The Vampire Diaries S07E07 “Mommie Dearest” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on ITV2, Weds 11pm
Writers: Chad Fivelash, James Stoteraux
Director: Tony Solomons

Essential plot points:

• Flash forward three years: Damon and Alaric are racing towards the studio where Caroline is being held captive, Damon falls into the trap and is shot from behind with vervain darts.
• In the present: Stefan tries to win Lily over to become an ally in the fight against Julian. He tries to convince her that she has fallen for another monster, like his father.
• Flash back to Thanksgiving dinner with the Salvatore family and Damon’s father has forced him to kill his pet turkey for dinner. Later, as punishment for stealing some money he burns Damon’s hand with a cigar.
• Matt finds more compelled humans in the Grill. Caroline asks Valerie to syphon off their compulsion. They have no bite marks so are not being kept as blood bags, just being kept alive for some reason.
• Caroline had taken a pregnancy test which came back negative. However in the Grill she gets sick, suspiciously like morning sickness.
• Enzo and Bonnie find Oscar’s car and a dagger that’s hidden in the boot. Enzo is convinced it will kill Julian so picks a fight with him.
• After  Julian has his throat nicked Stefan and Damon discover that Lily had her life linked to Julian so that if one dies, they both die. Regardless of this Damon rescues Enzo from being killed by Julian and stabs Julian himself.
• Lily tells Stefan that it was she who stole the money from his father to buy train tickets to take her and her two sons to safety, away from his monstrous father. He caught her in the act and beat her.
• Bonnie does a little research and finds out that the dagger will only work if it has the Phoenix Stone in the hilt. Julian is alive and Lily arrives just in time to stop him killing everyone.
• Valerie reveals the secret of her and Stefan’s unborn child to Caroline. Wanting to make absolutely sure that she isn’t pregnant she gets an ultrasound which shows no babies. But Valerie figures out that they are cloaked and syphons the cloaking spell unveiling the twins inside Caroline.
• Lily starts to have doubts about Julian. She confronts him about Valerie and Stefan’s baby, which Stefan told her about earlier, and asks why he would risk his life while hers is tethered to his.
• She tells Stefan and Damon that they were right and she has a plan for them all to kill Julian.

The Good:

• The mirroring between Lily’s husband and her current lover is nicely done, though a tad obvious. She literally looks in a mirror while they both ask for her forgiveness in the same way, separated by a couple of centuries.
• There was a lot of “Is she? Isn’t she?” with Caroline’s unexpected pregnancy. Firstly, the pregnancy test says no, then she gets something that is suspiciously like morning sickness, then the ultra sound says no and finally they are uncloaked. Valerie was determined to uncover the mystery; she wants to make sure that Alaric doesn’t lose his children like she lost her’s. This is a nice touch for her character development, you can’t help but like her even though she can be horrible at times.

The Bad:

• Matt is out of the picture now. He drove off at the end of the episode after being pissed at Bonnie for “hanging out” with Enzo. He’s gone for the help of Tyler and Jeremy but it feels like he was a spare part for the entire season so far so his character has been shoved back on the shelf until they need a human in the story line again.
• Bonnie and Enzo’s budding romance seems a little forced at the moment. It was confirmed a couple of flashbacks ago that they end up together so they are being pushed together somewhat unnaturally. They’re almost loose ends that didn’t have anybody so they might as well end up together.
• The whole pregnancy angle is still a bit much to get your head around too. The actor, Candice King, is pregnant in real life so the makers of the show had to either cut the character for a while or just work with it. Cutting Caroline would have been a bit risky as Elena is also absent from this series and they might have lost a big chunk of viewers had both gone so they decided to go with working it into the storyline. Can vampires actually carry babies when they are technically dead? The episode skirted around the problem by basically shrugging and saying “why not?” but this doesn’t really address the issue. Hopefully they will come up with something more concrete in later episodes.

And The Random:

• The sword battle between Enzo and Julian is pretty exciting. Who knew that Enzo was such a good swordsman?
• This episode had quite an uncomfortable family Thanksgiving dinner with Stefan and Damon torturing Lily to try to persuade her that she has fallen for yet another psychopath, probably not the best way to convince someone onto you side. What was surprising was that it was Stefan’s idea, it seems more of a Damon thing to do.

Review by Georgina Tyson

Read our other reviews of The Vampire Diaries