Previously, on The Vampire Diaries
VDVO: Mystic Falls. It's complicated.
Stefan awakens after his sordid little tryst with wretched Rebekah.
He reverse coyote-dates out from under her arm and tries to Super-speed of Shame away but Klaus meets him at Rebekah's bedroom door. Title card!
Becky's up and pissed at the intrusion. Klaus, like me, does not care. He's more concerned about the “paranoid” Kol wandering around in a mood with the super-stake. He's also confiscated all of Klaus's Original-stopping daggers so he expects Rebekah to turn hers over. She refuses on the grounds of not being a complete idiot and orders him to leave.
As Rebekah heads for the shower Klaus calls on Stefan to convince her to give up the dagger. Stefan is far too busy keeping Damon locked up to stop him from killing Jeremy per Kol's compulsion. Klaus points out that Damon's compulsion is exactly why Stefan should sweet talk Becks, to keep Jeremy alive and preserve the map to the cure. Stefan silently concedes the wisdom of it.
Cut to Mystic Falls High, where Bonnie is wrangling balloons and complaining telephonically to Elena that no one else from the group showed up for “decade dance prep”. Elena's excuse is that she has to keep the Original vampire brothers away from Jeremy and Matt. The boys are on the couch playing obnoxious video games and eating junk food and calling it training. It's nice to see these occasional human moments.
Elena scolds them for not putting their weapons away neatly and maybe they could wash a dish some time and then fills Bonnie in on her Kol-killing plan to complete Jeremy's Mark in one shot. Bonnie's tentatively in but before they can get any more detailed Elena turns on the water at the kitchen sink. Her hands burn when the water touches them.
A seriously cheesed off Bonnie harangues her father the Interim Mayor on the phone for spiking the town's water supply with vervain, wondering where he even found any. I dunno, Bonnie, maybe the Internet? Although that would be a hell of a line item on the town's budget, enough vervain to spike the entire supply.
Mayor Rudy further informs her that the curfew is re-instated (I don't recall that it was ever lifted) and that all town events are canceled, including tonight's 1980s dance. He says that protecting the town is his job now. Bonnie splutters that protecting Mystic Falls is her job and she was doing fine before he showed up. He offers to read a list of the dead and missing just since senior year started and, point Mayor Rudy. He orders her home for a family meeting.
An exasperated Bonnie hangs up but before she can even roll her eyes at her phone Kol swoops in from behind and slams her against a wall.
All the Konnie shippers have their hopes dashed, since Kol is there to kill her. He bares his fangs but before he can sink them Bonnie does the Expression version of the old Mystic Migraine, wrenching and twisting Kol's bones and immobilizing him. As balloons pop around her and lockers start bursting open (a favorite trick of TVD's late sister show The Secret Circle) Bonnie makes her escape.
Salvatore family dungeon. Damon awakens as Stefan arrives. Damon asks if Stefan's going to snap his neck again (at some point, it seems likely) or if he might let him out since Damon's feeling less murdery today. Stefan silently rolls a vial of blood into the cell. Damon complains about his thirst and Stefan silently places a bottle of some clear liquid (water? Vodka?) on the cell door's window ledge. Damon takes it, spotting Klaus lurking about. He's there to baby-sit while Stefan tries to whamboozle Becks out of her dagger.
Damon calls Stefan on the silent treatment, telling Klaus it's because he slept with Elena. Klaus is surprised, thinking that since he'd caught Stefan practically in Rebekah's bed that Stefan had moved on. Damon: “Well, well, looks like my brother ripped a page out of my revenge sex playbook.” Nolan Ross would have worked that line so much better. Stefan gives Klaus the last of his care and feeding instructions and heads out.
He's not even out the front door before he gets a call from Elena on his product-placed phone. He snarks to her about how Damon is fine but that's not why she's calling. She fills him in on Kol's murder attempt. He tells her about his dagger retrieval mission and she spills about her plan to kill Kol. Stefan's certain that Klaus and Rebekah will kill everyone to avenge Kol's death, which is why Elena wants to have Matt use the dagger to put Becky down. And Bonnie thinks with her ramped-up power levels she can hold Klaus long enough to recover the cure and use it on the Originals. Stefan's skeptical, but in, and ponders how they'll lure Kol in.
By using the boyfriend, of course! Kol gets a call from Jeremy's cell and is pleased to learn Jeremy still has him in his speed dial. And it's night time, and it was morning when the episode started a few minutes ago so what the hell have these people been doing all day?
It's actually Elena calling to propose a truce “in the name of Silas”. Elena offers to meet him wherever he wants but he's willing to come to her. The Gilbert doorbell rings. “You want a truce? Open the door and invite me in.”
Elena stalls on answering and grabs a mini chalkboard off the wall. She scribbles a note to Matt to help Stefan find the dagger and he scurries off. Then she writes one to Jeremy to get out and bring Bonnie. Jeremy notes out loud that he's the only one who can invite Kol in. Oh Jeremy. She opens the door. Jeremy invites him in and scampers out the back door. Kol slips his product-placed MP3 player into a pocket for two reasons: first, to deliver a painful line of sponsor-service dialogue about how wonderful music on the go is and second, to shift his jacket enough to allow Elena and viewers at home to see he has the super-stake in his jacket pocket.
Back at her place, Rebekah is poking through some clothes racks and bad-mouthing 80s fashion. Stefan asks her if she's looking for something to wear to the dance. Well figured, brain trust. He informs her it's canceled and her face falls. After some back-and-forth about the dagger, whether they might bang again and how those things might relate, Becks sighs about “another failed attempt to go to a high school dance”. Stefan wonders why missing the dances bothers her and she claims she's just bored. Stefan doesn't buy it and I don't either but I'm so far past caring about her I don't ponder it.
Klaus and Damon dicker over whose fault it is that Jeremy's Mark isn't more developed.
Get a room already you too! Oh wait, they have a room. Klaus tries to needle Damon about how he can do so many bad things but have Elena forgive him every time. Damon twigs that Klaus is asking because he's angling to get Caroline to forgive him for murdering Mayor Carol. He claims that he always has a reason for the evil he does whereas Klaus does evil for its own sake, or more precisely “to be a dick. If you're going to be bad, be bad with purpose. It make you more forgivable.” Klaus looks thoughtful.
Kol plays Jeremy's video game while Elena digs up some gin and soda, calling it “old people alcohol”. Kol bemoans the kids today and their lack of drinking imagination (which is not a thing). Why in his day, in turn-of-the-century New Orleans which is where but not when the Original spin-off will be set women knew how to mix drinks!
Elena didn't know he lived in Nawlins. He says they all did, until Klaus daggered him. Elena asks what he did to get daggered. Kol wonders why she's blaming the victim and whether Elena's alliance with Klaus has “softened” her to Klaus's deeds. She denies any alliance, only a mutual interest in finding the cure which Elena is willing to forgo if Kol is willing to leave Jeremy alone. Then she asks him how to make a drink. First you add gin, Elena, then soda. Not complicated.
Under the pretext of getting ice (I hope it was made pre-vervain water) Elena texts Jeremy that Kol has the stake and to bring Bonnie. Jeremy responds that he's still looking. Cut to Jeremy leaving the 17th voice mail for Bonnie and heading for her house. There follows a quick shot of Matt searching through Becky's unmentionables for the dagger.
Then back to the Gilbert place where Elena asks Kol why he believes in Silas when no one else does and what's so bad about him anyway. He says that through the centuries he's hung out with a lot of witches in a lot of places and they all feared Silas. His rising would unleash Hell on Earth. “I happen to like Earth just the way it is.” (Spike: “You've got dog racing. Manchester United. And you've got people. Billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It's all right here.")
Bonnie searches her living room for her phone, needing to get to Elena's. Mayor Rudy enters; he's confiscated the phone and her car keys so they can have their family meeting. Bonnie mocks the concept but Rudy's serious. He's worried about what Shane said about her magic being a ticking time bomb. Bonnie dismisses him as “crazy”. Rudy says that he lost his wife to witchcraft and he won't lose his daughter as well. That's not how I remember it but OK. Bonnie replies that it's her life, not his but a knock on the door interrupts before Rudy can respond. It's Jeremy, come to fetch Bonnie for Operation Kill Kol.
Rudy forbids her to go but she explodes a light bulb behind him and tells him to stop telling her what to do. She brushes past him but stops short when her vampire mother Abby appears at the door. Rudy invites her in.
Abby demands to know what Shane has been teaching Bonnie. Jeremy insists they don't have time to deal with this now. Rudy tells him to butt out but Jeremy insists that Elena needs Bonnie now. Abby hisses that Bonnie is done helping Elena and again demands to know what Shane has been teaching Bonnie. Jeremy whips out a stake and makes a hilariously clumsy attempt to take Abby out but she blocks him easily. Bonnie takes Jeremy to his happy place and sends him home so she can talk to her parents.
Mercifully we skip the talk and head back to the Gilbert place where Elena's following up the gin with red wine. Kol's not buying that Elena's so ready to give up on the cure. Elena says she'll do anything to keep Jeremy safe and besides, if Silas is as dangerous as Kol says he is she doesn't want to be a part of putting everyone else in danger. Kol thanks her for the drinks and says he'll take her truce offer under advisement. Elena desperately stalls by asking him if there's any chance that he's wrong about Silas. He says, “Some things should remain buried” and departs.
Jeremy arrives back home and Elena explains she couldn't hold Kol. The doorbell rings. Thinking it's Bonnie, Elena opens it. It's Kol. He denies her request for a truce and she slams the door on him. He kicks it down and starts searching for them.
And damn, we're not skipping the Bennett/Wilson family meeting after all. Rudy and Abby are united against Bonnie's magic, Rudy because of what Shane said and Abby because she thinks it's “dark magic”. Bonnie insists that Expression isn't the same as dark magic, just a different way of practicing and she needs it to find the cure and restore Abby's humanity. As Bonnie turns to leave Abby drugs her with a handful of magic-suppressing herbs. Bonnie loses consciousness.
Klaus is fuming that Stefan is taking so long to find the dagger. He tosses Damon a blood vial and needles him about how he wasn't able to resist being compelled when Stefan was. They go back and forth about Elena and her feelings until thankfully Kol calls Klaus. Klaus is shocked by Operation Kill Kol and denies all knowledge. Kol informs him that he's going to tear Jeremy's arm off and kill Elena for the fun of it then Klaus is next. Suddenly Elena nails Kol in the leg with a wooden arrow and speeds away.
Klaus throttles Damon, demanding to know what he knows. He denies knowing anything so Klaus compels the truth out of him, which is that he knows nothing. Klaus orders him to stay in the cell until he returns. Damon's lips say “yes” but the bottle of vervain water he's been nipping on all day says “not so much”.
Stefan and Rebekah arrive at the empty gym. Stefan product-places another music player and bad-mouth 80s music (which, no). They dance and they yammer about 80s movies and what-not and she reveals that she has the dagger on her. Stefan diverts her attention to shoot Matt a text. She winds up turning the dagger over to Stefan and the writers desperately make us think Rebekah has any depth as a character by revealing that she wants the cure so she can become human. Rather than working with Matt, who's watching from around the corner, to put her down according to plan, Stefan takes her home.
Kol's about on top of Elena but she manages to block one door and flee through and lock another. The Gilbert floor plan makes about as much sense architecturally as the Brady house so I have no idea where in the house they actually are beyond “upstairs”. Kol busts through a door and Jeremy fires a stake at him. Kol catches it and its mate, leaving him open to taking several shots to the chest from Elena. Jeremy flees and Kol nails Elena with one of the stakes, in the thigh I think. Kol brushes past her and jumps Jeremy from behind, flinging Jeremy halfway down the stairs. Then Elena's on Kol again. He shrugs her off and throws her against a wall. He snaps a baluster out of the staircase and impales Elena through the abdomen, pinning her to the wall. He grabs Jeremy by the legs and drags him downstairs.
Mayor Rudy expresses concern over the use of drugs to keep Bonnie down but Abby assures him it will only be for a little while until she can call in some witches to clear Shane's “poison” out of Bonnie's mind. A fully awake Bonnie is all yeah that's not happening and does a patented Bennett Bonebreak on Abby, breaking the various herb vials in her hands. Bonnie proclaims that she no longer belongs to the spirits, but to herself. Not so sure about that over here.
As Elena struggles to free herself from the baluster Kol is playing with knives (and Jeremy) in the kitchen. So as not to invoke the Hunter's Curse he'll only remove Jeremy's arm and then heal him right up. He doesn't know which arm so he decides to take them both. Please, won't somebody think of the wife-beaters!
He raises a cleaver but before he can bring it down Elena tackles him. Jeremy springs up as Eena fights to hold Kol back. Jeremy gets to the sink and yanks the dish hose thingy. Elena dodges away and Jeremy hits Kol in the face with vervain-laced water. He screams and Elena snatches the super-stake and tosses it to Jeremy. Jeremy plunges the super-stake into Kol's heart.
Nooooooooooo!
And any lingering interest I may have had in watching the Originals spin-off just went up in flames with him. Daniel Gillies, you are a beautiful man but if you couldn't get me to watch that awful coma doctor show you're not going to get me to watch that mess. Tell me you understand.
Klaus watches his brother burn from the Gilbert's porch. Elena tries to explain but Klaus is not having it. He vows fiery and bloody vengeance on them both, not for killing his brother but for denying him the chance to punish Kol as he saw fit. The Gilberts point out that if he kills them he loses the cure and the ability to make more hybrids. Klaus is all sod the hybrids, I was going to destroy the cure and kill all of you the second we dug it up but now I'll settle for watching you burn.
His tirade is interrupted by a Bennett Bonebreak and Bonnie enters, telling Jeremy to invite Klaus in. He does and the three of them flee to the living room. Klaus pursues but is blocked at the far side by Bonnie's barrier spell. Jeremy grabs the stake while Klaus pounds the barrier and threatens to kill everything again some more. He's still pounding as the gang steps out the front door.
Stefan breaks the news of Kol's death to Rebekah. She is filled with rage and grief, compounded by the knowledge that Stefan knew of the plan the whole time. He reminds her that Kol was after her as well and now she's safe. He suggests that they work together to get her the cure so she can go to all the high school dances she wants. She doesn't think she can trust him. He offers his word but says at some point she has to take a leap of faith.
Jeremy, Elena and Bonnie wait at the Salvatore place for Jeremy' Mark to grow. He's sure it didn't work. They remind him that it took Fin's line some time to die off so he just needs to be patient. He is unmollified; Damon calls out “Where's that Gilbert optimism?” as he strides in. He and Elena embrace as Stefan enters behind them with Silas's headstone.
Elena fills Stefan in on the Mark-growing and Klaus-trapping details; Bonnie explains that the spell will hold Klaus for three days, four at most, because she tied it to the new moon. Jeez Bonnie, next time tie it to Halley's Comet. Elena's sure that four days will be plenty of time to find the cure, what with Rebekah being daggered and all. Stefan's all, yeah, about that.
Elena can't believe it but Stefan assures her that Rebekah's on their side. Damon wonders whether Rebekah promised her loyalty tucked up in bed next to Stefan. Elena looks stunned by that intel. The brothers argue some more and Elena tries to break it up. Stefan snidely suggests Damon order her to calm down since he's so effectively used the sire bond before. Damon decks him.
Before Stefan can retaliate Jeremy cries out in pain and rips out of his shirt like the Hulk. I approve.
Mystic Mike?
The Mark begins its CG spread across his body. Elena gasps at it, indicating she can see it. This I do not approve, because it effectively curtails shirtless scenes for the foreseeable future. The Mark continues its spread all the way up to the closing title card.
This is more like it. After a very lackluster start to the season, we've had a couple of very strong episodes back-to-back. Plenty of movement on multiple story lines, good if murkily-lit action sequences and the touchy-feely stuff kept to a minimum. The only false note was from Klaus. After a season and a half of Klaus's raison d'etre being the creation of his hybrid family the sudden abandonment of that motivation came off very unbelievable. I hope this is addressed again at some point because it doesn't make sense.
