SGRoA: Vampire Diaries, S2 E21: The Sun Also Rises

Well, it’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it? Oops. But I got the job!!!!! So let’s get started!

Thank god for “Last Time On” segments, because I needed the refresher. So. The ritual is tonight; Jenna’s the vampire sacrifice and Jules is the werewolf sacrifice. Damon couldn’t be used as the vampire sacrifice because he’s been bitten by Tyler, who is fully wolfified and trying to attack Caroline and Matt, hiding down in the Lockwood dungeon thingie.

Which is where we open. The door is about to give and Matt shoots Tyler. Twice! But Caro and Matt are able to scoot around him and escape.

Katharine is trying to justify giving Jenna up to Klaus. Damon doesn’t give a shit. She points out he’s dying: no final farewell? Fuck off, Katharine. Damon points out she’s the only one who ever seems to “win”. He hopes she’ll enjoy her lonely eternity.

Jenna tells Elena what happened to her, that she drank Klaus’s blood. Klaus’s other witch - Greta - shows up to trap Elena in a circle of fire and feed Jenna her blood. Then she traps Jenna in a ring of fire, and Elena just keeps impotently telling her it’s going to be okay.

We are moving at a breakneck pace, and rightfully so - this is the penultimate episode of the season? or near it, so one hopes the pacing is picking up toward the climax of the story. We got all that before the opening sting, even!

Jeremy and Bonnie are still going through grimoires. Jer laments that they’ll never find anything, there’s too many. Bonn says they’ll keep looking till the last minute.

Stefan, Elijah, and Ric are on their way to fetch Bonnie when Damon calls and brings them up to speed on Jenna being the vampire sacrifice.

Greta brings Jules to the fire circles, and Klaus is close behind.

Matt and Caroline end up at the Lockwood house and Matt confesses everything: he was on vervain, he was spying on Caro for her mom. And no, he’s not happy about the vampirism. So no, they’re not really back together.

Uncle John Gilbert shows up at Damon’s because Elena isn’t returning his calls. Damon lets him know that Klaus has her, and John yells at him about not keeping Elena safe, and Damon lets slip that he fed her his blood. And then tells John not to worry - it gets worse!

Klaus hands over the moonstone and Greta starts the spell. Jules attacks Klaus and he literally rips her heart out.

Cut to our first commercial on that note. Jesus. Thank god it was on network television in the aughts; I shudder to think how bloody and disgusting streaming would have made that scene.

Back from commercial, and Jer and Bonnie are still at those grimoires. They might have found something in a subsection of spells someone - Emily? - did for OG John Gilbert. But the posse shows up for them and fills them in on Jenna, and their plan to go to the ceremony and offer Stefan in place of Jenna.

Better hurry, y’all, that werewolf heart is already pulped for the spell. Jenna’s talking about becoming a guardian and failing Elena - but Elena says she failed Jenna, not the other way around. (Because you refused to tell her anything? Yes, Elena, I agree, but I’m filling in my own reason, because Elena doesn’t explain further. Of course.)

Caroline asks Matt if her mom wants to kill her, in a heartbreaking fucking moment.

He says “she doesn’t know what to do” with Caro. There’s a rustling on the porch: Tyler, back to human, naked and wounded.

Bonnie’s done a locator spell: the ritual is happening at Steven’s Quarry. Stefan’s going first; Bonnie has to be hidden until the last second. Elijah praises(?) Stefan’s honor, and assures him he won’t fail. Klaus has apparently murdered everyone else in their family, so Elijah is heavily invested in this as revenge. He won’t fail.

Uncle John brought the Gilbert journals to Bonnie and Jer, to - I dunno, cross-reference or something? It’s not like the ritual is happening RIGHT FUCKING NOW, or anything, y’all have time, I guess.

I know, we haven’t seen them in a while, but TIME, HOW DOES THAT WORK

Ric tells Damon - who has ridden along with John - that Stefan is offering himself instead of Jenna. Damon’s pissed. He’s the only one allowed to kill Stefan!

Elena pleads for Jenna’s life, and Stefan shows up right on time. Klaus agrees to talk to him.

John remembers the spell they want to use on Elena. Emily was able to bind a mother’s life force to her dying child. The kid croaked, but the life force re-animated her. John says that if Elena’s soul remains intact, she won’t rise as a vampire.

Her soul.

HER SOUL.

Oh what the entire fuck. God’s had nothing to do with it! Y’all even came up with vervain to get around crucifixes! Are you telling me that now, forty-plus episodes in, we’re going to start believing in SOULS?! Motherfucking souls.

John refuses to let Elena become the thing he’s spent his life fighting against, and Damon can call it whatever he wants, because Damon rightly points out that’s fucking nuts, man!

Klaus comes out as a misogynist: he likes the idea of three women sacrificed, three goddesses dying on “Nature’s altar”.

Jenna can hear him and Stefan talking, and she tells Elena that Stefan is offering himself for her. Elena stares concernedly as the music swells and we… go to commercial.

Caroline puts Tyler to bed. Apparently he was not wounded badly; she tells Matt that he’ll just need some rest. Matt says he’s tried to get past this whole vampire thing, but he doesn’t think he can. This is her life now - vampirism and werewolves and witches and prophecies and shit. And Matt’s is an absent mother, paying bills and going to school and working. He can’t juggle all of her shit, too. Poor Matt.

Bonnie performs the spell to channel John’s life force through Elena. Then she tells Jeremy to stay with him, but no, Jeremy insists on coming - so Bonnie knocks him out and leaves with Damon and Elijah. She also locks Ric in the house, so that’s the humans sorted (until they’re necessary for the plot, of course).

Klaus seems to accept Stefan’s substitution, and makes quick work of staking him - but not killing him. No, he has other plans for Stefan, so Jenna dies in a ridiculously extended scene so Elena can cry. She just gets staked, though, no heart-ripping needed, apparently.

The spell continues. Stefan watches, awake again but too injured to do much of anything. Klaus drinks Elena down. He starts to change… he is triumphant…

And Bonnie walks onscreen, chanting in Latin, being a fuckin’ badass.

Damon takes Elena’s body away; Stefan says he’s staying until Klaus is dead.

Elijah approaches a supine Klaus, writhing on the ground, and helps himself to Klaus’s heart, via his ribcage. Klaus pleads for his life - he’ll tell Elijah where his family are buried - and Elijah fuckin FLIES AWAY WITH KLAUS.

I have no idea what’s going to happen now, but I’ll be back for it, so good job, VD! I’m hooked!

Turns out John’s going to die, because obviously - he gave his life force for Elena. He hands over a letter and his ring to Jeremy to give to Elena, but I have doubts. He’s too slimy to die.

Damon returns with Elena. Ric asks about Jenna. John walks out of the house to… go die alone, I guess? Because it looks cool? He gives a last look back as Elena gasps for air, sitting up, rosy and feeling fine, and then he collapses in the yard.

Tyler wakes up to Caroline. He says he shouldn’t have come back; she says he should never have left. And also that Matt broke up with her, so she needs a friend.

Everyone’s getting ready for Jenna’s (and John’s, maybe?) funeral, so, y’know:

… because there’s literally no indication of any time passing, not even an ad break. Elena and Jeremy only have each other now, and they embrace before Elena reads the letter from John. His voiceover accompanies the graveside service, his regrets, his failures in her life. He encourages her to have a life, to have a child, for whom his ring is ultimately intended.

Damon finally reveals the werewolf bite to Stefan, after Stefan says he won’t let Elena lose anyone else. They both know there’s no cure, but this is Damon, so there’ll be a cure. We’re supposed to be very concerned, though, as if death will actually have any effect on a main character. Psh. I know how American narrative conventions work in the 21st century. Nobody ever fucking dies, it’s fine, I won’t go on the rant again.

And that’s the end of the episode. Seriously. Damon literally walking into the sunset as if we need to worry.

I might be back next week just because I want to see what craziness they can come up with for the finale of this season.