SGRoA: Vampire Diaries, S3 E7: Ghost World

Can you imagine the VD crew in charge of Ghost World? That would have been a crime against Xennial weird girls, if not all of humanity, depending on how attached to the movie you are. Let’s get started!

Uh-oh, Mason’s put Damon into some sort of torture chair. He’s like half-impaled, and his ring is off, and he thinks Stefan’s done it? What? Stefan denies it and takes the stake out, but leaves Damon chained in the chair, so Mason - who has been standing by the window this whole time - pulls open the drapes and burns Damon.

Did Mason die, and I am just not remembering? Is he a ghost? I mean, he must be, right? Damon and Stefan both didn’t see him, but he was standing right there? Why don’t I remember him dying?

And just for the record, no, I do NOT do this at movies or to my family. I save it all for y’all, and I know you love me for it.

Today, in Founders’ News: Mystic Falls is celebrating the Night of Illumination, where they turn off all the lights in town in favor of lanterns. Something something because they were all safe again after “the war”, which, of course, was actually after the vampires were run out of town.

Anna reminds us of this as she’s standing next to Jeremy and Ric, and then to Elena as she joins them on the green? town square? to listen to Carol Lockwood and then some guy (the subtitles call him “Tobias”) talk about the lanterns.

Problem: Anna is also somehow invisible? She very visibly holds hands with Jeremy, who then glances over at Elena to see if she can tell that he’s holding hands with blank air.

Luckily our next stop is Bonnie and Caro. Bonnie apparently did not prevent Ghost!Vicki from becoming just Vicki again, she just, like, dialed back the strength of the foothold she has in this world? Oh, she “blocked the magic that was helping Vicki get a physical foothold here”. Got it. That makes so much more sense.

But it means Bonnie didn’t send Anna away, so Jeremy can still talk to her. Or hold her hand, apparently. Caroline says that she can’t be expected not to comment on that. Bonnie returns that she messed with the balance of nature by bringing Jeremy back, and now she’s paying for it. Caro says she shouldn’t be fine with it, and Bonnie says she’s not, and OMG are these two thinking this is some sort of infidelity and that the breakup of a teenage relationship is appropriate consequence for REANIMATING THE DEAD?!

And yeah, throw a little Creature in there, too, because my autistic ass doesn’t get the infidelity angle, either. I mean, it’s more obvious now with the corporeality and the hand-holding, but last episode was a big-ass WTF over here, could not get where Bonnie was coming from at. all.

But to think that you can wield magic like that, be so cavalier about reversing life and death, and then think, “clearly my breakup with my high school boyfriend would be proper punishment for trying to unravel the very way human beings experience time! it’s totes the worst thing that will ever happen to me!”

I - I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t even know how to make fun of it. I’m concerned that everyone in Mystic Falls may be ingesting absolutely INSANE amounts of lead or something, I don’t know, but these are some of the weirdly dumbest motherfuckers on the planet. Dumbly weirdest? Deird? Wumb? They’re some tragic combo of weird and stupid, is all I know.

Four minutes in, y’all. Four.

Damon comes by to complain to Bonnie that her spell was fucked, because he just got chained to a chair by Mason. Says he’s having “deja vu”. How tf do I not remember Mason getting killed by Damon? That seems like a huge plot point. I gotta stop smoking so much weed.

He tells her to fix the problem, and then peels out, Matt looking on and making some sort of meaningful eye contact with Bonnie. What it means, I can’t say, it’s eye contact, I’m out of my depth.

At some sort of sidewalk cafe, Ric and Elena ask Jeremy about Anna and “the other side”. Jer says she can’t interact with anything or anyone, and there’s nothing on her side of the border (so to speak). Ric points out that Vicki could absolutely interact, and set his car on fire. Poor Ric. Hope someone in the Salvatore family is buying him new cars and shit.

Jer says that Vicki had help from a witch, and Anna’s alone. Ric says he hopes everyone has learned their lesson about summoning the dead.

Matt swears to Bonnie that the ghost bothering Damon can’t be Vicki, because Matt hasn’t seen her since the spell. Bonnie says if it’s anyone but Vicki, something has gone terribly wrong.

Matt walks away, demanding to be left out of all this nonsense. Bonnie and Caro turn the other direction, only for Bonnie’s bag to break and her grimoire to open by itself, to a spell that will reveal “veiled matter” - ghosts.

Elena wants to contact Lexi - Stefan’s dead vampire bff? - for some reason. Ric tells her he doesn’t want to think of all the dead vampires around them as ghosts, continually watching them, waiting for… revenge? I guess?

Elena notices Jeremy looking at the empty chair next to him and asks if Anna’s with them. Anna tells him to lie, and he does, because Elena “wouldn’t like it” if Anna were there? That’s what Anna says, anyway, and clearly if you’re dead, you just know things.

Jeremy takes off and Stefan shows up to sit in his spot. Elena has his journal? He tells her they should both move on, and Ric tells him to leave, and Stefan reminds us all that he’s just keeping an eye on the bloodbag. He goes, Elena tells Ric she “can’t let it go”, even though I have zero idea what she’s been talking about this whole time, and we are on to the next baffling scene.

Bonnie and Caroline go to the crypt to do the unveiling spell.

Jeremy takes Anna into the bathroom at The Grill. God, this show loves a bathroom set. Did someone in props get a deal on, like, 4-7 toilets that couldn’t be used as toilets anymore? He asks her why she told him to lie; she says it’s because Elena and Bonnie are besties, and Elena wouldn’t like them “cheating”. He asks if she’s being helped by Vicki’s witch; she swears she’s alone, that she’s not a danger to anyone. They end up kissing, so I guess it’s actual infidelity now, if you take high school relationships on soap operas that seriously.

Bonnie starts the spell.

Ric and Elena go into the Grill. Ric goes for Jeremy, but gets waylaid by Damon, who has to tell him Mason is back in some sort of way. And isn’t happy.

Bonnie finishes the spell, and now everyone is visible: Anna to Elena, in the bathroom; Lexi to Stefan, out on the street; Mason to Damon and Ric, drinking Damon’s whisky and smashing the glass on his head.

AD BREAK!

We come back to Stefan and Lexi. Lexi has no idea how she’s visible, so she has no idea how long it’ll last, so she’ll start right at the point: Stefan’s off the rails. He needs to shape up, and what kind of a bestie would she be if she didn’t help him? So she slams his head into a car window and… knocks him out cold.

Bonnie and Caro knew the spell worked because Bonnie’s Gran is there. She scolds Bonnie - lightly - for bringing Jeremy back, and explains that a witch on her side used Bonnie to wedge open the door between the worlds, and now Bonnie has to close it.

Caro gets on the phone to Elena to tell her all this - and that the way to close it is to destroy Elena’s necklace, which is some sort of power conduit. Elena doesn’t have it; she tells Caro to call Damon about it and then lays into Jeremy and Anna about kissing in the bathroom.

On the way back out to get Ric, Elena runs into Lexi, who tells her to come with, they’re doing Ripper Detox 101. I feel like we’re mixing a lot of metaphors here, but the most egregious is referring to it like it’s a freshman psych class. Elena hesitates, but Lexi reminds her that she literally just said she wanted Lexi’s help to save Stefan. Off they go, to Heroes and Archetypes in Ancient Greek Lit: An Overview for General Education Credit.

Mason tells Damon he wants an apology. Damon asks if he doesn’t have a family to haunt instead. Mason says that’s why he’s here: to help Tyler. Damon says there is no helping Tyler, unless they can find a weapon to kill Klaus with. Mason tells him again to apologize, because he knows what weapon that is. Damon tries, and Mason declares it “good enough”. Meet him at the Lockwood ruins, come alone, bring a shovel.

That’ll go swimmingly well, I’ll guarantee.

Lexi has taken Stefan to… the dungeon under the Sheriff’s office? The cell where Caro’s dad had her? Well, one of the many damp, stone-lined holes with chains that make up Mystic Falls. She says the first step is to starve him to drive off the bloodlust. No lust, no temptation. Stefan asks Elena to “get rid of her”. Elena refuses, and then Lexi steps really close to Stefan and Stefan starts screaming. Because everything is a “power” or a “spell” or whatever in this town. Would have made a lot more sense to just leave him there. That’s kind of what “starve” implies.

Conveniently, there is an old Lockwood family legend about a weapon that can kill an Original vampire. They buried it in the crypt-dungeon-thing. Well, they built the crypt-dungeon over a cave system, because they break through a wall into a tunnel and Damon wants Mason to go first to prove it isn’t a trap.

Oh, Lexi is making Stefan think he’s experiencing years of starvation in seconds. That won’t do anything terrible to his psyche at all.

just ask this guy

Caro calls Elena: the necklace isn’t where Damon said it was, and now they can’t get ahold of Damon. No big, says Elena, because she needs Bonnie to hold off on reversing the spell so Lexi can finish with Stefan. Fine, says Caro, let’s just find the necklace and then we can argue about that.

Bonnie overhears “boyfriend dramaS” and asks what besides Stefan is a drama, so Caro just tells her Jeremy was kissing Anna. I’m sure this will not affect her abilities negatively at all. Good call, Caroline!

At the lantern ceremony, Jeremy is looking for Anna, who is found by a tough-looking guy who refers to her as “Pearl’s daughter”, so this is some long-standing vampire beef.

Meanwhile, Tobias has gone missing, and he was supposed to lead the ceremony.

he’s gonna be a little late

Ric agrees to fill in for Tobias and takes the podium.

The guy who found Anna is named Frederick, which I think I should remember? Was he let out of the crypt and then he got killed because we had way too many characters? What was that, season 1? middle of 2? Too long ago, anyway, for us to remember this guy, but he brought a whole pack of ghosts with him who all have unfinished business with the founding families.

Tobias is dead, they strung him up in a tree to make a point. I don’t know about what, exactly, but he looks like the Vampire Diaries version of what drawn and quartered might look like.

Step 2 of Overview of World History is injuring Stefan, both physically and mentally. The ripper is weak enough now that making him feel will… do… something. Elena can’t stand to watch it, so she leaves the cell under the jail (yes! figured it out!) only to walk directly into the town square and Tobias’s murder.

Caroline cannot find the necklace. Jeremy calls her to fill her in on Tobias Fell and the ghosts who did it. It is, in fact, the tomb vamps. He tells her to find the necklace, and Caroline accuses Anna of taking it. Anna denies, Caro yells at him about it and hangs up, and Anna disappears.

Damon and Mason are making it deep into the styrofoam cave. Mason says they have the same goal, so he has no problem trusting Damon, but then leads him into what seems to be a vampire-specific trap and… disappears.

If this were a smarter show, I might think someone had found the necklace.

Jeremy and Elena have a moment about Jeremy not letting go and he can’t love a ghost for the rest of his life, and then Anna’s there again. Elena says Anna is just holding Jeremy back, and Anna hands over the necklace. Elena tells Jeremy to call Bonnie, tell her he has the necklace, and tell her to send them all back.

Mason comes back to Damon after going for the shovel, which he uses to de-impale Damon from all the wooden stakes. Damon doesn’t get it. Mason tells him that the other side is awful: he’s all alone, and all he can do is watch his relatives and think about his regrets. “I don’t need revenge, Damon,” he says, “I need redemption.”

Bonnie and Caro are driving to get the necklace when they come upon Carol Lockwood’s car tipped over in the street, with ghosts about to attack. Caro tells Bonnie to go do the spell; she’s going to take care of Tyler’s mom.

Anna apologizes for taking the necklace. She was hoping to see her mother again.

Lexi needs more time, but there isn’t any. She tells Stefan and Elena some sort of story about how Stefan found the necklace in his darkest time and it represented hope. Stefan stares blankly.

Oh, no, Caro and Bonnie WERE on the way to the spell house, so Jeremy has brought the necklace to Bonn, where she starts a fire and chants with Gran to send all the ghosts back.

Carol watches Caroline fight off ghosts until they disappear.

Mason and Damon come to a point in the tunnel where Damon can go no farther - he needs an invitation. Mason says the weapon’s right there, he’ll bring it back. He tells Damon “it’s in - ” and then disappears.

Lexi tells Elena to keep going. Elena says she knows what to do now. Lexi disappears.

Anna finds Pearl. They disappear as they embrace.

Gran says she’s proud of Bonnie. And disappears.

Damon calls Ric to get the weapon.

Elena leaves Stefan locked up.

Bonnie tells Jeremy to shove his explanation up his ass and leave. He does.

And in the last two minutes, the spell fire Bonnie put out bursts back to life, and Bonnie finds within it the necklace - whole and unharmed - while Ric has found a cave full of pictograms about vampires.

One thing this show absolutely slays? Cliffhangers. See y’all next week!