The Vampire Diaries may have been guilty of a slow pace this season, but its making its mark by moving things right along. Instead of the hunt for this mysterious anchor that is tied to supernatural limbo taking more than a few drawn out episodes, like the search for the cure, all it took was one evening of debauchery, a little mind reading, a short road trip, and a bit of luck (or, possibly irony, depending on whether you’re siding with Tessa/Qetsiyah or Silas).
It’s actually a pretty cruel trick that Tessa has played on everyone, when you think about it. Although, I probably should have seen this coming. It’s not the first time that magic has been tied to an actual person. The doppelganger effect is a result of something of that nature, and now we have 3 doppelgangers (possibly 2 and the original) running around – and, to make everything more complicated, Silas (Paul Wesley) is MIA. Since we saw what happened when he drained Katherine (Nina Dobev) on the last episode of The Vampire Diaries, we know that he didn’t immediately die – but I don’t blame Amara for taking that risk anyway.
Silas was stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere, left to desiccate with the cure to his misery literally in his hands, but at least he wasn’t completely alone. He became a cult attraction. Believers would trek to his uncomfortable resting place and feed the monster drops of blood in exchange take a small visualization of their deceased loved ones as a consolation prize. The legend became so great that he stirred the interest of a particularly resourceful fanatic – you may remember Professor Shane, right? – and thus Silas once again found himself a walking, talking, almost-human.
It may have taken 2 millennia, but Silas found a way out of his own personal hell and has returned to terrorize innocent people and perform all-around psychotic acts. Even now without immortality looming over him, he’s still a pretty intimidating witch.
The past 2,000 years haven’t been quite as kind to Amara (also Dobrev), who has also spent that time encased in stone. After Tessa convinced Silas she had slaughtered his one true love, she turned her into an anchor for the purgatory she created to keep supernatural beings from resting in peace. Not only is this problematic for Silas, who has made it his mission to dissolve this middle ground and join Amara (who’s not really dead) on the “other side,” but over the years it hasn’t exactly been kind to any of our favorite characters.
I’m not sure whether it was all that time with only herself to talk to, or if Amara is just naturally unbalanced, but either way she is an unexpected complication. This has not been a kind year for the doppelgangers – two of which have taken the cure. Being a fragile human isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
