The Vampire Diaries “The Walking Dead” Review

By Mandy Treccia

For the first three seasons, the penultimate episodes of The Vampire Diaries have always been some of the strongest, best stories the show has told and this season’s “The Walking Dead” definitely tried to fit into that mold, but it didn’t quite succeed.

Elena’s (Nina Dobrev) sole focus this week was to kill Katherine (Dobrev) and she didn’t want to let anyone talk her out of it or distract her with graduation talk or alcohol or anything else that would take away the pure hate in her heart. But Katherine wasn’t exactly living the good life while Elena plotted her death. Bonnie (Kat Graham) was ready to do the spell to drop the veil and destroy the other side so Silas could do his thing and she linked herself to Katherine so the doppelganger was forced to follow her into the Lockwood cellar while she started the spell.

Like everything involved in the convoluted Silas plotline this season, the veil drop was confusing. Bonnie only partially lifted it at first so only ghosts that were near the expression triangle she was working out of could reappear. But the triangle looked like it stretched over most of the town so familiar faces began popping up; some wanted to help and others had much darker agendas.

Nina Dobrev as Katherine — Image Photo: Tina Rowden/The CW — © 2013

Alaric (Matt Davis) joined his best friend Damon (Ian Somerhalder) at the high school and after pulling alcohol out of locker 42, he convinced Damon that it was really him and the two shared a hug-filled reunion. Their scenes reminded the audience that their bromance has always been one of the best on television and it was so much fun seeing them together again.

Kol (Nathaniel Buzolic) returned as well and after stopping by the Grill to give Rebekah (Claire Holt) a hard time for not grieving longer for him, he informed his sister that he planned on killing Elena to pay her back for killing him. But first, he stabbed Matt (Zach Roerig) with a piece of glass. Kol disappeared and Rebekah wanted to heal him, but Matt preferred healing the old fashioned way since he refused to risk ending up a vampire. Rebekah discovered Caroline (Candice Accola) in the storage room, repeatedly cutting her wrists as Silas had ordered her to.

The Original sister attempted to snap Caroline out of it, but she couldn’t compel her since she was on vervain so she finally just slapped her across the face. That woke Caroline out of her trance, she called Rebekah ‘bitch’ and all was right with their world again. While this was a fun scene, it had a much bigger purpose since everyone else thought Caroline was with Stefan (Paul Wesley) trying to find Bonnie.
Stefan had his hands full stopping Elena from killing Katherine since she was also killing Bonnie in the process. Elena was not amused and ran away while Silas as Caroline revealed himself to Bonnie. It turned out that she wasn’t as strong as she thought she was and he was still able to get into her head. Silas alternated between being Caroline, Stefan and Alaric while he taunted Bonnie and then Grams (Jasmine Guy) showed up to remind the young witch that she did have the power to stop Silas.

Here’s where the episode fell apart. Bonnie managed to turn Silas to stone once again since she can’t kill him and then Stefan and Damon were going to dump his body in the ocean so they wouldn’t risk him coming back. Does this sound familiar? It should because it’s the exact same thing that happened in last season’s penultimate episode except that time, they did the spell on Klaus. Nothing is more frustrating than when a show steals from itself.
While all of this was happening, Elena had gone to the cemetery to sit at her brother’s grave and she apologized for failing to kill Katherine. Kol arrived and Elena told him to go ahead and kill her because he’d be doing her a favor. But before he could, Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) killed him. The reunion scene between Elena and Jeremy was one of the most beautiful things the show has done and Elena was finally ready to let the emotions in.

The Vampire Diaries — “The Walking Dead” — Pictured: Candice Accola as Caroline — Photo: Tina Rowden/The CW

Stefan returned to the Grill and admitted to Caroline that he was disappointed that he didn’t get to see someone. That’s when Lexi (Arielle Kebbel) arrived. The two took a walk and she teased him about Caroline replacing her and hinted that maybe there was something more between them, but Stefan warned her not to go there (please go there). Meanwhile, Alaric surprised Damon by giving him the cure that he’d taken from Silas and told Damon to “get the girl.”
Back in the tunnels, Grams urged Bonnie to put the veil back up, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to do a spell that would resurrect Jeremy permanently for Elena. However, it turned out that Bonnie wasn’t as powerful and dark as she thought she was and the spell ended up killing her, leaving a stunned Bonnie standing with her Grams as they stared at her dead body. It also left the veil down, which allowed more ghosts to return, starting with the members of The Five vampire hunters that had died this season.

While the redundancy of the plan to destroy Silas was disappointing, this episode did set up a lot for the season finale next week. Since Bonnie is dead now, there’s a good chance the veil will stay down, which is awesome for Alaric, Lexi and Jeremy, but not so much for the angry hunters. Then there’s the cure. Damon being the one to end up with it was a nice twist since he never wanted Elena to take it. Will he change his mind or will he let someone else take it? Let’s hope the finale is as spectacular as the buildup wants us to believe.