Anyway, let’s talk about what happened this week. Katherine and Bonnie made a deal, so the two teamed up this week to drop the veil, contact Quetsiyah, find out how to kill Silas, and [hopefully] ask her how to make Katherine truly immortal. Being Mystic Falls, only one of those things actually worked out: the veil between the ghost world and the human world dropped – but only within Mystic Falls.

Essentially, this meant that every ghost who happened to be hanging around Mystic Falls was now as visible and solid as a living person. That list of people included Alaric, Jeremy, Lexi, Grams, and… Kol? Yeah, he was apparently following Elena around in ghostly form. Needless to say, he was out for blood – namely Gilbert blood. He stops by the Grill – where Matt and Rebekah are holding down the fort, which is deserted as Bonnie’s magic made the power go out. They don’t know where Elena is, so he soon ditches them to look for her on his own.

Meanwhile, Elena is still focusing all her energy on putting an end to Katherine Pierce [hahahaha], so she spends a lot of this episode trying to get people to tell her where she can find everyone’s favorite Petrova. When she can’t get the information she needs from any of them, she takes off to find her on her own – which she actually manages to do quite successfully.

Unfortunately for Elena, Bonnie is linked to Katherine, so anything that happens to one happens to the other. Obviously, this means that if Elena kills Katherine, she’ll also kill Bonnie. Stefan gets to her just in time to stop her from staking Katherine [though I'm not entirely sure why Katherine was just standing there basically waiting for Elena to kill her]. Elena accuses Stefan of still being in love with Katherine [LOL - notice how much laughter this Elena/Katherine situation inspires in me?], and in the interim, Katherine escapes.

Stefan and Elena talk, with Stefan making some really excellent points about being a vampire meaning she’s just going to have to get used to losing people she cares about [that whole "live forever" thing and all]. Elena isn’t ready to hear it yet, so she punches Stefan in the face, takes off to visit Jeremy’s grave, at which point Kol finally catches up to her.

He’s about two seconds away from killing her when Jeremy shows up and distracts Kol. Stefan ends up taking Kol down, and then takes Kol’s body and leaves the Gilbert siblings to have their moment so they can say a real goodbye. Meanwhile, Bonnie and Damon manage to take down Silas [sort of]. Grams gave Bonnie a pep talk, convincing her that she can use her Expression magic to dessicate him again.

That done, she sets about bringing Jeremy back to life. Grams tries to convince her that the Expression magic won’t be powerful enough to bring Jeremy back, but Bonnie is determined to try anyway… but Grams was right – the magic ended up killing her instead. However, since she hadn’t gotten around to putting the veil back up, she’s still around… for now.

As for the spell that killed her, it isn’t clear as to whether or not Jeremy’s back, but Bonnie’s spell did manage to raise SOME of the dead… there are currently a whole lot of previously dead members of The Five hunterhood running around Mystic Falls now. Bex’s old boyfriend from the time before electricity is back, as is Connor Jordan, and even Galen Vaughn – the Scottish hunter from the island. [But I don't really understand that one... did I miss the episode where he died?]

Anyway, the point is they’re all back, and the veil is still down [does this mean that Alaric, Jeremy, and Lexi are gonna get to stay? And what does this mean for Bonnie?] I can’t imagine permanent ghosthood within the triangle in Mystic Falls is all that enticing – but who knows… maybe it looks a lot better when your alternative is the other side where no one can see or interact with you. Guess we’ll see next week – don’t miss the season finale! Our kids are graduating!

Yeah, okay, this episode was pretty badass. So, basically, Bonnie’s promised Silas she’ll drop the veil and kill him, Sheriff Forbes has escaped death – for now, and Elena’s humanity has returned and she’s now determined to off Katherine. Regardless of everything else that happened this week, Matt Donovan wins all the awards ever. Team Human was all up in this episode showing the world that he’s literally the best ever.

Let’s start off with the woes of our beloved human: Matt Donovan, arguably the only one in that town who still goes to class regularly, is failing school and worried he won’t graduate. What few friends he has left in town – which right now basically means Caroline… and Rebekah, oddly enough – offer to help him study to bring his grades up. Rebekah, in a move sure to win over most everyone who watches the show, even goes so far as to offer to compel Matt passing grades and a ticket to graduation – plus a college scholarship even – but dear Matty, ever the good human, declines her offer.

Still, both Matt and the viewers appreciated the sentiment, plus all this school and graduation talk gave everyone some distraction from the torture going on in the Salvatore dungeon. Stefan and Damon were busy putting their plan into motion – the one that involves torturing Elena into feeling emotions again. So, basically, everyone takes turns trying pretty much everything they can think of to force Elena to flip her switch and turn her humanity back on.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much good because – as Elena so helpfully points out – neither Salvatore brother will ever do anything that could cause her any real harm. We know it, they know it, Elena knows it, and once Stefan and Damon acknowledge that, things get moving along much faster. They decide to call in Katherine [because that's always a good idea and everyone always wins when she gets involved] and Katherine, being unable to pass up a chance to torture Elena, agrees to come help out.

However, Elena sort of wins the round as it takes her all of 60 seconds to piss off her doppelganger. Katherine questions her about what Elena may have said to Elijah that made him dump her – but Elena just insults Katherine a few too many times. Annoyed and tired of seeing everyone worship at Elena‘s feet [aren't we all!], Katherine walks away – leaving Elena‘s cage unlocked so she can escape and get out of their lives.

Anyway, while everyone else is busy revolving their lives around Evil!Elena, Bonnie is off getting shit done. She tracks down and sets up a meeting with Katherine to try and get Silas’ tombstone. Katherine apparently took it off the island where they first woke Silas. Bonnie offers Katherine a deal in exchange for the tombstone.

Essentially, if Katherine will give her the tombstone – which is filled with Quetsiyah‘s blood, and so will help her do the spell to drop the veil – Bonnie promises Katherine that she’ll talk to Quetsiyah and figure out how Quetsiyah made Silas immune to destruction, and then make Katherine the same way. Obviously, Katherine agrees to this deal – though I’m sure it’s not going to go as planned.

Points for effort though – it’s good to see sane Bonnie back. In other news, the title of this episode is “She’s Come Undone” – and I think it’s safe to say we were all assuming it was referring to Elena. However, having seen the episode, it would seem Caroline is the one who truly came “undone” this week. Silas sure worked a number on her, doing his usual tricks in an attempt to force her to find Bonnie – who’d gone M.I.A. on her mission to find a way to thwart Silas.

First, Silas shows up as Klaus, and that’s an entire issue in and of itself. Silas!Klaus tries to convince Caroline to run away to New Orleans with him, and then we have to watch this whole ordeal in which Caroline tells him that she’s afraid to run away with him, and it is implied that the reason is because she’s afraid of her feelings for him or whatever.

I’m sorry, I’m calling bullshit. All I saw watching that moment – even after we learned it was Silas impersonating Klaus – was blatant fan service for the Klaroline shippers. I get that Klaus is leaving for his own show, but that doesn’t mean that Klaroline has to be forced together before he leaves – especially when doing so means you have to majorly change Caroline‘s character.

Anyway, that’s not really important in the scheme of the episode. The point is, he tricks her, but she eventually realizes it’s Silas, and the mental torture then commences in full force. He appears to her as Matt, then again as Klaus, telling her he’ll kill Sheriff Forbes if she doesn’t find Bonnie immediately.

Care races home, but has a hard time trusting whether she’s talking to her mom there or to Silas. She accepts that it’s her mom, but then Bonnie shows up and Bonnie realizes that Silas is in the house – impersonating the sheriff. Caroline then runs in the other room to find her mom unconscious and/or dead. She feeds her her blood and it’s a little touch and go for a few minutes, but fortunately her mom comes to – and is now maybe in transition?

Bonnie, having witnessed the whole thing, assures Silas that she has no intention on going back on her promise to drop the veil and kill him off. He then makes some sort of strange remark about her having made him a promise, which means that she will be held accountable for her actions if she does anything other than what he says. Obviously, this means things aren’t going to end well for Bonnie Bennett.

Meanwhile, Katherine had let Elena escape, so Damon, Stefan, and Matt race off to find her. Matt gets to her first, and tries to talk to her, but she’s so hungry she just feeds from him – almost killing him before Stefan and Damon show up to stop her. Damon then tells Elena he’ll kill Matt – Elena says she doesn’t care, but then Damon actually DOES kill him and Elena positively panics.

At that moment, her emotions come back – as she’s so shocked and hurt over the idea that Matt Donovan has just died. However, it turns out that Matt was wearing one of the Gilbert rings [totally forgot all about those things - it's been so long since they've been mentioned]. Anyway, he was definitely dead – but he’d be coming back to life. Damon then informs Elena that she’s feeling relief – which is an emotion – and that her switch has flipped back. [Duh.]

Elena freaks out, remembering all the harm no-humanity her had caused, but Stefan and Damon work together to calm her down. Stefan talks to her, telling her to find an emotion to ground her and focus on it, which she does. We find out later that the emotion she chose to focus her energy on is her hatred of Katherine.

She’s decided she has to kill Katherine for all the trouble she has caused over the years. Stefan and Damon try to talk her out of focusing on anger, but there’s no reasoning with her – and really, they shouldn’t be so surprised. Both Salvatores selected anger when their emotions came back – Stefan last season when he focused on his vendetta against Klaus, and Damon in the 1920′s when he focused on duping Lexi.

This week’s prom episode was pretty much everything that prom is supposed to be – with a little blood and pain thrown in, of course. [It's Mystic Falls, after all.] Still, between the death threats and torturing, there was friend bonding, dancing, lots of nostalgia… and tears. Let’s discuss:

First of all, Jeremy’s back! No, not really… but Steven McQueen was. Silas took the form of Jeremy Gilbert to try and manipulate Bonnie into doing the spell to drop the veil to the other side. Kat Graham was on her A-game this week, making viewers cry within the first 10 seconds of coming on screen. We finally [just now, for whatever reason] got to see Bonnie‘s reaction to finding out about Jeremy’s death, from like, five episodes ago.

It was heartbreaking, and just made us all miss Baby Gilbert that much more. We quickly realized it was a dream, to which Bonnie woke up from to find her living room on fire. It looks like Bonnie‘s still having trouble controlling her magic. [However, I'm not entirely convinced that it's not Silas doing all these crazy things to make Bonnie think that her magic is out of control when it's really not.]

Bonnie (Kat Graham) spends much of the episode with Jeremy, not realizing that she’s actually been hanging out with Silas until Jeremy (Steven McQueen) makes a comment about Bonnie being able to bring him back by dropping the veil. Once she realizes Jeremy is actually Silas in disguise, she runs to the Salvatores for help.

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The Salvatore brothers were pretty busy this week themselves, having come up with a new plan to handle Humanity-Free Elena. Since Elena doesn’t want the cure and has threatened them to try and make them stop looking, they’ve decided that they’re just going to have to make her want to turn her emotions back on. They take a page from Lexi’s “Switch-Flipped Handbook,” thinking that by bombarding her with memories of the past, she may just start to feel again.

Elena, meanwhile, is busy scheming with Bex – who’s apparently also her new roomie, since everyone else can’t stand her anymore. The two go out dress shopping, but Elena decides she’s not up for shopping, and so just steals Caroline‘s prom dress instead. [Though, I don't really understand why an emotionless vampire would care enough to steal her former BFF's clothes. Or is "spite" not considered an emotion?]

Anyway, when she finds out, Caroline runs to Klaus (Joseph Morgan) to get him to rustle up a dress of “royal caliber” – and Klaus certainly delivers on that front. I don’t know that anyone could argue that Caroline wouldn’t have won Best Dressed at prom. She, Bonnie, and Matt Donovan all go to prom together as friends, which was super sweet and adorable. Bonnie and Matt got to have a chat about Bonnie’s struggle with her magic, and though there really isn’t too much Matt can do to help, he’s a good listener.

Damon and Stefan both take Elena – because Elena obviously is in desperate need of supervision lately – though Elena (Nina Dobrev) isn’t too thrilled to be seen with either of them these days. Putting their plan into motion, Damon tries to remind her that she used to love him, but it backfires as Elena informs him that all those feelings she felt towards Damon were just from the sire bond. Obviously we’re not sure whether or not she was lying.

Regardless, Damon’s move was a bust, so Stefan (Paul Wesley) takes matters into his own hands, pulling her out onto the dance floor. [Things must be getting desperate if we've got Stefan willingly dancing in public.] We’re sure glad he did because, I’m telling you, I think in that moment, everyone was a Stelena shipper. It was an amazing scene, with a great song choice [that was "Stay" by Rhianna, by the way], that had viewers – and Stefan – breathless. It’s hard to say, but I’d wager that even emotionless Elena was a little moved by the moment, but she quickly ran off, leaving Stefan and his nostalgia on the dance floor.

Caroline (Candice Accola) isn’t much in the mood for Prom, so after a cute dance with her new BFF Stefan, during which time they talk about love and moving on – particularly about how Stefan isn’t moving on from Elena like he so badly wants, Caroline decides to skip out on the rest of the dance and head over to the Lockwood Mansion [or should we be calling it the Donovan Mansion now?] to start setting up for the post-prom party. [Let's hope someone more financially stable than Matt Donovan is funding this post-prom party. Poor guy's got enough problems and bills these days.]

Once she gets there, she is surprised by Tyler Lockwood, who came back to town just so that he can give her the prom night of her dreams. He brings her flowers and dances with her, but Tyler (Michael Trevino) can’t stay long – because Klaus, obviously. Unfortunately, he doesn’t quite leave soon enough. Klaus shows up just as Tyler is leaving, but out of respect for Caroline, gives Tyler the chance to run away from him. [Good on you, Klaus!]

Back at prom, Bonnie Bennett and Matt Donovan (Zach Roerig) are crowned prom royalty. It sort of makes sense for Matt – I’m sure he’s probably a regular attendee at school, plus he’s on the football team, so people probably know him pretty well. Bonnie, on the other hand, not so much – or was that just me? I think she probably attends school… about as often as the rest of the supernatural beings in Mystic Falls do. But maybe her notoriety has gone up since her dad became mayor. Anyway, they won, so go them!

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Elijah, ever the logical Original sibling, is also around this week – acting as mediator for Klaus and Rebekah. The two are fighting over who should get to have the cure. Klaus obviously wants it so that he can get Silas off his back, while poor Bex just wants it so she can be human. Elijah decides that, if she can spend an entire day pretending to be human and still want the cure afterwards, he will give it to her. Rebekah (Claire Holt) accepts the challenge, and Elena agrees to help her out with the plan, as once Bex takes it, the cure will be gone and she won’t have to worry about the Salvatores trying to give it to her anymore.

Of course, there are complications. Elena tries to kill Bonnie so that she can’t drop the veil and bring back the very people that would try and force Elena to turn her humanity back on. Bonnie fights back and manages to escape, but April (Grace Phipps) is unfortunate enough to then stumble upon an angry Elena, who knocks April unconscious and drinks from her – leaving her to die as Matt watches.

Rebekah walks by at that very moment and Matt pleads with her to use her blood to save April [though I think we can ALL agree that we were wishing and hoping that Bex would refuse and just let April die]. The adorable and sweet Matt manages to convince Bex that being human means helping people whenever you can – even if it means using her vampire blood and thus failing to act as a true human would – so she saves her.

Klaus sees her do this and calls her out on her non-human actions. He tells her to tell Elijah what she did, then makes a weird statement about how he won’t have to argue with her about it anymore – which makes Rebekah suspicious. She calls Elijah (Daniel Gillies) and tells him not to let the cure out of his sight, but it’s just seconds too late, as he’d just been tricked by Silas posing as Rebekah into giving away the cure.

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Silas also tricked Damon and Stefan this week. When Bonnie told Stefan and Damon about Silas’ tricks, the brothers split up to go looking for him. Stefan approaches Damon – who’s busy checking out some old Stelena pictures – and basically tells him that his one-night-stand with Elena isn’t enough to bring Elena’s emotions back and that Stelena was better than Delena, basically. He then stabs Damon – and gives himself away as actually being Silas, not Stefan.

He tells Damon that he did the same thing to Stefan over on the other side of the school, and warns him away from Bonnie. [I'm not really sure what's going on there as neither Stefan nor Damon were even contemplating harming Bonnie. Why didn't Silas go find and stab Elena?] Whatever the reason, Damon recovers, tracks down Stefan, then stumbles upon Bonnie basically torturing Elena to death.

Elena thought she could sneak up on Bonnie and have a second try at killing her, but Bonnie’s magic takes over and starts making Elena bleed out. Bonnie also exhibited some cool magic-healing powers, healing her own neck wound Elena inflicted upon her seconds before. Elena rolls around on the ground pleading with Bonnie to make her stop, but it’s not until after Stefan and Damon show up that they manage to get Bonnie to back off.

Bonnie takes off and confronts Silas, who also finally shows his face to her, and also maybe manages to convince her to do the spell for him, if for no other reason than so that he’ll die and leave her alone. Damon and Stefan are left to deal with Elena. Since their plan to make her turn her humanity back on didn’t work, they opt for Plan B – which was to vervain Elena and lock her away until they can figure out a new plan.

After watching Elena’s reaction to Bonnie’s torture, they realize that Elena was showing an emotion: fear. So, their new plan is to basically try and make her so scared that all the rest of her emotions come back. Sounds like a reasonably good plan [although I'm pretty sure Lexi also tried that with Ripper Stefan, and it didn't have any effect - but maybe it'll work on Elena]. However, we probably won’t be seeing that plan put into action next week, since it’s [finally] the week the new Originals pilot is set to air.

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So, basically, Silas really did a number on the Mystic Falls crew this week. He kept appearing as Jeremy to Bonnie so that he could manipulate her, he duped both Stefan and Damon into thinking he was each other, and he convinced Elijah that he was Rebekah – which is how he ended up getting the cure from him.

Now Silas has the cure, Elena‘s locked up in the Salvatore’s makeshift vampire prison, Bonnie sort of just agreed to drop the veil, Tyler‘s back on the run…. Oh! And Klaus is headed to New Orleans! Katherine wrote him a letter, warning him about a witch that’s planning something devious against Klaus, so Klaus is headed off to investigate [i.e.: setting the scene for The Originals pilot].

“I would love for it to [continue] because I absolutely adore Paul Wesley, he’s one of my favorite people on the planet,” she says. “People don’t know this about him but he’s so funny. Probably one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life … I think we had some really great chemistry, it harkens back to the 1920s episode, but like, really? I don’t think anybody really wants to be with Rebekah forever unless she changes her ways.”

Source

ETonline: What have you thought about Rebekah’s storyline this season?

Claire Holt: I feel really lucky as an actor because I get to go a lot of places with Rebekah. I get to explore her vulnerable side, I get to explore the mean girl/catty side of her and there’s that inner conflict about whether she wants to be human or a vampire. I just love it all and am so grateful to the writers for giving me so much.

ETonline: I think you’ve touched on one of the reasons fans love her so much: Rebekah struggles with being an eternal but having very human desires.

Holt: Absolutely. That provides a huge amount of inner turmoil for her because she loves parts of being a vampire — the power, being able to control situations — but she also wants to be a real girl and to have those experiences of going to a dance and being loved by a boy. She wants those things, and you really see that in tonight’s episode when the dance gets cancelled and Stefan finds a charming way to make up for it. What he does really means a lot to her.

ETonline: What did you think when Julie Plec told you “Stebekah” would be revisited?

Holt: Listen, I love working with Paul Wesley. He’s such a fine actor and such a fine human, so any time our characters get to interact, I’m happy. I’m always a little scared of the Stelena shippers, but I think it’s fun. I always enjoyed the Ripper Stefan and I loved the dynamic they had in the 1920′s episode. I think it brings out good things in both Stefan and Rebekah.

ETonline: It has to be exciting for Rebekah to finally have him come to her since she’s wanted this for a long time.

Holt: It’s definitely exciting for her — Rebekah loves to get her way, so having Stefan come to her was definitely fun for her. But deep down she knows whatever is going on right now is a mutually beneficial relationship — they’re hooking up, having fun, but they have a common goal. She’s been in Mystic Falls for a while, she knows what’s going on. We’ll see if it really leads anywhere, but I think the fans have liked it.

ETonline: Sounds like Claire Holt might be a Rebekah/Matt ‘shipper at heart…

Holt: [laughs] I’m a Rebekah anyone shipper. I’ll hook up with anyone in Mystic Falls, because, I don’t know if you’ve seen those guys, but they’re pretty gorgeous. Listen, I like the idea of her and Matt — I think it would have given her a more human experience, but she tried to kill him, so I’m not sure that’s going to happen any time soon. I’d like to have someone love her. I think it’s important.

ETonline: A moment ago you referenced the fans — you’ve now been a part of TV’s two most social shows (TVD and Pretty Little Liars). What’s it been like to have such an in-depth relationship with your fans?

Holt: It’s been amazing. I never had any concept of it before because I worked in Australia and the Twitter world didn’t exist. Being on those shows and seeing the online support has been mind-blowing. It’s a lot easier for us to feel personal connections with the fans, and vice versa — plus, it’s a lot easier to Tweet than respond to fan mail. I’m so grateful for all the fan support.

read more. Source

Last week saw some torturing, partying, and fake alliances. This week saw more of the same, but in a much more badass way. [Seriously, how awesome was Stefan this week - totally on his A-Game, and without hitting ripper status. I love when he and Klaus team up.]

Anyway, let’s start off with the new hunter in town Connor, and his lineage of elite hunters – since this episode was titled “The Five” and all. As we saw last week, Klaus saved both Connor and Elena from certain death because he realized that Connor was part of The Five. This week, we got a few flashbacks to learn exactly what that means – and how it relates to Klaus finding Elena worthy of protection again.

After failing to convince Rebekah to help him out [she's still sore over him snapping her neck and telling her she means nothing to him], one of our favorite bro-pairs join forces: Klaus and Stefan! Since Elena‘s going out of town for the day, Stefan decides to try and figure out why Klaus saved Elena. Knowing Klaus as Stefan does, he’s aware that Klaus doesn’t do anything out of the goodness of his heart [I'm still not entirely convinced Klaus has a heart - and apparently neither is Rebekah].

Of course, Stefan was right, but Klaus will only tell Stefan what’s going on if Stefan manages to convince Rebekah to help – as she knows some important information that Klaus needs to know so he can proceed with his master plan. Stefan convinces Rebekah [who was off trying to both make amends with Matt - by buying him a new truck - and create a bond with newcomer April Young] by offering her a “clean slate” with both him and Matt Donovan for her terrible behavior.

She goes with him back to Klaus‘ mansion, where the two begin telling Stefan a story about a group of special vampire hunters – obviously known as “The Five” – who helped clean up the vampire problem back in 12th century Italy. [Fun history fact according to The Vampire Diaries: 12th century Italians have 21st century American accents. The things you learn - besides the obvious, which is that Elijah always has phenomenal hair.] Rebekah fell in love with one of the hunters, and thus found out some interesting information about a secret weapon the hunters knew of that “no vampire could survive”. Around the time of this revelation, the hunters managed to use the white-oak daggers to put all of the Originals to temporary death – not realizing that it wouldn’t work on Klaus.

So, a very angry Klaus is able to take out the hunters and free Rebekah [and presumably Elijah, as he was roaming the world on his own after the 12th Century]. Rebekah reveals to him that the secret weapon the hunters had was supposedly a way to turn the vampires back to humans! [I think this was probably designed as a fail-safe in case people weren't a fan of Vampire!Elena, but I don't know that it could actually work - as then they'd have to change the show to The Human Diaries, and how fun would that be??]

While all Klaus, Rebekah, and Stefan were having story-time, Klaus and his hybrid help Nate managed to threaten Jeremy into also providing some help for the cause. Because he is the only one of them that can see the tattoo – and just so happens to also be an artist – Klaus gets him to draw out the tattoo as they need to know what it looks like to figure out how to find the weapon. As Jeremy draws the tattoo, he chats with Connor – who reveals that the tattoo grows as he kills more vampires. Essentially, what this means is that the tattoo on Connor‘s body isn’t complete – and won’t be until Connor kills an unknown number of vampires and hybrids. [Does this make anyone else a little nervous for some of the expendable vampires on this show - i.e. everyone who isn't part of the triangle??]

The reason this fact is important is that the trick to finding “The Weapon” is hidden in the tattoos [the ones that only Jeremy can see], which form a map to The Weapon’s location. In addition, the reason Klaus needed Rebekah‘s cooperation is that the map can only be interpreted using a special sword – of which only Rebekah knows the location. Upon realizing that the only reason Klaus wants this weapon is to turn Elena back to a human and use her to create his precious hybrids, Rebekah loses her temper [shock, I know, but after this week I'm a lot more sympathetic to the poor lost girl] and refuses to help.

Realizing what this development could mean for his and Elena’s future, Stefan agrees to double-cross Rebekah to find out The Sword’s location [specific maps, swords, weapons, tattoos - makes you nostalgic for the days when the biggest worry was a single Moonstone]. After chatting with Rebekah and telling her how much he loves Elena and would love for her to be able to be a human again, for her own sake, he also admits that he would love to be human with her [which I'm sure Klaus would love, as it would all but guarantee some baby Gilberts to carry on her bloodline].

Stefan and Elena’s love for each other ends up leading Rebekah to confess that the sword was buried with Alexander. Klaus, having been listening in around the corner, shows up, basically calls her stupid for falling in love so easily, and tells her he’s going to dagger her again so she won’t be able to tell anyone about the plan. [Admittedly, I'm not entirely sure why it has to be a secret, but I'm sure there's some major plot reason - if for no other reason than so it can be a big shock value when the secret starts getting let out, as these things do around Mystic Falls... and anywhere, really.]

Rebekah tells him to just go ahead and do it, as she’d rather have lived her own life than to be like Klaus, never having experienced being in love. Of course, thinking of Elena, Stefan doesn’t come to her defense, so Klaus follows through and daggers her. After, Klaus essentially tells Stefan that if he lets the secret out, Klaus will kill everyone Stefan‘s ever known in his entire life, and then some. Stefan then leaves to compel Jeremy to forget what he learned that day, and Klaus hops on a plane to go retrieve the sword.

Meanwhile, along with these elaborate plans and betrayals, some blood was being shed at a frat party courtesy of Damon and Elena. As you remember from last week, Damon promised to teach Elena how to feed without turning into a ripper, and to do that, they tagged along with Bonnie on her trip to meet with the professor who took over her Grams’ job, teaching occult at the university. [As a side: how glad were you to see Elena finally being honest with Stefan?] While Bonnie had her own distractions chatting up the mysteriously knowledgeable Professor Shane, who admits that he’s a believer in all the supernatural stuff – and to whom Bonnie confesses that she’s not doing magic anymore – Elena and Damon went a little blood crazy feeding on all of the party-goers.

When Bonnie came back to meet up with the two, she was pretty stunned at the sight of Elena – which brought Elena back to her senses, and thus also her guilt. Elena confesses to Bonnie that she wishes Stefan had been there to help instead of Damon. Damon overhears this confession, and points out that Stefan’s methods don’t work – that the only way to adjust to vampirism is to learn to enjoy it. Elena admits that she is scared because she doesn’t want to be like Damon. Of course, Damon is hurt by this information, but leaves her with Stefan and heads home.

Meanwhile, Stefan and Klaus had decided to keep the cure a secret until they could figure out how to get the sword and the completed map [again with the nervousness for all these non-triangle-related vampires on the show these days - especially with Klaus in charge of this whole project]. Unfortunately for Stefan, this also means keeping the secret from Elena, which he’s going find especially hard now that Elena is having such a hard time accepting the guilt of her new vampire lifestyle. [I will be very impressed if he actually manages to keep it from her - anyone remember the Bonnie death plan from Season 2... or the kill Elijah plan?]

Anyway, this episode was really great. I particularly love the episodes that just focus on planning and scheming, minimal overall relationships or triangle focus [though I know I'm one of the minorities on that one], and throwing out a few surprise twists along the way. Speaking of surprise twists, Connor manages to escape Nate‘s clutches [though that's not the surprising part] and kill him [while we watch that tattoo grow], only to seek out Professor Shane, of all people. The plot twist of the episode is that Shane sent Connor to Mystic Falls. Guess we’ll have to wait until next week to find out why….

Now that you know what’s up, check out the preview for next week’s episode: “The Killer”. With a title like that, I have a feeling we can expect someone to be dead by the time it’s over.

So, Tyler had to spend the night in the Mystic Falls hospital to keep up appearances after last week’s episode. [I guess that's how long it takes normal humans to recover from a gunshot wound to the heart. One overnighter for observation.] You’d think he’d be safe in a hospital, but this is Mystic Falls we’re talking about, and there’s a vampire hunter still on the loose. Fortunately, Tyler has super hybrid hearing, so he heard Connor take out the guard standing watch outside Tyler’s hospital room – and quickly hopped out of bed to attack Connor. Unfortuantely, he wasn’t quick enough, and Connor shot him up with some paralytics – and then Connor totally stabbed Tyler in the gums with a syringe to steal his werewolf venom!

Soon after that, Tyler was allowed to go home. He and Mayor Lockwood arrive at their house, which is now full of hybrids – looks like Tyler landed himself in the Hybrid Protection Program. Turns out, Klaus doesn’t want any more of his hybrids killed – even if it’s the hybrid dating his love interest. [Though I'm not too sure why hybrids would be sent to protect Tyler - why wouldn't Klaus just compel some vampires and not put his last remaining hybrids in harms way just for the one hybrid he hates?]

Anyway, Tyler was basically on lockdown for the entire episode, but his old friend Hayley [who he met while trying to break his sire bond last season] showed up to keep him company. It turns out that he’d lied to all of his werewolf buddies so that they wouldn’t come to Mystic Falls [smart move on his part, probably saved their lives], but Hayley found out where he lived anyway and came to find him. For some reason, he didn’t tell Caroline that Hayley was in town, and Klaus assumed it was because he cheated on Caroline with Hayley.

[Tyler didn't deny it, but he didn't confirm it either. However, I hope they don't expect us to believe that Tyler would cheat on Caroline - it would be something the old Tyler would do - but completely out of character for the new-and-improved Tyler. If this is the case, it would obviously be nothing more than a plot device to break the two up and clear a path for Klaus to get an in with Caroline.]

While Tyler was on lockdown, catching up with his old friend Hayley and throwing side eyes at Klaus, Elena was catching up with Matt in their old make-out spot at the high school. Sweet little Matt was voluntarily allowing Elena to feed from him [since she still is unable to keep any blood down that isn't straight from a human vein - for whatever reason]. Afterwards, Elena meets up with Stefan in History, their first class of the day – which brings up fond memories of Alaric [though I'm not sure how as he was only in his classroom three times max during his entire teaching career]. At this point, Rebekah walks into class telling everyone about a party she’s throwing at her new place – now that she’s left Klaus.

This is the beginning of a very interesting storyline between Rebekah and Elena, as the two spend much of the episode engaging in their normal Mean Girl power-struggle [except this time, with much more rage on Elena's part, thanks to her new vampire status]. Rebekah really gets creative, stabbing Elena with pencils, smearing their classmate’s blood all over her face, throwing her daylight ring down the garbage disposal… you know, standard bullying: vampire style.

While still at school, Elena and Stefan go into the hall to get away from Rebekah. Elena spots Connor down the hall heading towards Jeremy – and Stefan offers to go help him out while Elena cools off. Connor takes Jeremy into an empty classroom to chat with him about the reason that Jeremy was able to see Connor‘s tattoo. Apparently, it’s a sign that only vampire hunters and potential vampire hunters can see. Connor tries to recruit Jeremy, and Jeremy goes along with it so that he can lead Connor into a trap later.

Sporting a fresh new bandage and vampire bite as, apparently, Matt won’t let anyone heal him [presumably so that it would be impossible for him to die with vampire blood in his system] Connor corners Matt in the hallway. Seeing the new vampire bite, Connor threatens to kill Matt if he doesn’t tell him which of his classmates is feeding on him. Matt pretends he’s been compelled at first, but then gives Connor a name: Rebekah Mikaelson. [Every one of these kids have got some quick-thinking and duplicity in their blood, but I guess living in Mystic Falls will do that to you.] As a thank-you, Connor knocks Matt unconscious, but also promises to kill Rebekah for him.

Before Stefan and Elena head over to Rebekah’s party, Elena gets the white oak stake from Damon so that she can kill Rebekah once and for all. However, Stefan helps her see why she can’t do that – mainly because of all of the vampires she would also be killing as a result. Of course, this is Stefan, so he tells her that it’s ultimately her decision. In the end, Elena wisely opts to not kill her, instead going for a motorcyle ride with Stefan, but not before she does a keg stand at Rebekah’s party – to prove… something… to Rebekah.

The motorcyle ride leads to a hot vampire hook-up back at the Salvatore boarding house – that gets interrupted when Elena starts to hallucinate, seeing Damon instead of Stefan. Stefan immediately realizes that she must have gotten some of that werewolf venom in her system [probably through the beer at Rebekah's party, as Rebekah also gets ill from it]. Stefan then starts blowing up Klaus‘ phone trying to get him to come heal her.

Unfortunately, Klaus is unavailable as he, Damon, Meredith, and Jeremy have teamed up to take out the new vampire hunter by luring him to the hospital so they can blow him up. During the [really stupid] standard chat about “big plans to rule the world and kill some vamps,” that charcaters always do in movies and television, Klaus realizes that Connor is “one of The Five,” which for whatever reason makes Connor’s life really valuable to Klaus. Fortunately for Elena [probably actually unfortunately, but we don't really know yet], Connor‘s status also means that Klaus needs Elena alive – so he answers Stefan‘s summons and saves her.

Meanwhile, Rebekah is at her new home alone, suffering from the werewolf venom as well, though without a British hybrid to come save her. She also finds herself in the middle of hallucinations – though much more gruesome and murderous than Elena‘s. In her hallucinations, Matt Donovan had come over to talk with her about how she basically doesn’t deserve her life, and Rebekah, being the quick-tempered Original that she is, rips his heart out without even blinking. [I have never hated her more than I did in those 5 seconds before realizing it was a hallucination.] She seems to be pretty upset about it, but then realizes it was a hallucination, and so moves on.

While trying to relax until the werewolf venom passes through her system [though I'm not sure whether it goes away like that - even for an Original], April shows up and tells Rebekah she’s there to help clean up so that she didn’t have to sit at home alone [where is April "sitting at home," exactly? Her dad's house is a little charred, and don't even tell me the people in this town allowed a 16-year-old to buy a house. Either way, I can't even handle this town letting all these kids live in houses by themselves.] Touched that April stuck around to help clean up, and in desperate need of a friend, Rebekah decides she’s going to bond with this new girl.

During all of this, Meredith is being primed to take over Alaric’s place as Damon‘s go-to human drinking/plotting buddy, and Caroline offers to take over Damon’s place as Stefan‘s vampire helper. Though excited about the resurgence of the Stefan/Caroline friendship, I was skeptical about the Meredith/Damon combination, but it seems like it’s going to work out okay.

Of course, the Stefan and Caroline combination is just as great as we anticipated it would be – and Caroline is kind of perfect for being Stefan’s Rippers Anonymous sponsor. I think Caroline is pretty much a perfect example of a well-adjusted vampire – and, as she’s such a sweetheart, really knows how to be a good friend to Stefan.

During the sweet friendship-bonding moment between Caroline and Stefan, Elena calls Matt over so that she can have some dinner before bed. As she’d just had a pretty traumatic day, she loses control when feeding on Matt and almost kills him. Damon shows up just in time to stop her, compels Matt into forgetting what happened, and tells Elena he’s going to help her become a better vampire. We’ll wait and see how well that’s going to go.

For the concluding moment, Klaus – having just saved Connor, though everyone else thinks he’s dead – drops Connor off back at his RV and tries to chat with him about exactly it means to be one of “The Five” [I don't know why, but I just feel like that always needs to be capitalized]. When Connor clearly has no idea what Klaus is talking about, Klaus prepares to sit down and tell him a story – which, of course, means that we’re going to get a flashback next week. So, see you then!

If there is any show that knows how to make a comeback, it’s The Vampire Diaries. Maybe it’s the post-new-episode [finally!] glow I’m basking in right now, but I think the premiere was phenomenal. If you need a refresher from the end of last season, check out the recap here. If not, read on – but be forewarned: massive episode spoilers ahead!

The Condensed Version:

A posse of vampire hunters roll into Mystic Falls, fire Dr. Fell, Mayor Lockwood, and Sheriff Forbes. They round up several vampires, including Elena – who doesn’t get a chance to feed first. Stefan killed one of the vampire hunters so that Elena could drink his blood and complete the transition. Klaus forces Bonnie to use dark magic so he can get his body back. The spirits retaliate by attacking Grams while Bonnie watches. Rebekah and Klaus fight, ending in Bex destroying his stored-up doppelganger blood and Klaus snapping her neck in retaliation. The vampire hunters all die in an explosion when the pastor decides to murder them all.

The Extended Version:

As we’ve seen in the promos, Elena wakes up without a clue that she died – thinking that Stefan somehow managed to save her as well as Matt. Unfortunately [from their perspective, anyway], that’s not the case. Stefan and Damon break the news to Elena, and talk about the possibility of Bonnie finding a way out. Damon is adamant that it won’t work – but Stefan and Elena both have hope that it might.

Down in the Gilbert kitchen, Stefan and Damon have an argument – as Damon is upset with Stefan for saving Matt. Stefan emphasizes her making a choice to save Matt over herself, but also confesses to Damon that he will regret it forever. Upstairs, Jeremy tries to help Elena understand what is going to come – having experienced the same with Vicki [though how he remembers what that was like since Damon compelled him to forget, I'm not really sure] – but Elena tells him she’s fine. He walks off, and Elena crushes a lightbulb [guess that's one way to turn off a light] because she can’t handle the noise it makes.

Klaus found his body still intact, brings it to the underground cell on the Lockwood property [where he's hiding out, I guess], and demands that Bonnie put him back in his own body. Bonnie tells him that he wants to save Elena first, but Klaus isn’t concerned with Elena since she is now dead. However, Bonnie convinces him to let her try when she mentions that she may have a way to bring her back as a human – and thus give Klaus his doppelganger blood source back.

Remember that time Mystic Falls had a “vampire hunter”? [Yeah, I'm still missing Ric, too.] Well, it turns out that he was about as amateur as they come – and the new crew [yes, there is a group of them - led by some pastor from their past] means business. They fly into town and immediately kick Meredith Fell out of the hospital, arrest Mayor Lockwood, and take Sheriff Forbes’ badge away.

As usual, Caroline is attacked – the vampire hunters find her at the Forbes’ house collecting some stuff to go on the run. They vervain her and throw her in the back of their van. The hunters then head over to Klaus’ mansion, where Rebekah is having a little grief party. Damon interrupts her, tries to kill her, but then takes off when the hunters show up and stake Bex [but, of course, she's an Original so it doesn't kill her] – and toss her in with Caroline.

Meanwhile, back at the Gilbert house, Elena fluctuates from laughing hysterically to sobbing uncontrollably [you know, typical vampire-in-transition stuff]. Stefan tries to comfort her, and tells her that he regrets saving Matt. Of course, Elena is still glad that he listened to her and saved Matt.

Klaus-Tyler is still walking around tricking people into thinking he’s Tyler – and by people we mean Mayor Lockwood. She’s fresh out of lock-up and calls Tyler to warn him – also letting it slip that the hunters got Caroline. Klaus-Tyler decides to go after the hunters to get Caroline back. He rips the van to shreds, saves Caroline, but leaves Rebekah tied down – though he does reveal to Bex that he’s actually Klaus. [Does that make Klaus-Tyler a hybrid-hybrid?]

Caroline and Klaus-Tyler run off into the woods, and immediately start making out. Klaus-Tyler tries to tell Caroline that the reason Tyler isn’t dead is because Klaus is in Tyler’s body, but Caroline doesn’t really listen. That is, she doesn’t listen until Klaus-Tyler calls her “love”. Once she realizes that Klaus is in Tyler’s body, she slaps him and he leaves to get Bonnie. [Also: it has to be said that Trevino did a fantastically convincing Klaus.]

When the hunters show up at the Gilbert house, they take Stefan and Elena, throwing Stefan in the cell with Bex. Elena gets a free pass until they realize something’s off about her and assume she’s a vampire, too. So, they add her to the vampire jail [though don't expect me to understand how a barn with nothing but a chain-link fence around it and some vervain fog can hold a thousand-year-old vampire] at the pastor’s farm.

ANYWAY…

Previously on The Vampire Diaries: All the plans go wrong and Stefan is still perfect. Basically.

Okay, so, we start off with Ric locked up in the cellar. But that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde book was a great choice, Damon. I actually laughed at it. Not much going on here, these fools still haven’t found the stake. And Elena tells him about her upcoming road trip, WHICH APPARENTLY WAS STEFAN’S IDEA. This fool. He gets HIMSELF in trouble.

Aw, look at my boy, he looks good. Wait, is this an actual nice brother conversation going on right now? Jesus, this show is pulling at my heart strings in all the right places at all the wrong moments, to be honest. Damn, I want them to be brothers again like in 1864 (L O L possibly not happening but hey I can dream).

So, um, can Matt wear that shirt more often if he’s not allowed to be shirtless because JESUS it looks great. Long sleeve shirts are definitely one of my favorite looks for guys, okay. And definitely going to agree with Rebekah, speakeasy’s are better the ’20s are great. (3×03 anyone?) Plus, it’s always good times when we get good exchanges like the one between Rebekah and Caroline, it’s a lot more refreshing than just blantly calling each other sluts. But, I am a little confused on what happened but apparently Caroline just wanted to buy some time, I guess.

Fun times with the psycho! Let’s not talk about the road trip guys. But Stefan is obviously the greatest for willingly letting Elena make her own decisions about her feelings. You go, fool.

IT’S JERBEAR GUYS. He’s stupid but I miss him. So, it’s a general consensus that basically ALL the TVD boys are just super attractive at every moment, even while doing regular activities like baseball and breathing? Yes? Okay good that’s all I have to say. Kidding. Anyway, can we not bring Rose back, unless it’s to slap Elena again then I’d rather keep her away, thanks. HE LOOK IT’S KOL Y’ALL. He’s great and wonderful for the sole reason that he just hit Damon in the face with that bat. *rewinds* It’s never gonna get old, I don’t care what you say.

“Well, didn’t you find it weird that you made a friend so fast? Have you met you?” I’m so thrilled the old snarky Damon is coming back around he’s so much fun (definitely not sarcasm, he was the worst in season 1 but his one liners were gold, okay). AND he called Jeremy “Whoopi” I’m ugly laughing, I really am. He’s so fun HA. That was QUICK though, I wasn’t expecting her, this was a surprise.

ALL THE FORWOOD FEELINGS RIGHT NOW, FORGET I EVER LIKED KLAUS AND CAROLINE. Sex in a cave, kinky okay. I’VE MISSED THEM I LIKE THEM BETTER.

And all the awards for Matt Donovan, bye. (Also kind of shipping it, I’m sorry I like everyone). Fun times, it’s Esther! And she’s dying, well.

JUST for that comment, I want to personally castrate Rose if that’s even possible for ghosts. Let’s not root for them, I prefer Rose/Damon over that. And so does Jeremy apparently, he pretty much avoided saying that. BLESS HIM, I knew there was a reason why I liked him. Oh and she was sired by “Scary Mary”. If we say her name three times in a bathroom mirror and flush the toilet, you think she’ll show up?

One question: WHY haven’t we had more Stefan and Alaric scenes like this? THIS was great. They are basically the same person now, they could help each other out and fight the internal demons or something! The whole Alaric and Damon bromance is really good, but Stefan can have friends too you know (*ahem* waiting on the Matt and Stefan bromance that started WAY BACK IN SEASON 1. The writers think I forget about things, nope, they’re wrong). Oh, it’s Klaus y’all. HE’S THE WORST I HOPE STEFAN ISN’T DESCENDED FROM HIM.

Not much to say but BLESS JEREMY he is obviously highly against it. No one seems to remember that his neck was snapped by Damon like months ago basically, the timeline of this show, it hasn’t been THAT long.

I need the Originals to have a spinoff, asap, make it happen CW. All of their scenes are great. GREAT.

FORWOOD Y’ALL. The adorable is killing me. “Tell him to suck it!” Caroline is the bestest, don’t care. Oh, Caroline told him about the whole “Kill an Original and basically extinct the entire vampire race” problem. I want Klaus DEAD and GONE just as much as anyone else, but I kinda don’t at the same time because it’s fun watching him draw ponies and he’s pretty, but I definitely don’t want Tyler gone.

OH IT’S THE SCENE. Hey, umm, yeah I’m just gonna skip this *fast forwards*. Can’t do it, I’m in denial, sorry. (Bitter about the song choice, too). JEREMY COCKBLOCKED BLESS HIM I WANNA HUG HIM.

Stefan, honey, NO ONE EVER reads “Moby Dick” for fun. Stop. BUT, this next scene is GREAT. Oh, wait, not yet.

Basically, the only good thing about this scene, Jeremy being a dick and then Kol showing up and beating Damon. What royally sucked was that Kol killed that bloody scary Mary, whatever, lady and set all of them back on their mission. Damn.

(I skipped between these scenes and basically mushed it together, kind of, so it wouldn’t be a back and forth thing. Anyway…)

THIS okay, this is the scene I really liked between Alaric and Stefan. Everything was SO well done, the acting, the delivery, the directing, the camera, the score, the lighting, EVERYTHING GUYS. Paul and Matt KILLED it. They both can do psycho SO well, it’s scary, and I’m so proud. Oh, Klaus and Rebekah, okay.

Well. Kinda confused because the writing here was bad. Okay, first, Elena has the right to be confused about her feelings at this moment. Damon doesn’t have the right to be so upset with her about it. He’s done some horrible things to her, her family, and her friends in the past, and it seems to be part of the reason why she’s not completely sure yet (I hope it is). She needed to sort through things and figure out what is going on with her. And, I guess that kiss was a way to do it, I don’t know, I don’t understand her. And second, NO IDEA what Damon meant by that, “This time, I won’t make it so easy for you. This time, you’re gonna have to figure it out for yourself.” I’m just really confused and basically in denial, but, I mean, WHAT even is that? Is he trying to say that before, he would purposefully lash out and be stupid so she would hate him and stay with Stefan or something? THe writing just has me really confused and I have no idea what is going on with Elena, to be honest, I just need her to pick one temporarily because this push and pull she has going on is driving me INSANE.

I love Stefan. That is ALL. Okay, bye. (Klefan feelings, I told you guys I have a lot of feelings).

This scene has me SO bitter, you guys have no idea. I liked Rose back in season 2 but what she’s saying make mee wanna punch her. I’m not saying that Damon probably DOES do those things for her, but you know what, so does Stefan. Because Stefan challenged her. Stefan surprised her. Stefan made her question her life. Stefan fought compulsion against Klaus for her. He’s letting her choose between them without making her feel guilty. She may know how Damon is, but she knows nothing about how Stefan is. I don’t get how they think Stefan went from being the guy who would sacrifice everything, including himself, for Elena, to only being good for her. Everything he’s done, mostly everything, was FOR her sake. Rose was never around to witness the love Stefan has for Elena. When he was willing to sacrifice himself instead of Jenna so she wouldn’t lose another family member and the only parental figure she had left. When he ran into the tomb for her just because he heard her scream without knowing if he could ever get out. When he did the same thing to save Jeremy from Katherine, knowing he would be stuck with her. When he ran into a burning building to save his brother’s life. All the times that he’d save his brother’s life, despite the circumstances. Who is Rose to determine whether what Stefan can be for her? She doesn’t know the first thing about Stefan or about how much he loves her. His love is pure, yes, but that doesn’t mean he could just maybe be the best thing for her. Yes, she could be right about Damon, since she knows him better, he could be great for her but he could also but horrible for her. Doesn’t change the fact she knows nothing about what Stefan can be for Elena. None of us know for sure.

Damn, how about that as insight?

But, why is Tyler getting all upset over a drawing of a pony?

IT’S NOT REBEKAH Y’ALL, IT’S ESTHER. OKAY. It just got real.

MVP award for this episode is definitely for Paul Wesley and Matt Davis, guys. Enough said.

Screecaps: Home of the Nutty
And the gif was found on tumblr, forgot who made it, SORRY.

TYLER RETURNS TO MYSTIC FALLS — Elena and Damon set off together to make sure Jeremy is safe in Denver, and to see if his special abilities can help reveal the information they need about ancient vampire bloodlines. It doesn’t take them long to learn that Jeremy has been hanging with the wrong people. Stefan and Klaus both go to brutal extremes in their search for the missing weapon. Caroline is thrilled when Tyler returns to town, but Tyler soon suspects that something has been going on between Caroline and Klaus. Matt has his hands full trying to keep Rebekah busy organizing the school’s upcoming 1920s Decade Dance. Directed by Chris Grismer and written by Brian Young and Evan Bleiweiss.