The Vampire Diaries: I Could Never Love Like That Recap

Synopsis: Damon and his mother finally manage to turn Stefan’s humanity back on, Elena (randomly) expresses her dissatisfaction with being a vampire, and the show violates the rules of its own universe by introducing a new species of superwitch vampires.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

It’s extremely obvious that Nina Dobrev announced that she’s leaving the show before its final season.

Why? Because the show’s writers are retconning the shit out of Elena’s storyline in preparation for the actress’ departure.

The Cure for Vampirism is back in play, and it’s a cheap plot device that lets Damon feel sufficiently guilty/tormented for being dishonest with Elena before she feels betrayed and eventually comes to terms with wanting her mortality back.

Suddenly Elena’s character has all these regrets about losing her humanity just like she did a few seasons ago when she first turned vampiric. Since Jo’s pregnant, now she gets the itch to be a mother. She wants Matt’s sudden, ham-fistedly overt and convenient hatred of vampires to evaporate.

It’s a complete 180 from the happiness and fulfillment she found in herself and in Damon that we saw from her before the hiatus. Frankly, It’s sloppy. It’s heavy-handed. More than that, it’s unconvincing. It’s endlessly aggravating seeing a character randomly regress out of NOWHERE.

Safe to say, I’m really frustrated with the direction that Elena’s character is headed before the writers will inevitably shove the Cure down her throat and kill her off.

Elena’s sudden personality change aside, this episode didn’t offer a lot in terms of character development. Other than exploring Damon’s guilt at withholding the Cure from Elena, there isn’t a lot of emotional depth or important plot points for the main cast.

We do get to see Stefan and Caroline tearing it (throats) up at the bar before Caroline starts singing karaoke bouncy -Taylor Swift – debut album style. Tyler and Matt interrupt the couple’s fun, which ends in Tyler accidentally stabbing Matt, who stupidly refuses to accept Elena’s blood to heal him. He’s not into the whole corrupt vampire thing, and he’s over the hypocrisy of accepting vampire help when it’s convenient.

Looks like Matt simultaneously dropped 60 IQ points and developed a moral backbone. I would say he lost his sense of self-preservation, too, but let’s be honest. He never had that anyway.

The only significant development this episode came from Salvatore Mommy. Enzo tells Sarah all about his creator and her family. Turns out that Mommy Salvatore turned Enzo into a vampire in the early 1900’s to save him from consumption. Unfortunately, she also slaughtered a ton of people in the process, but hey. Win some; lose some.

Later, Mommy Salvatore drops some harsh truth: she feels nothing for her sons. She left them and she never looked back. Now, this isn’t going to work for Damon’s narrative if he’s trying to save Stefan with an emotional connection – cue a well-rehearsed lie from Mommy Salvatore which ends up turning Stefan’s humanity back on.

In exchange for Lily’s help, Damon gave her The Ascendant. As always, this turns out to be a HUGE MISTAKE because she and her creepy friends are actually heretic Gemini vampire witches.

I know what you’re saying.

“Can’t witches never be vampires because of the Forces of Nature and Good and Evil being Diametrically Opposed and blah blah blah blah?”

To which I say, “Wow, good on you for remembering that.”

I also say apparently the writers just got some sweet severance pay/wrote this arc on the back of a napkin at happy hour while seriously inebriated so they’re no longer concerned with obeying the rules of their own freaking universe. Or, you know, coherency.

Strap in because if this is what the rest of the story is like, we’re in for a bumpy ride.