The Vampire Diaries – S7E7 – Mommie Dearest

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Previously on The Vampire Diaries, ‘Best Served Cold’  

Three years from now

Knowing full well they’re walking into a trap, Damon and Ric race to the TV station to save Caroline. She’s not actually there when they arrive however, and Damon is shot in the back with a ton of vervain. Whoever this mysterious woman is, her main target is Stefan. I wish these flash-forwards were longer because they get more exciting every week.

Best. Thanksgiving. Ever.

Stefan knows his next move in killing Julian has to be better planned than the previous one. His first goal is to get his mother on board by telling her the truth about what happened between Valerie and Julian in 1863. Unfortunately, Lily has lost her trust in Valerie and tells Stefan he should do the same. Pretending to agree, Stefan pours a drink in celebration of moving on and, much to Damon’s enjoyment, the two of them watch her pass out from concentrated vervain. The Salvatore brothers tie Lily to a chair with vervain ropes and proceed with their next tactic: criticizing her shit taste in partners.

In the hopes she’ll realize her pattern of choosing manipulative men, Stefan and Damon recall a Thanksgiving memory from 1851. Their father, Giuseppe, forced Damon to eat his pet turkey for dinner that night. If that wasn’t bad enough, Giuseppe later accuses his children of stealing money from him. In an effort to spare Stefan, Damon takes the blame even though he’s innocent, and is burnt on the arm with a cigar as punishment. Lily seems almost unfazed by this story but that’s because she knew it happened, she always knew their father was an asshole. Then, out of nowhere her neck starts bleeding.

Meanwhile, Bonnie and Enzo have found Oscar’s car and discovered a sword hidden in its trunk. Bonnie immediately recognizes the sword from her research on The Phoenix Stone and thinks they should investigate a bit more before using it on Julian. Enzo is way too pumped to off Julian though and refuses to wait any longer. He heads back to the Salvatore mansion and challenges Julian to a duel, with Lily as the prize. Enzo manages to slice Julian in the neck and then busts out the sword from Oscar’s car. The sight of it freaks Julian out and he runs off.

Back at the Lockwood mansion, Lily reveals that she linked her life to Julian’s in order to protect him, which explains the cut on her neck. Why wouldn’t they link his life to someone they actually care about? When Stefan unties her, she admits to taking Giuseppe’s money with the intention of using it as an escape for her and the boys. Giuseppe found out first though and brutally attacked Lily for it. Against her will, she stayed with him in order to keep watch over her sons. Damon doesn’t hear this story however, because he is the smart brother who saw this life-link as a huge opportunity.

Damon wastes no time in locating Enzo and Julian in the woods. Enzo tosses him the sword and Damon stabs Julian right in the heart. Unfortunately, it doesn’t kill him, and Lily and Stefan show up just in time to learn what Damon attempted. But here’s the thing, why would Stefan be surprised? Why is Stefan ever surprised by Damon’s actions anymore? This should have been an easy two-birds-one-stone situation but no, Stefan loves his mommy again. Sigh.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”#4a7097″ class=”” size=””]“Bastard links his life to my mom’s and then engages in a duel? What is this, Hamlet community theater?” – Damon[/pullquote]

Damon delivers one hell of a speech when telling Stefan why he shouldn’t give a shit about their mother. She didn’t hesitate to abandon them and move on so she “deserves what she gets.” Finally someone is making some sense. I was nodding my head along to this whole scene and yelled: thank you, Damon! At least Lily finally got the picture. When Julian shrugs off the very real danger he put Lily in by dueling with Enzo, this forces her to see the disturbing similarities between him and Giuseppe. Ultimately, she admits to her sons that they were right, she wants to join forces, and she has a plan.

How many lines if you’ve been mystically knocked up?

While Ric and Caroline wait for the results of a pregnancy test, they discuss the mechanics of how a pregnant vampire would even be possible. Her body functions similarly enough to a human’s – she breathes and has a heart beat – and with the Gemini Coven being so desperate to protect their future, why not put the babies in a body that can’t die? It looks as though something went wrong with Valerie’s spell though because the test comes back negative.

With that out of the way, Caroline can focus on bigger problems. She meets Matt at the Grill, where he’s discovered more humans being harvested for their blood. He hasn’t seen any bite marks, though, and after finding dozens of empty food containers he believes they’re actually being fattened for a slaughter. Caroline vomits, cause she’s definitely pregnant, but she plays it off as food poisoning from “an expired blood bag.” And now I’m off to vomit. Neither of them can figure out a way to remove the compulsion – can’t vampires reverse compulsion? – but Caroline wonders if a certain heretic might siphon it away.

Valerie could set the humans free but she figures Julian would just replace them anyway. Besides which, she’s more concerned about Caroline’s “status” and promptly spills the beans about Caroline’s pregnancy in front of Matt. Caroline is more than happy to tell Valerie she got her magical wires crossed but ends up apologizing so she’ll continue helping them. It’s a good thing she did too, because when Beau shows up to check on the human farm, Caroline only manages to get away safely thanks to a cloaking spell from Valerie.

To be clear, Valerie’s main goal was saving the babies, a fact that pushes Caroline over the edge. She demands to know how Valerie can be so certain of this pregnancy. Isn’t it possible that she simply misheard the spell on Ric’s wedding video? But Valerie would never forget this particular spell because she once used it on herself. She tells the story of what happened in 1863 and Caroline figures out the big secret between Valerie and Stefan. Surprisingly, she takes it really well. These two are totally going to be BFFs and, I’ll be damned, I’m not entirely against it.

Motivated by her soon-to-be-bestie’s story, Caroline decides to have an ultrasound. Again, the results show no babies. Despite modern medicine’s major advances, it’s really no use to the vampire population because Caroline is 100% pregnant. Valerie realizes the babies have been under a cloaking spell all this time and when she lifts it, Jo and Ric’s twins are revealed. Both Caroline and the audience are lucky Valerie figured this out, otherwise we were on track for a crossover between TVD and I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant.

Final Questions/Thoughts

• Too bad Enzo didn’t listen to Bonnie because she could have told him the sword wouldn’t work without the stone, and now Julian has both of those items. Do souls released from the Phoenix Stone become more immortal than regular vampires? Would a regular old stake-to-the-heart not work on Julian?
• If Julian and Lily were linked, why didn’t the liquid vervain or vervain ropes hurt him? Was this a one-way linkage? I don’t think we’ve seen that before.
• What are the chances Valerie’s “save the baby” spell worked back in 1863? Could there be a Stelerie (Stefan and Valerie, duh) child out there somewhere?
• Is Matt about to fade even further into the background? He’s about to team up with Jeremy and Tyler and that does not bode well.