Love You to Death Season 4 - Excerpt

episode guide: Graduation (4.24)

Stefan: I’m not happy about Elena, but I’m not not-happy for you either. I just want you to know that.

Damon: Thanks, brother.

4.23 Graduation

Original air date: May 16, 2013

Written by: Julie Plec and Caroline Dries

Directed by: Chris Grismer

Guest cast: Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Aja), Vincent Farrell (Stefan Double), Micah Joe Parker (Adrian)

Previously on The Vampire Diaries: Paul Wesley

After high-school graduation, real life begins — or at least it can feel that way, and the last rite of passage of the teenage years promises that what happens next is a choice. For most of the seniors assembled in Mystic Falls (congrats for living to see this day!), the question of what comes next is a huge one. That spirit of limitless potential comes into neat contrast with the guys willing to blow up Grandma and Grandpa at the Grill just to see their own destiny fulfilled. The hunters return to this realm more determined and goal-oriented than Caroline Forbes on a prom-steering committee. There’s no two ways about it: Silas must be destroyed with the Cure. Their presence drives the action of “Graduation,” as do the resurrected victims of the massacres interested in keeping that veil down so they can live again. But that single-mindedness of purpose is far from the average graduate’s state of mind, and it acts as a supernatural foil to the big decisions the seniors have to make now that high school is over and they’re moving on to the next phase of their lives — whether in this realm or on the Other Side.

In the season premiere, Stefan told Matt that he doesn’t “have to live” with the guilt of surviving Elena in the car crash, he gets to: “You better earn it.” And after nearly getting blown to bits by a vampire hunter, after graduating with his friends, Matt decides to relish the fact that he’s alive (and that there’s a hot vampire offering to show him the world). Rebekah teaches him that the first rule of truly living is to do the thing you’re afraid of — for her, that’s kissing Matt — and for him, it’s leaving the only place he’s ever known to explore the world. In the context of a theme of the episode, “you reap what you sow,” both Matt and Rebekah get what they deserve. Rebekah has been striving to be a better person and longing for love (and for Matt), while Matt has been consistently a stand-up good friend. But he’s lonely without family, often a pawn for supernaturals, and he slogs away at his crappy job because there’s no one for him to lean on. Now he can enjoy a reward for once, and he embraces the offer that Rebekah makes him after she selflessly saves him from peril. (And keep in mind: though she can’t be killed by the blast, she does suffer the pain of it.)

There’s a parallel between former sweethearts Donovan and Forbes: Caroline also has an Original courting her, and that infatuation comes in handy as Klaus arrives in the nick of time to save Damon. But tellingly he didn’t come back to town for Damon’s sake, he came to see Caroline graduate. (Of course Caroline sent him a graduation notice. Oh, Caroline, never change.) And, to boot, he saves her from Aja’s witch attack with what is, perhaps, the most creative beheading of all time. Caroline hasn’t accepted Klaus’s past offers to travel the world with him, as Matt does here with Rebekah, and instead of asking again, Klaus wisely gives her what she truly wants: a pardon for Tyler. This magnanimous gesture speaks volumes about how far Klaus has come through knowing and loving Caroline, and it’s the one thing he could do to prove how earnestly he wants to be in her good graces. His line about wanting to be her last love is just about the most swoonworthy of all lines ever on TVD, and to think it’s spoken, convincingly, by the man who for two seasons was the gang’s worst nightmare. As Klaus begins his New Orleans adventure, he is, like all the graduates, on the precipice of big change, big choices, and new experiences. Like the actors, writers, and crew “graduating” from TVD to The Originals, whose absence will be felt and presence missed when season five rolls on, Klaus has been a huge part of the past few seasons, and here’s hoping he finds his way back to Mystic Falls on occasion.