Previously, on The Vampire Diaries
VDVO: Mystic Falls, mythical creatures, HEIGHTENED EMOTIONS, sire-bond, uncomfortable-in-retrospect sex.
The Morning After.Damon awakens, his naked torso bathed in golden light.
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Elena's ditching home room to kanoodle with Damon some more. Damon's happy. That won't last.
Cut to Caroline playing exposition fairy, reminding us again about the sire-bond. The logistics of this conversation puzzle me. Did she and Stefan talk all night or did Caroline go home at some point, only to return to pick up at the exact same place? Caroline decides to call Tyler to see what he might know about a vampire sire-bond. Meanwhile Damon and Elena continue their athletic sex. Title card!
Over at the abandoned stables a hot redshirt (sans red shirt) is chained up and screaming.
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Tyler and Hayley are coaching him through breaking his sire-bond to Klaus but the redshirt from last week, who we learn is named Kim, is not having it. Tyler insists that Adrian (the new redshirt) has to keep going but Kim snaps back that Adrian doesn't have to do anything. “Isn't that the point of breaking the sire-bond? Free will?” That's some pretty effed up logic right there, Kim. Freely chosen involuntary servitude? She leads Adrian and his painted-on bike shorts away.
Damon is finally shooing Elena off to school and makes her promise to give Stefan one day before telling him they're together. She has no choice but to obey. She heads out the door, only to bump into Stefan on his way up the walk.
Damon refuses to believe that Elena is sire-bonded and accuses Stefan of being jealous and resentful that he got Elena to a “good place” with being a vampire. Stefan proposes a test. Damon will tell her that it's all right to drink from a blood bag. If she can, that will prove she's sire-bound.
Mystic Falls High.Bonnie and Caroline check in with Elena and they decide to have a girls' night. Bonnie's excited to show off some new spells that Shane's been teaching her. Bonnie insists again Shane is not creepy. Elena: “We're not judging.” Caroline: “I am!” Girl, me too! Elena spots Damon slipping into an empty classroom and joins him.
He's brought her a cold lunch, a blood bag. She says she won't be able to handle it but Damon persuades her to try it. She takes a tentative sip and beams a tremendous smile.
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Damon barely conceals his crushing disappointment.
Professor Creepy's lair. Shane enters to find Hayley snooping through his desk. He comments on her early morning crime spree; she deflects by telling him that there's a problem with Adrian. Shane says not to worry because they already have the twelve hybrids they need for their as-yet undisclosed nefarious purpose. She reminds him that Tyler does not count toward that total so they're still one short. Shane warns that she either ponies up a twelfth redshirt or Tyler's in play. Hayley accuses him of not holding up his end of their bargain. Shane pulls out a thumb drive which he says contains everything she could ever want to know about her birth parents, encoded in case she's thinking about a “smash and grab”. It's hers, in exchange for 12 unsired redshirts.
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Caroline reports to Stefan that according to Tyler, there's no shift-until-it-stops-hurting equivalent for a vampire sire-bond. Stefan hangs up and does it bother anyone else how no one on TV ever says goodbye on the phone? So rude!
Stefan walks in on Damon searching through his papers. Damon admits that Elena is sire-bonded. He hands Stefan a photograph of New Orleans, 1942. He reminds Stefan that in addition to “bourbon and beads” the brothers Salvatore could be found there. Also found there? Charlotte.
Flashback to a bar in 1942 New Orleans, where sailors dance with their lady friends while Voiceover Damon exposits that Charlotte was crazy for him from the minute they met so he had no qualms about turning her. Vampire Charlotte joins Damon at the bar and informs him that she wants to eat one of the musicians for supper.
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Damon goes to set it up and tells her “If anyone tries to touch my drink, you show them no mercy.” I think we all see where this is going. As Damon talks to the musician a sailor knocks over Damon's drink. An enraged Charlotte snaps his neck.
Back in the present Damon finds another card with the name “Valerie La Marche” written on it. She's the witch who broke Charlotte's sire-bond. Road trip!
The gal pals are getting their party on at the Salvatore place. Champagne for Bonnie and Caroline and a blood bag for Elena. She's excited but Caroline's super annoyed at the very mention of his name. Elena begs her to lay off and Caroline promises. So she turns on Bonnie, who's pulled out a bag of “spirit tea” that Shane gave her. Caroline can barely contain herself but finally promises not to be judgmental about anything or anyone despite the fact that her best friends are making the worst life choices in the history of ever.
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Present-day Nawlins. Damon gets a check-in text from Elena and says he told her to make herself at home. Stefan's all, you said it, she did it and Damon's all the sire-bond is not that literal and Stefan's all oh yeah, name one thing you've wanted and not gotten and Damon's all get out of my grill and stalks off.
Stefan calls after him to apologize and we flash back to 1942 where a uniformed Stefan apologizes again, rehearsing a speech to deliver to Damon saying it's not Damon's fault that Stefan turned into a Ripper. He complains about having to say that last bit and Lexi (whom you may remember last season was Stefan's Rippers Anonymous sponsor) tells him he has to.
Stefan approaches Damon in that same bar and completes Step 9. Damon accepts his apology and they set into some drinking. Stefan's going to drive ambulances in Egypt. Damon decides to go with him for some brother bonding time. Stefan's delighted and goes for more drinks. While he's gone Lexi lists off all the reasons why Damon is not going to Egypt.
Stefan returns before they can get too deep into it and they toast to the Salvatore Brothers in Egypt.
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Charlotte joins them hauling an older woman with her. She chastises Damon for forgetting their dinner plans but offers him the woman as leftovers. Stefan gets some blood on his hands and starts to vamp out. Lexi hustles him away and hisses at Damon that Charlotte would be better off without him too.
Present-day Nawlins and the boys are outside the building where Valerie used to live. Stefan wonders whether Charlotte might still be in the city. Damon replies that he told her to count every brick in every building in Nawlins and meet him at the corner of Bourbon and Dumaine. She's been hanging at Café LaFitte in Exile for the last 70 years? Stefan heads off to find out just how literal the sire-bond really is.
Mystic Grill. Tyler is taking Kim's side in the whack logic free will argument but Hayley says he has it all wrong. Redshirts are werewolves first so they have a pack mentality. Kim is challenging Tyler because Tyler is the Alpha.
Tyler walks over to where Kim and Adrian are playing pool and suggests they turn in for the night. Kim swings a pool cue at his head but Tyler blocks and warns her not to challenge him again.
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He and Hayley leave. Kim and Adrian do likewise but according to Kim, they're off to “pick a fight”.
Bourbon and Dumaine. The brothers are surprised not to find Charlotte standing there waiting, then they argue again some more about Elena. Damon tells Stefan to look him up when Stefan stops being a dick. Like you have that kind of time. He rounds a corner and is jumped. Stefan hears it and rushes over, throwing off Damon's attacker. It's Charlotte. “Damon, I always knew you'd come back for me. I must've literally counted every brick in every building in all New Orleans.”
Damon's freaked but Charlotte assures him that she's not crazy. She immediately busts out the crazy, saying that counting bricks is like the song that reminds one of a lost love. Damon sees the bright side, noting that she knows the city better than anyone.
The girls record a product-placed phone romp that I refuse to acknowledge further. Then they end up in Damon's bathtub, which is empty and they're all fully clothed. Caroline lays into Damon again some more and Elena reminds her that she banged Damon early and often. I believe Caroline was compelled for most of that, so no points for Elena. She's bummed that her best friends can't be happy that she's happy and spills that she and Damon did the deed.Nawlins. The boys enter a magic shop and ask the proprietress about a spell to end sire-bonds. I'm not really sure why, since it's obvious that whatever spell Valerie cast to break Charlotte's didn't work.
Back in 1942, Valerie explains that such a spell isn't cheap. It requires 12 human sacrifices.
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Present-day. Stefan reacts strongly to the human sacrifice component. The proprietress, Nandi, says that all she sells are herbs and homeopathic crap remedies dressed up in “witchy woo-woo” but she doesn't practice herself. And she says that her great-grandmother Valerie's grimoires and journals were destroyed in Katrina. The spell is gone.
Elena wants the girls to leave. She gets why they don't like him but she may be falling in love with Damon. An exasperated Caroline spills that it's not love, it's sire-bonding, and just ask Stefan if she doesn't believe her. Elena's super-pissed that Caroline was talking with Stefan about her and orders them out. She fings the front door open, revealing Kim and Adrian. The redshirts attack. Bonnie starts powering up but before she can do more than explode some light bulbs Kim reminds her that a redshirt bite will kill Elena and Caroline and Bonnie stands down. The redshirts leave, taking Caroline with them.
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Nawlins. The boys argue about the human sacrifice thing again some more. Damon's all yeah I killed those people in 1942 and I'll do it again in a heartbeat, now let's go tag team that lying witch.
Tyler and Elena search the woods for the redshirts and Caroline while Bonnie's off somewhere striking out with a locater spell. I thought the girls all had GPS apps on their product-placed phones? Maybe the redshirts destroyed Caroline's. Tyler figures they're at the stables because they can't risk Klaus catching wind of them. He explains the whole Alpha thing again and how if he gets Kim to submit the rest of the pack will submit. He can't figure out why they'd go along with Kim since they all hate Klaus. Elena thinks Adrian doesn't hate Klaus because of the sire-bond but Tyler exposits that the bond affects what you do, not how you feel. Interesting, but we've already been told that a hybrid bond and a vampire bond are different. They hear Caroline cry out and head for her.
Nawlins. Damon calls out Nandi, saying she's Val's daughter (he recalls a girl from 1942 writing “Nandi” a million times on a sheet of paper). He moves to force her help but she Mystic Migraines him.
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Stefan moves in from the rear and tries to appease her. Nandi exposits that the kind of magic her mother practiced is unnatural and real witches don't even call it “magic”. They call it “expression”. Val played Damon back in 1942. The human sacrifices were not to break the sire-bond; she did it to access the dark magic.
Nandi tells them there is no magical way to break the sire-bond. The only way to get around it is for Damon to tell the bonded vampire that the only way to make him happy is to forget him, leave and don't look back. Damon looks shattered.
The redshirts are torturing Caroline at the stables when Tyler and Elena burst in. Tyler tells her to stop, saying Caroline is on their team. Kim begs to differ and the ten hot redshirts who file in behind her take her side.
Kim threatens Caroline with staking but Elena convinces her that to really piss Klaus off she should torture Elena instead because of Klaus's obsession with keeping her alive. Kim sees the logic and starts throttling Elena but Tyler breaks loose and wraps his hand around Kim's heart.
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He orders her to submit or die. She kneels before Zod and the rest of the pack follows suit, securing Tyler's place as the Alpha.
Nawlins. Damon does the “make me happy by forgetting about me” thing with Charlotte. It's the stupidest breakup ever. I do not believe for one second that Damon wouldn't have staked her back in '42 and never looked back. He rejoins Stefan, who doubts that he'll be able to do the same with Elena.
Flashback. Damon's signed up for ambulance driver duty and Lexi starts in on him about not going. She explains that Stefan has spent the last 20 years wracked with guilt over drinking human blood. If he learns that Damon killed 12 innocent people without hesitation he'll want to know how he could do that without feeling any guilt. He'll look to Damon for guidance and become the Ripper all over again. Damon asks if she ever thought he might need Stefan; she counters that that's why he can't go, because what might help him will destroy Stefan. He realizes she's correct and walks away.
Present-day. Stefan says he never knew what Damon did during the war. They yammer some more about Elena having the power to choose for herself before getting into a cab. A cab? From Nawlins to Mystic Falls? Did they cab it to Nawlins in the first place?
Caroline and Elena kiss and make up. Caroline promises again not to be judgy (as if) and Elena extracts a second promise, not to tell Stefan about her and Damon. She swears she'll tell him but in her own time and her own way. Bonnie appears and they're all friends again too and the scene only matters because Bonnie tells them that the magic that Shane is teaching her is called “expression”. Oh dear.
Speaking of, Hayley reports in that they have their twelve redshirts minus Tyler and demands the information on her parents. Shane hands over the thumb drive and is all oh yeah, they're dead. She's uber-pissed but he tells her that their being dead is not a barrier to her seeing them.
Sefan fills in Caroline on the sire-bond breaking thing. She can't figure out how Stefan can trust Damon and he says it's because Damon's love for Elena means he can't be selfish with her any more.
Damon tries to have the talk with Elena. She begs him not to have the talk but he insists he has to do the right thing by her. She asks, “Does this feel wrong?” and he has no answer.
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Next week: The “mid-season finale”! Why is that a thing?
