Cheers to Deception for "the last dance"

If anything the small town of Mystic Falls is good at is staging a party. This week's event was a 60's themed dance, with special guest original vampire Klaus, out to kill Elena.....although i his intentions are still not clear yet. Most of the characters dressed up in 60's outfits, the cutest couple of course being Caroline and Matt as Jackie O and JFK. Klaus's costume was a little more devious however, since he was dressed as Alaric. 


Nina Dobrev already excels in the area of double role so it was nice to see Matt Davis enjoying the arc of double role as well. "The Last Dance" had a lot of things going for it, one of the best being Matt Davis's performance of Klaus masquerading as Alaric. Between his smug infiltration of the Salvatore mansion, where he casually listened to the "secret" plan for Bonnie to kill him, and his cocky attitude toward Alaric's life in general, Davis had fun and made the most of this turn of events for his character. Klaus's half-hearted attempt at teaching and his double-take of affront when Damon told "Alaric" that he wasn't impressed with Klaus were hilarious. He was disturbingly gleeful torturing Katherine, and also took great delight in thinking of ways to throw everyone off balance with his threats against Elena. If this is what they had planned for Davis all season long, then I almost forgive them for under-utilizing Alaric so far this year. 

Bonnie came into her own with her new powers this week. It has been great to watch Bonnie evolve from the self-righteous downer she was at the beginning of the season into this new, powerful champion, fighting to save her friends. Plus, she is still a strong moral center of the group, so they have not discarded that aspect of her personality. Her relationship with Jeremy continued to be very sweet, and kudos to Steven R. McQueen for bringing Jeremy's anger over Bonnie's potential death to the forefront. 


So much was made of the certainty of Bonnie's death if she fought Klaus that it was not too difficult to figure out that the twist was going to be that Bonnie would survive. But the revelation that Damon and Bonnie were working together to fake her death was still well done. Elena's devastation and subsequent happiness at seeing her friend alive were touching, it is always good when the friendship between Elena and Bonnie is showcased this way (although it is even better when Caroline is included). 

So, theme as well as the burning question of the week: How far will you go to save the ones you love? Bonnie will apparently go all the way not thinking twice about the consequences and amazingly the reverse is also true, on Elena's Part. Her desperate resurrection of Elijah towards the end shows that she'd rather put herself at greater risk than let Bonnie die killing Klaus.

The revelation that Damon allowed Elena to believe Bonnie was dead, and didn't clue Stefan in on the plan either, gave Stefan and Damon yet another chance to take their opposing positions around protecting Elena. The love triangle between Stefan, Elena and Damon continues to work, even though Stefan and Elena have not wavered in their commitment to each other. When Damon told Elena that he will always choose her safety over others' it is an echo of both Elena and Katherine's repeated choice of Stefan over Damon. He said, "If it comes down to you and the witch again I will gladly ley Bonnie die. I will always choose you." Yet while Elena may appreciate Stefan's honesty with her, she seemed to understand and respect why Damon did what he did. 


And what about Elijah's desperate resurrection by Elena towards the end, how will that pay out? With Elijah now poised to rise again, will he join the team's bid to kill Klaus? or did Elena just allow a total wild card back into the mix when she removed that 'damned' dagger.


So next week's episode is named "Klaus", very appropriate. 

Cheers to Deception for "the last dance"