S08.E12: What Are You?

[formerlyfreedom]

In order to save Stefan’s soul, Damon makes a deal with Cade to retrieve the Maxwell journal. Alaric and Matt refuse to hand the journal over as it may contain the key to destroying Cade. Caroline desperately tries to connect with Stefan before Cade goes through with his plan.

 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Scene:

[bettername2come]

Mon-El! Er, I mean, Kai! Oh, it's gonna be so fun to hate you again. Looking forward to it, buddy.

[missbonnie]

So Enzo is really dead? Boooo! Kai is back though so I can get on board with that. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Pro: the CW managed to remember to post Inside the Episode this week

Con: the CW can't even be arsed to put the correct title on this video. Apparently they think it's "Who Are You?"

[Artsda]

Kai! Best part of the episode.

He had no head when we saw him last, so did he come through this portal Bonnie opened?

Another episode of Caroline of just all about Stefan with no mention of her kids.

Hope Bonnie keeps on not answering their calls. 

[MostlyC]

I'm still confused.  How many times have vampires pulled the hearts out of each other, only to put them back in?  

Best part of the episode was Damon and Alaric together.  Wish we'd gotten to see them have that drink together before Kai showed up.

Otherwise, the episode felt like one big long set-up for the coming episode.

[Dizzychickstar]

Bea Bennet and Matt's ancestor were cute together. So Bonnie's scream/anguish opened some door and two creepos came out...so who was the figure in the raggedy cloak? And what does Kai want? Poor Bonnie. It was good to see that her mother was there for her even tho she couldn't barbecue Enzo fast enough.  Caroline kind of grated, rescuing Stefan so quickly, but at least he did save a life. 4 more episodes to tie this all together...

[Goldmoon]

Okay.  1.  I had really hoped the sirens were gone gone.  They appeared on my screen in spite of my anguished cry of "Noooooooooo!"  2.  Has no one in MF ever heard of a copier?  Damon, ask Dorian to walk to the library with you, make a copy of the book for him to take back to Ric, and hand Cade the real McCoy.  Sheesh!  3.  Did they HAVE to spoil Kai's arrival by giving his actor a credit in the opening?  I knew the character was returning, but it would have been a "nice" surprise at the end.  4. Stefan sure looked good in spite of the torso wound, after the stitches. 5. Never really liked Matt but I was all in for his romance with Bea and his longish hair in the 1800s. 6. Are they setting up Stefan and Caroline for a breakup?  I can't imagine that Drec, uh, I mean Plec, would miss her Delena ending, but for a moment I thought Elena might wake up with a yen for a human Stefan, and Damon and BonBon would ride off into the sunset together in the mustang.  She can drive. 7. Oh, yes, good to see Ric again.

Edited February 11, 2017 by Goldmoon

[memememe76]

Thank goodness Enzo is still dead. I was hoping Matt was waiting for Bonnie to quickly convey his condolences, and then hatch a plot to kill the Salvatore brothers. She better not accept Stefan's apology. 

Edited February 11, 2017 by memememe76

[GraceAnne]

So a syringe of Elena's blood is the total sum of the cure but Stefan loses pints of blood and it's still in his system....

[HunterHunted]

1 hour ago, GraceAnne said:

So a syringe of Elena's blood is the total sum of the cure but Stefan loses pints of blood and it's still in his system....

It would have cracked me up if Stefan had managed to bleed out the cure less than 24 hours after getting it.

Damon couldn't have bothered to photocopy the journal or take pics with his phone. Or asked Alaric to do it if Damon was concerned that Arkadius might read his mind.

[steelyis]

25 minutes ago, HunterHunted said:

Damon couldn't have bothered to photocopy the journal or take pics with his phone. Or asked Alaric to do it if Damon was concerned that Arkadius might read his mind.

 

Thank you! Jesus, how easy would it have been for Alaric and the intern to scan the fucking book then hand it over? I can't... So. Stupid.

Kai! Hell, yeah! My favorite sociopath has graced us with his presence once again!

[smices]

I'll bet hoodied figure is Katherine. Headed straight for her beloved Stefan.

[GaT]

Caroline telling Stefan that all those dead people weren't his fault, they were Cade's fault made me feel very, very stabby. Are they going to whitewash Stefan into Mr Innocent?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

If Cade is so all powerful and immortal, why did he need Damon to fetch a book for him? You'd think that he'd be so excited to be back in the human world that he would be skipping all over this mortal earth and enjoying things like sugary breakfast cereals and the internet. I can't decide if Cade just enjoys fucking with Damon or if he's like one of those lazy middle management guys who makes someone else order his lunch because he thinks that's beneath him.

Stefan left fingerprints at the scenes of 32 different murders in the last two months? There's flipping your humanity switch and then there's flipping the stupidity switch. You can be a vicious killer and still not be sloppy about killing people. Maybe look into gloves or remember to wipe down some surfaces before you leave a crime scene?

Was the blue tint in the police station scene really necessary?

I'm sure Julie Plec wants me to see the Damon vs. Alaric/Matt/Dorian scene as supernatural vs. human but for me it just read like every other conflict over who they deem as important enough to save. You'd think that now that Stefan is human, Alaric and Matt would be slightly more sympathetic about trying to save him - Matt especially since Stefan is not only human but he managed to take out one more icky evil vampire before becoming human again

After eight years, Matt finally gets to be in a flashback scene and a period costume!

I had to laugh when Stefan said that even if Damon managed to come through with the Maxwell journal and they got rid of all the evidence of Stefan's recent murders, he can't just forget about what he did. Silly Stefan, don't you know that Caroline or Damon can compel you to forget your guilt or even the fact that you did it at all? That's what we do in our little circle of friends!

We FINALLY got rid of both the sirens but now we're stuck with seeing them in flashbacks? Once the witches knew that the bell had been corrupted, no one thought to tackle the Maxwell guy to stop him from ringing the bell? Or to do a quickie spell that would cut the wooden support to the bell so that it couldn't be rung anymore?

I can't believe that when Damon said he needed the Maxwell journal, Matt and Alaric's solution to figuring out why the journal was so important was to hypnotize Matt in order to trigger more visions. No one thought that READING THE JOURNAL would give them a clue? So of course when the result of their little experiment was Matt waking up and gasping, "It's in the journal!" I just had to roll my eyes. Of course it is, you idiots. And no one thought hey, if Cade wants this book, maybe we should make copies of it? Not even fancy copies, mind you. Just whip out your iphone and start taking pictures of all the pages.

I really don't get why it's so important to Matt that his family had any part in the founding of the town or why he thinks he and Bonnie are even more bonded now that he knows their ancestors knew each other. In the first seven seasons, we never saw any hint that he felt insecure or left out because of his family's last name. But now in the final season, we have to keep hearing that he felt unimportant because he wasn't one of the founding families. I think Matt felt insecure for plenty of good reasons: his family was poor, his dad abandoned them, his mother was an irresponsible alcoholic, his sister was hanging out with a bad crowd, his sister then died, he worked at a restaurant that required him to wait on everyone he went to school with, etc. But not once in seven seasons do I recall him expressing jealousy or feeling inferior/left out just because he wasn't one of the founding families.

Poor Tyler. Everyone is all broken up about Stefan killing Enzo, who, let's be real, most of them never really liked or trusted, but Damon killed Tyler and it was just another day.

I am ridiculously excited that Kai is back. Of all the characters they could bring back, I'm far more interested in him than, say, Bonnie's mom.

One of my favorite things about this show has been the relationship between Stefan and Damon, which I feel has been neglected a lot in later seasons. I really loved the scene between them in this episode when Stefan came home. Damon was very gentle, trying to cheer him, be supportive, and help him mend his relationship with Bonnie. Not a negative word about anything Stefan has done or any whining about Stefan getting the cure. And it was very sweet and big brotherly of Damon to lie to Stefan and say he thought redemption was possible. Despite what Cade JUST told Damon, he had to give his little brother hope.

[immortalfrieza]

8 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

If Cade is so all powerful and immortal, why did he need Damon to fetch a book for him? You'd think that he'd be so excited to be back in the human world that he would be skipping all over this mortal earth and enjoying things like sugary breakfast cereals and the internet. I can't decide if Cade just enjoys fucking with Damon or if he's like one of those lazy middle management guys who makes someone else order his lunch because he thinks that's beneath him.

Especially since Cade was making it so obvious that the book was important to him that he might as well have been holding a sign that said "THAT BOOK SHOWS HOW TO KILL ME!!! DON'T GIVE IT TO ME!!!" I love how Damon pointed out that he has no way of guaranteeing Cade actually honors his deal with him, but then was disappointed that he just handed over the book anyway.

Quote

Stefan left fingerprints at the scenes of 32 different murders in the last two months? There's flipping your humanity switch and then there's flipping the stupidity switch. You can be a vicious killer and still not be sloppy about killing people. Maybe look into gloves or remember to wipe down some surfaces before you leave a crime scene?

I was honestly thinking vampires didn't even HAVE fingerprints considering how many killing sprees the vampires on both shows have gone on but never actually had police figure out unless like Matt they were already in on it. Having Caroline compel all the evidence away works well enough I suppose for this incident, but in this day and age it just highlights the absurdity that only a select few normal people in the TVD universe know that vampires among other supernaturals exist.

8 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I'm sure Julie Plec wants me to see the Damon vs. Alaric/Matt/Dorian scene as supernatural vs. human but for me it just read like every other conflict over who they deem as important enough to save. You'd think that now that Stefan is human, Alaric and Matt would be slightly more sympathetic about trying to save him - Matt especially since Stefan is not only human but he managed to take out one more icky evil vampire before becoming human again

Agreed, and all it really came down to was unnecessary conflict (again) between people who really should be working together to bring down the current bad guy. The fact that they should have read and copied the journal long ago just as a matter of course for an archeological study makes the whole thing even more nonsensical.

Quote

Poor Tyler. Everyone is all broken up about Stefan killing Enzo, who, let's be real, most of them never really liked or trusted, but Damon killed Tyler and it was just another day.

Well, Matt and Alaric DID go off and try to kill Damon after that happened but they were the only ones. If Elena had still been around at the time and Tyler had been dating a member of the cast I'm pretty sure Damon would be agonizing over what he did much more and people in general would be whining about it much more. People besides maybe Damon only care that Stefan killed Enzo because Bonnie was in love with him at the time, if the same thing had happened barely a season ago everybody aside from again probably Damon would be GLAD Enzo was gone. Whenever there's an actual relationship involved the importance of two characters goes up, "the epic love that will go down through the ages" of kidnapping and Stockholm Syndrome in this case.

Oh yeah, Momma Bennet apparently had to destroy every last part of Enzo to get him to stop her from trying to save him, good thing she didn't know about the blood necklace then.

Edited February 11, 2017 by immortalfrieza

[GaT]

55 minutes ago, immortalfrieza said:

Oh yeah, Momma Bennet apparently had to destroy every last part of Enzo to get him to stop her from trying to save him, good thing she didn't know about the blood necklace then.

Crap, I forgot about that, he's coming back isn't he?

[miss-vanilla]

Matt Donovan, really? They are creating the final season  mythology around the Maxwell family and Matt Donovan? I thought we were done with all that when he rang the bell a couple of episodes ago but it seems not, the writers really are going with this and I don't get it. 3 or 4 seasons ago yes, maybe but this character has been embarrassingly neglected in this show for so long and they pick now to make him relevant...that ship has sailed because there is virtually no audience for him. It's the wrong story at the wrong time. People just want proper closure for the characters that have been built up for 8 years now and he isn't one of them(not to the degree he is). I was bored with the flashback info dump because I don't care about Matt or the Sirens..this story would have been better told from a character that we care about more like Bonnie or Caroline. It would have been far more engaging. I mean it's not like Bonnie has been busy doing anything more than kissing Enzo's face for 10 episodes but as it was I could not bring myself to get excited about any of it really and the upshot of all that drama was that Damon had the means and knowledge about that weapon all along. A quick flick through that journal and the outcome would have been the same.

 

Human Stefan was equally as boring and predictable because Stefan is boring and predictable. I would never have guessed that Stefan would fall into a shame spiral of self hatred  and guilt, I didn't see that coming at all. Nor did I see him making it all about his pain either as usual. No thoughts at all for how this makes Caroline feel, how this impacts her about how she feels about the future, about how how this impacts Bonnie or Damon. It's all about how he feels, what he needs want he wants as usual. As usual Damon protects Stefan from his inner wrath and anger. Damon loves Stefan but internally he must be seething but he shelves it to give Stefan hope and it was beautiful, but for once I wanted someone to actually give Stefan the truth so he can stop deluding himself. These people do nothing but enable Stefans sense of denial and delusion, Damon included. In that moment with a vulnerable human Stefan and big brother Damon you got a true sense of how it's always really been between them. 

I loved the Bonnie scenes, all of them. I'm not a fan of Abbey but she did try to protect Bonnie and do the best for her this time but a combination of the character and the actress just makes me void of emotion, however the opposite was felt with Bonnie. Kat Graham really sold her grief again and I believed every moment. I also loved the scene between her and Matt. 

 

The truth is I wanted more of those scenes as described above. These are the scenes that matter, the scenes that resonate with the fans and I think the writers are misguided in the belief that shock and drama are the factors that keep people hooked. Well they are to a point but what keeps viewers interested and invested is the character interactions that we care about and in this episode the gravitas of the events of last episode was mostly lost among the drama, chaos and mythology dump which is a huge shame.

I felt nothing with the appearance of Alaric especially given his attitude towards Damon. His appearance was not really necessary to the plot since it was Dorian who was putting all the pieces together and will obviously turn out to be a huge factor in the last few episodes. I hope he vetted his latest childminder thoroughly while he was taking a sabbatical from fatherhood.

Moving on to the appearance of Kai in the dying seconds of the episode. Colour me shocked, I was caught off guard but apparently the actors name appeared in the opening credits. I missed that so I was surprised. I'm intrigued and excited for what is going to happen next despite this episode being lack-luster.

 

Oh, one more thing. Isn't ripper Stefan meant to be unable to stop rippering? so why did that lady survive and why did Stefan leave her knowing she wasn't quite dead. I thought the whole point of ripper Stefan was that he can't stop until their heads fall off?

[generate789]

About 2 mins into this episode I had to stop asking questions that involved logic or continuity in order to slog my way through the rest of it. Look, show, we've had some good times. Were there bad episodes? Yes. Were there complete wastes of characters, story arcs, and entire seasons? Yes. Were there literally 1,000 things I should have done with the hours I spent watching you? Yes. Am I going to waste a few more hours to see you through until the end? ... ... yes. Dammit. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

19 hours ago, GaT said:

20 hours ago, immortalfrieza said:

Oh yeah, Momma Bennet apparently had to destroy every last part of Enzo to get him to stop her from trying to save him, good thing she didn't know about the blood necklace then.

Crap, I forgot about that, he's coming back isn't he?

He's definitely coming back one way or another. The last thing we saw Bonnie do in this episode was touch the necklace before she went inside her house so she was thinking about how to use his blood to get him back.

Remember at the beginning of the season when Damon and Enzo were constantly dumping bodies into that vat of goo for Sybil? From what little we saw, they were busy little beavers. But in this episode we learn that Stefan with his humanity off and back to his ripper days of yore, has only left his fingerprints connected to 32 murders in the last two months. He slaughtered an entire hospital of people! So either the police in the area are, like the police of Sunnydale, deeply stupid, or Stefan has been pretty slow about killing people for Cade. 32 murders over two months is about one person every other day. If he and Damon were taking turns, that would be one person per day. Considering that Cade asked Stefan and Damon to murder 100 people in one day in the previous episode, you'd think that his pre-challenge demand would have been more than one person every day.

[TigerLynx]

There was a lot of stupidity in this episode, but the one thing I kept coming back to was, "You all can't just make a copy of the book?  Seriously?"

Because if they are so incompetent, they can't even manage a copy machine, then how are they going to kill Cade?  Then I realized, this group has never accomplished their actual goal.  They just muddle through until they accidentally get rid of the current problem, and bring something much worse to Mystic Falls to take its place.

Enzo's dead, Bonnie has lost again, and Stefan is now whining about being human?  STFU Stefan.  Thank you Damon for reminding Stefan he always wanted to be human, but you and Rick are still to stupid to live because you can't even make a copy of a freaking book.

[RachelKM]

Seriously, Alaric and Dorian should have created a copy of that book the moment they found it.  In fact, they should have started with reading the digital version.  If there is a power in the book itself, that's one thing.  But for the reading it part, why are they handling a 200 year old book like discarded library stock in the first place?

[generate789]

The copy thing YES. But what I couldn't get over even more (as others have mentioned) was why Cade needed Damon to get the book for him. Dude is immortal, psychic, and can set people on fire with his mind. He can't get a goddamn book by himself??? 

[formerlyfreedom]

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[TigerLynx]

I agree Cade wanting Damon to get the book for him is dumb, but nothing about Cade makes sense.  I don't know why Cade needed the Sirens or Damon and Stefan to kill for him.  According to Cade's rules, anyone who has ever even thought about doing something bad, goes to his hell.  A person can be good 99.9% of the time, however if they have a .01% moment when they consider doing something wrong, they go to Cade's hell.  Eventually, everyone is going to end up there for Cade to torture so Damon, Stefan and the Sirens were pointless.

I'm going to respond to the Damon/Stefan stuff in the all episodes/watch show drunk thread.

[Aeryn13]

Nothing about Cade really makes sense. Maybe during the 2000? years or so where the Other Side existed, he didn`t get bubkis in terms of murderous supernatural beings so he had his Sirens up the ante in terms of human evil-doers. 

And how could the Sirens conspire against him and make contingency plans as the scenes with flashback!Matt and later Damon implied? Try conspiring against your boss if said boss is a super-mindreader. 

Granted, apparently he couldn`t simply just mindread Matt, Alaric or Dorian because all of them were too stupid to actually read the book. Yeesh. 

[RachelKM]

1 hour ago, Aeryn13 said:

Nothing about Cade really makes sense. Maybe during the 2000? years or so where the Other Side existed, he didn`t get bubkis in terms of murderous supernatural beings so he had his Sirens up the ante in terms of human evil-doers. 

This is actually a reasonable theory... and likely 100% more effort than the writers devoted to the issue.  I mean, Cade still makes no sense and it wouldn't explain what his issue is now that the veil is gone.  But it's a theory that uses the show's history ( something sorely missing this year... well, other than use of Delena flash backs) and prior arcs. 

[ByTor]

On 2/12/2017 at 1:51 PM, generate789 said:

The copy thing YES. But what I couldn't get over even more (as others have mentioned) was why Cade needed Damon to get the book for him. Dude is immortal, psychic, and can set people on fire with his mind. He can't get a goddamn book by himself??? 

Hell (pun intended), if he could set people on fire with his mind, he could have set the book on fire with his mind without even being there..along with copies if Ric & Dorian would have thought to do so.

On 2/13/2017 at 0:43 PM, RachelKM said:

This is actually a reasonable theory... and likely 100% more effort than the writers devoted to the issue.  I mean, Cade still makes no sense and it wouldn't explain what his issue is now that the veil is gone.  But it's a theory that uses the show's history ( something sorely missing this year... well, other than use of Delena flash backs) and prior arcs. 

The only problem is, as @TigerLynx said, "A person can be good 99.9% of the time, however if they have a .01% moment when they consider doing something wrong, they go to Cade's hell. "  So why were the Sirens necessary?  Just to annoy the audience? :) 

[Cattitude]

I thought maybe the reason Cade couldn't get the book was the Armory was spelled or something so he couldn't go in but then Kai...so I'm not sure.

I wasn't so bothered by Damon not copying the book b/c in his mind he already knew the answer so why bother. What I never got was why Dorian never copied it since he pored over it for days. I would think if nothing else the old paper wouldn't hold up well to oils in the skin so handling it wouldn't be the best idea.

I had to watch the ending twice and I think it looked like Katherine took Stefan. So this crack in hell let out Cade, Kai and Katherine. Talk about worst of the worse.

I didn't get what the big deal about Enzo's body was since Kai was headless and now seems fine. Why does she need Enzo's body to get him out?

I had issue with Matt being the one to comfort Bonnie about Enzo b/c he and Enzo both tried to kill each other more than once. He never liked Enzo.

Love Ric and Damon working together again. I hope they get some good scenes next week.

[TigerLynx]

To be fair, the writers never really show anyone working past their issues with each other.  They just decide the characters are back to getting along until it is time for them to hate each other again.  They literally had Damon handwave Rick's objections in this episode with, "I'm selfish.  Now let's kill Cade."

[Aeryn13]

Quote

I wasn't so bothered by Damon not copying the book b/c in his mind he already knew the answer so why bother.

In that case, Cade should have easily read it in his mind when Damon handed over the book. That is the problem with having a mind-reader on, I can not figure out why they don`t use their powers all the way. At least with someone they know has no loyalty to them like Damon. 

Also, did I get it right that both their deals, Stefan and Damon`s with Cade is now easily broken? Because it came as a package and Stefan is no longer capable of being the Ripper Cade so gleefully wanted before? Like, that was it with the deal and no consequences? Does that mean Damon`s super-immortality is gone, too? That dialogue exchange was so brief, I felt confused about it.