Emily Rewatches TVD-- Season 5, Episode 13: "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
Welp, I've managed to do something to fuck up my upper back/right shoulder and it's been bothering me so much that I can barely get comfortable enough to write this post as it is, so for the sake of time and my very limited patience, I'm just gonna cut the bullshit and get started, cool? Cool.
Katherine opens the episode by rubbing salt into Elena's wounds by writing in her diary about how awesome her life has become since she took over Elena's body and mind-- she's youthful, gorgeous AND a vampire again, plus she has all the love and adoration Elena gets by virtue of being awesome without Katherine having to do any of the heavy lifting. She sifts through Elena's pictures on her phone and deletes all of the ones of her and Damon before making the one of her and Stefan her phone's lock screen. Yeah, that's totally not pathetic at all.
Surprisingly, Katherine has actually been attending Elena's classes, or so it seems, and even attends one with both Caroline and Bonnie, which mostly serves as a place for Caroline and Kalena to discuss Whitmore's version of an anti-Valentine's party called the Bitter Ball, which they will both be using as their way of cleansing their life of their post-break-up moping. Also, the blonde new girl sitting next to Bonnie, Liv, was totally telekinetically spinning her pen during lecture, and Bonnie totally caught her doing it. Whoops! Witch alert!
Meanwhile, back in Mystic Falls, Enzo has continued to enable Damon's downward spiral, by practically driving Damon's Camaro into the foyer and helping him drink a huge portion of the Salvatore booze stash in the basement. Stefan returned back to Casa di Salvatore to find a smudge of blood on the trunk of Damon's car, and, naturally, opened it to find Aaron's bloodied corpse shoved inside. So, he rushes inside to give Damon the Stefan Special-- basically, Damon's acting out by murdering Elena's friend after their break-up is not only totally shitty, but also completely predictable. Enzo decides to grace everyone with his presence and ask Stefan if he knows where Wes has been hiding, since they're having a hard time pinning him down. Stefan assumes Damon is on the road back to Season-1-psychopath-Damon, but, as usual, Damon's not looking to be saved, and advises Stefan to find himself a new hobby, like golfing, or scrapbooking.
Katherine calls up Matt, who is working at the Grill, via Nadia in order to do a trial-run of her plan to ask Stefan out for coffee and chatting in order to make sure it's authentically Elena or whatever. Matt is about as impressed as I am, which is not a bit, and when he reluctantly confirms that it's good enough, Nadia compels him to forget everything and asks her mother if she can finally leave now. Of course, only Katherine is the only Petrova who is allowed to have a life, so she orders Nadia to stick around and keep an eye on Matt in case she needs more information to maintain her cover; she doesn't want to risk losing her new and awesome life solely because she forgot something totally trivial about Elena's life and loved ones, like the fact that Bonnie's middle name is Sheila. Nadia pouts that Katherine promised they'd be able to have time together, plus she doesn't like the fact that Katherine keeps compelling Matt's poor little brain to forget everything, but Katherine pretty much just calls her daughter out on her obvious crush on Matty Blue-Eyes, and reminds her of the Matt-Rebekah-Nadia three-way in Prague before hanging up.
Times are tough for Wes these days, since Aaron cut off all his money for his fancy vampire research, so he's now doing his own lab tests in a derelict abandoned building that looks like it belongs in Beacon Hills. Since he also lost his vampire test subjects in addition to his cashola, he has kidnapped some hapless janitor from the university hospital and proceeded to turn him into a vampire so he can continue his goal of ending the vampire species by conditioning them to feed into each other. Unfortunately for him, he lost his only dose of the serum (which the show refers to by the misnomer "Ripper virus," even though it's not actually a virus at all) when Stefan rescued Elena from getting shot up with it, so now he just needs to find more money so that he can begin to replicate it again. Fortunately for him, a woman named Sloan arrives to inform him that she'll be happy to help fund his experiments and give him protection in exchange for analyzing some blood for her. Wes is initially hesitant, but once Sloan drops the bomb that 1) Aaron is dead, and 2) Wes is most likely next on the list, he's much more open to the idea. Especially when Sloan presents the bag she found in Aaron's ditched car, which just so happens to contain the very same syringe full of Ripper serum Wes needed to continue his work! NOOOOO.
Back at the boarding house, Damon and Enzo mosey downstairs where they are holding Diane Freeman, aka the head of Campus Security at Whitmore and member of the Augustine Society. She's clearly been fed on since she's been captured, as her wrists are bloody and scabbed, and she looks very weakened by blood loss and is in general freaking out, as anyone would. She pleads for her life by mentioning that she has two kids, in hopes of appealing to some internalized humanity (which is kind of weird, considering she's such a vampire hater-- wouldn't she think that vampires don't have souls or some shit?), but, of course, neither of them give a fuck either way.
Enzo even brings up the fact that, as a mother, she should understand how heartbreaking it is to learn that your child committed suicide, especially when it turns out that they only listed the cause of death as "suicide" to cover up the fact that they were attacked by a vampire, clearly referencing Caroline and Elena's first roommate, Megan's murder. Although, Enzo's truth-bomb probably would have held more weight if, you know, Enzo hadn't been the vampire who killed Megan in the first place. Oop. After Damon compels her to tell the truth about covering up vampire attacks, he's able to confirm that the vervain has left her system, and proceeds to compel her to tell him where Wes is hiding Unfortunately for her, Diane hasn't spoken to Wes in days, so she doesn't know shit, which means that Enzo and Damon have no reason to keep her alive. So, predictably, the one remaining tertiary character of color gets offed in a brutal fashion by Damon himself. Welp, glad to see all that character development the last five seasons has meant absolutely nothing.
Afterward, Stefan finally tracks Enzo down in the woods, where he's dutifully burying Diane's body before rejoining Damon to hunt and kill the rest of the Augustines. Stefan starts his speech off by speaking in metaphors about how many skeletons he's buried out there before finally getting to the point. Basically, Stefan acknowledges that Enzo has more than earned the right to blow off some steam, since he just escaped 60+ years of torture and captivity and all, but since Damon is in a bad place right now, he doesn't need any more bad influences, which Enzo should go off and have a solo killing spree as far away from Damon as possible. Enzo suggests that maybe it's STEFAN who needs to be blowing off some steam, which kicks Stefan into scary-violent mode. He gives Enzo one more chance to take his car and hit the road, but when Enzo continues to refuse, Stefan grabs Enzo's shovel and presses the business end against Enzo's neck, as though he were going to slice his head off with it, before warning him that if he sees him again, it'll be the last thing he ever does.
Katherine is in the girls' dorm getting ready for the dance with Caroline, who quickly becomes suspicious of "Elena's" unusually-chipper attitude and uncharacteristic concern about accessories. Katherine immediately begins to panic that her cover is blown, but luckily for her, Caroline just assumes that Kalena is trying to put on a brave face about her break-up with Damon in order to make Caroline feel better about her own break-up and subsequent blow-up with Tyler. Their conversation is interrupted by Stefan calling Elena's phone. When she answers, Stefan admits that he has something he needs to tell her, but he doesn't want to get into it on the phone-- all he'll say is that it involves Enzo. Of course, Katherine has no idea who Enzo is, but Elena clearly does, so she just plays along until she can change the subject to the Bitter Ball. She figures Stefan coming would be a good place for them to talk, and though he tries to beg off (you know how much Stefan loves dances/dancing), Kalena is still able to sweet talk him into it, which totally pings Caroline's hinkiness-radar. I'm guessing it's at least partially because of jealousy, but that might be my inner Steroline shipper talking.
Nadia is still staking out the Grill so she can keep an eye out on Matt, and gets a text from Katherine asking her to get the deets on Enzo for her just as Tyler waltzes in and takes a seat at the bar. He asks Matt for whatever will "obliterate the memory of Caroline" and then states the obvious by pointing out that Nadia is new. Matt speaks for all of us when he says, "Whatever you're thinking, unthink it. That's Katherine's daughter, and the psycho doesn't fall far from the tree." BAHAHAHA. Nadia is offended, but since she locked Matt in a safe and buried him alive, Matt gives zero fucks about it. Tyler, however, in true "misery loves company" style, insists that Nadia join them in doing shots anyway. The three of them then play a game where they talk about their mom's and how nuts they are/were: Tyler's mom wrote an entire English paper for him in the 8th grade because she was so afraid he would flunk and embarrass her, and Nadia brings up how Katherine was so desperate for friendship that she compelled an entire town in Pennsylvania to like her. As always, Matt's dead-beat mother Julie Cooper Nichol Atwood takes the cake, because she actually hooked up with Tyler when they were still high school-aged. Tyler gets up to go to the restroom, but before he can make it in the door, he overhears Nadia compelling Matt to tell her about Enzo and instantly goes into investigative mode.
Meanwhile, since Enzo and Damon haven't quite been as awful as they were planning yet, they decide to make their way to Whitmore to strong-arm poor Bonnie and Jeremy (who just wanted to have a nice romantic night together) into helping them track down Wes. Of course, they both pull out the Elena-card in hopes that Damon will get cold feet, but he's in serious self-destruction mode right now, so the words have no meaning for him whatsoever. When Bonnie and Jeremy insist that they're not going to help him, Enzo puts Bonnie into a choke-hold until they both finally agree. Enzo apparently has some momento of Wes' that has his blood on it that can be used for a locator spell, so Damon decides to stay with Bonnie while she finds a witch who can do it while Enzo holds onto Jeremy as leverage. If they can't get Wes' location, Enzo has orders to kill Jeremy, just to show how serious they are. THIS IS THE WORST. THE FUCKING WORST.
Katherine and Caroline arrive at the Bitter Ball and split off after they get their dead corsages at the front table. From there, Katherine runs into Stefan and makes pleasant banter until Stefan finally grows the cajones to broach the topic of what he wanted to confess to "Elena;" namely, that Damon killed Aaron. He starts off by saying that Damon is in trouble, but Kalena counters that of course he is, because his go-to move is to lash out when things go wrong instead of dealing with it. She then mentions that she thinks trying to change Damon is changing her into someone she doesn't like, and fully commits to her plan to win Stefan over again by asking if he likes her better now or how she was before. Naturally, this makes Stefan REALLY uncomfortable, because he's trying to do the right thing here, and when Katherine realizes she overstepped, she changes the topic back to what Stefan wanted to tell her. Of course, by now, Stefan has totally lost his nerve and doesn't want to ruin her new-found happiness, and asks her if they can talk about it later. Since Katherine has no interest in discussing anything that doesn't further her plan, she insists that it's 100% fine, just before Caroline shows up to cockblock and whisks Kalena away to the shredding station.
When we return to the Grill, Nadia has left to go God knows where, giving Tyler the opportunity to inform his best bro that Nadia has been compelling him. Matt is offended when Tyler calls him out for not having any vervain on or inside him, so Matt holds up his wrist to show him his bracelet that is, of course, no longer there, since Katherine ripped it off in the last episode. Finally convinced, Matt decides to down some vervain-laced coffee before Nadia returns in hopes of confirming Tyler's suspicions. I both love and hate the fact that Tyler is the first/only one so far to actually become suspicious about Nadia/Katherine. I mean, seriously now-- Katherine has not been at all subtle, so the fact that the guy who has barely been around the last two seasons has been able to realize that something ain't right before Damon, or Stefan, or even Caroline is definitely a problem.
At the shredding station, Caroline has two photos of herself with Tyler and Klaus' sketch of Caroline and a pony all ready to go and destroy, and she gets on Kalena for not bringing anything of her own. From there, Caroline does that very Caroline thing where she monologues what she's doing aloud and draws parallels between what she's doing with regards to Tyler and Klaus and what Kalena is doing with Stefan-- basically, she calls Kalena out on changing her mind about Stefan because she is bored/nostalgic/lonely/whatever. She suggests that Kalena making herself so available to Stefan could confuse him in a very painful way, but when Kalena asks if she really thinks she's leading Stefan on, Caroline starts to feel bad about her judginess and insists that she forget she said anything at all.
Bonnie and Damon show up at the Bitter Ball, where Bonnie explains that the new witch she sort-of met in class, Liv, works as a caterer that happens to be working at this party. She does warn him that this is a total shot in the dark, but Damon claims he's feeling optimistic. Elsewhere at the party, Caroline meets back up with Stefan and asks him to dance, but he begs off. She correctly guesses that he's hiding something from Elena, so he's forced to admit that Damon is off the deep end and doing horrible things up to and including killing Aaron Whitmore. Caroline again assumes that Stefan thinks Elena will give up on Damon forever, which Stefan confirms-- he doesn't think he could pull Damon away from that kind of rejection, especially considering he's pretty sure Damon secretly loves acting like this, because it allows him to confirm everyone's lowest expectations of him. Unfortunately for them, Damon is standing nearby, overhearing everything, and tells him to cut the dramatics. Stefan demands to know what the fuck he's doing, so Bonnie explains that if she doesn't find a witch to do the locator spell by midnight, Enzo is going to kill Jeremy, and produces a photo of Jeremy tied up at some unknown location. Katherine appears behind Stefan and sees the photo, and pulls her best Elena cry-face before turning away and rolling her eyes.
So, Katherine calls up Nadia and asks if she could credibly let Jeremy die while still maintaining her cover, because his death would be very convenient for her, as she'd get a lot of love and tenderness from Stefan. Nadia finally gets straight-up pissed and tells her mother to stop taking such stupid risks-- Elena would move heaven and hell to keep Jeremy safe, which Katherine totally knows, and if she doesn't quit acting like she gives a fuck, they're all going to figure out that she's not Elena and kill her ass. Katherine still doesn't understand why she needs to put herself in danger to save "that brat's life," but admits that she recognizes the background of the photo as Whitmore House, since she attended that tea party back in "Handle With Care." Nadia angrily orders her to save Jeremy, PRONTO, so Katherine reluctantly agrees and adds one last instruction before she hangs up. "In the meantime, I'm going to need you to find out from Matt if Caroline has feelings for Stefan, because she's really starting to grate. I need to know what I'm up against."
In Mystic Falls, Matt notices Nadia keeps getting phone calls and asks who has been calling her all day, so Nadia takes advantage of the Tyler-free environment and compels him to tell her if Caroline has feeling for Stefan. Matt isn't really in the loop, though, so he has no idea, but says as far as he knows, Caroline isn't into Stefan. For extra confirmation, she compels him to tell her if he thinks Elena could win Stefan back, but Matt doesn't understand why she would even care about Elena, so Nadia just compels him to forget about it and walks away. Once she's gone, Tyler comes out to ask Matt if he was right, which Matt concedes is true. Unfortunately, he doesn't get a chance to tell Tyler what's up, because Nadia has appeared behind Tyler and snaps his neck before anyone can even process it, and insists that he's not going to be telling Tyler anything.
Back at Whitmore, Kalena is fake-crying about how she can't lose Jeremy again, and begs Stefan to help her save him. Meanwhile, Bonnie has finally found Liv in a back room of the Bitter Ball and confronts her. When Liv immediately tells her the room is off-limits, Bonnie gets super awesome. "Look, under normal circumstances, I'd probably try to warm up to you, be your friend or something, but I'm kind of under a time-crunch, and I need your help." Naturally, Liv is like, "Uh, do I know you?" so Bonnie gets to the point-- she knows Liv is a witch, which is why she needs her help, and then confesses that she used to be one, so she can trust her. Liv starts to freak out about how she doesn't know what she's doing and can't help, but that's when Caroline comes out of nowhere and bares her fangs at her before insisting that she WILL help them.
They finally get to a back room and find a map before handing her the towel with Wes' blood on it and teaching her the incantation. When light bulbs start to flicker and explode, Liv once again stops and insists that she can't do this, because she's done horrible things, blah blah blah, so Bonnie tells her that she, too, has blown stuff up and accidentally set more fires with her brain than she can count, but assures her she can do it. However, Damon is impatient with the newbie-witch's inability to finish the spell, so he calls Enzo up and decides to go with the nuclear option to get shit done-- he tells his murder buddy that the gang needs some motivation before putting the phone on speaker so the gang can hear him say "Let them know that Jeremy will be dead very soon." FUCK ALL OF THIS.
At Whitmore House, Enzo informs Jeremy that his "sweetheart" is currently failing at her mission, but Jeremy has a pretty great point-- killing him isn't exactly going to inspire Bonnie to help them, which Klaus had to learn the hard way in season 3's "Do Not Go Gentle." Still, Enzo comes at him with a plastic bag while Jeremy desperately tries to break himself free from his binds, and reminds Jeremy that if you don't follow through on your threats, then no one will take you seriously, so basically killing Jeremy is necessary and blah blah blah, Enzo sucks. He then finishes his spiel by apologizing for making everything about him before putting the plastic bag over his head and pulling it tight so he can't breathe. That's a really convenient way to kill Jeremy, isn't? Because if he had been fed on to death or had his neck snapped or whatever other method of murder commonly used by vampires, it would have been pretty much impossible to bring him back.
Over at the Bitter Ball, Bonnie is still giving Liv her pep talk, and promises her that if she'll let her, she'll teach her how to control her magic. She then pulls out a photo of Jeremy to show her, and guilts her a little bit by straight-up telling her that she's the only person who can save his life. Liv reluctantly agrees, with the caveat that if she goes all "Carrie" on everyone, it will be Bonnie's fault. She then starts the spell back up, just as Enzo has released the plastic bag over Jeremy's face. He falls to the ground just as Stefan and Kalena arrive and storm the room. Stefan pins Enzo against the wall in a choke-hold while Katherine rushes over to Jeremy. When she doesn't find a pulse, she hesitantly pinches his nose and starts to do CPR, unable to hide her disgust at having to put her lips on Jeremy's mouth. Luckily for her, Stefan is too distracted by Enzo; he points out that Enzo should have left town when he told him to, but Enzo's not one for taking orders anymore, and headbutts him.
While they fight, Katherine continues CPR, and when that doesn't work, she just starts pounding on his chest with her fists and shouting at him to wake up. Stefan is about to stake Enzo, but it gets kicked out of his hands at the last second. Jeremy finally awakens, to which Katherine responds by sighing, "Ugh, thank god," in such a disappointed voice that it's hilariously awful, and again, everyone else is way too distracted to notice that ELENA ISN'T FUCKING ELENA, IT'S KATHERINE. Enzo throws the stake at Stefan but misses, lodging itself in Kalena's back instead. She calls Stefan over to help her, just as Damon walks in to inform Enzo that the spell worked, and Wes is in Richmond. Then, Damon goes to leave, pretending not to even notice the fact that Jeremy just barely came back to life and "Elena" has been staked in the back and is currently hurt. Stefan is at nuclear-levels of rage and fury right now, so before the gruesome twosome can bounce, he calls out, "Damon. Don't bother coming back." Damon is clearly hurt by these words, and uses pretty much all of his energy trying to make it look like he isn't until he's out the door, with only a "I wasn't planning on it," in response. Katherine, too, looks genuinely shocked that Stefan would say that, although you know she's THRILLED at this newest, unintended development.
Tyler wakes up in the parking lot after his snapped neck healed and immediately heads toward Matt to find out what the fuck happened. Matt, who is acting really weird, insists that it was just a misunderstanding, and that Nadia was compelling him to talk about Katherine because she's really sad that she died. Tyler isn't buying this story whatsoever, because he's not THAT much of an idiot, but all he says is to stay the hell away from her, which Matt claims he intends to do. After Tyler reminds him to call him if Nadia hassles him any more, he leaves, and Matt heads over to a car and gets into the passenger seat. Nadia's driving, naturally, and though he insists that he took care of it, Nadia warns him that if Tyler follows them, Nadia will kill them both. Yeah, I think legitimately killing Tyler is going to be pretty difficult, even for a 500+ year old vampire, but whatever. Anyway, Matt realized that Nadia hasn't been talking on the phone to Elena, because whoever it was needed information, which means that Katherine, like Gregor, decided to hitch a ride in Elena's brain in the same way Gregor did to him. Nadia is even more pissed now, and grabs him in a choke-hold with one hand, threatening to rip the Gilbert ring off of his hand and snapping his neck before he can blink. Of course, she doesn't have the heart to actually do it, so she informs him that they'll be hiding out until the vervain is out of his system. Oh, joy.
Enzo and Damon have finally found Wes' new hidey-hole lab, and though Enzo suggests a round of "paper, scissors, stone" to settle who gets to kill him, Damon insists that Enzo just go for it. Enzo assumes that Damon is having second thoughts about leaving Mystic Falls, but Damon denies it on the grounds that since Elena and Stefan hate him, there's no reason not to leave at this point. Once they find the room Wes is using for his lab, they're surprised to see that it's full of strangers, who immediately start chanting in Czech. Damon immediately realizes that they're Travelers, just as Wes comes out to smug about how they're his new back-up. The spell that the Travelers are doing begins to incapacitate them with some kind of pain-infliction/mystical migraine spell, and Damon and Enzo ultimately end up falling to their knees and losing consciousness. The Travelers start to leave, but before Wes joins them, he injects Damon with the Ripper serum he found in Aaron's bag, and wishes him luck in making new friends. SHIT.
Katherine is back in the girls' dorm room, where she's examining her back where she was staked earlier. Stefan walks in a moment later, so Kalena pretends to be in pain and asks him if he can help her get a splinter out of her back. Once he pulls it out, Katherine turns to face him and asks him if Damon killed Aaron; she realized when Stefan was able to enter Whitmore House that he had to be dead (since Elena was invited in just before Wes knocked her out to make her a test subject), and since Stefan wanted to talk to her earlier, she put two and two together. When she asks him why he didn't tell her the truth, Stefan demonstrates that he's actually grown a lot in the past half-season.
Enzo and Damon find themselves on the floor of the derelict building where the Travelers knocked them out, and when Enzo helps Damon off the floor, he finds the syringe with which Wes stabbed him. Damon's not positive what he got stuck with, but right away, he informs Enzo that if he got shot up with Wes' "cannibal vampire poison," they're gonna have some issues. Enzo hasn't been read in on that whole thing yet, since he and Damon were fighting when Elena almost got injected wit it, so Damon briefly outlines Wes' goal of eliminating the vampire species by having them chow down on each other to the point of extinction. Suddenly, they hear a rattling sound coming from the room where Wes had set up his makeshift lab, and they go to investigate. Inside the room, they find Joey, the vampire Wes created with what I'm going to assume is Enzo's blood, who is still bound up.
He asks them if they can set him free, and though Damon was initially wary that it was a trap, he ultimately complies and goes to release his bindings. However, since Damon is the unluckiest motherfucker EVER, he catches a whiff of Joey's vampire blood and his vamp-face and fangs instantly come out of their own volition. Joey is horrified to see him-- and understandably so, considering that Damon's eye-veins down extend down past his cheekbones just like Jesse's did-- and asks him what the fuck is happening to him. Damon: "I'm going to go ahead and say 'karma.' Karma is happening to me." After that, he can no longer resist, and feeds so hard on the poor guy that he literally pulls a Stefan and pops Joey's head clean off his body. Enzo is terrified, and concedes that yeah, he can definitely see how this could become a problem.
Katherine opens the episode by rubbing salt into Elena's wounds by writing in her diary about how awesome her life has become since she took over Elena's body and mind-- she's youthful, gorgeous AND a vampire again, plus she has all the love and adoration Elena gets by virtue of being awesome without Katherine having to do any of the heavy lifting. She sifts through Elena's pictures on her phone and deletes all of the ones of her and Damon before making the one of her and Stefan her phone's lock screen. Yeah, that's totally not pathetic at all.
Surprisingly, Katherine has actually been attending Elena's classes, or so it seems, and even attends one with both Caroline and Bonnie, which mostly serves as a place for Caroline and Kalena to discuss Whitmore's version of an anti-Valentine's party called the Bitter Ball, which they will both be using as their way of cleansing their life of their post-break-up moping. Also, the blonde new girl sitting next to Bonnie, Liv, was totally telekinetically spinning her pen during lecture, and Bonnie totally caught her doing it. Whoops! Witch alert!
Meanwhile, back in Mystic Falls, Enzo has continued to enable Damon's downward spiral, by practically driving Damon's Camaro into the foyer and helping him drink a huge portion of the Salvatore booze stash in the basement. Stefan returned back to Casa di Salvatore to find a smudge of blood on the trunk of Damon's car, and, naturally, opened it to find Aaron's bloodied corpse shoved inside. So, he rushes inside to give Damon the Stefan Special-- basically, Damon's acting out by murdering Elena's friend after their break-up is not only totally shitty, but also completely predictable. Enzo decides to grace everyone with his presence and ask Stefan if he knows where Wes has been hiding, since they're having a hard time pinning him down. Stefan assumes Damon is on the road back to Season-1-psychopath-Damon, but, as usual, Damon's not looking to be saved, and advises Stefan to find himself a new hobby, like golfing, or scrapbooking.
Katherine calls up Matt, who is working at the Grill, via Nadia in order to do a trial-run of her plan to ask Stefan out for coffee and chatting in order to make sure it's authentically Elena or whatever. Matt is about as impressed as I am, which is not a bit, and when he reluctantly confirms that it's good enough, Nadia compels him to forget everything and asks her mother if she can finally leave now. Of course, only Katherine is the only Petrova who is allowed to have a life, so she orders Nadia to stick around and keep an eye on Matt in case she needs more information to maintain her cover; she doesn't want to risk losing her new and awesome life solely because she forgot something totally trivial about Elena's life and loved ones, like the fact that Bonnie's middle name is Sheila. Nadia pouts that Katherine promised they'd be able to have time together, plus she doesn't like the fact that Katherine keeps compelling Matt's poor little brain to forget everything, but Katherine pretty much just calls her daughter out on her obvious crush on Matty Blue-Eyes, and reminds her of the Matt-Rebekah-Nadia three-way in Prague before hanging up.
Times are tough for Wes these days, since Aaron cut off all his money for his fancy vampire research, so he's now doing his own lab tests in a derelict abandoned building that looks like it belongs in Beacon Hills. Since he also lost his vampire test subjects in addition to his cashola, he has kidnapped some hapless janitor from the university hospital and proceeded to turn him into a vampire so he can continue his goal of ending the vampire species by conditioning them to feed into each other. Unfortunately for him, he lost his only dose of the serum (which the show refers to by the misnomer "Ripper virus," even though it's not actually a virus at all) when Stefan rescued Elena from getting shot up with it, so now he just needs to find more money so that he can begin to replicate it again. Fortunately for him, a woman named Sloan arrives to inform him that she'll be happy to help fund his experiments and give him protection in exchange for analyzing some blood for her. Wes is initially hesitant, but once Sloan drops the bomb that 1) Aaron is dead, and 2) Wes is most likely next on the list, he's much more open to the idea. Especially when Sloan presents the bag she found in Aaron's ditched car, which just so happens to contain the very same syringe full of Ripper serum Wes needed to continue his work! NOOOOO.
Back at the boarding house, Damon and Enzo mosey downstairs where they are holding Diane Freeman, aka the head of Campus Security at Whitmore and member of the Augustine Society. She's clearly been fed on since she's been captured, as her wrists are bloody and scabbed, and she looks very weakened by blood loss and is in general freaking out, as anyone would. She pleads for her life by mentioning that she has two kids, in hopes of appealing to some internalized humanity (which is kind of weird, considering she's such a vampire hater-- wouldn't she think that vampires don't have souls or some shit?), but, of course, neither of them give a fuck either way.
Enzo even brings up the fact that, as a mother, she should understand how heartbreaking it is to learn that your child committed suicide, especially when it turns out that they only listed the cause of death as "suicide" to cover up the fact that they were attacked by a vampire, clearly referencing Caroline and Elena's first roommate, Megan's murder. Although, Enzo's truth-bomb probably would have held more weight if, you know, Enzo hadn't been the vampire who killed Megan in the first place. Oop. After Damon compels her to tell the truth about covering up vampire attacks, he's able to confirm that the vervain has left her system, and proceeds to compel her to tell him where Wes is hiding Unfortunately for her, Diane hasn't spoken to Wes in days, so she doesn't know shit, which means that Enzo and Damon have no reason to keep her alive. So, predictably, the one remaining tertiary character of color gets offed in a brutal fashion by Damon himself. Welp, glad to see all that character development the last five seasons has meant absolutely nothing.
Afterward, Stefan finally tracks Enzo down in the woods, where he's dutifully burying Diane's body before rejoining Damon to hunt and kill the rest of the Augustines. Stefan starts his speech off by speaking in metaphors about how many skeletons he's buried out there before finally getting to the point. Basically, Stefan acknowledges that Enzo has more than earned the right to blow off some steam, since he just escaped 60+ years of torture and captivity and all, but since Damon is in a bad place right now, he doesn't need any more bad influences, which Enzo should go off and have a solo killing spree as far away from Damon as possible. Enzo suggests that maybe it's STEFAN who needs to be blowing off some steam, which kicks Stefan into scary-violent mode. He gives Enzo one more chance to take his car and hit the road, but when Enzo continues to refuse, Stefan grabs Enzo's shovel and presses the business end against Enzo's neck, as though he were going to slice his head off with it, before warning him that if he sees him again, it'll be the last thing he ever does.
Katherine is in the girls' dorm getting ready for the dance with Caroline, who quickly becomes suspicious of "Elena's" unusually-chipper attitude and uncharacteristic concern about accessories. Katherine immediately begins to panic that her cover is blown, but luckily for her, Caroline just assumes that Kalena is trying to put on a brave face about her break-up with Damon in order to make Caroline feel better about her own break-up and subsequent blow-up with Tyler. Their conversation is interrupted by Stefan calling Elena's phone. When she answers, Stefan admits that he has something he needs to tell her, but he doesn't want to get into it on the phone-- all he'll say is that it involves Enzo. Of course, Katherine has no idea who Enzo is, but Elena clearly does, so she just plays along until she can change the subject to the Bitter Ball. She figures Stefan coming would be a good place for them to talk, and though he tries to beg off (you know how much Stefan loves dances/dancing), Kalena is still able to sweet talk him into it, which totally pings Caroline's hinkiness-radar. I'm guessing it's at least partially because of jealousy, but that might be my inner Steroline shipper talking.
Nadia is still staking out the Grill so she can keep an eye out on Matt, and gets a text from Katherine asking her to get the deets on Enzo for her just as Tyler waltzes in and takes a seat at the bar. He asks Matt for whatever will "obliterate the memory of Caroline" and then states the obvious by pointing out that Nadia is new. Matt speaks for all of us when he says, "Whatever you're thinking, unthink it. That's Katherine's daughter, and the psycho doesn't fall far from the tree." BAHAHAHA. Nadia is offended, but since she locked Matt in a safe and buried him alive, Matt gives zero fucks about it. Tyler, however, in true "misery loves company" style, insists that Nadia join them in doing shots anyway. The three of them then play a game where they talk about their mom's and how nuts they are/were: Tyler's mom wrote an entire English paper for him in the 8th grade because she was so afraid he would flunk and embarrass her, and Nadia brings up how Katherine was so desperate for friendship that she compelled an entire town in Pennsylvania to like her. As always, Matt's dead-beat mother Julie Cooper Nichol Atwood takes the cake, because she actually hooked up with Tyler when they were still high school-aged. Tyler gets up to go to the restroom, but before he can make it in the door, he overhears Nadia compelling Matt to tell her about Enzo and instantly goes into investigative mode.
Meanwhile, since Enzo and Damon haven't quite been as awful as they were planning yet, they decide to make their way to Whitmore to strong-arm poor Bonnie and Jeremy (who just wanted to have a nice romantic night together) into helping them track down Wes. Of course, they both pull out the Elena-card in hopes that Damon will get cold feet, but he's in serious self-destruction mode right now, so the words have no meaning for him whatsoever. When Bonnie and Jeremy insist that they're not going to help him, Enzo puts Bonnie into a choke-hold until they both finally agree. Enzo apparently has some momento of Wes' that has his blood on it that can be used for a locator spell, so Damon decides to stay with Bonnie while she finds a witch who can do it while Enzo holds onto Jeremy as leverage. If they can't get Wes' location, Enzo has orders to kill Jeremy, just to show how serious they are. THIS IS THE WORST. THE FUCKING WORST.
Katherine and Caroline arrive at the Bitter Ball and split off after they get their dead corsages at the front table. From there, Katherine runs into Stefan and makes pleasant banter until Stefan finally grows the cajones to broach the topic of what he wanted to confess to "Elena;" namely, that Damon killed Aaron. He starts off by saying that Damon is in trouble, but Kalena counters that of course he is, because his go-to move is to lash out when things go wrong instead of dealing with it. She then mentions that she thinks trying to change Damon is changing her into someone she doesn't like, and fully commits to her plan to win Stefan over again by asking if he likes her better now or how she was before. Naturally, this makes Stefan REALLY uncomfortable, because he's trying to do the right thing here, and when Katherine realizes she overstepped, she changes the topic back to what Stefan wanted to tell her. Of course, by now, Stefan has totally lost his nerve and doesn't want to ruin her new-found happiness, and asks her if they can talk about it later. Since Katherine has no interest in discussing anything that doesn't further her plan, she insists that it's 100% fine, just before Caroline shows up to cockblock and whisks Kalena away to the shredding station.
When we return to the Grill, Nadia has left to go God knows where, giving Tyler the opportunity to inform his best bro that Nadia has been compelling him. Matt is offended when Tyler calls him out for not having any vervain on or inside him, so Matt holds up his wrist to show him his bracelet that is, of course, no longer there, since Katherine ripped it off in the last episode. Finally convinced, Matt decides to down some vervain-laced coffee before Nadia returns in hopes of confirming Tyler's suspicions. I both love and hate the fact that Tyler is the first/only one so far to actually become suspicious about Nadia/Katherine. I mean, seriously now-- Katherine has not been at all subtle, so the fact that the guy who has barely been around the last two seasons has been able to realize that something ain't right before Damon, or Stefan, or even Caroline is definitely a problem.
At the shredding station, Caroline has two photos of herself with Tyler and Klaus' sketch of Caroline and a pony all ready to go and destroy, and she gets on Kalena for not bringing anything of her own. From there, Caroline does that very Caroline thing where she monologues what she's doing aloud and draws parallels between what she's doing with regards to Tyler and Klaus and what Kalena is doing with Stefan-- basically, she calls Kalena out on changing her mind about Stefan because she is bored/nostalgic/lonely/whatever. She suggests that Kalena making herself so available to Stefan could confuse him in a very painful way, but when Kalena asks if she really thinks she's leading Stefan on, Caroline starts to feel bad about her judginess and insists that she forget she said anything at all.
Bonnie and Damon show up at the Bitter Ball, where Bonnie explains that the new witch she sort-of met in class, Liv, works as a caterer that happens to be working at this party. She does warn him that this is a total shot in the dark, but Damon claims he's feeling optimistic. Elsewhere at the party, Caroline meets back up with Stefan and asks him to dance, but he begs off. She correctly guesses that he's hiding something from Elena, so he's forced to admit that Damon is off the deep end and doing horrible things up to and including killing Aaron Whitmore. Caroline again assumes that Stefan thinks Elena will give up on Damon forever, which Stefan confirms-- he doesn't think he could pull Damon away from that kind of rejection, especially considering he's pretty sure Damon secretly loves acting like this, because it allows him to confirm everyone's lowest expectations of him. Unfortunately for them, Damon is standing nearby, overhearing everything, and tells him to cut the dramatics. Stefan demands to know what the fuck he's doing, so Bonnie explains that if she doesn't find a witch to do the locator spell by midnight, Enzo is going to kill Jeremy, and produces a photo of Jeremy tied up at some unknown location. Katherine appears behind Stefan and sees the photo, and pulls her best Elena cry-face before turning away and rolling her eyes.
So, Katherine calls up Nadia and asks if she could credibly let Jeremy die while still maintaining her cover, because his death would be very convenient for her, as she'd get a lot of love and tenderness from Stefan. Nadia finally gets straight-up pissed and tells her mother to stop taking such stupid risks-- Elena would move heaven and hell to keep Jeremy safe, which Katherine totally knows, and if she doesn't quit acting like she gives a fuck, they're all going to figure out that she's not Elena and kill her ass. Katherine still doesn't understand why she needs to put herself in danger to save "that brat's life," but admits that she recognizes the background of the photo as Whitmore House, since she attended that tea party back in "Handle With Care." Nadia angrily orders her to save Jeremy, PRONTO, so Katherine reluctantly agrees and adds one last instruction before she hangs up. "In the meantime, I'm going to need you to find out from Matt if Caroline has feelings for Stefan, because she's really starting to grate. I need to know what I'm up against."
In Mystic Falls, Matt notices Nadia keeps getting phone calls and asks who has been calling her all day, so Nadia takes advantage of the Tyler-free environment and compels him to tell her if Caroline has feeling for Stefan. Matt isn't really in the loop, though, so he has no idea, but says as far as he knows, Caroline isn't into Stefan. For extra confirmation, she compels him to tell her if he thinks Elena could win Stefan back, but Matt doesn't understand why she would even care about Elena, so Nadia just compels him to forget about it and walks away. Once she's gone, Tyler comes out to ask Matt if he was right, which Matt concedes is true. Unfortunately, he doesn't get a chance to tell Tyler what's up, because Nadia has appeared behind Tyler and snaps his neck before anyone can even process it, and insists that he's not going to be telling Tyler anything.
Back at Whitmore, Kalena is fake-crying about how she can't lose Jeremy again, and begs Stefan to help her save him. Meanwhile, Bonnie has finally found Liv in a back room of the Bitter Ball and confronts her. When Liv immediately tells her the room is off-limits, Bonnie gets super awesome. "Look, under normal circumstances, I'd probably try to warm up to you, be your friend or something, but I'm kind of under a time-crunch, and I need your help." Naturally, Liv is like, "Uh, do I know you?" so Bonnie gets to the point-- she knows Liv is a witch, which is why she needs her help, and then confesses that she used to be one, so she can trust her. Liv starts to freak out about how she doesn't know what she's doing and can't help, but that's when Caroline comes out of nowhere and bares her fangs at her before insisting that she WILL help them.
They finally get to a back room and find a map before handing her the towel with Wes' blood on it and teaching her the incantation. When light bulbs start to flicker and explode, Liv once again stops and insists that she can't do this, because she's done horrible things, blah blah blah, so Bonnie tells her that she, too, has blown stuff up and accidentally set more fires with her brain than she can count, but assures her she can do it. However, Damon is impatient with the newbie-witch's inability to finish the spell, so he calls Enzo up and decides to go with the nuclear option to get shit done-- he tells his murder buddy that the gang needs some motivation before putting the phone on speaker so the gang can hear him say "Let them know that Jeremy will be dead very soon." FUCK ALL OF THIS.
At Whitmore House, Enzo informs Jeremy that his "sweetheart" is currently failing at her mission, but Jeremy has a pretty great point-- killing him isn't exactly going to inspire Bonnie to help them, which Klaus had to learn the hard way in season 3's "Do Not Go Gentle." Still, Enzo comes at him with a plastic bag while Jeremy desperately tries to break himself free from his binds, and reminds Jeremy that if you don't follow through on your threats, then no one will take you seriously, so basically killing Jeremy is necessary and blah blah blah, Enzo sucks. He then finishes his spiel by apologizing for making everything about him before putting the plastic bag over his head and pulling it tight so he can't breathe. That's a really convenient way to kill Jeremy, isn't? Because if he had been fed on to death or had his neck snapped or whatever other method of murder commonly used by vampires, it would have been pretty much impossible to bring him back.
Over at the Bitter Ball, Bonnie is still giving Liv her pep talk, and promises her that if she'll let her, she'll teach her how to control her magic. She then pulls out a photo of Jeremy to show her, and guilts her a little bit by straight-up telling her that she's the only person who can save his life. Liv reluctantly agrees, with the caveat that if she goes all "Carrie" on everyone, it will be Bonnie's fault. She then starts the spell back up, just as Enzo has released the plastic bag over Jeremy's face. He falls to the ground just as Stefan and Kalena arrive and storm the room. Stefan pins Enzo against the wall in a choke-hold while Katherine rushes over to Jeremy. When she doesn't find a pulse, she hesitantly pinches his nose and starts to do CPR, unable to hide her disgust at having to put her lips on Jeremy's mouth. Luckily for her, Stefan is too distracted by Enzo; he points out that Enzo should have left town when he told him to, but Enzo's not one for taking orders anymore, and headbutts him.
While they fight, Katherine continues CPR, and when that doesn't work, she just starts pounding on his chest with her fists and shouting at him to wake up. Stefan is about to stake Enzo, but it gets kicked out of his hands at the last second. Jeremy finally awakens, to which Katherine responds by sighing, "Ugh, thank god," in such a disappointed voice that it's hilariously awful, and again, everyone else is way too distracted to notice that ELENA ISN'T FUCKING ELENA, IT'S KATHERINE. Enzo throws the stake at Stefan but misses, lodging itself in Kalena's back instead. She calls Stefan over to help her, just as Damon walks in to inform Enzo that the spell worked, and Wes is in Richmond. Then, Damon goes to leave, pretending not to even notice the fact that Jeremy just barely came back to life and "Elena" has been staked in the back and is currently hurt. Stefan is at nuclear-levels of rage and fury right now, so before the gruesome twosome can bounce, he calls out, "Damon. Don't bother coming back." Damon is clearly hurt by these words, and uses pretty much all of his energy trying to make it look like he isn't until he's out the door, with only a "I wasn't planning on it," in response. Katherine, too, looks genuinely shocked that Stefan would say that, although you know she's THRILLED at this newest, unintended development.
Tyler wakes up in the parking lot after his snapped neck healed and immediately heads toward Matt to find out what the fuck happened. Matt, who is acting really weird, insists that it was just a misunderstanding, and that Nadia was compelling him to talk about Katherine because she's really sad that she died. Tyler isn't buying this story whatsoever, because he's not THAT much of an idiot, but all he says is to stay the hell away from her, which Matt claims he intends to do. After Tyler reminds him to call him if Nadia hassles him any more, he leaves, and Matt heads over to a car and gets into the passenger seat. Nadia's driving, naturally, and though he insists that he took care of it, Nadia warns him that if Tyler follows them, Nadia will kill them both. Yeah, I think legitimately killing Tyler is going to be pretty difficult, even for a 500+ year old vampire, but whatever. Anyway, Matt realized that Nadia hasn't been talking on the phone to Elena, because whoever it was needed information, which means that Katherine, like Gregor, decided to hitch a ride in Elena's brain in the same way Gregor did to him. Nadia is even more pissed now, and grabs him in a choke-hold with one hand, threatening to rip the Gilbert ring off of his hand and snapping his neck before he can blink. Of course, she doesn't have the heart to actually do it, so she informs him that they'll be hiding out until the vervain is out of his system. Oh, joy.
Enzo and Damon have finally found Wes' new hidey-hole lab, and though Enzo suggests a round of "paper, scissors, stone" to settle who gets to kill him, Damon insists that Enzo just go for it. Enzo assumes that Damon is having second thoughts about leaving Mystic Falls, but Damon denies it on the grounds that since Elena and Stefan hate him, there's no reason not to leave at this point. Once they find the room Wes is using for his lab, they're surprised to see that it's full of strangers, who immediately start chanting in Czech. Damon immediately realizes that they're Travelers, just as Wes comes out to smug about how they're his new back-up. The spell that the Travelers are doing begins to incapacitate them with some kind of pain-infliction/mystical migraine spell, and Damon and Enzo ultimately end up falling to their knees and losing consciousness. The Travelers start to leave, but before Wes joins them, he injects Damon with the Ripper serum he found in Aaron's bag, and wishes him luck in making new friends. SHIT.
Katherine is back in the girls' dorm room, where she's examining her back where she was staked earlier. Stefan walks in a moment later, so Kalena pretends to be in pain and asks him if he can help her get a splinter out of her back. Once he pulls it out, Katherine turns to face him and asks him if Damon killed Aaron; she realized when Stefan was able to enter Whitmore House that he had to be dead (since Elena was invited in just before Wes knocked her out to make her a test subject), and since Stefan wanted to talk to her earlier, she put two and two together. When she asks him why he didn't tell her the truth, Stefan demonstrates that he's actually grown a lot in the past half-season.
STEFAN: "Alright. The truth is, ever since the first time I noticed you falling for my brother, I have been waiting for him to screw something up so badly that you hate him. So, I've been waiting and watching him do all these horrible things, and then, every single time I think he's gone too far, he's there for you, sometimes in ways better than I ever was. So, the truth is, after a while, I just stopped waiting for him to fail, because I liked the person he had become... and I don't want to lose that person."Nice, right? I could really grow to like this Stefan. Anyway, Kalena insists that since Damon threatened her "brother," there's no way she can take him back now. But, she does concede that she will help him save Damon from himself, but not for her, and not for Damon-- only for Stefan; because, of course, she's banking on much more quality Stefan time in the process. God, Katherine is shameless. She caresses Stefan's face with her hand and wraps him in a hug that lasts for a very long moment until Caroline shows up, looking very awkward and uncomfortable. Stefan sees her and immediately breaks away from Kalena to see what's going on.
Enzo and Damon find themselves on the floor of the derelict building where the Travelers knocked them out, and when Enzo helps Damon off the floor, he finds the syringe with which Wes stabbed him. Damon's not positive what he got stuck with, but right away, he informs Enzo that if he got shot up with Wes' "cannibal vampire poison," they're gonna have some issues. Enzo hasn't been read in on that whole thing yet, since he and Damon were fighting when Elena almost got injected wit it, so Damon briefly outlines Wes' goal of eliminating the vampire species by having them chow down on each other to the point of extinction. Suddenly, they hear a rattling sound coming from the room where Wes had set up his makeshift lab, and they go to investigate. Inside the room, they find Joey, the vampire Wes created with what I'm going to assume is Enzo's blood, who is still bound up.
He asks them if they can set him free, and though Damon was initially wary that it was a trap, he ultimately complies and goes to release his bindings. However, since Damon is the unluckiest motherfucker EVER, he catches a whiff of Joey's vampire blood and his vamp-face and fangs instantly come out of their own volition. Joey is horrified to see him-- and understandably so, considering that Damon's eye-veins down extend down past his cheekbones just like Jesse's did-- and asks him what the fuck is happening to him. Damon: "I'm going to go ahead and say 'karma.' Karma is happening to me." After that, he can no longer resist, and feeds so hard on the poor guy that he literally pulls a Stefan and pops Joey's head clean off his body. Enzo is terrified, and concedes that yeah, he can definitely see how this could become a problem.
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