The Vampire Diaries: Best Served Cold Recap

Synopsis: Yeah so Caroline is pregnant with Ric’s witchspawn and apparently nothing really mattered these past 6 seasons in terms of relationship continuity. Oh, and Lily throws a party.

Rating: ?????

I keep restarting this recap because all I can write are rants filled with curse words in SHOUTY CAPITALS.

So we’re going to get this out of the way first.

WHAT THE ACTUAL MAGICAL WITCHY NONSENSE IS THIS ACID TRIP OF A FLASHFORWARD?

WHY THE HELL IS CAROLINE ENGAGED TO ALARIC? SHE’S HIS FORMER STUDENT!! FIRST JENNA AND THEN JO AND NOW THIS? HE HAS LIKE 20 YEARS ON HER AND THAT’S TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE. NOT TO MENTION THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO LEAD-UP TO THIS SUPPOSED “ROMANCE.” YOU CAN’T JUST RETCON THESE RIDICULOUS PAIRINGS AND EXPECT YOUR AUDIENCE TO STICK AROUND THROUGH THE AFTERMATH OF YOUR SLIPSHOD WRITING.

AND NOW WE’RE TRANSFERRING A SET OF UNDEAD TWINS TO CAROLINE – DID ALL THE WRITERS SUDDENLY DIE IN A COLLECTIVE GAS LEAK AND GET REPLACED WITH STEPHENIE MEYER? IS A PURPOSEFULLY DISHEVELED EDWARD CULLEN GOING TO JUMP OUT OF NOWHERE AND START WATCHING BONNIE SLEEP?

IS.

THIS.

TWILIGHT?

BECAUSE APPARENTLY WE CAN’T STICK TO A SET OF CONSISTENT RULES FOR THIS UNIVERSE.

So Ric’s with Caroline 3 years from now. Whatever.

Stefan’s all torn up about his dead son so he vows to kill Julian. Damon, however, has other plans. He wants Lily to enjoy her Barbie-dreamhouse lifestyle for 6 months before he rips it out from underneath her.

Lily, ever the oblivious optimist, invites everyone to dinner for a “Peace Day.” It involves compelling all the former Mystic Falls residents, but whatever. Rolling with it.

Tensions run high between Nora and Mary-Louise (as always) when ML doesn’t dress modern enough for Nora. Julian exploits this tension by pushing ML to drink from a hapless caterer, undermining Peace Day.

In the meantime, Lily cleans up after the fight. She chastises Julian for trying to kill her sons – he retaliates in a ham-fisted attempt at manipulation, e.g. ‘The Lily I knew had moved on from her sons. The Lily I knew was much cooler & more fun & generally more willing to bend to my will than this version.” It’s essentially Abuser 101 and chica needs to love herself and learn to recognize the signs.

Julian then takes it all back and comes up with a lame excuse that ‘he needs her help to recover’ from his emotional trauma. Code: he’s able to be horrible to Lily because he’s ~~scarred~~ and she should pity him. (Disclaimer: This is all clearly a ploy from Julian – some of these characters have experienced real trauma and have real emotional issues to be handled with sensitivity. Julian is not one of them. He’s the worst, most despicable kind of predator. End rant.)

While the other characters are fighting, Bonnie discovers that someone is compelling a whole bunch of humans to hook themselves up to IV’s and sit in a classroom at Mystic Falls High. It’s super creepy. Bonners also helps Enzo by pretending to be his date to make Lily jealous. Both things are equally disturbing.

In the Faux!Jo storyline, Faux!Jo is dying. Caroline’s blood can’t fix her, and her vampire soul won’t fit in a human body. Turns out her name is Florence, and she was killed by a magical sword. Faux!Jo says goodbye to Ric so he can get the closure he deserves. Valerie, watching the entire scene, thinks that Jo’s babies are still alive – after some witchy nonsense, she finds out that Caroline is carrying Ric’s unborn twins.

Creepy.