The Vampire Diaries "I Could Never Love Like That" Review: Kara-Not-Okay (PHOTO RECAP)

The Vampire Diaries S06E18: "I Could Never Love Like That"

Vampires do a lot of terrible things all the time. They eat blood. They murder people's heads off. They use Bing. After six seasons of casual mayhem, The Vampire Diaries is apparently nowhere near finished showing us all the dastardly things these ghouls are capable of, and that includes ill behavior by even our most beloved vampire pals. Take Caroline, who before she "flipped her switch" in order to not-grieve for her mother, was the sweetest and kindest angel on the show: In "I Could Never Love Like That," she committed the most horrible, heinous, and generally upsetting act a vampire has ever done on this show. That's right, she sang DAYTIME KARAOKE. There is truly nothing more sinister than daytime karaoke, so consider this episode the lowest point in Caroline's life so far. It's a testament to how wonderful the rest of the episode was that we will even be able to get past this daytime karaoke incident because damn. At least choose a better Pat Benatar song!

No but for real, what a great episode. I straight-up cried when Lily unflipped Stefan's switch, which was an uncomfortable set of emotions considering her maternal love was only pretend and she is probably a bad person. But also the Enzo flashbacks actually made me care about his character again? Imagine that! And the idea that Caroline might casually murder Matt or Tyler was the kind of mental disturbance The Vampire Diaries could only get away with after six seasons of relationship-building. It's not important for us to rank seasons, but prior to Season 6, my favorite season was the first half of Season 3. Notice I said "first half" because now we're in Season 6 and the WHOLE season is great? That's right, I might even prefer this season to that one. But a lot of that might come down to how it ends, which is four episodes away and will almost certainly be devastating.

A quick note about Nina Dobrev's departure, and ONLY a quick note because you know we'll have more to talk about after the season finale: As much as we've made fun of Elena or been frustrated by her choices or laughed at her self-obsession, Nina Dobrev is and always has been the best actor on The Vampire Diaries. She's so extremely good that her loss will be nothing short of devastating. If you thought losing the Mikaelsons was a blow, whoa mama, this is gonna hurt. That being said, Season 6 has been such a thrilling course correction that I want to see what the brain trust has in store for this show post-Dobrev. You know? Let's talk about how well they do next fall. For now let's appreciate every single frame that Nina Dobrev is in, I know I will.

Okay let's talk about "I Could Never Love Like That"!

It was after hours in SCULL bar, which was not as sexy as that sounds. For one thing the bussers were trying to clean the bar in total darkness (not very safe), and for another thing one of them was immediately murdered and thrown off the balcony!

But of course, it should come as no surprise that these two rascals were to blame and they were in the mood for shenanigans:

Caroline and Stefan, using their newfound not-giving-a-f*ck-ness, were still just hanging around a college bar tormenting randos for fun. They had a running bet about whether Caroline could scare someone "to death," so she just cheated and compelled a guy into having a heart-attack. It was low, even for her.

The punchline of this cold open was that, as "winner" of the bet, Stefan agreed to participate in an activity of Caroline's choosing, and you or I was probably like, "Oh, shirtless hug time," but nope! Karaoke. Although at this point it was nighttime, so the idea wasn't totally crazy. Maybe there was a private K-Town karaoke room somewhere nearby where they could sing Carly Rae Jepson songs in private? Anyway, the concept of doing karaoke wasn't really a cause for concern. YET.

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The next morning Lily Salvatore answered the door at the Salvatore mansion and did not recognize Enzo.

But you can bet your bottom dollar he recognized her! (What is a bottom dollar.)

A few minutes later in the car he explained to Sarah Salvatore that Lily Salvatore was the worst and meanest lady he'd ever met. And do you know how she responded?

Haha! Sarah had been on vervain and could no longer be compelled and so she sproink'd Enzo because why not? It's not like this plotline will ever be interesting, so sure, spice it up.

Meanwhile Damon and Elena were having some kind of weird, towel-only slowdance in his bathroom. I don't know, guys. Then she started rifling around in his black V-neck T-shirt drawer and he ran over at super speed to stop her!

That's because there was a certain very valuable MacGuffin in there!

I mean, here's the thing with the Cure. Is it TOO obvious that Elena's going to take it shortly before leaving town? That's what this whole episode was about—Elena remembering the benefits of being a human being. But because it's such an obvious choice, I could see the The Vampire Diaries NOT going that route. Although, wouldn't it also be so disappointing if she DIDN'T become human again? So that's going to be this season's challenge: Going the Obvious Route versus Being Unsatisfying. I don't know why I capitalized those words except it's a free country?

Anyway, I loved this breakfast scene where Lily kept asking loaded questions about whether Elena missed being human and it made Damon so sad and uncomfortable.

The conflict here was that in general, Damon loves Elena and wants what's best for her, but he has a strong feeling that if she regains her humanity she might want a big ol' human D to go with it. Which is fair, most humans do want that! So he was not about to tell Elena he possessed the cure, let alone encourage her to want it. Stay tuned, folks.

Remember how Enzo has spent most of this season with confusing, useless intentions and has become surprisingly boring as a character? I feel like these flashbacks really helped make me care again!

We got to see the time he was dying of consumption in 1903 and a dude kicked him in the face and Lily Salvatore came out of nowhere to help him and take him to America. For a ripper she seemed very chill and sweet, but then again Enzo prefaced his story by saying she was the worst person he ever met, so I'm sure she's going to do something super terrible later, right? Right? Right? Right? (She won't. Enzo is nuts.)

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HERE WE GO. Daytime karaoke.

Did this mean Caroline and Stefan had been doing karaoke since 2am? Because it was the next day now. And remember: They were sober. Also: There were no karaoke monitors. Just Caroline singing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" into a microphone. Yes Candice Accola has a great voice, but except for Sheriff Forbes' funeral scene, it's like this show is actively trying to ruin her future singing career? This scene was annoying! But that was kind of the joke, that she was screaming these songs while everyone in the place was trying to study.

That was really funny. Just everyone sighing and shooting her mean looks while Stefan compelled everyone to deal with it. But then two rubes from the local police academy showed up and things got weird.

Uh-oh, fellas. You picked the wrong college bar to walk into. I think there was some kind of explanation for what Matt and Tyler were doing at Whitmore (NEVER FORGET that Mystic Falls is two hours away), but it didn't matter. They were in danger, girl.

I loved this scene in the car when Damon and Lily road-tripped to find Stefan and Caroline. Mostly because any scene where a 170-year-old woman attempts to use a cell phone will always delight me. (She wanted to start a text message with "My dearest Elena..."). Also, there was this cute moment where she made Damon admit that he hearts Elena so much:

But to my mind it was all just a bunch of ironic foreshadowing! We'll see, though, don't quote me on anything.

Meanwhile at the hospital, Elena and Jo were trying to save the lives of all the people Caroline and Stefan had been maiming, which meant Elena was openly bleeding into everybody's mouths. Also she finally learned Jo's big news.

And you guessed it, Elena immediately began thinking about her OWN wants and needs. Tick tick tick, vampire.

Since Caroline now had TWO of her exes hostage, she took the opportunity to torment them by testing how much they knew about her.

Obviously they knew the basics, but like total jerks they didn't know the final memory Caroline's mom had before dying. That's just bad friends right there, just kidding, Caroline was clearly psycho. So then she started flipping a coin to decide who she'd murder. And that's when I started getting REAAALLLLY sick of Humanity-Free Caroline. It's getting old. Nobody threatens mashed potatoes on MY watch.

Oh, back to the flashbacks, was this the incident where Enzo decided that Lily was the worst?

All she did was kindly turn him into a vampire in order to save his life! Sure, when he woke up there was a pile of bodies nearby, but that also meant he got to dive in and partake.

So yeah, unless there is more to this story, the reason that Enzo was afraid of Lily was that she killed six passengers on a ship a hundred years ago. How many awful things has Enzo done since then? This seemed hypocritical to me. Yes, she was technically a ripper, but she also saved his life? She deserved at least a hug when he ran into her at the Salvatore House. Also, quick question, during their prison days, did Damon and Enzo ever discuss WHO had turned Enzo into a vampire? Just wondering.

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One of the more emotionally weird moments of the episode came when Lily described the circumstances of why she'd abandoned her family.

The truth was that she had a blood thirst so severe that she felt her children were at risk. (Uh, maybe move away and write letters? Why stage your own death?) But the twist was that after she'd fallen in with her new surrogate family (who had helped calm her ripper ways), she realized she didn't love her kids or old family anymore. Spooky, right?

It's especially chilling knowing that she's spent 100 years in a witch prison with A LOT of time to think about her life and family (with a framed picture of her kids!), but all it resulted in was an ice-cold heart. Dang, lady.

Anyway, back at SCULL Tyler was sick and tired of getting pushed around by vampire assholes, so he broke a chair and started waving a wooden stake around at everybody.

And that's when Caroline's harsh burns pushed him to his limit! He lunged at her and then look what happened:

He stabbed his bestie! Although to be fair, Caroline had grabbed Matt and used him as a human shield, which was surprisingly horrible of her! See what I'm saying? I'm very done with Humanity-Free Caroline, get outta here, Humanity-Free Caroline! Not that this guy was helping much:

Ugh, that smile. Throw that smile in a dumpster.

So then Matt was whisked away to the hospital where Elena attempted to put all of her medical training to good use:

But NOPE! Matt did not want to drink vampire blood this day. He had standards sometimes, and this was one of them. REJECTED.

Anyway, that's when Damon and Lily showed up to confront Stefan finally. It was her time to shine and get him to re-flip his switch. WOULD IT WORK?

Seemed possible! And since Caroline could see the writing on the wall (the writing said that Stefan's flip would switch, and then he would flip hers back on), she made a bold decision.

She stabbed Stefan in the back literally (as a diversion) and ran away! Her salvation would just have to come in another episode, I guess.

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Then Lily got to bonding with Stefan. Mostly explaining why she'd abandoned him, how much she missed him, how much she loved him. Stuff like that. And it seemed like he was listening! It was working. All he needed was the love of the mother he thought was dead. Except give Lily tons of Oscars, because the scene kept cutting back to a near-past flashback where Damon coached her on what to say.

There may have also been warm-up exercises involved, trust falls, stuff like that. But still, the point was that Lily was so cold-hearted toward her children now that Damon had to coach her on how to be a good mother again. (It helped that he also gave her the Ascendant to release her evil friends, that's why she agreed to play along.) Which made this scene...

...so devastating. It revealed how sensitive and ultimately human Stefan was. He just wanted his mom! But the tragedy is that she wasn't his mom anymore. It was a false comfort, a lie. But sometimes that's enough, you know?

And then came yet another scene where Elena was shamed into missing her humanity:

Like, you know you're in a bad place when even Matt is sick of you. Elena had a lot to think about.

Another sweet scene: Elena openly talked about how, yeah, she was kinda jealous that Jo could procreate (and with a former vampire, no less!). But then Elena reasoned that it was fine that she couldn't have babies because she still had her fella. Which obviously made Damon feel conflicted!

Yeah, it's inevitable that he's going to give her the Cure since it would be kind of a villain move if he didn't. The question will be, what decision will she make? If she remains a vampire but dumps him and leaves town that seems like a dick move right? In my opinion at this point it seems inevitable that she's going to become human and someone will compel her to re-enroll in high school in Canada. We'll see!

But the episode wasn't over! The final stinger was just a simple bit of exposition.

Now that Jo knew that Lily had been in a Gemini prison, she revealed just who those fellow companions were. (The ones currently chilling in a cave with Kai.) They were a race called Heretics, who were witches that became vampires but retained their witch powers because they were magic-suckers like Kai was. Which meant their power was generated from the magic of being vampires, or something. Look the point was, Jo's explanation was intercut with probably the coolest final shot of any episode in TVD history: six caskets flying open via magic and the Heretics rising in unison.

And Jo's last threat was something like, "Imagine six Kais, but as magical vampires." In my opinion we should imagine SEVEN Kais since he is probably also going to become a vampire along with them. So yeah, the fact that Lily was now trying to rescue these creeps was not a good sign. (Unless they are played by high-talking British actors, in which case YES PLS).

This is a very promising and fun-sounding twist! And it capped off what was a scary and well-written episode that alluded to a lot of future heartache for Elena and Damon (and us!). Guys, we should probably get mentally prepared for a rough endgame. I can't wait.

QUESTIONS:

... Does Lily have good intentions or bad intentions?

... Will Elena choose humanity?

... Is Humanity-Free Caroline kind of getting on your nerves?

... Is there anything truly worse than daytime karaoke?