Stefan, Damon, Caroline, and Enzo carry out a dangerous plan to break into the sealed Armory to rid Bonnie of her newfound hunter status. Here is a recap of the Vampire Diaries episode “Gods and Monsters.”
Recap:
With a vampire-hating Bonnie still chasing them, Damon and Enzo attempt to blow up the Armory to get to the final Everlasting – the only one who can help cure Bonnie – but the protective spell around the Armory remains in tact. Damon’s plan B is to have Valerie siphon away the spell. Too bad Stefan has no idea how to contact her. Damon turns to Caroline, who has two little siphoners at home, but she says they’re off limits. Paying a visit to Virginia St. John in the psych ward, Enzo learns exactly what that ambiguously terrifying monster from the vault is… and we’re still clueless.
Gaining ground on Stefan and Caroline, Bonnie calls to tell them to get a move on. They try, but a traffic jam forces them to U-turn and a near collision with Bonnie sends her and Matt crashing into the forest. They’re both alive, but Matt’s leg is stuck. Bonnie bolts, chasing after her prey. Stefan leaves Caroline to flee the country on her own, while he figures out what a suspiciously quiet Damon is up to.
To give his friends at the Armory more time, Enzo calls Bonnie and asks for a favor: think about him. Chase him and only him. It works. Caroline gives the twins a speech to activate their siphoning, and that works, too. The twins remove the Armory’s protective barrier, and the Salvatore brothers wander into a bloody battlefield.
Bonnie tracks Enzo to his cabin in the woods, where he’s making dinner. Underwhelmed by his risotto, she starts shooting at him and tearing up the place. Having searched everywhere else, the Salvatores must enter the vault to find the Everlasting; however, Damon guilts Stefan into allowing him to go in alone. After a struggle, Bonnie pins Enzo to the ground and prepares to stake his heart, but he holds her off just long enough. Damon sends the Everlasting up in flames, returning Bonnie to her usual self. Goodbye, hunter, and goodbye, magic.
Still stuck in the truck, Matt hallucinates Penny and asks her to take him with her, but she refuses because it’s not his time. He’s soon saved by another officer, and chooses to leave Mystic Falls to have a happy, normal life. Alaric tells Caroline that he knows her feelings aren’t the same as his, and that’s okay. They’ll always be a weird little family. She stays behind with Stefan. On his way out of the vault, Damon hears a familiar voice that pulls him back in. It’s Elena, asking for his help. Enzo goes in after Damon and locks the both of them inside. The creepy monster person gets its claws into the both of them. It’s not so bad at first, and then after that, it’s kind of fun, says Damon.
Writing to Elena, Caroline reveals that everything was so close to being normal, to being okay, until Damon and Enzo were stuck inside the vault for a week. By the time Alaric cracked the code, the bros were long gone. Three months later, we see Damon and Enzo stringing up and draining a body, but it’s only one in a sea of bodies.
Comments:
– “Gods and Monsters” concluded the seventh season of The Vampire Diaries with a solid and relatively understated finale that followed one of the series’ most interesting turns in a while. Having just watched the last five episodes in a row, the decision to turn Bonnie into a hunter breathed new life into the series at a time when it needed it most. While the stakes of death didn’t feel any more real when Bonnie was the hunter versus when Rayna was the hunter, the stakes did feel more personal, and thus more enjoyable. It gave Kat Graham the same kind of wonderful material she received in the prison world last season.
– It’s been interesting to watch the supporting characters receive more storylines in the wake of Nina Dobrev’s absence. In addition to Bonnie as the hunter, Caroline’s pregnancy stands out as one of the most pleasant surprises of the season. I only wish we could have seen more of Caroline as a mother. On the less successful side, the heretics never really made a positive impact on the story or grew into characters I wanted to invest in, and Stefan being possessed felt like just another excuse for him not to be his usual heroic self.
– The introduction of the Armory seemed more impressive than it turned out to be. Other than having a bit of knowledge, some soldiers with tranq guns, and a creepy monster in the basement, the place didn’t really live up to its name. Now that all of the agents are dead, maybe the Mystic Falls gang can figure out the truth behind their web of lies and more fully explore all of the resources the Armory has to offer.
– If you had told me at the beginning of the season that Bonnie and Enzo would turn out to be one of the most functional (and, quite frankly, adorable) couples on the Vampire Diaries, I would have thought you’d gone mad. But lo and behold, they told a story of selflessness and honor and loyalty that turned Enzo back into one my favorite characters (after they turned him into one of my least favorite characters last season).
– I understand the desire to preserve a bit of the mystery for next season, but having more than one character admit to knowing what the vault monster is and what he/she/it can do and then keeping the audience in the dark on this information feels like the easy way out. Granted, the choice might have been made for time, but not showing the audience that conversation between Enzo and Virginia almost feels as if we were being teased and knowingly forced into tuning in in the fall to figure out what the heck is going on. It’s certainly going to prove effective because I have so many questions I need answers for.
– Also on the topic of not showing the audience… Alaric mentioned that there were several times in which he and Caroline were in sync with one another enough to make him believe that their relationship would become something more and something strong, yet the audience barely got to see the extent of their relationship. Granted, this choice might have been to accommodate Candice King’s maternity leave, but it nevertheless made it more difficult to understand why they did and did not work as a couple.
– It was rather amusing to see Bonnie send a multitude of feathers into the air by shooting up a pillow instead of the usual levitation. If Bonnie’s powers are gone for good, I’m going to miss them and all the craziness they come with. For a character who could potentially be so useful, her powers were stripped away or misfiring more often than not, and while useful does not make for great drama, it’s been frustrating to see her gift get this treatment.
– Well, it only took Nina Dobrev a year to return to this role, even if it was a simple voice over recording.
– Alaric: The girls wanted cookies, and Daddy needed something to take his mind off things.
Caroline: So you stress baked?
Alaric: There’s got to be a more masculine way you can say that.
