TV REVIEW: The Vampire Diaries “Black Hole Sun”

By Chelsea Ballinger

Oh Vampire Diaries, just when we think it’s possible for you to have less climactic episode, you putt us in our place with a shocker that leaves us struggling to comprehend what just went down.

Lets break down each key event of last night’s “Black Hole Sun.”

Present Day

Everyone is searching for Sarah! Well everyone except Jeremy who is throwing up in a baggy in the hospital that Alaric dragged him to. Alaric talks to Matt on the phone informing of Jeremy’s severe hangover and Matt informs him how he will buddy up to Tripp in an attempt to get him to tell his secrets. Elena’s teacher – aka Hot Doctor – aka woman who certainly has the hots for Alaric – flirts with the Original Cult Studies Professor at the hospital, but things quickly turn sour when Alaric sees, smells, and lusts for the guy with a very bloody nose. The good Doctor mistakes his wandering eyes for interest in the nurse tending to the bloody nose kid, causing her to walk away annoyed.

Meanwhile, Elena confronts Stefan, who is on his motorcycle and ready to go back to his boring start over life. She wants him to stay and stop running away from his grief. Yeah, Elena, you can’t really talk! Oops forgot you stupidly had Alaric compel that you ever loved Damon!

Meanwhile back at the alternative other side? Damon’s hell? Groundhog Day?

Damon and Bonnie have their new best friend Kai bound to a chair while he still taunts them. Kai has a few good witty sentences, but nothing to make us like him. Bonnie lets Kai go, knowing that they might need his help. He will help, but right now he wants to know what horrible act Damon committed in Mystic Falls, bringing us back to another infamous decade flashback! The year is 1994 and Damon returns to Mystic falls to become a better man, he tells Stefan this but of course our resident Salvatore brooder doesn’t trust him.

Pictured (L-R): Paul Wesley as Stefan and Nina Dobrev as Elena — Photo: Bob Mahoney/The CW

Zack is back!

We all remember Zack aka Stefan and Damon’s baby cousin, who was the original resident of the Salvatore mansion in the first season before Damon snapped his neck. Well it seems in 1994 Zack was happy and in love with his girlfriend who was pregnant with his child. Informed of this, fans of Damon are hoping (Me hoping especially) that the horrible act Damon committed was not killing Zack’s pregnant girlfriend… but it turns out he did, going so far as to feed from and kill Zack’s pregnant girlfriend right in front of Stefan and a heartbroken Zack.

Damon tells Bonnie this sad story, filling in further details which reveal that after Damon wreaked havoc and left, Stefan compelled Zack to forget all about his pregnant girlfriend and left town himself before he returned in season 1.

This is where I love the writing on this show. They always know how to link each new idea into past season plots. This makes for great entertainment. Just when we think we knew the whole story about someone, we find out there’s more to know. Cue the layers of each character’s story on tonight’s episode.

Alaric’s troubles

To get Jeremy to grow up and stop whining, Alaric angrily reminds Jeremy that he’s not the only one with troubles. Alaric points out how his wife left him to become a vampire, how he lost Aunt Jenna (R.I.P), how he has become the thing he hates the most, and how the person who turned his wife died and he misses him because is spite of all of it Alaric and Damon had one of the best bromances ever!

Stefan and Elena

I was never fooled by the promo for this episode and my predictions proved right. Stefan wanted to show Elena how starting over and becoming as human as possible is fun (Sorry Stefan, but you’re not good at being a human. Just be Stefan! We love him when he isn’t running away from his problems and has on his hero hair!).

He playfully proposes to Elena in front of people in a bar and Elena plays along with him and together they inform the witnesses of her pregnancy and his rehab stints. Elena decides to let Stefan do what he thinks best and says goodbye to him. But here is the layer peel. It turns out Stefan has been starting fights with strangers and getting the crap kicked out of him just so he can feel something. This is how our Stefan Salvatore grieves the loss of his brother. Elena, who forgot her jacket, returns to the bar, saves Stefan, and goes Dr. Phil on him, stating how he should not destroy his life because Damon was a monster. Stefan (along with most of us, I’m sure) is annoyed by Elena’s clueless knowledge of Damon and hypocrisy that he FINALLY tells her a truth which leads to Delena shippers’ dreams … and Stelena shippers’ latest nightmare.

Stefan: You erased him… you had Alaric compel you to forget about every good thing Damon ever did. You made him a monster in your own mind because you couldn’t handle the grief of losing him.

Elena: I don’t believe anything that you are saying, why would I do that?

Stefan: Because you were in love with him. And he was in love with you and when Damon died, apart of you died too.

Elena: How could I possibly love Damon?

Stefan: Believe me I asked myself that for a very long time, but eventually I saw it. Damon inspired you. He pushed you to own the darkest parts of yourself and when you died, he was the only one that could make you feel alive again and you made him feel human. You loved Damon for the same reasons I loved him because in the spite of all the things that he did, we couldn’t live without him.

And like that Stefan leaves, telling her he will grieve his own way, dealing with it while she doesn’t.

Pictured: Paul Wesley as Stefan — Photo: Bob Mahoney/The CW

Delena Hope

We hope that Elena will now go to Alaric, which she does, ask for the truth, which she does, and beg for her memories of her undying love for Damon to be restored… which she doesn’t. Instead, she reads the letter old Elena wrote to her future compelled self, stating should anyone ever spill the beans, she should stay compelled and move on with her life and be happy.

Alaric asks her what he should do with the Damon Paraphernalia and Elena tells him to keep it safe, just in case she changes her mind. A scream at the television moment? Although Delena shippers may want Elena and Damon’s history to be restored in her stubborn head and heart, this refusal might actually be a good thing. After all, Vampire Diaries can’t always rely on the same things – such as the triangle – forever and it might keep the great chemistry between Elena and Damon burning if, when Damon and Bonnie return, Damon pulls a Channing Tatum in The Vow and persuades Elena to fall back in love with him, causing her love for him to break the compulsion instead of Alaric simply restoring her memories. Hey, it could happen!

Kai is a psycho!

“Who names a kid Malachi, it’s like they expected me to be evil.”

Okay it’s not a shocker that Kai (short for Malachi) is evil… but we never expected him to be sa crazy and sadistic as he is. Here is the 411. He is a witch who brutally murdered his entire family/coven (except one of his sisters and I’m guessing his sister is someone we know) and the Gemini coven (you know the lead Enzo and Caroline was chasing) banished him for this act.

Kai: This isn’t your hell Damon… it’s mine.

Oh and Kai’s power, he can absorb other witches powers and he gets a taste of Bonnie’s and he gives them an ultimatum. Either they help him get out of there or he will absorb all of her powers and kill them both.

Pictured (L-R): Nina Dobrev as Elena and Paul Wesley as Stefan — Photo: Bob Mahoney/The CW

Bonnie understands Damon

Damon compares himself to Kai, given that he killed a pregnant woman. Bonnie doesn’t want to risk letting Kai out, but she can’t let herself and Damon stay. Then Bonnie realizes something. The reason Damon cooks pancakes every morning is because Zack’s pregnant girlfriend loved pancakes.

“You feel remorse.”

“There is hope fore you.”

Gold star for Bon Bon for always understanding everyone and accepting others for who they are no matter who they’ve have killed. I love their friendship. They hate each other, but they care for each other and they will protect each other, something that has been proven over the course of seasons.

Snitches get stitches

Matt bonded with Tripp and got him to tell him the whole ugly truth about vampires existing. Too bad he doesn’t know that Matt has been hip to the cool people. Not that it will matter when he finds out that Matt happens to be best friends with them, something that will probably happen because Tripp has informed Matt where Enzo is chained up and also that he is the one who killed Tripp’s wife. Also, before he kills him he will make him snitch on all his vampire buddies starting with the one that fed on Sarah aka Elena. Matt to the rescue!

Now for the real shocker

Jeremy returns home to Sarah who blackmails him to listen and help her or she will tell everyone about his vampire sister. She tells Jeremy that her mother was killed while she was still in her womb. Doctors thought she couldn’t be saved, but a brilliant doctor (Jeremy and Elena’s dad?) saved the baby. Sarah shows Jeremy a picture of her mother and father and what do you know, it’s Zack and his pregnant girlfriend in the pic. Yes, ladies and gents, Sarah is a Salvatore – Stefan and Damon’s baby cousin. Yay! At least Damon isn’t a baby killer! No? We still don’t feel better about shamelessly rooting for serial killers? I just remind myself it is all fiction. *shrugs*

NOW THE HUGE SHOCKER

Ivy? Stefan’s girlfriend, well it turns out Enzo was just joking, he didn’t kill her, he just turned her into a vampire! Joke’s on you Stefan, its funny, isn’t it? No? Maybe? Check back with you next week?

So….

What do you think is going to happen? How will vampire Ivy be? Will Enzo snitch? When will Damon, Bonnie, and Kai break out of his hell? What’s up with the Gemini Coven? I missed Caroline in this episode and where was Liver aka Tyler and Liv? Will Kai wreak havoc when he is out? Do you think Jo the hot doctor is his little sister? How will Damon react to the baby he supposedly killed? Will Elena ever stop running away from her problems? Will Stefan ever put back on his hero hair? Will they or won’t they? That question pertains to every potential couple on this show.

Until next time my fellow TVD watchers!