by Dianna Berrian
If you skipped Science class to go Trick or Treating today, don’t worry. “The Vampire Diaries” will catch you up on what you missed. …Sort of. In Dr. Maxfield’s lab, newly transitioned vampire Jesse is stuck on the lab table undergoing a series of tests. As the creepy professor records his progress here’s what we learn: Jess has gone three days without feeding, and as a result remains weak but lucid; sensitive to light; confused, yet self aware; his personality is in tact; and hunger is his primary focus. This makes him the “perfect candidate.” If you’re wondering what for, I’m sorry to tell you you won’t be finding out this episode.
In Elenaville, back at Whitmore College, the diary that burned in the Gilbert fire is somehow resurrected. She writes down her Bonnie-is-dead woes, mentioning that Caroline is back with Tyler and it’s a healthy distraction for her from all the drama, while Elena’s own distraction is Dr. Maxfield and his suicide coverup of Megan’s death. All the while she’s been avoiding contact with Damon, until he catches her hitting the “reject” button on his phone call. Busted! Still dodging communications with him, she takes off for class and stops by her late roomie’s memorial where she meets the blond, blue-eyed hometown friend of Megan. Seems he’s also suspicious of the suicide story, but he’s a bit suspect himself, having not even given her his name before taking off. Do the jealous eyes Damon is giving from afar foreshadow something for a new future triangle? Hmm….
Caroline, in the meantime, is living it up with the return of Tyler. And by living it up, I mean doing the only thing these two were ever really good at – having sex. She eagerly tells him how she compelled him a single room and his new major is now sociology. But he seems a bit closed off to the idea of college and generally more closed off to her than normal. They bicker for a minute about his absence until she switches subjects to bring up the costume ball that he will be escorting her to. Seeing no way out of it,he decides to end the discussion with a kiss.
Over in Mystic Falls, Damon is discussing his scheme to bring Bonnie back from the dead by…wait for it…working with Silas! Since Silas is so keen to die, he figures they could do an exchange and bring Bonnie back in his place. In order for Silas to die, he has to become a mortal and if he becomes a mortal he’ll be a witch, making it supernaturally possible to pull off. But ghost Bonnie has her doubts. Maybe he has a plan B and wants to do more than drop the veil and let the ghosts out. Maybe he wants to destroy the “Other Side” completely. Gee, Bonnie. You think? She thinks Qetsiyah must have bound the “Other Side” to something that would last just as long as it as, a mystical anchor of sorts. And when Damon meets with Silas, he confirms this theory but reveals that Qetsiyah is the only one who knows where the anchor is hidden. Bonnie refuses to go along with the plan, but since she can’t technically kill the messenger anyway, little Gilbert speaks out of turn and tells Damon she’s in. So Silas and Damon come to an agreement. Just one little favor – Silas wants Damon to kill Stefan.
While all the drama in Mystic Falls and Whitmore College is going down, Nadia is still hiding away with Katherine as her hostage. She receives a phone call from Silas who is still desperate to get Katherine back from her so he can take the cure and set his plan in motion. Sure, his psychic abilities may be on the spritz but that doesn’t mean a 2000 year old not-vampire can’t become adept in cell phone tracking. Time’s a ticking, Nadia. And although Katherine offers to give herself up so Silas can take his sip of blood and be on his merry way, Nadia won’t let that happen. Turns out Silas needs to drain Katherine to cure himself, meaning she’d die. They flee the hotel and make a pit stop at a diner for some real food, at Katherine’s nagging request. A bit of history unfolds as Nadia tells her she’s been tailing Kat for nearly 500 years. And if she’s good and answers a few questions, she’ll let her go. The first thing she asks is about the abandonment of the vampires in she left to die in the tomb In 1864. Remember that? In her defense, she was running from Klaus. But Nadia begs the question, “What about ripping a mother away from her own daughter” works to her benefit? Nadia had herself turned into a vampire to haunt her so she could even the playing field after Katherine killed her mother, in Paris of 1645. She was on the run from Klaus and her mother took her in. When some of Klaus’ minions came searching, Katherine gave her up and said “she is Katerina Petrova”. The bitterness in Nadia’s voice makes it evident that she was never going to be let go, so on their way out, Katherine rips a piece of one of the wooden diner booths off to stab into Nadia’s chest and jets.
If you’re feeling nostalgic and lacking those “Beremy” feels, weep no more. Allay your worries with a tidbit of Bonnie and Jeremy arguing over the Silas agreement. On the one hand, magic always comes with a price – there’s always a consequence. But how can anything be worse than seeing her and hearing her and not being able to touch her? Oh, Bonnie! Just let Damon try! …Sorry, was that too dramatic?
Later that evening, the Historical Costume Ball commences. Caroline and Tyler show up all smiles as Bonnie and Clyde. An already drunk Stefan, dressed as James Dean, sweeps her away from her Clyde for a dance while on the other side of the room Elena and Damon make a Lady Ann Boelyn and her King entrance. He tries a little bit of sweetness and offers to dance but she’s still being evasive. It’s the Bonnie thing, riding her with guilt because she spent all summer happy with Damon and not even trying to figure out that Bonnie was dead. In a wicked twist of fate, across the room is the mysterious hometown friend of Megan’s, drowning his woes in a likely spiked punch. Damon’s slightly objective to her interest but her investigation seems to take precedence. Hmmm, is the hometown friend driving a wedge between Damon and Elena’s relationship? Maybe. Or maybe not, as Damon occupies himself just fine by shooting a text to Silas, letting him know Stefan is there. Meanwhile, Elena makes nice with the hometown friend, learning his name is Harry. She questions him – the vampire way – and learns some intriguing info. He’s the guilty survivor, and everyone around him dies. It’s like a curse. Oh. Oh my. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the male Elena!
Right on cue, Qetsiyah shows up dressed as Cleopatra. She approaches Stefan and quickly realizes he’s amnesiac, using it to her advantage. It’s short lived, however, once Damon intervenes to stop her flirting. He lures Stefan away into a private room where Silas was waiting for him, ready to steal his clothes. No, wait. Don’t take that the wrong way. But before Stefan can get a word in edgewise, Damon snaps his neck. Silas takes up his James Dean jacket and explains why the neck snapping was necessary to Damon. The spell Qetsiyah did took his psychic abilities away and made Stefan lose his memories, but the temporary death of Stefan gives him back his psychic abilities. In other words, keep Stefan dead so he can go dip into Qetsiyah’s brain and see her plans. He heads back out to the party and starts flirting with her as Stefan, knowing she’ll take the bait seeing as they share the same face and deep inside her heart, she’s still hung up on Silas. Unfortunately, Silas starts to get a little obvious, subtly defending himself to her when the topic is brought up. Just as she begins to realize, he compels her to find out about the anchor but she doesn’t know where it is either. The Travelers hid it after they killed her and move it constantly. Her pendant is in one of the historical displays at the party. It’s a talisman that enhances her power so she can do a spell to find the anchor. Satisfied, Silas ompels her to get to it and forget what they just spoke about.
Speaking of lover’s quarrels, Tyler and Caroline seem to be blissful on the dance floor. For about two minutes. Caroline suggests taking off for more exciting (bedroom) endeavors, but Tyler says he didn’t just come back for sex. And all the men around the world quickly take away his man card. It looks as if he’s about to confess something tragic but at the last minute thinks better of it and says he’s just happy to be there. And in the other room, Damon and Stefan bicker a little until Damon tires of it and snaps his neck again. You know, just your average sibling rivalry.
After escaping her captor, Katherine doubles back and finds Nadia in an alley, the slab of wood still stuck in her chest. She grazed her heart on purpose because she still wanted her alive. After thinking about it, she realized the story about Nadia’s mom was fake. By 1645 she was running from Klaus for a century and a half. None of his minions would’ve mistaken anyone for her. And Nadia finally gives up the real story – Katherine did kill her mother, but it wasn’t in Paris, it was in a cottage in England, on April 6, 1492. She was all alone, exiled by her family 2 years earlier, when she snapped her neck by hanging herself. Sound familiar yet? Well let’s spell it out for you then. “My name is Nadia Petrova. You are my mother.” And all of our minds are blown! If anyone is as big of a Katherine fan as me, you’ll remember the most heart wrenching moment of her past was having her baby ripped from her arms. To have her daughter right there in front of her? Yes. It is mind blowing, okay?
While Katherine lets that seep in, Elena runs into Dr. Maxfield, appropriately dressed as Dr. Jekyll. She asks him to dance, but don’t worry she made sure it wouldn’t be inappropriate first, and calls him out on his forgery on Megan’s death certificate. He admits to it, and confesses that he thinks a vampire hunted her and killed her. He even goes as far as offering her a tip by telling her to pack her things and drop out and leave because there are people at the school watching her and her friends, asking questions they wouldn’t want asked. And poof, he’s gone. Is it me, or doesn’t it just seem like he’s the only one who’s asking any questions around here?
Drama time again. Caroline finds Tyler sitting by his lonesome on the stairs and joins him. He woefully confesses that he just can’t do college right now. And that’s fine, but the reasons are deeper than werewolf packs in Tennessee. And the only reason he came back was to say goodbye to Caroline. He just can’t get behind the fact that the reason they’re together is because Klaus granted them permission to be together before leaving for New Orleans. And Tyler can’t live like that, under Klaus’ rules. He’s still harboring a grudge over the hybrid for killing his mom and getting away with it. He wants to go after Klaus, but obviously that’s adding fuel to Caroline’s growing hate fire: “For someone who hates Klaus, you certainly sound a lot like him.” Whoa…burn!
Qetsiyah is busy with her own grudge plot, sneaking in to get her pendant back. With no problems at all, she takes it and immediately starts chanting the locator spell. Silas walks in, still masquerading as Stefan, about to compel what she’s doing out of her but his psychic powers go weak as Stefan wakes up again. But this time, he fakes still being dead in order to wake up and snap Damon’s neck in revenge. Which, in effect, makes Silas’ whole plan shot to hell. Especially when Stefan walks in to prove to Qetsiyah she’s been dealing with Silas and that he has a plot against her with Damon. Oh, Stefan. You mindless butthead. Furious, she starts doing a new spell, shoving her hand into Silas’ chest to stop his heart from working so his blood can’t flow, veins will dry up, and he rots from inside out. He starts going ashy grey and rotted until, finally, he is dessicated. Come on, that was too easy.
There’s a short run in between Harry and Dr. Maxfield trying to take the keys away from the drunk minor, and the only relevance here is learning that Maxfield is Harry’s legal guardian and he wants him to stay away from Elena. Guessing that’ll come into play later. Also guessing that Harry won’t listen to him. Soon, Damon and Elena walk in to find Silas dessicated on the ground. You know, that guy used to be the life of the party!
Nadia and Katherine are back in their hotel room (or maybe it’s a new one?), the wood removed from Nadia’s chest. Katherine asks her where she was in 1498, but seeing as she was only eight years old, she can’t remember. Katherine reveals to her that she escaped the people who were searching for her and found her way back to Buglaria. She searched everywhere for her daughter, and never was able to find her. Nadia is touched to hear her mother went back for her. God, have I mentioned how amazing this storyline is?!
Back in their dorm room, Caroline finds Tyler packing his things. She begs him one more time to love her more than he hates Klaus and to stay with her, but he can’t. As one final ultimatum, Caroline tells him, “if you take one more step, we are done. No more chances or excuses or surprises. Done.” Fitfully, he takes that step and leaves the dorm entirely. Poor Caroline. Let’s just hope this doesn’t push her more towards Jesse once he breaks out of the mad scientist’s lab. It’s times like these a girl really needs to take time to recuperate, maybe even reinvent herself and rise up stronger than she was before. And we all know Caroline is capable. But for the love of God, just don’t give her another boyfriend storyline!
Taking the doctor’s advice, Elena winds up back at the boarding house with Damon and the corpse of Silas. There’s a knock at the door and Katherine walks in, wondering what the urgency of Damon’s call was. When she sees a dessicated Silas, a celebratory grin cracks, along with a few quips at his expense. And just when we all thought Katherine was safe, Damon becomes pubic enemy #1 and bites her neck with every intention of giving her up to Silas. She (and I!) begs for her life, crying that she doesn’t want to die, but Damon has no heart and feeds her to Silas until he drains her completely, his rotting flesh regaining color, and more importantly, looking mortal. But Katherine is not as lucky and falls back onto the ground, dead.
Don’t give up hope yet, Katherine stans! If you listen closely, you’ll hear the defeat in Damon’s voice as Katherine’s heart continues to beat and she wakes up muttering, “Am I in hell?” No, my dear. But Damon is about to be. Let’s hope her remaining alive sticks because if Katherine ever dies there is sure to be an uprising in the “Vampire Diaries” community.
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