‘The Vampire Diaries’ Season 8, Episode 1 Recap: Enzo Leaves Hints About The Big Bad, Damon Flips His Humanity Switch, And More [Spoilers]
The Vampire Diaries’ Season 8 opened with a perfect mirror of scenes from the show’s pilot episode, as its final year marks closures, flashbacks, and a whole lot of nostalgia.
There is so much to talk about, but too little time as The CW’s fan-favorite vampire TV series enters its eighth and final season, which showrunner Julie Plec said would contain plenty of Season 1 memories.
In the first episode of the final season, titled “Hello, Brother,” which aired on October 21, The Vampire Diaries picks off months after Enzo and Damon’s fateful encounter with the unnamed evil that has been in captivity under the Armory’s vault.
Hello, brother. #TVD pic.twitter.com/h1u0rErE3U
— The Vampire Diaries (@cwtvd) October 22, 2016
From here on out, the next sentences you will read contain spoilers for the recently aired episode. Consider yourself warned.
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Damon and Enzo’s Humanity
The Vampire Diaries Season 8, Episode 1 basically revolved around Stefan and Bonnie’s quest to bring back two men whom they couldn’t live without: Damon and Enzo.
In the beginning, Bonnie struggles to hold on to hope that the love of her life will ever return to her, as Stefan continues to hold on to his brother.
During the show’s past two seasons, Stefan was repeatedly warned about leaving Damon, who has always dragged him down.
But after the older Salvatore brother decided to sacrifice himself to save him from the clutches of the evil inside the Armory’s vault, Stefan now holds on to every hope of returning the favor.
Meanwhile, Bonnie is losing hope that she will have Enzo, as well as Damon — the erratic best friend she always hated and loved at the same time — back in her life again, though she continues to help search for them “for Stefan’s sake.”
But as the two get close on the heels of their beloved vampires, the situation seems to be reversed as Stefan realizes that Damon has flipped his humanity switch off, while Bonnie finally sees that Enzo has been leaving clues for her to discover how to save them.
Bonnie then formulates a theory about what could be controlling the two and shares it with Alaric, who is now running the Armory.
Apparently, the evil hidden in the vault is actually a siren who put Enzo and Damon under a spell to do her dirty work for her. From there, the gang begins to formulate a plan to save Damon and Enzo from the clutches of this big bad evil.
Past Seasons Mirrors and Flashbacks
"Hello, brother." -Damon S.1/S.8 #TVD #EndOfATerror #TVDForever pic.twitter.com/m1ng7kb4eH
— amber (@DestielLove1) October 22, 2016
Aside from the episode title, which had been a popular line in Season 1, the Season 8 premiere provided a whole lot of nostalgia for die-hard TVD fans, especially when it opened with an exact mirror of a scene from the show’s pilot episode where Damon pretended to be hit by a couple’s car and fed from them as they checked if he was okay.
You can’t teach an old vampire new tricks. The final season of The Vampire Diaries premieres tonight at 8/7c on @TheCW. #TVDForever pic.twitter.com/BgL2DXbKML
— TVD Writers (@TVDWriters) October 21, 2016
Another deeply painful and nostalgic scene in this episode was Damon’s jab at his brother during one of Stefan’s attempts to save him.
“My life has been over for a century and a half, Stefan … since you took it from me.”
"My life has been over for a century and a half, Stefan … since you took it from me." #TVD #TVDForever pic.twitter.com/6rrBiSk6Wy
— Samantha Highfill (@samhighfill) October 22, 2016
The previous seasons of the show revealed that it was Stefan who forced Damon to become a vampire — to feed on humans back when he was The Ripper — something which Damon did not appreciate.
Back then, he promised to retaliate on Stefan and provide him “eternity of misery.”
While Damon seems to have given up on the surface, a flashback provided a clue otherwise: Damon seeing Elena for the first time where he mistook her for Katherine.
Watch Out For The Siren
As the episode came to an end, fans were treated to a first look at the big bad that emerged from the pit of bloody water where Damon and Enzo threw in their victims into.
This confirms Bonnie’s theory about the siren who apparently is now full, which brings in the question: What’s next? We have an entire week to speculate on that.
[Featured Image by The CW]
