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The Vampire Diaries #6.17 “A Bird in a Gilded Cage” Recap

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Home / Recaps & Reviews / The Vampire Diaries #6.17 “A Bird in a Gilded Cage” Recap

Stephanie Hall in Recaps & Reviews, Vampire Diaries Mar 22, 2015 1 Comment

Elena, Damon, Bonnie, and Kai travel to 1903 to retrieve Lily, while Stefan and Caroline attempt to prove who’s the best humanity-free vampire. Here is a recap of “A Bird in a Gilded Cage.”

Stefan arrives home looking for weapons. After Elena filled him in on the no humanity switch, Damon tries and fails to syringe Stefan. Damon releases his anger by destroying his living room with a fire poker, then confides in Elena about his mother’s situation. Thrilled, Elena wants to use Lily as Stefan’s emotional trigger. Damon’s less thrilled, but agrees to give it a shot. He finally convinces Bonnie to work with Kai by saying this could answer her prayers. It’s not looking good for our new favorite bad boy.

Still a drama major, Caroline auditions for the school musical with a song about how much she hurts. Finishing up, she flashes a smile and wonders why the director has no comments. His head rolls off, revealing a satiated Stefan behind him. Stefan plans to make Caroline’s life fall apart when her emotions returns because she’s an embarrassment to humanity-free vampires everywhere.

Elena and Damon hop on the 1903 bandwagon and arrive in a snowy forest. Bonnie and Kai set out to find the ascendant. Elena and Damon rummage through the Salvatore mansion when Lily walks in. They have a nice chat, in which Lily explains that with a little help from her friends, she stopped herself from being a ripper for her own survival. Only a small amount of blood remains in this world. She agrees to save Stefan as long as her friends come too. They sit desiccated in the basement. This got creepy in a hurry.

Stefan hops on his bike, only for it to fall to pieces. He laughs that Caroline’s idea of no humanity was unbolting a few parts, so Caroline retaliates by smashing his gas tank. Needing Stefan to hurt for his revenge scheme to work, Enzo asks Alaric for vervain to capture the dynamic duo. Afraid of the repercussions for his child, Alaric’s at first hesitant, but soon agrees. Inside the dorms, Stefan hurls a Molotov cocktail at Caroline and rushes at her with a stake. Caroline flips the tables and stabs his instead. She’s slowly getting better at this. Stefan hears Alaric and Enzo approaching and throws another bomb at them. They’re fine. Stefan snacks on a student, tempting Caroline to join. She complies, then they have a make out session that leads to more.

As Bonnie performs a locator spell on the ascendant, Kai tries to apologize. She knows he’s changed and that the old him is still in there too. The ascendant is deep in the forest. Elena finds the ascendant in the basement, so Damon confesses that Bonnie has another plan. Bonnie stabs Kai in the back, and he disappears before she can kill him. Lily begins waking her friends, but Damon stops her. Bonnie’s not powerful enough to take them all. Kai returns just in time to see everyone leave without him. After Kai finds Lily’s friends, one grabs him by the throat.

Under Jo’s care, Sarah is making a swell recovery. Enzo visits Sarah and tells her she’s a pawn in a game he’s lost interest in. Jo examines Alaric, begging him to stay alive for the next eighteen years to raise their child.

Back in the present day Salvatore mansion, Damon lies to Lily, saying they’ll go back for her friends soon. Bonnie thanks Damon for helping her get rid of Kai by giving him the cure for immortality. Knowing he wanted it for Elena, Bonnie got it when she went to Nova Scotia. Now he’s not sure he wants it.

strong run of episodes. Although not as twisted as last week, Caroline remained fascinating without her humanity. In addition, the calm scenes about Lily’s backstory and life in her prison world nicely contrasted the tone of what was happening in the present day storyline.

- It’s fascinating how quickly this series can villainize two of its main characters and do so in an excusable way. It creates an awkward feeling because you’re not particularly rooting for them to succeed, but you’re too invested in their characters and too intrigued by their cleverness and surprises to want them to go back to normal.

- I’m enjoying light-spirited Elena. It’s odd and takes a little adjusting to get used to, but it’s so much more enjoyable to watch a character with spunk than a character with a scowl.

- Jo mentioning how she and Alaric should just elope made me realize how much I want to see them have an actual, elaborate wedding in Mystic Falls. Even though there have been numerous decade dances, Miss Mystic Falls pageants, and other holiday celebrations, we have never seen a wedding on

. Given the amount of funerals there have been, a celebration of life and love would be a welcomed event.

- After last episode, I was fully convinced that Stefan indeed shut off his humanity to please Caroline, but this episode made his intensions more murky. On the one hand, I don’t think reformed Stefan would kill innocents if he was faking the switch. On the other hand, he was trying so hard to get Caroline to surrender to his will that it seemed like he was planning a sneak attack on her emotions.

- Why can Elena not be Stefan’s trigger like she was before? Has too much happened between her and Damon, and Stefan and Caroline for that to work again?

- The sideways camera, intense yellow lighting, and hypnotic music during Caroline and Stefan’s moment was an interesting addition. While these choices made the scene more visually beautiful, they added a dream-like sense, making the scene seem less real and less earned than how I’m sure many fans wanted it to be. It spoke to their mental state at the moment, but it was also somewhat distracting. Abnormal camera angles are a frequent occurrence in

, but I don’t recall them ever being used in

- As soon as Damon mentioned to Bonnie that accompanying Kai to the prison world could answer her prayers, it became clear that he was suggesting leaving Kai where his coven believed he belonged. Still, her success was far from a sure thing, given Kai’s creativity and violent tendencies. Because his last scene ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, there’s seems to be a good chance we’ll see him again.

- As a powerful witch also capable of performing a locator spell, it was surprising that Kai so implicitly trusted Bonnie to do it alone when he knew she hated him. She did nothing to make him suspicious of her intentions, but I have a hard time believing that he would allow himself to be caught so off guard.

- What’s unusual about this story’s inclusion of time travel is that they’re not truly time traveling. They’re world traveling. It’s a genius new take that allows the writers to bring back moments and items from the past without dealing with the repercussions on the present or future.

finest, so I’m curious to see what they plan to do with it now. This season has been great so far, so I have high hopes.

- Tyler, Matt, and Liv have been absent for a few episodes, and I’m starting to wonder where they’re up to. Recently, there have been numerous big revelations that they should have some involvement with.

- Lily being mesmerized by a screensaver that looked like the aurora borealis she saw every night for the past century was a nice, simple touch. Though it was essentially an unnecessary moment in the scene as a whole, it gave the audience a quick reminder of how important the prison world was to her character development.

- “This woman killed so many people that an entire coven of witches built her a permanent time out.” - Damon

- Bets on if their baby will be named after one of Jo’s deceased siblings?

Jo: Actually, I thought about it, and anyone named Alaric should not be allowed to name another human.

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Stephanie Hall, born and raised in Texas, is an MFA student in writing and producing for TV at Loyola Marymount University and has a BA in multimedia development, English, and journalism from Duquesne University. A huge fan of television, her favorite shows include Castle, Chuck, Dexter, and Fringe. Follow her on twitter @_stephaniehall.

Matt and Tyler are back next ep, according to the preview.

Lexi is who really got Stefan to feel again last time. Her ghost was pivotal to bringing him back. As for Elena, yeah, that ship has sailed. Damon and Caroline have more of a chance, and then Lily will totally shock him.

Kai - the Luke part of him trusted Bonnie. ;) And honestly, previous-good-girl Bonnie would never have done what she did in the manner she did it......but that girl is gone. This is Bonnie the survivor, Bonnie the really angry.....and of course Damon encouraged her because he has no moral compunctions where Kai is concerned.

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