The Vampire Diaries "The Day I Tried to Live" Review: Retro Active (PHOTO RECAP)
The Vampire Diaries S06E13: "The Day I Tried to Live"
When it comes to presenting a compelling narrative, certain story elements always work. For instance: towel scenes. It's difficult to craft a compelling narrative without them, you know? See also: animal attacks and love triangles at Red Lobster. All the great shows have included love triangles at Red Lobster. But personally my very favorite story element, and I talk about this all the time, too often probably, is when a villain does something heroic. You know what I'm talking about. Like when Klaus saved Caroline's life in Season 3.
Come to think of it, villains doing heroic things is basically the entire premise of The Vampire Diaries' kid sister, The Originals. But at this point we're all savvy enough to know that if a villain is on a TV show long enough, it's only a matter of time before the redemption arc begins. I think we all had reason to expect this would happen to Kai, one of TVD's all-time great villains, if only due to how incredible Chris Wood's performance has been. His charisma is off the charts, guys. I really want him to become a permanent addition to the show, but I've wondered whether that could happen when he was also such an awful guy. Leave it to TVD to devise the coolest and weirdest way possible to redeem in the quickest, least predictable way: He's now part-Luke, so anything good he does can be attributed to that. It's like Kai got to leapfrog the whole "I've learned a valuable lesson about friendship" situation that most villains have to experience before turning nice, and instead we get to have all these fun scenes about a sociopath crying for the first time. Ugh, so so awesome.
On the subject of Luke's death, real quick: I really loved him at first, but that awful hair really soured me on him, sorry. Television is a VISUAL medium. The CW should've never allowed that hairstyle to happen. Doesn't the network have Standards & Practices? Unless, maybe, the whole point was to make us like Luke less so that we'd be less devastated by his death? Nobody knows for sure. But I'm going to not rant about the fact that the gay guy got killed off. Instead I'm going to cross my fingers that maaaaybe Kai can embrace that particular aspect of Luke. Wouldn't that be a truly landmark story arc? I mean, it's usually a mistake to ever get our hopes up about reasonable representation on this show, and I'll miss Luke despite how disappointing his character became. However, the possibilities his death presents to Kai's character are extremely thrilling. Put a checkmark in the victory column.
Okay enough, let's talk about "The Day I Tried to Live"!
It had been a while since we'd checked in on Bonnie, so how was she doing all by herself in that witch prison dimension? Not great!
Also it was her birthday, so that was an extra bummer. But at least she could listen to Ice Cube without Damon or Kai wanting to put on Spin Doctors, so it wasn't all bad.
Meanwhile her friends had decided to celebrate her birthday without her in the only ways they knew how.
That's right, Elena and Caroline had decided to throw Bonnie a party that Bonnie couldn't actually attend. Question: Had they ever actually thrown Bonnie a party when Bonnie was still in their lives? I have a feeling the answer is no. But anyway, Jeremy was not having it.
We learned that Jeremy had decided to NOT apply to art school, because why go to art school when you can do all your sculpting on the WEIGHT BENCH? Haha get it? Anyjunk, Jeremy's life was not going great and everybody knew it.
Meanwhile Caroline was mad at a teddy bear.
This was the one that Bonnie had sent back to the future from the past and it made Caroline feel hella guilty because as a child she had stolen the bear and buried it in the woods like a true psychopath and I guess this was a terrible reminder of this fact. So she decided to go outside and dig it up and she took her favorite drunken Italian with her.
This was absolutely disgusting:
Ooh, Kai was back! He now had powers (Luke's powers TBH) but the trade-off was that he now had emotions as well.
In this case he was looking to apologize to Jo for ruining their family, but Elena used quick thinking and decided to take advantage of Kai's newfound sense of human decency and asked him to help contact Bonnie in 1994. (But for real, Kai's description of what it felt like to cry for the first time was a series highlight for sure. So good.) So yeah, a witch with designs on murdering his entire coven was now being surprisingly helpful!
But Liv was not impressed by Kai's change in nature; she assumed he'd still want to murder her family, and she had a proactive solution.
Tyler TRIED to stop her but come on, Ty, just take a nap for a sec.
No idea what this was about:
I DID love that Enzo threatened to murder Melinda Clarke if Matt didn't help him. Could this mean that Melinda Clarke might return to the show? OH PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE. Anyway, Enzo still wanted to, uh, stalk Sarah Salvatore, so the next thing we knew, Matt was flirting with her by a garbage can and then later pretending to be a pile of sad, cold mashed potatoes sitting on a bus bench.
Who could resist his charms? Not Sarah Salvatore, who, for the record, seems pretty chill. I guess Enzo wants to turn her into a vampire for some reason? I don't know. I hope this plotline goes somewhere interesting, because right now it's instaboring.
Next: Page 2
(Continued from Page 1)
So then Kai whisked the gang back to 1994 for a bit.
That's when Damon realized that Bonnie was fixing to fulfill the suicide pact they'd made when he was still there. Oh, Bonnie! The thing that confused me about this part was that nobody could touch anything, but Damon was still somehow able to scribble a note for Bonnie in her atlas? Guys, just being real, my viewing comprehension is not exactly A+, so maybe I missed something. But they were basically ghosts and Bonnie wanted to die. That's the main thing you should know.
Stefan and Caroline were out in the woods and he was trying to help her work through her sad feelings about her dying mom.
These two.
Meanwhile Kai's teleportation activities were interrupted when Liv showed up and stabbed him a ton!
She was real mad, she even threw Jeremy across the room.
And the whole showdown was surprisingly brutal!
See, Jeremy was ticked at Liv because he needed to go back and stop Bonnie from committing suicide. But needless to say, witches will mess up a living room.
Caroline did eventually find that bear, which for 11 years had been festering under the forest floor. Despite instantly falling apart in her hands, it was in pretty good shape. In less good shape were OUR HEARTS when Stefan and Caroline started gazing into each others' eyes.
As much as you and I were shouting "KISS EACH OTHER" at our TVs, the fact that they instead went for an embrace was actually, if anything, MORE emotional than a simple romantic situation would be. I always say this, but I mean it: Friendships like this are so much richer and more affecting than storybook love. I mean, yeah, I think they are definitely falling in love also, but the fact that it is founded on this kind of friendship makes it that much more compelling. Years ago, if someone had said, "Caroline and Stefan are gonna be a thing," I probably would've groaned at how contrived that would be. But credit where credit's due, this show has paved the way for their relationship so organically that it has actually made me DEMAND that they end up together. You know? That kind of patience was both necessary and inspired. Good job, everybody.
Next: Page 3
(Continued from Page 2)
Then Damon threw a bottle of whiskey in the fireplace and blew a witch across the living room.
Meanwhile Bonnie had decided to commit suicide, and touchingly, she intended to do it using Damon's car.
I truly detest suicide as a plot device. I've ranted about this before (that Katherine suicide attempt made me madder than almost anything else that's happened on this show), so I'll keep it quick: Suicide might be narratively compelling (I guess?), but it kind of ruins a character's integrity. It's one thing to tell us that Bonnie hadn't yet figured out how to channel magic in this world (and Damon somehow DID know this), but to have her legit give up on escaping entirely? I don't buy it. This girl is crafty. You're telling me she'd lost hope that her friends would save her, yet she left a suicide video for them? Again, I understand that every episode has to have huge stakes, but this felt like a betrayal of her character. And it's like the writers even knew that, which was why, on the brink of death, and in offering Jeremy life advice, she remembered her grandmother's words to never give up. Whoops!
And I guess it was supposed to be moving that Jeremy was trying so hard to save her that he willed himself to be able to physically touch the garage door button and save her life. God forbid Bonnie saved herself.
But you know what? Whatever. It was indeed a moving sequence. I just think TVD should cool it with the suicide. If there's one thing these characters should know after six seasons of madness, it's that there are no rules and nothing is final. That's even true for real life. Whenever you lose hope, that just means there's so much opportunity for things to improve, and they WILL improve if you just hold on a little longer. Anyway, yeah. I get it. But Bonnie deserved better than this.
Hey look, the Salvatore living room just cannot stop getting trashed by witches!
Also, Elena talked Jeremy into going to art school. Ugh, Elena is such a supervillain sometimes! Don't tell Jeremy to leave! We need him!
And guess who was not happy about Liv's attempted murder spree?
Tyler can only take so much. Which, good for you, Tyler. I still like Liv and sympathize with her, but enough is enough.
Oh, there was some discussion in this episode about whether Elena would have fallen for Damon if she'd never become a vampire, and she definitively answered this question.
There you have it, 'shippers.
Meanwhile after Bonnie picked herself up off the garage floor and changed outfits, she found the note that Damon had scrawled for her.
It was directions to Silas's tombstone, which contained magic! Again, it's very annoying that Bonnie didn't think of this herself. She spent an entire season learning how to channel magic. If I were a witch, figuring out sources of magic would be the No. 1 thing I would think about. But whatever. Bonnie now had a mission in life.
Get that magic, lady! Get it!
As much as I complained about the suicide thing, overall I truly enjoyed this episode. Thrilling and sad and surprising, it continued TVD's undeniable Season 6 winning streak. Again, it's no coincidence that Kai was heavily involved: His character is so good and just keeps getting better. I can't wait to learn more about how Luke affects his character if you know what I mean. Just please nobody let him grow his hair out.
OK BYE
QUESTIONS:
... Damon missed his best friend Bon-Bon so much, huh?
... Do you like Luke better as Luke or as half of Kai's personality?
... Would you avenge YOUR twin's death? Why or why not?
... Stefan and Caroline: Yes or very yes?
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P.S. I wanted to sincerely thank you for your kind words in last week's comment section. You may never know how much your thoughtfulness helped me. I wrote a thing about it here, and it mostly had to do with TVD fans and the warmth and comfort they've shown me over the years and especially this past week. I could not be more grateful. Thank you again.
