This weeks episode of The Vampire Diaries “You Decided That I Was Worth Saving” continues the nostalgic trend of taking a look back into the past through Damon’s mind only to have Sybil toy with reality furthering her cause of making Damon and Enzo her humanity-free puppets.
Damon pushed to the edge
The episode opens up with a familiar scene: Elena awakens to find herself and her parents trapped in their car which is sinking in the Mystic Falls River, only this time there was no Stefan around to save her as Damon and Sybil watch police pull three bodies out of the water. Sybil asks if he knew Elena and he replies that he never met her and now he never will.
Sybil’s mind games have worked their way into Damon completely after last weeks episode when she completely stripped him of all memory of him and Elena’s time together. Now Damon plays the passive servant completely aware that his life is over and that all hope is gone. But while Damon has accepted his position, Enzo is continuing to fight Sybil’s mind control much to her annoyance causing Sybil to tackle the root of the problem.
Bonnie, who really gets put through the ringer in this episode.
Her character arch is episode started off so happy too, she surprises Caroline with an impromptu bridal celebration and the two reminiscence about Caroline’s wedding scrapbook she made when she was a preteen and Caroline assures Bonnie that she will do everything on her power to make sure she and Enzo have their wedding in Paris too. This all to normal celebration gets halted through when the two are trying on wedding dresses and Damon literally catches the bouquet and attempts to kill Bonnie.
Caroline saves the day though, practically tacking Damon to the wall with a massive piece of wood and making their escape to the Salvatore house where they come face to face with Sybil herself.
What’s the big deal with Bonnie anyway?
Sybil’s big question of the episode: What makes Bonnie Bennett so special? And more importantly why is Damon so intent on protecting Bonnie?
The interaction between Sybil and Bonnie is the highlight of the episode. We are assured that Bonnie’s relationship with Damon was strictly platonic when they took their trip to the other side to Sybil’s surprise since according to her, “You can’t spell Damon without damn” and that Bonnie’s fierce loyalty actually leads her to a low point in this episode. When Sybil finds out just how loyal the witch is she puts her to the ultimate test.
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Bonnie has to make a choice between Damon and Enzo, one will be allowed to live while the other gets sent to die and be tormented in hell because she realizes that she only really needs one of them in the grand scheme of things.
She refuses to choose between the two, but Sybil always seems to be one step ahead of the game by forcing Damon and Enzo to fight to the death gladiator-style. Damon knows this and we cut to an interesting scene between him and Stefan meeting in front of Mystic Falls high school and Damon asking Stefan for help because every-time he tries to tell his brother what is really going on all that comes out is “applesauce penguin”. We think that Damon is fighting Sybil’s mind control, that maybe he is actually reaching out for help and that there’s a glimmer of hope, but all this is dashed when he find out that all Damon wanted was backup during the fight to assure his victory over Enzo.
This is devastating for Stefan because his fatal flaw is that he will always choose his brother, even though Enzo is the one trying not to give up hope.
When we go back to Bonnie, Caroline and Sybil the three are driving to where the big fight is about to occur. There’s some pretty spectacular foreshadowing when Sybil complains about the annoying noise that the car is making because she is not wearing her seat-belt and that someone as old and immortal as her does not have to. After a few minutes of Sybil totally pushing Bonnie to the edge about the choice she should make between the two men she cares most about, she slams on the breaks causing Sybil to go headfirst through the windshield.
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They leave Sybil in the road to walk the rest of the way.
Some developmentally big endings
The end of this episode made some big shifts in character development for everyone. Stefan is left in the middle of a fight between Enzo and Damon trying to keep the two from killing each other. When Enzo gets too close to killing Damon, Stefan steps in and almost kills him but Caroline stops him just as he is about to land the killing blow. Stefan killing Enzo would have caused some serious rifts between the good guys this season. Bonnie would have been furious at Stefan for choosing Damon over someone who actually deserves to live while Caroline would have had to choose between her best-friend and her fiance. So Caroline really is the hero of this week’s episode.
When Sybil finally arrives decisions have to be made. Bonnie stops Damon from ripping out Enzo’s heart by choosing Enzo, the one who has no one fighting for him. It’s a revealing decision for a split-second because Enzo is becoming the more likable out of our two broody bad boys this season, so it’s nice to have someone finally choose him for once.
This doesn’t go over well for Sybil though because Enzo is not loyal to her. She plans on having Damon kill Enzo anyway then kill Bonnie. Stefan and Caroline recently had their necks snapped so they can’t save her, the only one who can in Enzo. He gives himself over to the siren, leaving Bonnie running for her life when Sybil decides she is just going to kill her anyway.
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Damon is just about to make the kill when Alaric comes out of know where and hits him with his car.
While all this chaos as been going on Alaric and Georgie were hard at work figuring out the purpose of the artifact they found and how it can be used to stop Sybil. It turns out that it makes a high pitched sound that weakens her which was discovered when Alaric’s twins were laying with it and dropped it on the ground. Alaric knocks Sybil out and the gang locks her away, Damon drives off and Bonnie is taking Enzo to the cabin where is will trying to bring back his humanity.
The most shocking moment of the episode comes at in the final scene. Sybil is still singing to Damon while locked away and we see Damon laying down in the road in front of an oncoming car.
Only it’s not a stranger he is targeting for dinner, it’s Tyler Lockwood who seems to know all about Mystic Fall’s siren problems.
The episode ends with Tyler challenging Damon and making him decide whether or not he is going to be a “siren’s bitch” or fight the control. Damon chooses the first option and sinks his teeth into Tyler leaving us with tons of questions. Will Tyler survive? Is Damon really gone for good? And what grand plan does Sybil have that we don’t know about? And most importantly, will we see the actually devil this season?
Episode Rating: 9/10
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