The Descent (The Vampire Diaries)

Plot

The episode begins with Jules waking in the woods beside a camp after the full moon night when she attacked Damon and bit Rose. Surrounded by dead campers she attacked the previous night, she tries to cover her tracks. An officer arrives and asks if she is fine; Jules pretends to cry and claims her friends were attacked by a wolf, but when the officer goes to call for help, Jules kills him. Stefan tells Elena he wants to find Isobel to ask about Elijah and plans to ask Katherine where to find her.

Elena disagrees, reminding him she made a deal with Elijah so no one gets hurt. Stefan replies that she made the deal, not him, and leaves to find Alaric at the Grill, where Stefan asks for help locating Isobel. Alaric gives him a former phone number of Isobel's, and Stefan begins searching. Rose is at the Salvatore house, worsening from the werewolf bite.

Damon tries to convince her everything will be fine and he will find a cure, but knows it will be difficult. He leaves Elena to care for her while he goes to the Grill to meet Jules and ask how to help Rose. Jules tells him the only way to end Rose's suffering is to kill her. At home, Rose begins hallucinating, thinking Elena is Katherine and attacking her.

The first time the hallucination stops and Rose realizes it is Elena, so she stops before hurting her. The second time, Elena must run and hide to save herself. Between the two attacks, Rose tells Elena how much she misses being human and the place she grew up. After the second attack, Rose leaves the house and goes to the local high school, where she attacks and kills a man and later two teenagers.

Damon arrives and helps her return home. Meanwhile, Tyler thanks Caroline for helping him through his first transformation. Caroline confesses that a werewolf bite is fatal for a vampire, prompting him to ask why she would stay if she knew that, but before Caroline answers, Matt interrupts. Tyler leaves them alone, and Matt tries to tell Caroline he wants them to get back together and kisses her.

Caroline does not want to be together because she does not want to hurt Matt, but instead of telling him why, she says they cannot and leaves.

Reception

When "The Descent" aired in the United States, 3.55 million people tuned in, an increase of 390,000 from the episode before it. Critics generally liked what they saw. Eric Goldman of IGN gave it a 9.5 out of 10, calling it one of his personal favorites from the series so far. He singled out Lauren Cohan’s performance, saying she was essentially the episode’s star and delivered a fantastic portrayal of Rose’s wild emotional swings.

He also noted that if the show was ever going to make Damon Salvatore cry, this was the right moment for it. Matt Richenthal at TV Fanatic awarded it a 4.5 out of 5. He acknowledged that some might complain about how much screen time Rose got, given she was a relatively new character, but he argued that the long, painful death scene from the werewolf bite was essential to show the high stakes of the coming vampire-werewolf conflict. E. Reagan of The TV Chick gave it an A, calling it an awesome episode and a solid way to kick off the second half of the season.

Carrie Raisler from The A.V. Club gave it a B+, describing it as a strong, emotionally charged hour driven by Ian Somerhalder’s heartbreaking work. She admitted that despite her earlier rule against brooding on the show, she believed brooding was on its way and that it might turn out to be fantastic. Robin Franson Pruter from Forced Viewing rated it 3 out of 4, calling it not bad but frustrating, since a few small adjustments could have made it excellent.

She felt the episode should have centered more on how Rose’s death affected Damon, the only character who truly knew her and would be impacted. While the episode does cover that, she said it doesn’t focus on it, and she noted that getting that kind of fine-tuning right requires very advanced writing, so she couldn’t blame the writers too much for missing the mark.