Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: C | 106 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT The Human Diary
By Cindy McLennan | Season 5 | Episode 9 | Aired on 12.05.2013
The only problem is, I no longer care. Earlier this season, I enjoyed watching and was just weary to watch it at recap-level detail. Now though, I'd rather watch something else on Thursday nights. I'm sick of all this. I'm sick of compulsion and other sorts of mind control. I'm sick of watching these characters change. I like change when it comes in the form of growth. Were that the case, I'd be cheering. So many of these characters, though, are devolving into unlikable wretches. Right now, I'm ready for them all to be staked. With that caveat lector in mind, here's the recap… such that it is. Are you ready? Okay.
Recap:
Previously on The Vampire Diaries, who cares what happened? This show is no longer about the characters we first met.
Now, on The Vampire Diaries, we open at Mossy Manse, on the night of June 11, 1953. Damon returns to the then-Salvatore Boarding House at Joseph Salvatore's invitation. Apparently, Stefan has also been invited but hasn't shown up. Joseph welcomes Damon home with a vervain injection, so Damon thanks him with a glass to the carotid (or possibly the jugular). As Joseph dies, Dr. Whitmore (Trevor St. John) appears, gives Damon a second injection and is thrilled he no longer has to pay Joseph for the assist. We flash forward to...
Whitmore College. Present. Damon wakes in his Augustine Society cell just as Dr. Wes Maxfield is about to administer another vervain injection, to keep Damon calm. Damon asks what he's doing there. Wes says he lost a test subject last night (that would be Jesse), "...and you're going to replace him." Title card.
Sidebar: is it just me or do vampires' reactions to vervain make no bloody sense? If you splash it on their skin or shove it down their throats, it burns them. If you inject it into their bloodstreams, it calms them? This stuff is also why I don't care.
We return to Mossy Manse in the present day. In one of the truly enjoyable scenes in the episode, we find a human, deteriorating and bitter Katherine giving us the old DIARY-Ahhh. Even before she says so, I can tell this is part of Stefan's plan for Katherine's suicide watch. Since Katherine cares as little about what she's writing as I do, I'll just quote her last line. "Deep thoughts. Mortal coil. Blah blah blah."
Katherine groans about her hand being tired, lays down her pen, rips out the page, crumples it up, tosses it over her shoulder and asks Stefan what kind of sentimental idiot does this. Before the sentimental idiot can answer though, Katherine asks, "Is this what the prophecy meant, when it said that all the doppelgängers were drawn together like magnets, because if it is I want my money back."