The Vampire Diaries 4.22 “The Walking Dead”

Easily the best episode in weeks. Of course it is. The title doesn’t refer to zombies (never go there, Julie Plec). It refers to ghosts. And the ghost episodes are always among the best of this series. In a town where everyone is cursed by several varieties of the supernatural, of course they’re all eternally haunted, too.

Plot-wise, Elena is still intent on killing Katherine, she just has to find her. That’s always the hard part with this girl. Only Bonnie knows where she is, but Bonnie (wisely) isn’t talking. She’s realized whenever she collaborates with her buds, she gets the short end of things. So she’s solving this one on her own. Only, Silas may have been screwing with her all along, and she’s never actually been free of him or seen his real face. Which is a weird point they make over and over by the end of the episode, which only means it’s going to be a big familiar reveal at some point, but who do we know who was alive 2000 years ago? Anyway, that’s enough plot nonsense. Suffice it say Bonnie is omnipotent except when she’s not, and move on the real meat of the story: the return of long lost old faves!

Damon gets his fondest wish by surprise, as Alaric shows up right outside their booze locker in the high school (yep, always the best teacher, that roguish Mr. Saltzman), and brotherly hugs ensue. Alaric knows the score, that he’s only got a short time back due to Bonnie’s very focused Expression spell, and as always, he’s at ready to help fight the bad guys. It’s touching.

The other Salvatore brother spends the episode pouting, because his favorite departed doesn’t see fit to return: Lexi, except then she totally does, psyche! He beams like a kid on Christmas day (how could he ever have forgiven Damon for killing her, btw?), and she makes sure to pointedly hand him on to the waiting arms of Caroline. The universe is telling you something here, Stefan the Elena-Obsessed.

Sadly, bad guys return too, and Kol shows up in the bar just to injure Matt for no reason, and then goes to seek his vengeance on Elena. Which she welcomes, as he finds her, feelings intact, Katherine un-killed, sobbing at Jeremy’s grave, bemoaning his weak headstone epigraph. She’s in just the right existentialist mood to let Kol have his fatalistic way, but then Jeremy shows up with a crossbow, yay!

Katherine meanwhile has been conniving with Bonnie to use “Ketsuyeh’s” (she actually doesn’t make that pronunciation mistake again this week, but it was funny when she did last time) blood stone to get the spell going, because  it will enable Bonnie to kill Silas and grant Katherine invulnerability. Which means Bonnie gets to see Grams again, even though she’s abandoned the spirits, even though Grams was horribly suffering last time. Now she looks fine, and she even encourages Expression in order to defeat Silas. Bad move, Grams.

So with the help of Damon and Alaric and a few others, Bonnie does in fact make Silas pay, and prevent him getting his way, but he ends up turned to stone with his head in hands, forever hiding his identity (at least until another drop of blood comes his way, which, in Mystic Falls, probably means a month or three). That’s so not as much the point apparently as Damon obsessing over Elena, Matt starting to take Rebekah’s attraction seriously, Stefan’s growing flirtation with Caroline, and about six other plot developments that are clearly meant for season 5. Pretty sneaky, show. So Silas was the empty feint we always felt he was, but her victory goes to Bonnie’s head, and she oversteps in trying to make sure that Jeremy can stay on this side of the veil, Sirius Black be damned. Oops, guess Bonnie should have paid closer attention to Order of the Phoenix.