The Vampire Diaries 706 “Best Served Cold” Recap

Happy Friday friends! Hope everyone enjoyed last nights jaw dropping episode of The Vampire Diaries. Let’s get right into things shall we?

This weeks flashforward features Damon and Alaric conversing in the kitchen, finally revealing who Caroline’s fiance is from a flashforward we saw weeks ago. Turns out three years in the future Caroline and Alaric are engaged! Now this seems like absolute INSANITY considering the state of relationships in present time, however this is The Vampire Diaries we’re talking about and pretty much ALL the relationships we’ve seen on this show are relationships we never would have seen coming. A lot of people are saying they’re pissed off about this because of the age difference between Alaric and Caroline, but apparently those people have forgotten that Stefan and Damon are both technically 160+ years old and no one had a problem with them dating/banging teenagers? So let’s just move on from that idiocy.
As the flashforward continues, Damon asks Alaric when the last time he heard from his fiance was as whoever is after Stefan is relentless and he’s worried that this mystery hunter is going to use Caroline as bait to lure Stefan out of hiding. Just as they’re about to try and contact Caroline, her voice flows into the room through the television set. She’s sitting in the news room and in a live broadcast she says “I have an urgent message for Stefan Salvatore.” and then it cuts to the title screen. WHAT. NOOOOOOO! What is the urgent message?! Is Stefan still in love with her? Is that why this hunter would use HER as bait? I’m so confused, I NEED ANSWERS DAMNIT!
So Stefan is dreaming about teaching his son Jacob how to shoot guns, which is pretty heart-wrenching as it’s blatantly obvious how much Valerie’s secret has fucked with Stefan’s head. Caroline overhears Stefan yelling “Jacob!” in his sleep, and tries to comfort him as he wakes up. To Caroline’s surprise, Valerie enters the room in nothing but a towel. Stefan tries to explain to a suspicious Caroline that she only stayed for the night, without actually explaining much of anything. This obviously only makes Caroline more insecure, and she comes up with the idea of getting Valerie far away from town.
Lily and her “family” of heretics have decided to throw a dinner party to show what peace between everyone in Mystic Falls could look like. Alaric is busy being a masochist and watching his wedding video when Bonnie calls to inform him that FauxJo is sitting next to her on campus holding her laptop like a book. Bonnie asks him to come get her immediately as she has a dinner party to get ready for. Stefan is happily getting ready for the party, the motivation to kill Julian obviously overwhelming. Damon enters the room as Stefan is tying his tie, to tell Stefan that he won’t be attending the evening’s dinner party. Damon’s plan is still to give Lily enough time with the love of her life to get attached to the idea of happiness before tearing it all away from her. Stefan however, has a much more pressing urgency to get it over with ASAP. Problem is, Stefan doesn’t tell Damon what’s going on until the end of the fucking episode, otherwise this motherfucker would have totally been dead tonight. Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy kids.
Caroline is helping Valerie plan her relocation to a new city, and figuring out a new identity. But because her relationship with Stefan is uncertain, and on the rocks (in her mind) it seems Caroline has regressed to her season 1 self. Petty, passive aggressive, and tragically insecure. She suggests Valerie should change her name to Matilda Pettigrew from Liverpool England, and she should live as far away from them as humanly possibly; in Indonesia.
Valerie is equally as calculating and manipulative as Caroline though, apparently Stefan has a type? She dangles the fact that there’s something Stefan is keeping from Caroline, but doesn’t tell her what it is. Only that Stefan promised to keep her secret, but she didn’t think he’d keep it from his own girlfriend. At the boarding house the party is just getting started, Nora and Julian are having a conversation about how Lily is keeping a leash on the heretics that might be just a little too tight, Nora convinces Julian to have a chat with Lily about it. I’d like to touch on what’s probaby going to be an unpopular opinion, but I’m NOT enjoying Nora and Mary Louise together. Nora is a fucking awful bitch to her girlfriend, like seriously who treats their significant other the way she does? She belittles her constantly and I hope I’m not the only one growing tired of watching the dynamic between them.
Stefan arrives at the party to a house full of guests he doesn’t recognize, probably because Lily had to compel people to come. Surprise! Damon is already at the party, obviously to put a stop to Stefan’s plan to kill Julian tonight. Julian interjects their conversation, Stefan is sassy AF to Julian. In walks Matty Blue to the party, a face this show is still neglecting even though they gave him a shiny new badge and everything. Seriously, when is this guy going to get a storyline? Or just kill him off already? Matt tries to persuade Nora to ask his family to leave Mystic Falls, he’s suspicious of what is keeping them there as there’s no one to feed on. Mary Louise walks into the conversation and is yet again, snubbed by her girlfriend. EVEN THOUGH SHE CHANGED HER DRESS TO IMPRESS HER, so typical.
Enzo arrives at the party with a surprising date – Bonnie Bennett. Don’t worry, she’s as blindsided about it as we all were too 😉 Lily says she hopes Bonnie is willing to start fresh, Bonnie more or less tells her to shove it. Meanwhile the Salvatore’s are indulging Julian in the most passive aggressive game of pool the world has ever seen. Across town Alaric finally arrives to pick up his wife, this is when Jo begins coughing up blood. Uh oh!
Back at the party, Lily makes her speech where she talks about her hopes of restoring the town to a state of peace. Julian reveals to Beau that he believes his time in the Phoenix Stone might have changed him, he’s concerned he’s different. He asks Beau to help him find Oscar’s automobile saying that it will provide him with some relief from whatever seems to be going on in his head, Enzo overhears this conversation and looks pleased with himself for doing so. A very awkward and stiff interaction between Julian and Enzo takes place before Bonnie steps in. Bonnie realizes Lily is watching them, and provides Enzo with a stellar wingman move, adjusting his tie and looking up at him creating so much sexual tension that I literally think I could have cut it with a knife.
Alaric now has Jo safely back at home, with Caroline and Valerie. As Jo’s condition continues to worsen, Caroline feeds her some blood in hopes that it will heal her. Jo throws the blood back up, Valerie finally pipes up that perhaps a vampire soul in a human body doesn’t work very well. The fact that Alaric will once again have to say goodbye to his wife has become increasingly apparent. Seriously, can we just get this guy a woman who lasts? Back at the party Mary Louise and Julian have a little talk about her shitty relationship, Julian suggests that she’s gone soft and it’s no wonder that Nora is bored. She breaks Lily’s rule of “peace-keeping” and feeds on the help, goes upstairs and grabs her girlfriend for a surprise make out session.. #badass. Upstairs Bonnie has a very strange run-in with a teenage boy who insists she tell him where the high school is, he’s unable to tell her why he needs to know or who he’s been talking to. Naturally Bonnie suspects he’s been compelled and she asks Matt to join her in following him to the school. Meanwhile Stefan and Damon are checking out all the changes mommy has made to Damon’s bedroom while Stefan continues to pussyfoot around the massive piece of information he’s keeping from Damon. Matt walks in drinking Damon’s good bourbon, which has been laced with vervain, obviously Damon doesn’t realize this until it’s too late and Stefan manages to inject him with more vervain so he can carry out his plan to kill Julian. Now we all know that Stefan isn’t exactly the most successful when it comes to devious schemes, so unsurprising that his attempt to kill Julian isn’t only pathetic, but very unsuccessful. Jesus Stefan, when will you learn that when it comes to murder.. your brother is just always going to be better than you?
When Damon finally wakes up he makes his way to the kitchen to catch Stefan carrying out his fail of a plan. Julian sits them down and tells them just how bad his time in the Phoenix Stone was, it’s pretty similar to a prison world.. but every day you have to kill the person you love the most. So naturally most of the souls go absolutely bat shit crazy. He shows how crazy he’s gone when he attacks Stefan mid speech, they end up in a fight complete with throwing each other into glass cupboards etc. Lily clearly doesn’t recognize this Julian and tells the boys to leave immediately.
Enter the saddest scene of the night, “Jo” remembers who she is.. turns out her name is Florence. She tells Alaric that she’s sorry she isn’t his wife, and that he would have made an amazing husband. Alaric cries uncontrollably while thanking her for giving him the chance to say goodbye, and to hear her voice again. BRB CRYING FOREVER <//////3
At the high school Bonnie and Matt discover a classroom full of people that have clearly been compelled to be there, hooked up to IV drips. What are they there for? No idea, probably for the heretics to feed on. Either way, it was fucking creepy. Meanwhile Valerie picks an incredibly insensitive time to watch Alaric and Jo’s wedding video, but it turns out she’s not just being a raging bitch.. she recognizes the chant the gemini coven are doing in the background, turns out they weren’t sending Kai anywhere.. they were saving Jo’s babies. Finally Stefan and Damon have a heart to heart conversation about whats really going on. Damon finally gets up to speed on the whole Valerie was pregnant with Stefan’s baby thing, this leads to a conversation between the brothers about how they both would love to be fathers. Which was a super painful conversation to watch 😦 Damon agrees that if Stefan wants to kill Julian, he is 100% on board whenever Stefan is ready.
So the big cliffhanger this week was actually something I’d already posted about on my instagram weeks ago, Valerie does a location spell on Alaric’s babies. Turns out they’re INSIDE CAROLINE! Clever, now Candice can be pregnant on the show and they won’t have to find creative solutions around it. But is this why Caroline and Alaric end up engaged three years down the road? Do they really fall in love after Stefan does something idiotic with Valerie? Is the marriage just a way to protect the twins? SO. MANY. QUESTIONS!

So all in all, decent episode.. I’ll give it an 8/10.

Thanks for reading, I’ll see you guys next week!
XO – TheLevelHeadedFangirl.

The Vampire Diaries 705 “Live Through This” Recap

Again, I am so sorry for posting this late. I ended up working yesterday (on a Sunday which is unheard of in the film industry!) so unfortunately I didn’t get any free time to write. Lets recap!
This week’s flashforward takes place in what seems to be some sort of mental institution, where Bonnie is taking part in a “let’s share our feelings” circle. I must take a second to praise Kat Graham’s CONSTANTLY improving and growing acting skills, this scene was so raw and emotional. Great job Kat! Now possibly the most shocking WHAT THE FUCK moment of this entire episode was who is waiting for her in her room. Enzo. Who tells Bonnie she can’t hide in the mental institution forever, and then they share a very steamy kiss?! What the what?!?!?! Bonnie and Enzo have never exactly been close, or even remotely close for that matter. So needless to say viewers everywhere were a little taken aback by this. But, is whoever is in this asylum really Bonnie Bennett? Or is it a vampire soul who’s taken over Bonnie’s body, perhaps Lily Salvatore? Anything is possible, especially with this three year time jump. Hear me out for a second here, we know that there is some sort of hunter out to get them in the future.. so perhaps it’s possible that all the vampire’s took human vessels to hide in plain sight? Just a theory.
Back in present time, Bonnie pays Alaric and he’s newly awakened wife a visit. Jo is still asleep at this point, apparently being resurrected is hard work. Bonnie wants the Phoenix Stone so she can try and figure out just what kind of magic they’ve been messing with bringing two people back from the dead. Miiiiiight be too little too late BonBon. Alaric hands the stone over without much fuss now that he has the only thing he cared about back in his life. Jo wakes up just as Bonnie leaves and says “I’m starving.” Uh oh…
Stefan and Caroline are blissfully waking up very slowly in Caroline’s dorm room, only to be rudely awakened by Damon.. but he brought coffee so I’m gonna give him a free pass here. Damon has come to get Stefan so they can interrogate Valerie, Caroline thinks this will be a great opportunity for Stefan to confront any lingering emotions he might have for Valerie and encourages him to go. Back at heretic headquarters, Oscar is still hungry. And Lily is planning on bringing Julian back TODAY. Turns out Oscar doesn’t seem to remember anyone, and he’s being strangely quiet. Lily asks Enzo to keep watch over him while they go fetch Julian’s corpse. Meanwhile Valerie in Matt Donovan’s stolen SUV runs into Damon who’s parked his car across the road preventing her to pass him. Damon wants to know why Valerie killed Oscar and framed him for the murder, Valerie pretends not to know what he’s talking about so Damon threatens to call Lily to ask if she knows anything about it. Valerie backed into a corner begins to choke Damon using magic, thankfully Damon brought Stefan as back up. Turns out Valerie is easily persuaded by Stefan and she stops the attack. I’d like to take this moment to say how forced this whole Stefan/Valerie thing feels, I wish the writers would stop throwing in new/old love interests. Especially if they’re trying to play it off like Valerie was SO important to Stefan, it makes it feel really fake when there’s been no mention of her until now. I thought Katherine was Stefan and Damon’s first love? Why didn’t Elena read about Valerie in Stefan’s diary way back when? I know it’s impossible to foresee story-line additions like this, but perhaps if there’s SO many contradicting stories to the new one you’re trying to introduce.. don’t?
At Whitmore, Caroline is studying and Bonnie is venting about her man problems, or should we say lack of man problems. Girl, don’t worry I feel you on a spiritual level. Caroline lets Bonnie know that she sent Stefan off to spend the day with his ex lover, Bonnie is impressed with Caroline’s security and heads off to question Oscar.. and then maybe to go meet a guy later.
This brings us to the world’s most awkward car ride, avec Stefan, Damon, and Valerie taking a trip down memory lane. Lots of uncomfortable banter ensues. Luckily they’re all on the same page when it comes to intercepting Julian’s body to keep him out of Lily’s hands. If there’s one thing the entire fandom can agree on, it’s that Julian seems like he sucks. Back in Alaric’s house, Jo still seems to be having a very difficult time recollecting anything about herself or her former life. It’s devastating to watch Ric desperately search for any familiar traits in Jo, when he cuts himself on the bottle opener she offers to bandage it for him and you can see the twinkle of hope in his eyes. </3
  Damon and Stefan are gassing up the car while Stefan plans a date with Caroline to make up for spending the day with Valerie. Caroline is incredibly transparent on the phone, acting like she’s totally cool with the whole Stefan hanging out with Valerie scenario when she’s totally fishing for reassurance that she has nothing to worry about. It’s kind of cute and kind of annoying.. I really never seem to be able to make up my mind when it comes to Caroline. Valerie overhears the end of Steroline’s phone call and she’s clearly still feelin’ Stefan judging by her reaction. GTFO Valerie, it’s been 150+ years. MOVE ON BITCH.
Bonnie arrives at the Salvatore mansion, and a scene between her and Enzo takes place which is suddenly 1000x more interesting given how this episode started. There’s some flirtatious banter when suddenly a woman’s scream interrupts them – it’s Oscar eating the maid. Bonnie asks Oscar if he remembers her, turns out he does as she’s the one who got him out of “the dark basement” say what now? Oscar doesn’t seem to know the name “Phoenix Stone” but when Bonnie holds it up to him he reveals that’s where she got him out of.
More avoiding plays out between Stefan and Valerie, and at this point I really just want her to be like “OKAYIWASTOTALLYKNOCKEDUPWITHYOURBABYBUTJULIANKICKEDMEINTHESTOMACHANDKIDNAPPEDMEANDITRIEDTOKILLMYSELFBUTHADLILYSBLOODINMYSYSTEMSOIBECAMEAVAMPIREANDIMSORRY!” like fuck girl just get it over with, we both know you want to tell him the truth so he’ll look at you with those puppy dog eyes again. Anyways, Julian’s corpse is hidden in a room full of coffins.. fun! Valerie seems very up to speed on how Damon brought Oscar back from the dead, turns out she even knows some super important info about the sketchy rock. The stone is full of old vampire souls, and whoever they brought back in Oscar’s body.. well it isn’t Oscar. Looks like it might be time to give Ric a call?
Damon calls Bonnie, informs her of what the Phoenix Stone actually is. He also guilts Bonnie into doing the deed of calling Alaric and dropping the heartbreaking news that Jo isn’t really Jo. Whoever is inside Oscar’s body overhears the conversation Bonnie and Enzo are having about the Stone. “Oscar” freaks out and attacks Bonnie stating that he’s not going back inside that rock, in the midst of his freak out he discovers he’s also blessed with the ability to do magic, oh boy! A hungry hungry ancient heretic?
Alaric is still unaware of the situation and trying to help his wife remember anything. When “Jo” finds the wedding dressed she was killed in, she asks Alaric what happened to her. Reluctantly Alaric tells her some details of what happened that day in hopes of stirring something in her memory. Luckily it does stir a memory, whoever is in Jo’s body was stabbed in the heart. Which as we all know is exactly how a vampire would perish. Jo however was stabbed from behind, so clearly this is not Jo. She begins to panic as more memories flood over her, and she runs out of Alaric’s house with a gun.
Over more tense arguing between Stefan and Valerie, they finally locate the coffin that holds Julian’s body. Valerie coats Julian in kerosene says the magic word, but Julian won’t burn. Enter Nora, Mary Louise, Beau, and Lily. Uh oh Valerie, looks like you’re in some deep shit! Valerie pleads with Lily to stop being blinded by her feelings for this man and see him for who he truly is, but it seems the habit of being blinded by feelings runs in the Salvatore family. Lily knows how to manipulate her sons, tells them exactly what they need to hear. As they’re about to let Lily leave with Julian, Valerie drops another truth bomb on the Salvatores. It was Lily who gave Kai the idea to link Elena’s life to Bonnie’s and put her in the coma. Damon tries to kill his mother but Beau saves her and blows up all the coffins in the warehouse buying them enough time to escape.
Bonnie and Enzo are still trying to escape the Salvatore house with the mystery ancient heretic after them. Stefan and Damon are pulling splintered coffins from their bodies. Damon is livid after finding out what his mother did, we all know what happens when Damon is mad.. he does things without thinking. Enzo and “Oscar” have a wee tussle, which ends in Oscar getting stabbed in the heart and Enzo holding onto the Phoenix Stone. At the warehouse, it’s finally time for Stefan and Valerie to have the serious conversation they’ve been avoiding all day. She tells him everything, including the fact that she was carrying his child. Stefan is obviously heartbroken when he finds out he could have been a father, not only that but that Valerie was beaten so badly that she lost his child.
Enzo is still brown nosing Lily, and hands over the Phoenix Stone to her despite the fact that it’s going to be used to bring back Lily’s long lost love. Damnit Enzo! Bonnie finally gives Alaric the dreaded phone call informing him that whoever they brought back from the dead, isn’t Jo. Ric hangs up on her when he sees Jo staring into a store window. She hands him back the gun she ran away with, and tearfully tells him that nothing about this world is familiar to her. Alaric now knows this isn’t Jo, but surprisingly enough wants to help whoever this is to figure everything out together. My heart.. I just want Alaric to be happy with a woman for once damnit!
Stefan bails on his date with Caroline, she pretends to understand but we all know Caroline is probably super mad/suspicious/upset about it. She asks if there’s anything “monumental” she should know about and Stefan lies to her saying that there isn’t. I think this is the beginning of a very bumpy road for Steroline! Stefan is still with Valerie at this point, continuing their talk about the past. Valerie kicks him when he’s down and delivers the once last piece of knowledge Stefan doesn’t know – she killed herself and that’s how she became a vampire. Stefan tells her that yes, he would have wanted a child and offers a room for her to stay the night. Finally, he promises Valerie that if Julian is brought back to life, that he will kill him himself. The episode comes to a close with two parallel scenes, Bonnie and Damon plotting revenge over a bottle of bourbon and the heretics reviving Julian. Damon reveals his ultimate revenge plan: giving Lily back the love she lost, only to murder him violently right in front of her. Bonnie agrees with Damon, that he’s absolutely doing right by Elena with this plan. They cheers to sweet revenge.
Again, this season has been consistently impressing me. I give this episode a 7/10.
What did YOU think of “Live Through This”?
What are your theories for the rest of the season?!

Let me know in the comments below.
Love Always, TheLevelHeadedFangirl.

The Vampire Diaries 704 “I Carry Your Heart With Me” Recap

Well I thought waiting to write this until Sunday would also ensure that I will have screencaps from the episode to use throughout the blog post.. but alas they haven’t been uploaded yet! Darn. I’ll do my best to find gifs etc for you guys.

I think it’s safe to assume at this point that TVD season 7 will be starting each episode with a flash-forward to three years from present day, and it is slowly starting to appear that A LOT will change in the course of just three years.. in THIS episode’s flash-forward sequence we see Alaric, dramatically trying to solder together some sort of circuit board which turns out to be for a child’s toy. This child turns out to be, well, two children.. twins to be exact. So from the beginning of this episode I was 100% confident that Alaric would be bringing Jo back from the dead before our 42 minute episode was up. Also, very interesting part of this flash-forward was Damon shows up at Ric’s door.. which appears to be a really unexpected scenario judging by Alaric’s reaction to seeing him. Spoiler alert: Damon and Ric aren’t friends in the future. :((((((((((((
Damon Salvatore is still desperately trying to use one of Lily’s heretic family members as leverage to get Elena’s body back. Unfortunately for Damon there’s been a wee blip in his ingenious plan, Valerie killed Oscar last week. Meanwhile at Whitmore, Caroline and Bonnie snuggle up in bed and take a pause just to enjoy some quality girl time together.. so nice!
An ongoing theme of this episode is everyone closest to Damon letting him know how pathetic he’s being when it comes to Elena’s body.. see, Lily I understand because she has absolutely no ties to Elena so it’s just natural that she’d not give any fucks about her well-being. However, the fact that Stefan is judging his brother for making “bad decisions about Elena” kinda rubbed me the wrong way, erm Stefan have you forgotten that it was you making the bad decisions when it came to Miss Gilbert not so long ago? This is ELENA we’re talking about, y’all should be wanting to protect that coffin and what’s in it with your lives. Have we forgotten that the entire world rotates around her? JEEEEEEEZE.Back at the Heretic Boarding house, nope that just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Enzo suspects Valerie of something, and well – he’s dead on. Lily confronts Valerie about her romp with Stefan back in 1863, and offers her the chance to fess up to anything she might have been hiding for the past century and a half. Valerie sticks to her guns and chooses to continue to be dishonest about her past.. which probably won’t play out well for her but will be wildly entertaining for us.
Nora and Mary Louise pay the Salvatore brothers a visit at Whitmore college, it’s not a good time though as they’re hiding Oscar’s dead body in the dorm room. After a tense scene between the four of them, many lies from Damon, the heretics finally leave the dorm. Let’s just say thank goodness it was Halloween or something tells me this wouldn’t have worked in their favor…
Nora and Mary obviously assume the Salvatore brothers are up to something so they find a lovely woman and send her up to their dorm with a letter that more or less reads “give us Oscar, or we’re gonna kill students.” the nice lady they sent up then (under compulsion) stabs herself in the neck, and dies. Back in Mystic Falls, hoards of supernatural fiends are touring around the evacuated city in search of thrills. Deputy Donovan is not amused and sends them packing, more than aware of the fact that visitors to the town are sitting ducks waiting to be a heretic snack. Enzo, still being wildly suspicious of Valerie convinces Matt to let him have access to security footage to try and see where she went the night of Oscar’s disappearance. Onto the ongoing Steroline drama, Caroline and Stefan are still unable to have hot make out sessions as Valerie has done a spell which essentially turns Caroline’s skin into vervain, AND Caroline is still drilling into Stefan about Valerie. Our hero couple comes up with the brilliant idea to distract Nora and Mary Louise from killing by making them want to go to a Halloween Ball hosted by Whitmore that night. Can’t complain, I always love a good TVD party scene! The heretics also consult Caroline once again for fashion advice, why? I’m not sure. Maybe they’re huge fans of frilly maternity shirts and denim?
While Bonnie and Alaric are discussing their thrilling Halloween plans of resurrecting the dead, Damon bursts in the room with Oscar’s very dead body demanding they try and bring him back to life. Back at the Halloween Ball.. Caroline and Stefan try and figure out if this is their first date, they come to the conclusion that it’s simply torture cause they can’t feel each other up on the dance floor. Nora and Mary Louise show their age while ordering some drinks that don’t even exist anymore, and Nora pisses off her girlfriend by being way better at blending into modern life than she is. Cue lesbian relationship drama in 3, 2, 1….
Enzo takes a wee trip to Whitmore and comes back with a nurse he’s drained of blood, all to make a point to Valerie whom he’s discovered took a little joy ride down to the college town in a stolen car, on the same night all the Oscar drama went down. Good job detective Enzo, now maybe Lily will pay some attention to you! Valerie stuck between a rock and a hard place is forced to tell Enzo her crimes, and also spill the beans about Julian. Back to the Halloween Ball of relationship draamamamaaaaaa~* Nora and Mary Louise aren’t on the same level when it comes to modern parties, and Caroline is digging herself a bigger hole when it comes to constantly asking Stefan about Valerie. Caroline, your insecurities are showing! Amidst the drama, Caroline and Stefan lose sight of the heretics and Nora goes off to feed on and kill another student.. you guessed it, more relationship drama between the girls plays out.
After many feeble attempts to bring Oscar back using the Phoenix Stone, Bonnie finally succeeds and it seems as if Damon’s plan to get Elena back from his mother is back on track. In a scary turn of events, bringing someone back from the dead using magic has an unforeseen dangerous side effect, shocking I know. Re-vamped Oscar also comes with a raging appetite, increased aggression, and it seems like he may be even stronger than a regular vampire. Stefan and Mary Louise have a nice little chat about relationships which ends in Stefan shooting her up with some vervain and kidnapping her. The Salvatore brothers are big on using hostages as leverage aren’t they? The deal is for Nora to siphon the spell making Caroline untouchable, and she can have her girlfriend back. After some resistance, Caroline and Stefan manage to work together and the deal is made.
Right. So back in Mystic Falls where Damon has lost Oscar, once again. Oscar decides to make one of those Supernatural tour buses his personal buffet on wheels. It really seems as if he is completely insatiable, Lily shows up and drops the little knowledge bomb that Oscar isn’t himself when he feeds. Gee whiz! Seems as if Oscar and Stefan have something in common. So, is this just Oscar when he feeds or is it the effects of the Phoenix Stone? That remains to be seen as of now.
SO this episode ends on a series of tear-inducing scenes.. first off Nora and Mary Lou kiss and make up and have a cute little slow dance at the party.
AND THEN STEROLINE ARE FINALLY ABLE TO TOUCH EACH OTHER AND THEY DEFINITELY DON’T TAKE IT FOR GRANTED AJHDJAHFUIHFUH.
Enzo and Valerie team up in an effort to not let Julian back into their lives, or Lily’s.

& finally Damon makes a big decision regarding Elena after a speech from his mother suggesting that perhaps he should figure out who he is without her, and him being so protective and focused on her body might actually be putting her in more danger. So, Damon does something very not Damon. He entrusts Tyler Lockwood with his true love’s body. The idea being Damon is going to find himself, who he truly is without the love of a woman at his side.. in hopes that time won’t stand still while he simply waits for her to come back to him. The entry he wrote in the journal was so darn heartbreaking, I cried really hard during this scene.. like really I can’t remember the last time TVD made me cry this hard. And you know what I find SO interesting? Delena is so much better when there’s something keeping them from being together.. maybe I’m just a masochist? Who knows.

Here’s Damon’s journal entry in it’s entirety:
“Dear Elena,
yes, you heard that correctly. Hell has frozen over. I’m writing it all down. Granted, I’m a half bottle in thanks to my 1950 Chateau Cheval Blanc, a bottle I waited 65 years to open. I used to spend nights sitting in my wine cellar, convincing myself I could actually hear it age, tannins growing, fermenting, but appreciating its beauty didn’t make the time go by any faster. The bottle just laid there on its shelf, torturing me, while I waited for Katherine, and time stood still. Eventually, I convinced myself that no sip of that wine could ever taste as good as I dreamt it would, so I hid the bottle and walked away, and that’s the story of why I drink bourbon. I don’t know who I am without you, but I do know that as long as I’m with you time will stand still. So who is Damon Salvatore without Elena Gilbert? A selfish friend, a jealous brother, a horrible son? Or maybe with a little luck, I’ll do right by you because you may be 1,000 miles away or 100 years away, but you’re still with me, and my heart is right there in that coffin with you, until you come back to me.”
The big cliffhanger this week is Alaric & Bonnie manage to also bring Jo back to life using the Phoenix Stone. GASP. Is Jo the woman chasing everyone down in all the flash fowards? Did the Phoenix Stone make her blood thirsty like it (possibly) did to Oscar? Maybe that’s why Jo wasn’t around in the flash-forward at the beginning of the episode with Alaric and the twins? SO MANY QUESTIONS!
I give this episode an 8/10.
What did you think of “I Carry Your Heart With Me”? Let me know in the comments!

XO – TheLevelHeadedFangirl

The Vampire Diaries “Age of Innocence” Recap

Sorry for ANOTHER late recap, my life has been a write off this weekend. So this week we had “Age of Innocence” slap us in the face with more flashforwards, flashbacks, and to Caroline’s horror: yet another Stefan centered love story.

It seems as if season 7 will be sticking to the theme of starting each episode with a flashforward to three years from present time. This weeks flashforward we see a very frantic Stefan calling Tyler Lockwood (yay an appearance from Michael Trevino!) where Stefan asks Tyler if he’s spoken to Caroline, Tyler says he doesn’t want to get mixed up in the drama between them (oh god this drama must be so bad..) And Stefan lets Tyler know that the scar on his chest has opened, and asks Tyler to warn Caroline as she’s not taking his calls. So one could also assume that Caroline has the same scar on her chest and should also be running from whatever or whomever is after them? Possibly the most shocking thing of all – Stefan is dousing his beloved little red classic car in gasoline to burn it. Just as he’s about to drop his zippo into the car to ignite it, he spots his journal laying in his trunk. After grabbing the journal, he throws the lighter in the car. Engulfed in flames, Stefan slow-mo walks away with Bring Me The Horizon playing in the background.
Back in present time, Bonnie is still writing in her journals for Elena and still being knocked on her ass due to the crazy visions she’s having from the Phoenix Stone. Alaric and Damon are living together, eeeeeee my dalaric feels! Thank the heavens that Damon has no shame and finds it appropriate as hell to walk around naked in a towel in front of his new roommate. Awkwardly enough Bonnie also walks in right on time to catch the Damon show, but shockingly enough she isn’t there to catch a glimpse of Damon’s delicious naked body.. she’s there to make sure that Alaric did in fact, destroy the Phoenix Stone as he promised he would. Alaric lies, saying yes he watched it melt away in a vat of acid. Alaric and Bonnie reluctantly agree to join Damon in a trip to Myrtle Beach to find Lily’s long lost member of her heretic family to kidnap him, and use him as bait to get Elena and Caroline back. PS: The scene ends with Damon ripping his towel off, throwing it at Alaric’s face, and Bonnie making this face.
With Caroline still rotting away in the Salvatore mansion under the heretics close supervision, there’s plenty of time for her and Valerie to have a very detailed discussion of her and Stefan’s past. We’ve seen The Vampire Diaries do this type of storytelling on a few occasions before (scenes with Elena and Katherine are the first that come to mind). And for whatever reason, I always find these narrative flashback episodes to be very entertaining, and successful. As it turns out Lily actually sent Valerie to check up on her son Stefan as she didn’t want to leave Mystic Falls until she knew her sons were surviving without her. Like many girls before and after her, Valerie was taken with how handsome, charming, sweet, and caring Stefan Salvatore was and ended up falling for him even though her orders were to simply get a gauge on how he was doing without his mother. Also introduced in this episode is Lily’s long lost boyfriend, Julian. Who well, to put it lightly seems like a giant dick. Anyways long story short, Stefan and Valerie end up developing strong feelings for each other, and it would appear that Valerie was Stefan’s first time, and first love. While Caroline is enduring having to listen/watch yet another of Stefan’s epic love stories, Dalaric+Bonnie have arrived at Myrtle Beach where they’re planning on 1. ridding Bonnie of the nasty visions she’s experiencing and 2. kidnapping the guy who’s going to help Bonnie get rid of said visions. Minor set back when the missing heretic recognizes Damon at the door and refers to him as “old friend” and invites them in to his hotel room which is littered with half naked women, and booze. Turns out that Oscar (the missing heretic) was sent to check on Damon by Lily back during the good ol’ war days. Also, just saying but I kind of already fucking love this Oscar guy. So in between the copious amount of story-time in this episode, Bonnie asks Oscar to help her out with these crippling visions she’s been having. As soon as Oscar touches Bonnie to get a taste of what she’s seeing, he asks “where is the phoenix stone?” and the plot THICKENS! Apparently the stone is a sensitive subject, after Oscar figures out that they have the stone.. he uses his magic to snap Damon’s neck and knock Alaric and Bonnie out. Good news: Bonnie’s visions are gone. Bad news: Oscar peaced the fuck out and took the Phoenix Stone with him. Oh and now Bonnie knows that Alaric was lying about destroying the stone #dramaaaaaaaaaa.
Back to story-time, Valerie left Stefan high and dry. Stefan is still salty about it 150 years later, but it turns out that Valerie had a pretty decent reason for leaving him sitting #foreveralone on that bench. Valerie was trying to sneak away (this scene also featured what could possibly be the most terribly fake looking backdrop I’ve ever seen) but was intercepted by Julian, who drops the mega BOMBSHELL that Valerie is knocked up with Steffy’s baby. Damon manages to catch up with Oscar and they reminisce about times past, turns out that in different circumstances these two would probably make pretty decent bar buddies. Oscar actually saved Damon’s life back when he was fighting for the south, Damon thought Oscar compelled him to leave the fight which in turn saved his life as the rest of his army was slaughtered after he took “sick leave”. Oscar divulges that he wasn’t a vampire back then and it was just two humans having a conversation that inspired Damon to follow his heart. If it weren’t for the pressing matter that Lily stole Elena’s body and Damon needed Oscar to bargain the love of his life back from Lily, I feel like these two would have hugged it out and drowned themselves in bourbon. However, obviously that wasn’t the case and with a little help from his best friends, Damon struggles but manages to knock Oscar out long enough to apprehend him. Bonnie also picks up the Phoenix Stone from the ground where Oscar dropped it, hands it to Alaric with the simple but very effective order “never lie to me again.” GO BON BON!
Back at the Salvatore residence, a cute little scene between Caroline and Lily transpires. Caroline shows Lily her sons journal entries where he writes about his love for his mother, and how he missed her dearly. This is so touching to Lily that she orders Nora to drop the barrier spell that’s keeping Caroline stuck inside the boarding house, and Caroline is no longer a hostage. Guess you really do catch more flies with honey than with vinegar!
The tearjerker part of this episode is when Valerie sits next to Stefan on the park bench and unveils the happenings of the day she didn’t meet him there. When Julian apprehended her, he also beat the shit out of her. Valerie being beaten almost to death, obviously lost the child that she was carrying. By the time she came back to consciousness she was already on the boat headed for England. Julian proves to be a conniving son of a bitch and tells Lily that he found Valerie beaten in the streets, so Lily uses her vampire blood to heal her. Unable to tell Lily what truly transpired as her secrets would also come to light if she did, Valerie was forced to remain silent. Not wanting to live her life under Julian’s thumb, she drew herself a bath, poisoned her own tea and committed suicide. BUUUUUUT she had Lily’s blood in her system, and voila the first heretic was born! Sitting next to Stefan on the bench she says “you have no idea how sorry I am.” and I was like omg </3. AND THEN THE WHOLE TIME SHE HAD HERSELF UNDER A CLOAKING SPELL SO STEFAN REALLY HEARD NONE OF HER APOLOGY AND WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. Steffy deserves to know the truth!! To wrap up the episode, Alaric shows Bonnie how he’s still desperately trying to preserve his dead wife’s corpse. Damon gives his mommy a call to inform her that he has Oscar and wants Elena back, Caroline confronts Stefan about Valerie and Stefan insists that she neednt worry about him falling back in love with her, and Valerie finds Oscar in Whitmore College only to find out that he’s located Julian and she kills Oscar not wanting to have to see Julian ever again. RIP OSCAR I WILL MISS YOU!
SO overall I’d give this episode:
7/10

Let me know what you thought of “Age of Innocence” in the comments!
XOXO – TheLevelHeadedFangirl

The Vampire Diaries 702 “Never Let Me Go” Recap

The Vampire Diaries was back this week with an episode titled “Never Let Me Go” and I’ve gotta say I was planning on letting this show fade to the background after they announced Nina Dobrev would no longer be a series regular. But oh how wrong I was. Somehow this season (so far) has me more enthused about the next episode than I have been since waaaaay back to season 4! Maybe it’s for the best that Elena isn’t the center of attention for once? I really thought the show would lack in interesting plot points without her.. but it’s kind of nice to see the Salvatore brothers in action sans the damsel in distress. Well, okay now Caroline is the damsel. But you get what I’m saying..

Yet again the episode starts with a flash-forward three years into the future, I’m not sure why we’re focusing on three years ahead but I’m sure all of the answers will be given to us soon… right?  So future Caroline made her dreams of a career in journalism come true, obviously.. this is Caroline Forbes we’re talking about. And she’s received a call from her *fiance* but we don’t get a name and of course everyone automatically swoons because omg what if it’s Stefan?!?! *squeeeeeeeee* Moving on..
We cut to a young couple wandering the forest at night, complete with a night vision camera, an EMF reader, and a thermal camera. No, they weren’t making a sequel to “A Night in Paris”, they were curious about what’s really going on in Mystic Falls. Unfortunately for our amateur porno makers, neither of them make it out of this date alive as the heretics take full advantage of the pact that “any human who steps into Mystic Falls is fair game”.
After Bonnie and Alaric have a little heart to heart in the classroom where Bonnie also finds out about the “Phoenix Stone” Alaric has been keeping a secret.. Stefan has a run in with the mute heretic, Beau. Close by, is Lily who takes pleasure informing her son that she has captured Caroline in retaliation for Malcolm’s death. Stefan instantly blames Damon, well, because Damon. However surprisingly enough Damon is happy to go pay a visit to momma Salvatore at the boarding house and even trade himself to take the place of Caroline.. awwwwwwwwwww! Lily is in no mood for Damon’s bullshit and slams the door in his face which sends the Salvatore’s back to square one.
There is a scene in which Enzo is tying Caroline up, with rope. I’ll let you fantasize about what could have been for a few seconds… yeah it wasn’t what it sounds like. 😦 The reality of it was Enzo was tying her up in vervain rope for Lily, however Enzo, having a penis and all was easily swayed into Caroline’s coy game. Caroline succeeds in knocking Enzo out long enough to escape her torture chamber, but not long enough to elude the feisty group of heretics.
So now that Alaric has finally informed someone else about his creepy ass plan to resurrect his dead wife, with a stone he stole from a museum.. Bonnie sees the buttload of crazy in his plan and tells Ric he’s definitely better off dropping the stone into a vat of acid. Bonnie also did some witchy shit to the stone and saw some not-so-nice visions of people dying, and that weird X mark that we saw on Stefan in the last flash-forwards on last week’s episode. Oh, and obviously Alaric lies to everyone and says he destroyed the stone – he doesn’t.
So while Caroline is making fast friends with all the heretic gals, picking out outfits etc.. The Salvatore brothers make the ghastly discovery that Lily has signed the deed to their house over to Matt Donovan (they drugged him and compelled him to do it without his knowledge). The genius plan is scratched up for Bonnie to stop Matt’s house for 6 seconds, thus killing him and rendering the deed useless. Matt being the little human who can’t say no, agrees to do it to save Caroline from playing dress up with her new gal pals. But whilst doing the spell, Bonnie is plagued by the same visions she had while she was holding the Phoenix Stone and passes out. By the time she wakes up it’s been 6 minutes since she stopped Matt’s heart, and if anyone thinks that this isn’t going to be a problem in the near future.. I hate to break it to you but you’re probably wrong 😦
Unfortunately for the Salvatore boys, their mother is proving to be quite a pain in the ass as an antagonist. She knows exactly how to drive them insane, and which buttons to push to get reactions out of them. In this scenario, Lily is planning on taking away all her son’s “toys” or in adult life, everything they hold most dear. For Damon, obviously that something is Elena’s slumbering body.. which to our horror, she manages to get her hands on before Damon can do anything about it. Now Lily has the leverage she needs in order to stay alive, she’s the only one who knows the whereabouts of Elena’s coffin.  O-M-G.
Stefan finally is able to get inside the boarding house to save Caroline, and it seems as if Caroline might be home free.. But then Enzo crashes the party with the reveal that he’s signed the deed over to the maid, Stefan not being invited in yet, gets (literally) catapulted from the house. The maid invites Caroline in, which means she’s still the heretic’s plaything for now. At this point in the episode, we see all our heroes uniting under one mutual goal: fuck these heretics. Bonnie and Matt are absolutely hell-bent on getting their town back to normal, and Stefan and Damon share the motivation of getting the women they love back from the grips of their evil mother.
To wrap things up: the end of this episode was an absolute SHITSHOW I literally thought like 3 different scenes were going to be the cliffhanger endings.. that’s how crazy it was. SO first off, Alaric places the stone on a dead body in the morgue AND IT CAME BACK TO LIFE, but when he took the stone off the body.. it went back to dead. W-T-F. Burn it, Ric.. kill it with fire!!!!!!!!!! Next up we had Enzo finally confessing the real reason he chose Lily over our heroes, he’s in lurrrrrve with her! And if those two revelations weren’t enough for you, we had Nora hand over Stefan’s journal from the 1800’s and told her to turn to an especially juicy entry. Turns out, Stefan knew Valerie waaaaaay back when! Hm. Might have wanted to mention that Stefan? 😐 that’s where the story leaves off in present time but then we end on yet another flash-forward, back to Caroline at her job in the media. Where it’s revealed that her fiance, and Stefan Salvatore are two completely different people. WHAT?! But my steroline heart can’t handle this shit? The cherry on top is Caroline’s reaction to the simple mention of Stefan’s name.. she says she never wants to hear it again. Uh oh. Trouble in paradise already!
But seriously though, why don’t Stefan/Damon/Caroline give Klaus a call and get these heretics dealt with the old fashioned way? The Originals could totttaallllyyyyy take them! It really honestly disappoints me that they have SUCH perfect opportunity to intertwine two separate shows, and they never take advantage of it. We. Need. More. Crossovers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All in all I thought this was a super super strong episode.
9/10!
be sure to let me know what you thought in the comments.
XOXO – TheLevelHeadedFangirl.

The Vampire Diaries 701 “Day One of Twenty-Two Thousand, Give or Take” Recap

The Vampire Diaries have returned! Complete with ACTUAL diaries being written in – but this time the author isn’t Elena Gilbert. To the despair of many fans around the world, last nights return was void of our beloved Nina Dobrev. But, did the rest of the cast and story-line make up for the lack of Dobrev? To my surprise, I think they did a pretty great job with all things considered.
So it isn’t JUST Nina missing from this season, also noticeably absent are Steven McQueen (who is now a series regular on Chicago Fire, congratulations to Steven!) and Michael Trevino. So let’s recap this bitch shall we? The episode starts out with a flashFORWARD three years in the future in Brooklyn New York, where we find Stefan opening a truck where two coffins are being stored, one containing his brother whom is rudely awakened by Stefan who seems to be in some sort of desperate hurry…
Back to present time we go and we find Caroline Forbes writing everything down in her diary as per Elena’s request so she doesn’t miss anything while she’s asleep for a lifetime.. this is where we find out what everyone’s been up to over the summer break: Dalaric+Bonnie are partying in Europe trying to drink away their problems, Matt Donovan is graduating police school in a week (bless those uniforms), and Caroline is still giving Stefan blue balls.
 Enter our first encounter with a heretic, Valerie who is annoyingly emo about her new life in Mystic Falls. Basically we listen to her whine about how terrible life is out of her prison world for about 2 minutes until she’s finally hit by a car (yay!) just kidding she’s still alive. (groaaaaan) Now we’re introduced to the whole heretic clan:
Lily – aka momma Salvatore and the leader of the pack.
Valerie – the emo one
Nora – the hot lesbian one
Mary Louise – the blonde lesbian one
Malcolm – Lily’s favorite
Beau – the quiet one
This is where my problem with this season/show lies, I find that whenever TVD tries to introduce a pile of new characters like this, the story-lines tend to get muddled and vague. There just isn’t enough time in 42 minutes to include our main group of characters AND the supporting characters, perhaps if the show wasn’t already centered around such a large group of characters this tactic would be more viable, but considering the writers already have problems coming up with decent arcs for the characters who have been around since season 1, why are we bringing in even more characters to write for? The other problem is, no one really gives a shit about these heretics. My money is on that they’re going to ruin these villains by trying to humanize them and make us care about them so they can keep them around to make up for the missing characters, when the best option here is to just let them be VILLAINS. Let the heretics try to live up to malice and pure evil that was The Original family (before they inevitably made us give shits about them too.)There were some great scenes in Europe between Damon, Alaric, and Bonnie. Seriously though is it just me or does Matt Davis look absolutely delicious this season? The drunk dalaric scenes provided some much needed nostalgic laughs. And as many could have predicted, we see Damon struggling with the idea of keeping Bonnie alive and letting his true love rot away in a box. Damon doesn’t seem too shy about keeping his thoughts from Bonnie. But it looks as if this Bennett witch isn’t holding back either, as she gives Damon a piece of her mind after he hesitates to save her from a van barreling towards her. The two of them agree that no matter what, they’re stuck with each other until the end and they have two options: resentment, or love. And Bamon shippers consecutively wet themselves with the idea that they’re going to fall in love. Doubtful guys. Doubtful. Alaric is also up to some mysterious shit, visiting psychics trying to make contact with his dearly departed Jo, he’s also come across some strange stone that *surprise* Lily is ALSO searching for.. #drama!
  Back in Mystic Falls, the heretics are causing a shit storm feeding on people, and hanging their bodies to drain of blood.. y’know casual Mystic Falls stuff. How the hell do people still live in this town? Enzo and Lily have a meeting in a bar where she reveals that she’s looking for the stone that Alaric has, and Enzo essentially tells her to fuck herself and that he’s not her errand boy (except he totally is). Stefan and Caroline are in the middle of cooking up an ingenious plan to make a homemade bomb to kill Lily’s family of heretics with, guys seriously when has anything ever been that easy in your lives? This. THIS shit is why we need Damon Salvatore around. Anyways after Stefan gets some shotty instructions from a very intoxicated Alaric Saltzman.. Caroline, Stefan, and Matty Blue head over to the heretics house to plant a bomb and GTFO. Plan doesn’t go as planned (shocker) and our heroes almost get blown up along with the heretics AND Caroline loses her cute denim jacket.. nooooooooooo.Stefan being a total badass calls his mommy to brag about how awesome he is and to share that he blew up her family (ha-ha screw you mom) and she hands his ass back to him informing him that his plan most definitely back fired and offers a charming piece of motherly advice: “Run.” omg draaamz! The heretics are pissed at the world, and choose to crash Matty’s police graduation ceremony and they go with the classic “light water on fire” move and succeed in burning all of Matt’s fellow graduates INCLUDING the future sheriff of Mystic Falls (omg how convenient for Matt!!!) Lily witnesses her babies raising hell and scolds them for being ungrateful little bastards, which leads to the weirdest pact ever made, ever. Our heroes agree to let Lily AND her family to continue living in MF as long as they can evacuate the whole town, and anyone who decides to trespass back into Mystic Falls is fair game for the heretics to murder. K. Oh and Stefan let’s Lily and fam move into the Salvatore boarding house, wtf. Can Damon come home and fix this mess yet?
Hold on, I have to include this photo strictly for the bicep action..

hnnnnffffff

Okay, sorry. Back on track. But damn Paul, damn. OKAY. A brief scene featuring Caroline and Enzo plays out.. Enzo was dismantling her mom’s bench for her so it didn’t get destroyed in the heretic take over (seriously really super cute I kinda died a little) and she tells him to make up his fucking mind and pick a side. He doesn’t, yet. And finally, enter Damon Salvatore back in Mystic Falls to clean up the mess his brother and pals have made. Or so I thought. It kind of escaped my brain that Elena-less Damon is reckless and doesn’t exactly think things through before he acts, so with the help of his new partner in crime: Bonnie. They kill heretic numero uno with ANOTHER classic TVD move, the heart snatch. RIP Malcolm, you were kinda cute. Onto the most exciting/annoying scene of the night. The Steroline kiss. After some sexually charged scenes featuring an awkward bench conversation, a bomb being constructed, and finally the splinter in the neck. Caroline just couldn’t keep it in her pants anymore and gave into her feels. Now. I thought that the writers would wait at LEAST a few episodes to make this happen as last season Caroline was SO hellbent on waiting for the right time for her and Stefan to give things a shot. But, at the end of the day it was still a scene full of chemistry and it felt pretty right between them so I’m not ALL mad. I really think that Stefan and Caroline will make a POWER COUPLE this season, I’m excited to see them play out.So. The creepiest scene of the episode goes to…. Alaric still keeping Jo’s body frozen after MONTHS of her being dead. AND revealing that he’s not planning on burying the body, he’s planning on bringing her back to life. Clearly the mysterious pebble that he found has some part to play in this scheme of his.
The cliffhanger of this episode was actually a pretty darn good one! Enzo visits Caroline disclosing that he has in fact picked a side, Caroline assumes he means he chose her and the rest of our heroes.. until Enzo pulls yet another CLASSIC move (wow that’s three in one episode guys!) he injects Caroline with what can only be vervain. What is Enzo planning on doing with Caroline? Your guess is as good as mine at this point. AND the big finale of the night is waaaaaay back to the very beginning of the episode, the flashforward to the future with Stefan and Damon running away from “her”. Who is “her”? I don’t know but she comes fully equipped with a crossbow, arrows, high-heeled boots, AND the Salvatore brothers seem to be very afraid of her.
So overall, I thought this was a decently strong return for The Vampire Diaries especially since they’re missing not one but THREE main characters from previous seasons. I’ll give it a 7/10.

Let me know what you guys thought of the season 7 premiere of TVD in the comments below!

Love, TheLevelHeadedFangirl.
xo

What To Expect From Season 7 of The Vampire Diaries

A few months ago The Vampire Diaries left us with an absolutely heart-wrenching cliff hanger where they axed Nina Dobrev’s beloved character(s): Elena Gilbert, Katherine Pierce, Amara, and Tatia. Many, including myself, were incredibly disappointed in the lack of epic-ness that ended up “killing” Elena off… Or maybe they just got it over with too quickly? OR maybe it’s because she’s been reduced to rotting away slowly in a box because Nina realized that the show is on a pretty consistent downward slope in terms of writing, storytelling, and constantly trying to out-do Klaus & The Originals when it comes to villains and failing miserably every time? I don’t know, something about it just wasn’t satisfying for me. Come to think of it, the entirety of season 6 wasn’t satisfying for me. Although I guess her assailant was pretty enough to look at (mmm Kai…), so that gave the scene a few brownie points.. amiright?

The real “what the fuck” moment was the very ending of 6×22 when Matt Donovan pulls up in his police cruiser (which indicates a time jump as Matty Blue was only training to be a cop when we left him) to a very apocalyptic looking Mystic Falls which leads us to get into what we can expect from season 7….

Mystic Falls
The first episode of season 7 will feature a significant time jump since we were left in utter shock and despair during the finale. The time jump will allow the audience to be caught up on what exactly transpired in Mystic Falls that left it looking like a bomb went off, it’s also been said that the town will have gone through drastic change since we last saw it. So – clearly the new “big bads” of the season will be Lily’s group of six heretics, among them TVD’s first same-sex couple: Nora & Mary Louise. Apparently the heretics are unlike any foe we’ve ever encountered on this series before and will prove to be a menacing enemy for our group of main characters. Described as “imagine Kai Parker, times six.” Yeeeaaah… Safe to say I’m a bit worried about how this scenario is going to play out for not only our favorite character but for the beloved town (that we’ve grown to call home too!) Mystic Falls. Another things fans can expect to see this season is TONS of flashforwards and flashbacks, two flashforwards have already been confirmed.. one involving Enzo and “a character we already know” we can speculate who that character may be. I’m sure many of you will have your fingers crossed for Caroline, SQUEEEEEEE #Carenzo! But my money is on Lily Salvatore. The other flashforward that has been teased involves Stefan and Damon being chased by something dangerous but “we don’t exactly know what it is, yet.” Hmmm.. Interesting. Ian Somerhalder, once again has promised that TVD will go back to the original format of seasons 1&2 in terms of storytelling and that season 7 “won’t be bogged down by mythology.” We’ve had him make this promise before about previous seasons and it’s been a lie, so I won’t hold my breath. And finally in a recent interview Nina Dobrev revealed that she’ll be watching the new season and that she’s very excited for her friends but she will not be appearing on the new season as Elena Gilbert stating “that chapter has closed, sadly.”
Enzo
Going into the first few episodes apparently Lorenzo will be having a tough time making a decision on where his loyalties truly lie, as he isn’t entirely certain where his relationship with Lily fits into her new life in Mystic Falls. Complete with her creepy heretic family. Enzo will be stuck in the middle of a very heated battle between his old group of friends and Lily and her ..fam? However producers have said that he WILL make his decision and apparently a certain blonde vampire has some sway in his final choice.

Caroline Forbes
Things are going steady between her and Stefan despite everything Caroline went through in season 6, losing her beloved mother (*sniff* RIP sherriff), and going on a humanity-less murder spree.. Caroline is in healing mode and Stefan is going to be right there with her. I’m assuming they’ll start season 7 off as still “friends” but as we’ve already had a bit of a time jump heading into things, Steroline will be back up and running in no time flat. Fan speculation is going absolutely WILD as Candice King is currently pregnant in real life, which is leading the audience to believe that it’s possible writers could include that in this season’s storyline and perhaps we’ll see a pregnant (with Stefan’s baby?!) Caroline Forbes in a flashforward at some point, how she would end up pregnant remains a mystery.. but this is The Vampire Diaries we’re talking about, there is ALWAYS a loophole.
Matt Donovan
Matty Blue will be a brand new cop this season (ooooh, yes I love a boy in uniform!) Not much has been revealed about Matt for the upcoming season but I sure do hope they give this very underrated character a better storyline than they have been in the past few seasons! All we know is that he’ll be teaming up with Caroline and Stefan in the fight against the heretics and the situation will escalate to the point of someone being in a very perilous position.

Alaric Saltzman
Again, not much in the way of spoilers for Alaric other than him being in immense pain over the loss of Jo and his babies.. poor Alaric, guy literally can never catch a break when it comes to women! The only thing we really know is that in 7×01 Alaric, Damon, and Bonnie are on vacation in Europe having the “saddest vacation” drowning themselves in booze to ease the pain of the loss they’ve endured.
Bonnie Bennett
Bonnie will arguably be the new main female character of the series after Nina Dobrev’s departure. Bonnie has been “newly empowered” so – whatever that means I hope it means that Bonnie returns this season as a badass bitch (who don’t need no man!) and we get to see LOTS of Kat Graham because she freaking slays. Bonnie will also most certainly act as a moral compass for Damon in the upcoming months.

Stefan Salvatore
The baby Salvatore brother will be focused on fighting against the heretics who are absolutely “flourishing” under the leadership of his mother. He has the support of his lady-love Caroline and Matt Donovan. Julie Plec also stated that: “Stefan is always crazy about a girl and this time, it’s Caroline.”

Damon Salvatore
Damon probably has the most heartbreaking insight into his character this season, with a spiral complete with succumbing to alcohol abuse to cope with the loss of his “true love”. Damon truly doesn’t know who he’s supposed to be without Elena Gilbert and he’ll be having a very difficult time trying to adjust to life without her. To put it lightly he’s going to be an absolute mess. Thankfully he’ll have the emotional support of his new-found friend Bonnie Bennett who will be watching over Damon in the wake of Elena’s tragic “death”. Julie Plec also said that Damon “will be as committed as committed can be” when it comes to waiting for his girlfriend to wake up from her very, very long nap. However she also said “Damon wasn’t exactly celibate while waiting for Katherine.” while I can’t picture Damon getting physical with anyone at this point after such emotional devastation, I wouldn’t put it past the writers to take Damon’s character in that direction as Nina Dobrev has no plans to return to the show or her character. All this being said, don’t expect Damon to hook up with Bonnie (sorry bamon shippers) Plec also said that “there are deep roots of friendship between Damon and Bonnie.”

So TVD fans, what are YOU most looking forward to in season 7? Any predictions? Let me know in the comments below.

XO, The Level-Headed Fangirl.