The Vampire Diaries 8.09 “The Simple Intimacy of the Near Touch”

We’re about halfway through our final ride, the last thing Ripper wants to do is revisit Mystic Falls, but Damon is called back by Siren Sybil. Where even she has to face it: he’ll always be called back by Eternal Elena. His emotions aren’t gone, his humanity isn’t fully off, and he even has a fun moment of fighting back from inside one of Sybil’s mind-rape scenarios, showing that as she lost Enzo (to Bonnie) she was much too ambitious thinking she could ever Erase Elena.

She’s much more sure-footed on Caroline’s level, anyway, playing with appearances and seamlessly becoming a part of the Miss Mystic Falls pageant this year just as she impersonated a high school history teacher on a field trip to hell last week. She has the advantage of being beautiful, poised and immortal, and those very qualities are in question for everyone all around this week.

Stefan, meanwhile, is hardly emotion-free either, finally evincing some resentment over Damon winning Elena away from him, accurately locating the beginning of that betrayal at his unexpectedly chivalrous dance with Elena at this very event so many years ago. He’s so miffed about it, in fact, he plans to wreak murderous havoc with this year’s young and lovely contestants, playing on their vanity and competitiveness to see if they can all be offered up to Cade as corrupted innocents.

As she did last week with Sybil’s unfortunate classroom, Caroline does her best to save the vestal virgins. She’s no physical match for Ripper or Damon, but she’s still a super-hero, and she kills Stefan (for a while) with a well-thrown stake to keep him from killing more than one of the girls. Whom he all forced to drink of his blood so they’d rise as vampires. The one he gets to gets the sweetest pep talk from Caroline, who promises to help her become a vampire with a human life rather than a monstrous killer (a fate Caroline has generally avoided, except for that one time or two …). Stefan tries to convince her she’s as evil as he is (Ripper is always a super downer) but the best thing that comes out of it is her giving his ring back again, hopefully ending their pointless love affair for the final time. Caroline, start planning to save yourself for Klaus, who promised to wait until you were finally ready to move on from your human life and embrace mortality fully as he of course has. Sure, he’s evil and paranoid, but you know you like bad boys.

The other side of the immortal coin is Benzo, for Enzo has given Bonnie a (hideous) locket of his blood to take if she’s ever mortally injured. He doesn’t want her to die, ever, and of course gets her to consider becoming a vamp herself. Which a witch would never do, but she’s lost her powers, so? So she reminds him her fate is tied to Elena’s, who will awaken only when she’s dead. She promised Elena (and Damon) that she only wanted her “60-70” remaining years, no more. Enzo doesn’t give a crap about that, but he accepts the necklace back and then gets a real mental flip when Bonnie comes up with another idea. What if he takes the Cure and becomes human again? Wait, is there still viable Cure to be had? I can’t even recall! Elena gave it to Katherine, which killed her, but she was really really old. As Elena and Bonnie aren’t. But Enzo sort of is, right?

MacGuffin report: Stefan has the ball, Dorian has the clapper, and Matt is searching for the bell (which has been given several siren-controlled protectors at the police station where it’s been hidden, whom Matt manages to subdue without killing them). Put it all together and you’ve got one potent anti-siren doomsday device, only it has to be struck by a Maxwell founding family member to work, due to the usual Mystic Falls mumbo jumbo. Yes, Matt Donavan is a direct descendant, and this is a smart move taking full advantage of his anti-supernatural crusade to save his cursed home town. Selene is even helping them, so it looks like curtains for Siren Selene until Damon tortures her into retribution. Next week finds Damon reliving hell in his mind again and again, which we’ve done already, and recently. So let’s just hope he’s over his Civil War guilt at any rate, now is not the time for another period flashback.