'The Day I Tried to Live'

The Vampire Diaries Recap:'The Day I Tried to Live'
 Kai helps stop Bonnie from killing herself on her birthday, and Jeremy makes a big life decision.

 

Well, there’s nothing like facing mortality to bring some drama to Mystic Falls. And tonight was about just that: In addition to Liz still dying and Bonnie contemplating suicide, “I Day I Tried to Live” was also mixed with one ex-sociopath, numerous relationship developments, and a new Salvatore. Any questions?
We start in 1994, where Bonnie informs everyone (meaning no one) that it’s her birthday. But back in present day, Elena and Caroline are well aware, and they’re planning a party to celebrate their friend. Except when Caroline can’t stop feeling like 1994 Ms. Cuddles is staring at her, she decides to go find the original Ms. Cuddles, as in the one that she stole from Bonnie when she was 9 and then buried in the woods so that her mom wouldn’t find out what she’d done. And yes, she realizes that her mother is dying and her best friend is in an alternate universe, but right now, finding Ms. Cuddles is the only one of those things she can do anything about. So with that, she heads off into the woods, and Stefan follows with a flask in hand.
Meanwhile, Damon and Elena are enjoying some birthday cupcakes—I’m not complaining that he fed her but it felt a bit awkward, no?—before Elena tells him that she’s good with the whole kissing thing. In fact, she wants to do it right now. Unfortunately, the ultimate mood killer comes knocking: Kai.
Since he merged with Luke, Kai has been experiencing something he’s never had to deal with before: empathy. No longer a full-blown sociopath, he’d like Elena to give Jo a letter—that he cried actual tears writing!—so that she can know how sorry he is for destroying their family. In exchange, Elena gets Kai to help them reach out to Bonnie.
After Damon uses Kai’s new found feelings against him by telling him it’s Bonnie’s birthday, the ex-Big Bad agrees to help them send Bonnie a message. Damon’s plan? To tell her to go to Nova Scotia and use Silas’ headstone—which is covered in Qetsiyah’s blood—to get enough magic to find her way home. And yes, Elena, Silas was definitely hot.
But when Jeremy finds out that Damon and Elena are working with Kai, he’s not a fan. Jer doesn’t quite understand how someone can switch personalities overnight. However, Kai’s got the answer to everything: Elena did it first. From what Kai has figured out, human Elena was good and sweet and loved the good Salvatore. She then became a “blood vacuum” overnight and decided she loved the bad Salvatore. I love that all it took was one ex-sociopath and about 30 seconds to explain this entire series. Well done, writers.
And Kai’s little speech works. Jeremy is in. According to Kai, they’re all essentially going to reenact Ghost, with Bonnie being Demi Moore—the alive one—and the rest of them being the collective Patrick Swayze. She won’t be able to see them, but it’s worth a shot. And it works! However, by the time they get to Bonnie, she’s opening a bottle of bourbon that Damon immediately recognizes. It’s the oldest bottle in the house, and the two of them made a pact that if they got to the point where they couldn’t take this world for one more day, they’d kill the bottle … and then themselves. And with that realization, Kai loses the spell and they all wake up in present day.
At this point, you’re probably asking if Bonnie can die in that world. I didn’t think so, but according to Kai, that rule only applied to him, because the coven didn’t want him to cut his own sentence short. So what now? Jeremy asks Kai to send him, and only him, back. Kai agrees. (Wow that merge really did change him, huh?)
Upstairs, Damon opens the present-day version of the suicide bourbon to drink alongside Bonnie when Elena enters. Unable to get Kai’s synopsis of her life out of her head, she asks Damon if he thinks it’s true. Did she completely change when she became a vampire? (Um, yes.) But more importantly, does he think they would be together if she were still human? Damon’s answer: No. Because she had that choice and she chose Stefan. She was on her way to Stefan when she died and then boom, suddenly Damon was back in the picture. You have to love how honest he is. But the rest of that conversation will have to be put on hold because Liv just showed up and trapped Elena and Damon in his room.

Kai Is a Cure-All?

Vampire Diaries Logic Fails: Season 6, Episode 12 — Kai Is a Cure-All?

 

 

Oy vey! How does one even begin to pick apart the logic in a Vampire Diaries episode so built upon nonsense? Like Doctor Who’s timey-wimey explanations, TVD operates within a magical logic completely its own, but that doesn’t mean we don’t ask for a little bit of contextual rationality, you know? Season 6, Episode 12 (“Prayers for the Dying”) was a solidly emotional hour, but it felt less cohesive in its depictions of supernatural (and non-supernatural) logic. Here were the biggest logic fails from the episode…

Everything about Colin. We’re really, really trying not to harp on this whole vampire blood not being a cure-all thing, but when has a person who died with a serious illness ever continued to have that illness after becoming a vampire? Enzo’s tuberculosis? Cured! Elena’s dad cured little Megan of heart disease using vampire blood, too. But cancer? Nope, you have to keep that. Also, if vampires who died with cancer really do keep their cancer, how have Stefan and Damon not heard of this?! Cancer isn’t exactly rare and, on this show, neither is vampirism. And while we’re on the subject of Colin, how and why did he travel hundreds of miles to show up at Caroline’s door? Did Caroline slip her business card next to his EKG machine or something?

Harping on Caroline about killing her mother. Brushing right past how mean almost everyone was to Caroline in this episode about trying to cure her mother’s cancer (I mean, even if she did kill her mom, you don’t say that to her face!), people seemed to keep forgetting that Liz already had terminal cancer and was pretty much already on death’s door. This felt very much like convoluted drama, one of the biggest precursors of The Logic Fail. Also, not the biggest mistake made by this group in the history of the show. Ripper, anyone?

Can Kai cure vampirism? This is a possible logic fail more than a straight-forward one, but still in the theme of the nebulous laws of magic in this world. If Kai can suck all of the magical vampire blood properties out of Sheriff Forbes’ body, then why can’t he do this for actual vampires, turning them back into their human selves the way the anti-magic bubble worked around Mystic Falls? If this is true, then Kai should have been unstoppable when full of magic.
The hospital coffee machine… does not make decaf lattes.

The Vampire Diaries airs Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.

Another Merge?

Vampire Diaries Burning Question: Will There Be Another Merge?

The Vampire Diaries ended its most recent episode with a heartbreaking development in the Gemini Coven twin merge storyline: Luke merged with Kai and lost. Will there be another merge? We speculate below...

Yes, the merge wasn’t between two twins. Luke made some serious assumptions in his decision to merge with Kai. He theorized that, because Luke and Kai shared the same parents and are the same age, they would qualify for the merge to rule the Gemini Coven — even though they weren’t actually twins. Though, initially, this seemed to technically work, we’re not so sure it will take in the long run. Mr. Parker, aka the current leader of the Gemini coven and Luke, Liv, Kai, and Jo’s father, seemed very specific about the rules of the merge, adding that if no one merges, then everyone in the bloodline of the coven will die. We think the universe might require another merge between two actual twins.

Yes, Kai wants more power. Of course, there are less altruistic reasons for a second merge. Even with some of Luke’s character traits, Kai’s hunger for more power will presumably still exist — as well his desire to destroy the family that he sees as having betrayed him. Will he try to merge with Jo and/or Liv to fulfill both those purposes? With Kai, anything is possible.

Yes, Jo and Liv could merge. With Luke’s power, Kai is more powerful than ever -- and set to take over the Gemini Coven when his father dies and assume whatever power that may entail. A possible way to combat this problem would be for Jo and Liv to merge. That way, they would not only be more powerful, but they would also present a viable leader alternative for the Geminin coven, thereby robbing Kai of his straight shot to the position. (Because you just know Kai is probably going to go after his father now that he gets to be leader upon his death.) Would Jo and Liv sacrifice their independence for the greater good?

No, that’s enough merges for a generation. As dramatically powerful as the merge plot twist has been, we’d be OK with it ending with the one between Kai and Luke — and we have a feeling the other characters would be, too, given no one besides Kai really wanted to go through with it in the first place. There are other ways to defeat Kai or, more optimistically, to appeal to the good that may be in him now that Luke has merged with him. With this merge, is there a chance Kai could be redeemed?

The Vampire Diaries airs Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.

Watch The Vampire Diaries Season 6 Episode 12 "Prayer For The Dying"

Are You Ready To Feel Feelings?

The Vampire Diaries First Look: See Steven R. McQueen in His Final Episode

 

 Steven R. McQueen's final episode on The Vampire Diaries airs Feb. 12, and PEOPLE has your exclusive first look at Jeremy's last day in Mystic Falls before he leaves town for art school.

In the photo, we see Jeremy smiling, with his bags packed, while talking to his de facto father figure, Alaric . It's fine – we didn't need our hearts, anyway.
The episode, "Stay," will have Elena putting on a brave face as she reminisces with her brother about their past and their time spent in Mystic Falls. Meanwhile, Stefan and Caroline grow ever closer as the two prepare the Forbes family cabin so that Caroline's mother, Sheriff Forbes (Marguerite MacIntyre), can live out her final days in comfort.

Later, a confrontation with Enzo leads Jeremy to question his decision to leave Mystic Falls after all. The sure-to-be-heartbreaking episode (what else is new for TVD?) will also see Caroline rushing to her mother's side after finding out she's taken a turn for the worse.
McQueen is leaving after having been a part of the show since the very beginning. Prepare your tissues.
The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays (8 p.m. ET) on The CW.

TVD 6x12 "Prayer For The Dying"

'Prayer for the Dying'

Damon comes up with a way to buy Liz Forbes more time while the merge has deadly results.

 

The Vampire Diaries has always been filled with death. Heck, the entire show started because a girl lost her parents, lost her way, and then fell in love with a (very dreamy) dead guy. So tonight, it wasn’t a real shocker that the episode once again dealt with the topic of death and how it can affect surrounding relationships. Let’s face it: Death is one of the things this show does best, and even though tonight’s death didn’t necessarily impact us the ways others have in the past—I’m looking at you, Ric—it still gave us a highly dramatic hour.
We kick things off in Liz’s room at home, when Caroline wakes up after hearing something downstairs—or rather someone. Suddenly, at her back door, a bloody Colin shows up. Don’t know who Colin is? Oh, just the guy she fed her blood last week and effectively killed. But really, she killed him. When Stefan shows up, he figures out that her blood turned him into a vampire, which means that he had to have died after she gave him her blood. Yeah, it’s not good news for Liz.
I do have to say that this opening felt like a real throwback to me, and I liked it. I miss the days of TVD opening like a scary movie. It was all very season 1, in a way.
Back to the action: Elena, who’s apparently sleeping at Alaric’s—where is Alaric?—is on her way to class when Damon shows up with a sandwich and a proposal. He wants to take her out to dinner tonight. It involves something about eggplant. Elena is in… until she figures out that Damon is recreating a date they already had. Refusing to pick up where they left off, Elena shuts down the eggplant. But they’re still on for the date. She’ll see him at six!
Except not really, because pretty quickly, they all arrive at the hospital to see if Jo can figure out what happened to Colin. The verdict? Caroline’s blood sped up his cancer and killed him. In other words, he’s a stage 10 cancer patient, which doesn’t even exist. It’s that bad.
Nobody really knows what to do, but after Elena expresses her disappointment in Stefan for not knowing better and doing more research before Caroline gave Liz her blood, Jo has an idea: A full blood transfusion might get the vamp blood out of Liz’s system. At this point, anything is worth a shot.
Across town, Liv and Tyler are getting comfortable in a twin bed, planning their spring break, when Liv’s dad shows up and informs everyone that it’s Liv’s birthday. So basically, she and Luke have to convince their father/leader that they aren’t going to merge, like, now. And shockingly, he’s not a fan of the plan.
Back at the hospital, Damon tries to catch Elena up on his relationship with Liz: “As far as humans go, she’s tolerable.” Translation: He loves her the mostest, probably only second to Alaric at this point. And that kind of explains his behavior when he overhears poor Colin trying to kill himself in the other room.
While Caroline tries to talk Colin down, Damon does the guy a favor and rips his heart out. It’s not he craziest thing he’s done, however, he did not need to rip Caroline’s heart out with this Liz update: “Transfusion didn’t work, so you didn’t just kill him, blondie.” I know you’re emotional Damon, but that’s her mom.
On that note, Caroline runs away, leaving Elena to break the bad news to Liz. The transfusion didn’t work. But Liz is less concerned about that, and more concerned about her daughter, who Stefan finds trying to pick the right flowers for her mother’s memorial. Ever the planner, Caroline has decided to spend her time doing something she’s good at before she screws up again.
But once Stefan tells her the story of his mother—the mysterious mother Salvatore!—we learn that Stefan kept himself occupied during his mother’s illness out of fear of seeing her that way, and before he knew it, his dad had sent his mom away and then she was dead. Long story short: He’d do anything to have another day with her.

TVD Rehans 6x11 "Woke Up With A Monster"

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