Bonnie wakes up from a restless sleep and sees someone she thinks is Elena in the Super Suite. When she gets out of bed, she’s alone, at least until Lily appears behind her. Bonnie senses her and grabs a fireplace poker. Lily says she escaped her cell at Vamp Villa and came to again demand that Bonnie find a way to get the Heretics out of the 1903 prison world. There has to be some kind of loophole she can use. Bonnie refuses.
Lily vamps out, so Bonnie tries to do a spell to protect herself. Nothing happens. Lily rushes her but Bonnie stabs her with the poker and runs out. Unfortunately, she runs right into Kai. He tells her he siphoned her magic while she was asleep. Now she’s going to suffer the consequences of screwing him over. Lily joins them to get her own revenge.
Fortunately, this is all a dream. Elena wakes Bonnie for real so they can get Jo and help her get ready for her wedding that evening. They head to Vamp Villa, where Jo’s panicking because she can’t find her shoes. Bonnie offers to do a locator spell to find them, even though she’s not sure it’s possible with something other than a person. Really, she’s never tried to use the spell to find, say, missing keys?
Elena calms Jo and offers her a nonalcoholic mimosa (AKA orange juice). Since Jo can’t drink, she wants Elena to do it on her behalf. Elena says she will later; she has human tolerance again, “which is cheaper but a lot less fun.” Heh. She answers a call on Jo’s phone and fails to hide the fact that there’s a big problem. The wedding coordinator is sick and won’t be able to make it. This is the perfect time for Caroline to return from her time away after flipping her switch. Ms. Always in Control is here to save the wedding.
Alaric, Matt, and Tyler are at Alaric’s place, without their own Caroline to make sure they’re taking care of what they’re supposed to. They decide to start their day with shots. Matt and Tyler tease that Alaric will only get to have sex with Jo for the rest of his life. Then again, no one’s beating down his door to get with him, so he’s lucky to have her. Alaric is good-naturedly annoyed with them. Tyler blames his attitude on that night’s full moon. Caroline texts the guys with assignments, which Alaric calls karma.
As Elena’s getting ready, Caroline warns her not to touch the hot part of her curling iron, since she no longer has vamp healing. Elena assures Caroline that she’s not fragile. Caroline asks what it’s like being human again. Elena says she has to be more careful and can’t move as fast, but it’s nice not to have to wear her daylight ring anymore. Plus, as Caroline points out, she doesn’t have the burden of being one switch-flip away from turning into a monster.
Caroline apologizes for telling Elena that she wouldn’t be truly happy with Damon because she wasn’t human. She hopes Elena didn’t take the cure because of that. Elena reminds Caroline that she’s wanted to be human again since the day she turned. She thinks Caroline should be apologizing to someone else instead. Caroline knows, but she wanted to start with an easy one. She’s going to avoid Stefan until she gets her life back in order. Elena tells her that Stefan is spending the day with Damon. As almost an afterthought, she adds that Damon said he would take the cure with her.
Damon’s supposed to be with Alaric, since he’s the best man, but Stefan is taking him somewhere for what he calls quality time before Damon takes the cure. They go to a house in some suburban neighborhood where Stefan lived during one of his attempts to start over. He thinks that when Damon pictures life as a human, he only thinks about Elena and not the normal, everyday stuff like mortgage payments and neighbors. A kid from the house next door accidentally kicks his soccer ball into the yard, so Damon throws it back to him.
Enzo shows up at Vamp Villa, wanting to visit Lily. Bonnie asks if this is an Oedipal thing. She refuses to let a “ruiner” in to see another ruiner, especially on Jo and Alaric’s wedding day. Enzo says he wants to help Lily stay sane with an MP3 player full of songs from the last era she knew before being sent to the prison world. He gives it to Bonnie, who takes it to the basement, where Lily’s talking to herself about wanting to be with her family. When Bonnie peeks into her cell, Lily grabs her by the neck.
Bonnie’s able to get away, and Elena puts some makeup on her bruises so she won’t turn heads at the wedding. Elena thinks Lily’s in the crazy, hallucinatory stage of her forced dryout. Stefan has a plan to get her back on track after that, and Bonnie worries that it involves letting her out. There’s no way Lily will give up on getting the Heretics back, with or without an ascendant.
Jo joins them, ready to put on her dress. She sees that they’re worried and hopes it’s not because something happened to the dress. No, just because there’s a mass-murderering vampire in the basement. You know, the usual. Matt arrives on his way to pick up the centerpieces, hoping someone will come with him so he doesn’t screw anything up. Bonnie offers to tag along.
Caroline and Tyler are already at the wedding venue, a huge tent on a farm. She apologizes for what happened at Scull Bar, and he jokes that being tortured by her and her new boyfriend wasn’t good for his ego. (Caroline protests that Stefan isn’t her boyfriend, but whatever, close enough.) He promises that they’re good. Liv arrives in a black dress, because of course, and immediately gets in a fight with Tyler over their last encounter. She doesn’t think he should judge her for basically trying to kill herself when he’s not great at controlling himself, either. Guys, please believe me when I say that no one cares about this.
Bonnie and Matt discuss Lily as they pick up the centerpieces. She tells him about her nightmare about Lily and Kai. Matt’s gathered some weapons, and he wants to work with Bonnie to take Lily out instead of leaving her in Stefan and Damon’s hands. No objections here but let’s save the murder plot until after the wedding, hmmm?
Stefan and Damon are working through Stefan’s “these are the things you will hate about being human” checklist. Frozen dinners! Paperwork! Taxes! Jobs! Plus, Stefan won’t be able to know where Damon and Elena live. Someone might make him tell them where Damon is so they can take the cure from him, which would kill Damon. He and Elena will probably have to move around a lot and be isolated. “This will be your Hell,” Stefan predicts. Damon disagrees. He already knows what Elena wants, since she told him her hypothetical, if-I-were-human five-year plan. He’s picked out a place for them to live above a bar he’ll own right next to a medical school.
While Damon looks around the house, just for the heck of it, Stefan calls Elena. She tells him she’s on her third glass of champagne so he should speak slowly. He says that her concern that Damon hadn’t thought through being human is misplaced – he’s thought this through pretty thoroughly. Elena wants Stefan to keep pushing and make Damon see that he won’t be happy with the version of life he thinks they’ll have.
After they hang up, she tells Jo that she asked Stefan to make Damon give up hope for their future relationship. She worries that she made a mistake by taking the cure. Jo takes away her champagne glass and goes to make her some coffee so she’ll sober up and stop worrying. But before she can make it to the kitchen, she collapses, hitting her head as she goes down. Without her vamp-healing abilities, Elena doesn’t know what to do.
Like any other human, Elena gets Jo to the hospital, where tests show that she and the babies are fine. Jo figures she had a panic attack from stress, her pregnancy, and skipping breakfast. She asks Elena not to say anything to Alaric. Elena promises she won’t, but that’s only because she already told him. She runs outside to stop him from coming in. She won’t let him see Jo before the wedding – Mystic Falls isn’t a place to take superstitions lightly. She tells him Jo’s fine, just stressed.
Elena laments the fact that she couldn’t vamp run to Jo or heal her. But after she realized she couldn’t follow her vampire instincts, she followed her human instincts. It felt empowering. She wishes Alaric had told her how great it is to be human again. Elena thought it might dull her senses but it’s actually made her feel connected to the world again – alive. Alaric says it’s because she knows her life has purpose again.
Caroline tries to get Tyler and Liv to mellow out with alcohol, but Liv has already made it clear she’s going to keep her distance from her ex. Caroline encourages Tyler to talk to her like adults and work out their problems. She’s not thrilled that he dropped out of the program he was in with Matt and has no purpose in his life. When he was with Liv, he was trying. Tyler doesn’t think Caroline should give him relationship advice after months of “Stefan drama.” He tells her to worry about her own life.
Stefan calls Caroline but she doesn’t answer. Damon tells his brother that while he appreciates his efforts to make him rethink his decision, they need to get moving. First, Stefan wants to talk about breakups. What if Damon and Elena don’t last? Damon would still be human, but now he’d be alone. Damon denies that he and Elena won’t be together forever. Stefan grabs him by the head to make him see what could really happen.
In Stefan’s version of Damon and Elena’s future, her medical residency leaves her tired and him resentful. A few years later, he’s drinking late at his bar every night because she’s working long hours and doesn’t pay enough attention to him. She tells him that if he doesn’t want to own the bar anymore, he can sell it and do something he wants to do. Damon complains that he can’t do what he really wants, which is drink all night without getting drunk and kill people without getting arrested. Elena’s the reason he can’t be who he used to be. They both agree that they made a mistake.
Damon shoves Stefan off of him and accuses him of projecting – he’s really worried about himself being alone, without Damon or Elena. Stefan notes that even if Damon and Elena defy statistics and stay together, they can’t control life and death. Elena is no longer immortal. What would Damon’s life look like as a widower? Stefan gives him another look at the future, where Damon’s truly alone. It’s pretty depressing.
Damon says Stefan’s being harsh. Stefan tells him that that’s what Elena requested. Damon can’t believe the two people closest to him are being so sadistic. Stefan reminds him that becoming human again is something he can’t take back. Damon asks what Stefan thinks he should do. But Stefan can’t tell him, and neither can Elena. Damon has to make the decision and want to be human for himself.
As guests start arriving for the wedding, Elena assures Caroline that Jo is fine. She spots Stefan approaching, so Caroline runs off. Elena teases that people get uncomfortable seeing Salvatores in tuxes; it stirs up certain feelings. Stefan jokes that she wants to swap brothers again now that she’s human. Damon’s not there yet, since he asked for some time to think. Elena guesses that Stefan doesn’t want Damon to take the cure. Stefan says it’s not up to him, but Elena urges him to tell her how he really feels. Stefan admits that he doesn’t want to lose his brother.
Elena asks what he thinks Damon will do. Stefan notes that she never knew Damon as a human. He was aimless and always wanted to find something more. As they talk, Damon sits on the front porch of the house, taking in the normal neighborhood activities he’ll have to deal with every day. He’s not too happy about them.
Stefan tells Elena that human Damon was sweet but never strong. That came when he found himself and became the real Damon. The kid next door kicks the ball into the yard again, and Damon, on edge and at the end of his rope, deflates it in front of him. Stefan tells Elena that Damon loves being a vampire. He doesn’t see Damon ever giving that up.
An hour before the wedding is supposed to start, Bonnie and Matt go to Vamp Villa to kill Lily. Bonnie’s worried that they’ll be late for the ceremony and suffer Caroline’s wrath. When they get to the basement, Lily’s cell is empty. Bonnie thinks Enzo let her out. As she starts to make calls to warn the gang, Matt suddenly starts choking for no apparent reason. The same thing happens to Bonnie and they both pass out.
Lily finds Enzo at the Grill and thanks him for the MP3 player. She tells him that she wasn’t released from her cell, but she’s “resourceful.” She promises that she’s not going to go on a Ripper binge. She only reverted to that state because she lost her family. Today, she’s getting them back.
Alaric calls Jo as she’s getting ready, claiming he needs help with his vows. “What rhymes with ‘battlefield clamp’?” he asks. “Divorce,” she quips. He notes that there are a ton of Gemini witches in attendance. Joshua hasn’t shown up yet. Yes, Joshua, who tried to kill Jo, got invited to the wedding. He arrives as she and Alaric are saying sweet things to each other, eager to see each other at the altar. Instead of apologizing for, you know, TRYING TO KILL HIS DAUGHTER, he asks if he can walk her down the aisle.
Caroline runs into Stefan and again tries to run away. She pretends she’s too busy with organizing things to talk to him, but he doesn’t buy it. He sidesteps talk of where they stand and what they did while their humanity was off and instead asks her if he’s wrong for not wanting Damon to take the cure. Caroline assures him that he’s not selfish for feeling that way.
He takes her hand and she asks if he hates her. He promises he doesn’t. Caroline says she made a list of all the things she’s done since she fell for him (which started after he moved away). On top of her obsessions over where he was and what he was doing, she missed Liz’s final moments because she was busy kissing Stefan. She just wanted him to tell her that he felt the same about her as she did about him. When he didn’t, she turned off her humanity, then got him to do the same.
Stefan simply says he forgives her, but Caroline says the old her would have smacked her and asked what she was doing. She hates how her feelings for Stefan have changed her. He says it’s just because she’s “a control freak who’s lost control.” He feels the same when he’s with her. That’s what it means to fall for someone – it’s feeling vulnerable and giving up control. Caroline knows, but at this point in her life, with all her grief and guilt, she’s not ready to let go of the little control she still has. Any relationship they might have been heading toward is still on hold.
Damon finally arrives and tells Elena that Stefan made a convincing argument. He even changed Damon’s mind. But then… In a flashback, Damon compels the kid with the soccer ball to get his mom’s car keys so Damon has a way to get to the wedding. Then he decides to steal a car from some other neighbors, an older couple just getting home. They’ve been married for 40 years and the wife complains that the husband always reminds her to bring in her leftovers after they go to a restaurant.
Damon sees the way his future with Elena could play out – getting tired of each other after so many years together – but when the husband gives his wife’s butt an affectionate squeeze, they stop bickering and kiss. This is what Damon really wants: someone to grow old with. He tells Elena he’s taking the cure. He had a great time as a vampire, but he’s ready to give it up to be her husband, her partner, and the father of her children.
Elena doesn’t want him to take it just for her, but Damon says he’s doing this for them. Even if things turn out horrible and he ends up alone and miserable, just the small chance of having a perfect life with Elena is better than the chance of spending eternity without her. He loves her and will continue to love her until he dies.
Caroline tries to call Elena, who’s gone MIA. Caroline is furious and says they’re starting the wedding without Elena and Damon. Jo overhears the call and just laughs. Stefan comes in to let Caroline know that people are getting restless, so she tells him to get the musicians started. Damon and Elena are in a barn, having slipped away for a quickie, and when his vamp hearing picks up the music from the wedding tent, they realize they’re late. They run to Caroline, who says she hopes the delay was worth it. Yeah, I think it was. Bonnie and Matt also haven’t shown up yet, but since they’re not the best man and maid of honor, it’s not as noticeable.
As Caroline sends Damon and Elena down the aisle, Matt wakes up and finds Bonnie bleeding. She tries to tell him what happened but can’t get the words out. At the altar, Damon tells Alaric he’s going to take the cure: “It’s a big night for both of us.” They say they’re proud of each other. Joshua walks Jo down the aisle, and the bride and groom happily join each other at the altar.
Lily takes Enzo to a warehouse district full of shipping containers. Someone told her to go there, but it doesn’t seem to be the right place, since no one’s there. Enzo asks who gave her the location. Back at the wedding, Alaric tells Jo that they’ve both dodged fate and beaten the odds. Because they did, he got to meet a woman who intimidates and inspires him. Jo has shown him that he can have happiness in his life. He vows to love and dodge fate with her for the rest of their lives.
Jo starts to say her vows, then suddenly stops. Alaric sees blood spreading on the front of her dress. She screams and he catches her as she collapses. Kai appears behind her, having hidden himself with a cloaking spell so he could stab her. “I was gonna wait ’til the ‘death do us part’ bit but it seemed a little on the nose,” he says. Joshua stands to approach him but Kai hits everyone in the room with magic migraines. “Miss me?” he asks. I did! With a flick of his wrist, he makes all the glass in the room shatter. Damon and Elena are blown back by the impact and she’s knocked unconscious.
Etc.: Entrusting Tyler with the wedding rings before the ceremony seems like a bad idea to me. Then again, it’s funny to think of him as the ring bearer.
The style of Liv’s dress combined with her new shoulder-length haircut make her look like she just came from the set of a Madonna video.
This is how I imagine Lily reacted to getting Enzo’s MP3 player.
Imagine Elena, Damon, Alaric, and Jo all moving away together and going on double dates and stuff. How long before Jo refused to spend any more time with Damon?
So did Alaric’s family come to the wedding and we just didn’t get to meet them, or what? I’m frustrated that in all his time on this show and in four whole seasons of Legacies, we never learn anything about his parents or what they know or don’t know about his life. Do they even know he’s alive??
Also, Jeremy didn’t come. That’s sad.
An Eternity of Misery 