These two episodes of Vampire Diaries dig into what this season is going to be about, which is family. Who matters more to Lily, her chosen family of recently resurrected Heretics, or her original family of two lost boys, all grown up if now perennially youthful like herself?
Once she was married to a monster, but she fails to notice that her new family (not to mention her old family) thinks she’s done it again, as Valerie and Oskar at least were doing what they could to prevent Julian from coming back to life.
They failed, and he’s back, so now it’s the Salvatores turn to convince their mommie dearest that she has a pattern she needs to break. The first episode is more about the weirdness of an empty Mystic Falls, where the vamps living in the Salvatore House decide to throw a party the better to act out their own psychodramas. Matt and Enzo and Bonnie are somehow part of this sick soiree, leading to some fun lines where Bonnie cuts Lily down to size, and Enzo is mistaken for the help by Julian. Matt and Bonnie follow a compelled worker off premises and towards an unfolding mystery concerning the human cattle in this world.
But not before Bonnie and Enzo have a weird moment of chemistry while Enzo is trying to make Lily jealous. I guess this explains his coming to save Bonnie in the flash-forward from last week, and it’s weird, but hardly the worse thing either of them has done. Witches might require unkillable boyfriends, honestly.
The second episode is deeper and less about the posturing between ersatz father figure Julian and errant sons Damon, Stefan and Enzo. That’s because most of the episode is another truce attempt from Lily, who thinks she’s having early Thanksgiving with her sons. That it turns into a torture session for her is par for the course in Mystic Falls, but the flashbacks (with completely new actors for everyone involved, sorry original Giuseppe!) reveal an abusive man from a forgotten century, and a family living in fear with no other options.
Annie Wersching is doing her best to hold up her end as Lily, even if the story doesn’t always support her work. She’s gone from indifference to her sons to genuine motherly concern over the course of the season, with all the steps in between being how horrible they are to her. Hmmm, maybe it does make sense? She keeps justifying to some extent the actions they interpreted so coldly as children. But she’s still barely human, a haunted relic unsure of how to proceed outside of her own fragile need for order and a loyal love she can’t find.
The other subplot right now is whether or not Caroline is mystically pregnant with Alaric’s and Josette’s children. Valerie is convinced she is, but she has little credibility until she helps Matt and Caroline start freeing the flocks of blood donors some vampire (seemingly Beau) has cached all over town. She’s much more interesting estranged from her family, and the actress has a kind of wary chemistry with Caroline.
She’s no dummy, that is to say, and in the end she’s right. Alaric’s twins are alive and they were hiding cloaked in Caroline’s womb. Those Seattle witches are big on the cloaking. Which is crazy for Caroline, as she’s basically the surrogate Alaric never knew he needed; but his joy is palpable, and Caroline gets it. You’d think they’d choose a human like Elena to be their baby momma, but maybe they wanted some of that vampire hard to kill quality.
Still not sure about the flash-forwards, which posit a Buffy-like slayer coming after our tribe of beloved vamps even as they try to integrate into society outside Mystic Falls. I’m not sure I trust this show with that kind of long-term plotting, but the newly energized Stefan/Damon dynamic is invigorating right now.