The Vampire Diaries 5.19 “Man on Fire”

There they go again. First they off Nadia, after we finally started to relate to her plight (seeking affection from a withholding parent is a bitch!). Now they’ve gotten rid of her male version of friendly troublemaker, Enzo. Damon hardly knew ye, old friend and insistent bad influence! Not to mention you were getting through to Caroline, too.

Enzo is involved with the Travelers because they promised to tell him what happened to Maggie James, the woman who befriended him while he was in captivity to the Augustine Vampire. She became so enamored she begged him to make her a vampire; instead he compelled her to leave and forget about him. True love, that.

But that’s before Damon escaped and left him to burn, turning off his emotion switch (which vampires on this show have) so he wouldn’t feel guilty about it. Which led to their renewed friendship when Damon was captured again fifty years later, and eventually to Enzo’s release, with all of his resentments intact. Together they killed Aaron and yadda yadda yadda, now Enzo knows what happened to Maggie: rather than escaping to live a better life, she was killed in 1960 in Mystic Falls, by a vampire who beheaded her.

Enzo immediately blames Stefan, but he’s got his timing wrong. Stefan wasn’t so Ripper-y right around the Kennedy election years, and though he met Maggie, he didn’t hurt her. She was looking for Damon, in order to kill him for (she thought) abandoning Enzo to the fire. Really, she should have been looking for Enzo, but such are the roots of tragedy.

The show has fun flashing back to that pre-Camelot era, and they get a lot of mileage out a TV announcement (viewed in store windows) of Kennedy’s win, which they juxtapose with Damon ripping off Maggie’s head, unnoticed, in the background. I want to say the show is referencing Civil Rights in some way, but that is way too problematic a topic to lay on this pulpy show.

Enzo can’t deal with Damon’s betrayal, so he turns off his emotions and begins wreaking havoc; i.e. threatening Elena. He seems to be a match for both Damon and Stefan, until Stefan grabs his heart to force him to stop. Apparently bereft of all hope or reason to live, Enzo falls backwards, forcing Stefan’s hand to pull free of his chest cavity holding the heart. Which kills vampires. Death by suicide; it’s how bad boys go out when they’ve got no more winning plans.

He then shows up to Bonnie, gloating over his unfolding vengeance from the afterlife. They’ve definitely brought ghosts back before, but they never do as much or matter as much as when they lived, so I wish the show would stop using murder/suicide for dramatic climaxes, and come up with other ways to keep the drama moving.

Oh, and we find out what the Travelers need doppelganger blood for. It undoes witch spells. Like, vampirism. The vamps turn human again, and then die of whatever would have killed them the first time. Not a final solution that is going to work for anyone on this show.