The attempt to transfer Stefan’s scar to Damon doesn’t go as smoothly as possible when multiple parties interfere to serve their own agenda. Here is a recap of the Vampire Diaries episode “Days of Future Past.”
Recap:
The Dallas news station. Today (which is now three years in the future). Stefan chucks a drugged up Damon into Rayna and runs out of there. Damon launches an attack on Rayna, but she shoots him with more werewolf venom. While performing field surgery on her wound, Rayna leads Damon to the realization that she’s only human. She’ll die right around the time Elena wakes up, and if Damon takes Stefan’s scar, he’ll die with her having never reunited with his beloved.
Three years ago, a freshly marked Stefan revels in the newfound feeling of mortality; it’s a nice reminder of what it means to be human. Valerie suggests they hop around the world in search of answers from Rayna’s ancestors. Although Stefan and Valerie spend a year trying and failing to find a Cruz with answers, they do succeed in finding an astonishing variety of tropical alcohols in the Philippines. Don’t lose hope just yet. The bartender has an idea.
Bargaining with Nora at the present day Armory, Alex wants Enzo dead, and in return, she’ll release the captive Mary Louise, who’s been poisoned with pills of Rayna’s blood. Chatting with Enzo, Matt confesses to releasing Rayna because he disapproves of what Enzo’s willing to do for answers. Nora attacks, giving Matt a chance to steal the car. Rayna calls Stefan to get her sword back and reveals that the mark creates a mystical connection to her victims. She can see what he’s seen and feel what he’s felt, and he’s grown on her a bit. Stefan throws the sword into a flower delivery car and peels off the opposite direction. Rayna retrieves her sword.
Stefan meets with Alex until Nora uses a cloaking spell to sneak up, steal Alex, and take her to Enzo. Alex questions why Enzo stole a bunch of Rayna’s blood pills. If he’s not poisoning a witch, perhaps he’s trying to avoid Bonnie’s locator spell.
With Damon super woozy on werewolf toxin, Valerie arrives to extract it. He’s back to normal, which means he kidnaps her. On the road, Damon thinks Valerie has known about the transfer spell all along since she’s the one who figured out what happened to Alaric and Jo’s babies. She was just trying to protect Stefan by keeping Damon asleep and out of his life. Going a little crazy from the Phoenix Stone putting voices in her head, Rayna stakes and taunts Stefan. Damon agrees to receive the scar, but it’s too late; Stefan’s in the Phoenix Stone again.
Matt pays Penny’s grave a visit, informing her he’s made good on his promise. Stefan has paid for what he did. Unfortunately, Alex doesn’t actually have an antidote to heal Mary Louise. The Lovebirds reunite, but Mary Lou has less than a week to live. They set out to find a juicy meal in the suburbs when Rayna interrupts by throwing her sword into their car. It nicks Nora, so the Lovebirds decide the only solution is to destroy the sword. They perform a spell, sending themselves and the car up in flames in the process.
Comments:
– As someone who’s no stranger to watching television shows with stories in more than one timeline and who managed to make it through six seasons of Lost without being, well, totally lost, this episode of the Vampire Diaries should have been a cakewalk. But it wasn’t. To put it simply, “Days of Future Past” was a mess when it didn’t need to be.
– By jumping forward in time, we were supposed to be catching up to the flash forwards and receive answers to a few of the lingering questions that these flash forwards have raised throughout the season, but the time gap still remains an unnecessary problem. The decision to turn the future into the present only to include flashbacks to fill in the blanks makes it seem like the problem is going in circles. Like the flash forwards of the past, the flashbacks in “Days of Future Past” were not developed enough to provide a substantial impact to the episode, but rather just broke the present day tension for the sake of a diversion. Keeping track of what happens when during the course of one episode is not too much of a problem (although this episode jumped around more than usual), but trying to keep straight what happened when over the course of sixteen episodes is a tall order. I’m not advocating for a strictly linear timeline, I just wish there were more consistency and substance with they way they’ve chosen to unfold this season.
– Speaking of odd decisions, I’m not sure it was the best move to return from hiatus with an episode that relied so heavily on us remembering what happened in the few episodes prior. The characters’ motivations, allies, and plans were set up more than a month ago and were so fluid throughout this episode that everything became murky, which defeated any sense of betrayal and surprise. Everything that happened felt like it amounted to nothing concrete until the very end.
– Even when Stefan was put back into the Phoenix Stone and Rayna’s sword was destroyed theoretically trapping him there for good, there wasn’t a discernable feeling of loss or dread, just another obstacle to buy time until the end of the season.
– Remember when everyone freaked out after a character became infected with werewolf venom because it was a sign of certain death? Now it’s just another Friday and no one bats an eye.
– So, Rayna has a mind connection to her victims and hears voices in her head. At least we know how she’s able to track her prey so effectively, but why hold off on digging into this idea until now?
– Ian Somerhalder did as good of a job as possible directing his second episode of the series. I personally love it when actors delve into the world of directing because they have such a strong grasp on the series, so I hope he and Paul Wesley continue to be given these opportunities on the Vampire Diaries and their future series. And next week’s episode is directed by Julie Plec. Yay!
– The mention of Enzo trying to avoid Bonnie’s locator spell would have worked a whole lot better with even a glimpse of Bonnie in this storyline or an indication about the state of Benzo’s relationship. In general, this episode felt like it should have had quite a bit more material to smooth out the jumps between characters and scenes.
– R.I.P. Nora and Mary Louise. While these characters never grew into fan favorites, I certainly enjoyed learning more about them than Valerie. I’m not going to go into a spiel here because that’s already been taken care of by the 100 fandom, but it’s worth noting that the Lovebirds mark the third and fourth lesbian deaths on the CW in the past two months.
– Also, R.I.P. Penny. I wish I had something to say about you…
– Damon: #YoureWelcome. Are hashtags still a thing? I don’t know. It’s been three years.
– How meta…
Alex: I believe Enzo released Rayna Cruz. Why? I have no idea. Why does Enzo do anything lately?
