Previously, on The Vampire Diaries
VDVO: Elena's a vampire now, race for the cure, you know the drill.
We open on Matt racing through the woods pursued by one of Klaus's newbie vampires. He hides behind a tree but his hide-and-seek skills are rusty, as he's spotted almost immediately by the newbie. The newbie sinks his fangs in but before he can do too much damage Jeremy nails the newbie with a crossbow bolt.
Flashback to the end of the last episode. The transitioning newbie vampires are feeding off, I assume, the waitress. Jeremy flatly refuses to kill innocent people and Damon notes that vampires aren't people. Jeremy tells Klaus that he can't make him kill anyone with his Hunter immunity. Klaus agrees but reminds him that he can compel the newbies. He'll give a two-minute head start before he sends the entire newbie nest to kill Matt. Damon protests that that's not the deal and Klaus admits taking “artistic license”. Damon and Jeremy acquiesce.
Back in the woods another vampire zips up behind Jeremy. He moves to stake it but it's Damon, who easily blocks him and chastises him for hesitating. He informs them that the newbies are still figuring out how to track them but they only have a few seconds. They decide to make for the Gilbert lake house, where the newbies can't enter. Damon stays behind and rips have the viscera out of a newbie. Matt and Jeremy get separated and another newbie takes Matt down. Before the newbie can finish him off Elena arrives and snaps his neck. They get inside the lake house safely while the newbies lurk in the woods around it. Title card!
The next morning Elena lays into Damon for agreeing to Klaus's plan and putting Jeremy in danger. Damon argues that this was the most expedient way to grow the Hunter's Mark; Elena counters with the “you tried to make him kill innocent people” card. She says they need to come up with a plan. Damon is still good with “kill all the newbies”. Elena's against it but pretty much comes to understand there isn't much of a choice.
Two points: It's interesting that the survival instincts of the newbies allow them to get out of the sun despite the compulsion. And why did the bunch in the lake house wait all night before having this conversation?
A towel-clad Stefan enters his room to find Rebekah lolled on his bed leafing through his diary.
He chastises her for not knocking and she says something about feelings and Elena and her voice starts sounding like every adult on a Peanuts special, that's how little I care about this relationship. Then she suggests snagging the headstone of Silas that Shane carts around with him wherever he goes. It's apparently a “key” to resurrecting Silas, who is buried with the vampire, so by stealing it they lure Shane to their side. Stefan agrees.
Professor Creepy's office. Bonnie's wigged about almost killing April with her brain. Trust, girl, no one else cares. That includes Professor Creepy, who points out that Bonnie didn't fail; failure would have been killing April. Bonnie's emotions start to get the better of her and the candle on Shane's desk starts to flare. He grasps her hands in what at first seems like talking her down but ends up looking like mind control.
As the candle dims, Sheriff Liz and Deputy Random Guy bust in and arrest Shane despite being out of their jurisdiction. Bonnie demands an explanation and Liz refers her to Mayor Rudy.
Jeremy and Damon arrive back at the bar and Jeremy's none to happy about killing the newbies. They go inside and find a big smeary blood trail leading them back to the kitchen, where they find a pile of newbie vampire carcasses in the cooler.
Jeremy wonders what could have happened; enter Kol, who fesses up to the murder spree and suggests they need to have a kiki.
Turns out Kol heard Klaus bragging about his plan to complete Jeremy's Mark so he had to slaughter the newbies. Damon wonders why Kol cares and he explains that he encountered a band of Silas-worshippers some time ago who told him that when Silas arises it will mean “the end to all time”. As an immortal, Kol is heavily invested in the existence of time and can't allow anyone to possibly cause Silas to resurrect while retrieving the cure.
Kol appeals to the fake friendship that he and Jeremy shared while Jeremy was stashed in Colorado. Say, that reminds me, Did all the compulsions Jeremy was placed under unravel when he became a Hunter? Anyway, Jeremy rejects Kol's appeal. Kol's next thought is to kill Jeremy but then he'd be stuck with the “Hunter's curse” that Elena dealt with a while back. So he opts to rip Jeremy's arms off instead. Damon runs interference with Kol to give Jeremy the chance to get away but Kol quickly overpowers Damon.
Damon and Becky search Professor Creepy's office for the headstone. No luck but Becks does find Shane's stash of “herbs”. She suggests sparking up. Stefan declines and they start yammering about their relationship again some more and the Peanuts voices start up again.
Liz questions Shane at the sheriff's station. Are you sure you want to be taping this, Liz?
He's shocked that she would accuse him of plotting to blow up the Council like he totally did. Bonnie's watching the interrogation with her dad and defends Shane's innocence, claiming Pastor Young was insane. Mayor Rudy corrects that he was grief-stricken and Shane manipulated him into killing everyone. He says Shane preys on the “weak-minded” and an affronted Bonnie takes that as him calling her weak-minded. He explains that April told him about Shane's involvement and Rebekah confirmed it. She moves to crash the interrogation, declaring that if Shane is going to tell anyone anything, it will be her.
She goes into interrogation. Liz orders her out but Mayor Rudy OKs it. Bonnie sits and Shane snarks, “I think your dad is confused about the format of the parent-teacher conference.” Heh. Bonnie tells him Liz said he confessed but she knows Liz is lying. Shane leans in and blocks the camera angle, murmuring “You know the truth is, she's not.”
Bonnie goes back into interrogation, having left for some unspecified reason. She shuts down the camera. Shane claims that he wanted to tell her about his involvement in the mass murder/suicide but was afraid how she'd react. “Bad. That's how I react to murder.” No Bonnie, you react badly to murder. Maybe you'd know that if you showed up for class once in a while. He insists it was necessary to raise Silas and obtain the cure. Bonnie says that if her friends knew people would have to die they'd never go along with it but Shane insists that deaths don't matter because once Silas is raised he'll bring everyone back to life with him. She calls him “full-on crazy” and makes to leave but Shane emotionally blackmails her with her fear that Grams is being punished on The Other Side for Bonnie's sins and dangles the possibility of seeing Grams again.
She warns him not to play on her guilt but he goes on and on about Grams's torment until Bonnie Dark Willows out, wrenching Shane's arm. His screams attract Mayor Rudy's attention but Bonnie fends him off with a wall of fire generated from water. Shane captures her attention and repeats the talking down/mind control trigger phrase from earlier. Bonnie comes down, douses the fire, releases Shane's arm and stalks out.
Shane tells Mayor Rudy that Bonnie's “a prodigy” but without Shane's influence she could lose control at any time.
Elena escorts Matt home and apologizes for his getting hurt. He lays into her for leaving Damon in charge. He softens a bit, citing the sire bond, but she insists it doesn't work that way. All Matt knows is that human Elena wouldn't have left Damon in charge. Before she can respond she gets a call from Jeremy. He reports Kol's attack and informs her that Kol has Damon.
Elena reaches out to Klaus, who sniggers a moment at the supposed irony of her asking for his help, calls Kol and orders him to keep his grubby paws off of Jeremy. Kol agrees and hangs up, then orders a compelled Damon to slide the wooden stake upon which Damon is currently impaled a little deeper and closer to his heart. He also calls Damon “darling” which gives me a glimmer of hope that Kol is gay. Followed by a glimmer of despair that if he is gay I may find myself roped into watching that damned Originals spin-off.
Damon slides the shaft a bit deeper and demands that if Kol wants him dead he should kill him “like a man”. Kol explains he doesn't want Damon dead; he wants him compelled into a murder weapon. Kol suggests that Damon is as eager to have Jeremy dead as Kol is, since Jeremy is the last link between Elena and humanity. Damon doesn't convincingly disagree. He compels Damon to find Jeremy and kill him, and also to forget that he's compelled.
Jeremy's loading up on weapons and Elena's imploring him not to and she says something about Damon and he says something about Damon and moving on. Meanwhile his Hunter urge to kill is rising and he unconsciously threatens her with a big stake which, when they realize it, he drops.
Becky is wiped on “herb” while Stefan continues searching Shane's office for Silas's headstone. Oh come on Stefan, an artifact that valuable lying around the office? It's in the trunk of his car! They Peanuts-voice some more. The door starts to open and the vampires hide. An attractive redshirt enters and begins searching. Turns out the stone is there after all in some half-assed secret shelf. Becks snags the redshirt by the throat and wonders who he might be.
Becky tries to torture the name of the redshirt's employer out of him with a large knife. He's full of vervain so she can't compel him. Stefan suggests taking the redshirt home and waiting until he's clear of vervain and then compelling him. This prompts the redshirt to bite out his own tongue. He then grabs the knife and plunges it into his own neck. Why was he not restrained? They figure he was compelled to kill himself and try to decide whether Damon, Klaus or an as-yet unrevealed other party was responsible.
Damon arrives at the Gilbert place and she thanks him for getting Jeremy his window of escape. Damon asks where Jeremy is, saying he needs to apologize. Why this isn't an enormous red flag I don't understand. Jeremy's at the Grill, checking on Matt.
Damon and Elena enter the Grill and, after hissing and spitting at Matt for a second, Damon goes in search of Jeremy. He spots him coming out of the kitchen and Damon gets his game face on. Jeremy realizes something's up and makes a break for it. Damon goes after him but is deterred when Elena calls out to him.
Jeremy makes it to the kitchen and pulls his gun, then decides to escape through the old Underground Railroad tunnels that have Grill access. Damon makes it into the kitchen and sees the tunnel access panel is open. Elena asks what's wrong and Damon realizes that Kol must have compelled him to kill Jeremy. Damon heads into the tunnels.
Jeremy and Damon play a game of Mazes & Monsters and Elena calls Stefan for help. Rebekah ansers his phone and after a micro-catfight Elena explains the situation and appeals to Stefan for help. She takes his silence as a “no”.
Jeremy cuts his palm to draw Damon in. When Damon arrives at the blood Jeremy jumps him and tries to subdue him. Damon bites his arm, throws him off and hilariously offers coaching notes. Jeremy pulls his gun and fires two wooden bullets into Damon. Slowed, Damon advises him to shoot him in the heart while he has the chance. Jeremy fires again.
Damon revives in the tunnels; Jeremy went for a head shot. Jeremy's back above ground, booking through the woods. He slumps to the ground, exhausted, as Damon closes in. Elena again intervenes and insists that Damon is strong enough to resist the compulsion. He's not and he moves toward Jeremy again. Jeremy cocks his gun and Damon makes one last entreaty to shoot him.
Jeremy pulls the trigger but Stefan zips in and clears Damon. He then snaps Damon's neck. To Elena: “You're welcome.”
Kol prepares to leave the Haus of Klaus when Rebekah intercepts him. She advises exactly how pissed Klaus would be if Jeremy died and Kol smirks that he kept his word that he wouldn't hurt Jeremy. He brushes past her and she holds a dagger to his back. He's appalled that she would stoop to that level and laments what their family has come to. “Elijah won't even show his face, he's so disgusted by the bickering! He took a job on a terrible Canadian doctor show to get away from us, for God's sake!”
He says the family is ruined but Rebekah declares that the family was in ruins well before they knew anything about a cure. Kol produces the super-stake from somewhere and gets the drop on Becky with it. He's about to stake her when Klaus intervenes. Kol leaves and Rebekah is shocked that Kol was going to stake her. Klaus suggests she needs a lesson on the proper daggering of siblings which does not work as a line in any way; Rebekah agrees and tells him to “burn in Hell” before taking her leave.
Damon revives in one of the Salvatore family cells. Stefan's bled him to weaken him in the absence of vervain since Kol's compulsion is still in effect. Is there some reason why Damon can't snap Jeremy's neck and let the protecto-ring revive him? Wouldn't that fulfill the compulsion?
Damon wants to see Elena but Stefan refuses, citing the sire-bond. He locks Damon in. Upstairs he meets Elena, who wants to see Damon. He refuses, again citing the sire-bond. She wonders why he's hanging with Rebekah and now it's their turn to talk about their feelings and Elena is all this isn't you and Stefan's all it is so me, you just have never seen me when I wasn't in love with you.
At the Grill Bonnie apologizes to her dad but he's more worried about her and her control issues. He wants to get her some help. She insists she doesn't need any help but he replies that her believing she doesn't need any help is the biggest sign that she needs help.
Klaus knocks on the Gilbert's door and requires Jeremy to go with him for his own safety. Jeremy refuses. Klaus backs down but not before suggesting that Kol will stop at nothing to destroy Jeremy and passing out new threats to all of Jeremy's loved ones.
Stefan barges into Rebekah's room. Rebekah has the headstone “someplace safe” and then they Peanuts-voice at each other about their feelings and they have sex.
Jeremy's completely broken up about being the cause of innocent people being killed and turned. How many, he wonders, have to die to complete his Mark? He can't see a way out but Elena can. If an Original dies then all of his progeny die as well. That could be thousands or tens of thousands, more than enough to complete the Mark. Jeremy needs to kill Kol.
