Mystic Falls High School is hosting a memorial service for Carol. Liz talks about how how great she was, and how her death was a “terrible accident.” At that, Tyler leaves. As everyone’s pausing for a moment of silence, Elena sees Rebekah across the school gym but thinks she’s imagining things. Liz welcomes the new interim mayor, Rudy Hopkins, who starts talking about the town.
Elena leaves the memorial and hears someone crying in a hallway. It’s April, who says Carol’s death is bringing up memories of her father. “And I know you’re a vampire,” she adds. Before Elena can realize what’s going on, Rebekah zooms up and breaks her neck. April asks her if that was necessary. “No, but it was fun,” Rebekah replies.
Stefan calls Caroline as the memorial breaks up – a memorial he was supposed to attend, since it was mandatory for the whole school. He’s playing hooky to drink at the Grill. He’s still mopey about Elena sleeping with Damon. Caroline tells him that a) he’s not supposed to know about that and b) Tyler gets dibs on moping right now. She’s upset that he won’t talk to her about Carol’s death. Plus, he gets mad every time someone mentions that it was an “accident,” which is a euphemism for “she got drunk and drowned in a fountain.” The gang is smart enough to know Klaus was probably responsible. Anyway, Caroline tells Stefan to get it together.
Elena wakes up in the school library, where April tells her the school is emptying out. She asks how many times Elena has compelled her over the past few months. Elena tells her that Rebekah isn’t who April thinks she is. She starts to lead April out of the library but Rebekah stops them. She compels Elena to take a seat while they wait for the rest of the “class.”
Matt and Jeremy also skipped the memorial so they could train at the Gilberts’ lake house. Damon’s there, too, listening to a message Elena left him about the sire bond. She gets why he sent her away, but she hates not being with him. Damon hangs up in the middle of the message, then criticizes Jeremy for being too slow. Jeremy’s annoyed that Damon’s method of training him just involves ordering him around. Damon’s like, “Okay, fight me instead.” Jeremy runs at him with a stake, but Damon easily overpowers him and tells him how easy it would be to kill him.
They take a break when a young woman arrives with a pizza Matt and Jeremy ordered. (She never gets a name, and I hate when characters don’t get names, so I’ll call her Erin after the actress playing her.) Damon gives her extra money to turn down any more orders from the guys. The he tells the guys to run around the lake twice. Matt notes that he doesn’t have to listen to Damon (technically, Jeremy doesn’t have to, either), but Damon won’t let him have the pizza until he runs. Once he’s alone, Damon listens to the rest of Elena’s message.
An irritated Stefan answers a call from an unknown number. It’s Rebekah, and she wants him to know that she’s holding Elena hostage at the school. Stefan asks who was dumb enough to undagger Rebekah. Aww, April’s not dumb. She’s just clueless. Stefan isn’t in any hurry to get to Elena – instead, he calls Caroline and offers her the chance to help him kill Rebekah.
As he leaves the Grill, he passes Liz and Rudy, who are discussing Carol’s death. The “official” cause is head trauma. Rudy knows about the supernatural, so he’s not surprised about the cover-up. Liz gives him the chance to quit the interim position before he even gets started; six other people were offered the job before him, and they all declined. Rudy says he’s accepting it for a reason. That reason is his daughter – Bonnie. They’re immediately at odds because he wants to make a bunch of rules to protect the town when she thinks she can do that on her own.
Stefan and Caroline arrive at the school (she’s brought along the indestructible stake) and start searching for Rebekah. She reveals herself to Stefan, telling him she wants the cure. She holds up a stake and says she’s already taken care of Caroline. But she didn’t do anything to her – she just took her to the library, which is where she takes Stefan. She tells him, Caroline, and Elena that she’s going to ask them some questions and they’re going to answer honestly (they don’t have a choice – she’s compelled them). She also tells April to take notes so she can learn everything that’s been going on.
Rebekah starts by recapping for the audience quizzing the group about the hunter’s mark, the cure, and Alexander’s sword. She pauses when she realizes that April took her literally and is actually taking notes. Rebekah says that’s not necessary, but it would be great if April made a flowchart. She sends April to get pushpins and index cards.
Stefan tells Rebekah they don’t know anything. Rebekah asks if he gave up on finding the cure so Elena can take it. She thought Stefan would do anything for Elena, even take the cure with her so they could grow old and die together. This is news to Elena. Rebekah asks what she’s missing, and Caroline reveals that they broke up. Rebekah’s very interested in how that happened. Stefan explains that Elena slept with Damon (though that’s not the reason they broke up). Now Elena knows that Stefan knows that.
Back at the lake house, Damon has Jeremy practice loading a gun until he can do it quickly enough to give himself a chance up against a vampire. Jeremy thinks this is all dumb, since Damon doesn’t care whether he can save himself. He just cares about the completion of the hunter’s mark and curing Elena. Damon points out that Jeremy has to be alive for those things to happen. He asks if Jeremy’s talked to Elena at all, and Jeremy asks if he’s run out of voice mails to listen to.
Klaus arrives to check on how Jeremy’s coming along in that whole kill-vampires-and-complete-the-mark thing. Damon says it’s too soon to turn him loose. Klaus wants a number of kills, and he provides some numbers of his own: 12 is the number of hybrids he killed. 3 is the number of days it took him to stop wanting to kill Stefan for leading him into a trap. 1 is the number of purposes Damon serves – helping Jeremy. Klaus wants the cure sooner rather than later, since he has no more hybrids, so he asks how he can help. Damon uses him for an object lesson, loading Jeremy’s gun and shooting Klaus with it as payback for killing Carol.
In the library, Rebekah asks how Elena could be so cruel to Stefan. Stefan mentions her sire bond with Damon, and Rebekah asks Elena how she feels about it. Elena is tired of this, but Rebekah won’t let her dodge the question. She compels Elena to spill that she didn’t sleep with Damon because of the sire bond – she slept with him because she’s in love with him.
Caroline asks what all this has to do with the cure. Rebekah asks Stefan how to find it, and he points her toward Shane. Bonnie’s currently with him, ranting about how her father travels all the time because he can’t handle her witch heritage, and now all of a sudden, he wants to be a protective father. She asks Shane for some kind of magic therapy that will help her deal with this. Shane says she doesn’t need his help anymore. He gives her a pendant made of human bone as a “graduation” gift. Legend says it belonged to Qetsiyah, who drew strength from it. Bonnie’s made huge strides and her magic is just where it needs to be.
As she heads out of Shane’s office, she passes someone who’s just arriving. It takes her a few moments to realize why he looks familiar – it’s Kol. In those few moments, he grabs Shane and zooms him out of his office.
Rebekah uses Caroline’s phone to call Tyler and invite him to join the fun at the school. She motivates him by saying he may have a better chance of saving Caroline than he did Carol. After she hangs up, Kol arrives with Shane.
Klaus returns to the lake house and gives Damon some pointers on whittling stakes. Damon is not accepting constructive criticism at this time, thank you. Klaus bugs him about why Jeremy hasn’t killed any vampires. Damon points out that Jeremy can’t be sent to kill them before he knows how to protect himself from them. Klaus notes that there’s a town full of people nearby who can be turned into vampires for Jeremy to kill. Damon had considered that, but he doesn’t want to let Jeremy kill innocent people because Elena would get mad. Klaus says he’s already taken care of things.
Erin is at the house again, not because she’s delivering a pizza but because she ran out of gas. Matt invites her into the lake house to use the phone, and she’s confused when she realizes she can’t enter until Jeremy says she can.
Kol and Rebekah take Shane to a utility closet, where he expresses his excitement over meeting two Originals. Rebekah tries to compel him to tell them where the cure is, but Shane has learned some method for preventing compulsion from working on him. Rebekah opts for plan B: Kol will beat Shane until Shane gives up his secret.
Rebekah returns to the library and starts a game of Truth or Dare. Elena’s up first and chooses dare. Rebekah dares her to tell Stefan the truth about Damon. Elena says that Damon makes her happy. “Clowns make you happy, Elena. Dig a little deeper,” Rebekah urges. Elena says that when she’s with Damon, things are unpredictable and she feels free.
Rebekah asks how she feels with Stefan. Elena admits that she feels like she’s his project; he wants to fix her. She makes him sad, and she can’t be with him because he just sees her as a “broken toy.” Rebekah asks if she still loves Stefan. Elena says yes. Is she still in love with Stefan? No. Rebekah taunts Stefan about how painful that must have been to hear – maybe as painful as having a dagger driven through his heart. When Stefan says it was, Rebekah says that’s how the past 900 years of her life have been.
Tyler arrives just then, and Rebekah tells Elena, Stefan, and Caroline that she has some rules for them: They have to stay in the building and they’re not allowed to vamp-run. Then she compels Tyler to turn. She has no use for the vampires anymore, and they’re just her competition to find the cure. Rebekah’s going to eliminate them by having Tyler turn and kill them.
Erin attacks Matt, but since she’s a newbie vampire, it doesn’t take Jeremy much effort to kill her. Bonnie goes to the school looking for Shane but instead finds April. She knows Bonnie’s a witch, and she tells her that Rebekah is compelling Elena, Stefan, and Caroline to be honest for once. Bonnie tells her that Shane can’t be compelled, and Rebekah will be happy to torture him into telling her what she wants to know. They’re conveniently in a chemistry lab, which gives Bonnie access to salt she can use along with her new pendant for a spell to connect her to Shane.
Kol dunks Shane’s head in a sink full of water, demanding to know where the cure is. In the lab, April starts choking and coughing. Rebekah asks Shane why he wants the cure, since he’s human. Shane says they can have the cure; he wants Silas. Kol is familiar with that name, and he protests when Shane says he wants to free Silas. As Kol dunks Shane again, April chokes, then coughs up water.
Rebekah stops Kol before he can kill Shane. Kol warns her that if Silas is woken, he’ll kill everyone. Rebekah thinks Silas is a fairy tale used to scare children. Shane says he’s real, and he knows where Silas is and is close to having the spell to wake him. Kol knows that to do that, Shane needs Silas’ tombstone (check!) and a sacrifice of dozens (almost check!). Rebekah realizes that Shane was responsible for the council explosion. Hey, Damon was right! Shane says their deaths were only temporary. When he wakes Silas, Silas will raise all the dead who have died on his behalf.
Kol tries to put a stop to that idea by stabbing Shane with a stick that just happens to be there. Why is there a stick? Why couldn’t Kol just use a broom or mop handle? I don’t know. In the lab, April starts bleeding from the same spot where Shane was stabbed.
Tyler tries to fight his compulsion and keep himself from turning, or at least from chasing after his friends. The vampires get a bit of a head start, but it’s hard to outrun a werewolf when you’re not allowed to zoom. Stefan and Elena try to block a door by sticking a fire axe through its handles. It’s not strong enough, so Elena rips off the door of a locker and throws that in, too. It barely holds, but she and Stefan are able to use their vamp strength to keep the doors closed.
Rebekah’s mad that Kol killed her only chance to get the cure. Kol says he did her a favor – waking Silas would unleash Hell on the world. He reveals that he snagged the indestructible stake. As they leave the closet, Shane wakes up and pulls out the stick Kol used to stab him. He guesses that Bonnie did something to protect him.
It’s not helping April, though. When Stefan and Elena find her and Bonnie, Bonnie explains that her spell to protect Shane accidentally linked him to April. Usually that sort of thing would make Bonnie bleed or feel pain, but this time, she just felt more power. Stefan feeds April some blood and revives her, then sends her and Bonnie out of the school.
He and Elena are left behind in the lab, and for some reason, she thinks this is a good time to talk about their issues. Girl, priorities! Focus on not dying first! She apologizes for hurting Stefan; she never wanted that. Rebekah storms in, annoyed that they’re still alive: “Why are my least favorite people always the most durable?”
Meanwhile, Caroline finds Tyler back in his human form in the gym, where the candles are still lit for Carol’s memorial. He blames himself for everything that’s happened. He cries and says he should have saved his mother.
Stefan tells Rebekah that her issues are with him, not Elena. Rebekah can’t believe he’s still trying to save the person who chose his brother over him. She offers Elena a solution to all her problems: Rebekah can compel Stefan to forget every memory he has of Elena. He won’t remember loving her, and they’ll both get a fresh start. Elena won’t have to feel responsible for the misery she’s caused. “Do it,” Stefan says.
Elena protests, but Rebekah says she won’t do it. It would be too easy to make Stefan forget Elena the way Klaus made him forget Rebekah. But now Elena knows how Stefan feels. Rebekah tells Stefan that her revenge on him is the eternity of pain he’s going to feel. And now that he’s no use to her, he can leave the school. Elena asks him to wait, but he ignores her.
Bonnie finds Shane back in his office, where he tells her that Kol is going to be a problem. She’s distressed because she almost killed April, and Shane doesn’t seem to care. He says Bonnie doesn’t know the full extent of her abilities yet. She knows he’s been teaching her black magic, and she can’t be using it while her father is running the town. Shane denies that expression is black magic. It’s just a type of magic that the spirits don’t monitor. It has no limits, which means Bonnie can make the rules. “You are the key to everything,” Shane tells her. He promises not to let anything bad happen to her.
Damon is burying Erin when Elena calls to tell him that Stefan knows about them. Damon’s happy not to be in town right now. Elena asks about Jeremy, and Damon says the answer to that depends on how much she trusts him. She says he knows she trusts him. Damon tells her that Jeremy will get through this fine.
Elena says she realized something about them. It might be related to the sire bond and it might not, but it’s the most real thing she’s felt in her life: She loves him. Damon promises to get the cure for her, but he warns that that will require doing things she won’t like. Then he tells her to come to the lake house.
Stefan calls Rebekah over to Vamp Villa to confirm that she still wants to find the cure. She does, but not for herself – she wants to force it down Klaus’ throat and see the look in his eyes when he realizes he’s mortal again. But she doesn’t think she has any hope of getting it, with Shane dead and the rest of the gang useless. Stefan tells her that Shane isn’t dead, thanks to Bonnie.
Rebekah notes that Stefan didn’t have to tell her that. Stefan says he needs to know the truth about how Elena feels about Damon, or he’ll go crazy. Rebekah warns that Shane has a hidden agenda, and he admitted to the council explosion. She doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that 12 people died then and Klaus killed 12 hybrids. Stefan knows from Nandi that mass human sacrifices can fuel dark spells. He says he and Rebekah will figure out how to manage Shane while they search for the cure.
Rebekah scoffs at Stefan’s implication that they’ll work together, but he notes that Klaus has the sword, Damon has Jeremy, and Shane has Bonnie. Stefan and Rebekah might as well team up and try to get to the cure first, which will allow them to decide what happens to it.
At the Grill, April announces that Shane brainwashed Pastor Young into killing himself and the council. She’s talking to Liz and Rudy. April thinks it’s time for everyone in town to start telling the truth.
Damon takes Jeremy and Matt to a bar called the Zanadew. Everyone inside is dead, thanks to Klaus. Well, technically, they’re not dead. They’re in transition, and when they wake up, Jeremy will have a bunch of vampires to kill. Damon has agreed to let Klaus try out his plan, so Jeremy needs to shift into hunter mode, because the newbie vampires are starting to wake up.
Etc.: Matt’s face when Jeremy tries to go up against Damon during their training session is perfect. He’s thinking, “You’re a moron” and then, “See, I told you you were a moron.”
Mystic Falls must be desperate for leadership if their seventh choice for interim mayor was a traveling pharmaceutical rep who never spends time in town.
I wish we knew where the gang was keeping the indestructible stake that they all seem to have access to.
April actually taking notes cracks me up, and I’d love to see her flowchart.
Klaus could have solved two problems at once by having Jeremy kill the hybrids in the last episode, but noooo, he just had to throw a big tantrum and kill them himself.
An Eternity of Misery 