The Vampire Diaries season 2 episode 8 review: Rose

This review contains spoilers.

2.8 Rose

We pick up with events where we left off in the last episode with Elena kidnapped, but the question is by who? Her captors turn out to be two vampires. The boys all struggle to figure out where Elena has been taken, and Bonnie does a tracking spell to find her.

Damon and Stefan take to the road to get her back. The brothers try and take part in some road trip bonding, but their common link, Elena, gets in the way.

Tyler suddenly has to keep his strength and werewolf skills in check, though it’s not easy with Caroline keeping her information on his condition to herself. He breaks into her house and Caroline is forced to tell him that she is a vampire. They end up bonding and talking about everything.

Bonnie uses up too much of her power sending Elena a message, knocking herself out. She has been wearing herself out with all her magic use. Thankfully, the spell worked and Elena gets the message.

Elena is told by her captors that she is a Petrova doppleganger and that if she is killed, the sun and the moon curse will be broken. Also, Katherine herself was a doppelganger and the captors helped her escape her fate by turning her into a vampire.

The mysterious Elijah shows up for Elena, right as the boys arrive at the house. Elijah compels Elena to tell him where the moonstone is and also that Katherine is located with it. The Salvatore brothers kill Elijah and save Elena.

Stefan apologizes to Damon for forcing him to turn 145 years ago. Rose (Elena’s former captor) comes to Stefan to let him know that the ‘Originals’ will come for Elena and that she wants to help him protect her.

The episode ends with Damon and Elena and he tells her that he loves her. Because he loves her, he can’t be selfish with her, and his brother deserves her because he doesn’t. He then compels her to forget everything he said.

Oh, and one last thing: Elijah isn’t dead. Apparently, wooden stakes don’t kill Originals.

Talk about an episode. We finally got to the bottom of the doppleganger issue that has been danced around all season. While I was shocked to find out that Elena is the key to the sun and moon curse (though what exactly that is, I’m still not exactly sure of), I wasn’t expecting to find out that Katherine was once a doppleganger herself. I am interested to see where this news takes us in episodes to come.

I also enjoy what the writers are doing with Caroline and Tyler. I see good things for these two, except for when the full moon strikes and Caroline has to make sure that he doesn’t bite and kill her. Their pairing is unexpected and I like that.

Another budding couple worth mentioning is Jeremy and Bonnie, and surprisingly, this duo has caused Jeremy to grow on me. In fact, the last few weeks have brought a more confident change for his character and I no longer find myself dreading seeing him on screen. I worry for Bonnie, though, as these nosebleeds and fainting will only bring bad things and eventually she could end up with the same fate as her grandmother.

Now, on to the short lived vampire duo. It was refreshing to meet some new vamps, especially ones that really invoke the true nature of vampirism. For a second there, I thought I was watching an episode of True Blood and, trust me, that’s not a bad thing. I think that their delivery of the doppleganger curse was well timed. It’s getting late in the first half of the season and I was beginning to wonder how long the writers were going to make us wait. Now that we know, we can move on to the real baddies, the Originals.

Speaking of, I for quite a bit of trouble ahead for the Salvatore brothers as well as everyone else in Mystic Falls. That trouble being in the form of the very angry, and not dead like they thought, Elijah.

It was good to see the Salvatores acting like brothers, working as a team, yet still spitting out oneliners. Stefan’s apology to Damon was one of the standout moments in tonight’s episode. I think I like it best when they work together, though that may or may not be about to change.

I wasn’t exactly sure how to take Damon’s message to Elena. Part of me feels like he really will do his best to let his brother have her, but part of me feels like it isn’t in Damon’s nature to be selfless, though I loved that scene, and I thought it was probably the sweetest and most genuine we will ever see Damon. Unless, of course, we end up in an alternative reality where Damon somehow gets the girl. Either way, the scene was beautifully done and I commend Nina Dobrev and especially Ian Somerhalder for their wonderful work.

All in all, Rose was a good set-up episode which will allow next week to begin with a bang. We got some answers, and we saw some good fighting, so, to me, it was a pretty good episode.

Now, hurry up next week so we can see the aftermath of these revelations.

Read our review of episode 7, Masquerade, here.

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