500 Years of Solitude.

“Hey, if a girl’s gotta go, it may as well be glamorous, right?” – Katherine

Welcome back to Character Grades, TVD fans! It feels like an eternity since we last got together to hold hands, sway to and fro, and argue about Damon Salvatore until we began to bleed from our ears, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve sure missed it.

But, we’re back, and for a very special celebration –  the 100^th episode of The Vampire Diaries! This episode was the perfect combination of reflecting on the things we’ve lost [Alaric, our minds, some standards] and the things we’ve gained [Rebekah, Elena’s pink hair, Caroline’s penchant for sex against trees] tied together with an excellent twist that we probably all saw coming but was still fun nonetheless. 

Basically, Katherine’s dying (ish?) and the whole crew has gathered together to stand vigil by her bedside. And by “stand vigil” I mean “celebrate her demise” and by “her bedside” I mean “with copious amounts of bourbon.” Party!

Katherine Pierce

A Leave it to Katherine to prove she’s a boss bitch even when her body is decomposing from the inside out. I figured the Katherine-in-Elena storyline was coming, but I have to admit that even I got a little worried about Katherine’s impending demise during all of those sad-as-fuck flashbacks. Katherine’s been through a lot of shit, and she’s proved time and time again that she isn’t going out without a fight. I just hope she uses this opportunity to completely screw with Damon’s head, because the one good thing about his claim that all of his assholery is linked to her is that anything he can do, she can do better. Get ‘em.

Damon Salvatore

C

"Every awful thing I’ve ever done is linked to her.”

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must pull up his big boy pants and take responsibility for his own actions. That time for Damon was about 50 years ago. Sure, be bitter that Katherine screwed with your head for a century, I get it, it was messed up. But saying he never would’ve killed Vicki if he hadn’t been in town looking for Katherine is like me saying that it’s Rachel Bilson’s fault I cheated on my Algebra test in the 10^th grade because I was too busy watching The O.C. instead of studying. The Sick of Your Shit Express has pulled into the station, Damon. Time to man up.

Elena Gilbert

A-

“I think my mind just exploded.”

I’m convinced that Julie Plec has some sort of vendetta against Nina Dobrev. I imagine her sitting Nina down and saying, “We know it’s been tough having to film twice as two different characters, so we’re going to do something to fix it... We’re going to put Katherine in Elena’s body and make you play both characters at the same time -- SURPRISE!”  And then confetti falls from the ceiling as Dobrev curls up into the fetal position and cries, the sound drowned out by Plec’s maniacal laughter.

But anyway, I’m proud of Elena for being the bigger person with Katherine, even if it totally came back to bite her in the ass. Oh well. Such is life.

Stefan Salvatore

A+You precious prince. I just want to smoosh your face with my face. It’s possible that I totally got teary-eyed when he altered Katherine’s memories so that she could be at peace and see her daughter. And then he goes and gives relationship advice to Damon and Elena and I just want all of the good things for Stefan, you don’t even know. Unfortunately, he’s probably going to be a little peeved when he realizes what Katherine’s done, but if he can get over his brother boning his ex-girlfriend, he can get over his other ex-girlfriend abusing his emotions to steal part of his ex-girlfriend’s soul for diabolical reasons. Stefan’s pretty cool like that.

Caroline Forbes

A+

“I literally just WHOOSHED at the sight of your face. So, no.”

From memorizing Elena’s breakup, to spilling the beans on Katherine and Stefans sex-capades, to boning Klaus against a tree, every moment Caroline was on screen was golden. I was never a huge Klaroline shipper, but I’m all for Caroline hitting and quitting that OG D.

Rebekah

A+ Please come back to me. I really don’t want to watch The Originals. Please.

"500 Years of Solitude"

AI really enjoyed this episode. It was funny, touching, maddening, somewhat exciting, and I found myself entertained from start to finish. It was an excellent throwback to the past 100 episodes, and it set up a [hopefully] interesting storyline moving forward. Kudos, TVD. You may not be Emmy-worthy TV, but hot damn if you aren’t fun. 

Extra Credit

• “You memorized my break up?” 
  “Of course I did.”
• It’s kind of appropriate that I keep accidentally typing “500 Days of Summer” instead of the actual episode title, because both stories involve a guy completely basing his entire shitty existence off of a girl he barely knows. Well done, writers!

Demerits

• I wonder how much they had to pay to have Rebekah, Jenna, Elijah, Vicki, and Alaric come back and collectively say 15 words. I bet if they’d cut that out, they could afford to hire a new body for Katherine and give Nina Dobrev a vacation. I’m glad they didn’t, though. Partly because I loved seeing everyone, and partly because I want to witness Dobrev’s eventual mental breakdown.