So Vampire Diaries got back last week with a familiar face. Elijah! Our favorite older brother original is back and he’s been busy. We quickly find out that Elena and Rebekah’s search has bore fruit and they are in the right city to find Katherine. Finding her also leads to the revelation that Elijah is in cahoots with her. This episode has a lot of recurring themes, like most of the episodes on this show. One of them is trust and the other is repetition.
Trust is a very big one. Elijah has built his entire relationship around Katherine and his trust for her. When Elena reveals that Katherine killed Jeremy and that’s why she has lost her humanity, Elijah is shocked and heartbroken. After losing both of his brothers, he can imagine the pain and he was one of the ones who was able to fully understand Elena’s kindness and compassion. The death of Jeremy Gilbert breaks any trust that Elijah has for Katherine and leads him to essentially leaving her after knowing that he’s been suckered into yet another one of her schemes.
Caroline and Klaus suffer the same problem. She’s unable to trust him, and in the excruciating scene where Klaus is in pain, all she asks for in return for her help is Tyler’s return and he’s unable to give her his word. Every time Klaus mentions friendship Caroline reminds him that friendship is built on trust and he has never done anything that makes her trust him. The two times he saved her was because he had also been the one to cause the damage. In the end they barely mend a bridge, though it seems to be a step in the right direction. Though, I personally would wish that Klaus just confess that he loves Caroline or something and that’s why he isn’t ok with letting Tyler back. Because we know that’s why. Now that all the hybrids are dead, he has no reason for Tyler not to be there.
The second big theme that covers almost the entire interaction between the group in Pennsylvania is repetition. Elena mentions to Elijah that he’s a sucker and so is every other boy, because they fail to see that Katherine uses the same tricks against different pairs of brothers. And that they are idiots for keep falling for them. Stefan and Damon realize that they are repeating the same process over and over again, and Stefan comes to the acceptance that after he fixes Elena he is going to leave her life, although Damon is still bent on saving her from the cure. Elijah also mentions that it is Katherine’s actions that are dooming Elena to live the same life that Katherine has lived. She has killed what remains of Elena’s family and has left her with nothing, creating her into the monster that Katherine is.
The person who fears repetition the most of all is Rebekah. She’s sick of living the same life over and over. Much of it could be contributed to the number of times she’s been betrayed. By her hunter boyfriend, her family, her friends, just over and over. It’s understandable that she wants to just leave. Elijah makes a good point that this might just be what she thinks is the cure to her problems, but she needs to look deeper for the real answer. Sometimes I forget that Elijah is also like… kind. And it’s not just Rebekah who is capable of it. I mean, I guess Klaus is, but it seems like it’s only with Caroline. What has not been repeated is Katherine’s confession and trust in Elijah by handing him the cure. We don’t know for sure if it is the cure or not, but on Katherine’s hopes, it is the cure.
Plot-wise, everything seems to be coming together for a big show down with Silas. His powers seem to be unequal as he made Klaus spend most of the episode in piercing agony, saved only by Caroline’s distractions. The only way that this maybe helped is if the Originals are all together, though even that might be hard. With the cure in hand, I’m excited to see what they do next week with it. Especially now that it seems like Elena needs it more than ever, after killing that nice waitress and stomping off in Katherine’s shoes. It seems in next week’s episode, we’re going to see Elena pulling at the strings of the Salvatores in a very Katherine like manner. Guess those shoes weren’t the only thing she got from her.
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