S08.E08: We Have History Together

[formerlyfreedom]

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Stefan and Damon attend an anger management support group looking for their next victim. Meanwhile, Sybil uses a group of high school students as levage to get Caroline to locate an historical artifact that can be used against her.

 

 

[TigerLynx]

In the early seasons, Matt used to annoy me.  Now it's nice to see someone who has no supernatural powers willing to save innocent victims because it's the right thing to do.

If the Damon/Stefan SL isn't leading to Damon and Stefan being dead dead, it's a waste of time.  It's amusing when Damon and Stefan trade places, but the end result has always been the same, no matter what Stefan does, when all is said and done, the writers go right back to the same dynamic of Stefan = good, Damon = bad, and that's simply not true.

[missbonnie]

This is me every single episode, "Oh my god make it stop.", I just can't wait for this mess to end. 

[immortalfrieza]

I have to admit, Stefan is 100 times better as a bad guy than he EVER is as that whole "I'm evil but I pretend I'm good and lecture everybody else that doesn't fit my standards." The writers really should have just wrote Stefan as like that from the start instead of trying to pass him off as this white knight.

So... killing someone (who didn't actually die anyway) under MIND CONTROL sentences you to hell? Oh, and having someone ELSE kill someone because you didn't do what they tell you is also a ticket to hell? Not to mention valuing your own life over the lives of strangers? It seems like it's all but impossible to avoid going to hell in this universe.

Edited January 14, 2017 by immortalfrieza

[srpturtle80]

31 minutes ago, missbonnie said:

This is me every single episode, "Oh my god make it stop.", I just can't wait for this mess to end. 

I was just coming here to say that this show cannot end soon enough. It's just so terrible, I don't know why I am punishing myself. I feel obligated to see it through to the end though.

[2Old2BAFangirl]

I love TVD but this last season is seriously the worst!  I didn't want the show to end, hell I still don't, but this feels like punishment - it's so bad.

This episode could've been worse, I guess.  We only had 2ish storylines to follow instead of 4 or 5.  Damon and Stefan were pretty.  

Yep, think that's it for this one right now - which just makes me sad.

[Cattitude]

Oh how I fondly remember the time I couldn't wait for this show to be on and NO ONE dare bother me while watching. Now I hide in a corner and hope no one knows I'm still watching....sigh.

Could someone please explain WTH I just watched. blah blah blah..bell... blah blah Damon bad...blah blah blah...Stefan worse.

Is it a coincidence ND chopped her hair into a bob the same week her look alike has a bob on TVD? weird. I thought Tara was scary close to a ND look alike.

So if no one is above doing something to land them in hell why is there a hell if everyone goes there? Almost seems like a sneaky way to make vampires less evil if "everyone" can become evil if manipulated enough.

how many episodes of torture do I have left?

[TigerLynx]

I was hoping there was more to Damon/Tyler than Damon just killing Tyler, but apparently, Damon's mind really is swiss cheese, Tyler really is dead, and Stefan (who I agree is so much more entertaining as a bad guy) has fallen off the wagon again.

[GaT]

Dear God, please end this crap fest of a show. We have had enough.

[paulvdb]

It was nice to see Alexandra Chando on my screen again. I liked her on The Lying Game but according to IMDB she hasn't done much after it ended. Other than that, I agree with other posters that I want this to be over. I would have quit watching if I didn't know that it was the final season and there are only a few episodes left.

[HunterHunted]

6 hours ago, missbonnie said:

This is me every single episode, "Oh my god make it stop.", I just can't wait for this mess to end. 

5 hours ago, srpturtle80 said:

I was just coming here to say that this show cannot end soon enough. It's just so terrible, I don't know why I am punishing myself. I feel obligated to see it through to the end though.

2 hours ago, GaT said:

Dear God, please end this crap fest of a show. We have had enough.

 

 

This show is so bad that when I went to Wikipedia to see how many episodes we have left, I was upset to find out we have to endure 8 more. I was really hoping this was a 12 or 13 episode season. It's partially the sunk costs fallacy and that I do care what happens to some of the characters that motivates me keep watching. Episodes this bad make it awfully hard to stick with it week after week.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The opening scene was stupid and made no sense. They're supposed to be sending the worst of the worst to Cade, but Damon decided that of everyone in the anger management group, the one guy was The Worst because he admitted he valued his own life above the lives of the random people in his support group? I think a lot of people would make the same choice and that doesn't mean they are evil.

Also made no sense in that scene: Stefan said as long as there was no dripping blood then he wouldn't lose control and become a ripper. Oooookay. I thought it was the blood itself and his lust for it, not if he made a mess, that was the issue. OCD to the rescue! As long as he can be a neat freak about human blood, everything's going to be okay. His ripper trigger is messiness. No wonder he and Caroline get along so well.

Caroline can STFU and stay on her island of denial. When she wrote to Elena that she had no idea what Stefan was doing, I was like BITCH, PLEASE. You know exactly what he's doing because he told you what the job entailed! He's killing people for Cade! Sybil still annoys me, but at least she called Caroline on that. Heh, and Sybil is smart enough to plant that seed of doubt in Caroline's head about whether she can kill the twins long distance, thus ensuring her safety. Too bad there's no magical equivalent of a metal detector so they could have someone check to see if Sybil is still somehow psychically linked to them.

I don't understand why Sybil went to all the trouble of mind controlling her students and then forcing Caroline to find the bell when she could have just used her siren mind control powers to make Caroline go find the bell. On a shallow note, what was with the students calling her Miss Sybil? That's what preschool kids call the assistants (aka the non-teachers). I've never heard high school kids do that. I guess I'm supposed to fanwank that that's what Sybil thought they should call her but it was just dumb. Is Sybil the one who was allowed to keep her immortality? Or was it Seline? I can't remember because, honestly, I just don't care enough to retain these useless details.

I guess Matt finally got over his "all vampires are terrible and I can't be friends with any of them" thing since he's all buddy buddy with Caroline again. Remember when he would barely tolerate having a conversation with her?

Dude, Alaric told Dorian the truth about EVERYTHING? That seems a bit risky. I felt bad for the actor though because he got saddled with a huge info dump. It didn't come off very naturally but info dumps seldom do.

In his almost 200 years as a human, Stefan never bothered to learn about medical school? Just because a doctor is in her 20s doesn't mean that she graduated early and is driven by something dark. If you go to med school right after you finish your undergrad, you are a doctor well before you're 30. In the United States, most students who finish their undergrad degree in four years are 22 when they graduate. After four years of med school, they are 26. So all of these people are driven by something dark and are secretly evil and have pain in their past?

As for Stefan's assumption that she's a doctor who doesn't work with her hands because she had nail polish on, well, that's stupid too. There are some hospitals that don't allow ANYONE to wear nail polish (doctors, nurses, anyone who deals with patients), but there are also hospitals that have this rule and don't enforce it. In other words, you can't tell if someone is a doctor vs a nurse or an orderly based on the fact that she is wearing nail polish. 

I thought it was hilarious that Stefan was so quick to dismiss Damon's alternate theory that she could be an orderly. In my experience, when you see someone in scrubs helping an old woman at a cafe, that's often an unlicensed/non-medical care giver.

And how does Stefan know that she was wearing a MEDICAL pager? Do they look different from non-medical pagers? Hold on, let me check with Dennis Duffy.

How does Matt the Boy Scout not have a pocket knife or a Leatherman or something to cut all the ropes? His complaint to his dad made no sense either. If he'd known that the Maxwell family helped found the town before the official Founding Families (TM), then he wouldn't have felt as shitty being friends with descendants of the Founding Families? That would have changed everything and he wouldn't have felt like an outsider? I'm pretty sure the things that made him feel like an outsider was being poor, having a shitty mom who didn't care enough to make sure her kids were fed, being the only one of his friends who had to work in high school, being the only one of his friends without any kind of supernatural powers.

On a positive note, it was nice to see Alexandra Chando from The Lying Game.

Fun fact: the actress who played Violet (the blonde student with the torch) played the young version of Chuck on Pushing Daisies!

I, too, fondly recall when this show was must see tv for me. Now it's a chore that I'm getting through because I've invested too many years not to see how it ends. I'm just gritting my teeth and rolling my eyes these days. Part of me is sad that the show is ending, but I know what I'm REALLY sad about is how much I used to enjoy this funny roller coaster of a ride because that show is long gone.

Edited January 14, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[TigerLynx]

7 hours ago, paulvdb said:

It was nice to see Alexandra Chando on my screen again. I liked her on The Lying Game but according to IMDB she hasn't done much after it ended. Other than that, I agree with other posters that I want this to be over. I would have quit watching if I didn't know that it was the final season and there are only a few episodes left.

 

3 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

On a positive note, it was nice to see Alexandra Chando from The Lying Game.

 

I liked Alexandra Chando on the Lying Game, and I wish she hadn't been killed off this show so quickly.  She can actually act.  I did laugh when Stefan referenced her resemblance to Elena.  I remember people commenting on AC's resemblance to NB when The Lying Game first premiered.

Cade's hell makes no sense to me.  It seems Damon and Stefan can kill and send anyone there no matter what.  They can compel them, they can change their memories, they can kill them for their thoughts alone no action required, etc.  At this rate, everyone is going to hell.

[Aeryn13]

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The entire episode read as a bad Delena fanfiction with the constant reminders of how Damon is really, underneath the humanity-off switch and almost two centuries of torture and murder, is really the "good, pure-hearted" brother while Stefan is the one with the greater aptitude for evil. Julie Plec's insistence on distorting canon to prop up her favourite character and destroy/demonise the ones she dislikes is the chief reason why this show went downhill and this episode is like a summary of everything that went wrong with this show. 

When they`ve done this in the past, they still always went back to their simplistic trope of "Stefan = saint and Damon = sinner". There was never any nuance there. This one episode doesn`t undo years and years of propping Stefan for me.

And IMO Stefan with his humanity off does have a much greater aptitude for evil. Damon was introduced as a villain on the show and he did play some cat-and-mouse-games with the characters and his brother early on but it is humanity-free-Stefan who really gets into cruel mind games. I don`t think that makes him a bad person, he just has a deeper dark side.

This Season plays ridiculous games with the notion of good and evil. I don`t know why they bother, with their standards, every human being ever goes to Cade`s hell. Noone is that saintly to escape it. And I for one find Stefan far more relatable with feet of clay than whenever they do their propping. Case in point, it was obvious he`d fall off the ripper wagon at the end since the episode telegraphed it so hard early on. But I still felt incredibly sad for him because ultimately his humanity will come back and he will feel down in the dumps again. All because he acted actually really noble by sacrificing himself to this deal. Meanwhile last episode with Selene pontificating about sensing Stefan`s purest soul of pureness was a gigantic turn-off. 

Damon has less of an aptitude for evil, true, but also less of an aptitude for good. Even now they hammer it home that it is some lingering love for Elena that permeates his swiss chees brain. Unlike other vampires who are Jekyll and Hyde with their switches on and off, you can actually not really tell with Damon. Even when he is on the good side he is never a fluffy bunny other than for the people he cares about, Stefan, Elena, Caroline and all the others do at least theoretically care for random people every now and then. Damon truly doesn`t give a crap. That makes him far less good but also on the flipside less evil than them. He doesn`t need to live out his darker impulses to the fullest with his switch flipped because he always kinda lives them. In all his impulsiveness, he is ironically the poster child of moderation.

[TigerLynx]

I wonder if Stefan was more angry and upset about Damon/Elena than he ever let on.  Stefan was the one who originally gave Elena the necklace.  Damon retrieved it for Elena several times, but Stefan was the one who gave it to her, and he sure seems focused on it, and the Damon/Elena relationship now.  I think the humanity switch and ripper nonsense was just a bad idea.  I liked Damon's original explanation to Elena in Season One when he told her that Stefan doesn't want to be like Damon, but that doesn't mean underneath he isn't.  Damon was talking about their vampire nature, not their human personalities.  Damon to Elena, "Instead of learning to control it, he spent all these years denying it, and now it's controlling him."  Damon to Stefan, "We are eternally hungry.  You know that."  Caroline to Liz, "The hunger for blood and killing is always there, but I fight against it everyday."

[Bort]

It's a shame they didn't have Alexandra Chando's character in a scene with Matt. The actors were each others' love interests on As the World Turns back in the day.

 

Speaking of Matt, I had a big laugh at his latest hissy fit at his dad: "I could have fit in with my Founding Families Friends better but you took that away from me!" Perspective, Matt, get some.

[Aeryn13]

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Speaking of Matt, I had a big laugh at his latest hissy fit at his dad: "I could have fit in with my Founding Families Friends better but you took that away from me!"

Heh. If all he wanted was to be like all his founding families friends, he could have asked anyone of them to turn him into a vampire. Boom, you are just like them, Matt.

But I love the revisionist history on Mystic Falls. Wasn`t it already a thriving settlement a thousand years ago when the Originals lived there? And even they only just move there. It seemed to have been founded by werewolves, if you will. So maybe the Lockwoods would have a case if they can trace their ancestry back that far. . 

[jade.black]

I've never felt the need to comment on the Vampire Diaries although I've been a fan from the start, but it has just gotten so, so bad. I kept checking how much time was left before the episode would end. Who is writing this and who is approving it to go on air? They aren't even trying to make sense anymore! The brothers aren't looking for the worst of the worst, they're finding generally good people and manipulating them into saying or doing questionable things (not even clearly evil things!) which is justification to damn them to hell? If I were Cade, I'd be pissed getting all of these saintly people. You've got a guy who's trying to better himself with anger management classes who is forced to say what anyone would say, that he'd rather live over a bunch of people he barely knows. Then you have a young nurse who helps old ladies and insisted multiple times that she needs to treat all patients equally manipulated into thinking that Damon killed her parents. Plenty of people would wish death on a person who killed their family. Come on, can't these two go visit a sex trafficking ring or child pornographers or a heroin dealer or somebody truly evil?! This is just utterly ridiculous. I mean, if they're looking for the worst of the worst, they can start with most of their friends.

I don't think I quite noticed how truly awful this show has been these last few seasons until now because I just picked up the Originals and the difference in quality is extreme. Let's just send Caroline over there and end this now.

[miss-vanilla]

3 hours ago, Aeryn13 said:

When they`ve done this in the past, they still always went back to their simplistic trope of "Stefan = saint and Damon = sinner". There was never any nuance there. This one episode doesn`t undo years and years of propping Stefan for me.

And IMO Stefan with his humanity off does have a much greater aptitude for evil. Damon was introduced as a villain on the show and he did play some cat-and-mouse-games with the characters and his brother early on but it is humanity-free-Stefan who really gets into cruel mind games. I don`t think that makes him a bad person, he just has a deeper dark side.

All of this. 

I just hope this time they actually follow through with these character traits, especially Stefan's. They always, always just never quite really went there with him in the same way they have Damon. 

This episode has me torn. On the one hand I liked the focus on the characters but on the other hand I felt too much time was spent on them info dumping rather than how they are feeling, what they are thinking etc, etc. For the first time all season I think I am getting to grips with where Damon's head is at therefore I can better understand his actions which is where the season has failed in the earlier episodes for me. Hopefully, revisiting "ripper" Stefan yet again is a deliberate attempt for the writers to deal with this issue of Stefans in a satisfying way this time and really make it count in a way they never really did before.

Yeah, so much mythology info and backstory jammed into this one that it just felt labored at times and light years away from how this show used to deliver the main plot points of the story, but hey, I think we are all resigned to the fact that this show will never be what it once was. 

Agree with those who liked the casting choice for Tara. The actress did a good job and she really does look very similar to ND. I'm glad Damon was the one to actually kill her because it makes sense as to where we are in the story with him right now. If he hadn't  killed her I would have been rolling my eyes so hard. The writes always know how to really GO there with Damon because as a character he needs no propping up, with or without agency.

[Aeryn13]

1 hour ago, jade.black said:

They aren't even trying to make sense anymore! The brothers aren't looking for the worst of the worst, they're finding generally good people and manipulating them into saying or doing questionable things (not even clearly evil things!) which is justification to damn them to hell? If I were Cade, I'd be pissed getting all of these saintly people. 

This is actually what Cade tasked Stefan to do, find good people who can be manipulated into doing "evil". Apparently their souls are the most potent or something. So what the brothers are doing makes sense in that regard. Kinda. 

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If anything, it's the opposite. Damon has been constantly propped up at Stefan's expense since the midpoint of season 3

Once they went into the Delena side of the triangle, they have worked on Damon more as a romantic hero, sure, but that has never stopped them from keeping him at best a very grey character. I never saw any propping of him as the saintly one, least of all at Stefan`s expense. Menawhile they even meant Stefan`s ripperdom a genetic disorder. I remember rolling my eyes so hard at that whitewash. So I`d say we disagree very much on the propping front.

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I guess by cat-and-mouse games you mean when Damon raped Caroline & psychologically dismantled her? Or when he turned Vicky, after using her as a blow-up doll for his entertainment? Or when in season 2, he turned Andi Starr into a sex slave? Or when he murdered a pregnant woman in 1994 to taunt his brother? 

I said he was introduced as a full on villain. But when he does villainous things he acts either impulsively or it is something that he believes will benefit him. In that Stefan/Klaus flashbacks in the 20s we saw humanity-free-Stefan being cruel to one dude for pleasure. Basically, the brothers are Spike and Angel. Spike killed and tortured with the best of them but Angel bothered to really invest time into long-drawn out psychological torture. Spike would have gotten bored with that two days in. That`s totally how I see the brothers. And in terms of damage, dead is still dead, tortured is still tortured. Both have great capabilities for evil. It`s not like Damon of all people is a good person.  

Edited January 14, 2017 by Aeryn13

[TigerLynx]

The history of Mystic Falls is like everything else on this show it changes according to the current lame SL the writers are trying to sale.  Anna and Pearl made reference to how the Founding Families (Lockwoods, Forbes, Gilberts, Salavatores, Fells, etc.) took all the land and money of the vampires when they killed them.  Then it was revealed that the witches (Bonnie's ancestors) were actually there first.  Then it turns out the Originals were there, but the werewolves (Lockwoods) were there first.  Now apparently, the bellmakers (Matt's ancestors) were there first, and I guess the Sirens hung out in Mystic Falls for a little while to.  {face palm}

I thought the amount of power the writers gave the Originals was ridiculous, but they just kept upping the anti.  Kai, the Heretics, Cade and the Sirens.  Am I supposed to care about whatever idiotic end game Cade, Sybil or Selena have?

[TigerLynx]

I don't think either Damon and Stefan really get held accountable for anything.  I would say the same thing about the rest of the core group as well.

Jenna, Andi, Liz, Carole, Sheila, Zach, etc., are dead dead, and they never killed anyone.  Damon, Stefan, Alaric, Caroline, Elena, Enzo, etc., get to return from the dead, get a free pass for flipping their switch, for not being able to control the blood lust, etc.

Matt, Jeremy and Tyler even acknowledged at one point that "Stefan's our friend.  Damon sometimes to."  So Matt's anti-vampire stance comes and goes.  Matt was the same way with Rebekah.  Angry for a tiny moment about Rebekah running his truck off the road, nearly killing him, and killing Elena, but by the end of the season Matt was willing to go on a European vacation with Rebekah so long as she didn't turn him into a vampire.

This latest SL with Damon and Stefan has been done before, and it always ends the same way.

[tricknasty]

That was so boring. This is the only show I watch where the lead actress has less scenes than the other characters. Did Kat Graham piss off the showrunners somehow?

Edited January 14, 2017 by tricknasty

[miss-vanilla]

3 hours ago, doram said:

He wasn't a villain when he was enslaving Andi Starr. Not one person the show from Stefan to Alaric to Elena ever regarded that relationship as anything abnormal even though she went about the Perpetual Scarf of Human Blood-Bagness. 

He may not have been outright classified as the villain but he was by no means seen as being good at this point in the show. Stefan and Alaric both paid lip service to showing disapproval with the Damon and Andie relationship but neither were concerned that Damon would really hurt her and I'm not sure, I can't remember whether or not Elena even knew that Damon was compelling Andie. In the end it was Stefan who killed her with no consequence at all in the narrative.

3 hours ago, doram said:

That's what I mean when I say the show props up Damon. Stefan does heinous things - and they're underlined by the narrative & he's punished by it.

I totally disagree. Both Damon and Stefan are protected by protagonist plot armour to some degree but karmic punishment has been dealt to both brothers within the narrative throughout the series. This is getting of topic now so I will not comment further here.

[Goldmoon]

I think KG is still on her recurring status, or do you think Carolyn has been elevated above Bonnie in the SL?  I don't remember whether or not CA has been in every ep.

I am with the rest of you: I am watching for the sole purpose of finishing what I started, and seeing what will become of Bonnie.  I wish they had not killed Liz and made Alaric so unlikeable since he returned from his other (failed) series.  I would like to have Liz and OldStyleRic on the screen to care about but it's just Bonnie.  I might like Caro again, but she has to break from Stefan to think of her girls before I will get on board with her again.

[ByTor]

Did I miss something, or did nobody on the show mention why that pain in the ass siren with the annoying cocky smirk is still alive after having her heart ripped out in the mid season finale?

[miss-vanilla]

4 minutes ago, ByTor said:

Did I miss something, or did nobody on the show mention why that pain in the ass siren with the annoying cocky smirk is still alive after having her heart ripped out in the mid season finale?

Yeah. When Sybil cosigned Damons plan to swap the twins for the Salvabros, she made herself a side deal. Sybil gets to keep her powers and her immortality.

[ByTor]

2 minutes ago, miss-vanilla said:

Yeah. When Sybil cosigned Damons plan to swap the twins for the Salvabros, she made herself a side deal. Sybil gets to keep her powers and her immortality.

Ugh, now I'm super confused, I thought the other siren made the deal!

[miss-vanilla]

7 minutes ago, ByTor said:

Ugh, now I'm super confused, I thought the other siren made the deal!

Nope, Seline was left out in the cold. Seline was released from her duties to Cade as part of the deal, but she is now mortal hence her quest for redemption in the winter finale. Seline has the super-bell so i'm pretty sure she will eventually relinquish her leverage to the scooby gang at some point to gain some kind of redemption in their eyes if not in Cades.  Basically she will die a heroine.

Edited January 15, 2017 by miss-vanilla

[ByTor]

Wow, I must really zone out more often than not!  Like a lot of people have said here, I'm just watching to see the series through & just want it over with already.

[miss-vanilla]

4 hours ago, ByTor said:

Wow, I must really zone out more often than not!  Like a lot of people have said here, I'm just watching to see the series through & just want it over with already.

Not judging you, we are all pretty much just waiting it out now. 

 

5 hours ago, Goldmoon said:

think KG is still on her recurring status, or do you think Carolyn has been elevated above Bonnie in the SL?  I don't remember whether or not CA has been in every ep.

Who knows? It's a moot point since Nathalie Kelly is eating up more screen time than either KG or CK which sucks. I wanted this season to pay homage the core gang and their evolving relationships. At the moment they are all virtual strangers which is just heartbreaking in the final season.

[miss-vanilla]

21 minutes ago, doram said:

'At this point in the show'? So it begs the question of when, if ever, Damon stopped being a villain on the show. I'd say he's still a villain but then the argument would be he's reformed but how exactly is that defined when there's zero variation to his actions to the point that humanity off or on,  he is indistinguishable?

 

Well by those standards so is Stefan. Just because he was presented at the start of the show in a period of time when he good, does not mean that he is. He has arguably spent more time than Damon being the bad guy than Damon has during this shows whole run time.  Objectively speaking, the Salvatores are both deeply flawed individuals corrupted by vampirism in different ways.  Caroline is suffering the same issue only 150 yrs behind and so was Elena. The Originals lamp-shaded this very thing. Even the humans ie Matt and Bonnie have been shown to be corrupted by the supernatural world.  Is Damon any more villainous that Stefan? I think not.

32 minutes ago, doram said:

Stefan's murder of Andir was tied up with him keeping Damon safe and saving his life via servitude to Klaus so he was already arguably facing consequences at that point in the story.

Stefans plan worked, Damon got the memo hook, line and sinker, but Stefan just had to call Elena and ruin it didn't he? Every "noble " act (if you can call killing Andie noble) was negated the minute he succumbed to his base instinct......self. That very point was again lampshaded in the very next episode. Stefan killing Andie was a pointless and cruel exercise.

 

37 minutes ago, doram said:

But the whole Klaus's wingman -> humanity-off -> ripper stages lead to him losing Elena to Damon so he obviously suffered consequences for everything he did in season 3.

But he didn't lose Elena.  Elena fought for Stefan throughout even after he threatened to drive her of wickery bridge after he forced his vampire blood down her throat. Elena chose Stefan at the end of S3. That was the point, nothing Stefan did in S3 had a consequence. Stefan lost Elena in S4 because he was an ass to her.

 

44 minutes ago, doram said:

Technically speaking Damon has lost no one and suffered nothing in the course of the series. Stefan has lost Lexi and Elena (due to Damon), Caroline, Tyler and Bonnie are all technical orphans ( Bonnie lost Grams, her mother figure) and Matt lost his sister.

OK, but initially Damon lost Katherine (Stefans fault) which in hindsight was a blessing but it doesn't negate everything he felt for her for 145 yrs.  Stefan lost Lexie but actually, was that really such a bad thing? He may have lost her but he may ultimately gain a brother, someone she basically prevented him from having for most of his 150 years as a vampire. (Not a Lexie fan sorry). Stefan has also gained Caroline, the girl he wants to marry so technically the Boys are equal. 

 

55 minutes ago, doram said:

If anything he has constantly gained love, allies and acceptance. So yeah... Damon on this show is textbook Karma Houdini. 

 

So where are all these people then? Last time I checked Alaric (and Matt) literally staked him and Bonnie and Enzo buggered off to Paris and left him to it.

Damon is on his own, and I think that is deliberate writing.

[TigerLynx]

In the first season, I would agree that Damon was the bad brother, and Stefan was the good one, but overtime rather than Damon becoming a better person, Stefan and everyone else became worse.  It is one of many things that disappointed me about the show.  I was hoping Damon's friendships with Liz, Alaric and Carole, and him wanting to rebuild his relationship with Stefan would lead him in a different direction, but that didn't happen.

Not only, did Stefan kill Andi in season three, Stefan also helped Jeremy murder Tyler's hybrid friend in season four so Jeremy's tattoo could be completed.  The hybrid broke his sire to Klaus with Tyler's help, and had not hurt anyone.

Sadly, once Damon/Stefan's one year service to Cade is over, I have a bad feeling they'll get to go back to Elena and Caroline once again facing no consequences for murdering people.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

RIP, Asian nurse who had no lines. You have fallen by the wayside like all of the other Asian characters on this show before you: Pearl, Anna, Oscar, and Ivy. I'm mostly kidding because I know that on a show about vampires, a lot of people are going to die. But when Stefan killed that nurse, I realized that in eight years TVD has had only a handful of Asian characters and Anna was the only one who lasted for a significant amount of time (18 episodes). Pearl was in eight episodes, Ivy was in six episodes, and Oscar was in four episodes (technically the character of Oscar was in seven episodes, but in S6 he was played by Wing Liu in three episodes where he never uttered a single word so he was basically an extra).

Not that they did much better with black characters. The few we saw were either related to Bonnie (Emily Bennett, Grams, Abby, her dad whose name escapes me, Lucy, Qetsiyah, Ayana, etc) or were witches (Luka, his sister Greta, and his dad Jonas, Bree, Gloria, and Agnes, plus Vincent, Celeste, Astrid, Papa Tunde, Eva Sinclair, and Sabine if you want to count The Originals).

[chrisvee]

This episode was so bad that I had to FF through most of it. I really no longer care about Cade, sirens, etc. and it's  boring wasting the last episodes with a 'Stefan and Damon are evil killers plot' AGAIN. I just want it to be over.

[TheHappinessHotel]

On 1/14/2017 at 6:47 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Fun fact: the actress who played Violet (the blonde student with the torch) played the young version of Chuck on Pushing Daisies!

 

Excuse me while I weep uncontrollably about Pushing Daisies.  Man, I loved that show.

___________

What can I say about TVD?  I am a glutton for punishment and will see this show to the end.  It is horrible.  I used to foam at the mouth for a new episode and now I find myself barely paying attention.  This show has fallen so hard.

 

PS - I am ANTI-Steroline!  Please give me Klaroline.  Please.

[ByTor]

17 minutes ago, TheHappinessHotel said:

PS - I am ANTI-Steroline!  Please give me Klaroline.  Please.

I do like Caroline & Stefan, but yeah, just let her move to New Orleans and be done with these idiots, she'd be better off! :)

Edited January 17, 2017 by ByTor

[Cattitude]

On 1/16/2017 at 4:28 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

RIP, Asian nurse who had no lines. You have fallen by the wayside like all of the other Asian characters on this show before you: Pearl, Anna, Oscar, and Ivy. I'm mostly kidding because I know that on a show about vampires, a lot of people are going to die. But when Stefan killed that nurse, I realized that in eight years TVD has had only a handful of Asian characters and Anna was the only one who lasted for a significant amount of time (18 episodes). Pearl was in eight episodes, Ivy was in six episodes, and Oscar was in four episodes (technically the character of Oscar was in seven episodes, but in S6 he was played by Wing Liu in three episodes where he never uttered a single word so he was basically an extra).

Not that they did much better with black characters. The few we saw were either related to Bonnie (Emily Bennett, Grams, Abby, her dad whose name escapes me, Lucy, Qetsiyah, Ayana, etc) or were witches (Luka, his sister Greta, and his dad Jonas, Bree, Gloria, and Agnes, plus Vincent, Celeste, Astrid, Papa Tunde, Eva Sinclair, and Sabine if you want to count The Originals).

You left off my favorite non-core character...Jessie He could have been a great addition and decent love interest for Caroline.

 

As far as who's worse between Damon and Stefan and who get more of a pass, I  agree with everyone who say it is a wash. Damon has killed more known characters and that is part of the cannon that Damon is suppose to be worse but Stefan is no better he just doesn't kill as many known people even when not in rip..par[TM Klaus] mode. As someone else said see when he was trying to get Jeremy to be a hunter.

As far as Andi goes she WANTED to be with Damon and actually asked him to compel her to stay with him. Damon liked Andi and was genuinely upset Stefan killed her. Stefan knew this and that is why he did it and it worked.

Vampire aren't "good" and aren't supposed to be good. Damon accepts this and does what vampires do. Stefan tries to fight it but in the end is no better. They are the same and neither gets much punishment. Damon did have to endure 5 yrs as a science experiment. Stefan just tries to play the martyr on screen so he seems to get screwed more....he doesn't really though.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Cattitude

[ElectricBoogaloo]

2 hours ago, Cattitude said:

You left off my favorite non-core character...Jessie He could have been a great addition and decent love interest for Caroline.

I'm not gonna lie - as I was reading your post, I thought wait, there was an Asian guy named Jesse on this show? Hahaha, how could I have forgotten about the rare black character on this show who wasn't a witch or related to Bonnie?! That practically makes him a unicorn! I liked Jesse too. I wasn't thrilled when he was turned into a vampire, but I agree that he could have been a good addition to the cast (or at least some new eye candy!).

[Cattitude]

2 hours ago, doram said:

The bathroom scene when he starts telling her he's a serial killer, and she's panicking and he compels her to be OK with it does not indicate to me (and I hope to most viewers) that this is a woman who is consenting to enter a relationship with a vampire. Nor does the scene where she's half-naked and offering herself to him for sex or blood, and he bites her and throws her on the floor imply that this is a woman with full faculties willingly offering herself up to be a blood-bag and sex slave. 

A lot of slave-owners could honestly claim to genuinely "like" their slaves (if by like, you mean "I feel a great deal of affection for this person that I own who is literally incapable of saying no to me"). Damon's feelings towards Andi do not mitigate his actions towards her.

That there is apparently a need to even defend this relationship or defend Damon's actions in this is beyond me. 

Since Damon is a fictional VAMPIRE I have no problem defending him, this isn't real life it is a TV show. Same could be said for defending Stefan as a "good person" he is fictional vampire too and in the apples vs oranges debate they are BOTH murdering oranges.  For me to enjoy a show about evil people I'll go with the person who embraces the evil and revels in it over the hypocritical whiner who does the same things but tries to say he doesn't. And if anyone watches Blacklist Raymond Readington is the best evil genius on TV in my book. I love him too. Sorry not Sorry.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Cattitude

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Apparently the CW gives absolutely no fucks about this show anymore because they didn't bother to post the inside the episode video (which is normally posted before the episode airs) until five days after the episode aired. And for the record, no, Julie Plec, we have not been wondering what Sybil is up to. She wishes that Sybil was anywhere as interesting as S1 Damon. Sybil is one note, boring, and not at all amusing. The only interesting tidbit from this video is that Ian Somerhalder directed this episode.

[miss-vanilla]

In order to discuss this I'm going to keep it on topic and highlight exactly what we are seeing in this episode in the final season of TVD.  Yes there is a much clearer definition between humanity off/on Stefan, agreed but for me there has to be because such a larger part of Stefans personality is dominated by shades of an inner cruelty only seen in the likes of the actual villains of this show like Klaus and Sybil. He is also a savage, vindictive, manipulative asshole with his humanity on and we have seen that side of him creep out from behind the wall (from time to time) he so carefully erects around his personality. Should he be commended for not wanting to inflict that side of his personality on to others? probably but their is no denying that this is a part of who he is. There is a reason Stefan's capacity for evil brings the villains banging on his door. Stefan does have parts of his personality that are likeable, he isn't defined by the bad parts but then again that also applies to Damon.

In this episode we get to see the extent of the inner workings of Stefans mind when his personality is given free reign without the constraints he places on himself. The game he played with the Doctor and Damon was deeply disturbing as was his determination to drive Damon further off the rails into the depths of depravity that Stefan enjoys swimming in., while at the same time Damon was trying keep Stefan from going over the edge into full blown ripperdom. Stefan was truly reveling in all this and he was disappointed that his brother seemed less than enthusiastic, so much so that he continuously pushed Damon to discard the necklace,  (Elena), the one thing keeping him tethered in some small way. Stefan has Caroline, he has his memories and he is not under any mind control from the Sirens, yet he is the one spiralling massively and so quickly. 

.  This is not brand new information, this is all totally in character for Stefan.  The fact that it is more difficult to distinguish humanity on/off Damon is because regardless he is still Damon. He doesn't hide the undesirable aspects of his personality, he embraces them as part of who he is like it or lump it. He doesn't blame people for not liking him, he expects them not to and is usually pretty touched when he makes a friend regardless.  He will still be a snarky dick, he will still kill people because either way he is still a pragmatist. He will kill because he has to get the job done and that does not change with or without his humanity. As we saw at the start of this storyline 8x01, Damon was very matter of fact about what he was doing for the most part. Both Enzo and Damon verbalized that they didn't WANT to kill but they had a resigned attitude about what they had to do and they were fairly efficient about it. I don't see any of Damon's actions since that S5 retcon as being particularly villainous in the context of storylines and the defined morality lines that define the mentality of this group of people/vamps.

An interesting line from Stefan about Damon to ponder "How many times does he need to show us who he really is before we believe him ?"

I think it's an interesting bit of dialogue that has many layers and could be interpreted many ways given the context it was spoken and how it was juxtaposed with a Damon that is feeling some of his humanity lying in that hospital bed. Also interesting is use of the word "show" rather than "tell".

Damon often tells everyone he is terrible, bad etc while often showing the opposite, JS. 

1 hour ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Apparently the CW gives absolutely no fucks about this show anymore because they didn't bother to post the inside the episode video (which is normally posted before the episode airs) until five days after the episode aired.

This would be funny if it weren't sadly true. 

[formerlyfreedom]

Posts that were veering off the topic of the episode were moved to The World of TVD topic. Posts that are not about the episode will be removed. And as always, be civil to your fellow posters. You do not have to agree, but you do have to be respectful to each other. Thank you.