Katherine, who isn’t really dead, is hitching a ride in
Elena’s mind – though Nadia lets it slip that it’s not permanent – and she
compels Matt to give her a crash course in all things Elena – including how she
broke up with him.
Alas, we have to deal with that most annoying of tropes
(beyond Elena’s continued existence) the “earlier that day” sign. Because,
apparently, telling a story in chronological order is considered passé these
days.
Anyway, earlier that day Nadia chained up Katherine in
case Elena made a re-appearance while she went to take the Travellers
Katherine’s corpse which they want for ill defined reasons that are probably
nefarious.
Switch to Damon who has already buried Katherine’s body
(rather jauntily) and Nadia is not pleased – using the excuse that Katherine
wanted to be buried in Bulgaria with her family. Damon’s going to deny this
request simply because he’s that petty.
Tyler is camping with Matt and apparently he’s willing to
put aside everything that happened in New Orleans (probably
because everything that happened in New Orleans involved Klaus and Elijah
sending him home)
At college – yes we are pretending the college storylines
are still going – Aaron (who is not dead) drops in on Caroline to tell her and
Elena that he’s cutting off all funding to the evil
Augustine vampire torture lab. Aaron leaves – and Enzo (the imprisoned
vampire made of Sexy) drops in to have a little chat with him.
Stefan calls Caroline to babble about Damon and Elena and
basically trying to get them back together and yeah that’s bewildering since Stefan
and Caroline are the two people who least want Damon and Elena to be a happy
couple. Anyway, they both realise Elena is missing.
Katherine gets frustrated by her phone eternally ringing when her eyes turn black and Elena returns (BOOOOOOO!) to find she’s chained to the headboard. Which was a nice idea on Nadia’s part but neglected the fact that hotel headboards aren’t usually vampire proof.
Meanwhile Stefan and Caroline (hereby called “Prudy Trudy” by Damon) talk to Damon about their intention to win him Elena back – which he doesn’t believe either.
Katherine gets more and more annoyed at her phone and
Nadia notes they need Katherine’s body so maybe Katherine should go to the
weekly party and ask questions about where Katherine’s body is buried. Nadia
disagrees – and points out that Katherine actually knows very little about
Elena – so it’s time to question Matt
Switch to Tyler and Matt – and Matt TECHNICALLY owning
Tyler’s house which lets Tyler broach the subject of people Matt will have to
invite in – which is a round about way of saying he wants Caroline back. After
which Katherine has her meeting with Matt
And Damon returns home to find Enzo and a body bag. In
the body bag is a present – Aaron, the last remaining Whitmore – alive but
available for the killing. Enzo wants Damon to be happy with the killing and
doubts that Damon has “gone soft.” When Enzo gives him an ultimatum (you kill
him or I), Damon breaks… Enzo’s neck. Of course, Damon can’t kill Aaron
because, as Aaron rightfully guesses, it would upset Elena. So Damon removes
his vervain watch and compels Aaron to “head north until you hit ice”.
Effective.
To the party and Katherine arrives, gets her invite from
Matt and talks to Stefan and after dealing with relationship angst tries to gage
how heartbroken Stefan is over Katherine’s death. Which is… not much. Nor does
he know whether Katherine is buried except for a cryptic clue from Damon
“Katherine is where she was always meant to be.” She guesses that means in the
tomb she was supposed to be locked in but wasn’t.
Katherine heads into the party to say goodbye to everyone and Caroline grabs her to talk about having sex with Klaus. Their chatter is overheard by Tyler, possibly deliberately on Katherine’s part to get away.
To the mausoleum where, yes, Damon has stashed
Katherine’s body. There’s a Traveller there to continue the ritual – though
Elena comes back mid ritual – she knocks the witch out and stabs Nadia before
running for it.
Back at the party, Caroline decides to try and explain
herself to Tyler - since, while he had abandoned her at that point, there’s
still the whole “yay I slept with your mother’s murderer” angle. Tyler doesn’t
want to hear excuses for why Caroline slept with the mass murderer and when she
presses to explain rather than leaving he goes all hybrid – and Stefan blurs
into the room to stop any violence: but even he can’t quite grasp the idea of
Caroline having sex with Klaus. Stefan still smacks him for being rude to
Caroline.
Damon tries to go to the party but can’t get an invite
in. At the mausoleum, the witch and Nadia recover – and they don’t need Elena
to be present to finish the spell. She runs to Damon – as the spell slowly
takes over her mind and turns her into Katherine. So when Damon decides to tell
Elena how sad he is about breaking up with her and how he desperately needs to
be back with her – Katherine responds by cutting him dead and breaking it up herself
(since Damon tortured her on her death bed, it’s not surprise that she twists
the knife). He’s just toooo eeeeevillll and it’s over.
Well, he is evil, that’s one thing I guess. But ooooh the angst.
Party aftermath and Matt has the joy of cleaning up and
comforting the drunk and depressed and whiney Tyler. See, this is what happens
when you make and immortal demi-god your nemesis, I’m just saying
And Katherine rips out the heart of the friendly
Traveller – which was so very predictable. And for some bizarre reason,
Katherine decides she’s going to hang around and continue to pretend to be
Elena. She wants Nadia around – and she wants Stefan, her one true love.
Caroline visits Stefan to ask whether she’s a horrible person (yes she is, but Stefan is, of course, comforting with lots of humour).
And Aaron? He heads out of town and runs into… Enzo. And
Damon. Yes without Elena loving, Damon has gone off the rails and is now
happily embracing his monsterness: he eats Aaron. About time.
I’m all for sexual agency but I can completely understand
the boggle and outrage over Caroline sleeping with Klaus given Klaus’s death
toll. There’s sexual expression and “yay, mass murderer!” though this show has
a habit of ignoring the death counts of the main characters
Damon and Enzo as evil will be wonderfully compelling if
it weren’t for the inevitable future angst that will follow. And Katherine
hanging around is just tiresome.
