The Vampire Diaries: "Homecoming" Review

Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.

The Vampire Diaries tends to be so quick moving that you really need to be paying attention to make sure you catch everything, and the mid-season finale "Homecoming" was no different. If anything, it was even more full of the show's trademark twists and turns than usual. A person could get whiplash from all the betrayals and double-crosses at the end of the episode.

This week's Mystic Falls social event got supersized as Klaus appropriated the Homecoming dance for his own nefarious plans, packing the party with his hybrid army that he had collected on his travels around the country. He also managed to book the band My Morning Jacket. It wouldn't be a show on the CW if they didn't try to sell you some music. I loved Caroline's reaction to the party -- she wasn't initially excited that the event had been saved after the gym was flooded, she was horrified at the thought that Tyler had thrown together a better party and in less time than she had.

Caroline and Tyler continued to have problems due to Tyler's loyalty to Klaus. While it was a little difficult to watch Tyler follow Klaus so completely after all that Klaus had done to Tyler's friends, they have made a pretty good case with the argument that Tyler felt loyalty to Klaus since being sired by him when he was turned into a hybrid. It also helped for Tyler to explain that Klaus had saved him from having to change into a werewolf at the full moon.

There was so much going on with Stefan, Damon and Elena's plan to get rid of Klaus that some of the the characters were left on the back burner this episode. Bonnie was there briefly, and Matt was shoehorned into the storyline since Tyler had set him up to attend the dance with Rebekah, who Caroline hilariously called an "evil blood slut." Matt's presence added little to the story; it might have been better to have left him out altogether, along with Jeremy and Alaric.

The first half of the episode worked to set the scene for the main event: the confrontation between Klaus and Mikael. At times the dialog was a little heavy on the exposition, like when they spelled out more than once that Stefan was compelled to do what Klaus said, as if we had forgotten about that detail in the last five minutes. But since Klaus's compulsion of Stefan, and Stefan's desire to be free of it, was the element that the episode hinged on, I guess they can be forgiven for overemphasizing it at the beginning.

I was a little worried with Elena helping Rebekah get ready for the dance because it appeared as though the scene was designed to make us sympathize with Rebekah. Maybe I should feel sorrier for her for being on the run from her father for a thousand years, or because she was preparing herself to lose her brother, but I just couldn't bring myself to care about Rebekah's problems. When Elena suddenly stabbed her in the back, effectively removing her from the equation so that she couldn't interfere in their plans against Klaus, I stopped worrying. It was nice to see Elena taking decisive action, and it was reminiscent of what she did to Elijah last season.

A lot was made at the beginning of the episode that no one in the alliance with Mikael felt as though they could really depend on the others. With rampant mistrust and all the plans built around keeping secrets and making separate strategies, the double-crosses really worked. It was completely believable that Stefan could potentially sell out Damon and Elena for his own purposes, or that Mikael would really stab Elena in order to get to Klaus.

Damon's super-secret contingency plan was a good one, especially since Katherine hadn't been mentioned in the episode until it was revealed that she had taken Elena's place. Of course, Katherine had a plan of her own after she found out that Damon wouldn't survive if Klaus died. In a nice touch, the humanity that Stefan was so worried would get in the way ended up getting him what he wanted, his freedom from Klaus. Once again it was the relationship between the Salvatore brothers that was the turning point.

Ironically, Stefan's choice to save Damon looked like it will end up driving a bigger wedge between the brothers since he had to betray their plan to kill Klaus in order to keep Damon alive. Ian Somerhalder did a great job with Damon's barely contained rage at the failure of his plan. Elena and Damon ended the episode together in their belief that they had lost Stefan, and I was impressed at how well the show managed to move these two characters closer in a way that made sense during the first part of the season.

It was sad to see Sebastian Roche go so quickly, I had been expecting to see a lot more of Mikael on the show. Not only is he dead, but he didn't even accomplish the goal of getting rid of Klaus. I am not complaining about that though. Joseph Morgan is a great addition to the cast, and I can't wait to see what he will do now that he has been outmaneuvered by Stefan. Hopefully Stefan will wake up Elijah too. Meanwhile, we've got plenty of time to wonder what will happen next since the show won't be back until January.

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