The Vampire Diaries "Black Hole Sun" Review: All of Them Witches (PHOTO RECAP)

The Vampire Diaries S06E04: "Black Hole Sun"

Sometimes being excellent at something is its own curse. For example, I am very good at defeating raccoons, but guess what that means whenever raccoons infiltrate the Pentagon? It means I'm getting 4am phone calls from the government begging for help, and believe me I am NOT a morning person. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so good at defeating raccoons. It's the same thing with The Vampire Diaries. Oftentimes the show does TOO GOOD a job of making new characters well-drawn and compelling and likable (even villains), so then when they are inevitably killed off it makes us MAD at the show. Lexi, Isobel, Uncle John, Pearl, Anna, Rose, Professor Shane, Dr. Wes, and maybe especially Katherine and the Originals—almost all of those folks were conceived as plot devices but ultimately made such big impressions that they were either brought back as ghosts, given their own spin-offs, or treated to insane send-offs. (Okay maybe I'm the only one in existence who liked Dr. Wes, but that could've just been due to his sweaters.) The point is, TVD more than does its part to create memorable new characters (alongside duds like April) that it risks alienating viewers when it finally does dispose of them. Which is necessary! This show needs big deaths to keep its stakes high. But now I'm looking at a character like Kai, who is already one of TVD's best characters ever (and played by a really talented actor), and I'm bracing myself for his imminent exit from the show. Dang, TVD. Stop doing such a good job of getting us invested in people!

That being said, "Black Hole Sun" was yet another excellent episode in a string of excellent episodes. We're dealing with a full-blown TVD resurgence right now. Yeah, I said it. Here we go!

It all started in 1994 when Bonnie returned from running all of Kai's errands. I was already laughing because of how devoted Bonnie and Damon have become to wearing era-appropriate fashion. Short overalls with one strap undone? Amazing. (No scrunchie, though?) Anyway, Kai had made a shopping list for Bonnie (since he was tied up and couldn't run errands by himself) and it still wasn't clear what he needed all that junk for. Also, spoiler, we were going to learn later in the episode that he's a bad guy. But I think that was made VERY clear when we found out how he eats jelly:

I mean, that is some supervillain stuff right there. I still think Kai is great but that is disgusting. (Also what color is that jelly? Green-grey?)

Anyway, yes: This was the '90s flashback episode we'd all been waiting five seasons for!

But unfortunately, a nod to Kurt Cobain's death was as '90s as it got. That and an Alice in Chains song. Otherwise Damon was still wearing his leather jacket from the '60s and Stefan was NOT sporting the wedge-haircut I'd been dreaming about. Also, no Kooshes anywhere.

So the big thing was, the bros hadn't seen each other in like 17 years and Stefan really didn't want Damon to come and mess up his chill existence at the then-operational Salvatore Boarding House. Because oh, look who was alive back then!

Uncle Zach! Dang, he didn't age at all between 1994 and 2009. If anything he was pulling a Benjamin Button or whatever. Anyway, one of Season 1's first casualties was BACK, everybody. And he was ALL ABOUT trusting Damon and letting him back in the house. Probably not a great call, to be honest.

Meanwhile Stefan was chillin' on his motorcycle in the middle of the road outside Mystic Falls when he and Elena decided that the dog-bite girl was probably not hiding in some bushes in the countryside because she was probably in the actual town somewhere. Clever deduction!

That's when Stefan decided to call it a day not only on this weird dumb task they were trying to complete but also on his whole life. Yes, it was time to start another 30-year chapter of showing up in a new town and pretending to be somebody else, just as he'd done ever since Civil War times.

But Elena didn't believe he could easily just start a new life, so she made a bet that if he couldn't convince her that it was easy and fun to start over, then she'd stalk him. Or something like that, who knows. She was basically telling him to put his vampire money where his vampire mouth was and to show her how it's done. So she strapped on her helmet (a motorcycle helmet, not an everyday helmet) and they rode away on his scooter.

Meanwhile at the hospital Jeremy was puking into a lil baggie.

It was fun to see Alaric doting on Jeremy after he'd clearly been drowning his sorrows in Fireball or whatever. Alaric was very experienced in drinking too much.

And it was cute when the sexy doctor walked over and she and Alaric asked Jeremy to take STD tests while he was at it.

Then the doctor and Alaric flirted a ton and he got distracted by a nosebleed and she told him off. Yikes, lady, it's okay if he averts his gaze for like two seconds. He's still into you, don't worry.

Meanwhile Matt had to go talk to Tripp Fell about the dead boy while pretending he didn't know what had happened or why.

But Tripp looked haunted, like he'd really had it lately with the Mystic Falls death toll. But I didn't totally understand this plotline because obviously he knows about vampires, and obviously the boy had been killed by a vampire, and obviously Matt was lying about it, so really they were pretty much on the same page about vampires existing and why were they beating around the bush and oh look, Damon in a tank top:

He was ready to turn over a new leaf, so Stefan decided to see if he could survive on animal blood, as Stefan had come to do:

Also we learned that Uncle Zach had a pregnant girlfriend!

That was probably going to go well.

Meanwhile Stefan seemed a little annoyed by Elena's unwillingness to realize she'd once been in love with Damon.

But I did like the way he demonstrated how to change his public persona. Basically just make a decision and then alert the public to it! Like, for example:

A genuinely cute if bittersweet moment in which they pretended that marriage and pregnancy were even possible for them anymore. But I did appreciate the hopefulness of Stefan's approach to life: You can be anything you want, you just have to fake it until you make it. That is a phrase I just made up, do you like it?

Next: Page 2

(Continued from Page 1)

Guess who this is?

BABY CAROLINE. Guys, I just don't know what I'm supposed to do now that I've seen a photo of Baby Caroline. Is it possible for my day to be ruined by joy? What do I do now? Where do I go from here? I think this is it for me, bye.

OMG WHAT. WHO IS THIS LADY EVEN. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me, TVD? What is happening anymore? LOOK AT HER. Guys, I can't move. My hands don't work no more. I'm dictating this via Siri. Siri, Bing me ways to recover from this young Sheriff Forbes situation. Because holy moly.

Anyway, then Stefan found out that Damon had been biting the pregnant lady and he asked Damon about it and Damon was like, "It's NBD" but Stefan was like, "Actually, it's a VBD" and then this happened:

Honestly, Damon had it coming. Even among vampires, nibbling on pregnant ladies is considered a faux pas. And I am just going to come out and say it, I LOVE to see TVD regaining a sense of morality again. One of Season 1's big plotlines was Stefan's struggle to remain vegetarian out of respect for human life, so this was not only consistent with that struggle, it proved my point that Elena and her guilt-free massacres are easily the darkest element of a show about literal monsters. It's fine to excuse murder if you're commenting on that kind of callousness, but too often TVD just presents us with atrocious acts and asks that we also sympathize with the perpetrators' love lives. It's downright refreshing to revisit the days when murder seemed wrong and when vampires might actually self-police by getting rid of the bad apples. I was definitely Team Stefan back in '94. (But in retrospect, Damon kinda was now also Team Stefan, considering he considered that incident his "worst day.")

Meanwhile in Fake '94, Kai informed Bonnie and Damon that a device called "the Ascendant" would help them harness the power of the eclipse and get them out of there. So she did a quick locator spell on a mockup device that Kai had made out of bottle caps or whatever, and suddenly his blood was leaking all over the Mason-Dixon line!

The line traced from his hometown of Portland all the way to, according to the map, his coat pocket!

And there it was, the Ascendant. Personally I LOVE when TVD gets into gadgetry. This one reminded me of the Vampire-outing device from the Season 1 finale. Vampire gadgets are definitely the closest I'll ever get to enjoying Steampunk.

Meanwhile in the flashback Damon woke up from his broken neck out in the tool shed.

To his credit he tried to butter Stefan up again, even trying to convince Stefan to go on a road trip with him, but Stefan wasn't interested. And fair enough! Stefan brought up a good point about Damon having no self-control, and that was particularly dangerous considering Stefan himself was constantly teetering on the brink of ripperdom. It was honestly a very reasonable decision on Stefan's part to take Damon's sunlight ring until he really thought long and hard about what he'd done. Vampire time-out.

I loved this scene: Stefan got into the nitty-gritty of all the times he'd started over in life, and Elena asked him questions as though they'd never, in all their time as boyfriend and girlfriend, actually talked about his past.

But I sincerely liked hearing about the hows and whats of vampire immortality. Sort of like on The Originals last week where we saw actual newbie vampire mentorship, these are some fundamental basics that the show hasn't really addressed. Yes, it makes tons of sense that Stefan moves on every 30 years, but I guess it had never occurred to me how poignant that must be for him. There was a real sadness in this scene, but a pragmatic one. And ultimately Elena realized she'd lost the bet, because Stefan could indeed move on and be happy if he wanted to; it was all he really knew how to do. He didn't properly explain why he'd chosen to be a mechanic this time around, but it probably had to do with the fact that he now owned not one but TWO classic cars. (Spoiler)

So then Bonnie and Damon noticed a certain article in the newspaper about a family in Portland that had been slaughtered by its eldest child.

BOOM. That's when we finally learned Kai's deal. He was a witch from the Gemini Coven (which we'd previously only heard rumors about), and back in '94 he murdered his brothers and sisters. As punishment, the surviving members of the coven created a parallel universe prison for him to dwell in forever. I guess Grams got wind of it and arranged for Bonnie and Damon to be sent there also, but in the 20 years Kai'd been there, and only after he took a selfie in the Oval Office, he'd traveled to Mystic Falls to track down Bonnie and exploit her powers. I know it's a lot to take in, but basically: Kai's a witch without powers, he gleefully murdered his family and is NOT sorry about it, and now Damon and Bonnie have to strike a Faustian bargain with a known sociopath just to get out of this prison. Although, again, there's no way Kai's killed as many people as Damon has. So glass houses and whatnot.

This scene was pretty important: Alaric and Jeremy working out and talking about their feelings!

Like that WASN'T going to be the best scene in the episode? Alaric was not happy with Jeremy for drinking his pain away, and Jeremy was like, "but I'm sad" and then Alaric rattled off a (very long) list of things that had happened to him that were also sad. But I don't know, I think Jeremy wins that one. His whole family died! Anyway, good scene.

But Jeremy and Alaric weren't the only ones who dealt with grief through physical altercations: Not 10 seconds after Elena hugged Stefan goodbye, he incited a bar fight with a stranger!

It was really startling, especially after it seemed like Stefan had seemed so content to simply begin a new life. But apparently he'd been doing this on the regular ever since Damon died. He claimed it was the best way for him to feel pain. Anyway, yeah, obviously Elena ran in and prevented some stranger from kicking Stefan's face in.

Meanwhile we finally found out why that flashback had been Damon's "worst day." Because he ruined Zach's living room!

Oh and also he did the unthinkable: He killed Zach's pregnant girlfriend.

Obviously this was awful, but Evil Damon had some pretty compelling arguments for doing this. Namely that he'd personally helped Stefan recover from Ripperdom and was asking for a fraction of that in return. So I guess when Stefan turned his back on Damon, Damon felt like it was justified to throw a vampire hissy fit and murder everybody and then take off. Jerk move for sure, but I understood his motivations. But yeah, terrible, right? Anyway, don't worry, the baby survived and if you haven't already guessed who she grew up to be, that was coming up in a minute.

Next: Page 3

(Continued from Page 2)

So then it came time for Elena to learn a hard truth about herself:

Whoops, I guess not only did she have her romantic memories of Damon scrubbed, she was also compelled to forget that she'd even asked Alaric to do it. And so of course in this moment she'd been trying to get holier-than-thou to Stefan about how he was handling his grief (bar fights, fake-proposing to madwomen, etc.) but he countered with the stone-cold knowledge that she'd taken the easy route while he still had to grapple with the death of his brother and best friend. Told!

Meanwhile Matt and Tripp Fell finally came clean to each other sorta. Matt asked Tripp Fell if he believed in vampires and then this happened:

He was holding Enzo captive! I guess because a vampire had killed Tripp Fell's wife, so he hated vampires, and now he was going to torture Enzo into naming the names of all the vampires in town. Okay Tripp Fell, but Enzo is pretty used to torture at this point, so try your best. Meanwhile Matt had this unspoken thing with Enzo, but it's not clear whose side he'll take. Just kidding, he'll side with the vampires obviously.

Oh, right, the dead pregnant lady's baby:

It was dog bite girl! Which meant that...

Jeremy FINALLY f*cked a Salvatore! We all knew it would happen, it was only a matter of who it would be. Now we know. But yeah, this lady is a Salvatore descendant. Crazy right?

So then Elena asked Alaric about her brainscrubbing and he was like, "Just read a damn diary already."

The last page was actually pre-brainwash Elena writing a letter to post-brainwash Elena, and it was really moving stuff. Basically advising her not to go chasing waterfalls by re-falling in love with the memory of Damon, at least not now. So she handed the journal back without reading the rest! I was so relieved. Guys, not that I'm anti-Delena or whatever, I just like it when these characters are single. It made tons of sense for Elena to want to remain independent for now. This is a show that, if anything, has proved that epic love kind of ruins you. Take for example how much more dynamic Bonnie seems now that she's not caught up in some goopy crush cycle. Damon also seems more introspective and sympathetic now that he's on his own. Same with Stefan. Look, I'm just happy there was no backsliding here, okay?

So even though Damon was all caught up in remembering the time he ate a pregnant lady, Bonnie reminded him that feeling guilt AT ALL sets him apart from your garden variety sociopath. Like Kai or Elena.

I loved his reaction to this. Like it had never occurred to him that he's kind of a good person a lot of the time. I guess people didn't really give him enough credit, and maybe now he'll be encouraged to keep doing good things for people.

Anyway, oh hey, wanna know what else Kai's deal was? He's basically Rogue from X-Men.

He can only use OTHER people's magic. Which may explain again why he murdered his family, to absorb their powers. Also his real name is Malachi and his coven considers him an abomination. Have I mentioned how much I'm into this character? What a great character. If he's not immediately killed off in the next episode he has the potential to become a really cool villain! It's a compliment to this show that those are the only two options for a new character. Could go either way!

And then this happened, and it was one of those so-obvious-we-didn't-see-it-coming moments:

Haha! Stefan's girlfriend was still alive. Enzo HAD made her drink blood before killing her! Which was thoughtful on Enzo's part, I guess. But I like what this spells for Stefan: Just when he'd tried to get on with his life, he got dragged back into the vampire world. Typical. (Also how cute was it that he'd been fixing up Damon's car? So cute.) Anyway, yeah. BOOM. Girlfriend's back from the dead.

"Black Hole Sun" was not only really well-done on a moment-by-moment basis, it all came together into another very good episode. I'm still absolutely loving '94 World and especially Kai, but the living characters' grief odysseys remain interesting and fresh to me. Yeah, really digging this season so far.

OK BYE

QUESTIONS

... Will Stefan's Ex be a nicer vampire than Elena?

... Does Kai seem like a bad person?

... Have you ever fake-proposed to a vampire in a dive bar?

... How do YOU eat jelly?