Original Air Date: 3 November 2011
Stefan: Well, the bunny diet gave me a lot of time to practice. Wallow in despair. Drown in guilt. Regret my existence. It’s precision born out of tragic boredom. Drink up, brother.
Damon: All that effort wasted trying to tell you how boring you were and you finally agree with me?
Damon's Best: Careful, Stefan, your manhood is showing.Review: I cannot even tell you how happy I am that the whole ghost plot has been dropped. Or at least I hope it was. After a really excruciating episode, TVD came back to its origins: vampires, witches and werewolves, though oddly Tyler was not a part of this week's story.
I've been waiting for the Originals mythology to unravel for a long while and I must say, it didn't disappoint. OK, the way they were made vampires may have been a little bit too simplistic for my taste, I was expecting to see some spell performed, but that was not the most important revelation of the week. Esther, the mother, being the Original Witch (though she was in no way more powerful that any other witch), as well as the way she died, beat that by a long shot. But the thing I loved most from Rebekah's story was the connection between her, Klaus and Elijah (and Daniel Gillies' return). She explained, in few but concise words, why Klaus went against them at different points in time ("I'm stubborn, Elijah moral, and Nik... Nik has no tolerance for those who disappoint him."), but also why she stuck with him, despite her brother driving a dagger through her heart. I think Elena captured it very well - "she's just a girl, then she lost her mom too young, and she loves blindly and recklessly, even if it consumes her". I have a newly found sympathy for the girl. (And doesn't she resemble Elena just a little bit?)
And it's one of those episodes when Elena didn't make me cringe. She switches between whiny and annoying and actually acting like an adult and the secret to that is being or not in Stefan's presence, I guess. I like her new Buffy act (how cute was the scene where Damon was training her - especially when he pretended to bite her neck?) and managing to get Rebekah on their side was a powerful move. I have to give credit to the girl from time to time.
While she was persuading Rebekah to tell her the Original family's story, Damon made a move of his own - reckless, as it seemed initially, but a winning one in the end: he freed Stefan and arranged for a brothers bonding afternoon involving shots of booze and blood from a blond bartender. And not only did he not indulge in drinking from any of the girls himself, but he didn't let Stefan go on a ripper rampage either. I've never really enjoyed the interactions between the Salvatore boys before Stefan went dark, because the great stuff came from only one side - but now, I was swept away in their banter, with both Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley getting their chance to really shine.
I said before Damon's was a winning move, but ultimately a lucky one - would Mikael not have appeared, Stefan would have turned to his ripper self very fast. But "papa Original"'s appearance gave them the loophole to Stefan's salvation: Klaus' compulsion works wonders when it comes to everything else but his love for Damon. He would have probably killed Elena if he were told to, but he cannot let Damon die. Indeed, that's what will make him snap out of it, eventually. I see Stefan returning to his broody boring self before Klaus' death - if that even happens at all.
Ultimately, the episode was focused on brotherly love: Stefan's for Damon and Rebekah's for Klaus - even though this last one may have been destroyed by the realization that Klaus killed their mother and betrayed her.
Until next week's episode - which will also be the midseason finale - I'm going to watch the last scene over and over again. There's nothing cuter when it comes to this show than this season's scenes with Elena and Damon.
The Vampire Diaries 3x07: Ghost World
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