We opened up on Elena contemplating the meaning of life. She lied in bed while she wondered who would accompany her to the zoo that day.
Stefan, however, had gone back to season 1!Stefan and had begun keeping letters to Tiki’s Granddad a journal again. Was I the only one kind of upset we didn’t get the excellent season 1 voice over’s as well?
Elena decided that the very first people who would 100% want to talk to her and accompany her to the zoo would be Stefan and Damon.
Ah, there’s the jerk!Stefan I love. He sent Elena straight to voice mail.
Since Stefan was too busy to care, Elena decided to call Damon next. She didn’t apologize for what she said to him at the fancy ball but she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t pick up her 38,940 missed phone calls. Damon was still a little tied up though.
Since Elena had just gotten dissed and dismissed by both Salvatore’s she decided the best idea would be to personally go over there? Yeah, I don’t get it either. Upon her arrival she discovered some shenanigans.
Elena was weirdly jealous and upset but didn’t spend too much time discussing Damon’s sexcapades because it was time for her to finally admit that she was feeling guilty about her part in the ritual to kill the Mikaelson children (really, she was just upset about Elijah, and rightly so). She was NOT happy when Stamon formed a united front and disagreed with her. Honestly, Damon was still hurt Elijah didn’t want him.
Over at the Mikaelson mansion, Elijah was suspiciously lurking around
Sorry if I have a dirty/TMI mind but I couldn’t help it that this was the first thing I thought of when I saw this scene…
The other siblings weren’t paying attention though and decided to make fun of Rebekah’s walk of shame
Finally! Some recognition that our recently undaggered characters were not caught up on all of today’s lingo. I can’t help but think with Kol’s personality that he invented the word “strumpet” in the first place.
Kol decided to use his (very attractive) puppy dog face to guilt trip Klaus into going to the bar with him. I loved this scene because it showed that Klaus was happy that his family was all attractively undaggered.
Elijah was still suspicious about Esther’s intentions but Rebekah tried to reassure him that she just wanted to read “The Secret” and take her kids to Disneyworld.
Over at Caroline’s the girls were trying to recreate Esther’s privacy spell
It wasn’t working much to Caroline and Bonnie’s dismay.
Back at the dimly lit Salvatore mansion, Stamon had yet another conversation about Elena. This conversation pissed me off because they talked about Elena like she was an object and fought over “who gets her.” Hey, here’s an idea, how about you stop referring to girls like they’re inanimate objects. Ok? Ok! Good.
Back at the Saltzbert residence Elena was about to get a visit from a flawless vampire
Instead of the zoo, Elijah took Elena to the middle of the Mystic Falls woods, alone. I was jealous.
Elijah filled Elena in on what Mystic Falls was like 1,000 years ago. Indian tribes, werewolves, wild horses Klaus’ friends were discussed.
And then Elijah called Elena out for lying to him at the fancy ball, saying he could tell by the rhythm of her heartbeat
Elena quickly came clean about Esther’s true intentions on her plans to kill Elijah and the rest of her children.
The Vampire Diaries and Daniel Gillies then trolled the The CW’s 9,834 rules on everything and got away with this:
Elijah also used his many talents to then do this
And he left Elena in the cave, alone! Don’t mess with the King, Elena.
Elsewhere, Damon was trying to make plans with Alaric but Alaric was too busy day drinking with ugh!Meredith. She somehow came to the conclusion that vampires must be stabbing people and then compelling people to forget?
Also, Klaus and Kol showed up to have some drinks and overheard Meredith’s poor reasoning. I like how Klaus got defensive and assumed Meredith was talking about him and his fam, because there aren’t 301 more vampires in Mystic Falls that could also be the perp?
Also, didn’t JoMo say he never wanted to see Klaus chillin’ at The Grill? I guess there was really no choice since there were no other bars in town.
Esther met up with Bonnie and Abby to discuss her using all of the Bennett powers. They were cool with it.
Back at the cave a guest arrived
Again, Elena did literally stab Rebekah in the back and still had yet to apologize for it.
Back at Stamon mansion Elijah had invited himself in to force Stamon to help stop his mother
One more flash to the cave (this episode had a lot of back and forth scenes), Rebekah pointed out how obnoxious it was that everyone constantly was trying to save Elena
Another Stamon scene took place in which Stefan contemplated bunnies or human blood, Damon was on to him though. His new idea to help Elijah: dagger an original, so if one dropped, they would all drop and it would screw up Esther’s plan. It wasn’t a terrible idea as far as daggering was concerned (that’s the last time I’ll ever be okay with daggers and their placement in the originals).
Damon enlisted Alaric, Meredith, and Caroline to help with the plan
Also, can I take time out to point out an observation? THE CW: PROMOTING UNDERAGE DRINKING 1 VAMPIRE AT A TIME. Seriously, does no one get carded in this town? Even the humans (ahem, Elena, sippin’ that champagne at the fancy ball) who are underage seem to constantly get away with drinking. The Grill needs to hire a new bouncer and bartenders…but, I know that’s asking a lot. I digress…
Caroline helped lure Klaus outside since he could not be daggered. I’m not sure if she was actually starting to like him or if it was just an act
I have to digress for one more moment because something else has been on my mind. Isn’t Klaus’ ability to sire out of his control? It was purely accident that Tyler and all the other hybrids became sired to Klaus and Klaus just went (happily) along with it. I don’t think Klaus has any control of un-siring Tyler either…I don’t know, I’m not sure on all these rules.
Over at witch mansion, Esther was gearing up to complete her spell to kill her children. I like how Bonnie didn’t probe Esther for any details on the spell until right before they were about to do some magic
Poor Finn. Still so confused about most things in life. I was rooting that he was going to be lying the whole time and come out with some awesome “SCREW YOU, MOM” trick.
At The Grill, Kol tried hitting on Meredith (didn’t he know she was a strumpet too!?)
Also, can we take a second to appreciate Nathaniel Buzolic’s face?
Anyway, getting back to the actual plot. Meredith blew off Kol’s advances and Alaric swooped in to deliver a dagger into Kol’s chest. Each Mikaelson child began to drop to the ground (except they didn’t show King Elijah?)
Guess what guys? That’s the 4th time Rebekah has died/been daggered! Watch out, Elijah…Rebekah is about to oust you with the most deaths.
Klaus couldn’t feel the ultimate effects of death-by-dagger, however, he could feel a tiny tingle in his heart? He still wasn’t aware of his family being linked as one but he knew something was wrong.
Klaus found Alaric, Damon, and Stefan trying to drag Kol away. He sucker punched them all, except for Damon and Damon tried to tell some “yo mamma” jokes. Elijah appeared and became too impatient (and probably mad that this was now technically the 5th time he had been “killed”) and threatened to have Rebekah kill Elena early if Damon didn’t find out where Esther and the others were.
In the cave, Rebekah woke up and played a nice little game of marco/polo with Elena until she found her. Elena ran into the vampire free zone of the cave.
Cut to Meredith’s apartment, Alaric was worried about Elena, but Meredith assured him Stamon would save her
In the car, Stamon had a quick convo on who would kill one of the Bennett witches. They flipped a coin (idk why they didn’t play rock/paper/scissor) to see who would do the deed.
For the 56th time, another flash to the cave. Rebekah showed up with some gas and matches. She proceeded to throw the gas into the vampire free zone where Elena was and began lighting the matches.
Elena then tried to tell Rebekah that Esther wasn’t trying to kill her because she hates her, she had no other way? (LOL, WRONG ELENA) She also still didn’t apologize for stabbing Rebekah in the back but did suggest that slow revenge would be a lot more fun!
Elsewhere, it seemed Elijah, Klaus, and Kol had been notified about where Esther’s ritual was going to be taking place. Good thing for them, they were early to the party.
Esther was clearly not happy to see her sons. She pretty much told them they were a curse on the earth and she had watched from the other side for 1,000 years as they killed and tortured people. She showed no mercy in her actions in trying to kill them.
In witch mansion, Bonnie and Abby hid out from the originals but were disrupted by Stefan and Damon. Stefan told Bonnie about Elena getting kidnapped and how she would die if they didn’t stop Esther.
Damon then fed Abby his blood and snapped her neck to turn her into a vampire. It was clever because Esther was channeling the Bennett witches dead or alive so turning Abby into a vampire would sever the line completely. The jury’s still out on if anyone cared about Abby being turned.
And just like that, the witches abandoned Esther and the ritual! Finn grabbed Esther and disappeared, leaving the rest of the boys confused.
I really hope this isn’t the end of Esther and the ritual to turn her kids human (wouldn’t that be a great season ending cliffhanger?). The payoff in this episode was so anticlimactic for usual TVD. Aren’t the original children technically still all bound as one?
Thankfully for the last time, in the cave, Rebekah let Elena know she was free to go
Elena tried to go over to Caroline’s and be there for Bonnie but awesomeness occurred instead
Bonnie did not want to see Elena. She was hurt but finally took the hint from Caroline and left.
At the Salvatore house, it was revealed that Stefan had “won” the coin toss to turn Abby and Damon took the reigns instead. I guess it was Damon’s way of giving Stefan the go ahead to try and win Elena back? He did call Stefan out for his lack of blood drinking though
Seriously though. If becoming a vampire means whiskey tastes like candy then sign me up!
Finally back in her own home, Elena found a note from the flawless king himself, it read:
Me too, Elena, me too.
At Mikaelson mansion, Elijah told Rebekah he felt guilty about using her like a pawn. He also admitted that their mother was right on some level about him being a monster and that just because Esther made them vampires didn’t mean they had to be monsters as well (Esther technically did make them monsters but I’ll let my king sulk).
I like to think that before Elijah came to Mystic Falls he was living in an immaculate penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side of NYC. He decided he needed to go review his life for a few (I HOPE NOT MANY) episodes there before he came back more flawless than ever.
Klaus was busy burning all his “I LOVE CAROLINE” drawings and sulking because Kol and Elijah had both left (UGH, WTF, HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO GET THROUGH TVD WITHOUT THOSE FACES?) when Rebekah wandered in to show him the videos of Elena being tortured. But, more importantly she had discovered on the walls of the cave a native calendar that depicted a new White Oak tree.
I’m confused because I thought if there was a new White Oak it would be chillin’ smack dab in the middle of Mystic Falls, but apparently not?
In Meredith’s apartment, Alaric was searching for the whiskey when he came across all the evidence from the Founder’s Council murders, including the weapons used. But oops, look who found him
There you have it! A pretty anticlimactic episode with an even bigger anticlimactic cliffhanger. We know Alaric isn’t dead. My guess is Meredith is being compelled so if Alaric was fatally shot he will be coming back to life soon. And with that we have another hellatus, see ya in 4 weeks!
Sources: Caps Gifs (and of course, Tumblr)
ABOUT THE RECAPPER
AWSHUCKS (sometimes known as Erin, or her Hebrew name, Esther, so watch out) is a kindergartener at Mystic Falls Elementary School. In her free time she enjoys writing on cave walls with chalk, taking quiet walks in the MF woods, and attending 10 and younger night at the Mystic Grill, where she is also a bouncer and bartender on the weekends.
Erin Recaps The Vampire Diaries 