‘The Vampire Diaries’ season 5, episode 17 review: Ian Somderhalder, Nina Dobrev, and Markos!

Usually when we talk about surprises related to “The Vampire Diaries,” they come in the form of relationships or deaths. While there was the share of drama related to the two of these things on Thursday night’s “Rescue Me,” one of the bigger surprises of the hour was actually about family.

After undergoing a fair share of crises, many near-death situations, and an actual death situation (which led to a number of things that it would take far too long to explain here), Jeremy decided to move away from Damon and Elena on his own. This was a big move for him, and while we know that we’re not losing Jeremy on the show again, it is a big change for Elena to realize that she has not been the best big sister in the world.

Now, relationship stuff! Damon and Elena have finally decided to make the best move possible for the sake of their relationship … and that is to get distance. She is heading back to Whitmore to try and establish some normalcy, which is not going to be very easy for her given what we know about the Travelers and their goals. Most of the end of the episode was spent doing all sorts of bizarre chants presumably to summon Markos into the world, which led to one of the most painful sequences of Bonnie’s life as more and more supernatural creatures all passed through her to the other side. Markos is seemingly back on the scene!

With all of this being said, and as much as we enjoyed more of the focus on the major characters, Caroline and Stefan really did make this entire episode worthwhile for us. Watching the two of them handle the madness surrounding them, which included Caroline searching for a doppelganger of Stefan in Atlanta, was both dramatic and also sweet at times. We want to root for them to be together, but at the same time, we also want to keep rooting for more of the same. This is the only male / female relationship like this on the show, where you see affection in a way that does not involved clothes being ripped off. Grade: B+.

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Photo: The CW