It’s Christmas time on The Vampire Diaries season 8, episode 7, but that doesn’t mean that there’s going to be peace in Mystic Falls.
The Vampire Diaries season 8, episode 7, “The Next Time I Hurt Somebody, It Could Be You,” was a rare, and probably the final, holiday episode of the show. This episode also served as the last midseason finale of The Vampire Diaries, so expectations were high. Did the episode deliver? Read on, for my review.
‘The Vampire Diaries’ 8×07 recap
The Vampire Diaries season 8, episode 7, began by finally showing us some of Stefan’s time as the “Ripper of Monterey,” in 1917. It turns out, the legend wasn’t an exaggeration. Stefan was completely deadly, and on Christmas Eve of all days!
Was that scene supposed to imply that Stefan killed those kids in the village? If killing a pregnant woman is supposedly the worst thing Damon’s ever done, it seems like that child murder would put Stefan in the exact same category of evil as his brother. I kind of hope this gets revisited somewhere along Stefan and Damon’s journey to the end of the show.
Back in the present, Stefan and Caroline were spending their final 24 hours together preparing Christmas dinner. Stefan wanted their last day to be full of food, drinks, and fun. Unfortunately, Damon and Sybil had other plans.
Damon showed up to the party looking much less dead than he was at the end of the previous episode. This was to be expected, since he and Stefan had just made a deal with Cade which granted them immortality (even more than they already had?), but it was nice to see that the rules of the deal were as we thought.
We did find out that when Damon died, he went to see Cade. We didn’t get to see what they talked about, but we did get to spend some quality time of our own with Cade, courtesy of the stake that Damon drove through Stefan’s heart.
The homage to A Christmas Carol in The Vampire Diaries season 8, episode 7, was definitely one of my favorite parts of the episode. It’s so interesting that Cade’s had his eyes on Stefan since 1917 and that Stefan’s pursuit of Elena actually inspired Cade’s latest plan. I just wish we could’ve also seen the “ghost of Christmas future” portion, for a glimpse at what Stefan’s actually agreeing to, right now.
Apparently, Seline was involved in Stefan’s life long before Josie and Lizzie were ever thought of. She even adopted his habit of writing down the names of his victims. She had intended to take Stefan’s soul for Cade in 1917, but she read his mind and saw that he was innocent. The coolest thing is that she altered his memories so that he was able to live with himself, so I wonder if there were any other memories that she took, that we haven’t heard about.
At the beginning of The Vampire Diaries season 8, we thought that Sybil was the most evil creature around. Then, we found out that Seline was the actual evil one. Now, it looks like Seline might not be evil either! Is there even a villain this season? Or, is everyone just misunderstood?
Bonnie and Enzo, whilst planning their trip to Paris, went searching for the tuning fork and found Seline. Instead of trying to use them to reinstate her deal with Cade, she simply asked them to let her help Josie and Lizzie. The training she’d given them to prepare them for Cade left a psychic mark, which she needed to remove. Apparently, she’s going to try to “redeem” her way out of hell. Good luck with that!
Considering this was the midseason finale, there really wasn’t too much excitement in The Vampire Diaries season 8, episode 7. Of course, Caroline had her shining moments around the dinner table and we got a little more insight into what’s happening with Stefan and Damon, but all in all, we’re not much further ahead than we were last week.
Let’s hope that the final few episodes of The Vampire Diaries (ever!!) are more eventful than this one. They have a lot of ground to cover before they leave us, forever. Here are a few final thoughts and questions for when The Vampire Diaries returns on Friday, January 13.
Things to consider for when ‘The Vampire Diaries’ returns
- There’s still a lot that Peter Maxwell/Matt’s father is hiding. It must be big if he was willing to let Matt think he left him for no reason, rather than to come clean.
- Caroline is a genius for giving Damon Elena’s necklace. Hopefully his flashback at the end of the episode means that he got all of his memories back and at least some of his humanity.
- Fingers crossed that the tuning fork rang some of Bonnie’s magic back into her!
- Stefan just reduced a lifetime sentence down to 1 year! He’s either a master negotiator, or this trip down ripper lane is going to have major consequences.
- Sybil will definitely be out for revenge if/when she recovers. How does someone return their own heart to their body, anyway?