The Vampire Diaries Episode 419
“Pictures of You”
Written By: Neil Reynolds & Caroline Dries
Directed By: J. Miller Tobin
Original Airdate: 18 April 2013
In This Episode...
It’s senior prom. Good for the audience; bad for the inhabitants of Mystic Falls. First, the pre-prom festivities. Bonnie is mourning Jeremy, when he visits her - in a dream. When she wakes, she discovers that her expression has set the room on fire. The Salvatore brothers decide to use prom to flood Elena with emotions until one of them sticks. Rebekah and Klaus each lay out their cases for why they deserve the cure. Elijah decides that Rebekah is more deserving, but only if she can go one single day living as a human. No vampire powers whatsoever. Elena and Rebekah go shopping for prom dresses and find Caroline and Bonnie doing the same. Caroline is wearing a dress that she and Elena picked out together before Elena went evil. Now that she is evil, Elena steals the dress and wears it herself. With few other options, Caroline goes to Klaus of all people, and begs to borrow something from “the family archives.” He obliges.
The prom theme is “Pictures of You,” complete with a terrible cover of The Cure classic. Set up like a “video yearbook,” screens loop photos of students and since this is Mystic Falls, most of those students are dead. Naturally, Jeremy’s photo is up there a lot. Before even entering the prom, this sets off Elena, and she blames Bonnie for everything bad that has happened in her life because she promised to bring back Jeremy and she didn’t. Bonnie runs from the prom - and finds Jeremy. This time she is not dreaming, but she doesn’t believe her eyes. “Does it matter if I am real?” he asks. They dance. Then the sweet talk begins. Jeremy tells Bonnie that this can be real, she just has to use her magic to bring him back. Bonnie realizes that this isn’t Jeremy; it is Silas, and she runs back to the prom to alert Stefan and Damon. Perfect timing - she is named prom queen, and Matt is her king. This gives Elena a brilliant idea: if she can’t stop Silas, she will stop the only witch who can bring him back. Rebekah, giving the ol’ humanity thing a try, warns Matt to get Bonnie off stage - “You didn’t hear it from me but Elena is up to something.”
Bonnie doesn’t need to be on stage for Elena to seek revenge. She approaches Bonnie “backstage,” but Bonnie lays one of those insane brain bombs on her and leaves while Elena is doubled over in pain. Elena takes her frustration out on April, tearing her throat out and stomping off. Poor April - she’s like town blood bank. Matt begs Rebekah to heal her, insisting that act will prove she has more humanity than acting like a mortal and watching her die. She does, and Matt promises not to tell Elijah - but Klaus saw, and he is not very trustworthy. Rebekah returns to Elijah and promises she passed his test, and he hands over the cure. Except Rebekah is still at the prom arguing with Klaus. She calls Elijah to warn him to hold onto the cure because she thinks Klaus is up to something. This is when Elijah realizes that Silas now holds the cure.
Outside, Silas-as-Jeremy approaches Bonnie again; she screams and whips up a wind and banishes Silas from her head. She cannot enjoy the moment of peace because Elena attacks and sinks her fangs into Bonnie. Her blood instantly chokes and poisons Elena. Bonnie is done with this shit and mind bombs the hell out of Elena. She chokes her some more and breaks a few bones for good measure. The Salvatore brothers (who had been detained by Silas, pretending to be each of them so he can stake each of them to trees and get them out of the way for a bit) show up, and beg Bonnie to stop. Bonnie knows what she is doing - then she realizes what is doing and lets go of Elena. The boys pick up Elena, still immobilized by pain, and vervain her. They are moving on to plan B. While Bonnie was torturing Elena, they realized Elena was scared. And fear is an emotion. They lock her in the dungeon at home and plan to torture the humanity back into her. So, basically, we all win.
Elsewhere... Caroline is having the worst prom ever so she bails and goes to set up the after party, being held at Tyler’s old house, now in Matt’s name. Caroline is greeted with a surprise: Tyler. He wouldn’t miss their prom for anything. They dance, and Caroline declares this the best prom ever. Tyler leaves before the other guests arrive, but Klaus is waiting for him outside. In the shared interest of giving Caroline the best prom ever, Klaus gives Tyler five seconds to leave. Klaus goes home and finds a note from Katherine, telling him to get down to New Orleans, that there was a witch there plotting something that will “rattle you to your core” and make him forget all about chasing her. Hello thinly-veiled set-up to The Originals.
And finally, Bonnie uses her location spell (now so powerful she doesn’t need a personal effect) to find Silas in the crypts beneath the town. He reveals his face. It’s hard to see but it looks something like a cross between Mickey Rourke and Freddy Krueger.
Dig It or Bury It?
Ahhh.... this episode was so good, so satisfying, so fun, so evil. It is everything I love about TVD with almost nothing I hate (Elena and Stefan dancing together was a little nauseating - that scene was clearly put there to make a million teen girls wonder what that funny feeling in their no-no spot is). We got to enjoy some familiar faces. We got to see a new, ugly face. We got to see the softer side of Rebekah. Elena somehow got even more evil. I am looking forward to what I imagine will be five more episodes or so of her being tortured until she finally turns her humanity back on.
Devilishly Charming
Damon to Elena: “Hindsight is a bigger bitch than you.”
Prophecies?
Klaus heads down to New Orleans in the episode that is what is called a “backdoor pilot” for the planned The Originals spinoff.