“Hello Brother”- the infamous line said by the one and only, Damon Salvatore, as he made his entrance into the world of The Vampire Diaries.
This quote also happened to be the title of the first episode of season 8, which is the final season’s series finale. After seven years of romance, mystery, drama, and lots of lots of blood, our days are now numbered in Mystic Falls. With each episode of the last season being titled as lines of dialogue from the first season, the nostalgia factor has been turned up several notches. There were a plethora of parallels between this first episode of season 8 and the first season, but first let’s have a quick recap of where we left off from last season.
Previously on the Vampire Diaries… Bonnie is under Rayna’s curse, which has her going after her friends to kill them. Damon is able to break that link right before Bonnie tries to kill her beloved Enzo, but not without some serious consequences. Damon is enchanted back into the creepy vault by Elena’s voice and all the memories they shared. Since Enzo is the only one who could also enter the vault, he goes in after Damon– only to be dragged away by the unknown being that has now possessed them (more on that later). Stefan, Caroline, and Alaric have a complicated love triangle going on, but Alaric realizes that Caroline should be with Stefan. They will continue to try their best to be a family for their two girls. Matt, being the only human left in this series, has finally made the wise choice to leave the supernatural chaos of Mystic Falls, but not before getting into a car crash with Bonnie in order to stop her killing spree.
The finale leaves us with Stefan, Caroline, and Bonnie trying to find their missing companions, which are Damon and Enzo who happen to be conducting quite the gruesome display of dead bodies in a warehouse. Things can only go up from there right? Let’s find out as we catch up with our characters and recap what happened during the season premiere!
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Damon: The troublemaker is up to his old tricks again as the episode opens with a car of innocents driving through the fog– only to be startled by someone standing in the middle of the road and miraculously coming back to life after getting hit by the car. (anything sounding vaguely familiar just yet??) With his humanity switch turned off and his mind being possessed by an unknown entity, Damon has no remorse in splurging when it comes to killing “bad people” in order to satisfy whoever and whatever is controlling him. Not even Stefan and his hero hair can bring Damon back to reality; and yes, he does greet Stefan in the abandoned slaughterhouse with “Hello Brother” and the smolder that Damon is most definitely known for.
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Enzo: Unfortunately, Enzo has been dragged into this murder mess as well as being Damon’s partner in crime. Even more unfortunate is that he has not turned off his humanity switch, regardless of how much Damon brags about the freedom of not feeling anything. The good news is that Enzo is using his humanity to leave clues for Bonnie to help her figure out what is going on; and surprisingly enough, it has to do with The Odyssey. It just goes to show that you never know where this show will take you (aka high school English all over again).
Stefan: On the other side, Stefan is just doing his thing and trying to save Damon from self destruction. At the beginning of the episode, he seems like the one that is trying to keep the hope boat afloat in regards to getting Damon and Enzo back. After a hostile confrontation with Damon himself, even Stefan is finding it hard to stay positive. After all, Damon did blame him for becoming a vampire in the first place and going through the many years of misery that it has entailed. Talk about sibling drama.
Caroline: Caroline is juggling her career, kids, and relationship with Stefan, while finding her missing friends, which is just all in a day’s work for Caroline Forbes. With a new hot nanny who Alaric has taken a liking to and a witch coming after her children with a knife, it seems like Caroline will be kept busy in trying to keep everything under her control– as always.
Bonnie: With flashbacks to happier times and no magic to help her out, Bonnie seems to be taking this the hardest. She may be one the characters that has lost the most in this series, but Stefan also reminds her that she is also the strongest fighter too. She does figure out the clues that Enzo has left her; and by the end of the episode, Bonnie is the one trying to keep the spirits up in getting everything back to normal (whatever that may be at this point).
Alaric: Alaric has taken it upon himself to run the Armory and investigate the creepy vault that Damon and Enzo had disappeared into. With students and nannies trying to flirt with him, because archeology professors are obviously the new Magic Mike, Alaric is just trying to figure out what happened to his friends and how to keep his family safe, which can prove to be extremely difficult in Mystic Falls.
Matt: Matt is actually MIA. Last we saw him, he was being rescued by an ambulance after the car crash he inflicted upon himself in order to stop his friends from being killed. He vowed to FINALLY leave Mystic Falls and get away from all the insanity, but I have a feeling we have not seen the last him (This is the last season after all, and everyone has to come back eventually right??)
Elena: Last but certainly not least we have Elena, who is technically still lying in a coffin waiting for her dear friend Bonnie to die since their lives are just linked like that (watch season 6). However, Stefan, Caroline, and Bonnie are still writing to her in a diary on a daily basis to keep her up to date on what is happening, but also to just write out their feelings because everyone needs a good venting session in this show. We also got a glimpse of season one Elena when Damon recalls his memory of when he first met her. We can only wish, pray, and hope that Nina Dobrev will return at some point this season to give Elena some real closure and delight Elena worshippers worldwide.
This season seems to be off to a great start; and with the next episode being titled “Tomorrow Will Be Different,” we can definitely expect the trip down memory lane to continue on our final journey in Mystic Falls.
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