In Memory Lane, Katherine steps out of the shadows to make herself known. She has her own way of doing things and decides getting in to Stefan’s head, via his subconscious mind while he’s dreaming, is her best hope in getting him back. The dream takes us back over a 100 years ago. Stefan is dancing with Katherine, stuck in the past, and Damon is alongside Elena in the present. Stefan is clearly afraid of getting lost in the past with Katherine, afraid that the second he allows himself to go back there, Damon will have the advantage to his current love.
Stefan has always been the inferior Salvatore in my opinion. I have no patience for the whiny, self-loathing vampires that pity their existence. You’re a vampire, an immortal being with endless power and a blood thirsty nature; act like one. Stefan beats Edward Cullen any day though. Especially, towards the end of last season there was a huge improvement in Stefan’s character on the show. He was given much more complex material that didn’t just paint him as all good. We were shown the darkness that lives within him that he has to fight constantly. After a while, he’s bound to lose this fight. Anytime we see darker shades in him, even if it’s justified, I’m always thrilled. Damon embraces his nature far more, but just briefly seeing Stefan’s inner demons improves the character tremendously.
Stefan definitely hits that darker nature in this episode and unleashes it against the girl he once loved so deeply. He’s sure Katherine has ulterior motives that she isn’t telling him about and he is determined to find out what they are, even to the extent of treating her like a prisoner he plans to pry information out of at all costs. Even in these moments when she is for the first time in ages in a position of weakness, Katherine remains fierce as she stands her ground and tries to get Stefan to open himself up to loving her again. It was great to see Caroline teaming up with Katherine. She is a young and weak vampire, defenseless and at the mercy of Katherine, something that can and is sure to be used against her.
Nina Dobrev does such an great job portraying Katherine, I actually prefer the performance to her as Elena. Katherine is fun, feisty, and knows how powerful she is; something she loves to lord over others. This week’s episode was also the first time Elena and Katherine met face to face, which resulted in an interesting interaction between the two.
No matter how much Katherine claims she is hopelessly in love with Stefan (who knows, maybe she is, but personally I’m not sure if she has the capacity to love) there is something else going on. It comes out that there was a lot more going on leading to the deaths of Stefan and Damon’s human life than they knew about. Everything they have known for the past century was based on a lie. Even then Katherine was conniving and deceitful. What was going on then has come back now. Her return has a lot to do with recent trouble in Mystic Falls.
Damon tries to deal with the werewolf problem by digging in to Mason Lockwood’s head, taunting him, and threatening to expose his secret. Mason insists that there is no reason for them to be enemies. When he turns, he has no control; it simply takes over him. Damon asks, “No obedience school”? Damon is set on killing him and eliminating him being the threat he possesses comes back to haunt him. The werewolves are a great danger to vampires for a reason though. Damon jokes about “not living up to his best self”, but he knows his failure has only made things worse for the vampires of Mystic Falls. Especially as Tyler pries to know more he might become a part of this danger himself in the near future.
