The Vampire Diaries Review: An Eternity of Misery (Season 8 Episode 4)

As the final season of The Vampire Diaries moves along, one question seems to be following the Salvatore brothers: Despite any redemption they hope to achieve, are they still destined to be damned?

The Vampire Diaries Season 8 Episode 4, titled “An Eternity of Misery,” seems to want to throw this question into Stefan’s face by the use of Sybil’s history lesson.

As a child, Sybil was exiled from her village due to her psychic powers. After washing ashore on an island, she met another young girl who would become her sister.

Sybil didn’t want to use her abilities for evil, like her sister did by luring sailers to run their ships into the rocks, so she could eat them. However, Sybil was tricked into eating flesh for years until she came across the skeletons of the men her sister had killed.

Sybil decides to use her story as a way to ask Stefan a difficult question. Is he the village girl or the island girl? Stefan and Damon’s origin of becoming vampires is one that has hung over their relationship the entire series.

Stefan forced his brother into transitioning, and doomed Damon into a life he never wanted.

Stefan answers the question the only logical way. He is both the village girl and the island girl. He damned his brother to an eternity of misery, but also didn’t want to give himself fully over to the demon inside him.

As we inch closer to the end of the show, I can’t help but feel like one, if not both brothers will not make it out alive. It’s not secret the writers have played fast and loose with morality and committing horrible acts of violence and murder.

We may root for the mystical creatures, but do they truly deserve happiness? Nearly everyone is a murderer on this show. Do the innocent people they have killed throughout the years mean nothing?

Even if Stefan never becomes The Ripper again, does that mean he should be absolved of his crimes? Death has often meant nothing on a series that brings people back from the great beyond all the time. What if the ultimate price is that Stefan and Damon are sent to hell?

People seem to be sent there for far less. Poor Georgie’s soul has now been taken after it is revealed she killed someone in a car accident. That’s one person. Now compare that to the amount of people Stefan and Damon have killed.

As Georgie’s soul is swept away, we finally get the answer to where Katherine went when she finally perished. She went straight to hell where her soul would be consumed by Arcadius, or Cade for short.

Arcadius was a man alive long before Sybil. When he was a mortal man, he too had the ability to read people and get into their minds. He had used his powers for good, but ended up being burnt alive at the stake. With a psychic roar, he unleashed another world where he would punish those who were wicked on Earth.

As Sybil tells Stefan he must kill the Devil in order to save his brother, I can’t help but think Sybil is hoping he will. She never wanted to be a Siren. That life was forced upon her by her sister… Seline!

Yes, Seline is the other Siren. We probably shouldn’t be too shocked. Why else would they focus so much on Alaric and Caroline’s nanny? Seline seems to have no issue feasting on the flesh of others, as we see her chow down on Georgie’s corpse.

Sybil turns down her sister’s help when she doesn’t escape with Georgie. These two sisters may very well end up on opposing sides. Seline with Arcadius and Sybil with Stefan.

Arcadius is being set up as the ultimate bad guy. There wouldn’t be anything worse than the Devil himself.

Stray Thoughts and Questions

• Matt Dovovan is back, and he is rightly pissed. Not only has Damon attacked his father, but now Tyler is dead.
• Tyler’s death feels like a waste. It only serves to seal Damon’s fate, but serves nothing in Tyler’s own character arc.
• Stefan acts surprised by the existence of Hell and the Devil. Why? He’s a vampire and he’s been surrounded by werewolves, ghosts, and witches.
• Alaric stabs himself in the ears to escape from the Armory’s vault. BADASS!!!!
• Since Arcadius is being presented as the Devil, it’s an intriguing origin story to have him be a decent man whose life was ended by indecent people.

What did you think of this episode of The Vampire Diaries? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Vampire Diaries airs Fridays at 8/7c on The CW.

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