Friday’s episode of The Vampire Diaries dove deeper into the history of the town our characters reside in, Mystic Falls, and of Peter Maxwell, aka Matt’s Dad. The final mid-season return for the series was directed by Ian Somerhalder. The episode also featured “Scars” an original song off Michael Malarkey’s, aka Enzo‘s, debut album (Listen and purchase the song here).

Somerhalder, who directed two other episodes over the course of his 8 year career, paid homage to the very first season of TVD with We Have History Together.  The Vampire Diaries star told MTV News, “The early seasons, Season 1 and Season 2, were my favorite time of storytelling in the show, so I was grateful to direct this episode, which is an ode to Season 1,” Somerhalder explained. “It’s just two cameras and actors. It’s performance-driven, and we push the stakes and find some levity, the moments that let the actors breathe a little bit. It’s just an A-B-C story line, as opposed to an A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J story line. It was fun because it was simple. We didn’t have to blow up five cars and kill 20 people.”

The episode may have been more simplistic camera wise, but the actors really pulled out all the stops, giving compelling performances throughout the night. Zach Roerig, who plays Matt Donovan, stole the show. We got to see Matt as a grown man interact with the father that left him. The way Roerig played the push and pull between the two characters was incredible; we see Matt wanting to befriend his father while simultaneously hating him for abandoning him and his family years ago.

Matt, along with the audience, finally got a hint as to why his dad left Mystic falls. Turns out Matt’s family, The Maxwell’s, were the original founding family of Mystic Falls. The Maxwell’s were welders that engineered church bells and brought the founding families of Mystic Falls to the area because of their skilled work. Unfortunately for the Maxwell’s, the other families (Gilbert’s, Lockwood’s, Salvatore’s, Forbes’) all had money and took the town from the Maxwell family. The only thing they kept of the Maxwell family was the church bell that Harvey Maxwell made back in 1790. That is until Peter, in a fit of rage, took the church bell from the founder’s day parade (which does not mention the Maxwell family at all) and threw it off the infamous Wickery Bridge in 1992.

As Matt and Peter learn from Dorian, who is now running the armory and in the circle of trust, the church bell is more than just a bell. As is everything in Mystic Falls, not everything is what it seems. Turns out Matt’s ancestor, Harvey Maxwell, knew the sirens (Seline & Sybil) back in 1790. The bell he created, with the pitch fork and Maxwell family heirloom, makes a mystical super bell. The sound of the pitch fork hurt the ears of the siren’s, so imagine that pitch fork as the bell hammer and magnify the sound times 1,000. Could he have been trying to kill the sirens? Can the super bell be the only thing able to kill them or does it do something else?

We definitely know it does something as Sybil was desperate to get her hands on it. Sybil commissioned Caroline to retrieve the bell as Caroline’s mother, R.I.P. Sherriff Forbes, had possession of it. In order to incentivize Caroline, Sybil temporarily became a high school history teacher and sirened her students to burn each other at the stake if Caroline could not retrieve the bell. Luckily for those students, Matt and Peter were able to find them and save them in time. Unfortunately for Sybil, her sister Seline beat her to it and nabbed the church bell when she was working as Caroline’s nanny. At least she was nice enough to leave a note.

The Salvatore brothers fired up their rivalry as well. Damon and Stefan attended an anger management group, but before you jump the gun it wasn’t to work out their centuries-long mommy issues or their fondness for emotionally terrorizing one another. It was to find their next victim or victims in Stefan’s case.

After a group interrogation Damon and Stefan find the man they want to sacrifice to Cade. Stefan then chose to take it amongst himself to devour the rest of the group for himself. As the episode continued on we slowly saw Stefan unravel while Damon’s humanity crept back up on him. After coercing a doctor (Tara) to kill Damon, Stefan finds Elena’s necklace in his pocket and that really pisses him off. He feels that it is distracting Damon from the mission and forces him to toss the necklace and kill Tara who just so happens to resemble Elena.

At the close of the episode Damon goes back to retrieve the necklace while Stefan, who is supposed to be taking the day off, is lurking around the hospital hoping to find his next victim. After Damon retrieves the necklace he returns to the hospital and is greeted with a grizzly scene. Stefan has murdered all the hospital staff and has gone full-blown Ripper. That whole “I’m going to keep their heads intact” thing lasted real long LOL. It looks like history is repeating itself once again.

Next Week:

Damon sees visions of Elena when he looks at Sybil

The Founder’s Ball

Stefan continues his ripper streak and plans to sabotage Damon’s memories of Elena, starting with The Founder’s Ball

Suggested Articles:

Christmas Eve in Mystic Falls – ‘The Vampire Diaries’ Recap: “The Next Time I Hurt Somebody It Could Be You”

Cade is Summoned – ‘The Vampire Diaries’ Recap: “Detoured on Some Random Backwoods Path to Hell”

‘The Vampire Diaries’ Recap: “Coming Home Was A Mistake”

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The CW has been known to renew its shows pretty early in the New Year and 2017 will be no different. The network has dished out early renewals to seven shows.

The series being ordered for the 2017-2018 season include:

Arrow (Season 6), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Season 3), DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (Season 3), The Flash (Season 4), Jane the Virgin (Season 4), Supergirl (Season 3), and Supernatural (Season 13).

Fun fact: Supernatural’s renewal for season 13 continues its streak as the longest-running show in CW (and The WB) history. Previously, 7th Heaven held the honor, ending after 11 seasons.

The President of The CW, Mark Pedowitz, said in an EW interview, “Over the past several seasons, The CW has built a schedule of proven performers, from our lineup of DC superheroes, to critically acclaimed comedies, to sci-fi dramas. Early pickups of these seven series now allow our producers to plan ahead for next season, and gives us a solid base to build on for next season, with original scripted series to roll out all year long.”

The DC TV superhero series have definitely resonated with viewers. They currently stand as the top four shows on the network, and their recent crossover sent all four’s ratings through the roof. There is no chance any of these shows will end up on the chopping block, especially with the rumors that a new show could be on the horizon to join them. No word as to which superhero (or villain? Could the new series focus Legion of Doom? It’s been hinted at before) the new series will center on, but stay tuned for developments.

The CW will also be resurrecting DC’s Constantine as an animated series starring the voice of Matt Ryan (who played Constantine in the original series) on digital outlet CW Seed, produced by Greg Berlanti.

Fall new comers Frequency and No Tomorrow were not on the early renewal list, but there still may be hope for fans of the series, especially with The CW’s Netflix deal. However, the fact that these shows weren’t picked up marks the first time in the network’s history that no new fall series has received a full season order. The fate of these two shows will be determined in May when final renewal decisions will be made.

The May renewals will also determine whether or not midseason series The 100, iZombie, The Originals and Riverdale will be renewed. These shows have yet to premiere, and, therefore, their fates will be determined after a few episodes air. The Originals has big shoes to fill when its sister show The Vampire Diaries goes off air in March. Will it be able to gain as much traction and fill the network’s vampire void? Only time will tell.

Suggested Articles:

‘DC’s Legends of Tomorrow’ Recap: “The Chicago Way”

‘Arrow’ Recap: “What We Leave Behind”

‘The Flash’ Recap: “The Present”

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