Missing Friendsgiving, Stefan, Damon, and Alaric uncover the truth about the Gemini Coven, while Kai tricks Bonnie into getting him one step closer to freedom. Here is a recap of the Vampire Diaries episode “Fade Into You.”
Recap:
Flashback to May 9, 1994. Young Jo removes the knife from her abdomen and plays the scariest game of hide-and-seek under the bed with little blonde fraternal twins. Kai’s bloody shoes appear. He lifts up the bed … match cut to Kai opening the trunk of his car. Out pops Bonnie, who’s not thrilled to be at his home in Portland. Cheer up, Bons, it’s Thanksgiving – Kai’s favorite day, and he wants to feast.
While they prepare for Friendsgiving, Caroline listens to Elena practice how she’ll tell Liam she’s a vamp. Jo informs them that Alaric’s having a “guys weekend” with the Salvatores. Stefan, grumpy he wasn’t invited to Friendsgiving, calls Elena to say they’ll save Bonnie. Learning she’s alive gives Elena and Caroline the biggest smiles. The guys come to an empty field. Kai and Bonnie are at the same address in their world, except there’s a house. Stefan dropkicks the magic teddy bear, which unveils the house.
Upon arriving, Liam tells Elena he rechecked the corn maze girl’s records and found nothing suspicious. Jo swapped the files. Liv, Luke, and Tyler watch a video from the twins’ fourth birthday, and Jo recognizes her voice in the video. Turns out, she’s their older sister. That’s why Jo thought Liv was familiar. Jo explains that Sheila Bennett, a family friend, helped them lock up Kai, her twin. Caroline has to compel Liam away at this point. Kai couldn’t become the leader if the blonde twins were alive. Fittingly, the Gemini Coven is led by a twin. On the day of a set’s twenty-second birthday, the stronger absorbs the weaker’s power, killing him/her. Liv and Luke’s twenty-second birthday is near.
Daddy warlock, Joshua Parker, shows up and renders Damon weak with brain pains. He then makes Damon and the house disappear. Damon demands the ascendant, but Joshua will never let Kai escape. Dropping a photo of Jo into a bowl surrounded by burning candles, Joshua starts yammering. Jo collapses, knowing her dad’s behind it. Over speakerphone, Jo sends Alaric to a tree stump, where he finds her magic-filled knife. He throws it at the house, making it visible. He and Stefan enter, but Joshua disappears. With Jo in bad shape, Elena feed Jo her blood, then explains to Liam what she is, only to compel him to forget it and everything about them dating.
Flashback to Kai finding a young Jo standing by a tree stump. She agrees to merge with him. The night of the eclipse their coven surrounds them for the spell, but nothing happens. Kai realizes Jo relocated her power and this is a setup. Joshua sends him away with the ascendant. Back in Kai’s present, Bonnie gets him to agree to one last dinner, then they’ll peacefully part ways. Afterwards, he removes the knife from the stump and consumes its magic. He has the ascendant and knows the spell, so all he needs is Bennett blood. He stabs Bonnie and leaves her there.
When Alaric refuses to get the ascendant from Jo, Damon compels him to do it. Liv wakes on the couch of the Lockwood mansion. Tyler brought her to the magic-free zone to protect her from her coven. Caroline gives Stefan some leftovers, and he apologizes for pushing her away the most. She thanks him for his honesty and leaves. After scolding Damon for keeping her out of the loop, Elena explains she’s at a crossroads. Either she follows a safe future or she follows an unpredictable glimmer inside her. She wants Damon to help bring back Bonnie so she can ask her BFF what to do.
Comments:
– “Fade Into You” is my new favorite episode of the season. It is half a horror film, a quarter an adventure story, and a quarter romance novel. While some shocks were set up from the beginning of the episode, like Jo and the twins being related, others came out of the blue, like Joseph trying to kill his helpless daughter. The guy definitely does not deserve a “father of the year” trophy. Overall, I’m thoroughly impressed that this episode was a spectacular hour given that it focused heavily on characters that are relatively new. It made us care even more about them and their futures.
– The theme of “Fade Into You” can be summarized as “if you don’t tell your girlfriend what you’re up to, you’re going to wind up in danger on an almost useless trip to Portland.” But seriously, the guys’ trip served mostly as a means to get out exposition about Jo and Kai’s past and information about their coven. In the grand scheme of things, this episode could have been told without the trip, and it wouldn’t have changed much.
– I’ve been pondering why Jo didn’t move her magic-filled knife somewhere more safe once she got the chance, and this is the lingering question from this episode that’s bothering me the least. She may have needed the knife close to the house in order to get inside if there was ever a danger coming too soon for her to go to a far away hiding place. Plus, the reveal of Alaric and Kai finding the same knife in the same place was pretty cool. Granted nothing would have stopped Kai from taking the knife’s magic in his 1994 world, but leaving something so important out in the open for that long doesn’t seem smart. And Jo is beyond smart. So now I’m more curious why she didn’t take back her magic once Kai was sent away.
– It’s odd that we weren’t given an explanation why Jo didn’t recognize her own siblings. At the very least, we could have seen her briefly ponder why she didn’t recognize Liv. Or even something as simple as Jo saying, “I was told … ” could have done the trick. The fact that this was practically glossed over made it feel more like a plot hole rather than a setup for a future storyline. Knowing this show, I’m betting on the latter. Only time will tell, and this makes me more intrigued as to what happened after Jo relinquished her powers.
– On a similar note, is Alaric not on vervain or did the camera angle obscure our chance to see that he is so Damon’s compulsion wouldn’t take? At least with this one, the payoff is naturally more immediate.
– Poor Matt and Jeremy were apparently not invited to Friendsgiving for whatever reason. But, whose great idea was it to bring Liam, an out-of-the-loop human, to a dinner with all supernatural people, because that doesn’t automatically spell disaster. However, Liam’s face when Elena told him she’s a vampire was perfect.
– No wonder Jo, Kai, Liv, and Luke have all been pretty awesome additions to the slew of characters – they’re all related. Aside from the opening of this episode pretty much revealing that Liv and Luke were related to Jo, that connection was a nice surprise.
– What’s impressive about the Vampire Diaries is that they can set up something several episodes before it’s paid off without it being glaringly obvious. Stefan’s quest for the Gemini coven that didn’t pan out over the summer was fulfilled in this episode in such an unexpected way. Dropkicking a teddy bear to reveal a house is not your typical way to go about solving problems, but it worked in the context of the episode.
– The moment between Elena and Stefan on the phone when she asks how he knew he could trust her with his vamp secret, and he replied that he loved her and wanted her to know him was a moment just as extraneous as it was beautiful. With everything nowadays seeming to focus on the relationship between Elena and Damon, it’s sometimes good to remind the audience that Elena and Stefan did have a pretty epic romance. This recalled the shows history without badgering us with it.
– Hurrah! The guys are back to their old selves again.
Damon: Why don’t you just date her and put us all out of her misery?
Stefan: Because I don’t think about her that way. She’s my friend.
Damon: Who would make a great girlfriend. Look, one, she’s hot. Objectively.
Alaric: Two, she puts up with you.
Damon: Big plus. Three, very, very well organized.
Stefan: Organizational skills?
Damon: There are no drawbacks to this woman, Stefan.
Alaric: She did sleep with you.
Damon: See, another plus.
– Way to go, both of you.
Elena: You should have brought me with you. Well, first you should have told me that Bonnie was alive, and then you should have brought me with you.
Damon: Well, Ric had more frequent flier miles, and Ric didn’t deliberately forget our entire relationship.
Elena: Yeah, I deserve that.
