Previously, on The Vampire Diaries
VDVO: Mystic Falls, wretched hive of scum and villainy. Race for the cure. Stop at nothing.
We open in the Mystic Falls High School gym where Sheriff Liz, the last remaining adult in Mystic Falls, is leading a mandatory memorial service for poor drowned Mayor Carol.
Because forced grief is the best grief
They're calling her death an accident, which since her blood alcohol level was somewhere between “legally drunk” and “Everclear” means her legacy will be roughly the same as Lupe Velez's. She calls for a moment of silence. Tyler can't deal and leaves.
Liz introduces the new interim mayor, Rudy Hopkins.
Oh dear, he's an adult, black and not Bonnie. He's a dead man. Why are they doing this at the high school and not City Hall or the Lockwood place?
Elena spots an un-daggered Rebekah lurking around the edge of the assembly and slips out. She hears crying and rounds a corner to find April. April says that the Mayor's memorial is dredging up memories of her blown-up pastor daddy and also that she knows Elena's a vampire. Elena's half-assed attempt to deny it is rudely cut off by Rebekah's snapping her neck. April: “Was that necessary?” Rebekah: “No, but it was fun.”
Caroline reaches out to Stefan after the assembly and is appalled to find that he's drinking at the Grill. I don't know why she would be; it's rarer that someone isn't drinking on this show. She does not have the patience to deal with Stefan on top of Tyler and urges him to snap out of it.
Elena comes to in the school library and finds April standing over her, pissed about Elena's compulsions and lies. Elena tries to warn April that the owls Rebekah is not what she seems but before she can make any headway Rebekah compels her to sit down and shut up. For once I agree with Rebekah.
Up at the Gilbert lake house Jeremy is poured into one of his signature wife-beaters, sparring with a similarly attired Matt.
Damon is nearby listening to saved voice mails from Elena and being generally drippy. Jeremy puts Matt down with a hip toss and looks to Damon for approval. Damon is not impressed so Jeremy challenges him to something harder. Damon tosses him a stake and Jeremy flails at him with it like a crazy person. Damon easily evades the “attack” and takes Jeremy from behind.
He's about to put the sleeper hold on him when they're interrupted by a delivery from Lakeside Pizza. It's the third pie in as many days and the unnamed delivery girl who will be dead by the end of the episode (SPOILER) wonders if they ever eat anything else. Damon wonders if she's offering then slips her a few bills not to make another delivery for a few days. Jeremy howls in protest that Damon's starving them. An unsympathetic Damon orders Jeremy to take two laps of the lake and orders Matt to follow. Matt says he doesn't have to do what Damon says but Damon says he does if he wants to eat. Or he could just, ya know, leave. Matt runs off and Damon goes back to his saved voice mails, the sap.
Stefan fields a call from Rebekah and wonders who would be so monumentally stupid as to undagger her. Stefan, you've met April. Rebekah informs him of Elena's hostage status. Stefan calls Caroline and offers her the chance to drive the super-stake into Rebekah. She's so in.
Sheriff Liz and Interim Mayor Rudy review Mayor Carol's falsified autopsy report as Rudy's welcome to the wonderful world of cover-ups. He has ideas about the true cause of death and Mayor Rudy figures that involves pointy teeth and bad manners. OK, so are the Hopkinses a Founding Family all of a sudden that Rudy knows about the Vampire Problem? Sheriff Liz double-checks that Rudy's really up for the mayor gig, noting that six people declined before he accepted. He confirms he's in and his reason for being in, daughter Bonnie, joins the table as Liz exits. So he's an adult, black, not Bonnie and he's a core character's parent. He has the life expectancy of a mayfly.
Rudy comments that some of Bonnie's friends missed the mandatory assembly and she protests that he can't come into town and start making rules. Um, yes the interim mayor can, Bonnie. He replies that a few rules would do the town good and she reminds him that she can help protect the town. Rudy is aware of Bonnie's “gifts” but being her father means she gets to protect him. Which is why this is the first we've seen of him in three and a half seasons.
Caroline and Stefan search the high school while Rebekah zips around the halls. Stefan texts Bonnie that he has her on the first floor; he'll distract her so Caroline can super-stake her. Rebekah zips up to him and they throttle each other hello. She hopes he's not waiting for Caroline, because Rebekah found her first. She has the super-stake.
Rebekah leads Stefan into the library where a compelled Elena and Caroline are waiting. After telling April to take notes she spends a few minutes recapping the whole Hunter's Mark/Map/Sword/Key thing and just as she's about to ask the money question she sees that April is actually taking notes. She rolls her eyes but then decides she wants a flow chart and sends April to fetch index cards and push pins. Snerk. Back in interrogation mode, Rebekah learns about the breakup and that Elena slept with Damon.
Back at the lake Jeremy and Damon are playing with guns and Damon oh-so-casually asks if Jeremy's heard from Elena. Jeremy totally busts him about the voicemails and there's a joke about that Facebook that all the kids are using these days but before they can start making out really arguing Klaus interrupts. He demands to know how many vampires Jeremy's killed. Damon tries to explain that Jeremy's not ready but Klaus notes that that's not a number. No flies on Klaus, who spouts some numbers of his own.
Twelve! Twelve hybrids I slaughtered! Ah-ah-ah! Three! Three days I wanted to kill your brother! Ah-ah-ah! One! One purpose do you have! Ah-ah-ah!
By this time Damon's as sick of the sound of Klaus's voice as the rest of us and pops two caps in Klaus's chest. “That's for Carol Lockwood.” Nice.
Back at the high school Rebekah is still making like Vampire Oprah and compels Elena to admit she's in love with Damon. Stefan's crushed and Bonnie cries that this has nothing to do with finding the cure. Shut up, Bonnie. Not that I care about Elena and her loves, I leave that to Louisa May Alcott, but Rebekah was distracted and now you're refocused her.
Rebekah asks Stefan how to find the cure. There are two paths to the cure and interestingly Stefan is able to steer Rebekah to Professor Shane rather than to Hunter Jeremy. Nice work playing the compulsion and concealing Jeremy's Hunter status.
Speaking of Shane, Bonnie's back at his office complaining about her father suddenly wanting to be protective and calling her witchcraft “gifts” when he always used to hate it. She asks Shane to help get her mind off her daddy issues by teaching her a spell but Shane says here's nothing left to learn. He presents her with a “graduation gift”, a pendant made of human bone said to have once belonged to that old witch Qetsiyah.
Bonnie is simultaneously intrigued and grossed out, a feeling I bet Shane sees a lot from the women in his life. He explains that Q supposedly drew on the amulet for strength.
Bonnie wants to hang but Shane has papers to grade so she takes off. She's passed in the hall by a handsome and vaguely familiar face. She realizes that it's Original Vampire Kol and runs back to Shane's office. It's too late; they're already gone.
Tyler's mourning at home when his product-placed phone rings. He thinks it's Caroline and starts to get shirty with her but Rebekah cuts him off. She offers her condolences and suggests he come to the high school and by the way I have your girlfriend. Tyler hurls his product-placed phone against the wall. The sponsors are not going to be happy with you, Tyler! Kol pops his head in the library door, hauling a bewildered Shane with him.
Damon's sharpening a stick at the lake house and Klaus comes up behind him, suggesting he adjust the angle of his wood.
Then he goes back to nagging Damon about growing Jeremy's mark, suggesting that they head into town and make some baby vampires for Jeremy to kill. Damon had considered that plan but decided against it. Klaus calls him out for it, saying the only reason he rejected it is because of Elena and his desire for her sake to steer Jeremy down “the moral high road”. Klaus has it covered.
Cut to the pizza girl knocking on the lake house door. It seems her car broke down; is there a phone she might use? Matt invites her in and goes for his cell; she hilariously can't cross the threshold because he's just visiting. Jeremy wanders by and pizza girl repeats her request. He invites her in, gratuitously noting he's about to hit the shower.
Back at the school Beks and Kol have bundled Shane off to the janitor's closet. He recognizes them and Rebekah tries to compel the cure location out of him. He's immune because of some mystic BS he learned in Tibet. He'll soon wish he'd kept that to himself because Beks orders Kol to torture the location out of him.
She's off to the library where she challenges her captive audience to a game of Truth or Dare. Elena's up first and takes Dare. Beks dares her to tell Stefan the truth about Damon and Caroline speaks for the nation when she blurts “Seriously?” Shorthanding it, she loves Stefan but isn't in love with him.
Tyler arrives and demands to know what's going on. Ignoring him for the moment, she tells the compelled crew that they can't leave the building and “no vamp-running in the hallways.” She then compels Tyler to turn. Since she (wrongly) believes she knows everything they know, she intends to use were-Tyler to dispose of them, to take them out of the race for the cure.
Matt returns with his phone only to be jumped by vampire pizza girl. Jeremy returns, sadly not clad only in a fluffy white towel, and pulls her off, staking her in the process. His mark grows.
Bonnie pops into the chemistry lab and finds April, apparently still looking for those push pins. April fills her in on who all is where doing what. Bonnie starts searching for ingredients, explaining that Shane can't be compelled which leaves only torture. Bonnie uses her new amulet to link to Shane and cast a protection spell.
Kol's ducking Shane's head in a sink but April's the one who can't breathe. Beks asks Shane why he cares about the cure and he spills that he doesn't; he cares about Silas. Silas is the first immortal being and Shane wants to free him. Water starts pouring out of April's mouth. Kol pulls Shane up and April can breathe again.
Rebekah chides Kol for almost killing Shane but Kol's terrified at the idea of Silas's being free. Beks dismisses Silas as “a myth used to sare children into eating their vegetables” but Shane goes full-on Mad Prophet, declaring that Silas is real and that when he is freed he will raise everyone who died in his name. That's why Shane has Silas's tombstone and why he arranged to blow up the Council and why he arranged for the redshirt massacre. Kol's heard enough and rams a curtain rod through Shane's abdomen.
The corresponding wound appears on April and she starts bleeding out.
Back in the library Tyler is struggling against the change.
No werewolf cage in the library? Bloody Americans!
It's hurting him, which it shouldn't because of all the times he changed to break the sire bond, but maybe it's the struggle against it that's causing the pain. Tyler is also still fully clothed, which is unacceptable. Elena, Stefan and Caroline flee the library and bar the doors.
Elena and Stefan go one way and Caroline another. Tyler follows the pair at first but just as he's about to bust through another set of doors to get to them he goes away.
Beks and Kol argue over Shane's “dead” body. She's furious that he killed her only road to the cure and he insists that Silas would be “Hell on Earth”. He has also recovered the super-stake from wherever Rebekah had it. They leave and Shane stops playing dead and extracts the rod from his abdomen.
Bonnie's attending April when Elena and Stefan arrive. Stefan feeds her his blood to start the healing process. Bonnie takes April away. Elena wants to talk about her feelings, which, really not an opportune time Elena. Beks walks in on them and complains about how they're still alive.
Caroline finds a now properly naked Tyler in the gym along with dozens of unattended lit candles from the memorial.
She covers him with a cloth (boo!). Guilt over his mother's death starts to overwhelm him and Caroline offers what comfort she can. Despite the tender moment I have to wonder what this means as far as Tyler's being able to change back without having fulfilled Rebekah's compulsion.
Back in the lab Beks offers to compel Stefan to forget every moment he ever had with Elena to end the pain he's in. Stefan wants it but Rebekah laughingly refuses him, sentencing him to “an eternity of torment” as revenge for whatever slight he inflicted on her back in the day. Then she releases them from the building.
Shane buttons himself into a new shirt in his office.
A cheesed-off Bonnie comes in freaked about almost killing April with “black magic”. Shane denies that Expression is “black magic”, saying that it's just a different way of doing magic that isn't judged by nature or the spirits. It's up to the user to decide how to use it. He tells Bonnie she's the key to everything and that he will never let any harm come to her.
Damon's burying pizza girl in the woods. He gets a call from Elena. Long story short, Stefan knows everything and hates everyone, Elena tells Damon she loves him, Damon asks her to come to him.
Beks stops by the Salvatore place for a chat with Stefan at his request about how much she wants the cure so she can mess Klaus up. Stefan proposes a partnership and Rebekah accepts. Interesting strategic move on Stefan's part but revealing Jeremy's potential starring role was a rookie mistake.
April informs Sheriff Liz and Mayor Rudy of Shane's role in blowing up the Council.
Damon, Jeremy and Matt meet Klaus at a roadhouse. There are what appear to be corpses scattered around the bar but Klaus advises that they're transitioning baby vampires for Jeremy to kill. Jeremy turns on Damon for not standing by his decision not to do things this way; Damon says he decided Klaus's way was better.
This was one very good half-episode grafted on to a not-very-good half-episode. The stuff with Jeremy training and Klaus forcing the issue and Rebekah going after the cure was all solid. The mushy gushy rehashing of everybody's feelings? Not so much. The show is at its best when it finds the right balance between the action/adventure side and the teen angst drama side. This time out the angsty side was too prominent. But, it looks like next episode the Hunter becomes the prey so all that touchy feely crap should be put away for the whole week!
