Second week of the Heretics Era Vampire Diaries, and it’s a Torture Caroline marathon! I don’t know why the show defaults to this so frequently (is it because Candace King is so good at squirming and suffering in pain?), but it’s a pretty unfair approach to everyone’s favorite volunteer life coach and future TV news producer.
Yes, because while these horrible things are happening in Mystic Falls, we’re also coping with a flash forward where someone or something (well, someone probably, since they fire cross bolts) is hunting down our widely dispersed crew, and they aren’t succeeding in protecting or even notifying each other very well.
The Heretic Vamps get marginal more shading this week (the one Damon killed last week was an ersatz father figure to the rest, though he showed no evidence of paternal inclinations on camera), but like why does the black one really also have to be mute? This show never really examines its casual racism (which it sometimes busts out of, its true), but that leaves our three vamp witch beauties to do most of the exposition. As it revolves around what they should wear to the funeral, and how much Caroline is better at being a stylish vamp than they, it doesn’t go very deep.
Stefan and Damon try to rescue Caroline, in a distractingly frontal approach while Bonnie tries to break their house protection spell with the help of Matt. And by help I mean she has to kill him, because the house is in his name. Of course nothing could go wrong, but of course it does, because she’s still being haunted by having touched Alaric’s cursed crystal, the one he thinks will revive his dead wife.
The Ric story is certainly poignant, building on the surprisingly great wedding disaster that ended last season. His plight is much more compelling than stupid Enzo’s, who keeps switching sides because no one loves him, and who inexplicably makes a play for Lily, his sire, this week. Haven’t we already established that vampires can’t help but be in love with those who made them? Or killed them? Or however you want to look at it, Enzo’s a creep.
Bonnie’s sneaky spell almost works, as Matt’s near permanent sacrifice does break the spell, until Enzo signs the deed over to another trapped human almost immediately. This has the nifty result of throwing Stefan bodily out of a window, but for some reason it only pulls Caroline down the stairs, and she’s invited to stay before she can escape. Bummer! Thanks again, Enzo!
I don’t know if we need the framing device of the future world. I don’t know if any of these Heretics (save Lily, who has reverted to her bad mothering techniques of long ago) are worth our time. But we certainly have a game cast giving it their all, and the feeling that it may yet add up is growing.