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
In the present, Damon tells Elena he knew the only way to save himself was to stop caring about Enzo, "...so I turned off my emotions." Elena winces. I've seen a lot of people criticize Elena for this. They think she's judging Damon. In this instance, I don't. I take her expression to acknowledge her shame at turning off her emotions last season. I don't know. I think it's in the way she closes her eyes. I don't see judgment. I see empathy and it's painful for her. We flash back to...
1958. Again, Enzo pleads with Damon not to leave him. I know we like to tease Somerhalder for his eye-thing super-power, but he uses that power well to show us the moment he flicks off his humanity switch. As Damon strolls out and shuts the door, Enzo screams for Damon to come back.
In the present, Damon admits, "After that, everything was fine." I still don't read judgment in Elena's expression. I read horror and again empathy, but I don't think she thinks Damon is terrible for doing what he did. I think she's realizing what a terrible thing he had to do in order to survive. There's a difference. Commercial.
Oh great… an ad for The Tomorrow People. I was trying to forget.
After the break, Caroline shouts at the safe. "How's it going in there?" Stefan still struggles to breathe as he croaks that he feels like he's dying. Katherine is as cool as a cucumber. I'm about to quote her, because she's a bright light in this bleak episode, but then she refers to the non-existent "Doppelgänger prophecy," and makes me want to hurl things at my TV. Katherine thinks Stefan desperately wants to leave his love for Elena behind, and get away from her, Damon and Mystic Falls, but the doppelgänger attraction won't let him, so he's using Katherine as his latest excuse to remain.
Stefan turns toward Katherine and says, "I'm gonna kill you." Heh. Katherine's chipper encouragement is just mocking enough to make it cromulent Kiki. "Good. Yeah. Get it all out, Stefan. I think this is healthy." When he tightens his grip on her neck, she has second thoughts, and reminds him not to forget he loved her before he hated her.
Stefan asks, "Is there any reason you chose to have this conversation with me, locked in a safe?" Katherine says she did it to prove the safe isn't his problem. His problem is that he isn't facing his real issues. It's easier for him to focus on the physical pain of his summer of drowning, than on his emotional pain stemming from the fact that Elena left him. She tries to ease him back to the present moment. She asks now if he's going to feed on her or save her life. He vamps out, but hesitates. Katherine encourages him to fight it. As his vampiric features fade, Katherine grabs Stefan's face in her hands and tells him she's there with him. It gets kind of sexy very quickly. Katherine whispers, "We're together," and just as she's about to kiss him, Caroline opens the safe.