Bonnie’s birthday celebration goes awry when Elena recruits Kai to help send Bonnie a message, much to Liv’s chagrin. Bonnie celebrates with plans of suicide, and Caroline searches for the original Mrs. Cuddles. Meanwhile, Enzo forces Matt to get to know Sarah Salvatore. Here is a recap of the Vampire Diaries episode “The Day I Tried To Live.”
Recap:
Go Bonnie. It’s your birthday. Elena interrupts Jeremy’s weightlifting with plans to decorate for their own celebration of Bonnie and asks Jeremy about his art school application. He’s not doing well enough in high school, which I forgot he went to. Kai walks in asking for Elena and Damon’s help to give Jo a letter. It contains his apology. Come again? Kai absorbed Luke’s empathy in the merge and wants Jo to know he’s sorry about everything. Elena hatches a plan to have Kai help them save Bonnie. He can’t repair the ascendant entirely, but he can do enough to send her a message about where to find magic to get herself home. Qetsiyah’s blood on Silas’ tombstone in Nova Scotia should do the trick.
Because he thinks Kai will kill the coven, Tyler wants to run away with Liv. She wants to fight. A spell to see through Luke’s eyes (a handy cheat for hide-and-seek) shows Liv that Kai is at the Salvatore Mansion. She renders Tyler unconscious before leaving. Kai sends himself, Elena, Damon, and Jeremy into the prison world, but Bonnie cannot see or feel them. Bonnie opens the bourbon she and Damon agreed to drink before they killed themselves if they couldn’t handle this place. Kai’s lack of strength pulls them out. Jeremy goes back in alone, but Liv stabs Kai before Jeremy can lay out the map to Nova Scotia. Kai throws a fork into Liv’s neck. She retaliates with a fork in him, then Jeremy sends a knife into her. Damon and Elena sip the bourbon, and she wonders whether human Elena would have chosen Damon. He says, “No.” Trapped in the room by a spell, Damon breaks the wall and drops the bourbon into the fire, knocking Liv down and breaking the spell.
Having made nice progress through the bottle, Bonnie traps herself in the garage with the car on. Jeremy, back in the prison world, finds Bonnie recording a message. The loneliness is killing her, and she hopes he’s living with no regrets. Her own words inspire her to do the same, but she’s too weak to save herself. With much effort, Jeremy opens the garage door, saving Bonnie.
Seeing the 1994 Mrs. Cuddles, Caroline’s determined to find the original, which she buried in the forest years ago. Stefan accompanies her, but instead of digging, he drinks and taunts her until she releases her anger on him with punches and a whack over the head with a shovel. After heart-to-heart chat, Stefan sees the bear’s ear. Caroline saves Mrs. Cuddles, although it needs repair work.
Wanting Matt to do his dirty work, Enzo drives him to see Sarah Salvatore and threatens his mom if he doesn’t cooperate. After watching her miss the trash twice, Matt introduces himself to Sarah. She’s not interested and walks away. Unpleased, Enzo takes Matt’s jacket, wallet, and phone and leaves. Matt meets Sarah again while sitting on a school bus bench. She offers to buy him a warm beverage and a ticket for the real bus. Reunited, Enzo explains to Matt that he wants to corrupt Sarah until she begs him to turn her.
Elena urges Jeremy to move on and go to art school, then gives a rousing speech to Damon about why she chooses him. Tyler never wants to see Liv again after what she did, especially not leaving a pillow for his unconscious head to lie on. Back inside, Bonnie sees the map on the floor and gets the clue. She’s off to Nova Scotia.
Comments:
– Though not without its flaws, “The Day I Tried To Live” great episode of The Vampire Diaries. It carried an emotional punch with all of the characters’ diverse solutions to celebrating Bonnie’s birthday and progressed the path to her escape ever so slightly.
– But the episode was at fault for yet again building a story around the idea of a party.
– Kai with a conscience is something I never thought we would see, and yet it worked out perfectly. It was believable and amusing to see him struggling to put aside his murderous tendencies, and nerve-racking to wonder if he truly could.
– Kai should never address Liv as “Livvy Poo” again.
– Although Caroline and Stefan’s forest excavation was such a self-contained story that it was not necessary to the greater seasonal plot, it was still a heartfelt and heartwarming story about friendship, both between Caroline and Bonnie and between Caroline and Stefan.
– Never have I ever thrown bourbon onto a fire, but that explosion looked rather overdramatic.
– A silverware fight was a new sight. Creative and enjoyable. It gives new meaning to “put a fork in it.”
– Enzo has lost my interest, effective immediately. He started out last season as a fun, vibrant character, but now his motivations are weak and his plans have lost my interest. As Matt so wisely put it: “What was the point of this?” I was asking myself the same question for the first fifty minutes. Maybe it’s a slow burn that will erupt into something cool, but his obsession with Sarah so far carries little value in the grand scheme of the series. In addition, the story in this episode was both thematically different and separated location-wise from everything else that was going on, so it felt dropped in to fill time.
– The possibility of using Qetsiyah’s magic was a brilliant idea I never saw coming.
– So this begins the process of writing Jeremy off the series. It sounds as if he will be leaving town on his own accord with all his limbs attached and his heart still firmly in its place … but maybe still broken over Bonnie. If they do not get a proper goodbye, at least they inadvertently inspired each other to live life to the fullest.
– Why could Jeremy not have written Bonnie a note and left it in the prison world the second time he went over? Seems quicker and easier than having to flip through pages on a map book.
– “When I absorbed Luke’s magic I must have gotten some of his qualities or something. Like empathy. So, I Googled how to process emotional pain, and they said if you write everything down in a letter and burn it, you’ll be healed, so I started writing and this water literally started pooling in my eyes. Does that ever happen to you? Like water just oozing out of my eyeballs like I’m some alien creature excreting fluids.” – Kai
– Love their friendship.
Stefan: You’ve been going through a lot lately. Do you think that maybe you’re just a little confused about what you’re actually upset about?
Caroline: Yes. Probably. But my mom’s dying, and my best friend is stuck in an alternate universe, and her bear is in a hole in the woods. There’s only one of those things that I can do anything about.
– I still miss Katherine. The other two, not so much.
Elena: So, we know that Jo stored her magic in a hunting knife. Bonnie sent hers over with Mrs. Cuddles. What receptacle of magic am I not thinking of?
Damon: I’m going to give you a hint: scorned lover.
Elena: Katherine?
Damon: Older.
Elena: Silas?
Damon: Hotter.
Elena: I don’t know. Silas was definitely hot.
Damon: Eww.
Elena: Qetsiyah. Her blood is on Silas’ headstone. It’s filled with magic.
