The Vampire Diaries #6.21 “I’ll Wed You in the Golden Summertime” Recap

Alaric and Jo’s wedding day doesn’t go as planned, thanks to Stefan playing mind games on Damon, Lily escaping her prison cell, and Kai’s surprise return. Here is a recap of the Vampire Diaries episode “I’ll Wed You in the Golden Summertime.”

Recap:

Bonnie wakes, sensing someone lurking around her dorm. It’s Lily. Unable to use magic, Bonnie stabs her with a good, old-fashioned fire poker and darts out the door, but Kai stops Bonnie in her tracks. Uh oh. Elena wakes Bonnie up from this nightmare. T minus ten hours until the wedding, and Jo is freaking out. She lost her shoes, and her wedding coordinator has the flu. Luckily, Caroline returns just in time to save the day. Running around coordinating the wedding has the extra perk of being able to apologize to those she hurt recently. The groom and groomsmen are all ready to go. Now, time to do what? Shots shots shots.

Stefan takes Damon on a trip to convince him not to take the cure. Their first and only stop is at a house Stefan lived in during an attempt to start over. Welcome to the suburban nightmare. At first, it includes frozen diners and paperwork, then drinking to dull the resentment and unfulfilling marriage, then more misery having to live as a widower. Damon thinks Stefan is the one who won’t be able to handle him taking the cure, until Damon learns that this was all Elena’s idea. She wants Damon to really consider, or reconsider, his decision.

While Caroline and Tyler decorate the venue, Liv makes a grand entrance. She dropped out of college, and she’s still mad at Tyler. Jo gets a little woozy and passes out. She wakes up in the hospital. She and the babies are fine. Just a minor panic attack. Even though she struggled with not being able to save Jo with her vampire ways, Elena and Alaric bond over how exhilarating it is to be human again, to have a finite life with purpose.

Enzo drops by the mansion to give Lily an iPod to keep her from going crazier than she already is. Bonnie decides to check on Lily, but she attacks, so Elena has to cover up Bonnie’s wounds with make up. Hearing about her nightmares, Matt shows Bonnie a bag of weapons and formulates a plan: knock Lily out and take her to the boiler room. Little problem. When they get to the cell, she’s gone. Then, they choke on the air and pass out. Matt wakes to find Bonnie bleeding from the wrist. Supposedly getting her family back today, Lily and Enzo arrive at a shipping yard, but no one else is there.

Stefan leaves Damon behind and returns to the wedding preparations. Having avoided him all day, Caroline is finally forced to face him. She made a list of everything she’s done since she fell for him last summer and just wishes he felt something as well. Stefan explains that falling for someone is about losing control, and he’s losing control. Caroline explains that control is the only thing she has left in her life, so her feeling for him will have to wait until the mourning and self-loathing is over. Damon returns to Elena. Stefan changed his decision about taking the cure, but it changed again upon seeing an old couple in love. He’ll take it.

Papa parker asks Jo if he can walk her down the isle. She’s pretty much over the attempted murder thing and agrees. Alaric’s vows remind Jo how they continually dodge fate, and now they’ll have the chance to beat the odds together. Jo begins her vows, but she’s cut short when she’s stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen. Kai appears. He gives everyone a raging migraine and shatters the windows, knocking Elena out cold.

Comments:

– What “I’ll Wed You in the Golden Summertime” lacked in plot, it made up for in heart, but that’s not to say major advancements to the season-long arc weren’t made. They all just came quickly at the end. Throughout, this episode flung the audience’s emotions everywhere in the best way possible. Spending the hour basking in the wait before a wedding allowed the writers to delve into relationship turmoil that needed to be addressed so the finale resolution could be reached, whether positively or negatively.

– Well, Arrow no longer has the worst wedding on the CW this week.

– Has anything bad not happened at a large gathering? The show’s first ever wedding went down in true Vampire Diaries fashion. It was almost too good to be true. The set was beautiful. Everyone was dressed to the nines. Alaric’s vows were sweet and personal. After the chaotic day, it seemed as if the drama had slowed down, but leave it to Kai to throw a wrench into everything. As deliciously evil as he’s been this season, this was the first time I truly disliked him.

– Where were all of these women when Jo was having the saddest bachelorette party ever?

– Whether intentional or not, the lighting outside the barn that looked like white paper lanterns added a beautiful touch. Especially since Alaric’s vows were about defying fate, this lighting was perfectly appropriate and reminiscent of the lanterns the Mystic Falls gang sent up into the sky after Alaric died.

– Caroline was back and better than ever. Seeing her take charge and take up a task instead of mope around regretting everything she did without her humanity shows just how strong of a character she has become. It’s even more admirable that she was able to recognize the need to focus on herself for a while and not expect everything with Stefan to go back to the way it was on their bender.

– It wasn’t that long ago when I mentioned the scarcity of vampires using the mind trick on one another and here it was again. The coloring of these visions complimented their dreary content, even when they were already at the worst-case scenario.

– The bit when Stefan tells Damon that if he takes the cure and moves away, then Stefan can’t know where he lives because others might torture the information out of him felt like a setup that didn’t land with as much impact as Stefan meant it. An odd addition to the scene, it seemed like it was intended to touch upon feelings of sadness and loss, but instead sounded like a clichéd bit thrown in to explain something that didn’t need to be explained (yet?).

– How cute was is that Tyler noticed Liv’s haircut?

– The missing pieces between Bonnie and Matt being knocked out and Kai showing up at the wedding made for a shocking surprise, but it also made for a confusing one. The way it was presented made it appear as if Lily and Kai were working independently since they had no interactions in this world. Maybe they were carrying out their own plans, but with all of the rules governing transportation into and out of the prison world, those gaps need to be explained. I’m sure they will be next week.

– It wouldn’t be a Vampire Diaries season finale without a painful death. With Nina Dobrev and Michael Trevino leaving the series after this episode and both of their characters now vulnerable humans, Elena or Tyler could very well be goners. As sad as it would be to see Elena get the chance at a happy human life just to die an episode later, killing off the character (or faking her death) seems like the most logical solution to concluding her story.

– “What’s that term you witches are so fond of? Loophole?” – Lily

– “Rick, if there’s anywhere that you should be superstitious, it’s Mystic Falls.” – Elena

– Life lessons with Jo and Alaric.
Jo: You haven’t seen my dad, have you?
Alaric: No, actually, but it’s big of you to invite your attempted murderer to your wedding.
Jo: He gives really good gifts. Oh, and never say “big of you” to a pregnant woman.