It's All Topsy-Turvy, Darling

The Vampire Diaries Recap: Season 5, Episode 18 — It's All Topsy-Turvy, Darling

Once upon a time, Damon and Elena — and their will-they-won’t-they relationship — used to be exciting. Remember their almost-kiss in Season 1 and the butterflies that erupted in your stomach at the thought of them actually getting together? Well, those halcyon days are over. We thought Damon and Elena’s relationship would be playful and fun, but instead, it’s been sad and seemingly hopeless. And The Vampire Diaries Season 5, Episode 18 (“Resident Evil”) only drove the knife further into our Delena-loving heart.

On the other hand, if you’re a Stelena fan, then “Resident Evil” was probably your favorite episode of Season 5 thus far. Let’s fact it: Episode 18 played out like a chapter of Stelena fan fiction. Thanks to a spell cast 1,500 years ago by Markos himself, Stefan and Elena (and their doppelgangers) have been drawn together for centuries. Why? Because Markos needed a way to bring the last two doppelgangers together and find them and use them for their blood. Why does Markos need their blood? We’re still not sure, but it probably has something to destroying the Other Side.

Seriously, though. Can we take a moment and acknowledge that we still have no idea what the Travelers are up to? And now they’re inhabiting the residents of Mystic Falls — Poor Sheriff Forbes; she always gets the short end of the stick — for the sole purpose of taking over the town. But why do they want to control Mystic Falls? And why destroy the Other Side? Honestly, the lack of answers at this point is frustrating, but at least we have Damon to speak for all of us. Clearly, he’s as bored with this exposition as we are.

Damon and Enzo in The Vampire Diaries Season 5, Episode 18: “Resident Evil”

   

Speaking of the Other Side, it’s currently falling apart. No, seriously. Things are so bad on the Other Side that it’s making KOL CRY. And when Kol cries, we all cry because he’s just so heartbreakingly handsome. Not to mention Matty is crying because he lost Vicki again. OK, so let’s take things back a bit. After a nasty run-in with Passenger Forbes — she stabbed him in the throat — Matt gets sent to the Other Side while the Gilbert Ring works its magic. There, he meets Kol, who can totally see him, even though it’s against supernatural law. Matt figures that if Kol can see him, then Vicki can see him too. So he goes off into the woods to find her. But when he does find her, Vicki has bad news for Matty. Everyone on the Other Side is in danger.

Unfortunately for Matty Blue Eyes, as soon as he found his sister (and they had a lovely reunion, he lost her again. Vicki was ripped from his arms and sucked, Katherine Pierce-style, into a vortex in the Other Side. Needless to say, the likelihood of Vicki returning to the Other Side is slim to none. Poor Matt. He’s lost everyone in his life, and now he had to lose Vicki again.

But Matt doesn’t have time to grieve. Kol tearily warns him that bad things are happening on the Other Side, and he needs to return to Mystic Falls and tell someone. Matt says he won’t be able to remember anything, but surprise, he does! He wakes up and tells Bonnie what’s happening. Bonnie doesn’t know what’s happening on the Other Side because — wait for it — Bonnie never knows anything.

Oh, wait, there is something Bonnie knows. She knows she’s mad at Jeremy for not returning her texts and hanging out with Liv all the time. If only she knew they were trying to help her — wait, why doesn’t she know? Being the anchor can be stressful and all, but by keeping her away from the action, it’s becoming sadly apparent how useless Bonnie truly is. Isn’t it her duty as the Anchor to figure out what’s happening on the Other Side? Even Grams has already warned her! She needs to stop whining about Jeremy and get her sleuthing on.

Now, back to the relationship drama. Damon is able to get Markos to reverse Stefan and Elena’s Stelena fantasies. This leads to a heart-to-heart between Stefan and Elena, in which they pretty much settle things once and for all: Elena loves Stefan, but she’s in love with Damon. We’re glad to see Stefan and Elena openly talk about their friendship — although, we’d rather see him having heart-to-hearts with Caroline.

When Elena tries to explain her “messy” but “real” feelings to Damon, she gets the cold shoulder. In fact, Damon doesn’t want anything to do with Elena. It hurts too much to talk to her, see her, touch her, so he does what he does best and pushes her away. And we’re back to where we were two episodes ago. Delena is an endless, soul-sucking cycle.

The only one having a more miserable time that these two is Tyler, who was the unfortunate victim of a Traveler attack. Now, his Passenger is a double agent for Markos, and they’re definitely planning something very, very bad.