Vampire Diaries, I hope you realize the great asset you have in Bonnie Bennett, and make her the focus of season 8. Bonnie has had more spotlighting in recent weeks than in almost ever, and Kat Graham has lived up to everything the story called for. Last week we watched her face a fate of wasting away from a beauty-destroying disease, with a lot of heartfelt self-examinations in mirrors. This week she’s unconscious but cursed, and refusing to wake up.
Her friends (Damon, Stefan, Caroline, Enzo and Matt) gather around her, and figure out that she’s not waking up because she knows the gift of Rayna’s last life came with the vampire—hunting curse in the sub-programming. Bonnie doesn’t want to kill her friends, and so she won’t let herself wake up and start. The vampires can’t just sit idly, and come up with a plan to use their powers to help her fight the magic, on the dream plane. I mean, I guess? We’ve mostly seen Stefan do this in the past (when he gave Caroline her last message from her mom), but apparently he’s taught them all, because Enzo, Caroline and Damon all try their hands. And I mean that literally, because while vampires can compel with their eyes, actual mental illusions seem to call for physical contact.
Enzo goes first, and Dream Bonnie laughs at his choice of putting her in her high school cheerleader outfit, because sexy chemistry. We find her explaining that the curse is rewiring her memories so everything she once loved is transforming into images of vampire violence and hate. She refuses to have their love dissed like that, poignantly explaining she’s waited her whole life for someone to feel for her like he does, and yet she can’t stop from staking him. Which wakes him up, now marked for her pursuit.
This episode is formulaic, but it’s a formula that puts the cast in better final positions than all the flip-flop plotting of recent weeks. Enzo ends up asking Matt to help her retain her humanity, but not before Caroline tries her astral voyage and fails to seem human enough despite her doting children and fiancée, thus also ending up marked and on the run with Stefan. Against her will initially, as he takes her away to save her life, but eventually she sees his logic.
When Damon tries he feels like he’s getting through, finally confessing that his real love for her was why he opted out for three years. She doesn’t buy it, and he gets a stake in the chest, too! Then they have a woodland chase in the real world, where she almost kills him and he almost allows it, but Matt takes her out with trank darts. Yes, this excellent shot still apparently accidentally killed his own girlfriend, whatevs.
Bonnie takes out Matt, too, but Enzo and Damon finally have a plan. And it involves the Armory, where Bonnie sealed in a demon last week. Yep, let’s rush towards the finale, I’m sure it’ll be the biggest and best slaughter fest of the many murder sites that have dotted this schizophrenic season!