboys, Jeremy was the death of hope and innocence for me. If Jeremy can die, I have no hope that there is a chance for any kind of happiness for a single one of these people. There was still simple joy to be found in the way he enthusiastically sought Damon’s approval. There was hope in the way he cared for people he was destined to try and kill. There was innocence in the way he believed that at his age he could give his sister peace. That’s all this cure was for Jeremy. It wasn’t some grand quest nor noble pursuit. He loved his sister and wanted to give her whatever she needed so they could get the hell away from all of the craziness and move to Denver to take his dog to a batting cage.
And now he is dead. I have thrown all of my “ships” and OTP into the burning wreckage of the Gilbert House and watched them go up in flames along with the boy who everyone loved. For now, I’ll be crying in Matt’s truck and seeing if he wants to move out of town with me. Anyone know a bar that needs a busboy and a flibbertigibbet?
If you have read this far, bless you. This is my way of saying this recap sucks and I wish I could have done better, but my heart isn’t in it. It has been broken in a way no Damon Dance can fix. Apologies in advance and lets move on with this sucker.
They had Jeremy speak the words “And we failed” in the opening. It was this point I should have been wise enough to turn off the Home Movie and throw the remote across the room. I have never been wise.
As she picks off the symbolic pieces of broken glass from a picture taken at a time before they knew vampires existed, we flashback to Elena finding Jeremy in the tomb. We can forgive her this first piece of denial in seeing the ring because many of us temporarily forgot that Jeremy was now supernatural like 98% of Mystic Falls and the ring wouldn’t work on him. I won’t go into how eye-rolling this loophole is because the show’s definition of supernatural is pretty damn fluid. The scene is reminiscent of the time she held his head in her bedroom and the gasp of air that told her everything would be OK. That must have been playing in her mind when she stroked his hair on the dirty cave floor. “If I sit here long enough, repeat my mantra of everything being OK, he will open his eyes and go back to being my pain-in-the-ass little brother who I love more than my own life.”
Stefan does a rundown of all they are missing: the cure, Silas, Bonnie and any last drop of humanity. Damon is going to wait with Elena until the ring kicks in, but is reminded by Stefan that this shit just got real, yo, and there will be no re-animation of the littlest Gilbert. Damon, who had already given up all hope the moment he heard the words “sire bond”, goes into I will fix this mode. He knows it is witches that are the root cause of every single bad thing that has happened up until now and he is going to find himself one and try to undo the madness that is seeping into the love of his life at this very moment.
Caroline is doing exactly what is in character with her and I hope we get more of that in the coming weeks. If she only knew that small burn mark was the least of the Gilbert House’s damage to come. She sees them enter and Stefan’s very small head shake speaks volumes about the current situation - Jeremy is dead, Elena is in denial, we have no cure, Klaus will kill us all, The Secret Circle is still cancelled. They get Jeremy to his room and Elena goes into “Mom Mode”. She covers him up and strokes his hand until he gets all better. Stefan sees there is no way to address this right now and leaves her to her delusions of a family that is forever gone.
“Unless you‘re a blonde, a Bennett witch, or a doppelganger, I suggest you steer clear.” *looks at red hair* Damn. I personally think this plan went askew when Damon left his leather at home and wore the jean jacket. No good can come from ditching part of your superhero costume. Seeing as how it is a blonde, and my favorite bonde, who is sneaking up on him, we’re all good. Rebekah wants to know where the damn cure is, thankyouverymuch, and is informed that one Katherine Pierce has run off with it. In my mind Katherine didn’t kill Jeremy, but I am going to lay the blame for his death at her feet, anyway. Rebekah shows actual compassion when she hears of the death of Jeremy. She strikes exactly the right note in that she is not going to mourn for him, why should she, however he is Elena’s last family member and family means everything to Bex. There is actually one member of the Gilbert family left, but it won’t survive this episode either. Their priorities diverge as Rebekah is still intent on finding the cure and Damon could not care less about that. He needs a Bennett witch and he needs one right, damn now.
And there she is! I am moving to this island where some local herbs and berries heal a stab wound. Imagine what it could do for a hangover! Shilas (Oh, shut up! It is not spoiler for later because every damn person should already see it coming and if not, shame on you!) is healed and ready to talk crazy some more. Oh, you don’t wish to sacrifice more people in pursuit of entirely selfish gains? How about if I tell you Jeremy and his arms are dead? *Bonnie begins to kill random people all around her.* Um, Bon?
I have two problems with this scene: 1. Isn’t there vervain in the water? How are they cleaning with vervain in the water? 2. “We’re talking about Elena here. She feels grief more powerfully than anyone else.” Really? In this episode, I need a FUCK YOU, STEFAN!? This bullshit meme about Elena’s supernatural compassion has to go. It is an excuse to portray her as fragile and some kind of Saint Lena of Perpetual Empathy. It is the thing that drives Stefan to try and fix her. “She feels oh so much, and as a vampire maybe she won’t get caught up in constant angst and self-loathing like me so I better make her weak again. This way she will no longer have any independence and I can wear my hero hair as a badge of honor while actually infantilizing the woman I wish to fuck.” *Kicks over Elena’s pedestal everyone has placed her on and lets her be an actual person and not a placeholder for the perfection these assholes want her to personify.*
Oh, honey, Stefan has been in denial for 170 years. You all can give Elena a day or two. Caroline sniping about the sire bond as if Damon is some jerk who caused it makes me hate her all over again, along with them not appreciating Elena’s logic. We know that she is wrong, but what she is thinking makes perfect sense. Being supernatural is a constant state of change in Mystic Falls. Maybe Jeremy had the supernatural sucked right out of him along with the tattoo. It is a perfectly reasonable belief, much more so that the one in which Elena only fucked Damon because she was sired to him, let me tell ya.
Caroline reaches out to Tyler to tell him about Jeremy. She is concerned about Klaus’s pursuit, as well she should be. Stefan has the nerve to compare Tyler’s abilities to hide to Katherine’s and I get my only real laugh of the evening. I love Tyler, but there is no way he should be compared to the dynamic self-preservation skills of Kat. And if Stefan says the word denial one more time I will beat him over the head with it, but I am just enough of an egoist to think someone from the show is reading my recaps. *waves to Julie Plec*
Caroline gets her organizational skills on and she probably already has a theme for the wake picked out when she is stopped dead in her tracks. Oh, you guys, this is beyond terrible. It is a smell that has stopped her and it is the smell of decay. Elena is upstairs right now with the rotting corpse of her baby brother. And you have to know that she smells it as well, but is so far gone in her grief that she can’t sense it. *Searches House for more tissues and settles on a roll of toilet paper, stops, and grabs the whole pack. Don’t judge me!* They decide to get Meredith, because if Elena won’t listen to the people closest to her, she’ll listen to Mere. *eye rolls*
Rebekah asks exactly the right questions, as always, about why Damon is hunting down Bonnie and not Stefan. The problem is that Damon gave up already on a future with Elena so sees no point in torturing himself with prolonged contact. She is going to end up with someone else anyway, so why delay the inevitable? He will only make sure she is not broken further. Vaughn pops up and Damon uses Bex as a vamp shield once more. I wonder how many of her shirts have holes in the back? Damon has a little bit of unspent anger and he is going to work his issues out on Vaughn’s head.
Bonnie is in full tear mode which apparently involves flames and denial of herbal tea. Ah, don’t you think it’s a bit late in the game to be wondering what he has been slipping you beside the sausage, Bonnie? “Silas needs you.” Yep. Let’s not talk about how the people she loves need her, let’s concentrate on the unknown immortal she has no connections to. Anyone still not aware this is Shilas? Because Shane knew to manipulate her /first/ on her feelings and /second/ on her insecurities, and Bonnie is nothing if not one big insecurity blanket. As she should be. Her parents abandoned her, her friends use her and allow her no agency, and the hot professor dude she crushed all over is a psychopath. She is prime cult-follower material, with a catch; she can turn on the cult and blow the entire temple up. God, I hope she does.
I do appreciate the fact I was given something to distract me in the form of Meredith’s matronly haircut. What is it with the stylists’ attempting to make such beautiful people’s hair so horrifying? *cough* Damon *cough* Elena is my friend and says Ric’s (drink! drink! drink!) name several times so I have enough liquor in me to make it until the end. She is rambling exactly as a person does when they are well aware what they are saying is utter bullshit, but if they say enough of it, maybe it won’t be anymore. It’s the same way I talk when justifying buying the big box of truffles. She may sound like a raving lunatic here, but every word she says is DEAD ON. Meredith is a woman of science and while I appreciate that normally, even more than most, this is magic. It is not irrational for Elena to feel this way. It is perfectly rational based on the world she lives in and if there is anything that’ll piss off a righteously raving person faster than treating them like they’re crazy, I’ve never heard of it.
Matt.
I hope he drugged the shit out of that tea. They sit and talk like only old friends can and Elena proves once and for all the she sees Damon more clearly than anyone has his entire life. Damon loves Bonnie. And Stefan, and Alaric (drink!) and Jeremy, and Caroline, and Matt, and Liz, and Tyler...OK, maybe not Tyler, but definitely everyone else. And don’t mess with Damon logic, because he is normally always right, but I question seriously a call he makes later.
Damon got boned by Katherine. Heh. I can see her being into that kind of kink. What? Oh! Not that kind of boned. Nevermind. Vaughn gets a little cocky about them being unable to kill him when Rebekah brings out her inner sociopath. Is it wrong I fell in love with her even more after this bleak discussion of methodical torture? Damon calls her creepy, which was totally the compliment she took it for, as he looked at her admiringly. Vaughn was working for Katherine and so was Hayley. Gotta give Kat credit for always knowing what game is afoot. Damon still wants to get Elena the cure, but he knows the cure is nothing if Jeremy remains dead. He gets the priorities here.
You can be a witch or a vampire, never both. Kinda like how you can be a 1Der or a Taylor Swift fan, apparently. Don’t cross the streams! Shilas is the master of manipulation so literally dumps a dying Jeremy in Bonnie’s path as she attempts to flee. Yeah. That oughtta do it.
There is no amount of AC that will fix this bitch. Bah.
Damon calls to check on the rate of decomposition of both Jeremy and his love’s mental health. I like how he at first says he can’t just leave Bonnie here, totally independent of helping Elena. Damon is not one to leave a friend behind and he considers Bonnie a friend. As he contemplates this awful decision he hears a noise and out stumbles their goto deus ex machina. He gives a honest to goodness hug, which has me crying again because come on! Shilas led her to Damon. You still didn’t know it was Shilas? I worry about you. And that, my friends, was the soft smile of a mad woman.
Matty. He takes Elena to the stoner pit to discuss his philosophy of life that allows him to get out of bed everyday. The one person on this show who has lost as much as Elena. I know others may have had more deaths, but they also had a wider circle of people to begin with. Matt had no one but Vicki. She was fucked up and flawed, but he loved her as only a brother could. He vocalizes what Elena has been thinking all along - people are often not permanently dead and she has hope. Matt has clung to hope as tightly as his too small henleys have lovingly clung to his biceps. Matty doesn’t lie about his feelings, Elena. There is no need to compel the truth from him because it is all he has. The call comes that Bonnie is on her way and the “cure” she brings is a bitter pill to swallow.
Vaughn has Silas’s mask an I say they look for some dude roaming the streets singing “Music of the Night”. They have no idea what he looks like! He could be anyone! I wonder where he is?! Does this need a sarcasm tag?
Damon and Bonnie arrive and he has his game face on in a way I have not seen in forever. That face says just how serious this all is and Caroline, who hates Damon, knows better than to ignore that look. The scene cuts back and forth between Bonnie telling the original group of friends what she needs to do, ie. kill 12 more people, and Damon explaining to Stefan that Bonnie has jumped off the deep end and into an insane oblivion filled with powerful thoughts of resurrecting everyone they have lost. She is going to open the gates to the “other side” and let out every supernatural being that has died.
OK. Let’s discuss this a moment here. Qetsiyah created the Other Side as a supernatural purgatory after trapping Silas. Also after she killed his one true love, yes? So if the gates are opened and Silas no longer has to worry about being trapped there, isn’t he then going to want to die to go to wherever his love is? Because she would not have been on the Other Side. OR! Does he need to raise his love from the dead somehow in a different way, like allowing her to inhabit the body of a powerful witch. And all you have to do to see how fucked in the head this plan is, is to realize that the resurrection would not bring back any humans that had died, but all of the horrible hybrids. Sorry, Carol, you are still dead and gone, but oh hai Finn, hybrids, and tomb vampires.
The arguing begins and it fades into the background as Elena wars with her own conscience. You see, she wants to do it. You can tell in every tendon that is currently standing out on her neck that she is dying to tell Bonnie to go for it. She also knows that it is a horrible, inexcusable plan and the ringing of the phone keeps her from giving in to her heart’s desire. Plot point, I mean April, is on the phone asking for Jeremy. This is her turning point: Does she make an excuse for why he cannot currently come to the phone or does she find acceptance underneath all of the denial?
“Jeremy can’t come to the phone right now he’s not, sorry, he’s dead.” And with those words, Elena goes to say goodbye to her last family member.
She lets everything in that she has been pushing out for days and it is just as brutal as you can imagine it would be. Her eyes, and all of her senses, have been opened to what she has denied and there is no stopping this crazy train, so just get the fuck off the tracks. I am right there with her stoking the engines, therefore I am not judging. She is looking for flammables and if you don’t see the symbolism in her dousing her diary first, I can’t help you. Sometimes when you are at your most emotionally out of control is also when you are your most coldly rational. It may seem like an impossible dichotomy, but none of these people are as far gone as she and she is the only one who comes up with a solution to their current predicament that may seem fucked up beyond all reason, but makes a logical sense. She is burning this place down. The Gilbert House, was never just a place to rest your head and have indie song moments on the porch. It was HOME, in all caps. It was family and friends and love and life and friendship and a million memories tied to an old reality that died the moment she went off of the bridge but has now finally had a tombstone placed upon it. This is what closure looks like, people, and it is nothing like the sweetly cloying thing people who have never had their life destroyed understand. Closure is a death, closure is a burial, closure is burning down a house.
They try to talk sense to her, but what sense can be found in the death of this beautiful boy? She breaks and this is an anguish that you cannot cry your way through. It is physically painful to feel and to watch. When you are helpless on the sidelines as this unfolds, you are willing to do absolutely anything to make it stop. You would give anything, do anything, or say anything to help the person you love. I was very angry with the words Damon chose to end this and I still feel as if he could have spoken more wisely, but on re-watch I get it. He is also pushed beyond his limit in what he is seeing and becomes coldly rational in his approach. She is begging for it to end. She wants it gone. She would happily accept permanent death at this point and that is the thing he sees more than grief. Everyone is looking to him to save the day.
“I don't mind being a bad guy. I'll make all the life and death decisions, while you're busy worrying about collateral damage. I'll even let her hate me for it. But at the end of the day, I'll be the one to keep her alive.”
Damon is attempting to save her life and he goes to the most extreme spot before death to find it. Of course the reaction from the rest of the room is exactly what you would expect. Condemnation for his actions and blame for anything that may come of it.
You can see the exact moment when she turns it off.
Caroline tries desperately to get in contact with Tyler, which annoys me because he is attempting to avoid the fate that just befell Jeremy. Leave him in peace.
Bonnie tells Matt things will be OK, because she is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. She tells Shilas they don’t think she can do it. Uh, no, BonBons, they don’t think you should do it. Big difference. They have seen how royally fucked up Bennett magic is close up. I’m pretty sure opening the gates to another dimension where every Big Bad that ever lived can come skipping down the street is right in line with what they know. Shilas shrugs off the “necessary sacrifice” of the people at the Young’s farm and I am reminded of every religious demagogue that has come down the pipe. “Do this evil for me and you shall have everything you desire. It is for the greater good.” Since Alaric (drink!), I assume these teens have been taught nothing about history.
I have no idea why Bex is still wandering around Craphole Island, but it does give her a chance to stumble over Shane and bring the last stragglers into full knowledge of what is happening.
Matty. I cried 100 times throughout this Home Movie, but none so much as right now. I have often said that Matt is the heart and soul of this show more than anyone else. He is its moral compass. And he is now broken as well and his hope for a pleasant outcome is now sitting in the bottom of the lake with his truck. I almost let loose enough tears to wash away this current vehicle. And where is he going? He moved out of Donovan Dump to take care of Jeremy and Jeremy is now gone, soon to be followed by his residence. Where will he live? Who will take care of him? How will he go on? *Invites Matt to come live with me where I will keep him in sandwiches, shirts, and DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM YOU BASTARDS!* I swear if Matt doesn’t make it I will write hate mail that has not been seen since Felicity cut her hair.
Stefan argues about his methods with Damon and now Stefan is willing to accept that Elena loves Damon once it has been torn apart. I would throw in another fuck you Stefan for this pathetic display, but my heart isn’t in it. Damon says none of the bad stuff with Elena matters anymore and he is able to say that because he believes there is no Delena. What is there to fight over? He has given up. Stefan can now say he loves him and Damon allows the words to go unsaid. This is yet one more unselfish act, but I can cry no tears for Damon and his pain tonight.
Everything has faded from her eyes and there is nothing but a blank gaze. It is cold and yet this emotionless calculation still produces the same result - burn it all. See what I meant now about the two extremes often having the same logic? Why would she ever want to go back? What would she return to? She drops the match and that life is over.
Much was made about the fact only Stefan looked back as the Gilbert house burned, as if this made him deeper or more caring. No, it only made him Stefan. Stefan has forever looked back on the past as if it would provide all of the answers and peace he seeks. Damon and Elena know that the past is there as a part of you, but once you decide to close the door on it, you need to leave that door closed or forever be haunted by indecision and regret.
This is closure. It tastes and smells of ash.
No more innocence. No more hope. Yes, fellow fangirls and fanboys, Jeremy was the death of hope and innocence for me. If Jeremy can die, I have no hope that there is a chance for any kind of happiness for a single one of these people. There was still simple joy to be found in the way he enthusiastically sought Damon’s approval. There was hope in the way he cared for people he was destined to try and kill. There was innocence in the way he believed that at his age he could give his sister peace. That’s all this cure was for Jeremy. It wasn’t some grand quest nor noble pursuit. He loved his sister and wanted to give her whatever she needed so they could get the hell away from all of the craziness and move to Denver to take his dog to a batting cage.
And now he is dead. I have thrown all of my “ships” and OTP into the burning wreckage of the Gilbert House and watched them go up in flames along with the boy who everyone loved. For now, I’ll be crying in Matt’s truck and seeing if he wants to move out of town with me. Anyone know a bar that needs a busboy and a flibbertigibbet?
If you have read this far, bless you. This is my way of saying this recap sucks and I wish I could have done better, but my heart isn’t in it. It has been broken in a way no Damon Dance can fix. Apologies in advance and lets move on with this sucker.
They had Jeremy speak the words “And we failed” in the opening. It was this point I should have been wise enough to turn off the Home Movie and throw the remote across the room. I have never been wise.
As she picks off the symbolic pieces of broken glass from a picture taken at a time before they knew vampires existed, we flashback to Elena finding Jeremy in the tomb. We can forgive her this first piece of denial in seeing the ring because many of us temporarily forgot that Jeremy was now supernatural like 98% of Mystic Falls and the ring wouldn’t work on him. I won’t go into how eye-rolling this loophole is because the show’s definition of supernatural is pretty damn fluid. The scene is reminiscent of the time she held his head in her bedroom and the gasp of air that told her everything would be OK. That must have been playing in her mind when she stroked his hair on the dirty cave floor. “If I sit here long enough, repeat my mantra of everything being OK, he will open his eyes and go back to being my pain-in-the-ass little brother who I love more than my own life.”
Stefan does a rundown of all they are missing: the cure, Silas, Bonnie and any last drop of humanity. Damon is going to wait with Elena until the ring kicks in, but is reminded by Stefan that this shit just got real, yo, and there will be no re-animation of the littlest Gilbert. Damon, who had already given up all hope the moment he heard the words “sire bond”, goes into I will fix this mode. He knows it is witches that are the root cause of every single bad thing that has happened up until now and he is going to find himself one and try to undo the madness that is seeping into the love of his life at this very moment.
Caroline is doing exactly what is in character with her and I hope we get more of that in the coming weeks. If she only knew that small burn mark was the least of the Gilbert House’s damage to come. She sees them enter and Stefan’s very small head shake speaks volumes about the current situation - Jeremy is dead, Elena is in denial, we have no cure, Klaus will kill us all, The Secret Circle is still cancelled. They get Jeremy to his room and Elena goes into “Mom Mode”. She covers him up and strokes his hand until he gets all better. Stefan sees there is no way to address this right now and leaves her to her delusions of a family that is forever gone.
“Unless you‘re a blonde, a Bennett witch, or a doppelganger, I suggest you steer clear.” *looks at red hair* Damn. I personally think this plan went askew when Damon left his leather at home and wore the jean jacket. No good can come from ditching part of your superhero costume. Seeing as how it is a blonde, and my favorite bonde, who is sneaking up on him, we’re all good. Rebekah wants to know where the damn cure is, thankyouverymuch, and is informed that one Katherine Pierce has run off with it. In my mind Katherine didn’t kill Jeremy, but I am going to lay the blame for his death at her feet, anyway. Rebekah shows actual compassion when she hears of the death of Jeremy. She strikes exactly the right note in that she is not going to mourn for him, why should she, however he is Elena’s last family member and family means everything to Bex. There is actually one member of the Gilbert family left, but it won’t survive this episode either. Their priorities diverge as Rebekah is still intent on finding the cure and Damon could not care less about that. He needs a Bennett witch and he needs one right, damn now.
And there she is! I am moving to this island where some local herbs and berries heal a stab wound. Imagine what it could do for a hangover! Shilas (Oh, shut up! It is not spoiler for later because every damn person should already see it coming and if not, shame on you!) is healed and ready to talk crazy some more. Oh, you don’t wish to sacrifice more people in pursuit of entirely selfish gains? How about if I tell you Jeremy and his arms are dead? *Bonnie begins to kill random people all around her.* Um, Bon?
I have two problems with this scene: 1. Isn’t there vervain in the water? How are they cleaning with vervain in the water? 2. “We’re talking about Elena here. She feels grief more powerfully than anyone else.” Really? In this episode, I need a FUCK YOU, STEFAN!? This bullshit meme about Elena’s supernatural compassion has to go. It is an excuse to portray her as fragile and some kind of Saint Lena of Perpetual Empathy. It is the thing that drives Stefan to try and fix her. “She feels oh so much, and as a vampire maybe she won’t get caught up in constant angst and self-loathing like me so I better make her weak again. This way she will no longer have any independence and I can wear my hero hair as a badge of honor while actually infantilizing the woman I wish to fuck.” *Kicks over Elena’s pedestal everyone has placed her on and lets her be an actual person and not a placeholder for the perfection these assholes want her to personify.*
Oh, honey, Stefan has been in denial for 170 years. You all can give Elena a day or two. Caroline sniping about the sire bond as if Damon is some jerk who caused it makes me hate her all over again, along with them not appreciating Elena’s logic. We know that she is wrong, but what she is thinking makes perfect sense. Being supernatural is a constant state of change in Mystic Falls. Maybe Jeremy had the supernatural sucked right out of him along with the tattoo. It is a perfectly reasonable belief, much more so that the one in which Elena only fucked Damon because she was sired to him, let me tell ya.
Caroline reaches out to Tyler to tell him about Jeremy. She is concerned about Klaus’s pursuit, as well she should be. Stefan has the nerve to compare Tyler’s abilities to hide to Katherine’s and I get my only real laugh of the evening. I love Tyler, but there is no way he should be compared to the dynamic self-preservation skills of Kat. And if Stefan says the word denial one more time I will beat him over the head with it, but I am just enough of an egoist to think someone from the show is reading my recaps. *waves to Julie Plec*
Caroline gets her organizational skills on and she probably already has a theme for the wake picked out when she is stopped dead in her tracks. Oh, you guys, this is beyond terrible. It is a smell that has stopped her and it is the smell of decay. Elena is upstairs right now with the rotting corpse of her baby brother. And you have to know that she smells it as well, but is so far gone in her grief that she can’t sense it. *Searches House for more tissues and settles on a roll of toilet paper, stops, and grabs the whole pack. Don’t judge me!* They decide to get Meredith, because if Elena won’t listen to the people closest to her, she’ll listen to Mere. *eye rolls*
Rebekah asks exactly the right questions, as always, about why Damon is hunting down Bonnie and not Stefan. The problem is that Damon gave up already on a future with Elena so sees no point in torturing himself with prolonged contact. She is going to end up with someone else anyway, so why delay the inevitable? He will only make sure she is not broken further. Vaughn pops up and Damon uses Bex as a vamp shield once more. I wonder how many of her shirts have holes in the back? Damon has a little bit of unspent anger and he is going to work his issues out on Vaughn’s head.
Bonnie is in full tear mode which apparently involves flames and denial of herbal tea. Ah, don’t you think it’s a bit late in the game to be wondering what he has been slipping you beside the sausage, Bonnie? “Silas needs you.” Yep. Let’s not talk about how the people she loves need her, let’s concentrate on the unknown immortal she has no connections to. Anyone still not aware this is Shilas? Because Shane knew to manipulate her /first/ on her feelings and /second/ on her insecurities, and Bonnie is nothing if not one big insecurity blanket. As she should be. Her parents abandoned her, her friends use her and allow her no agency, and the hot professor dude she crushed all over is a psychopath. She is prime cult-follower material, with a catch; she can turn on the cult and blow the entire temple up. God, I hope she does.
I do appreciate the fact I was given something to distract me in the form of Meredith’s matronly haircut. What is it with the stylists’ attempting to make such beautiful people’s hair so horrifying? *cough* Damon *cough* Elena is my friend and says Ric’s (drink! drink! drink!) name several times so I have enough liquor in me to make it until the end. She is rambling exactly as a person does when they are well aware what they are saying is utter bullshit, but if they say enough of it, maybe it won’t be anymore. It’s the same way I talk when justifying buying the big box of truffles. She may sound like a raving lunatic here, but every word she says is DEAD ON. Meredith is a woman of science and while I appreciate that normally, even more than most, this is magic. It is not irrational for Elena to feel this way. It is perfectly rational based on the world she lives in and if there is anything that’ll piss off a righteously raving person faster than treating them like they’re crazy, I’ve never heard of it.
Matt.
I hope he drugged the shit out of that tea. They sit and talk like only old friends can and Elena proves once and for all the she sees Damon more clearly than anyone has his entire life. Damon loves Bonnie. And Stefan, and Alaric (drink!) and Jeremy, and Caroline, and Matt, and Liz, and Tyler...OK, maybe not Tyler, but definitely everyone else. And don’t mess with Damon logic, because he is normally always right, but I question seriously a call he makes later.
Damon got boned by Katherine. Heh. I can see her being into that kind of kink. What? Oh! Not that kind of boned. Nevermind. Vaughn gets a little cocky about them being unable to kill him when Rebekah brings out her inner sociopath. Is it wrong I fell in love with her even more after this bleak discussion of methodical torture? Damon calls her creepy, which was totally the compliment she took it for, as he looked at her admiringly. Vaughn was working for Katherine and so was Hayley. Gotta give Kat credit for always knowing what game is afoot. Damon still wants to get Elena the cure, but he knows the cure is nothing if Jeremy remains dead. He gets the priorities here.
You can be a witch or a vampire, never both. Kinda like how you can be a 1Der or a Taylor Swift fan, apparently. Don’t cross the streams! Shilas is the master of manipulation so literally dumps a dying Jeremy in Bonnie’s path as she attempts to flee. Yeah. That oughtta do it.
There is no amount of AC that will fix this bitch. Bah.
Damon calls to check on the rate of decomposition of both Jeremy and his love’s mental health. I like how he at first says he can’t just leave Bonnie here, totally independent of helping Elena. Damon is not one to leave a friend behind and he considers Bonnie a friend. As he contemplates this awful decision he hears a noise and out stumbles their goto deus ex machina. He gives a honest to goodness hug, which has me crying again because come on! Shilas led her to Damon. You still didn’t know it was Shilas? I worry about you. And that, my friends, was the soft smile of a mad woman.
Matty. He takes Elena to the stoner pit to discuss his philosophy of life that allows him to get out of bed everyday. The one person on this show who has lost as much as Elena. I know others may have had more deaths, but they also had a wider circle of people to begin with. Matt had no one but Vicki. She was fucked up and flawed, but he loved her as only a brother could. He vocalizes what Elena has been thinking all along - people are often not permanently dead and she has hope. Matt has clung to hope as tightly as his too small henleys have lovingly clung to his biceps. Matty doesn’t lie about his feelings, Elena. There is no need to compel the truth from him because it is all he has. The call comes that Bonnie is on her way and the “cure” she brings is a bitter pill to swallow.
Vaughn has Silas’s mask an I say they look for some dude roaming the streets singing “Music of the Night”. They have no idea what he looks like! He could be anyone! I wonder where he is?! Does this need a sarcasm tag?
Damon and Bonnie arrive and he has his game face on in a way I have not seen in forever. That face says just how serious this all is and Caroline, who hates Damon, knows better than to ignore that look. The scene cuts back and forth between Bonnie telling the original group of friends what she needs to do, ie. kill 12 more people, and Damon explaining to Stefan that Bonnie has jumped off the deep end and into an insane oblivion filled with powerful thoughts of resurrecting everyone they have lost. She is going to open the gates to the “other side” and let out every supernatural being that has died.
OK. Let’s discuss this a moment here. Qetsiyah created the Other Side as a supernatural purgatory after trapping Silas. Also after she killed his one true love, yes? So if the gates are opened and Silas no longer has to worry about being trapped there, isn’t he then going to want to die to go to wherever his love is? Because she would not have been on the Other Side. OR! Does he need to raise his love from the dead somehow in a different way, like allowing her to inhabit the body of a powerful witch. And all you have to do to see how fucked in the head this plan is, is to realize that the resurrection would not bring back any humans that had died, but all of the horrible hybrids. Sorry, Carol, you are still dead and gone, but oh hai Finn, hybrids, and tomb vampires.
The arguing begins and it fades into the background as Elena wars with her own conscience. You see, she wants to do it. You can tell in every tendon that is currently standing out on her neck that she is dying to tell Bonnie to go for it. She also knows that it is a horrible, inexcusable plan and the ringing of the phone keeps her from giving in to her heart’s desire. Plot point, I mean April, is on the phone asking for Jeremy. This is her turning point: Does she make an excuse for why he cannot currently come to the phone or does she find acceptance underneath all of the denial?
“Jeremy can’t come to the phone right now he’s not, sorry, he’s dead.” And with those words, Elena goes to say goodbye to her last family member.
She lets everything in that she has been pushing out for days and it is just as brutal as you can imagine it would be. Her eyes, and all of her senses, have been opened to what she has denied and there is no stopping this crazy train, so just get the fuck off the tracks. I am right there with her stoking the engines, therefore I am not judging. She is looking for flammables and if you don’t see the symbolism in her dousing her diary first, I can’t help you. Sometimes when you are at your most emotionally out of control is also when you are your most coldly rational. It may seem like an impossible dichotomy, but none of these people are as far gone as she and she is the only one who comes up with a solution to their current predicament that may seem fucked up beyond all reason, but makes a logical sense. She is burning this place down. The Gilbert House, was never just a place to rest your head and have indie song moments on the porch. It was HOME, in all caps. It was family and friends and love and life and friendship and a million memories tied to an old reality that died the moment she went off of the bridge but has now finally had a tombstone placed upon it. This is what closure looks like, people, and it is nothing like the sweetly cloying thing people who have never had their life destroyed understand. Closure is a death, closure is a burial, closure is burning down a house.
They try to talk sense to her, but what sense can be found in the death of this beautiful boy? She breaks and this is an anguish that you cannot cry your way through. It is physically painful to feel and to watch. When you are helpless on the sidelines as this unfolds, you are willing to do absolutely anything to make it stop. You would give anything, do anything, or say anything to help the person you love. I was very angry with the words Damon chose to end this and I still feel as if he could have spoken more wisely, but on re-watch I get it. He is also pushed beyond his limit in what he is seeing and becomes coldly rational in his approach. She is begging for it to end. She wants it gone. She would happily accept permanent death at this point and that is the thing he sees more than grief. Everyone is looking to him to save the day.
“I don't mind being a bad guy. I'll make all the life and death decisions, while you're busy worrying about collateral damage. I'll even let her hate me for it. But at the end of the day, I'll be the one to keep her alive.”
Damon is attempting to save her life and he goes to the most extreme spot before death to find it. Of course the reaction from the rest of the room is exactly what you would expect. Condemnation for his actions and blame for anything that may come of it.
You can see the exact moment when she turns it off.
Caroline tries desperately to get in contact with Tyler, which annoys me because he is attempting to avoid the fate that just befell Jeremy. Leave him in peace.
Bonnie tells Matt things will be OK, because she is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. She tells Shilas they don’t think she can do it. Uh, no, BonBons, they don’t think you should do it. Big difference. They have seen how royally fucked up Bennett magic is close up. I’m pretty sure opening the gates to another dimension where every Big Bad that ever lived can come skipping down the street is right in line with what they know. Shilas shrugs off the “necessary sacrifice” of the people at the Young’s farm and I am reminded of every religious demagogue that has come down the pipe. “Do this evil for me and you shall have everything you desire. It is for the greater good.” Since Alaric (drink!), I assume these teens have been taught nothing about history.
I have no idea why Bex is still wandering around Craphole Island, but it does give her a chance to stumble over Shane and bring the last stragglers into full knowledge of what is happening.
Matty. I cried 100 times throughout this Home Movie, but none so much as right now. I have often said that Matt is the heart and soul of this show more than anyone else. He is its moral compass. And he is now broken as well and his hope for a pleasant outcome is now sitting in the bottom of the lake with his truck. I almost let loose enough tears to wash away this current vehicle. And where is he going? He moved out of Donovan Dump to take care of Jeremy and Jeremy is now gone, soon to be followed by his residence. Where will he live? Who will take care of him? How will he go on? *Invites Matt to come live with me where I will keep him in sandwiches, shirts, and DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM YOU BASTARDS!* I swear if Matt doesn’t make it I will write hate mail that has not been seen since Felicity cut her hair.
Stefan argues about his methods with Damon and now Stefan is willing to accept that Elena loves Damon once it has been torn apart. I would throw in another fuck you Stefan for this pathetic display, but my heart isn’t in it. Damon says none of the bad stuff with Elena matters anymore and he is able to say that because he believes there is no Delena. What is there to fight over? He has given up. Stefan can now say he loves him and Damon allows the words to go unsaid. This is yet one more unselfish act, but I can cry no tears for Damon and his pain tonight.
Everything has faded from her eyes and there is nothing but a blank gaze. It is cold and yet this emotionless calculation still produces the same result - burn it all. See what I meant now about the two extremes often having the same logic? Why would she ever want to go back? What would she return to? She drops the match and that life is over.
Much was made about the fact only Stefan looked back as the Gilbert house burned, as if this made him deeper or more caring. No, it only made him Stefan. Stefan has forever looked back on the past as if it would provide all of the answers and peace he seeks. Damon and Elena know that the past is there as a part of you, but once you decide to close the door on it, you need to leave that door closed or forever be haunted by indecision and regret.
This is closure. It tastes and smells of ash.