The Vampire Diaries S07E09: "Cold as Ice"

I will never forget the first time I walked into a room full of slaughtered Santa Clauses. To this day I distinctly remember even the second and third times I walked into a room full of slaughtered Santa Clauses. My memory of the fourth time I walked into a room full of slaughtered Santa Clauses is getting admittedly hazy, either because I'd been getting my nog on or because, let's face it, once you've seen one room full of slaughtered Santa Clauses, you've seen them all. I've been told there was also a fifth time I walked into a room full of slaughtered Santa Clauses, but I quite frankly have zero recollection of the sixth, seventh, and eighth times I walked into a room full of slaughtered Santa Clauses. The human brain can only retain a certain number of increasingly mundane memories of rooms full of slaughtered Santa Clauses. Does part of me wish I had not walked into ANY rooms full of slaughtered Santa Clauses? I suppose. But then what would I have to talk about every Christmas? That is the upside of constantly walking into rooms full of slaughtered Santa Clauses.

Guys, I don't know about you, but it is nearly Christmas time. That means that most if not all worthwhile TV shows bring us Christmas-themed episodes and they have the built-in advantage of hitting us right in the desperately-need-coziness-and-companionship zones of our hearts. Even TVD with its brain-bending calendar years isn't immune to the Christmas spirit, which brings us to its annual feel-bad twinkle-light-ridden holiday treat, "Cold As Ice." And, as you might expect from an episode that not only contained Santa hats, heartwarming moments, a "written by Brian Young" credit, and a midseason finale cliffhanger, it was a VERY good and fun one. You know, this season has had its ups and downs, but it's episodes like this one that prove TVD still has a very strong formula and the undeniable ability to surprise. Let's talk about it!

"Cold As Ice" had the audacity to contain only ONE glimpse at the future, and this week's nugget o' revelation was that in the future Stefan will be in a serious committed relationship with THIS lady:

So that's happening.

Okay fine. One more reason why this season needs to officially just time-jump already, so we can sort all these weird romantic entanglements out. Because come on.

So then back in the past, we were treated to a moving, almost surreally haunting funeral scene for Lily. That lighting, that snow, that music... It was all just really lovely. Stefan, Nora, and Valerie had some moving words for their fallen mother-figure (which, I just realized, kinda makes the Heretics sorta step-sisters to the Salvatores) and Valerie even used the occasion to super-flirt with Stefan by giving him a bundle of flowers relevant to their first date. Smooth move, girl! On the other hand, Damon wasn't feeling super grief-stricken at the moment.

Haha spitting on his mother's grave. Classic Damon!

Meanwhile over at Whitmore College, Caroline had turned the bar/coffee shop into an over-the-top Toys For Tots collection center, and her suddenly giant tum-tum was telling her to bite more necks. Bonnie mentioned that the night before she had binged on a mixture of blood and marshmallow topping, in case you feel like you wanna vom. Speaking of wanting to vom...

The boys were in the middle of a egg nog bar crawl in a town called Sunbury (do you get it be honest). As we all know, egg nog is really just liquid petri dish for all manner of bacteria and parasites, so who even knows what 12 pubs' worth of nog will do to your vampire system. But as it turned out they were here in Sunbury to track down Julian and murder him with their peacoats' full of stakes and grenades. Yes, this was yet another preemptive strike plot, which in storytelling terms are not usually the most sympathetic and almost always go wrong. Exciting!

It had been weeks since Nora took off her engagement ring and threw it directly into the open mouth of a yawning manatee (figuratively speaking) and she was still broken up with Mary Lou. Did she also move out? Or were they still all living together and awkwardly waiting for each other to use the bathroom? It was unclear. But Nora had definitely made a decision to become interesting, so here she was attempting to befriend Bonnie and seeming real contrite about needing to make new friends and also demanding to volunteer to help out with Toys For Tots. Now, the Heretics have been fine as characters. Just okay. But I think this was the first time I've ever actually become invested in one of them. Nothing is more relatable to me than being single and friendless. Good job, Nora!

Bonnie didn't have a ton to do in this episode except have cute phone conversations with her best friend Damon and also kinda-sorta mentor Nora in the ways of not-sucking.

Can I be real for one tiny second? I feel like Caroline definitely got an upgrade to leading lady in Elena's absence, but Bonnie's still doing very supporting character type stuff. Is it like she had even more to do last season? Yes, this says a lot about my ever-changing opinion about this character, but I would not mind it if Bonnie had more front-and-center type stuff to do, or at the very least MORE screentime than the Heretics. I don't know, maybe after what happens at the end of this episode she'll start taking charge more, but then again, it's TVD. I guess there's an Enzo romance coming up, but man, it would be nice if female characters' plotlines weren't always always in service of romance. I'm honestly just babble-typing at this point, but you probably get what I'm saying, right?



Guys, I am loving this vampire pregnancy plotline more than I ever expected. Because I am a true monster, I usually do not think that human pregnancy is interesting except in horror films (where it BELONGS). Yeah, yeah, miracle of life, world's toughest job, things like that. Kudos, all you moms. You are 1 million percent braver than me. But storytelling wise? Pregnancy is right up there with love triangles when it comes to things that make me yawn. THAT BEING SAID, Caroline's pregnancy is so weird and insane that I'm riveted. Those are living human witch babies she's feeding blood to (kinda) and, again, I'm guessing she's the first vampire of all time to experience 'pregnancy hormones.' So it's a pretty rich subject to have fun with. Her plotline in this episode was all about how she was always on the cusp of tearing throats out. It's always fun when metaphors become literalized!

She almost attacked Alaric a couple times, and it amuses me to think that there's a fine line between a Ripper and a pregnant vampire. But side note, those people in the Lamaze class who disapproved of Alaric seeming to have knocked up a student were CORRECT. That truly was gross-seeming. These two need to stop flaunting their fake-love, people are talking.





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