The Vampire Diaries 6×17 “Bird In A Gilded Cage” REVIEW

More Mama Drama, Fifty Shades of Steroline and Bonnie’s Gift

This week’s episode of The Vampire Diaries 6×17, “Bird in a Gilded Cage,” centers around the reunion of a mother and son marking the official meeting of Mama Salvatore and an attempt to stop not one, but two humanity-free vampires. Caroline (Candice Accola) tries to continue her humanity free lifestyle, but finds forcing Stefan (Paul Wesley) to flip his switch wasn’t her best idea. While the two humanity free vamps torment the shit out of one another, Enzo (Michael Malarkey) convinces Alaric (Matt Davis) to return to his old vampire hunting ways and help reign them in, but are quickly outsmarted by the devious duo. After a day of trading jabs, Caroline and Stefan’s little game of irritation turns into vampire foreplay that has viewers seeing ‘Fifty Shades of Steroline.’

Meanwhile, Damon (Ian Somerhalder) persuades Bonnie (Kat Graham) to help him and work with Kai (Chris Wood) so he can travel to the 1903 prison world to be reunited with his mom. Damon, Elena (Nina Dobrev), Bonnie and Kai all travel to 1903. While Bonnie and Kai head off in search of the ascendant, Damon and Elena catch up with Mama Salvatore, Lily (Annie Wersching) and discover a few more skeletons or rather ‘traveling companions’ hidden in her closet, literally. Damon, Elena, Bonnie and Lily all make it  back to present day Mystic Falls safely, but Kai, who Bonnie tricks remains stuck in the 1903 prison world with Lily’s odd traveling companions. The real shocker this week comes when Bonnie reveals she brought the cure back for Damon to give to Elena and a whole new dilemma comes into question. A lot went down this week on TVD, so let’s get right to it and start discussing.

“Hello, Mother” 

Nearly six and a half seasons after viewers were introduced to Damon and Stefan Salvatore, finally this week we meet the woman who gave birth to the sexy vampire brothers. Along with the Mama Salvatore’s debut comes a whole new mystery surrounding her existence in 1903 and her so-called ‘traveling companions.’ Ian Somerhalder does a great job this week in his portrayal of Damon. The unresolved feelings and emotional pain Damon experiences being reunited with a mother he adored and just recently learned abandoned him is illustrated wonderfully throughout the episode. At the Salvatore house in 1903, Damon’s face upon first seeing his mom after centuries of believing she had been dead says it all. The audience can see by his expression how conflicted he is given the situation, His eyes are sad, which shows viewers the hurt he’s feeling, but it is his mother, so there is a slight sense of disbelief to be seeing her again after all this time. The tone of his voice though conveys to viewers the betrayal he feels knowing his own mother chose to abandon him and his brother. Both Annie Wersching and Ian Somerhalder are great illustrating the mother-son dynamic between Damon and Lily. When Damon, Elena and Lily sit down for tea to catch up and Lily explains what happened and why she did what she did Damon seems to be quite agitated. With a furrowed brow and seemingly annoyed looking expression, Damon’s responses to his mother are snide and bitter showing viewers his vulnerability, because let’s face it Damon tends to act out when he’s feeling vulnerable. While the audience can easily see that  Lily’s maternal instincts towards him still remain. She still has a warm, caring expression despite her son’s rude remarks showing that even after all those years and a vampire she still is his mom and knows he is just upset.

“An angel did come to visit him the night of my funeral – me. I had just turned and…I wanted to see my boys…but when I leaned down to whisper in Stefan’s ear, the hunger surged. All I could hear was the pulse in his veins. All I could smell was the blood, so I fled for your sake.” – Lily.

Then back in present day Mystic Falls, when Damon goes to check on his mom, she tells him about the night she left him and Stefan. Viewers can feel the raw emotional of the scene, a mother’s plea to her son to understand why she felt she had to leave him. Tears well up in Lily’s eyes as she tells him about the night she left Mystic Falls. Her tone of her voice is soft and she hesitates at parts as if embarrassed of what she felt she had to do to protect her sons from herself. Damon appears unaffected at first, but as he sees how much it pained her to leave his expression softens towards her. Both give viewers a glimmer of hope that maybe with some time the relationship between them can be salvaged and rebuilt.

Fifty Shades of Steroline

Captivating the audience with their snarky banter and incessant torment of one another, the new dynamic between Caroline and Stefan is deliciously entertaining. Both Candice Accola and Paul Wesley are amazing as Caroline and Stefan without their humanity this week. Its like a train wreck you just can’t take your eyes off of. Ironically, even with no humanity, Caroline can’t help, but feel the need to control any situation and the audience sees this as she obsessively cleans up the mess from the night before at Scull Bar. The audience can’t help, but laugh when Stefan shows up and taunts her. His tone is sarcastic and expression mocking as he attempts to get her to really let go. Caroline is quick to respond with an “I don’t need help from you” attitude and condescending tone that reminds viewers of a bickering married couple. Their game of torment is wildly entertaining. At Caroline’s audition for the school musical, Stefan’s timing is on point and quite humorous for the audience. He waits just until she finishes her audition and as she awaits feedback, lets the the director’s head fall off. Siting right behind the headless director, Stefan as a sly smile on his face and a look of pure satisfaction conveying how truly pleased he is with himself. While Caroline’s wide eyed, shocked expression quickly turns to disgust and she sends him a look that says, ‘Game on!” Unfortunately, she isn’t as good at this as Stefan and he just laughs at her attempt to dismantle his motorcycle. Again, he just pokes fun of her attempt. Viewers can see she becomes quite annoyed as she crosses her arms and punches a hole in the the gas tank.

“Deep down you and I are exactly the same, Caroline.  Come on, you can break routine for a second, right? She has a really pretty neck.” – Stefan.

Later at the dorms, Stefan amps up the game and feeds on an innocent in front of Caroline making her face the urges she’s been suppressing. Viewers can see she’s struggling to fight it by her expression. She freezes, eyes focus intently at the blood on the girl’s neck and Stefan’s mouth before slowly walking towards them and finally giving in. And just like that Stefan and Caroline’s little game of torment becomes a weird version of humanity-free vampire foreplay and the pair give in to all their urges in a hot and steamy hook-up that leaves the audience fanning themselves.

Déjà vu Times Two 

A surprising twist to this week’s episode is not just Bonnie agreeing to work with Kai to help Damon and Elena find his mom in 1903, but also her trying to stab him once they’re all in 1903. A collective gasp can be heard from viewers everywhere as the once innocent and seemingly harmless Bonnie Bennett pulls out a big ass knife and goes to stab Kai. As she goes to stab him the audience see she is not messing around. She has an expression conveying total seriousness and her eyes are focused and cold. Kai uses his magic and disappears, but has no clue what she has in store for him next. Surprising viewers again, when everyone returns to present day Kai is left alone or so he thought in 1903. Chris Wood is amazing illustrating Kai’s fear to the audience. Probably one of Kai’s worst fears as come true judging by his facial expression. His eyes are widened in disbelief and his body language conveys the uneasiness he’s experiencing  trapped yet again in a prison world. Looking around frantically in the dark, he discovers Lily’s ‘friends.’ His expression quickly turns to terror. His eyes grow even wider. He lets out a shriek as one of them attacks him and viewers are left to wonder what has become of the leader of the Gemini coven.

Even more surprising than Mama Salvatore’s ‘traveling companions’ or Bonnie’s revenge on Kai is Bonnie’s gift for Damon from her road trip to Novia Scotia in 1994. Just when viewers thought they had seen the last of the cure for vampirism, the little brown box with it inside shows up on our screens again. A collective ‘oh shit’ is uttered by the audience as the little red vial is about to bring a whole new dilemma into play, especially for Damon and his and Elena’s relationship. Now faced with the question of whether he should or even could give it to Elena as he had intended to before. If he does, would she even want it? And if she did, what would become of their relationship? What about forever?

“If it wasn’t for your notes on the map of Nova Scotia, I would have never remembered there was magic on that island and there’s a good chance that I wouldn’t be here today. So for my ’94 road trip I got you something.” – Bonnie.

FINAL VERDICT: 

The seventeenth episode of The Vampire Diaries, “Bird in a Gilded Cage,” is a captivating game of cat and mouse between two humanity-free vampires with some witchy time travel to 1903 to reunite a mother and son. Neil Reynolds penned an entertaining episode filled with a little bit of something for everyone and even contained some unexpected twists. The new dynamic between Caroline and Stefan now that both vampires are sans their humanity is amusing and devilishly fun for the audience. Both Candice Accola and Paul Wesley are hilarious and deliciously charming in the episode as humanity-free Caroline and Stefan. The dialogue between the pairs’ little game of annoyance and subsequently twisted foreplay is clever and witty. Focusing on their facial expressions with all the right camera angles, episode director, Josh Butler, does a great job capturing the emotion of each scene and heightens the viewing experience. When Stefan pushes Caroline up against the vending machine during their hot make out scene, Butler slowly tilts the camera to the side until the scene is completely rotated on its side. Perhaps foreshadowing to their next position and enhancing the of sexiness of the scene. Giving viewers a new perspective of the scene it also allows the glow of the colored lights shine through.  While music supervisor, Chris Mollere, selection for the scene, “Your Mine” by Meiko, playing in the background as they hook up is the perfect. “Every time I think of you, my body, it sends me chills. I do it all for you, love…” tells of a couple finally admitting to themselves and one another their feelings.

Officially introduced to Mama Salvatore this week, Butler does a fantastic job using camera angles to capture the emotions of both Damon and Lily seeing one another after all these years. The focus on their facial expressions alloys the audience to see the hurt and abandonment felt by son who’s reunited with a mother he adored and thought was dead, but recently discovered she left him and is a vampire. Butler also shows a dishearten and sad mother who was forced by her uncontrollable hunger to flee Mystic Falls and leave her beloved sons. That coupled with a great job by both Ian Somerhalder and Annie Wersching made for a poignant and powerful reunion. Not only did Reynolds pen an emotional reunion between them, he also cleverly weaves a new mystery into the story with Lily’s ‘traveling companions.’ While Bonnie unexpectedly gets her revenge on Kai leaving him trapped in 1903 with Lily’s so-called friends, But the totally unexpected twist comes with the reintroduction of the cure into the plot. Bonnie gifts the cure to Damon from her 1994 road trip to Nova Scotia and no one saw that one coming. Things are bound to get way more interesting with Mama Salvatore back in present day Mystic Falls, the leader of the Gemini coven stuck in 1903 with the ‘Ripper Coalition’ and cure back in play. Going to be quite fun to see how it all pans out after the next hellatus.

Comments, Questions, Concerns….

• Elena is too cute insisting she is going along 1903. “To meet the woman who gave birth to the two epic loves of my lives? Me!” -Elena.
• Delena is adorable at the moment.
• How HOT was Caroline and Stefan’s hook up? Damn….
• Hate to see Kai is trapped in 1903. #SorryNotSorry
• If Kai dies in 1903 doesn’t the entire Gemini Coven dies too including Liv?? And since he is the powerful Gemini coven leader and the coven created the prison worlds can’t destroy them??
• Alaric and Jo (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe) are adorable! “”Anyone named “Alaric” should not be allowed to name another human.” Oh my god, that was good.
• Self-assured Bonnie is bad ass!
• Where is Matty Blue Eyes (Zach Roerig)??? And Tyler (Michael Trevino)?? Hopefully at the police academy….

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES 6×18 airs THURSDAY, APRIL 16 at 8|7c on the CW