Halloween comes to Mystic Falls early this year, as ‘Ghost World’ is all about, well, ghosts — and none of that cute Casper stuff, either. Of course, some of these ghosts are more symbolic of our weary characters living in the past (hello, Elena!), but some are very, very real and tend to be angry. And violent. Hey, it wouldn’t be “Vampire Diaries” without a little bloodshed, would it?
As we learned last week, one of these not-so-friendly ghosts is Mason Lockwood, and he wastes no time in chaining up his killer (Damon) and torturing him a little. Unfortunately, Stefan decides to help out, as he enjoys any opportunity to cause pain. Sometimes it’s still a little startling to remember just how bad Stefan has become. Unfortunately, he’s still not as much fun as Damon, just meaner.
Because Mystic Falls has more town gatherings than an Amish community, tonight’s action will revolve around a night of illumination. Or something. It’s just very historical and is sure to be an opportunity for some dramatic lighting. The head of the history department, Tobias, will be the star of the show, but I don’t suspect we should get too attached to him just yet.
Somehow Damon frees himself from Mason’s grasp and is able to tell Bonnie that ghosts are afoot — and she needs to fix it. Of course, Bonnie has plenty of motivation to get her witch on, as she knows full well Jeremy can still see her. What she doesn’t know is that Jeremy can touch her, but that’s an unhappy revelation for later.
Even though Anna is invisibly stuck to his side, Jeremy still finds time to talk to Elena. She has a request for him, as if he’s a late-night DJ instead of her brother. She wants him to reach out to Stefan’s dead girlfriend Lexie so she can get her help in fixing Stefan. Jeremy says it’s not that easy. She may not have crossed over to the other side, and he has no emotional connection to her to conjure her up. Elena is running out of ideas, and unfortunately, Stefan isn’t getting any easier to deal with. This is almost like a bad game show, in which people find out their exes are far worse than they ever imagined — then have to spend all day and night with said ex pinned to their side. Actually, that probably has been a game show, but if Elena could go on it, she’d definitely win in the category of worst ex, unless another contestant dated the Nightstalker or Ted Bundy.
Bonnie has no idea how she’s going to deal with this ghost infestation until her grimoire flops to the ground and opens up to a manifestation spell. Hey, the girl can take a hint, and it looks like she’s just found the solution to her problems. She and Caroline get to work, and voila! No more ghosts, right? Well, not so much. Apparently hint-giving grimoires shouldn’t be trusted, because instead of the ghosts being sent on their way, they’ve taken physical form. Oops.
Jeremy confronts Anna about their relationship, worried that she’s been hanging out with the dead witches that got to Vicki. Anna bats her big eyes and reassures Jeremy she’s a good little ghost and would never do such a thing. Jeremy huffs that he shouldn’t be seeing her anyway, but he can’t bring himself to send her away, even when she challenges him to. Talk about being hung up on an ex.
Meanwhile, ghosts are taking physical form all over town. Bonnie finds herself holding hands with her grandma, Miss Sheila. Anna realizes Jeremy isn’t the only one who can see her, Lexie pops up and Mason realizes he can drink expensive well drinks with the best of them. So, we get a little good (Miss Sheila, Lexie) a little complicated (Anna) and possibly bad (Mason). But Bonnie is soon to find out that, even though some of the ghosts are helpful, that doesn’t mean they can stay. Miss Sheila explains that Bonnie has to close the door to the other side, a task which requires that damn necklace Stefan gave Elena which has only caused trouble for everyone and isn’t that nice to begin with. Of course, finding that necklace is the hitch.
As the hunt for jewelry will take time, Lexie has nothing to worry about — she can train Elena in the art of fixing Stefan and even torture him a little, which is what she sets to doing almost immediately. I have to say, Lexie is great fun and I hope there’s some way she can be brought back onto the show, because she’s exactly the spitfire needed to deal with Stefan right now. While Elena makes faces and glares at him with watery eyes, Lexie takes action, chaining him up and plunging stakes into him with an almost perverse glee. She doesn’t care that he’s crying out for blood; she’s a pro at vampire rehab and she’s not backing down. Elena doesn’t seem to have the stomach for it, unfortunately, so the hard work seems to have fallen squarely into Lexie’s lap.
While Mason might seem like trouble for Damon, he instead has a simple request — he needs Damon to apologize for killing him, and then he wants to work with him to find a way to kill Klaus. This seems simple enough, but Damon is both skeptical and very, very bad at apologizing. But once he sputters out one of the worst apologies I’ve seen from a non-politician, Mason agrees to take him along on a hunt in the old Lockwood cellar. Apparently the Lockwoods have something buried there that will reveal how to kill an original vampire. Mason doesn’t want to kill Klaus just for fun, of course — he wants Tyler to be freed of his siring to Klaus.
At the lighting ceremony, Anna happens to bump into Frederick, one of the tomb vampires, another ghost brought to life eager to take action on his agenda. He and his friends intend to take out the founding families — and the first victim is good ol’ Tobias (good thing we never got attached), who’s been eviscerated and hung from a tree.
Jeremy calls Caroline and tells her she needs to find Elena’s necklace in a hurry, as Gilberts are probably on the tomb vampire menu. Caroline, who can never keep her mouth shut about anything (she’s already informed poor Bonnie that Elena saw Jeremy kissing Anna), tells him to ask his stupid new girlfriend, as Anna probably snaked the necklace in the first place. Jeremy is indignant. Anna would never do such a thing! Anna looks at him with watery eyes and insists she could never do such a thing! Why do I think Anna really could do such a thing?
Damon and Mason wander deep into a buried passageway under the Lockwood cellar, with Damon grumbling constantly about how much he distrusts Mason. So when Damon walks into a trap and is spiked with wooden spears, theoretically Mason should ditch him there. Instead, Mason frees him. Mason doesn’t want revenge; he wants redemption, and that means he’ll do anything to help Tyler. Got to admit, dead Mason is quite winning.
Elena finds Jeremy in the crowd at the lighting ceremony, and Jeremy admits he doesn’t want to let Anna go. He loves her, he’s always loved her, and now he has her back. Anna overhears this, and Elena begs her to let Jeremy go. She’s holding him back. Of course, the same could be said to Elena about Stefan, but I guess that’s not happening tonight. Anna tearfully hands over the necklace, as Caroline was right, per usual. Jeremy tells her he won’t let her go, but Anna thinks he should. She just wants to find her mom so she won’t be so alone in the afterlife.
Jeremy gets the necklace to Bonnie, but if he’s thinking he’ll get forgiveness in the bargain, no dice. She notes that Matt gave up his sister before he even considered giving up Anna, so she isn’t interested in apologies. Younger men, pfft! It’s never peaceful in Mystic Falls — not even on (probably especially not on) Halloween.
Would you like to see Lexie come back? What about Mason? Were you surprised that Anna stole the necklace?
Bonnie makes the ghosts disappear, and Mason goes poof at the worst possible time — Damon can’t reach the spot he’s in because there’s some kind of vampire block, and Mason has just found The Thing They’re Looking For. Elena assures Lexie she now knows what she needs to know to fix Stefan, and Anna finds (yes!) her mom, so she doesn’t need to watch Jeremy anymore.
It’s all a pretty neat, tidy ending — until Bonnie realizes the necklace hasn’t been destroyed by the spell, Damon gets Ric to join him in the cellar to find that The Thing They’re Looking For is actually heiroglyphics, and Elena still has a lot of work to do in drying out Stefan.
