Well, the episode is kind of a mess, but you can’t say of the producers that they’ve lost their charm. Part of the reason is that all the plots have to not make sense at first, because the show is driven by reversals and lightning-fast twists, so it must be really exhausting for the writers to figure out how to wind everyone up so they’ll end up at the exact right place for the next cliffhanger.
It happens with almost everyone in the episode. Damon is still thinking about killing Bonnie (since her life is magically tied to Elena’s slumber), but saves her life twice instead. Alaric is drunkenly mourning across Europe, except no, he’s just pretending so he can find a real wizard to bring Josette back to life. Stefan hopes his mom is out of the way, nope, her vamp friends have started killing, let’s go blow them up! Enzo is helping Lily, no he really likes Caroline after all, psyche! He’s double helping Lily now! I hate Enzo.
There’s a cool moment in the beginning when Caroline is writing in her diary in town square that things are going great, considering her Mom’s dead and she’s lost Elena and Tyler (and she doesn’t even know Camille has completely distracted Klaus in the Big Easy); the camera leaves the delusional Caroline to find Valeria, who is writing in her diary about how much everything sucks in stupid Mystic Falls.
Valeria’s having a bad day, as two dumb kids hit-and-run her due to driving while stoned. Since she’s a vampire who can absorb magic, it doesn’t really hurt her, but it does piss her off. All vamps on this show are vengeful, it’s a basic rule. Good, bad or indifferent. They’re always teaching lessons that no one ever learns, because all vamps also never think the laws apply to them. All vamps are basically Boston drivers.
Damon already told us he cared for Bonnie independently last season, but I guess we needed it reiterated. I’m just happy the season starts with Bonnie on camera, as many seasons have not. The show needs to invest in its major assets with Nina Dobrev gone, and it mostly does that despite this uneven debut. Damon and Stefan, the brothers Salvatore, have all the chemistry any show would ever need, but Caroline and Bonnie are complex characters as well. I’m even starting to slightly buy the Caroline/Stefan love affair. He’s too wimpy for her, and she’s too precious for him, but things can grow from friendship sometimes, and they have a history now that means a lot to both of them.
Ric’s mad quest to resurrect his wife (killed you’ll remember during their wedding ceremony, while pregnant with twins) is actually pretty cool, too. But the main event this week is Matt’s graduation from police school. Hmm, big event, the whole town gathered, everyone in dress uniforms … those kind of things always go well in Mystic Falls, right?
Not when you have witch vampire heretics who are a little peeved at being almost blown up, and really bloody carnage ensues with flames and immolations and lots of blood spatter. It’s intense, and it’s the fallout of the second cool moment in the episode, when Stefan calls Lily to tell her about the bomb, and she warns him he better run, because he most likely killed no one. She’s kind of badass.
The flash forward last season of Mystic Falls as a ghost town comes to pass, as the humans are all compelled to evacuate lest being consumed by Heretics. And there’s another flash forward to a future where Damon and Stefan are on the run from a vampire hunter of some type. So you can’t say they’re out of ideas, or steam, or characters despite Elena’s absence. You can say they haven’t figured out what to do with all these riches though.