The Vampire Diaries season 7 episode 4 review: I Carry Your Heart With Me

This review contains spoilers.

7.4 I Carry Your Heart With Me

Bringing people back from the dead isn’t exactly a new and different thing for The Vampire Diaries to do and, in a season that’s so far been a flaming disappointment when compared to the highs of season six, I wasn’t holding out much hope for the ‘sad Alaric resurrects his dead wife’ plotline. But I don’t know, maybe I’m in a good mood or maybe they’re actually doing it well, either way I have some optimism.

We knew from the moment that Jo was on screen, and not just a whisper covered in a sheet in a morgue drawer, that she’d probably be back this episode. How we got there, though, was actually pretty entertaining.

Most likely detecting that the Heretics are terrible, I Carry Your Heart With Me was an exercise in humanising the two worst members – Nora (side note: someone actually said “bloody Nora”) and Mary-Louise. We were treated to plenty of their relationship struggles coupled with the knowledge that, while Nora is adjusting well to 2015 and thriving in this new, more liberal time, Mary-Louise couldn’t be more uncomfortable.

But it’s still hard to care, especially when a ludicrous number of their scenes feature Caroline giving them fashion tips before they threaten her with sharp objects. The truth is, when the Mikaelsons were around, the concept of having these heinous monsters become main characters who helped the heroes as much as they murdered their family members was quite novel. The same thing happened with Damon in the first couple of seasons.

Now, though, the efforts are just more transparent, and the decision to make Valerie into a rival love interest for Stefan really hurts her chances as a character we could potentially love. Don’t even get me started on the skin-vervain spell. It doesn’t make any sense, but as long as things more or less slot into place by the time Julian comes back into play, we’ll probably be fine.

And we’re at least wrapping up the Mystic Falls nonsense, with Damon’s plan to swap his hostage for Lily’s hostage resulting in a deal to allow him to return to town. As a by-product, however, this probably means the end of his tour of spare beds, which I was enjoying immensely (this week – university housing!).

It will, however, presumably give Matt a bit more to do, as the only glimpses we’ve had of him so far are of him trying his darndest to protect the town’s most stupid residents from being slaughtered. His efforts were wasted in this episode when a bus tour of Halloween tourists came into contact with a zombie, ripper Oscar, and so far his new vocation isn’t matching up with my dreams of the Matt Donovan: Supernatural Detective spin-off.

I wasn’t able to review last week’s episode, so I didn’t get to laugh about Tyler’s return. It took them three weeks. Three weeks! Tyler will never die, and I am destined to moan about him until the end of time. Having said that, I did quite like how he was used this week, removing Elena’s body from the equation and possibly taking her to be with Jeremy. He also didn’t say anything, so that’s a plus.

But the flash-forwards remain by far the best bit of every episode this year, with this week revealing that Alaric has or is at least looking after twin girls in three years time. Does this mean that Jo is still pregnant and able to give birth even though she’s most likely a blood-thirsty zombie now? Is Jo the mysterious hunter they’re all running from?

If the latter is true, wouldn’t it be an excellent twist for Jo to become the ultimate villain of the season? Things are looking up.

Read Caroline’s review of episode two, Never Let Me Go, here.