‘The Vampire Diaries’ season 5, episode 16 review: Damon, Elena, and … shirt-ripping?

“The Vampire Diaries” does love its surprises, but there are also some times here and there where the individual character moments do end up winning out over everything else. During Thursday night’s “While You Were Sleeping,” there were plenty of opportunities for those moments to come out.

The title of the episode itself was a reference to the fact that Elena has quite a bit to wake up to in the world now that she is in full control of her various extremities again. No longer does she have to worry about Katherine … but she does have to worry about Damon. Elena went on some big tear about “bending her morals” in order to support this guy who continues to do bad things, and that includes him killing Aaron because he thought he was being dumped.

The problem with this season in a way is that save for Damon / Elena and Caroline / Stefan, we don’t really care about anything else that is going on. It’s just not that exciting or that engaging, even if what is going on for these two tries to make up for it. But did “Delena” have their most epic love scene ever in this episode? Possibly. Elena ripped off Damon’s shirt like she was a professional wrestler right after the two said that they were breaking up with other … and so, the romance continues.

Sooner or later, though, you have to wonder if these two are going to actually call it quits, mostly because there is only so long that they can keep this up. It’s just not going to be yet. Grade: B-.

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Photo: The CW