The Vampire Diaries - "Pictures of You" - Review

“Pictures of You” is a busy episode. That’s not to say it’s a bad episode but there’s quite a lot going on, and in the end it's simply too much for the episode to deal with. The show seems poised for the final stretch of episodes where shit looks like it's going to blow up in a fashion that only The Vampire Diaries is capable, but until we see the way this play out, much of what we see in "Pictures of You" will remain a messy set of exposition. Now a good portion of it this delectably fun in that Vampire Diaries kind of way, but the excessive number of stories (a few of which aren't very good) does make for an episode that comes off as if it’s trying to get in every idea it has with no room for a nice logical order.

The messiest of  stretch of the episode takes place in the middle. The episode gets away with most of this by having it mostly go down at the senior prom (dances and parties have always been a nice central location for this series, but the lack of scheming and lack of sense of dread do retract from some of the enjoyment of these scenes). There are a number of isolated little plots occurring simultaneously and each of them largely in their own right gets in a wonderful little slice. But taken together, it’s just way too much for a single episode to be trying to tackle.

If there’s a throughline to all this though, it’s emotionless Elena (who needs a better name because it doesn't do justice to describing her) and the episode does a really fabulous job of mapping out this new version of Elena’s relationship with all of the characters at this point in time. The episode obviously reaffirms her standing with characters like Damon, Steffen, and Rebekah that we already knew about, and these are well done (Rebekah and Elena are a surprisingly good pairing and they have a sort of odd couple banter). But what’s far more interesting is seeing how this new Elena acts around characters we’ve yet to see her with such as Matt and Bonnie. Yea, on the face she’s simply a total bitch to all of them (but in a wonderfully fun way), but all the interactions are specific to the characters she’s with. 

While this is all entertaining, there’s a fair amount else to keep up with. Elijah makes Rebekah spend one day acting like a human (i.e. not using her vampire powers) in order to get the cure from him. Bonnie has weird visions of Jeremy courtesy of Silas. Damon and Steffen try to pry some emotions out of Elena (although it's hard to care when they're going to be stopping the most fun to watch part of the show right now), while simultaneously contending with Silas. Caroline continues to be moody about Tyler’s absence (then he shows up because, hey, prom!). Rebekah spends most of the episode trying to win over Matt who is still being cold towards her. And because the episode didn’t have enough going on as is: April makes an appearance to remind us that she exists.  

Emotionless Elena as always is a total delight and I could watch Nina Dobrev do this all day. A number of her actions push the character forward into darker territory that it’s really nice to see the show broach; she takes the initiative to try to kill Bonnie, all smartly to stop Silas and Damon and Steffen simultaenously, although she fails because that would be too many dead main characters of late. But it’s what the show has been hinting is possible with this character’s new direction, and it’s the most exciting thing to happen in the episode. 

Or there’s the other contender for most exciting moment: the twist where Silas steals the cure from Elijah. Now this twist could have been dealt with better. There could have been stronger suggestions as to Silas’s scheming, but it’s still a cool moment.

The twist doesn't entirely work though because of everything the episode does with Rebekah. We can tell something is up because Rebekah has just had the lovely scene where Matt finally gives her the compliment she’s been seeking that she would make a good human. And the crosscutting with Klaus and Caroline also undermines and confuses the moment. But the twist is still an exciting moment that could have proven better if the show figured out what it wants to do with silas and brought him to the forefront of the story.

But otherwise, the Rebekkah storyline is really affecting. Claire Holt provides shades of bittersweet sadness to this character. The Rebekah-Matt scenes are really sweet and sad, and this pairing works really well. The choice between not using her vampire powers and saving April is also an excellent moment. The murkier the show makes the moral lines, the better it typically tends to be. In the moment, we almost can understand the decision not to save April and yet by choosing it despite it being the “right choice”, Rebekah will be forced to give up everything she wants. 

Not everyone is making the "right choice" though. Steffen is falling for Elena again even though he knows it’s just not worth it anymore. Damon, more smartly, has largely fallen out of loving her. The whole task to get her emotions back is almost out of a paternalistic sense of duty (which is sort of problematic even if it’s easy to understand where it’s coming from). 

Bonnie is also just making horrible life decisions in a way Bonnie seems to almost always weirdly do on this show. She meets the “real” Silas, who looks like some deformed old man (okay, then?), but she also appears to have joined his cause. Because … reasons … I’m not quite sure actually. I had always assumed Silas was lying about the magic getting out of hand, but that doesn’t look to be the case. 

We don’t know much about Silas beyond the fact that he’s hugely powerful and has this grand plan to unleash dead supernatural forces. The balance between concerns for emotionless Elena, the cure, and Silas are a fair amount of story to balance and while this is a mostly fun; it’s a slightly all over the place, hopscotching from story to story with a lack of direction. It doesn’t help that the show is continuing to push the exit of Klaus from the show for the new series The Originals (Katherine sends him a letter mentioning some witch who has it out for him in New Orleans). Not a standout episode but not a bad episode; just a middling effort. 

Stray Observations:

-Candice Accola has proven herself a great actress, but this funk they’ve got her in over Tyler just isn’t a pleasant note to keep her repeating. It's not interesting and the show always stops in its tracks when we find Caroline complaining about Tyler. This is a stronger character than what we've seen of her lately. 

-“Nice dress” “I stole it”

-“Princess Grace of Monaco hot” – The scale by which pretty much all hotness should be measured.

-As a Cure fan, I can dig the shows continuing references even if they seem kind of arbitrary and surface level.

-“Hindsight is an even bigger bitch than you”

-Silas as Steffen was a great twist and played well by Paul Wesley.

-Damon and Steffen plan to use fear to coax emotions out of Elena. The writers almost come off as if their scared to allow particular story threads to reach their inevitable conclusion. Elena becomes a vampire but they never take that development to its logical conclusion, but in stead mull around in stories about sire-bonding and finding a cure that undermine anything interesting about this change in Elena. And now they're immediately trying to get her back to status quo even though that totally defeats the point of ridding Elena of her emotions.

Grade: B-