“Previously on the Vampire Diaries” – Klaus [quick summary]
We open with suspenseful music, and a pan of Alaric chilling in his history classroom [reliving the glory days?] twirling the indestructible white-oak stake between his fingers, while Caroline is wandering the hallways before she’s supposed to meet with Rebekah, the other vampire Barbie, for a clean-up session after the latest Decade Dance. [So, are their vampire powers selective? Why on earth would Caroline be able to hear her mom and the Salvatores back in Season 2, but not be able to hear or sense Alaric chilling down the hallway?]
Caroline and Rebekah exchange condolences – sorry for your mom’s death, sorry about your teacher’s death – and we can’t help but feel bad for Rebekah as she misses yet another dance, with the statement: “I didn’t even get to attend the dance that I organized.” Poor Bex. Life suddenly gets even worse for her when the newest town vampire (formerly known as Mr. Saltzman) pops out of his classroom to take her out. Luckily for her (unfortunately for Caroline), he lets her go in favor of just kidnapping Caroline.
Meanwhile, in the Gilbert house, Jeremy and Elena are busy repainting Alaric’s old bedroom, trying to move on with their lives after the latest family death. Of course, in comes Stefan to check up on them Elena [and who can blame Jeremy for his attitude towards vampires at this point?]. Elena rushes to assure Jeremy that she and Stefan are not dating again, but Jeremy’s having none of it. He throws some sass Stefan’s way before stomping off in protest of the ever-present vampires in their lives.
Back at Klaus Manor: Klaus and his “loyal” hybrid Tyler are packing. Rebekah tells Klaus about Alaric’s new vampire status – and that he tried to kill her. Klaus’ solution is to just skip town, but not without his doppelganger. Rebekah, ever the impatient one, says she’s leaving now, and without him, if he doesn’t ditch his doppelganger. Of course, Klaus won’t leave without Elena, so Bex leaves without him.
Back at the Gilbert house: Damon and Bonnie show up to inform the gang of the new town vampire. We also learn that Damon saved Bonnie from dying at Alaric’s hands. They’re interrupted when Klaus arrives, politely knocking on the door asking for his doppelganger so he can skip town [normal, everyday requests]. Naturally, the Salvatore brothers do not find that acceptable, and shut the door in his face.
They search the house for Elena, who had just received a call from Ric. His normal, everyday request? Come alone to the high school [you do still remember where that is, right Elena?] or else Caroline will die. [Again with torturing poor Caroline… who will blame her if she skips town with Klaus? At least he’ll make sure she doesn’t get tortured by every random supernatural being who strolls through town.] Naturally, martyr Elena can’t resist a call to sacrifice herself, so she runs off to Alaric without telling anyone.
She shows up to the school, tries to free Caroline, who is staked to a desk with pencils [brings a whole new meaning to “detention”], until Vampire Alaric stops her. Elena whines that he’s breaking his promise to release Caroline. Of course, Alaric then delivers one of the most epic lines of the episode: “How many times do I have to tell you, Elena? STOP trusting vampires.”
Meanwhile, back at the Gilbert house, which is under siege courtesy of the local Original hybrid Klaus, the gang is busy dodging newspapers, soccer balls, and fence posts – hyped up on Original power [you know, just your everyday Saturday afternoon in Mystic Falls], reminiscent of Elijah’s tricks from Season 2.
Fortunately, Klaus’ aim isn’t up to par, so he mainly just causes some damage to the house, until Stefan steps in – or rather, out – and informs Klaus of Alaric’s new master plan: Klaus has to turn himself over, or else he’ll kill both Caroline and Elena. [Crazy Vampire Ric is not wasting any time here. Some of the other “villains” of the season should be taking note because this is how you get things done around Mystic Falls.]
In an interesting turn of events, now the gang has to join up with Klaus to save Elena and Caroline, and “put down” their old friend Alaric. [Cue resident witch, stage right, to come in and save the day.] Bonnie has a plan, using Abby’s old spell, to desiccate Alaric, but needs the local vamp muscle to hold him down until she can do it.
Abby shows up to the Salvatore residence with a message from Bonnie’s latest love interest [who, I guess, opted not to ditch her even after almost dying for her at the Decade Dance – some people just don’t have any sense], who was worried about her. Abby also brings some interesting news: Bonnie will have to tap into her dark magic to desiccate Alaric. She will have to stop a human heart. [Still have expectations of a Dark Bonnie next season – maybe one that will team up with this new Dark Alaric?] Abby is doubtful of Bonnie’s abilities, but Damon is all about some Team Bonnie, so they go ahead and make a plan.
Now it’s time for some product placement, so in lieu of a tracking spell, they use a handy stalker-app on one of their cell phones to find Caroline and Elena [because I guess they didn’t already know that they were in the classroom? – Far be it from us to knock a product placement]. Jeremy volunteers to be the human heart donor, the idea being that his ring will bring him back to life – again. Naturally, Damon is concerned about Jeremy using the ring, what with how well that ended for Alaric, but as we know, Jeremy is a stubborn, relentless Gilbert.
Now for some triangle love: we learn that Klaus ships Stelena. [Obviously: Klaroline + Stelena = Klaus’ OTPs – Maybe he just has hopes of roaming the world together – him and Caroline, with his BFF Stefan and his doppelganger Elena in tow.] Klaus feels that Stefan, not Damon, is the better option for Elena because of how much he has done for her and Damon. [Stefan obviously agrees.] Of course, Stefan assures Klaus that he and Damon are closer than ever [Team Salvatore!] because, to quote Stefan himself: “Damon and I have been through a hell of a lot worse than you.” [Epic quote of the episode #2].
The rescue team congregates to pass around a vial of Bonnie-blood (so that they’ll be connected). They lay out the plan to take down Alaric, and Klaus drops the bombshell that he’s their originator. [Of course, as Mr. Salvatore points out, he could just be lying so that they don’t kill him… but it’s not really a chance they can take.] Then the newly-formed rescue team heads into that thing, I’ve heard, they call a high school, and Bonnie and Jeremy head off [to the woods, for whatever reason] to do the desiccation spell.
Meanwhile, within the school, Alaric attempts a heart-to-heart with Elena, trying to make her see the error of her ways, that all vampires are evil, that her parents would be so disappointed in her. He tries to get her to kill Caroline, telling her that if she won’t he’ll kill her himself, just more painfully. Being the devious Elena Gilbert, she pretends that she’s going to, until she switches and goes after Ric instead. Caroline runs out the classroom – straight into Klaus’s arms. The two share an intense wordless moment, before Klaus tells her to go home and let them save Elena. Making a smart move, Caroline does what he says.
Alaric and Elena are scuffling, until the rescue team breaks them up and tries to hold him down so Bonnie can do her witch thing. Elena gets frustrated when he immediately takes them all down, and demands that Alaric just kill her already. Through Alaric’s refusal to kill her, they realize that if Elena dies, Alaric dies, so she’s safe from him [unless he decides he’s tired of life, anyway].
[Can I just stop for a minute and comment that I LOVE this episode so much – minimal ship stuff, just violence and family and vampires… and violence.]
With this new realization, Klaus makes off with his doppelganger and takes her back to his mansion. He ties her down and tells her he’s just going to drain her dry. [I guess he finally realized that trying to keep Elena Gilbert alive is more trouble than it’s worth.] Tyler the “sired” hybrid sees and wants to help her, but Klaus stops him and tells him to shove off, basically. So now here is the test: is his sire bond broke? Tyler hesitates, but then leaves [so we’re left wondering if he left because Klaus told him to – or because he’s going to fetch help for Elena].
But anyway, Tyler leaves, and Klaus informs the viewers that Elena won’t choose one of the Salvatores because she knows she’ll destroy their bond. So, he says that he is doing her a favor by killing her – no broken hearts and no broken bond.
Klaus leaves the room, and Tyler comes to rescue her – which Klaus ends up walking back in and witnessing. [So much for that sire bond.] In the next epic quote of the episode, Tyler tells Klaus: “I’m not your little bitch anymore,” and he proceeds to tell Klaus that he did it for Caroline because “real love is stronger than fake loyalty”. [You go, Tyler!] Klaus tries to tell Tyler that he did him a favor turning him into a hybrid – but Tyler has clearly broken his sire bond for good as he responds: “You didn’t give a crap a about me; you just didn’t want to be alone.”
About this time, Stefan and Damon show up to rescue her [having been awaken and caught up on the situation by Vampire Alaric]. As they’re fighting, she hits her head on the table [which, from the emphasis placed on it, must mean something important later]. Bonnie does her desiccation spell on Klaus instead – while Stefan and Damon hold him down. Unlike with Vampire Alaric, it works on Klaus, who goes down where he stands. [As an aside: Bonnie looked real happy doing that dark magic – again, possibly setting us up for a Dark Bonnie next season?] She uses Jeremy, who’s heart stops – but he survives [though it isn’t really made clear how he survives, whether it was from Bonnie’s magic or from his ring].
Meanwhile, still at Klaus Masion – Elena just gets up and walks out of the house [she should not be walking after just being drained of blood – and then hitting her head – so what’s going on here?]. Stefan and Damon both drive Elena home – and walk her to her door – and say their going to stay with her. Elena apologizes for appearing to be stringing them along – which she is – but she says that it’s because she doesn’t want to lose either one of them.
Damon and Stefan tell her that they’re going to dispose of Klaus and then leave town to escape Vampire Alaric, but that they’ll call her later.
Elena walks into the house – to discover the old high school crew is staging a raver to celebrate that Klaus has been taken down. [Can we take a second to appreciate the Gilbert Family cleaning crew? I wonder who they paid to come in and clean up their shattered living room….] Anyway, the whole, pre-vampire gang is there [which is just absolutely adorable, and a display of more family bonding – of a different kind].
[It’s funny to think that in the beginning of this show, everyone standing in that kitchen was human… now we look at them, and the only humans left are Matt and Jeremy. What does this town do to people? Get out while you can, you two. (But really, please don’t, because we love you.)] Matt is sad that the gang didn’t call him in to help take down another Original, to which Tyler replies: “He would have taken you right down to the hospital, bro.” [Which is, of course, very true.] Elena thanks Tyler for standing up to Klaus, and then they all do a shot together. [How adorable, this little dysfunctional family!]
Next we get a flashover to an emergency Council Meeting [anyone else forget that even existed?] – which, it turns out, has been summoned by Alaric. Ric tells the council about sheriff’s vampire daughter and the mayor’s hybrid son. [Guess the cat’s – or dog’s – out of the bag!]
Meanwhile, in the Salvatore road-trip bonding scene, they, too, are sounding their victory cheer, with another epic quote, courtesy of Damon: “Once more with feeling.” [Super casual BTVS references... totally NBD.] Stefan and Damon chat about how well they work together now, which only took about a century and a half. This conversation was eventually steered towards that thing standing between them, the other end of this love triangle, named Elena Gilbert. Damon says that, like how these things usually go, she’s going to choose neither [which is what I’m expecting, too, personally.] Stefan volunteers to leave town if she chooses Damon. Not to be outdone, Damon follows with “I guess I will too.”
“All this over one girl.”
“She’s a pretty special girl”
“Yes she is.”
Back at the Gilbert house: We get to witness some more sibling bonding, this time between Elena and Jeremy. Elena admits that it makes more sense to just let Ric kill them all, like their parents would have wanted. In a twist, Jeremy becomes the advocate against that – but not because some of their friends would die – but because then Ric might kill Elena so that he could die. Jeremy, of course, is against that idea, because he doesn’t want to lose his sister. [And who can blame him? If she dies, he literally won’t have any family left.]
[I cannot stress enough how much I loved these last few scenes of familial bonding. It’s no secret that I am not a ship fan, of any kind. But, shipping wars and everything else aside, I love that the writers are bringing things back to the basics for a bit, showing the importance of “family above all”.]
For the episode cliffhanger: Jeremy leaves the room.
Just kidding, the real cliffhanger: After Jeremy leaves, Elena passes out [remember the focus on her head wound from earlier.]
Of course, it’s not really much of a cliffhanger because we know she won’t really die. However, this could have some implications for the finale, depending on their methods of healing her. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
Recap done by Brittany @ItEntertainsMe
