Stuck in the Phoenix Stone, Damon spends his worst day of his life on a loop, while the Mystic Falls gang works tirelessly to bring him home. Here is a recap of the Vampire Diaries episode “Hell Is Other People.”
Recap:
Fall 1863. Damon stumbles to his feet on the Confederate front line. He ignores Lily and helps Henry, a fellow soldier, wiggle free from fallen rubble. In the communal tent, Damon receives a letter from Stefan wishing his brother were there to help him survive the endless, unpleasant days of pining after Valerie and living with their unbearable father. Visiting the Colonel, Damon agrees to capture and return the deserters hiding out at a nearby farmhouse in return for two weeks leave. Henry tags along, and the original Damon-Enzo team of destruction is formed.
Citing the Quartering Act, Damon and Henry get invited into the farmhouse, where the deserters launch a sneak attack. Henry returns fire, resulting in the deaths of the deserters along with the three generations of women living there. Damon wanders into the basement. He finds Lily, and she makes him realize he’s in the Phoenix Stone. Then, Damon wakes in front of Bonnie, who tells him he’s been dead for three months.
Unfortunately, Bonnie’s magic is tapped out for the moment with Stefan still in his own personal hell. Looking for Stefan’s body, Damon instead finds a note reading, “Who’s up for a barbeque?” Performing a locator spell on Julian, the obvious culprit, Bonnie tracks him to a gasoline-soaked bar. Julian wants to swap Stone-induced horror stories with Damon, but Damon’s uncooperative, so Julian torches the place. Once Damon accepts the pain he feels is real, he’ll be one step closer to escaping the Phoenix Stone. He wakes up back in the tent with Henry, back in the day he just lived.
The job at the farmhouse again goes awry, only this time, they all die a different way. Waking up on Bonnie’s table, Damon learns they pulled Stefan out first. It’s still not the real world, so Damon rips out Stefan’s heart and wakes up in that tent. In the actual real world, Bonnie, Caroline, and Matt already removed Stefan from the stone, but they’re having a bit of trouble reuniting Damon’s soul with his body. According to Stefan, Damon’s not ready to submit to the kind of pain it asks from you, and he probably never will.
While Damon grabs the deserters, he asks the women to stay on the front porch, but they all end up dead anyway. Enough is enough. Damon decides to skip the middle step and go straight to his brother, only he encounters Lily first. She sends him into the cellar at the sound of approaching soldiers. Down there, Damon spats with Stefan about Elena and his bad deeds, until he realizes that he never wanted to go home to Stefan, he wanted to go home to his mother. When he wakes the next time, he’s next to a dying Lily. She begs for help, but Damon recounts everything that makes him hate her. She wasn’t strong enough to leave her abusive husband. She never returned. He’s lost her more than once to another family. Damon breaks down, telling her he’s sorry, but she’s already dead. The Mystic Falls gang pulls Damon from the Stone. He releases his frustration, knocking them all unconscious in the process.
Comments:
– Largely a follow-up to the last episode’s cliffhangers, “Hell Is Other People” spent more time dwelling in the past than in the present, but still managed to jump start the story’s forward progression by the end. “Hell Is Other People” gave The Vampire Diaries a solid return from their winter hiatus with an interesting look into the world of the Phoenix Stone. Although the structure felt familiar, Ian Somerhalder’s compelling acting made the story feel surprisingly fresh.
– I know Groundhog Day (which is oddly enough today) is the usual point of reference for a story with a time loop, but this episode immediately made me think of the Tru Calling episode, “The Longest Day,” where she tries to save victims who keep dying in different ways each day. Ultimately, both Tru and Damon overcome the frustration of failing to change fate and realize that there’s a greater lesson to be learned. What’s unique about “Hell Is Other People” is that Damon lacks the ability to change the outcome of the situation and must succumb to the pain and suffering rather than fight his way through it in order to escape. It’s an absolutely devastating way to break someone and makes Damon even more of a tortured character than he already is, which is saying a lot.
– Ian Somerhalder usually shines as the snarky, self-loathing Damon, but he was especially impressive in this episode, beginning with a fully fleshed out previous version of the character. After playing the character for more than six seasons, it can’t be easy to shift out of the comfort of playing him a certain way. We’ve seen glimpses of pre-vampire Damon before, but nothing to this extent, yet he felt like a character we’ve seen all along. What’s most notable about Somerhalder’s performance is that there was a distinct change in Damon as he knocked on the door for the second time, and he became more and more the Damon his is today as the repeated days went on.
– The minion heretics were MIA this episode, but it wasn’t all that noticeable with everything else going on, and they wouldn’t have fit well into this story anyway with their lack of experience in the Phoenix Stone. One character who was noticeably minimal was Stefan, although I assume it came down to Paul Wesley prepping to direct the next episode. The few times Stefan did show up made for incredible scenes, so in that way, less was really more.
– Lily is the new Jo. How many times are you doing to die?!
– I love how Damon and Bonnie find a nefarious note and jump to Julian being the culprit without any other evidence. Shouldn’t the random dart holding the note to the candle have been a clue as to his whereabouts? He could have just slid the note under the candle, but he’s a bit too showy for that, isn’t he?
– The twist that Damon did not escape the Phoenix Stone the first time he encountered Bonnie should have been a twist I saw coming, but I didn’t, and it was marvelous. Lately, it seems like The Vampire Diaries has been including less and less of these little, shocking moments that remind us of the crazy early days. When crazy is the new norm, it’s difficult to catch the audience off guard, but when the writers can pull it off, it’s an instant reminder of how great this show can be.
– How many bloody nose capsules do you think Kat Graham has gone through by now?
– Damon being Damon.
Damon: Drink?
Caroline: I’m 28 weeks pregnant.
Damon: Is that a yes or a no?
Caroline: What is it like inside your head? I’m genuinely curious because it must be wonderfully liberating to only see what you want to see.
Damon: You know what I’m curious about? Why the Phoenix Stone made my mother a character in my hellscape when it had so many other options of torture to choose from.
