The Vampire Diaries #7.15 “I Would For You” Recap

Damon’s faceoff with the Huntress is halted when Bonnie learns more about her ability to rise from the dead. Meanwhile, Stefan and Valerie fail to find herbs capable of concealing his mark, so they’re back on the run. Here is a recap of the Vampire Diaries episode “I Would For You.”

Recap:

New Orleans. Today. Rayna rises from the dead, steals a camper’s clothes that fit perfectly, and hits the road. Out hunting, Matt stakes a vampire, but misses the heart, and Penny will never let him forget it. They’re then swarmed with Julian’s vampires until Rayna takes them down. Not understanding how Matt sees some vampires as good and some as bad, Penny tells him to pick a side.

Bonnie wakes in the hospital and is greeted by Damon. He’s in a weirdly good mood, but maybe it’s just the spiked coffee. In front of Matt and Penny, Damon interrupts Rayna’s vampire interrogation by ripping out her heart. He throws her body parts down a well Dexter style and hangs around until she comes back to life. Enzo and Alex show Bonnie the room of Rayna’s Eight Everlastings – the shaman who gave their lives for the Huntress. Every time Rayna dies, one of them does too. But when Rayna dies for the last time, so does everyone she’s marked. Damon has her buried deep enough to suffocate when she rises for her last life, so he sprints to save her. After a bit of vamp blood and mouth to mouth, she spits up dirt, A-Okay.

Valerie pays more attention to Stefan’s chest than the road ahead as they drive to find more of Freya’s herbs to keep his mark from broadcasting his location. At the hub of witchy plants, they’re sprayed with knockout gas, only to wake up and learn the herbs they need are gone. Stefan calls Caroline while she and Alaric are being domestic and asks if she wants to tag in for Valerie – explore the world with him. Caroline politely declines and instead asks him to join her in Dallas when it’s safe.

Rayna’s fight with Damon is cut short when the Armory shoots her with enough sedatives to take down the entire town. Damon gives Stefan a handful of letters. They’re his goodbyes. Since he’s a bad brother in Elena’s absence and people keep dying because of it, Damon’s decided to desiccate himself next to his love. Stefan thinks that’s the epitome of being a bad brother. He’s sacrificed everything for Damon and now Damon’s not doing the same. Matt barges in to say he’s picked his side. He wants all vampires out of Mystic Falls. In Brooklyn, Bonnie finds Damon about to crawl into his coffin and lets him know that this decision to choose himself over their friendship hurts. She won’t give him the luxury of a nice goodbye, and he better remember that as he’s wasting away.

Flash forward to three years from now. With Stefan tied up, Rayna offers to transfer his mark to the brother who truly deserves it. And it’s all Damon’s idea.

Comments:

– “I Would For You” is a wonderful example of how great of a show the Vampire Diaries can be when it allows itself to be the series it started out as. Although this episode sprinkled in a bit of the crazy supernatural mythology that the series has grown familiar to creating, it spent most of its energy focusing on the relationships amongst the main characters. The last two acts were some of the best work the series has ever done. They weren’t elaborate scenes or shocking moments. They were simple ones. They were heartfelt and heartbreaking. And they were perfect.

– I don’t know what else to say about those ending scenes between Damon and Stefan and between Damon and Bonnie other than they were stellar. As much as we’ve seen Damon grow into a more caring, less murderous person over the course of six and a half seasons, he still hasn’t, and may never, shed that last bit of selfish nature. It’s who he is at his core, and these scenes demonstrated that even though his selfishness is still present, it now haunts him unlike it used to.

– Did I miss something by not watching the Originals last week? What was going on with that zombie woman at the garden center?

– Well, those Eight Everlastings kind of throw a wrench into the grand plan to kill the Huntress. Even with her in the Armory’s custody, it was hard to know how much danger still existed (in the scenes taking place before the time jump) when we had so little information about the Armory’s motives and beliefs. As a new entity in the series, the writers have been rather vague about indicating how they fit in. We learned that they have a plan for Bonnie, but it could very well be something to help her and Elena.

– I expected the present drama to catch up with the future drama by taking little time jumps here and there to flesh out the story in between, but they’ve taken an alternate route. By having the future now be the present, they’ve re-established the same problem they started out with – having to fill in the blanks, only now they need to use flashbacks instead of flash forwards. I’ll have to reserve my final judgment until I see it play out, but right now, I’m not sold on the idea.

– A show like this that deals with a lot of gray areas seems to always add that character who only sees things in black and white. This season, it’s Penny (and Rayna, but the latter I’ve already expressed my issues with). While it’s nice to see Matt have the potential for happiness and while Penny takes an understandable stance, she still comes across too much like a plot device. She stirs up drama in a rather obvious way. She forces Matt to choose humans over his friends. It’s difficult to enjoy watching a character succeed who goes against the main characters with out even getting to know them.

– How many dark-haired guest actresses can this show have at one time to not-so-subtly fill the Elena void?

– The lighting in the Salvatore mansion was on point this week! That’s not to say it usually isn’t, it was just more noticeable with the intensity of the scene being what it was. Great job, guys.

– How many spiked coffees did Damon consume before that last scene?

– I feel like the Vampire Diaries just came back from a hiatus, and here comes another one. See you back here in April!