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

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The Vampire Diaries Season 8 Episode 4 was a slower one full of narrative and filling in the blanks. I\'m still developing my feelings on the episode and plan to just have a little catharsis here in my review, but first thing\'s first.

SELINE IS AN EVIL SIREN! I knew I was getting serious Nanny Carrie vibes from her, you guys! I KNEW IT. 

I knew, I knew, I KNEW there was something not right with Seline. She was 

be wrong with her. That she is an evil psychic temptress cannibal I didn\'t exactly expect, but hey, my villain radar wasn\'t wrong. 

What she needs or wants with the twins I still have no idea, but it\'s not just a coincidence Seline is nannying for the family intimately enmeshed with her capture and release from the Armory cave. She didn\'t just 

to find the last remaining set of Gemini twins on Earth whose father also happens to be Rupert Giles.

It was, however, coincidence that Damon walked into that cave and his brotherhood story with Stefan so neatly parallels the sirens\' own. 

That\'s the part that felt a little too on the nose for me. It\'s too specific that the sirens are a pair of sisters, one of whom forced the other to eat human flesh and then bargained with a devil to give them eternal youth and beauty so long as they kept eating human flesh. One of them is the island girl and the other the villager. They\'re slaves to their nature.

trapped? And were they both released? Has one been walking around the Earth looking for her sister? Seems like Cade would\'ve found a way to make a psychic ruckus if he stopped being fed evil souls, you know? 

So how does this all factor in to the story of Virginia St. John and her willingness to 

(BARF! STILL!) to keep from telling Caroline anything about them? Was she just crazy? Is her relationship with her own sister somehow related to the sirens? 

I have questions. I feel like we\'re probably not going to get answers about the St. John connection, and that\'s troubling on many levels. It\'s just a random loose thread dangling there in a series that\'s ending. 

One part of the sirens\' story which I loved was what Sybil constantly questioning of Stefan: which girl are you in this story?

He\'s the sibling who has tried to take the moral high ground and the one who is most prone to violence and dreadful behavior. He couldn\'t bear to be alone and so forced Damon to drink, much like Seline bargained with Cade to save her sister\'s life.

Stefan, in my mind, is too easily painted as either/or. He\'s either the Ripper, or he\'s good. He\'s seldom able to blend both his light and dark sides and live with shades of Gray. (A book which, however terrible, Damon has been seen reading this season.)

That\'s what I think this season is ultimately about.

It\'s about Stefan\'s ability to reconcile both parts of himself, and in the end, that will be what saves them both. He\'ll find a way to make amends for the wrong he\'s done by making amends for what was done to Cade. 

I hope I\'m right, because I think this story has always been about redemption, at least to some degree. Forgiveness will be what saves them all. 

For Stefan and Damon, that will look like Damon forgiving Stefan for that day in 1864 when they turned.

Then Damon will drink Elena\'s blood, become human again, and they\'ll all live happily ever after. Until Damon and Elena die as old people and Stefan and Caroline are eternally young bunny eaters.

But first, I guess, Damon\'s going to have to find Elena\'s body, and that\'s going to be hard to do without Tyler Lockwood.

Yep, guys, Tyler Lockwood\'s definitely dead. RIP Wereboy.

Many people after The Vampire Diaries Season 8 Episode 3 didn\'t think he was dead, and I have to admit this was a terrible way to kill off a character we\'ve seen go through so much in the past eight seasons. 

The main purpose of his death seems to have been to make Matt sad. To drive Matt closer to his long lost father.

Using the Armory, Matt tracked down his father and built a relationship with the man who abandoned him to a life of being a busboy in a town overrun with the supernatural. 

Apparently, even though he has no idea, the Maxwell family (why do they have to have different last names?) has long been a keeper of secrets for Mystic Falls. 

This is sort of dumb, and I\'m not sure I love it. I\'m willing to see where it goes, but 

secret family history of supernatural cover-ups from a family that was 

a Founding Family of Mystic Falls and this family secret is tied to the sirens and not vampires or werewolves or Originals?

What did you think of "An Eternity of Misery"? How are you liking the development of the sirens\' story and how it parallels the Salvatore story? How much does Matt\'s dad really know about Mystic Falls?

Sound off in the comments below and watch The Vampire Diaries online! Stick around TV Fanatic for details about The Vampire Diaries Season 8 Episode 5.

Miranda Wicker is a Staff Writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.

Are you an island girl, or a village girl? Wait! Answer me, Stefan, this is important. Who are you in the story? Are you the victim, who tried for years not to feed on human blood, only for his selfish brother to blow into town and ruin it all? Or are you the monster who sealed his brother\'s fate the day you forced him to turn into a vampire, only to doom him to an eternity of misery because you were afraid of being alone.

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Watch The Vampire Diaries Online: Season 8 Episode 4

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

Watch The Vampire Diaries Season 8 Episode 4 Online