Is anyone wondering if we’re really going to see the strange and magical Silas on this show? I realize that his revival is supposed to herald the end times, but I have to say I’m more than a little curious. Of course, not as curious as Professor Shane, and for that reason along I think I can live without seeing Silas ever, simply because I don’t want Professor Shane to get his way. On the spectrum of creepy, Shane has turned the dial to eleven, and I’m hoping Bonnie gets wise to him sooner rather than later. After last week’s little confession, it was pretty clear he’s an Originals groupie in the weirdest possible way.
So, as we remember from last week, poor hunter Jeremy has walked into a bar full of almost-vampires courtesy of Klaus and, indirectly, Damon. This sounds like the set up for a joke, “A hunter walked into a bar full of almost-vampires, an Original, and one Salvatore, badum-dum,” but alas, there’s nothing funny about this. Jeremy isn’t going to kill innocent people! It seemed like a pretty divey bar, though, so I’m not sure any of these almost-vampires are all that innocent, but I know what he means.
Anyway, Jeremy can’t be compelled, so he tells Klaus to suck it (not literally). Well, Jeremy should know that Klaus hasn’t survived all these years without having a plan B firmly in place, and that plan is to compel all the new little vampires into hunting and killing… Matt. Really, if I were Matt I’d consider moving or at least taking a European vacation. The Gilberts may be great friends, but they’re just going to get him killed one of these days.
Damon, wriggling his very expressive eyebrows and glowering, calls no fair. That wasn’t part of the deal! Oh, Damon, it’s so cute when you think Klaus is going to follow the rules when doing so suggests he won’t get what he wants. But Klaus isn’t all evil. He does give Matt a two-minute head start. So nice, that Klaus.
Outside of the bar, Jeremy informs Damon that he and Matt are going to run so he doesn’t have to kill any nice bar flies, and Damon reluctantly promises to slow down Klaus’ vampires. When one still manages to attack Matt, Elena appears out of nowhere to save him. Matt is a very lucky man. Anyway, Matt, Elena, Jeremy and Damon hunker down in the lake house and, the next morning, try to sort out a plan.
Unfortunately, that plan looks quite a bit like the last plan. Damon promises Elena he’ll keep Jeremy safe — as they complete the hunt that evening. So, he probably didn’t need to hide in the lake house overnight, but I hope he got some sleep and maybe a glass of orange juice.
Rebekah crashes Stefan’s house and reads his diary. It’s not that she doesn’t have a Kindle or anything, but that she wants to make sure Stefan is truly over Elena. Plus, she wants to do some scheming. “Team Klaus has Jeremy the hunter, Team Shane has Bonnie the Witch,” Rebekah says before revealing what Team Rebekah is going to have, if she can pull it off. She wants to steal Silas’ headstone from Team Shane, forcing them to join Team Rebekah. This is starting to feel like an episode of “Survivor.”
Speaking of Team Shane, the creepy professor is hunkered down with Bonnie for creepy office hours. Bonnie, however, is worried. She has all this power now! She hurt April! She doesn’t want to be a bad witch! She’s seen “The Wizard of Oz,” probably! Professor Shane assures her she’s in complete control, and she calms down instantly — and we now know the trigger words Shane can use to put her into a hypnotic trance — and do exactly what he wants her to do. Of course, the sheriff does not have a trigger word, so when she comes to arrest him there’s not much he can do. Bonnie can’t understand it, so the sheriff suggests she talk to her dad. You know, the interim mayor.
Damon and Jeremy return to the bar to hunt wabbits, I mean, vampires. But something’s wrong. All the vampires are dead. Who could have done such a thing? Kol did! It turns out that he doesn’t want them to find the cure, as it involves waking Silas. He met some vampires a while back who worshipped Silas, and they told him that when the Big Bad awoke, he would trigger the end of all times. Kol is not a fan of time ending, being immortal and all.
Damon thinks Kol is a big, Original dummy. We’re not going to back off finding the cure because you were told too many scary bedtime stories, you idiot,” he grumbles, eyebrows powerfully scowling. For the record, may Ian Somerhalder never get Botox in his forehead, because those may be the best eyebrows in the business.
Kol asks Jeremy nicely to stop with the hunting, but Jeremy refuses. Hmmm, well, Kol doesn’t want to kill him and get stuck with that nasty hunter’s curse, so, what to do? Hey, he’ll just rip off his arms! Damon shoves Kol against the wall and tells Jeremy to run. I do not think this will end well for Damon.
With Professor Shane out of the way, Stefan and Rebekah look for the headstone in his office. Rebekah wants to talk about the good old bad old days when Stefan was fun and liked killing. Hey, it was the ’20s! I am trying to imagine Stefan and Rebekah (Stebekah? Refan?) at Downton Abbey, eating their way through the Granthams, and I am not really opposed to the idea. “The jazz, the booze, our little table at Gloria’s?” Rebekah says, waving a little glass container of something in Stefan’s face. “C’mon, take some herbs!” Whatever’s in there, it’s the vampire equivalent of pot, it seems.
Back at the station, Professor Shane is grilled by the sheriff while Bonnie’s dad tries to shake, I mean, talk some sense into his witchy daughter. This guy compelled Pastor Young to kill people! Bonnie doesn’t believe it. Her dad points out she should, as he confessed. Nah, Bonnie wants to interrogate him. If he’s going to tell anyone what he did, it’s her!
Shane tells Bonnie that he did make Professor Young kill all those people, so she might want to start believing her dad. Bonnie is, of course, pissed. She thought she knew him! Why, I don’t know, but I do know he should really be dragged before the school for some kind of violation. I’ve heard of bad professors, but I think he kind of takes the cake. She stomps out of the room, but later stomps back in. She declares him crazy. “I’m not crazy! I’m just passionate!” Passionately crazy, I say. Shane then tries to work his creepy magic on Bonnie. “What about Grams? Wouldn’t you like to see her again?” She pauses. She would like to see Grams again, but she doesn’t trust Shane. FINALLY.
Meanwhile, there’s a situation going on with Damon and Kol. Jeremy calls Elena, and Elena goes to Klaus to ask him to deal with his stinky little brother. Klaus isn’t all that excited to help out Elena, but he eventually has to concede that they both want the same thing — the cure, which Kol is actively standing in the way of. He picks up the phone and orders Kol to come home and “stay away from that Gilbert boy.” Kol promises to be good and not touch a hair on Jeremy’s head — which is easy enough to do, as he intends to compel Damon to do the dirty work. When Kol was a non-vampire kid, I bet he promised to wash the dishes while he was crossing his fingers behind his back, the sneaky twerp.
Stefan and Rebekah, who are now very relaxed and probably eating Doritos, are aimlessly searching for things in Shane’s office and talking about, you know, stuff. Rebekah tells Stefan she didn’t compel Elena out of his head in part to make him suffer, but mostly to teach him a lesson. Love and caring are stupid and useless. Killing and screwing, much better without the caring! They used to have such good times! And good sex! He counters that the sex was good not because they didn’t care, but because she was crazy. “Crazy sex is always good,” Stefan explains. Do you see crazy sex ahead for Stebekah? Rebefan? Team Crazy Sex?
Poor compelled Damon needs to see Jeremy. Um, just to apologize! That’s it! Elena, suspicious of Damon’s fiercely knitting eyebrows, stops him. “Dude, what is wrong with you?” For some reason, encountering Elena helps him figure out Kol has compelled him to kill Jeremy, who has disappeared into the tunnels under the Grill. Poor compelled Damon follows after him, even as he yells at Jeremy to run. “Kol compelled me! There’s nothing I can do. You need to go, now!”
Before Stefan and Rebekah can try out some crazy sex, some guy shows up to steal Silas’ headstone. Rebekah tortures him a bit, trying to find out who sent him, but the guy bites off his own tongue and then kills himself. So, yeah, he was compelled, I’m guessing. “Was it my bastard brother or yours?” Rebekah wonders, looking around for the Doritos.
“Maybe it’s option number three,” Stefan says, lazily staring at the unicorn floating in front of him. “There’s another team in the race.”
Ah, soon we’re back at Bonnie vs. Shane — The Great Interrogation Room Standoff. Bonnie is not liking Professor Shane at the moment, as he’s decided that he’s going to get under her skin by pissing her off. He tells her that her abuse of magic is why Grams is being tortured on the other side. She gets so pissed she does something painful to his hand and starts a fire to keep her dad away. But then, all Professor Shane has to do is tell her she’s in complete control, and she calms down. This is why I would never want to be hypnotized for a stage show where they make you act like a chicken or pretend your naked, just in case.
Shane, whose hand no longer hurts, is absolutely thrilled that Bonnie is in his grip, though he’s going to try to give it a different spin for dear old Dad. “Your daughter is a prodigy. With my guidance, she’ll be one of the most powerful witches in the world. But without it, she’s a time bomb.” Yeah, I’m thinking his guidance is what got her into all this trouble in the first place.
With the Damon/Jeremy problem mushrooming into a Pivotal Character Gonna Maybe Die problem, Elena calls Stefan for help. But he doesn’t give a crap about Elena and her first world problems. Elena is still not entirely used to this unloving Stefan.
Damon chases Jeremy around, while Jeremy tries to cut out his tattoo. Eww. Gross. Anyway, Damon tries to get Jeremy to kill him as that’s the only way to stop him. Don’t kill him, Jeremy! Delena would just be Elena being sad(der), and I cannot deal with that! Anyway, Jeremy shoots Damon in the head, which slows him down… a little, but not much. Finally, Elena steps in. She knows Damon can overcome the compulsion because he LOVES her! Their love is stronger than compulsion! Elena can make ANY MAN, even UNDEAD MEN, do what she wants them to! Because she’s JUST THAT IRRESISTIBLE! Jeremy, feeling cornered, is just about to shoot Damon… when Stefan shows up to drag him away. Yeah, that Stefan, acting all not-caring when he really cares just a little.
Back at Rebekah’s house, she threatens to dagger Kol, then Kol gets the dagger, then Klaus breaks it up and tells them they both have to go to bed without any ice cream.
Okay, Stefan cares a little, but not a lot, because he bleeds out Damon and sticks him in a holding cell within the house — and he’s going to keep him there until the cure is found. Oh, and Elena can’t see him, because she’s sired to him and she’ll let him out and then he’ll just kill Jeremy. Damon would be more upset about this if he wasn’t so weak and bloodless, but Stefan is glumly happy about this turn of events.
Elena wants to see Damon, but Stefan won’t let her. She can’t understand what Damon is doing with Rebekah. “She tried to kill me!”
“And this will be the second time Damon’s tried to kill Jeremy, so I guess nobody’s perfect,” Stefan replies. Touche.
“Are you trying to punish me?”
Punishing implies caring, and Stefan doesn’t care. Elena doesn’t buy that for a second. How can anyone stop loving HER? “You’re hurt and acting out. Stefan, this isn’t you.”
“Sure it is. You just have never seen me like this. You don’t know what I look like when I’m not in love with you.”
Elena whooshes her shampoo-comercial-ready hair around and stomps out. This is going to be some hard times for Elena, methinks.
Meanwhile, Bonnie’s dad wants to get her into magic rehab. She don’t need no stinkin’ rehab! The fact that she doesn’t think she needs it suggests to him she needs it even more! I am hoping Bonnie’s dad doesn’t want to send her to Camp Shane for magic abuse, because that is just going to make things so much worse.
Klaus visits Jeremy and Elena. He’s going to collect Jeremy so that he can keep him safe from Kol. Elena thinks they’ll take their chances with Kol. Klaus warns them to watch out for sparks, as Kol will probably try to burn down their house, but whatevs. “We’ll plan on finishing our work tomorrow,” he says to Jeremy, as if Jeremy just called in sick at work for a day. But what about Jeremy’s arm? It looked pretty meat-ariffic when we last saw it. Wouldn’t want to have to shoot things with a hamburger forearm.
Stefan drops by to see where Rebekah’s put the headstone. She promises it’s somewhere safe, and she isn’t all that interested in going into detail. So, that’s done… what else is he there for? Crazy sex, of course!
We can’t see that crazy sex, though, because this is an 8:00 show, so instead we see Elena and Jeremy talk. Klaus is going to force him to kill more innocent people! He can’t, he can’t! Elena points out that killing one Original vampire will cause his entire sire line to die with them. So, kill Kol, Jeremy! Oh dear. That sounds easy, I know, but I think Elena may be asking Jeremy to bite off a little more than he can chew.
Do you think Jeremy can kill an Original? Do you think Elena can stand to have not one but two unavailable Salvatore brothers? And how is Bonnie going to get Professor Shane out of her hair?