Elena immediately starts her day with angst after calling Stefan, only to have him not answer the phone. She then turns to Damon, who shows little patience for her, and even makes a point of telling her that everything is not about her. I could not have been more thrilled with that line. In fact, the writers could have had Damon say that line 15 times, and I would not have been bored with hearing it. As protagonists go, Elena is pretty wretched.
It seems that Elena has gotten it into her head that Elijah should not have to die with all of his siblings, because he is the honourable one. She cannot forget how he tried to help her, when Klaus was attempting to break the curse of the sun and the moon. As far I remember, Elijah left them high and dry and broke his word to her, but yeah, accuracy is unimportant when the angst needs to be driven up a level.
Elena trots over to Damon's, only to find cheerleader vampire [read: Rebekah] leaving. She is of course upset that Damon slept with her. How could he not spend every moment tortured over his unrequited love of her? She is after all the doppleganger. What is this world coming to?
When she returns home, who should show up at her door but Elijah. He tells Elena that he wants to show her something and so she gets in his car. Does this woman even have a modicum of sense? Elijah has already betrayed her once, but hey, a drive sounds nice right? They get to where the old encampment used to be, and Elijah tells her that he knows that she is lying about Mommy Dearest's [read Esther] plans. When Elena denies the truth of this, Elijah tells her that he can hear her heartbeat, which speeds up every time she lies. Finally, Elena tells him of Mommy Dearest's plans and expresses sorrow at not being able to help. Elijah responds by jumping into the underground tunnels trapping her with Cheerleader vampire as a guardian.
Elijah then goes to the Salvatore abode to once again use Elena as leverage. It seems that the only way to stop the spell is to get rid of the source of Mommy Dearest's power. Did I not say when Bonnie's mother arrived that she was dead witch walking. The only character of colour that they have allowed to live in three years is Bonnie, and that is because Elena needs a perpetual servant. Bonnie's family has after all been in servitude to the White folks for a 1000 years, so why stop now right? Elijah gives Damon and Stefan until 9:06 to kill the witches, because at 9:07, the moon will be high enough for Mommy Dearest to return the balance to nature [read: kill her kids]
Damon and Stefan try the nice approach first, now that they know that all the originals are linked. Cole and Klaus are at the local watering hole and coincidentally so are Dr. Fell and Alaric. They talk Caroline into distract Klaus long enough for Alaric to stake Cole, knowing that once he is staked, that this will neutralize the rest of his siblings.
Caroline does her pied piper routine, and Klaus follows her out of the bar. He tries to woo woo Caroline, claiming that he is over their little spat. He begins by saying that he wants to know about her hopes and her dreams. Caroline has grown a lot of three seasons of The Vampire Diaries, but I still do not buy into the idea that a 1000 year old vampire, is crushing on an 18 year old girl. What could they possibly have to talk about? It's bad enough when their is a huge difference between humans, but I am supposed to buy the idea that a 1000 years is not big deal? Though this is just a ruse for Caroline, it also served as yet another opportunity for the writers to rehabilitate Klaus.
Once Cole is staked, all of the vampires fall to the ground with exception of Klaus. I guess it's good to be a hybrid. He grabs Caroline and asks what she did, and she of course plays innocent. Klaus manages to catch up to Damon, Stefan and Alaric, and unstake his brother. This latest ploy pisses Elijah off even further, and he demands that they kill the witches now, or he will have Rebekah kill Elena.
To save Elena's life, Stefan and Damon decide that they have no other choice. They toss a coin to see who will be the one to kill the witches, under the assumption that whoever is guilty of the act, Elena will never forgive, because she would be willing to sacrifice her life for her friends. When Stefan approaches Bonnie, she is shocked that Stefan would attack her, and she is filled with fear. Okay, I have to pause now to say that this makes absolutely no sense. We have seen Bonnie drop Damon to his knees in pain in an instant. Why didn't she just drop Stefan in the same fashion? Oh, I know, the writers have decided that it's time for Abbey to die, and nothing can interrupt their hobby of killing off the characters of colour.
Mommy Dearest and Finn are protected in the circle when the original children approach them. Elijah tells her that her plan to kill her kids is wrong. Gee yeah guess? Mommy Dearest will not go down easily, and tells Elijah that he is not nearly as moral as he pretends to be, and that she has watched him slaughter innocents. Yep, just twist that knife. Before Mommy Dearest can complete the spell to make her children human, so that she can kill them, Abby is killed and turned into a vampire by Damon. At this time, the witches break their link with her, and Mommy Dearest and Finn disappear. Somehow, I don't believe that we have seen the last of her.
So, while this who drama was going on, Elena was being taunted by cheerleader vampire. As much as I dislike Elena, Rebekah's hatred of her makes absolutely no sense to me. It reads like stupid jealousy, or do the really believe that we are to buy into the fact that she is upset that Elena ruined her prom? Rebekah promises Elena that she is going to get her revenge on her slowly and disappears after delivering the news of Abby's death.
Elena then shows up at Caroline's house with hope of comforting Bonnie in her time of need. I suppose shes felt obligated, because Bonnie has been her servant for three seasons. It was just recently that Bill died, and Elena could not be arsed to stick around for Caroline. Instead of letting her in, Caroline delivers the news that Bonnie does not want to see her. "I'm sorry Elena, I know that you want to help, but put yourself in her shoes. Everything that happened tonight was to save you, and that's okay because she loves you, but somehow she's always the one that gets hurt," Caroline says. Yes, this is the second bit of truth this episode. I don't however believe that Elena is able to put herself in anyone's shoes, because she has always expected the world to revolve around her.
When Elena returns home, she finds an emo note left for her by Elijah. In it, he takes care to admit that he is guilty of not being upstanding, and having set his sister on her for his own ends. Umm yeah, he didn't want to die, that's just so damn selfish. Is it even possible to have a vampire who is not self loathing?
At the Salvatore's, Stefan asks Damon why he killed Abby because according to the coin toss, it should have him. It turns out that Damon has given up on winning Elena from Stefan. He has also noticed that Stefan is back to drinking animal blood and is well on the way to becoming who he was.
As for Alaric, he returns to Meredith's house after the little scuffle with the vampires for medical treatment. When Meredith walks out of the room, Alaric discovers the knife that was used in connection with the murder of the council members. Meredith tells him that he was never meant to discover the weapon and points a gun at him. I suppose Elena is wrong, Alaric really does have terrible luck with women. After Meredith, perhaps he should consider celibacy for a while. Also, unless she takes his ring, Alaric is only going to come back. Finally, she has to be one of the most ridiculous murderers in history. Who keeps a weapon that was used in a murder in almost plain sight?
At for the Michaelsons, it turns out that all of the originals have taken off, leaving the vampire cheerleader and Klaus alone. She says that she realized that he is the only one who has always been beside her. Of course that's true, because he carted her around in a coffin for over 100 years. Rebekah shows him a picture that she took of Elena when she was in the cave. It seems that not all of the ash trees have been destroyed, which means that they are still in danger of being destroyed. Say it with me everyone.....oooooh. Yes, that was the big cliffhanger left to hopefully create speculation and angst until March in the viewers.
I am going to give this episode 4.5, simply because Elena was told twice about herself. It's not often that Elena's self absorption is pointed out, and it greatly delighted me.
