The Vampire Diaries Review: “While You Were Sleeping” (Season 5, Episode 16)

Katherine Pierce (Nina Dobrev) may be dead, but she’s far from gone. On this episode of The Vampire Diaries, Elena (also Dobrev) explores a bit of her inner-mind and discovers that Katherine hasn’t lost just yet. You may recall that as a final parting gift to her doppelganger, Katherine injected herself with a little vengeance – in the form of the vampire-eat-vampire serum, laced with werewolf venom for an extra kick. Werewolf venom, even in this form, is still deadly to vampires. As we’ve seen before, the decline is a painful process of physical ailments and hallucinations. So not only does Elena spend most of this episode writhing in emotional pain as she slowly loses her grasp on reality, but she is suffering from hunger pangs as vampires willing to let Elena gorge herself on them were the one thing in short supply.
At the center of Elena’s delusions was her recently deceased friend, Aaron Whitmore (Shaun Sipos). A few episode back, at the height of Damon’s (Ian Somerhalder) heartbreak misery, Aaron suffered an unfortunate accident – if you can call Damon ripping his throat out to prove Katherine right an accident. Perhaps since Katherine was impersonating Elena unbeknownst to her friends and family, it was more like a miscommunication of sorts. Either way, Elena’s subconscious obviously had the deep seated notion that something terrible had happened to him during her three week hiatus into the deepest crevices of her own mind.
This, naturally, forced the issue of Damon coming clean to Elena, which led to the couple confronting the truth about their relationship. Surprise, surprise, even with all the recent bumps in the road, they are still madly, deeply in love with each other. Which is probably a good thing considering that for a few moments earlier on, two vampire blood craving vampires were alone, together. It still remains to be seen if the cure that the travellers traded with Stefan (Paul Wesley) cures Elena completely, or just has managed to quell the annoying side effects for now. See more