The Vampire Diaries "Fade Into You" Review: Gemini and the Holograms (PHOTO RECAP)

The Vampire Diaries S06E08: "Fade Into You"

All families have their traditions. Yours might involve a Labor Day tailgate party or an annual trip to a Christmas tree farm. Mine involves a catamaran and twelve cases of Fireball. In general these family traditions are the kinds of things that bond us together, that give us an intimate, supportive foundation to better help us face a crazy and chaotic world. But sometimes family traditions can be destructive, especially when that tradition calls for the murder of one or more of its members. Guys, I try to be tolerant of other peoples' beliefs, but I'm just going to say it: The Gemini Coven has the worst belief system. I just straight-up do not care for its traditions and I would go so far as to say that they are harmful as h*ck. But on the flip side, everything that we learned this week about that family's many beliefs and traditions made for a VERY entertaining episode. Because holy moly, what a bunch of crazy weirdos!

Broken record time, but "Fade Into You" was VERY, VERY GOOD. Rife with revelation and beautifully written to the extent that during a number of scenes I marveled at how difficult it must be to write something as complicated as an episode of TVD. Alternating between exposition and emotion in a way that feels graceful and organic is not easy, and episodes like this justify how down we had maybe been about the show's previous two seasons. But eight episodes into Season 6 it's clear this show is at its peak powers again. What a relief! And what an episode. Let's talk about it!

We began with a very Kevin Williams-y flashback: The day Kai killed half of his family. You know it's a scary scene when it begins with a girl (young Jo) pulling a giant knife out of her tum-tum and tip-toeing around the house to find her still-unmurdered siblings. Which, you guessed it, happened to be two blonde moppets of similar age!

And yeah, when you are hiding under the bed trying to keep two small children quiet, the last thing you want to see are a pair of blood-stained All-Stars.

But right before Kai could lift the bed and discover them, we cut to the alternate 1994 where Kai was opening a car trunk!

Apparently he'd drugged and kidnapped Bonnie and brought her to Portland, Oregon, which resembles rural Georgia, in case you were wondering.

If we're being honest, Bonnie was not thrilled. Not one bit. Even her wig was like, "NOPE."

Meanwhile, did the common room of YOUR freshman dorm ever look like this?

Caroline was setting up for Friendsgiving dinner and also pep-talking Elena in how to reveal to Liam that Elena was secretly a blood-eating ghoul.

But I'm honestly not sure how cool this Friendsgiving was going to be considering that Matt and Jeremy weren't there (it takes several days to "clean up" after Tripp's death) and neither were the other three main hunks. But on the upside, they were actually being pro-active about finding Bonnie! Which meant they were in Portland looking for the Ascendant at the Gemini Coven headquarters. So, you know, pretty good excuse. And I loved how Elena seemed surprised to learn that Bonnie was alive, but probably just because Bonnie simply hadn't crossed her mind in months.

But it was really cute when Caroline overheard the convo and looked completely thrilled about the news.

We're at a point now where whenever Elena smiles she might as well be playing a different doppelganger. Like, who WAS this person? I want to know her.

Anyway, apparently a few months earlier Stefan had tried to find the Gemini Coven but only found an empty field. Same thing here:

(Loving that Portland countryside).

But fortunately Damon had brought Bonnie's bear, which allowed him to not only make fun of his brother...

But also use its magic-infused cotton to gain entry to a holographic house!

Hahaha sometimes I kind of can't believe this show does stuff like this with a straight face but I am NOT complaining. What a weird series of events! A witch puts her magic in a teddy bear, sends it twenty years in the future where a vampire takes it to Portland and drop-kicks it in the direction of an invisible house, thus revealing said house. ANY QUESTIONS?

Speaking of questions, how did Caroline convince Jo, a working doctor, to bring a COOKED TURKEY to their dinner? That seems like something the host should worry about, I don't know. Hit up Boston Market or something. But anyway, Jo showed up with a turkey and immediately had a run-in with Liv.

Liv was in a hilariously awful mood, but she sort of had her reasons. (Also I love Liv so much and this episode made me REEEALLY love Liv.) Anyway, no, Liv had no idea who Jo was and did not recognize her in the slightest so it's best to just move on and not think about this info too much.

Also Liam showed up with two bottles of wine (does he have a fake ID?) and apologized to Elena for having told her off in the last episode.

This was slightly sucky on Elena's part because Jo had switched medical records on her behalf, so Liam apologized for getting his facts wrong even though he HAD NOT gotten his facts wrong, and Elena sort of rubbed it in a little. But whatever, it's okay, he wears sweaters very well.

Obviously somebody still owned this invisible house, so Damon could not enter, which meant that newly rehumanized Alaric could! Meanwhile in an alternate dimension of 1994, a witch frowned at a pager.

In this scene Kai talked about Thanksgiving being his favorite holiday and he was super lonely and promised Bonnie that if they just ate their Thanksgiving dinner (in what was technically May, so it was probably some leftover chow-mein or whatever) he'd let her go free and he'd even give her the car. Bonnie agreed!

Meanwhile, a lot of you saw this coming. Luke and Liv showed up for Friendsgiving and Luke started watching a video of himself and Liv as kids on his phone, and they looked VERY familiar to anybody who saw the opening scene of this episode.

And yep! Jo overheard the video and recognized her own voice!

Which mean that yep! They were all siblings! And in case you needed more confirmation that they were ALSO all related to a certain imprisoned psycho...

I mean it's no wonder that Luke and Liv didn't recognize Jo, she looked like a completely different person back then! Also it's really hard for me to hate Kai when he's wearing such an adorable sweater. This episode was A+ for sweaters in general.

But then a handsome older gentlemen walked up to talk to Damon and it was Ted (as in "I f*cked Ted") from Breaking Bad!

But whoops! He immediately zapped Damon and the house back into invisibility.

This was probably because the man was actually the father of Kai, Jo, Luke, and Liv. Also he was a straight-up JERK.

Meanwhile despite all the revelations about the coven (which, in a funny moment, resulted in Liam looking very confused and Caroline having to compel him to leave the room real quick), Caroline really just wanted to have a special dinner to celebrate the fact that a Pier One had exploded all over the table.

It was at this point that we learned tons of stuff about the Gemini Coven. First off, the coven is based around twins, so when a new leader is needed, the oldest set of twins "merges" which results in one doubly powerful witch and one dead witch. Because Jo and Kai were twins, they were going to be the leaders, but the coven realized Kai was a psycho so his parents decided to have SIX MORE kids in the hopes of making more twins. Then after it became clear that Luke and Liv were the new chosen ones, Kai got mad and murdered most of his family. Obviously Jo saved the younger twins' lives on that fateful night by turning them invisible (Gemini witches <3 invisibility so much), but it's not totally clear why Luke and Liv spent the next 16 years estranged from Jo to the point they didn't even recognize her anymore. Wasn't Kai safely out of the picture? This was probably one of those plot points that's best not examined too hard. Anyway, now the coven had fallen on hard times and needed a leader and guess what set of twins just so happened to be coming of age soon? That meant that Luke and Liv were probably going to have to "merge" and one would die, and I think it's obvious that Liv will win that battle. I mean, the power of her hair alone!

Suffice to say Liv is not super stoked about her family's tradition. But in a graceful bit of plotting, there just so happens to be a hunk ready and willing to help her out during these tough times.

And yeah, Tyler kind of owes her one, sure. But even though their flirtation has been a very minor part of this season, it's one of those bonds that I think really strengthens the show overall. This is a great matchup of two strong-willed people and I'm loving the mutual vulnerability. It makes me slightly bummed that Luke is at best an ornamental character but overall I think these twins are some of the best new characters TVD has ever added. I'm fully on board with their problems, especially now that they're Kai-related. Clearly TVD learned some really good lessons about introducing an entire family of characters by making sure they're as charismatic as they are conflicted. Kai alone has definite shades of Klaus (in that he's starting off a bad guy but I could see myself actually rooting for him later under the right circumstances). Anyway, if it's not totally clear by now, the Gemini Coven concept is very, very excellent and I'm extremely excited about where it's heading.

This was a cute walk down memory lane:

Elena was trying to decide whether or not she should come out to Liam, so she asked Stefan about the time back in the day when they were still in full Twilight mode and how he had told her he was a vampire for the first time. (Which, if we're being honest, was like three episodes too late). And he responded that he HAD to tell her, because he loved her, duh. Which was followed by Elena giving Liam the side-eye like, "uhh." I mean, he looks good in chinos but that's not the same thing as love.

Meanwhile Damon admitted to Kai's dad that he'd been chilling with Kai and that Kai was now with a Bennett witch, so Kai's dad realized that it was only a matter of time before Kai escaped and then tried to go merge with Jo. So in order to protect Jo, he decided to, you guessed it, MURDER JO.

Yeah, I'm not totally clear about this plan. But also, I'm not totally clear on why Jo would leave her magic inside a dagger in a tree stump for 16 years, but that's between Jo and the tree stump. Luckily Alaric found the dagger and also Jo invited Stefan into her home via speakerphone, so that was all Stefan needed to get inside and save Damon from being brain-zapped by Jo's dad.

But then whoops! Jo's dad disappeared. As Gemini witches do. Meanwhile Jo was not looking so hot:

Fortunately Elena put her best life-saving medical skills to the test!

UNfortunately this raised a lot of questions on Liam's part. So Elena felt like it was time to finally come clean.

But halfway through her explanation she was over it and decided to just compel him to forget everything. Fair enough! Probably not a match anyway.

Then we got a glimpse into how Kai had been tricked into going to prison. It all started with the Gemini Coven gathering to witness his "merging" ceremony with Jo.

But it didn't work! It was all a sham to get him banished to another dimension with tons of eclipses and occasional Collective Soul tracks. Ya burnt, Kai.

But guess who else found Jo's magic knife? Not the one Alaric found, that was the real one, I'm talking about the fake alternate dimension magic knife. It was Kai. Kai found it.

And Bonnie got stabbed! That's because Kai had brought her there because he needed the magic that was in the knife PLUS a few drops of Bonnie's blood in order to use the Ascendant. Clever girl. Poor Bonnie though. Although, maybe don't hang around untrustworthy warlocks when they're levitating knives at you. Live and learn.

This was poignant: After learning that Jo had the Ascendant in her possession the whole time (rendering their Portland trip kinda useless) Alaric declined to get her involved anymore in their scheme for some reason.

So Damon compelled him to find the Ascendant for them!

And because Alaric is human but for whatever reason not drinking Vervain (rookie mistake, Ric), he will probably do it now. But I liked how disgusted Stefan looked. Compelling your friends is not cool. But maybe that's because Alaric is just Damon's drinking buddy while Bonnie is his ACTUAL best friend now. (Sorry weirdos who refuse to believe this fact, but I've done the math. Damon and Bonnie have spent more quality time together than any other pair of characters on this show. They are best friends and Damon is now prioritizing her rescue over his friendship with Alaric. Deal w/it.)

This was great: Tyler took Liv home to his mansion in Mystic Falls in order to protect her from anything magic-related.

YEP. I am here for this.

I also enjoyed this part:

It was nice that Stefan actually admitted that he'd pushed Caroline away "the most" and I was happy for her that she got some peace of mind about it. But I'm mostly impressed that this show has now set up two very different outcomes: Either this was it, the closure on their failed-to-launch romance, OR it was the beginning of Stefan realizing what he might be missing out on. Either way works for me! Caroline needed to walk away because, like she said, she deserves better than confused indifference. But Stefan knows he messed up (and was explicitly reminded of this fact by both Damon and Alaric, who seemed baffled at his ambivalence about her) and that could be an interesting journey from here on out. I don't know. I guess I just dig the nuanced possibilities. Sue me. (Process servers can't find me.)

And another nicely written scene... Damon and Elena talking about Bonnie.

Obviously Damon's newfound affection for Bonnie was somehow spun into his feelings for Elena. (Elena was all they ever talked about; she was the reason Bonnie selflessly sent Damon back to modern times.) But whatever, it was still nice to see some real acknowledgment on Damon's part about what he'd left behind. A contemplative Damon is a sympathetic Damon, and it makes me even more excited about a possible team-based Bonnie rescue. This scene could have devolved into a full-blown Delena revival (and came perilously close when she admitted that she dumped Liam due to still holding a spark for Damon), but ended with something much better: A vow to team up and rescue their friend. Because it's time!

HAHA gotta love a good pager stinger. In this case Bonnie woke up on the lawn in Portland with a page from Kai. Also he'd taken the car.

Whoops! Now Bonnie has to road trip all by herself back to Mystic Falls! Can she do it in time to stop Kai from re-entering the world? Probably not. Will her friends be able to come and rescue her? Probably. Who knows? The Gemini Coven is a crafty family and they mean BUSINESS. But now I'm worried about Luke and Liv. We've barely seen Luke use magic, so Liv will probably win that battle, but what if Kai wants to pull his slasher routine all over again? Gosh, he's such a good villain. And now with a murderous father and Jo in the mix, the Gemini Coven is quickly becoming my favorite thing on this show since the Mikaelsons. I can't pay this season enough compliments, seriously. It's doing everything right. Please never stop, show!

Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for you, friends.

BYE

QUESTIONS

... How great is the Gemini Coven plotline all of the sudden?

... Will Luke and Liv go through with the merge?

... Is Portland very hot and humid?

... Would you recognize YOUR long lost sibling after 16 years?