I have to admit, as effective and shocking as the season 5 finale to The Vampire Diaries was, I could only really conjure up one initial thought, which was, well, “I think that’s it for me.” Yes, after five seasons, all very up-and-down in their own lovable and crazy ways, but killing off such a character favorite, one who kept me watching during the bad episodes, that’s a bit of a game-changer. I know I sound like a teenage girl the way I’m oozing love for Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) right now, but he was that eternal underdog, the classic troubled child, and let’s face it Spike fan, he’s probably the closest thing we’ve had since Buffy the Vampire Slayer stopped airing new episodes. He was fun, he was boastful, and he was a big reason The Vampire Diaries worked. I’ve always felt that Stefan (Paul Wesley) was the soul of the show, but Damon was the heart.
So, with all in this in mind, they have to bring him back, right? This is the show that can bring back anyone, right? Well, it looked like a pretty…final sort of death, but I guess anything can happen. Anyway, we’re getting ahead of ourselves, let’s start at the beginning and work our way towards one of the most shocking moments of this show’s run.
Caroline (Candice Accola) didn’t know what to do with Stefan, now a lifeless body, and she ends up bringing him back to the Salvatore Mansion where Elena (Nina Dobrev) and Damon learn of what happened. She thinks Bonnie (Kat Graham) is going to be able to bring him back, which seems to be the hot ticket item these days. Stefan almost doesn’t make it past the first few moments of being on The Other Side, because the crazy black hole abyss that keeps sucking people up comes at him, and he’s about to be all kinds of gone when Lexi (Arielle Kebbel) grabs him and saves him. Yes, we’re about to get our nostalgia on. I always liked the friendship these two had, so this was a fun moment.
Damon gets a little angry when Bonnie announces there is no plan, throwing a classic broody Damon tantrum. No worries were necessary though, as Enzo (Michael Malarkey) actually hatched his own plan, and he just needed them to get him a witch. In no time at all, Elena and Caroline were able to track down Luke (Chris Brochu) and Liv (Penelope Mitchell), who had been trying to drive out of Mystic Falls, and Caroline snaps Luke’s neck. With Luke now on The Other Side, Liv had to join their team and agree to help their cause. Caroline just snapping Luke’s neck and giving Liv that look of pure rage, that was a definite highlight of the episode.
So we’ve got the Salvatore brothers, Luke, Bonnie, Lexi, all hanging out on The Other Side, what’s next? How about Tyler Lockwood (Michael Trevino)? They can’t tease this character’s death/disappearance enough, so for like the 12th time his life (or purpose) in the show gets put on the line. He drops dead because of that whole spell that had magic undone, yadda yadda yadda. Now, it was Julian, the passenger in Tyler’s body, who had actually been in sole possession, but when the body died Tyler became himself again.
Hold on, we’re still not done with these Other Side grand entrances. Silas actually makes a return as well. Bonnie needs to be taught a spell by the Travelers if this whole crazy scheme is gonna help everyone go be all alive again, and Silas was the Traveler chosen by Enzo. This might have been my favorite return, simply because it reminded me of how much fun this guy was, and how well Paul Wesley played him. Silas and Bonnie aren’t able to really get along much, and she even lies to Elena about who it is who is teaching her the spell. There’s the whole nagging issue of letting Silas out to terrorize humanity again which is a bit troubling.
Sheriff Forbes (Marguerite MacIntyre) brings Markos (Raffi Barsoumian) and the Travelers to the Mystic Grill for a little shindig, AKA the blow-them-up party. The plan was for Matt (Zach Roerig) and Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) to start a gas leak below the Grill, and then someone would trigger a Traveler-killing explosion. Who is that special someone? Damon chose himself to do it. Elena isn’t too happy with his decision, but it’s Damon’s brother. and we’ve seen countless times how Damon will pretty much kill himself for his brother, and that’s exactly what he was doing here. I think this is where I really got my first inkling that something was going to go seriously, seriously wrong. That inkling disappeared quickly when Elena ended up joining him for his drive (straight into the Grill). If she was going to die with him, things would be ok, right? Right?!
Enzo, Silas, and Bonnie are all standing in the woods, chatting it up that they were ready to get this party started, and the angry black hole appeared around. Bonnie chose to help Enzo and keep him grounded, but she let Silas go, his usefulness now all used up. It was a rewarding moment for Bonnie, who had that whole killing-a-family-member vendetta. Then the plan kicks off, and Liv begins her chanting (the only thing Travelers ever really do), and Matt and Jeremy start the gas leak.
Elena and Damon smash into the Grill, and everything goes boom. Elena and Damon end up on The Other Side, and Elena is approached by Alaric (Matthew Davis). He told her to go get Bonnie, and that he’d find his old pal Damon. I shall state here there has been no friendship on this show as unusual but also as charming as the one between Damon and Alaric. Yeah, I swoon over those two. They run into each other and have a real pal moment, and even discover that Sheriff Forbes has inexplicably survived the explosion.
While most of them were already at their little come-back-to-life checkpoint, Damon was absent. After very little deliberation, Luke simply grabs Bonnie and crosses over. Enzo follows, and then Tyler. A little fun fact, Tyler s no longer a hybrid. Yes, they’ve taken away the only interesting part about this guy, and they still let him come back to life. Elena refuses to pass through Bonnie without Damon, so Stefan also decides to stay. Bonnie does the right thing and grabs Elena, forcing her to pass over, and then it’s just Stefan, Lexi, and Bonnie. But wait! Bonnie is taking some heavy damage from everyone going through her so quickly, and as she starts coughing, Stefan touches her and passes through. Lexi refuses to go over and cause Bonnie more pain, so she just, well, she’s gone. Before she leaves, she kicks Markos’ ass and feeds him to the abyss monster, so there went the least interesting villain The Vampire Diaries has offered. Good riddance.
Damon and Alaric are the last to show up, and Alaric passes through. Before Damon can pass through, however, Luke stops Liv’s chanting, as he’s come back to her, and saving anybody else would only seriously harm her. When Damon touches Bonnie, nothing happens. When Elena comes back to life, she finds that Luke and Liv have gone, meaning the spell stopped, meaning if Damon hadn’t made it over, he was stuck. Well, he hadn’t made it over, and he was stuck.
Now comes the hard goodbyes. Damon and Elena’s goodbyes were pretty touching. They weren’t able to actually speak to each other, but there were plenty of touching words, and a lot of sobbing on Elena’s part. Then there’s Bonnie’s goodbye, as she calls Jeremy and tells him there never really was a way to stop being the Anchor (you liar!), and that she was going to be leaving now. Bonnie and Damon hold hands, share one last quip at one another, and then they disappear into a great white light.
While the show can clearly live on without Bonnie, can it really live on without Damon? It’s hard to really see how they’d conjure up an explanation for a return from a death that seemed so final. Of course, I guess they could always make up the strange resurrection and tie it to some weird magic thing, but is that even the right route? What seems final should stay final, in my opinion, even if it is a wrong move. There’s nothing worse than a weak sub-plot to remake a mistake. If Damon really is gone though, who is going to bring us our fun? Where will all the one-liners disappear too?
There are plenty of other questions to be pondering with this Other Side craziness. If I’m correct, Tyler came back human, so how did everyone else come back? Might we actually have a Vampire Diaries with more than one or two normal humans per episode? That might be the most surprising shocker of all.
Season 5, Episode 22: “Home” (originally aired May 15th, 2014)
The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW
Image courtesy of Annette Brown/The CW.
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