The Vampire Diaries Discussion and Recap 2.12: The Descent

I don't know how all of you felt about this episode, but I thought it was pretty amazing. I actually cried! Every good vampire story has to travel down the path of examining the loss of humanity...and in this particular episode we were invited into the heart of suffering via Rose's death and Damon's unraveling. It was painful, for sure, but it was excellent television.

So the end of last year left us hanging with Rose having been bitten by new girl werewolf in town, Jules. The legend was that a werewolf bite would kill a vampire, but what our Mystic Falls vampires didn't know was that it wasn't an instantaneous death, but rather a long drawn out painful death that would cause madness and loss of control. Our gorgeous Salvatore brothers had no clue about this, and decided that Elena was the best person to leave behind with Rose. Rose quickly turned mad, though, and went after Elena, believing her to be Katherine. Soon, Elena had to barricade herself in a room to stay safe. When the sun went down, Rose took off to kill.

And so Damon goes and finds her and brings her back and tenderly cares for her as she progressively gets worse. And somehow creates a shared dream where they are both easily sitting in the sunlight of Rose's favorite mortal place and basking in the warmth of life, setting aside temporarily the burden of all they are. Rose questions if she'll be able to see her family and Damon says she'll be able to see anyone she wants. Outside of dreamland, Damon cradles an ill Rose and with tears streaming down his face, he stakes her.

He takes her body to the sheriff so that the issue of the vampire is cleared up. Elena tries to tell him to hold on to his good feeling in the thick of the pain. She even tells him her friend! She hugs him and he begins to break down a little bit and she leaves.

Oh Damon! The struggle within Damon--to love, to be good, to come to peace with being a vampire and never human again is the most heart wrenching and interesting character arc on the show. He's so deeply flawed, and constantly at war with himself that he comes across as feeling more real than the other characters who seem predominantly "good" with a dash of bad. So it was no surprise to see a tortured Damon trap a girl on the road, share with her the secret tearing his life and sanity apart and then, of course, kill her.

This entire story was to me beautiful and charged with emotion and I loved it. But there was other stuff going on as well:

*Matt kissed Caroline. They exchanged I love yous and Caroline tried to give him the brush off
*Tyler kissed Caroline. I'm far more interested in this couple, unfortunately things don't look good, because Jules has exposed Caroline's secret--she's not the only vamp in town and I'm sure this shake the entire foundation of trust Tyler has in her.
*Jules says there are more werewolves and they're coming!
*Uncle John is back.

I did miss Bonnie and Jeremy this episode but not as much as I could have, because I quite enjoyed the show as it was. Hopefully, they'll be back next time.

How did you feel about the episode?