‘The Vampire Diaries’ season 8, episode 4 review: Tyler Lockwood’s fate; Sybil’s backstory

Tonight’s episode of “The Vampire Diaries” offered up right away a chance to learn a little bit more about Sybil, including that she apparently lived at one point on the forested version of the “Lost” island. (Just a joke, people!) He and her “sister” (not by blood, but by circumstance) plotted their revenge, and we got a glimpse into a stale of vengeance from the past — something that inspired them to continued their own plot way back when.

Now, flash forward to the present, where Sybil has both Damon and Enzo under her control — one more firmly than others. She’s had a hard time getting Enzo to cross over to her side, and therefore Bonnie thinks that she can bring him back. It also probably helps that for the time being, Sybil is trapped while Stefan and Alaric try to torment answers out of her using their magical noisy fork. (Yep, you read that right.)

Is this the right time for Sybil backstory? We understand the argument is out there that she’s just not worthy of it, mostly because she’s far from the most likable character of all time. Even if you didn’t like this, much of it was necessary for introducing the character of said sister, who was out there and capable of freeing her from her prison. Who was this sister? Well, at first it was presented to us that it was intern Georgie, who went to Alaric’s place and tried to break in and steal some info before being confronted by nanny Seline.

We knew that eventually Georgie would find her way to Sybil (especially since we thought that she was the sister), and by the halfway point of the episode, that happened. Following this, Sybil went inside Stefan’s mind, and immediately the fear that she was about to do to him precisely what she already did to her brother. It was here we learned yet another twist: It wasn’t Georgie at all who was the sister. It was Seline the whole time! It wasn’t exactly that awesome to see that the sister was the most obvious person on the planet, but we guess we’ll give the show some credit for faking us out.

In closing out the backstory, we learned that Kade, the mystery man we saw in the opening minutes of the episode, was basically the devil. Sybil made a deal with him that would allow her and Seline to be immortal, but at the same time servants to his cause. He created what is the show’s own version of hell, where he feeds on the souls of the damned. Clearly, Sybil wanted his soul, and used almost every tactic in the book to get it. Luckily, she wasn’t quite successful in her quest. Stefan wanted to do everything that he could to protect his brother, even if he wasn’t quite able to help himself.

While Sybil and Stefan went on their little journey together, Alaric was trapped, recording a message to his loved ones. This isn’t going to end well for him…

Damon’s course collision – While Sybil was busy narrating much of her life away, we had a chance to learn in the process that Ian Somerhalder’s character was off on a fetch quest trying to find precisely what his mind-control master wanted, and this put him on a collision course with none other than Matt Donovan! It turned out that Matt’s father had a watch with a rather-special enchantment to it, which we suppose was a gift to him to help ensure his safety. (Kudos to Matt for thinking ahead.) It’s too bad it ultimately didn’t stop him from getting attacked in this instance. Matt’s father was luckily okay as he told him that after he took care of the Damon crisis, he’d tell him everything.

At the point of Damon waking up (right in time to be tortured by Matt), we did get some good news: Tyler Lockwood’s seemingly still alive! Matt’s going to do what he can in order to rescue him in due time. The problem here is that you never want to leave Damon alone, since he’s got this nasty habit of being able to escape almost anything that you throw at him. He did just that in this episode, and to go along with that, he also got precisely what he wanted: The artifact Sybil sent him for.

Two more words on Matt Donovan: Poor guy. He was left trying to explain to his father about vampires in the world, while his dad tried to explain himself for what he did as a father.

The shock at the end – Tyler’s seemingly dead. We don’t know how to take that horrifying discovery. Meanwhile, Seline had no problem literally devouring Georgie, and sending her soul straight to hell.

Overall – The Seline twist was a little bit facepalm-inducing, given that the show went so much for the obvious route. The rest of the episode was incredibly compelling, but we wish that Tyler — if this is the end for him — got a little more of an epic send-off beyond his body being in a trunk. Grade: B.

What’s next? – If you head over here, you can get a preview handing down some additional details on what’s coming up. (Photo: The CW.)