Posted by Crissy Calhoun | May 15, 2011, 10:37 (EST) | 108 Comments
Category: TV Series

And so it ends. It’s incredible to think how much has happened — how many lives lost, characters transformed, and game-changing moments occurred — since The Return in September. This finale, following the action-packed curse-breaking The Sun Also Rises, was much more of a denouement than last season’s finale, but As I Lay Dying not only resolved some lingering emotional threads, the episode left us with things we took for granted forever twisted, so we can spend the summer theorizing about the implications for our friends in Mystic Falls.

By opening the episode with the Gilbert house in quiet grief, the show managed to make me cry before the title. Jeremy has put a photo of Elena and Jenna beside his bed and a mug still sits on Jenna’s bedside table; these details made the Gilbert kids’ mourning feel incredibly real and raw. Like Damon says to Elena in his respectful request for forgiveness, Elena knows how the grieving process works; she and Jeremy have been through this before when Grayson and Miranda died. Now two days after Jenna’s death, Elena wants them to start going through the motions of living knowing that at some point it will feel normal again. In Mystic Falls, that means a picnic in the square and Gone with the Wind. Before Elena finds out that Damon is dying, her focus is on helping her brother deal with his grief. And when she’s M.I.A. and in danger, Jeremy refuses to sit idly by — he has to find his sister. The bond of family is the most important thing to the Gilberts, as it’s shown to be in this episode for Stefan and Elijah. Unfortunately for Elijah, Klaus has different ideas about family — best carted around in coffins —and he kills his brother to complete his set of Originals.

Stepping up to more than fill the Elijah void this episode is Mr. Alaric Saltzman. From grieving for Jenna by drinking too much at the Grill to immediately coming to Damon’s side when he hears he’s dying to being there for Jeremy, Alaric is seriously boss in the finale. The highlight reel: “Double shot”; “Neither one of us is drunk enough for this conversation”; he comes armed with a vervain dart to see a off-his-rocker Damon; “C’mere, buddy. I got you”; he gets that Jeremy would like him to stay over but won’t ask — and he chooses to sleep on the couch, not in Jenna’s room (so sad and respectful); and he provides the much-needed comedic relief with his pitch-perfect mockery of Bonnie and Jer’s sappy conversation. A great Ric episode. Here’s to more Beer and Blood moments in season 3.

Balance and Punishment: Though there is an implication of innate goodness to the term “Nature’s servants,” we have learned over the past two seasons that witches are not without personal agendas. In an awesome channeling scene (so creepy to hear Bianca Lawson’s voice coming from Kat Graham), Stefan calls out Emily Bennett on her desire to punish Damon by refusing to reveal the cure for a werewolf bite though she terms it maintaining “balance” in the natural order. We’ve seen other witches work for their own gain or for evil, and this episode reminds us that Bonnie has to be mindful of the balance she maintains. Earlier this season, she tested the limits of her own power, she took power from Luka without his consent, and she has now angered the spirits of 100 witches by coming back to them too many times for more power. Regardless of her motivations (to save a loved one or vanquish Klaus), Bonnie has pushed the boundaries of witchcraft and there are more than just physical consequences to pay for that perceived greediness (just as Stefan has to pay a hefty price for Damon living beyond “his time”). Perhaps because Emily once cared for a Gilbert man too, she does grant Bonnie the power to save Jeremy, but that incredible source of power housed on the site of the witches’ massacre is now off-limits to Bonnie.

I do not envy the task of being sheriff in a town overrun with vampires, werewolves, witches, and a hybrid. Especially not when the “evil monsters” are your friends and your daughter. Though Carol Lockwood’s sudden insistence that something be done about the vampire problem seemed to be motivated only by the writers’ need to get Liz Forbes into action, the results were well worth it. There are consequences to messing with things you don’t fully understand, and Liz doesn’t heed the warnings of Alaric or Elena. Instead she comes into the Grill gun blazing and kills Jeremy. Despite knowing about vampires her whole life, Liz has no real understanding of the supernatural world — she doesn’t know what Caroline’s trying to do by feeding Jeremy her blood, she doesn’t get that she actually did kill Jeremy and she’s just lucky Bonnie’s capable of bringing the dead back to life. Despite this, Liz is convinced by her daughter that there’s one thing she can be sure of: Caroline is still Caroline, her little girl. She still is who she used to be and is even more deserving of her mother’s admiration in her choices as a vampire. Caroline doesn’t want fear to separate them any longer, and that hug was long-awaited for both of them.

Brotherly Obligation: Like his brother Elijah, Klaus makes his promises carefully: he did tell the truth about his family — their bodies were not buried at sea — and he kept his word that he would reunite Elijah with them. He just didn’t specify whether or not Elijah would be alive. Tricky devil. Klaus describes himself as someone who rarely gets played for a fool, a description I would venture to say applies to Elijah as well — except when it comes to Klaus. The vampire-brother parallels continue in this episode: like Damon said of Stefan, Elijah cleans up his brother’s messes (as Klaus discovers his new werewolf side) and Klaus forcing Stefan to go on a human-blood bender is a nicely twisted inversion of the act that started the brothers’ afterlives as vampires. Stefan forced Damon to drink to complete his transformation so he’d have his brother’s companionship for eternity. And so many years later, Stefan still carries the weight of that with him, feeling responsible for all the wrongs Damon does and the guilt of doing such a thing to his own brother.

By forcing Stefan to drink, Klaus resurrects the monster inside him, the dark and evil that Stefan buries every day. The echo is made explicit when Klaus presents Stefan with the “gift” of the girl for him to feed on, Klaus taking the first bite to draw her blood and make her even more irresistible just as we saw Stefan do in Blood Brothers. To prove himself as more than “just shy of useless” (the most cutting and hilarious description of our hero ever) Stefan must kill the girl to honor the deal he’s made with Klaus, his oath to be a “hell of a wing man” and a ripper. Killing her is about more than satisfying the innate thirst of a vampire for human blood, it’s about the pleasure of the hunt and the kill. And Klaus’s corruption of Stefan is seemingly complete as Stefan gets into “the spirit of it.” The man Damon called “always the hero” just hours earlier is once again a murderer.

A witness to the deal Stefan makes with Klaus, Katherine describes it as him sacrificing everything to save Damon. The cost of Damon’s cure is the life Stefan has built in Mystic Falls, his friends, Elena, and his identity as a vampire who strives to be as human as possible and as respectful of human life — refusing to take it for his own sustenance or pleasure and placing value on the sanctity of life (which Klaus has demonstrated he has no regard for). Stefan is trapped in his devil’s bargain: if he broke his deal and refused to do Klaus’s bidding, he would guarantee that his brother, Elena, and everyone else he cares about would be lambs for the slaughter by a vengeful Klaus, a hybrid who can’t be killed. What the heck’s going to happen to Stefan next season? Should migrant villagers the world over say their goodbyes? We’ve heard about Stefan’s dark past and got a first-hand glimpse of it in The Dinner Party, but I had assumed that after he met Lexi and she helped him find his way, his days of being a monster were over. Apparently not: he was such a legendary ripper, wiping out a village as late as 1917, that the baddest of all the baddies had heard about his appetite for destruction.

Ironically Stefan’s need to do right, his humanity, has time and again caused him harm but never have the stakes been this high. His sense of guilt and obligation to his brother, his need to fix the situation whatever the cost, compelled him to tell Klaus straight off the top that he will do whatever Klaus wants in exchange for the cure. And what Klaus wants is all Stefan has to give: everything that he cares about and has fought to be.

A common refrain on The Vampire Diaries is that there is always a choice — a realization Damon comes to regarding his love for Katherine and his responsibility in becoming a vampire. Has Stefan made the wrong choice in this deal with Klaus? Is Damon’s life worth the destruction Stefan will unleash as Klaus’s servant? Is it even conceivable for Stefan, always the hero, to make any other choice than the one he did?

Deathbed Confessions: At the beginning of the episode, Damon is ready to die: he seeks forgiveness from Elena as his last act before trying to kill himself. (Well, last act second to having a swig of the good stuff he keeps at the back of the liquor cabinet.) Stefan refuses to accept that choice, not letting Damon die by locking him up. As Stefan searches for a cure with help from Bonnie, Stefan hopes for the best and expects the worst, sending over Alaric and Elena to watch him, to have a chance to say goodbye, and also to give Damon some hope that there could be a cure.

Like we saw with Rose in The Descent, Damon’s illness and suffering gives him the time to ruminate on a century and a half of choices, to consider the hurt he’s caused and the path he’s taken as his subconscious haunts him with visions of the past seen with wisdom finally realized in the present. Damon considers what Alaric must think of him, as he holds himself responsible for Jenna’s death and turning Isobel. With Elena, Damon apologizes for all the hurt he’s caused her. And perhaps most significantly for the vampire who was created and driven by his love for Katherine for nearly his entire existence, Damon realizes it was his own choice to love Katherine the way he did. He takes ownership of his choice to drink her blood; the first step in the process of becoming a vampire was a decision he made himself, it wasn’t Stefan’s fault. In Damon’s hallucination, Elena tells him that Katherine was just toying with him, that he was free to say no to her at any moment. Though Damon regrets making the wrong choice, he also sees in his dying moments that if he hadn’t followed the path he did he never would have met Elena. In the town square, Damon’s dementia makes him mix up past and present, Katherine and Elena, and he bites Elena, drinking her blood and giving him one more thing to regret and for Elena to forgive on his deathbed.

In the final peaceful moments, no longer tormented, Damon tells Elena simply and resignedly that he knows that it will always be Stefan but he loves her. This scene of whispered confessions was so heartbreaking and perfect: he just wants her to know that he loves her, and she does know it. All season long, Damon has been trying to be who he thinks Elena wants him to be — a better man — and she could say nothing that would mean more to him that what she does: that she likes him just the way he is.

As he lays dying, in those moments that both believe will be their last together, wrongs are forgiven and the distance between them is closed. Believing it’s the end gives them permission to be with each other without barriers; with no time left, they have to say what they feel. When Elena kissed Damon, it felt to me like a gift, a goodbye, something Elena knew would mean the world to Damon and something she was willing to give him. It’s a circular moment, the journey from the beginning of the season when Damon believed Elena had kissed him and she said she would never to that, to this moment where Elena, for the first time, gets to say a proper goodbye to someone she loves who is dying. Everyone else she’s lost has gone quickly and suddenly, giving her no opportunity for real closure. . . .

And then in waltzes Katherine with a cure that Stefan secured for his brother by sacrificing everything — the Salvatore Elena thought she was losing is saved, and the one she didn’t say goodbye to might be gone. With Katherine in the room, Elena immediately puts some distance between her and Damon, hustling off that bed, but Katherine has seen the connection and tells her doppelganger it’s okay to love them both. With Stefan a ripper once again and Damon coming back from near-death, how will the relationships between our core three characters evolve next season? With Katherine’s obligation to Damon paid by delivering the cure of her own free will, will she leave Mystic Falls and go back on the run from Klaus? Or will she stick around to further complicate an already very complicated situation between brothers and doppelgangers?

‘Jer?’: I have an emotional handicap when it comes to Vicki Donovan, so I lost it when she appeared. The consequence of bringing Jeremy back from the dead appears to be a connection to the other side — he senses (first hears, then sees) Anna and Vicki, two vampires he loved who died violently. But there they are, in the Gilbert house. I loved this twist — the shock of seeing two beloved characters we thought we’d never see again — and I trust that the writers will develop Jeremy’s new ability in such a way that maintains the impact of a character dying. (There wouldn’t be much emotional heft to someone being killed if we knew we’d be seeing them again the next episode having a ghostly heart to heart with Jer.) What exactly this all means is yet to be revealed (see my myriad of questions below), but what is certain is that Jeremy has come back from the dead a changed man — he’s no longer simply human, he’s connected to the supernatural universe, and the past that has shaped him is now a literal part of his present.

Despite this season’s sheer volume of unexpected turns and cliffhangers, necks snapped, hearts ripped out, tears shed, shirts removed, fingers pointed, doppelganger hijinks ensued, and Original BAMFs given to us like gifts from the writerly gods, it’s hard to believe season 2 has come to an end. It’s been an incredible season thanks to those who work tirelessly to make The Vampire Diaries exceed our very high expectations episode after episode. I’ll take the privilege of speaking for the TVD family and paraphrase Damon’s words to say thank you to all you geniuses behind the show — we love you, you should know that.

Compelling Moment: “You should have met me in 1864. You would have liked me.” “I like you now. Just the way you are.”

The Rules: The cure for a werewolf bite is drinking Klaus’s blood. As a hybrid, Klaus can change into wolf form at will. He is also able to use a dagger to kill his brother without dying (unlike a regular vampire who would die). Bonnie is able to contact the spirits of the dead witches for help, first for information about a cure for Damon and then for the power to resurrect Jeremy from the dead. The witches warn Bonnie that there will be consequences to that spell, and we see a glimpse of that: Jeremy sees the dead.

Foggy Moments:

• Did it seem to anyone else that there was a bit of the scene cut between Klaus and Stefan in Alaric’s apartment? Right before commercial break, Klaus slams Stefan against the wall; right after, they’re in the middle of the room, Klaus is staking him, and Katherine is speaking out on his behalf. Seems as though there was a little missing to get them from one place to the next.
• Is Klaus’s blood the cure for the werewolf bite because he’s an active hybrid? If he hadn’t broken the curse, and the werewolf part of him was still latent, would his blood have healed Damon? How did Klaus know that his blood was the cure?
• Why was the Mystic Grill closed? Where did the MF citizens go for bathroom breaks during the epically long Gone with the Wind screening?
• In The Last Dance, Bonnie died and then came back to life, but (as far as we know) she has no ability to see the dead like Jer now has. Is this because the spell she used was to fake her death as opposed to raise the already-dead?
• Katherine is able to get into the Salvatore house to deliver the blood despite never receiving an invitation from Elena. But as the doppelgangers remind us in their little exchange, Elena did die. I think any vampire can get into the Salvatore house since Elena hasn’t been reinstated post-resurrection as its owner. And if that’s true, then any vampire can also get into the Gilbert house, since the two surviving residents of the house, Elena and Jeremy, died.

Other thoughts & questions before Season 3:

• Remember when Elena threw a chair threw a police-station window? Petrova fire.
• Was Bonnie in her bedroom during the product-placement chat with Jeremy? Will we get to see where Bonnie lives in season 3?
• Klaus and Stefan plan to leave the tragic little town of Mystic Falls right away. Any guesses on where they’re headed? Or about what Klaus really wants from Stefan? Is anyone else keen to see more of the undeniable chemistry between these two?
• Do all of the boxed Originals have daggers in their hearts? Did Klaus have a full dagger set made by one of his loyal witches? Is the dagger that John Gilbert brought to town (the one that was twice in Elijah and then given to him by Elena) still on the loose somewhere or was that the one Klaus stuck in his brother?
• Will Jeremy be able to see other dead people? (Like Jenna?) Will his connection be limited to those who were supernatural, or will he be able to see anyone, like his parents? Are these spirits malevolent? Will the presence of two dead ex-girlfriends put a damper on his relationship with Bonnie? Will Jeremy share his ability or keep it to himself? If Jeremy has a connection to the supernatural world, does that make him in some way supernatural too? The Gilbert ring only works on humans, probably not on those who have a supernatural origin (like a doppelganger). Does Jer still qualify as human?
• How the heck are we going to survive a summer of TVD-less Thursdays?

A huge thank you to everyone for your kind words and for the lively debate here over the past 22 episodes of awesome. Mad love to Red and Vee for inviting me to write these posts on their site — it’s a true honor to be a part of the Vampire-Diaries.net crew. And so for the last time this season . . . sound off below with your likes/dislikes, theories, predictions, and summer plans!

Crissy Calhoun is the author of Love You to Death: The Unofficial Companion to The Vampire Diaries and a follow-up book that covers season 2 is due out in September. When not obsessively re-watching CW shows, she works as managing editor at ECW Press in Toronto. She blogs at crissycalhoun.com and tweets @crissycalhoun.

Tweet

A Note On Comments:

We get hundreds of comments a day, and we're only human. Please help us to keep the comments a positive place to be by not arguing with each other, not insulting each other, and not responding in anger. If a comment is over the line, please flag the comment to bring it to our attention. You can do this by hovering your mouse over the comment so the 'flag' link appears.

Comments may be deleted at moderator discretion if we feel they are spammy, cross a line or are taking the discussion too far off-topic. If you want to discuss other things, please do so in the forums.

Please don't use multiple accounts or make pointless one-word comments. Repeated spamming of this nature will result in you being banned or moderated.