Emily Rewatches TVD-- Season 5, Episode 15 "Gone Girl"
Yeah, so procrastination is kind of my biggest bad habit, so I apologize for cutting the season 5 refreshers so close, considering that season 6 has now already started. So, for time's sake, it's time to speed things up, as quickly as my wordy, rambly-ass can manage, anyway. So, I'm gonna dispense with the introduction. Let's dig in, shall we?
We open on a flashback of Nadia's to Northern Europe in 1520, when Nadia was 30 years old. I have no idea whether she was still a human then, or a relatively newly-turned vampire, but if she wasn't already, I'm guessing she was turned shortly afterward. She knocks on a door of a cottage and asks the man who lives there if she's seen Katerina Petrova, who was last seen outside of London in 1492. The man tries to shut the door in her face, but she pleads that she needs to find her mother and find out why she abandoned her.
In the present day, Nadia is in an old warehouse, where she is laying on a couch, with Katherine sitting at her bedside and watching her hallucinate her old memories. She assures Nadia that she's there, and Nadia explains that she was dreaming about searching for her. Katherine already figured that part out, though, and insists that she didn't abandon her, her father ripped her out of her arms as soon as she was born, which is completely different. Nadia argues that it's the same as abandonment when you're a lonely orphan, so Katherine changes the subject to how all this guilt has been taking the fun out of their quality bonding time. She insists that she's not letting Nadia die, which leads Nadia to mistakenly believe that Katherine contacted Klaus for her blood. Of course, Katherine did nothing of the sort, as 1) it would reveal that she is a Passenger in Elena's body, and 2) Klaus would never help her anyway, and would love to watch Katherine's only child die. However, that doesn't mean that Katherine isn't trying to save her, which is where Wes Maxfield comes in.
As it turns out, Wes was super excited to hear that Nadia was bitten by a hybrid, because werewolf venom is hard to come by, so he's come to study her blood. Nadia must have heard the details about his little vampire experiments, because she immediately backs away from him, but Wes assures her that since werewolf venom is no different than any other compound, he can figure out its makeup and create an antidote. Or, so he says, at least. So, he takes a sample of her blood and then leaves to go analyze it, leaving Katherine and Nadia alone. Nadia jokes, "If I had known I just had to die to drag your attention from Stefan, I would've tried it a long time ago." Katherine jokes back that if she's trying to make her feel guilty, it's kind of working. Nadia admits that she's glad Katherine is there with her now, and Katherine promises that she's going to be a better mother from this moment forward.
Over at Casa di Salvatore, Stefan has just finished explaining to the still-chained-up Damon that Katherine has been a Passenger in Elena's body ever since she "died" back in "500 Years of Solitude." Damon admits that she's brilliant, which isn't the reaction Stefan was expecting, considering all the stupid stuff that Damon did under the impression that Elena had dumped him and giving up on him, including his murder-spree of Aaron Whitmore and everyone in Augustine except for Wes and getting turned into a Vampire Ripper. Damon is more curious as to why Stefan is telling said starving, bloodthirsty Vampire Ripper about his archenemy being alive and well and living in his ex-girlfriend's body when he is all chained up and can't do anything about it, but Stefan swears that he and the rest of the MFG have a plan.
Upstairs in the living room, Tyler, Caroline, and Matt are having a confab about this turn of events, while Jeremy and Bonnie join them via speaker-phone. This exchange is so hilarious that I'm just gonna transcribe it:
The plan is to say that they're throwing Bonnie a surprise party, but when Caroline calls Katherine to invite her, Katherine argues that Bonnie wouldn't want a big party for her birthday, which she ignores in true Caroline fashion. When she asks when she can get over to the boarding house to help, Katherine wracks her brain for a legitimate excuse before finally lying that she's making arrangements for Aaron Whitmore's funeral, since she feels so guilty since Damon only killed him because she broke up with him. Caroline, furious, manages to chirp that it's a very nice thing of her to do before hanging up. So, they move onto plan B, which involves Bonnie calling to invite her for coffee, citing the fact that she pulled an all-nighter for sociology and woke up to a coven of dead Russian witches passing through her to get to the Other Side as reasons why she really just needs to be around her BFF. So, Katherine grits her teeth and once again lies that she's at the day spa, getting Bonnie a gift certificate for her birthday before coming up with an excuse to hang up. Afterward, she turns to Nadia and asks why the MFG is being so needy that day. Yeah, like Nadia cares about your cover right now, Kat.
Stefan returns to the basement with a tumbler of four ounces of his blood to satiate Damon for a while, insisting that they'll deal with Damon's crisis after they get Elena back. Damon isn't really interested in that plan, though, and suggests that Stefan let him go so he can find Wes, get the antidote, and then be out of everyone's hair, but Stefan knows better-- Damon would just run off and leave Stefan to be the one to tell Elena everything that he did after he thought Elena broke up with him. Stefan then pulls out his phone to call Katherine, as he doesn't think she'll be able to make excuses to him, but before he can dial the number, "Elena" calls Damon's phone instead. Damon quickly answers it, and after the requisite small talk, Katherine suggests that maybe they could talk, since the dust has settled and everything, so Damon gives her the okay to come on over so they can talk it out.
Once she's off the phone, Katherine points out to Nadia that Damon tried to kill her less than 24 hours ago, so even in Ripper-mode, there is no part of Damon that would risk doing the same to Elena again. So, the fact that he's so eager to see her means that they totally know that Katherine has been impersonating Elena. Back in Mystic Falls, Damon and Stefan have a similar conversation-- she's been dodging everyone's offer to come over all day, but then comes right out and invites herself over, which means that she was testing them to see if they were suspicious, and he totally failed, which means SHE knows that they know. SHIT.
Nadia flashback number 2: It's France in 1720, where Nadia has approached a man in the woods with a bag full of coins, promising to give him gold in exchange for information on Katerina Petrova; she was told that he saw her killing a man outside the Quarter of Versailles, and wants to know what kind of woman her mother was. In the present day, Nadia wakes from her delirium to find that Katherine has taken her to an abandoned church in or near Mystic Falls (which you might recognize as being the exact same set as St. Anne's Church in The Originals.) Nadia weakly jokes that now she can make her peace with the universe, but Katherine swears that she just brought her here to hide her until Wes can heal her. Nadia figures she should just leave now while she can, but Katherine just snarks that she didn't raise her to be such a quitter, and promises that once she's better, they're leaving together.
Outside the boarding house, Stefan and Caroline are lamenting this most recent turn of events-- the farther Katherine gets, the less likely it is that they'll ever get Elena back, and as if it weren't bad enough that it took them this long to figure out that Elena was gone in the first place, they've now lost the only advantage they had. It's then that Damon, who has been eavesdropping the whole time, calls out, "Nothing a little locator spell can't fix..."
Cut to Whitmore's campus, where Jeremy and Bonnie have tracked down Liv at the college coffee shop. As soon as she sees them, she figures they need a little magical help, so Bonnie gets to the point and tells her they need her to use the locator spell she taught her to find Jeremy's sister. Of course, like any person who is attracted to men, Liv is totally crushing on Jeremy, and quips that she could be convinced to help them out.
Meanwhile, Tyler has been left to guard Damon's cell while everyone else runs around trying to put their plan into play. Damon whines that he needs more blood, and suggests that Tyler let him "have a couple sips of his hybrid juice" and let him go take himself and his Ripper problem away from everyone else. When Tyler insists that he's not going to free Damon, he turns to more creative ways to get what he wants.
Caroline wanders down to change babysitting shifts with Tyler, just as he's starting to come to after being knocked down. She immediately rushes toward him to check on him, and when she sees the blood on his shirt, she's shocked to realize that Damon actually fed on him. Tyler insists that he's fine, but Caroline doesn't understand why he'd even come inside the cell anyway, leading Tyler to snap, "What do you think? Damon knew exactly how to piss me off." That's when Stefan, hearing the commotion, comes downstairs to find Tyler on the floor and Damon gone, which forces them to admit that Damon left to go after Wes.
Bonnie, Liv, and Jeremy have set up the necessary ingredients of the locator spell, and asks for Jeremy to give her his hand, since he and Elena are blood related. Bonnie is both confused and a little bit jealous when she points out that it's not the way she taught her to do it, but Liv claims she's just feeling her way through it. She and Bonnie say the spell a few times while Liv closes her eyes, but after a moment, she stops and looks over at Jeremy. She flirtatiously asks Jeremy if Elena has pretty brown eyes like he does, which does nothing to help Bonnie's jealousy issues, so she asks her if this is actually necessary. Liv reluctantly returns to chanting the spell, and finally, she opens her eyes and asks if Elena spends a lot of time in church.
At said church, Katherine is about to leave to go check on Wes, because she doesn't like how long it's taking him to make the antidote. Nadia warns her to be careful, since the Mystic Falls Gang are all looking for her, but Katherine just smirks and reminds her that it's never stopped her before.
Damon finally finds Wes working on drawing up a syringe full of orange fluid while he grins like the maniacal evil scientist he is. Wes doesn't understand how Damon found him, so Damon admits that Enzo told him about the adventure the two of them took together. He then gets to the point-- he has a long road ahead of him to win Elena back, which means he needs Wes to cure him so he stops lusting over her blood. Wes, however, figures that even if he does cure him of the *sigh* "virus," he'd still be feeding on innocent people, which wouldn't impress Elena. Wes makes the mistake of poking the bear and telling Damon that he was already a monster, but Wes just brought it to the surface. So, Damon shoves his fist in Wes' gut and lifts him up so he's pinned to the table. "It's my turn to play doctor," Damon quips, before grabbing a scalpel and slicing Wes' eyeball open. YIKES! I hate Wes, but that is still pretty dark, even for Damon.
In the church, Nadia is still all alone, and is hallucinating back to the memory of over the summer, when she had her threesome with Rebekah and Matt in Prague. Nadia and Matt snuggled while Rebekah was in the shower, and Nadia mentions how much he must trust Rebekah, considering she's an Original vampire and he's a human who isn't on or wearing vervain. She then demonstrates this by compelling him not to say anything about Nadia stealing Rebekah's earrings. Matt is shocked that Nadia knew Rebekah was an Original, so Nadia confesses that she was hoping that Rebekah would be able to tell her about her brother Klaus' favorite vampire, Katherine Pierce. Matt is shocked, and admits that he knows her, and asks her why the fuck she'd care about her. "Because she's my mother, and I'd very much like to meet her," Nadia replies, before taking his Gilbert ring off and compelling him. "I'm going to take your ring. Now, I have a reason to see you again." In the present, a person is lurking in the shadows near where Nadia is resting.
Katherine has just arrived to Wes' newest lab set-up, where she finds him mangled and disemboweled on top of the table. She's so horrified she almost throws up, and is in the middle of whispering a chorus of "No"'s when her phone rings. When she sees it's Nadia, she immediately answers it and assures her that she's coming back to the church as they speak, but it's not actually Nadia calling, it's Stefan. He tells her that she's not at the church anymore, but the boarding house. Katherine tries her best to backpedal and try to pretend to be Elena, but Stefan calls her out on her shit and tells her that he knows that it's Katherine, and that he knows she cares about Nadia, which is why he brought her to his house. Katherine wants proof that Nadia isn't already dead, so she makes Stefan put her on the phone. Nadia tells her to run, so Stefan takes the phone back and gives her a choice: she can run, which is what she does best, or she can come to the boarding house and see her daughter one last time before she dies.
Matt is sitting on the couch with Nadia, trying to comfort her, but she's so delirious, she thinks he's Gregor. She profusely apologizes for betraying him, and insists that she only did it for her mother, for whom she'd do everything. Matt, super depressed at this point, assures her that he knows she did, so Nadia asks for Gregor's forgiveness. Because Matt Donovan is literally an angel of the Lord, he takes on Gregor's accent and promises that he forgives her before assuring her that she's okay. Nadia becomes scared and admits that she doesn't want to die, just as Bonnie, Jeremy, Caroline, Stefan, and Tyler walk upstairs to check on her. That's when Bonnie takes over bedside nurse duties and takes Nadia's hands in her own. Nadia worriedly asks her what will happen when she dies, Bonnie explains that she'll take her hand, and she'll go over to the Other Side, just like that. When she asks if it will hurt, Bonnie forces herself to smile at Nadia as she promises that she won't feel any pain.
Finally, Katherine arrives, walking in like she owns the place before demanding to see her daughter. Nadia is shocked that she came back for her, but Katherine promises her that she'll never leave her again. She then admits that Klaus' blood would have saved her, but she never asked for it, and having her be alive would have been worth outing herself. Just then, Nadia starts to hallucinate again. "My mother's name is Katherine. I'm looking for her. She's a liar and a murderer. She manipulates, she betrays... she'll do anything to survive." Katherine is heartbroken and insists that she's right there with her, but she's so out of it, she can't even hear her. Finally, Katherine is so upset, she confesses that Nadia's life should not have been this, 500 years of searching for a woman who ended up being someone like Katherine. She then pulls a Damon and gives Nadia a happy dream on which to leave. It's the 1490s, and Katherine and young Nadia were living in a little cottage. Katherine tucked her daughter into bed while Nadia told her about the fort she made in the woods, and told her that in the morning, they'd go play in it together. Then, Katherine kisses young Nadia on the forehead and tells her goodnight.
In reality, Katherine is breaking down in tears as Nadia's skin begins to desiccate. Suddenly, Nadia's ghost appears in the living room, and begins to cry when she hears Katherine say, "Your mother loves you." Finally free to die in peace, Nadia touches Bonnie's shoulder, causing her to double over in pain as she passes through her to get to the Other Side. Devastated, Katherine leans over Nadia's body and gently closing her eyes before covering her up with a blanket. As much as Katherine's actions the past half-dozen episodes or so have totally annoyed me, she really does seem to care deeply about Nadia, even if she had the absolute worst ways of showing it. It was nice to see her actually show some genuine love for someone before she left for good.
After the break, we return to the boarding house's foyer, where Stefan, Tyler, Caroline, Bonnie, Jeremy and Matt are all surrounding Katherine in a circle. Katherine quips, "So, this is it," before desperately trying to vamp-speed out the door, but Damon chooses that moment to show up and block the door. "Hello, Katherine. You didn't think I'd miss this, did you?" He forces Katherine back into the foyer, where Katherine slowly struts around the circle and asks who is going to be the one to kill her. This part is priceless, so I'm just gonna transcribe it.
Later, Matt is sitting on the couch next to Nadia's body when Jeremy appears behind him and informs him that Stefan said she should be buried in the woods. Matt, who really did seem to have genuine feelings for her, disagrees, and insists that she deserves better before scooping her up and getting ready to carry her out the door. Jeremy feels bad and asks if he needs any help, but Matt claims he's got it handled.
Meanwhile, Damon and Stefan are both in Damon's room, sitting on his bed, where they've laid Elena's body and are waiting for her to wake up. Damon frets that it's taking too long for her to come back, but Stefan assures him that when they had to stab Matt with it, it took him a while to wake up, as well, which gives them some time to discuss his little stunt with Tyler earlier. Damon promises that Tyler's little "donation" will keep him fed and happy for a few more hours, and when Stefan asks him what the fuck he plans on doing after that, Damon insists that he is going to tell her everything that happened while she was out. "I don't wanna be another Katherine Pierce. Katherine spent her whole life running from her problems, only to die here, all alone."
Outside the boarding house, Caroline and Tyler are sitting on the trunk of Damon's Camaro, when Caroline starts to say, "Is it wrong that I feel..." Tyler finishes her sentence with "Victorious?" but Caroline actually meant "sad." She acknowledges every horrible thing that Katherine has done, but she's still a little depressed about it, and Tyler gets it-- he knows better than anyone that she sees the good in people. Caroline instantly tenses up and points out that what he's really trying to say is that Caroline saw the good in KLAUS, but Tyler retorts that it was her words, not his. Then, Caroline makes a very awesome point.
At the church where Katherine took Nadia earlier, Bonnie is at the sacristy, where she's lighting a candle for her father. She whispers how much she misses him, just as Katherine's spirit shows up and laughs at her, joking that she's about five centuries too late on the whole God thing. Bonnie seems satisfied that their plan worked and that Katherine is well and truly dead this time, which Katherine confirms, though, as usual, there is a caveat. "But, again... your friends didn't give me much of a choice in the matter. Using my own daughter against me? Harsh. I suppose I could have spent the next five hundred years running... but for what? My daughter was dying, Stefan would never love me; I was back to having nothing, and Elena wins again." Bonnie's heart bleeds for Katherine, clearly, because she just snaps at her to get this over with, but when Bonnie steps toward her to touch her arm, Katherine takes a step back. "I'm really starting to get sick of Elena getting everything that I want," Katherine growls, as though Katherine couldn't have gotten the same things if she had actually acted like a human being. Bonnie is confused and asks her what the fuck that's supposed to mean, so Katherine drops one last bomb before she goes.
"Wes had no intention of helping Nadia," Katherine explains, as we flash back to earlier, when Stefan told Katherine that it was her choice of whether she ran or came to see Nadia one last time. Katherine was so furious that she began trashing Wes' lab, until she finally finds Wes' audio recorder and plays it. On it, Wes dictates his research for the day-- he managed to extract the werewolf venom from Nadia's blood so he could add it to the Ripper serum and make it even more lethal to vampires, which is what the orange fluid in that syringe was. Katherine found the syringe, picked it up, and smiled. In the present, Katherine tells Bonnie that Nadia was just being used as a case study in his plan to wipe out the vampire species. Bonnie asks her why the fuck she would tell her this, but we get to see the answer for ourselves-- over at the boarding house, Elena has finally woken up in Damon's bed, much to Stefan and Damon's delight. In voiceover, Katherine smirks, "I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Elena had the life I always wanted... well, until now." Bonnie finally realizes that she totally pulled one over on them and asks her what the hell she did, so Katherine gets to the point.
"Stefan thought he gave me a choice. Run, or die," she explains, as we flash back to when Katherine was in Wes' lab. She holds up the syringe and uncaps it and continues. "But, that's not really much of a choice, is it? After all, Nadia was the only person in this world who really loved me. And, I wasn't about to let my daughter die alone. But, Katherine Pierce wasn't about to go gentle, either." In flashback, Katherine takes the syringe and stabs herself/Elena with it, injecting the werewolf venom-infused Ripper serum that Wes created. At the boarding house, Damon asks Elena if she's really you, and Elena seems so relieved when she realizes that she is. That is, until she notices something under her jacket and pulls at the syringe with which Katherine stabbed her tucked inside of it.
Back at the church, Katherine admits that she left Elena with a "parting gift," and adds that if she can't have Stefan, no one can. Satisfied, Katherine chirps that she's ready now, and smacks her hands on Bonnie's shoulders to pass over to the Other Side. However, nothing happens, so Katherine repeats the gesture a couple times, and when that doesn't work, Katherine asks her what is going on. Bonnie has no idea whatsoever, because this is never happened to her before. Nervous, Katherine grabs her by the shoulders and shrieks, "Bonnie, what are you doing? Let me pass through! Why won't you let me pass through?" Bonnie insists that she has no idea, and that it's not up to her-- she doesn't have control over who comes through her.
When Katherine demands to know who DOES get to decide, a strong wind begins to blow through the church, and Katherine gets thrown backwards. She lays sprawled out on the ground, and both Katherine and Bonnie are super horrified and confused when a huge black hole-type thing opens up in the ceiling of the church. Bonnie stammers, "I can't help you, Katherine," which terrifies Katherine so much that she desperately starts scrabbling for the ground in hopes of finding something to hold onto, but it's futile-- whatever force is behind this new, unknown dimension that I will be calling "oblivion" sucks her into its portal while she screams before it closes itself up, leaving Bonnie alone in the church once again. DUN DUN DUN.
NOTES:
-So, what's that black-hole place? I'm guessing its another dimension like the Other Side, only this one is a natural one and not a magically created one like the Other Side was by Qetsiyah. I haven't read the Vampire Diaries book series, but I know from clicking around the TVD/TO wikia page that there is a place called the Dark Dimension, and I'm wondering if maybe they're not drawing from that? Can anyone reading this who read the books shed some light on the Dark Dimension and what it was about?
-Secondly, why did Katherine end up there? My original theory was that it was Qetsiyah's doing-- we already know she created the Other Side and made all of it's metaphysical laws, including that witches get free reign over it and can visit with other witches and the rest of the supernaturals over there, but everyone else is all alone unless a witch visits them. We also know that Qetsiyah had a total revenge-boner for Silas and Amara for what they did to her, which is why she created the Other Side to begin with, to keep Silas and Amara separated for eternity. So, wouldn't you think that Qetsiyah would want to keep Petrova doppelgängers out of the Other Side? She wouldn't want to be seeing anyone with Amara's face, nor would she want Silas to be able to see her, either. But, we learn later in the finale that Elena had no problem going over to the Other Side, so now I'm thinking that maybe it was the spirits who were pissed at her and kept her out-- she did have a hand in getting Emily Bennett killed, among many other witches, so maybe they're holding a grudge? Who knows?
We open on a flashback of Nadia's to Northern Europe in 1520, when Nadia was 30 years old. I have no idea whether she was still a human then, or a relatively newly-turned vampire, but if she wasn't already, I'm guessing she was turned shortly afterward. She knocks on a door of a cottage and asks the man who lives there if she's seen Katerina Petrova, who was last seen outside of London in 1492. The man tries to shut the door in her face, but she pleads that she needs to find her mother and find out why she abandoned her.
In the present day, Nadia is in an old warehouse, where she is laying on a couch, with Katherine sitting at her bedside and watching her hallucinate her old memories. She assures Nadia that she's there, and Nadia explains that she was dreaming about searching for her. Katherine already figured that part out, though, and insists that she didn't abandon her, her father ripped her out of her arms as soon as she was born, which is completely different. Nadia argues that it's the same as abandonment when you're a lonely orphan, so Katherine changes the subject to how all this guilt has been taking the fun out of their quality bonding time. She insists that she's not letting Nadia die, which leads Nadia to mistakenly believe that Katherine contacted Klaus for her blood. Of course, Katherine did nothing of the sort, as 1) it would reveal that she is a Passenger in Elena's body, and 2) Klaus would never help her anyway, and would love to watch Katherine's only child die. However, that doesn't mean that Katherine isn't trying to save her, which is where Wes Maxfield comes in.
As it turns out, Wes was super excited to hear that Nadia was bitten by a hybrid, because werewolf venom is hard to come by, so he's come to study her blood. Nadia must have heard the details about his little vampire experiments, because she immediately backs away from him, but Wes assures her that since werewolf venom is no different than any other compound, he can figure out its makeup and create an antidote. Or, so he says, at least. So, he takes a sample of her blood and then leaves to go analyze it, leaving Katherine and Nadia alone. Nadia jokes, "If I had known I just had to die to drag your attention from Stefan, I would've tried it a long time ago." Katherine jokes back that if she's trying to make her feel guilty, it's kind of working. Nadia admits that she's glad Katherine is there with her now, and Katherine promises that she's going to be a better mother from this moment forward.
Over at Casa di Salvatore, Stefan has just finished explaining to the still-chained-up Damon that Katherine has been a Passenger in Elena's body ever since she "died" back in "500 Years of Solitude." Damon admits that she's brilliant, which isn't the reaction Stefan was expecting, considering all the stupid stuff that Damon did under the impression that Elena had dumped him and giving up on him, including his murder-spree of Aaron Whitmore and everyone in Augustine except for Wes and getting turned into a Vampire Ripper. Damon is more curious as to why Stefan is telling said starving, bloodthirsty Vampire Ripper about his archenemy being alive and well and living in his ex-girlfriend's body when he is all chained up and can't do anything about it, but Stefan swears that he and the rest of the MFG have a plan.
Upstairs in the living room, Tyler, Caroline, and Matt are having a confab about this turn of events, while Jeremy and Bonnie join them via speaker-phone. This exchange is so hilarious that I'm just gonna transcribe it:
MATT: "Hang on, Katherine's still alive? How is that possible?"
CAROLINE: "Remember that time Nadia's ex, Gregor, hitched a ride in your head? Yeah, well, it's kind of the same thing. Katherine is a Passenger inside Elena, except it's worse, because none of us seemed to notice!"
TYLER: "She was at my house, how did none of us figure it out?"
CAROLINE: "Because it's Katherine, and she's smart, and conniving, and sneaky... and we're the worst friends ever."
JEREMY: "This makes no sense. She saved my life, she gave me CPR when Enzo tried to kill me. Katherine would NEVER do that."
BONNIE: "That's what made her so believable. She played Elena to a tee. If she let you die, her cover was blown."
CAROLINE: [indignant] "I was sleeping three feet away from her! She picked out my Bitter Ball dress! And, I let her use my toothpaste!"
STEFAN: [enters the room] "Well, did she lure you into a hotel room to make out with you?"
TYLER: [considers this new information] "She's the reason I found out about you and Klaus."
CAROLINE: [stunned] "Oh, my God!"
TYLER: [angry] "So, how do we kill the bitch?"It's not so funny on paper, it's all in the delivery, I guess. ANYWAY, Stefan explains that Passengers can be expelled from the host using the Traveler knife that Gregor had, since they saw it happen with Matt. Matt informs them that he held onto that knife, so all they need now is to stab Katherine/Elena with it to kill Katherine for good. Of course, Caroline knows firsthand just how devious Katherine is, and knows that it's not enough to sneak attack her-- they need to draw her to them to get her guard down. That's when Tyler finally confesses that he doubts they'll be seeing Katherine today, since he's pretty sure he bit Nadia in the scuffle the night before. Matt can't believe he waited until just then to tell them, but Caroline defends Tyler, and points out that the only way to guarantee that Katherine would leave Nadia's side is if NOT doing so would blow her cover. So, they figure they need to invite her to do something that Elena can't say no to doing.
The plan is to say that they're throwing Bonnie a surprise party, but when Caroline calls Katherine to invite her, Katherine argues that Bonnie wouldn't want a big party for her birthday, which she ignores in true Caroline fashion. When she asks when she can get over to the boarding house to help, Katherine wracks her brain for a legitimate excuse before finally lying that she's making arrangements for Aaron Whitmore's funeral, since she feels so guilty since Damon only killed him because she broke up with him. Caroline, furious, manages to chirp that it's a very nice thing of her to do before hanging up. So, they move onto plan B, which involves Bonnie calling to invite her for coffee, citing the fact that she pulled an all-nighter for sociology and woke up to a coven of dead Russian witches passing through her to get to the Other Side as reasons why she really just needs to be around her BFF. So, Katherine grits her teeth and once again lies that she's at the day spa, getting Bonnie a gift certificate for her birthday before coming up with an excuse to hang up. Afterward, she turns to Nadia and asks why the MFG is being so needy that day. Yeah, like Nadia cares about your cover right now, Kat.
Stefan returns to the basement with a tumbler of four ounces of his blood to satiate Damon for a while, insisting that they'll deal with Damon's crisis after they get Elena back. Damon isn't really interested in that plan, though, and suggests that Stefan let him go so he can find Wes, get the antidote, and then be out of everyone's hair, but Stefan knows better-- Damon would just run off and leave Stefan to be the one to tell Elena everything that he did after he thought Elena broke up with him. Stefan then pulls out his phone to call Katherine, as he doesn't think she'll be able to make excuses to him, but before he can dial the number, "Elena" calls Damon's phone instead. Damon quickly answers it, and after the requisite small talk, Katherine suggests that maybe they could talk, since the dust has settled and everything, so Damon gives her the okay to come on over so they can talk it out.
Once she's off the phone, Katherine points out to Nadia that Damon tried to kill her less than 24 hours ago, so even in Ripper-mode, there is no part of Damon that would risk doing the same to Elena again. So, the fact that he's so eager to see her means that they totally know that Katherine has been impersonating Elena. Back in Mystic Falls, Damon and Stefan have a similar conversation-- she's been dodging everyone's offer to come over all day, but then comes right out and invites herself over, which means that she was testing them to see if they were suspicious, and he totally failed, which means SHE knows that they know. SHIT.
Nadia flashback number 2: It's France in 1720, where Nadia has approached a man in the woods with a bag full of coins, promising to give him gold in exchange for information on Katerina Petrova; she was told that he saw her killing a man outside the Quarter of Versailles, and wants to know what kind of woman her mother was. In the present day, Nadia wakes from her delirium to find that Katherine has taken her to an abandoned church in or near Mystic Falls (which you might recognize as being the exact same set as St. Anne's Church in The Originals.) Nadia weakly jokes that now she can make her peace with the universe, but Katherine swears that she just brought her here to hide her until Wes can heal her. Nadia figures she should just leave now while she can, but Katherine just snarks that she didn't raise her to be such a quitter, and promises that once she's better, they're leaving together.
Outside the boarding house, Stefan and Caroline are lamenting this most recent turn of events-- the farther Katherine gets, the less likely it is that they'll ever get Elena back, and as if it weren't bad enough that it took them this long to figure out that Elena was gone in the first place, they've now lost the only advantage they had. It's then that Damon, who has been eavesdropping the whole time, calls out, "Nothing a little locator spell can't fix..."
Cut to Whitmore's campus, where Jeremy and Bonnie have tracked down Liv at the college coffee shop. As soon as she sees them, she figures they need a little magical help, so Bonnie gets to the point and tells her they need her to use the locator spell she taught her to find Jeremy's sister. Of course, like any person who is attracted to men, Liv is totally crushing on Jeremy, and quips that she could be convinced to help them out.
Meanwhile, Tyler has been left to guard Damon's cell while everyone else runs around trying to put their plan into play. Damon whines that he needs more blood, and suggests that Tyler let him "have a couple sips of his hybrid juice" and let him go take himself and his Ripper problem away from everyone else. When Tyler insists that he's not going to free Damon, he turns to more creative ways to get what he wants.
DAMON: "Can I ask you a question? Without you getting all wolf-man on me?"
TYLER: "Do I have a choice?"
DAMON: "Why are you here?"
TYLER: "I'm a hybrid, and you need a babysitter."
DAMON: "Oh. No, here-here. In-Mystic-Falls-here. Your family is all dead, and I don't see you getting a job at the Grill. And, I don't see you in a Whitmore hoodie, either. Something tells me that there is a little masochistic voice in your head, trying to convince you that you and Caroline still have a fighting chance in hell."
TYLER: [clearly bothered, but plays it cool] "I think you have enough problems without you having to worry about me."Damon concedes that he's probably right, but then, after a beat, Damon mentions that the difference between the two of them is that even after everything Damon has done, Elena chose him, because she's fighting for him. He then adds that Caroline chose the nuclear option, which was sleeping with his worst enemy and the guy who killed his mother, which pretty much obliterated any future with him she may have had. This does exactly what Damon wants, which is making Tyler so pissed that he zoops to the doorway to start a fight with him. Tyler tells him that Elena will never take him back after all of this, because he killed her friend and almost killed her AND her brother. So, Damon is all, "Says the guy pining for the girl that slept with Klaus," which makes Tyler angry enough to vamp-speed in Damon's face, giving him the perfect opportunity to sink his teeth into Tyler's carotid and drink until Tyler passes out. Fully fed, he has the strength to break free from his restraints and flee the house,
Caroline wanders down to change babysitting shifts with Tyler, just as he's starting to come to after being knocked down. She immediately rushes toward him to check on him, and when she sees the blood on his shirt, she's shocked to realize that Damon actually fed on him. Tyler insists that he's fine, but Caroline doesn't understand why he'd even come inside the cell anyway, leading Tyler to snap, "What do you think? Damon knew exactly how to piss me off." That's when Stefan, hearing the commotion, comes downstairs to find Tyler on the floor and Damon gone, which forces them to admit that Damon left to go after Wes.
Bonnie, Liv, and Jeremy have set up the necessary ingredients of the locator spell, and asks for Jeremy to give her his hand, since he and Elena are blood related. Bonnie is both confused and a little bit jealous when she points out that it's not the way she taught her to do it, but Liv claims she's just feeling her way through it. She and Bonnie say the spell a few times while Liv closes her eyes, but after a moment, she stops and looks over at Jeremy. She flirtatiously asks Jeremy if Elena has pretty brown eyes like he does, which does nothing to help Bonnie's jealousy issues, so she asks her if this is actually necessary. Liv reluctantly returns to chanting the spell, and finally, she opens her eyes and asks if Elena spends a lot of time in church.
At said church, Katherine is about to leave to go check on Wes, because she doesn't like how long it's taking him to make the antidote. Nadia warns her to be careful, since the Mystic Falls Gang are all looking for her, but Katherine just smirks and reminds her that it's never stopped her before.
Damon finally finds Wes working on drawing up a syringe full of orange fluid while he grins like the maniacal evil scientist he is. Wes doesn't understand how Damon found him, so Damon admits that Enzo told him about the adventure the two of them took together. He then gets to the point-- he has a long road ahead of him to win Elena back, which means he needs Wes to cure him so he stops lusting over her blood. Wes, however, figures that even if he does cure him of the *sigh* "virus," he'd still be feeding on innocent people, which wouldn't impress Elena. Wes makes the mistake of poking the bear and telling Damon that he was already a monster, but Wes just brought it to the surface. So, Damon shoves his fist in Wes' gut and lifts him up so he's pinned to the table. "It's my turn to play doctor," Damon quips, before grabbing a scalpel and slicing Wes' eyeball open. YIKES! I hate Wes, but that is still pretty dark, even for Damon.
In the church, Nadia is still all alone, and is hallucinating back to the memory of over the summer, when she had her threesome with Rebekah and Matt in Prague. Nadia and Matt snuggled while Rebekah was in the shower, and Nadia mentions how much he must trust Rebekah, considering she's an Original vampire and he's a human who isn't on or wearing vervain. She then demonstrates this by compelling him not to say anything about Nadia stealing Rebekah's earrings. Matt is shocked that Nadia knew Rebekah was an Original, so Nadia confesses that she was hoping that Rebekah would be able to tell her about her brother Klaus' favorite vampire, Katherine Pierce. Matt is shocked, and admits that he knows her, and asks her why the fuck she'd care about her. "Because she's my mother, and I'd very much like to meet her," Nadia replies, before taking his Gilbert ring off and compelling him. "I'm going to take your ring. Now, I have a reason to see you again." In the present, a person is lurking in the shadows near where Nadia is resting.
Katherine has just arrived to Wes' newest lab set-up, where she finds him mangled and disemboweled on top of the table. She's so horrified she almost throws up, and is in the middle of whispering a chorus of "No"'s when her phone rings. When she sees it's Nadia, she immediately answers it and assures her that she's coming back to the church as they speak, but it's not actually Nadia calling, it's Stefan. He tells her that she's not at the church anymore, but the boarding house. Katherine tries her best to backpedal and try to pretend to be Elena, but Stefan calls her out on her shit and tells her that he knows that it's Katherine, and that he knows she cares about Nadia, which is why he brought her to his house. Katherine wants proof that Nadia isn't already dead, so she makes Stefan put her on the phone. Nadia tells her to run, so Stefan takes the phone back and gives her a choice: she can run, which is what she does best, or she can come to the boarding house and see her daughter one last time before she dies.
Matt is sitting on the couch with Nadia, trying to comfort her, but she's so delirious, she thinks he's Gregor. She profusely apologizes for betraying him, and insists that she only did it for her mother, for whom she'd do everything. Matt, super depressed at this point, assures her that he knows she did, so Nadia asks for Gregor's forgiveness. Because Matt Donovan is literally an angel of the Lord, he takes on Gregor's accent and promises that he forgives her before assuring her that she's okay. Nadia becomes scared and admits that she doesn't want to die, just as Bonnie, Jeremy, Caroline, Stefan, and Tyler walk upstairs to check on her. That's when Bonnie takes over bedside nurse duties and takes Nadia's hands in her own. Nadia worriedly asks her what will happen when she dies, Bonnie explains that she'll take her hand, and she'll go over to the Other Side, just like that. When she asks if it will hurt, Bonnie forces herself to smile at Nadia as she promises that she won't feel any pain.
Finally, Katherine arrives, walking in like she owns the place before demanding to see her daughter. Nadia is shocked that she came back for her, but Katherine promises her that she'll never leave her again. She then admits that Klaus' blood would have saved her, but she never asked for it, and having her be alive would have been worth outing herself. Just then, Nadia starts to hallucinate again. "My mother's name is Katherine. I'm looking for her. She's a liar and a murderer. She manipulates, she betrays... she'll do anything to survive." Katherine is heartbroken and insists that she's right there with her, but she's so out of it, she can't even hear her. Finally, Katherine is so upset, she confesses that Nadia's life should not have been this, 500 years of searching for a woman who ended up being someone like Katherine. She then pulls a Damon and gives Nadia a happy dream on which to leave. It's the 1490s, and Katherine and young Nadia were living in a little cottage. Katherine tucked her daughter into bed while Nadia told her about the fort she made in the woods, and told her that in the morning, they'd go play in it together. Then, Katherine kisses young Nadia on the forehead and tells her goodnight.
In reality, Katherine is breaking down in tears as Nadia's skin begins to desiccate. Suddenly, Nadia's ghost appears in the living room, and begins to cry when she hears Katherine say, "Your mother loves you." Finally free to die in peace, Nadia touches Bonnie's shoulder, causing her to double over in pain as she passes through her to get to the Other Side. Devastated, Katherine leans over Nadia's body and gently closing her eyes before covering her up with a blanket. As much as Katherine's actions the past half-dozen episodes or so have totally annoyed me, she really does seem to care deeply about Nadia, even if she had the absolute worst ways of showing it. It was nice to see her actually show some genuine love for someone before she left for good.
After the break, we return to the boarding house's foyer, where Stefan, Tyler, Caroline, Bonnie, Jeremy and Matt are all surrounding Katherine in a circle. Katherine quips, "So, this is it," before desperately trying to vamp-speed out the door, but Damon chooses that moment to show up and block the door. "Hello, Katherine. You didn't think I'd miss this, did you?" He forces Katherine back into the foyer, where Katherine slowly struts around the circle and asks who is going to be the one to kill her. This part is priceless, so I'm just gonna transcribe it.
KATHERINE: "So, who's got the knife? Which one of you is gonna get to kill the elusive Katherine Pierce once and for all?" [she waits for someone to speak, but everyone stays silent] "What? Suddenly everyone's speechless? When I was on my deathbed, you all had plenty to say." [approaches Tyler] "Is it you, Tyler? Because I triggered the werewolf curse? Gave you an identity and made you matter?"
TYLER: [unamused] "You've done nothing for me"
KATHERINE: "Please, Tyler. If I hadn't walked into your life, you'd just be a wasted nobody with a boozy mom and a temper problem."
[Tyler takes a step toward Katherine, but Caroline holds him back]
CAROLINE: [to Tyler] "Hey, don't. Don't."
KATHERINE: [turns to Caroline] "And you. I'm not worried about you offing me, because we both know I made you better by making you a vampire."
CAROLINE: [fake smiles] "Goodbye, Katherine."
KATHERINE: [to Matt] "The one girl here who actually appreciates how beautiful you are. You wouldn't stab me in the heart, would you, Matty Blue? No, I don't think so. You'll definitely go down as the best night I never had. Oh, well..."
MATT: [chuckles] "Oh, well..."
KATHERINE: [to Jeremy] "Little Gilbert, it was nice to have a brother for a second, there... when you weren't being so damn annoying..." [to Bonnie] "Bon Bon, no need for goodbyes. I'll see you on the flipside." [walks over to Damon] "How you would love nothing more than to drive that blade right through me."
DAMON: "We've already done that, Kitty Kat. I've said all I needed to say."
KATHERINE: "I know, but I never got to say what I needed to say to YOU. I'm sorry. You blame me for who you are. And, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I turned you. I'm sorry that you didn't get to die as a forgotten nobody on a bloody battlefield, and your father didn't get to live another day to be disgraced by you. Damon, I'm sorry that I gave you a life's purpose. Passion, drive, desire. I'm sorry that you are who you are, because I'm the one who taught you to love."
DAMON: [unimpressed] "I'll see you in hell, Katherine."
KATHERINE: [winks at him and moves on to Stefan] "Stefan. You know, I've always wondered how it would be like to be loved by you. You've gotta admit, for that one fleeting moment... your feelings were real. It truly has been the role of a lifetime. Stefan, I love you, and I've always loved you."Man, I will miss Katherine's sass and snark, I'll say that much. Anyway, Stefan isn't really amused either, and I think part of him really is sad to kill Stefan, but the bad she's done has outweighed any of the good in this case. So, he stabs her right in the gut with the Traveler knife, and she manages to gasp out, "Then, I guess this is how our love story ends." Matt is able to catch her before she falls completely to the ground, just as her eyes open and flick black before returning back to normal and falling closed again.
Later, Matt is sitting on the couch next to Nadia's body when Jeremy appears behind him and informs him that Stefan said she should be buried in the woods. Matt, who really did seem to have genuine feelings for her, disagrees, and insists that she deserves better before scooping her up and getting ready to carry her out the door. Jeremy feels bad and asks if he needs any help, but Matt claims he's got it handled.
Meanwhile, Damon and Stefan are both in Damon's room, sitting on his bed, where they've laid Elena's body and are waiting for her to wake up. Damon frets that it's taking too long for her to come back, but Stefan assures him that when they had to stab Matt with it, it took him a while to wake up, as well, which gives them some time to discuss his little stunt with Tyler earlier. Damon promises that Tyler's little "donation" will keep him fed and happy for a few more hours, and when Stefan asks him what the fuck he plans on doing after that, Damon insists that he is going to tell her everything that happened while she was out. "I don't wanna be another Katherine Pierce. Katherine spent her whole life running from her problems, only to die here, all alone."
Outside the boarding house, Caroline and Tyler are sitting on the trunk of Damon's Camaro, when Caroline starts to say, "Is it wrong that I feel..." Tyler finishes her sentence with "Victorious?" but Caroline actually meant "sad." She acknowledges every horrible thing that Katherine has done, but she's still a little depressed about it, and Tyler gets it-- he knows better than anyone that she sees the good in people. Caroline instantly tenses up and points out that what he's really trying to say is that Caroline saw the good in KLAUS, but Tyler retorts that it was her words, not his. Then, Caroline makes a very awesome point.
CAROLINE: "Your hybrid bite just killed someone and no one even batted an eye. I sleep with the wrong guy WEEKS ago, and I don't hear the end of it? How is that fair?"
TYLER: [sighs] "I don't know, Care. Maybe people just expect more from you?"
CAROLINE: [frustrated] "Why? Because 'being good' comes so easy to me? Well, guess what, Tyler? It doesn't. I have the same impulses as you, so I'm allowed to make some mistakes along the way. Yes, I slept with Klaus, but AFTER you walked away from me. That was my choice, and I'm living with it, and I don't need to be hearing about it every five seconds. So, just get over it, or get out of my life, but I'm done feeling guilty."Like, I get where Tyler is coming from, because Klaus has done horrible things to them as a group and individually, including killing his mother. BUT, Caroline is totally right when she points out that none of them are perfect, and while Caroline is basically a model vampire, that doesn't mean that she doesn't struggle with her urges, and sometimes that ends up resulting in major mistakes being made.
At the church where Katherine took Nadia earlier, Bonnie is at the sacristy, where she's lighting a candle for her father. She whispers how much she misses him, just as Katherine's spirit shows up and laughs at her, joking that she's about five centuries too late on the whole God thing. Bonnie seems satisfied that their plan worked and that Katherine is well and truly dead this time, which Katherine confirms, though, as usual, there is a caveat. "But, again... your friends didn't give me much of a choice in the matter. Using my own daughter against me? Harsh. I suppose I could have spent the next five hundred years running... but for what? My daughter was dying, Stefan would never love me; I was back to having nothing, and Elena wins again." Bonnie's heart bleeds for Katherine, clearly, because she just snaps at her to get this over with, but when Bonnie steps toward her to touch her arm, Katherine takes a step back. "I'm really starting to get sick of Elena getting everything that I want," Katherine growls, as though Katherine couldn't have gotten the same things if she had actually acted like a human being. Bonnie is confused and asks her what the fuck that's supposed to mean, so Katherine drops one last bomb before she goes.
"Wes had no intention of helping Nadia," Katherine explains, as we flash back to earlier, when Stefan told Katherine that it was her choice of whether she ran or came to see Nadia one last time. Katherine was so furious that she began trashing Wes' lab, until she finally finds Wes' audio recorder and plays it. On it, Wes dictates his research for the day-- he managed to extract the werewolf venom from Nadia's blood so he could add it to the Ripper serum and make it even more lethal to vampires, which is what the orange fluid in that syringe was. Katherine found the syringe, picked it up, and smiled. In the present, Katherine tells Bonnie that Nadia was just being used as a case study in his plan to wipe out the vampire species. Bonnie asks her why the fuck she would tell her this, but we get to see the answer for ourselves-- over at the boarding house, Elena has finally woken up in Damon's bed, much to Stefan and Damon's delight. In voiceover, Katherine smirks, "I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Elena had the life I always wanted... well, until now." Bonnie finally realizes that she totally pulled one over on them and asks her what the hell she did, so Katherine gets to the point.
"Stefan thought he gave me a choice. Run, or die," she explains, as we flash back to when Katherine was in Wes' lab. She holds up the syringe and uncaps it and continues. "But, that's not really much of a choice, is it? After all, Nadia was the only person in this world who really loved me. And, I wasn't about to let my daughter die alone. But, Katherine Pierce wasn't about to go gentle, either." In flashback, Katherine takes the syringe and stabs herself/Elena with it, injecting the werewolf venom-infused Ripper serum that Wes created. At the boarding house, Damon asks Elena if she's really you, and Elena seems so relieved when she realizes that she is. That is, until she notices something under her jacket and pulls at the syringe with which Katherine stabbed her tucked inside of it.
Back at the church, Katherine admits that she left Elena with a "parting gift," and adds that if she can't have Stefan, no one can. Satisfied, Katherine chirps that she's ready now, and smacks her hands on Bonnie's shoulders to pass over to the Other Side. However, nothing happens, so Katherine repeats the gesture a couple times, and when that doesn't work, Katherine asks her what is going on. Bonnie has no idea whatsoever, because this is never happened to her before. Nervous, Katherine grabs her by the shoulders and shrieks, "Bonnie, what are you doing? Let me pass through! Why won't you let me pass through?" Bonnie insists that she has no idea, and that it's not up to her-- she doesn't have control over who comes through her.
When Katherine demands to know who DOES get to decide, a strong wind begins to blow through the church, and Katherine gets thrown backwards. She lays sprawled out on the ground, and both Katherine and Bonnie are super horrified and confused when a huge black hole-type thing opens up in the ceiling of the church. Bonnie stammers, "I can't help you, Katherine," which terrifies Katherine so much that she desperately starts scrabbling for the ground in hopes of finding something to hold onto, but it's futile-- whatever force is behind this new, unknown dimension that I will be calling "oblivion" sucks her into its portal while she screams before it closes itself up, leaving Bonnie alone in the church once again. DUN DUN DUN.
NOTES:
-So, what's that black-hole place? I'm guessing its another dimension like the Other Side, only this one is a natural one and not a magically created one like the Other Side was by Qetsiyah. I haven't read the Vampire Diaries book series, but I know from clicking around the TVD/TO wikia page that there is a place called the Dark Dimension, and I'm wondering if maybe they're not drawing from that? Can anyone reading this who read the books shed some light on the Dark Dimension and what it was about?
-Secondly, why did Katherine end up there? My original theory was that it was Qetsiyah's doing-- we already know she created the Other Side and made all of it's metaphysical laws, including that witches get free reign over it and can visit with other witches and the rest of the supernaturals over there, but everyone else is all alone unless a witch visits them. We also know that Qetsiyah had a total revenge-boner for Silas and Amara for what they did to her, which is why she created the Other Side to begin with, to keep Silas and Amara separated for eternity. So, wouldn't you think that Qetsiyah would want to keep Petrova doppelgängers out of the Other Side? She wouldn't want to be seeing anyone with Amara's face, nor would she want Silas to be able to see her, either. But, we learn later in the finale that Elena had no problem going over to the Other Side, so now I'm thinking that maybe it was the spirits who were pissed at her and kept her out-- she did have a hand in getting Emily Bennett killed, among many other witches, so maybe they're holding a grudge? Who knows?
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