TV Review: The Vampire Diaries Season 5 Episode 10 “Fifty Shades of Grayson”

The Vampire Diaries midseason finales are always pretty epic. The show is known for its crazy cliffhangers and storylines. I put this season’s midseason finale to those same standards.

Story:
Elena is being dissected by Dr. Whitmore. She learns that these are the same experiments her father did on vampires. Dr Whitmore’s ultimate goal is to turn Elena into an Augustine Vampire.

Damon is visited by his past when Enzo comes to Whitmore College. Enzo is the only thing that stands in his way from saving Elena.

Katherine is still dieing and her daughter tells her that becoming a traveler may be able to prolong her life.

Good:
It’s seems to be a trend with this season but the best thing about this episode was Katherine’s storyline. Even though she is a heartless character there are these small moments where you want her to survive
this curse. The only way to save Katherine is for her to become a traveler. If you have seen my previous reviews you would see that I am not a big fan of the traveler arc. But this episode made me interested. I also loved seeing that this storyline brought Katherine and her daughter face to face again. Even if that means that her daughter is finally seeing Katherine’s true colors.

I am still interested in the Augustine Vampires and the Gilbert’s family past. We see glimpses of how Elena’s father is connected to the experiments, but I would love to learn more. I also liked the possibility of Elena becoming an Augustine vampire. It would have been an interesting arc for her if it had worked. Then the rest of the season would have been trying to find a cure for Elena. Doesn’t that sound familiar. 

Bad:
This felt like a weak midseason finale to me. Nothing that shocking happened. I wanted the Augustine storyline to take some twist and turns, but it never did.

The worst part of this episode had to be the ending. I am not a Delena fan, but I hated that breakup. It came out of left field. It has taken years for Damon to finally get Elena, and he pushes her away because he is not good enough. That was just stupid. It was just added for dramatic effect. It didn’t feel real to me.

This episode was pretty slow for a midseason finale. I liked the Katherine “death”, but there was no pivotal story to show where the rest of the season is going. There hasn’t been a truly interesting main arc since Alaric turning into a vampire hunters or the introduction to the Originals. There is a lot of potential with the Augustine arc but the writers never see it to its fullest. We did’nt need a Damon flashback. I want to learn more about what it means to be an Augustine vampire. Lets learn more about that history. 

Speculations :
When the Vampire Diaries returns it will be its 100th episode. I am looking forward to seeing Katherine’s fait. I can see her dieing next episode but I also seeing her becoming a traveler. Both will give some interesting story for Katherine, which there has been plenty of this season. It will be fun to reminisce about how many bad things Katherine has done to our other main characters.

I hear that we will be seeing many familiar faces return to the show for this episode. Some of the best episodes of the Vampire Diaries were when they brought back beloved characters. I am super excited to Aunt Jenna to come back again because she is one of the only characters we haven’t seen return since her death. Maybe we will even see characters that havent died, but have moved on. Crossing my fingers that Klaus sweeps Caroline off her feet and Klaroline becomes cannon. (What a girl can dream).

Verdict:
As midseason finale’s go this was very mediocre. I wish more happened, but this episode was a great set up for episode 100. This makes me excited for the show to return.

3 out of 5 stars