The Vampire Diaries season 7, episode 11, “Things We Lost in the Fire,” gave us deeper insight into what happens post-Hell for the Salvatore brothers, and one twist I did not see coming.
I’ll be honest here, I was not amazed by last week’s episode. While it was a favorite of several friends and fans, I felt it to be lackluster and confusing.
This week, though, oh boy! I absolutely adored the focus on the two brothers because we finally have an episode where both Damon and Stefan are absolute equals in every form of the word. You don’t realize how rare an episode that is until you get one like “Things We Lost in the Fire.”
Damon, Stefan and brotherly love
The Damon/Stefan dynamic/relationship is by far one of, if not my number one favorite relationship of all on The Vampire Diaries. Not because I ship incest, although shout out to those brave souls who do, but because their relationship as brothers is the strongest relationship on the entire show.
No matter what girl the brothers date or how many friends they make, they will literally always have each other on their side. They’ve proven time and time again that they are inseparable and that they truly do love each other, no matter what mood one is in — even if that mood lasts a century or two.
This episode shows us what it’s like for both brothers post-Hell: They’re still worrying about each other, especially Stefan. The way his personal Hell was all about having to let go of his brother to survive says a lot about who matters the most to him.
I guess you can say that what you feel about a person post-Hell says a lot about you in the world of The Vampire Diaries and I’m pretty sure we saw an insane amount of character growth with Stefan because of it.
The town is screwed
We thought Julian and his four little heretics were a problem, but now we find out that Julian has sired an entire town of vampires — ones that pillage and murder innocents around the area so they can party and drink.
I absolutely loved this new twist on our villains because now it makes things way more interesting — to get to Julian you’ll have to get through the rest of the entire town. Now that is not a feat that will be easy by any means, so I look forward to seeing how our crew will be able to do that! Just seeing the entire town square being overrun by crazy, violent vampires is an insane comparison to the empty wasteland it was just weeks ago.
However, Caroline is still normal
Meanwhile: Hundreds, if not thousands, of new vampires, four heretics, two vampires suffering a post-Hell world, and somehow Caroline still manages to create time to have a baby shower chock full of stereotypical normal baby shower games and drinks.
Now this, ladies and gentlemen, is how you stay sane on The Vampire Diaries. It used to annoy me how Caroline would always try to normalize things and have life go on despite the crazy events of the supernatural world, but now I’m elated by it.
Caroline’s drive to have a normal life brings the show back down to earth, and allows the characters to live in some sort of comfort even when things go crazy. Without these parties and events I’m sure the entire gang would have gone crazy by now from the insane things that have happened here. So you rock on, Caroline. Keep throwing those baby showers!
And the moment we all gasped
Of course, the most intense moment of the night was when Damon kept seeing the hallucinations Stefan had warned about — remnants of his personal Hell coming to torment him for the decisions he made to get out of there. The military brother he betrayed back in the Civil War keeps popping up, making Damon think that other people are actually him.
Damon killed this hallucination twice, or so he thought. But both times he ended up killing someone real — first it was one of Julian’s vampire cronies, and next… it was Elena Gilbert.
Having tricked the visiting Tyler into show him where Elena’s body was, when he arrived at the coffin he thought Elena’s body was actually his friend coming to haunt him — so he burned the coffin. But that’s when he realized he was hallucinating and the body he was really burning inside the coffin was his true love.
How do I feel about this particular twist? Holy crap! I’m sure no one saw that coming, and when I watched Elena’s face burning, that’s when I was like, “Okay, wow, holy crap.” It would’ve been one thing if we didn’t see a body, but they definitely showed Elena’s face melting off.
Although, you know what? I’m not worried because in the flash-forward episode we saw way back at the beginning of the season, we saw Elena’s body and coffin in perfect condition. It’s definitely possible that there is a spell protecting Elena from all the elements — how else would Bonnie make sure her best friend survives? So while this was a great surprise, after you think about it you realize that it’ll be remedied anyway…which in a way is kind of disappointing.
All in all it was a fantastic episode with twists, turns and emotional development that I think needed to happen for a long time. I can’t wait to see what happens next week!
