EPISODE SUMMARY:
Damon and Stefan confront Lily with painful childhood memories; Lily reveals a secret; Enzo challenges Julian to a duel; Valerie reveals news that upturns Caroline's world.
AIRED: November 19, 2015
RATING: 3
★★★✩✩ Very Good!
This episode's look into the future shows Damon and Ric racing to the news station to save Caroline. Damon knows that it's a trap and he needs to trip it before Stefan gets there. When Ric comments that he didn't find a babysitter to just sit in the car, Damon informs him that his job is to stop Stefan when he arrives at the station. When Damon enters the station, he hears Caroline calling for Stefan, but it turns out to be a recording of her newscast. Damon is then shot with something that knocks him out. Am I the only one who thinks that it was completely stupid to just enter the news station, knowing that it's a trap, with no plan except getting Caroline out and keeping Stefan from getting in? He was basically asking to be taken out and now this hunter has more bait to lure Stefan in with.
When Caroline takes a pregnancy test to confirm what Valerie told her about Ric's babies being transferred to her, it comes back negative. They also go to have an ultrasound done, but that doesn't show anything either. It isn't until Valerie realizes that there's more protections on the babies in the form of a cloaking spell, that she syphons it away and the babies are revealed. I find it interesting that with everything that she's seen and been through that Caroline finds the idea of the Gemini Coven transferring Ric and Jo's twins to her so impossible. Now that it's actually confirmed, I'm wondering how she's going to handle it.
Stefan decides to host Thanksgiving dinner as a way to recruit his mother as an ally against Julian. But when he tells Lily the truth of what Julian did to Valerie and her child - Lily's grandchild - she doesn't believe it. Stefan takes drastic measures to get her to listen to him. After tying her up with vervain ropes, Stefan, Damon and Lily take a trip down memory lane. They remind her of what a monster Giuseppe Salvatore was and that Julian mirrors him in many ways. It isn't until arriving home after Julian's fight with Enzo and Damon that Lily starts to realize the truth. Julian's flippancy about risking his life when it was linked to her and then outright lying to her about his involvement in Valerie's miscarriage send Lily back to Stefan and Damon with a plan to stop Julian once and for all. I can't believe that it took such drastic measure to get Lily to see the truth. If she had no trouble seeing what a monster Giuseppe was, why couldn't she see it in Julian too? They mirror each other almost perfectly. I think it was realizing that Julian really did kill her grandchild that changed her mind. Although it didn't seem like it when we first met her, Lily has a very deep love for her children, whether they are by blood or adoption.
And finally, Bonnie and Enzo find Oscar's car and in the trunk is hidden a sword with an X-shaped blade. Bonnie recognizes it from the research she was doing on the Phoenix Stone. When she goes back to learn more about it, she finds that the Phoenix Stone gives the sword it's power against immortal enemies. Without the Stone the sword is just a sword. The mystery of the X-shaped wounds that Julian, Beau and the people in the visions Bonnie had from the Phoenix Stone is finally making sense. We also know how the vampire souls got into the Phoenix Stone. They were all vampires who had been stabbed in the heart with the sword that contained the Phoenix Stone. It's all coming together.
On a side note, I think that Bonnie's interest in Enzo is kind of cute. She tries to play it off, but I don't think she's fooling anyone, least of all Enzo.
PROMOTIONAL PHOTOS:
