Don't you forget about me

The Vampire Diaries
Season 4 episode 10 - "After School Special"

Dear Diary,

Carol Lockwood was dead to begin with.

In a swell of blood and violence and ironic, well chosen Christmas music, she left this world, free to play the mum of a different character on another supernatural show ( Teen Wolf forever!!) and once again, like many times before (see seasons 1 to 3) we are left with a void in Mystic Falls adulthood-dom.

If there ever needed to be a public service announcement in Mystic Falls, and really there should be many, it would have to be that in The Vampire Diaries: No parent is safe.

On that note, welcome Bonnie's Dad. We'll miss you.

Episode 10 opens in the midst of a memorial service for the late and great Mayor. There are candles, there are extras, and everyone’s sad but also grateful that there is no need to hold an election after this thing, because that's just how they roll.

But what is this, an intruder, at the Mystic Falls High school gym, someone call the guards. Yeah, I know there are no guards J but still there is an intruder, her name is Rebekah. She is displeased.

She’s also a gossip, two things that when put together are the touchstone of a truly phenomenon episode of television.

Not since the Breakfast club or any other teen drams that tried to emulate moments from the Breakfast Club, has so much heartbreaking, soul crushing honesty be sprouted within the walls of a school library. Though instead of a dance montage for our main characters, we have life or death chase scenes, water boarding and bone breaking werewolf shifting, but it’s kind of the same thing.

Magic daggers get pulled out all the time the world is an imperfect place

A lot had happened in Mystic Falls since Beks was unceremoniously put on hiatus by Stefan and Klaus all the way back in episode four, a simpler but sadder time, where Jeremy Gilbert’s arms were not needed as a part of the shows story main arc (a sad, sad time indeed.)  

Planning to play catch up Rebekah, used her new minion ally April, lured Elena away from the Mayor’s vigil and snapped herself right back into the thick of things (I think Connor would have appreciated that)

If your team Stelena I’d recommended skipping forward a few paragraphs because what goes down between the young Miss Gilbert and her first Salvatore suitor, is not pretty in pink, or any other colour.

Rebekah’s plan is a simple one, compel and destroy. And that she does.

Poor, poor Stefan, guess Katherine turning you and your brother into creatures of the night is not looking like to worst way to end a love triangle now.

That being said everything Elena was compelled to reveal about her feelings for the Vampchester brothers, no matter how brutal, was understandable. Damon made her feel alive where Stefan acts like maybe she was better off having stayed dead. She still loved Stefan but was in love with Damon.

That’s cool I get it, love, choices, yadda yadda but having to hear that the love of your life (who you were prepared to sacrifice your immortality for, as Rebekah kindly shared) and your brother (who you did sacrifice your freedom and succumbed to your worst self to save) were happy little vegemites as bright as bright can be, sire bond or not, would be utterly devastating.

Every single beat of these moments between Elena and Stefan was played beautifully by Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley. The heartbreak, the anger, the confessions, from Elena’s love declaration to Stefan’s wish to forget he ever met her, were masterfully portrayed and made the scenes in the library more than just exposition.

Vampires move pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, they will eat you

Ok in other news, Jeremy’s arms. Ok, Matt’s arms. Jeremy arms, Matt’s arms, are we sure that this wasn’t actually the Christmas episode?

The Gilbert’s lake house was only a slightly less depressing place to be this episode.

Damon was still struggling with the “sire bond” in the room, listening to a saved phone message from Elena over and over again, taking the high road to growing Jeremy’s hunter’s mark rather than Klaus’s suggestion of murder and mayhem.

But that all quickly went out the Pizza girl’s car window. Following Elena’s confession of love (which was wonderful, how amazing is Ian Somerhalder’s face, honestly when he looked up at sky so happy I lost it) the eldest Salvatore suddenly found himself back on the dark side of the force once again.

Now is the sire bond a bad thing, YES, it’s very bad, go away, but if you have been holding out for it to become an interesting part of the show’s main story I think we are nearly there.

Elena has always been a big supporter of free will and while she claims to be ok with staying under the sire spell if that means being with Damon, how is she going to feel if Damon abuses the sire bond connection and orders her to be ok with the deaths of a bar full of citizens and putting her brother and one of her best friend’s in grave danger?

That’s all folks, just one last thing: The Originals Spinoff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m slightly excited.

Thank you for reading and hope you’ll join me again next week for episode 11: “Catch me if you can: the continuing tale of Jeremy Gilbert's biceps”

Remember we're all pretty bizarre. Some of just have the ability to compel you into forgetting it better, that’s all.

XOXO,

Hannie Bee