The Vampire Diaries S07E03 “Age Of Innocence” Review

Airing in the UK on ITV2, Weds 11pm
Writer: Melinda Hsu Taylor, Holly Brix
Director: Michael Allowitz

Essential plot points:

• Three years from now Stefan calls Tyler (he’s back!) to ask if he’s seen Caroline because he needs to warn her about something (we assume it’s the vampire hunter that staked Caroline at the end of the last episode). Stefan sets fire to his precious car but saves his diary from the inferno.
• In the present day Bonnie is keeping up the diary entries for Elena when she has more visions of suffering people and blacks out for 10 minutes.
• Alaric lies about destroying the Phoenix Stone.
• Caroline learns that Lily sent Valerie to check on Stefan in 1863 to make sure he was happy. She dis more than that and took his virginity – she was Stefan’s first love. She left but promised to come back for him. He received a telegram a few months later but she never showed up at the rendezvous point. It is later revealed (but only to the audience) that Liy was pregnant with Stefan’s baby and Lily’s lover at the time beat her until she lost the baby and then he took her on a ship to England.
• Damon, Bonnie and Alaric go to kidnap the missing Heretic, Oscar, and find him enjoying freedom and wanting to desert Lily’s family. It turns out he was sent by Lily to check on Damon in 1863 so they know each other (they met in a bar, because it’s Damon… so of course they did!). He even saved Damon’s life back then. They ask him to syphon Bonnie’s visions but he finds out they are caused by the Phoenix Stone so knocks them all out out and steals it.
• Valarie tells Lily that Stefan has moved on and forgotten about his mother in order to help Lily move on from worrying about her son. But after spending the day with him and speaking to Caroline she realises this isn’t the case and her heart softens. She releases Caroline from captivity.
• Bonnie, Alaric and Damon capture Oscar and get the Phoenix Stone. Bonnie agrees to help Alaric figure out how to bring Jo back to life. Damon calls Lily about a trade: Oscar for Elena.
• Valarie finds Oscar’s location and after confirming that his mission was to find Julian for Lily and that his plan is to exchange Julian’s location for his freedom from the Heretic family she kills him to make sure that Julian never comes back.

Good points:

• We learnt a lot more about the Valarie and she is the most interesting Heretic so far. She has an aura of spite and anger about her, like the world has done her a massive injustice. In this episode it is revealed why. She was taken away from her love, Stefan, and the baby they conceived was killed in her womb by the man her adopted mother, Lily, was infatuated with. She was then trapped in the prison world for many many years so could never go back to Stefan and explain. This new depth of character is interesting and it is intriguing why she will still not explain to Stefan now while she actually has a chance. Though she did put the vervain skin spell on Caroline so the Stefan can’t touch her which shows some jealousy and longing still lingers!
• Oscar was a very unusual but interesting character although it looks like we won’t see him again. He had an old Damon vibe about him; carefree and pleasure seeking.

Bad points:

• This was a bit of an exposition episode. Not a lot happened but a lot of new information was given.
• Another new character, Julian, was introduced. There are already so many Heretics that none of them have a three dimensional character yet (the lesbian couple that are just “mean girls” and then there’s the mute who we’ve barely seen, let alone heard) so adding another family member in so soon just means we have one more person to remember – or not remember. He had such little screen time and is an asshole that only thinks of himself; that’s it so far. It looks likely he will return and become the main villain but should they be adding another villain to the already heaped pile?
• Stefan is still extremely passive at the moment and he hasn’t seemed that bothered about Caroline’s predicament. This makes their romance a little unbelievable – if it was Elena kidnapped and it was a few seasons ago Stefan would be running around doing everything he could to get her back. Also, even though he was the main subject of this episode he hardly seemed to be in it.


Random:

• The song that plays at the start of the episode is Bring Me The Horizon’s “Throne” which is being used a lot in pop culture at the moment; for example by WWE.
• It looks extremely awkward to get hot and steamy in a corset. There are so many buttons and laces that the mood must have suffered…
• Stefan teaches Lily to drive which makes for a good bit of mother-son time. It’s a little bit strange because normally it would be a mother teaching a son to drive.

Review by Georgina Tyson

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