Sara has been an avid TV fan for several years and is now applying that vast expertise as a couch potato to reviews at Next Projection. She can be found on Twitter at @SaraWatchingTV.
After last week’s episode featured some nice callbacks to the best of The Vampire Diaries over the years, “A Bird in a Gilded Cage” ended by reminding us of one of the series lowest points. The closing moments of this episode reveals that Bonnie brought back a little souvenir from the 1994 prison world – the cure for vampirism, which was the focus of most of season 4.
“Son of a bitch!” spits out a former prosecutor who investigated the disappearance of Robert Durst’s wife, while poring over a new piece of evidence that suggests Durst may have been directly involved in a separate murder.
The Vampire Diaries had one of its best episodes in ages – and certainly the best of the season – in “The Downward Spiral.” The series came back strong after a few weeks off with some major turns for its core characters.
Marvel’s Agent Carter had a quiet end to its first season, with Peggy finally willing to let go of Steve Rogers and receiving some much-deserved recognition from colleagues at the Strategic Scientific Reserve.
After the death of Caroline’s mother last episode, a host of other characters go through their own transformations in “Let Her Go.” We say goodbye to the old Caroline and welcome back to Bonnie, among other transitions including engagements and career opportunities.
Peggy Carter wins a few battles in the penultimate episode of Agent Carter – namely, convincing her colleagues that she is not a traitor – but the war with Leviathan isn’t going so well for her or the rest of the SSR. With one episode left in the series, it’s hard to imagine that there will be a simple resolution.
“Don’t go easy on her just cause she’s a girl,” Chief Dooley tells the men at the Strategic Scientific Reserve in the closing moments of this episode. They are the kinds of words that Peggy has been desperate to hear – to be treated like everyone else at the SSR – but in a very different context.
It was a fairly depressing birthday for Bonnie in “The Day I Tried to Live,” as she contemplates suicide while still stuck alone in the prison-like alternate universe. At the same time, her friends in the real Mystic Falls try to celebrate Bonnie’s birthday without the guest of honor, but end up finding an opportunity to potentially get a message to her.
Peggy wins some much-deserved respect from her male colleagues in “The Iron Ceiling.” But hopefully she savors the victory, and that bourbon with Agent Jack Thompson and the rest of the men at the Strategic Scientific Reserve, as it seems like that esteem is about to disappear as quickly as it came based on the look on Agent Sousa’s face in the final moments of this episode.
As the title suggests, death was a major theme in “Prayer for the Dying.” Indeed, we saw death in many of its incarnations throughout the episode – sad and slow, sudden and surprising – effectively woven together at the end. It was also one of the stronger episodes in this season, as it finally connected the Gemini coven plot with the rest of our main characters in an intriguing way, as opposed to them merely serving as bystanders or love interests.