Previously on The Vampire Diaries, this happened:
VDVO: Elena's a baby vampire with issues.
One year ago Professor Creepy ran through some woods. Another man with long flowing dark hair ran as well. Was he with Shane? Was he chasing Shane? Was this the prelude to a M/M fantasy sequence? The show does not tell. Shane arrived at a clearing next to a rocky outcropping with a mine shaft. The raven-haired man does not appear so why was he in this scene in the first place? Shane entered the shaft and examined graffiti that is apparently written in blood. Then he checked out an enormous pit in the middle of the floor. Sounds which could be disembodied voices echo.
In the present day Shane (who is out of jail on 12 murder charges how exactly?) and the Coalition for the Cure, minus Tyler and Caroline, arrive on a desolate beach. As the Coalition unloads some boats, Shane says to no one discernible, “Congratulations...we made it.”
Title card!
Damon sharpens a ginormous knife while Shane exposits that they're 200 miles of the coast of Nova Scotia. Then he offers Damon sunscreen. Laff riot.
Elena's hauling some gear and Rebekah's just standing around. Stefan notes that her giving Elena the evil eye is not helping. Becky and Elena snap at each other until Elena pulls the super-stake on Becks. Becks taunts that trying to kill her won't solve Elena's problem, which is that Stefan likes Becks.
Rebekah and Stefan walk off and Elena storms in the opposite direction, right into Damon. They back-and-forth a bit about the love quadrangle and Elena suddenly realizes that Damon's never said if he'd take the cure once they find it. He ducks the question.
Up the beach a ways Bonnie is taking photos of a half-naked Jeremy. Not that I object in the slightest but wouldn't she have done this before leaving home? She apologizes for the awkwardness. Jeremy doesn't mind a bit and given the gratuitous manner in which Bonnie strokes his chest I don't think Bonnie really minds either.
As she feels him up traces the symbols Bonnie recounts the legend they depict. Witch Silas worked with Witch Qetsiyah on an immortality spell. When she learned he planned to use it on another woman, Qetsiyah killed her and trapped Silas underground.
Jeremy asks how the Hunters fit into the picture. Shane takes up the story. Qetsiyah created a cure for immortality and buried it with Silas in the hope he would be driven to take it and die. He never did so one of her descendants created the Hunters to track Silas down, cure him and kill him. If she had the immortality cure why didn't she force him to take it and kill Silas herself?
The Coalition heads into the woods. After a bit of a hike Elena comments that she's creeped out. Rebekah suggests she go back to the beach since she's useless. She rattles off what everyone else brings to the party and states Elena brings nothing. Damon realizes Becks skipped him; she says he has a nice ass. Point, Becks.
Night falls and the Coalition is still hiking. Shane fills them in on more of the backstory. Centuries after Qetsiyah's death some miners were digging a well when they went insane and exsanguinated themselves. A legend spread that a drop of a person's blood would allow them a vision of a lost loved one. Shane lost his wife and son within months of each other and sought out the cave himself.
Flashback to last year and Shane in the cave slices his palm with a knife. From an effects point I understand that but story-wise characters cutting their palms always bothered me, especially if they might have to fight in the foreseeable future. A gashed palm hurts like a bitch and renders the hand almost useless for combat until it heals.
Anyway, Shane bleeds down the pit and more spooky voices start up, including a woman's voice calling “Atticus.” “Kaitlyn? Kaitlyn!” he cries out, and seriously? They name him Atticus and her Kaitlyn? He starts spelunking and I can't really tell what happens but he loses his grip on the rope (how's that hand feelin' there buddy?) and drops to the floor. He looks wildly around him and sees a vision of his dead wife.
Damon scoffs and they continue through the woods until Shane calls a halt. He triggers a hidden net trap and warns everyone to stay together.
Jeremy has seriously underpacked in the water department so Elena (who doesn't need water but packed some anyway) gives him hers. He wonders if she believes Shane's story. She replies that they've all lost someone and they'd all want the chance to see them again. Jeremy takes a sip but is alerted by a noise behind him. He turns to face a man with a bow and arrow. The man fires but Elena speeds Jeremy out of the way. The archer nocks another arrow but before he can fire he's felled from behind by a thrown ax.
The Coalition finds a clearing with a shack and decide to make camp for the night. According to Shane, some college kids came up for spring break a few years ago and were all found drained of blood. Becky suggests they camp there for the night. Damon's in favor of pushing on for the cure and asks Shane where it is? Shane: “How stupid do you think I am?” “Damon: “Stupid enough to raise an immortal witch, so I'd say...incredibly.” Point, Damon.
Shane fires back about how Damon has the most to lose from finding the cure, meaning Elena of course. Damon has no response and Shane heads into the shack. Elena tries to reassure him that her feelings are real and talks up the positives of finding the cure. Not least of which is giving Damon the option of becoming human. They kiss and embrace but Damon is wearing his “I'm unconvinced” face.
Coalition camp, and Rebekah bemoans the lack of s'mores to Stefan. They make small talk about why they each want to take the cure and Rebekah says that being a vampire is miserable. Becks, being a vampire is not miserable; you just suck at it!
Bonnie's with Shane in the shack. “I've been staring at pictures of Jeremy's tattoo.” You and the rest of the Internet, honey. “There's no spell.” Shane tells her that Expression doesn't require an actual spell, that it's a way of accessing magic that's already within her. She asks if he really believes she can trust him and he assures her that he'll be with her every step of the way. From the doorway Damon notes he didn't answer the “trust” part.
Shane puts it another way. Bonnie knows from experience that Expression can get out of control and she needs him to get her through it. As bad as she's seen it, he's seen it worse. When their son died in a car accident, Shane's wife tried to raise him with Expression. Bonnie's stunned that he never told her his wife was a witch. While trying to raise their son, the magic got away from her and she died. Now Bonnie's pissed that he taught her the same magic that killed his wife. He insists that he knows the danger signs now and can keep Bonnie safe. Damon points out this also makes Bonnie “a bomb” that only Shane can defuse. Well yes, that's his insurance policy. He knows he's a dead man the second he points to the cure; now Bonnie has to keep him alive.
Jeremy's lying awake in his tent when he hears a noise. He moves to investigate but before he can get going he's captured by the man from the opening scene.
The next morning the Coalition discovers Jeremy's missing. Stefan, Elena and Becky go searching while Bonnie tries a locator spell, Shane watches over her and Damon watches over Shane.
Back in the shack Damon suspects Shane of being in cahoots with whoever took Jeremy. Shane dismisses him as paranoid and Damon demands the location of the cure. Shane says it's in the caves below the well. Has he seen it? No, but he's had it from a reliable source, meaning Kaitlyn in flashback. The First Kaitlyn fills Shane in on Silas and how to free him, including needing a descendant of Qetsiyah, i.e. Bonnie, to break his imprisonment.
Bonnie lights a fire with her brain and tosses an article of Jeremy's clothing, I choose to assume a pair of his dirty underpants, into it for her locater spell. A trail of fire appears on the ground and she follows it.
The most uncomfortable search party ever is still looking for Jeremy and the ladies continue to bicker until Elena triggers another death trap and Becky saves her from it. Elena thanks her and Becky replies “I don't care what happens to you either way but if you're going to die it might as well be epic.” The show really does try to make Rebekah interesting and awesome but they just can't manage it, can they? Elena decides to check in with Bonnie.
Back in the shack Damon's wondering where orchestrating dozens of deaths fits into Shane's plans. Flashback Shane tells Kaitlyn that given his refusal to serve meat at their wedding there's no way he can kill three dozen people. She explains that he doesn't have to personally kill anyone; he just needs to convince someone else to do it. Oh, well that's very different!
Damon picks up on the “three” part of three dozen. Pastor Young is one, the Redshirt Massacre is two, has he forgotten number three? He has not; the third is yet to come.
Damon demands the location of the well and Shane refuses to give it up. Since Shane can't be compelled Damon moves on to physical torture. Shane counters with psychological torture, pointing out that killing him would help send Bonnie over the edge and urging him to withdraw with a modicum of self-respect rather than torture himself by helping find the cure. Damon responds that his departure would take him out from between Shane and whatever he has planned for Silas. He also points out the flaw in Shane's logic: “I don't give a crap about Bonnie Bennett.”
It looks like Damon's about to snap Shane's neck when Elena pulls him off. Damon stalks off. Elena frees Shane and warns him to stop messing with her friends. She chases after Damon and tells him she's as sick of having this fight with him as I am of watching it. He insists that whatever the outcome of the search for the cure is, they can't work. She calls him on his constant self-sabotage and asks him to take the cure with her and be human with her. He replies that being human is the worst thing he can think of being.
Deep in the woods Becky triggers another death trap and Stefan pulls her out of the way. Somehow this turns into yet another conversation about her and Elena. Next!
Elena checks in on Bonnie and she's not at camp. Neither is Shane. Stefan and Becky arrive back and Elena catches them up. Becks checks on the headstone and it's gone. She searches Elena's things, insisting that Elena and Stefan have betrayed her to allow Shane to get away with the stone. Stefan can't believe she believes that. Every moment since he turned has been ruled by the shame and guilt of being a vampire and there's no way he would jeopardize becoming human. Becky still doesn't trust Elena so she offers Becky the super-stake as a peace offering.
When Becks still doubts her Elena asserts that with Bonnie and Jeremy missing, Shane off with the stone and Damon god know where the three of them are all they've got. Rebekah accepts the offering.
Having secured the headstone, Shane meets Jeremy's captor, who is the same guy from the opening scene I guess? He's leading a bound and gagged Jeremy on a chain. Hawt.
Shane thanks bondage guy for killing the guy who attacked Jeremy and bondage guy denies all knowledge.
Bonnie joins them, wondering how she wound up there and noticing the path that led her there has vanished. Shane introduces the bondage guy as a powerful witch with an indecipherable name that sounds like a guy from Georgia introducing his hosiery. “Mah Sock”? No idea.
A still pissed Damon is stalking through the woods when he's hit out of nowhere by an arrow. “You gotta be kidding me.” His assailant jumps him and they struggle in the dark until Damon mounts him. He's about to kill him when he spots a Hunter's Mark on the guy's hand. His hesitation allows the assailant to slip out of Damon's grasp. He seizes the advantage, snapping Damon's neck.
Meanwhile, back in Mystic Falls, Klaus is still trapped in the Gilbert living room when Tyler shows up to poke the bear. He calls Klaus pathetic and Klaus vows bloody eyeball-gouging vengeance once Bonnie's spell ends.
Tyler's sure that the Coalition will be back with the cure before that happens so Tyler can force it down Klaus's throat. Klaus wonders if Tyler's considered whether curing him will cure his entire blood line, including Tyler (which would condemn Tyler to monthly transformations again). Tyler's confident that curing Klaus will break his connection to his blood line, based on exactly zero evidence. He's having some trouble deciding on the best way to kill Klaus; Klaus suggests drowning, noting the feeling one gets from a human struggling for her last breath like his mother did.
Some hours later Caroline arrives, wondering what Tyler is still doing there. Tyler: “Gloating.” Klaus greets Caroline, who ignores him. Caroline implores Tyler to come away with her but he says he isn't going anywhere until he's enjoyed the last second of Klaus's horrible death. Caroline's all well if you're going to gloat you can gloat and clean up this pigsty at the same time, starting with the “horrific burnt corpse” formerly known as Kol.
Klaus wants to call it even, Tyler's mom for Kol. Caroline's not having it but Klaus reminds her how he saved Tyler from suffering as a werewolf and how Sheriff Liz invited Klaus in to save Caroline's life. Caroline plays the dead Mayor Carol card again and throws in dead Aunt Jenna for good measure. She refuses to engage with him further, declaring it not worth the calories she burned talking to him.
Klaus snatches up a wooden lamp and impales Caroline on it.
He drags her inside the barrier and bites her, injecting her with his (sigh) “werewolf venom”. Klaus: “Well that was certainly worth the calories.”
Caroline flies into blind panic but Tyler talks her down, assuring her he can fix it. He appeals to Klaus, who agrees to heal her if Tyler begs him. He does but Klaus still refuses, recalling that Tyler called him pathetic and announced his intention to kill Klaus in the showiest way imaginable just hours ago.
Tyler offers to become Klaus's slave again in exchange for saving Caroline. “I'll do whatever you want.” Klaus refuses again. Caroline, realizing it's hopeless, asks Tyler to take her away.
Caroline is getting weaker and Tyler blames himself. Caroline tells him that he's a leader and that's why people put their faith in him.
Tyler returns to the Gilbert place with Caroline, telling Klaus that he controls whether Caroline lives or dies. But if he wants her to die then he can watch it happen. Tyler leaves. Klaus tells Bonnie that this isn't personal but he can't let Tyler win by saving her. He “comforts” her by saying that it won't be long now.
Caroline is moments from death but Klaus won't relent. She can't understand why he's being so cruel to Tyler and to her and he suggests that being a thousand years old maybe he's bored. Caroline doesn't believe it so he posits that he's pure evil. Caroline counters that it's because he's hurt, which proves some part of him is still human. She's seen it in him and has found herself wishing she could forget the awful things he's done. He knows that she can't. Caroline: “I know you're in love with me, and anyone who's capable of love is capable of being saved.” He says she's hallucinating and she responds that she'll never know. At almost the last possible moment Klaus feeds her his blood and saves her.
The solid string of episodes continues with this one, with a major advance to the search for the cure and the introduction of two new hotties, Mah Sock and the second Hunter. The only sort of false notes unsurprisingly involved the Originals. The Klaus-Caroline-Tyler business and everything about Rebekah felt a little bit forced, like it was there in service of the upcoming spin-off rather than organically being part of this show. The Klaus business worked a lot better than the Rebekah stuff for me, but I suspect that was largely because I care about Tyler and Caroline and don't care a whit about the Becks-Damon-Elena-Stefan quadrangle.
