Rafael is running through the woods, being chased by the Necromancer. Well, really, he’s remembering being chased through the woods by the Necromancer. He comes out of it when Alaric calls everyone to a morning assembly. Landon invites Rafael to sit with him and Hope, but when Hope sees them, she heads off alone. Rafael peels off as well, leaving a confused Landon behind. (That might be redundant. I feel like Landon is probably confused a lot.)
Alaric tells the students that Josie is missing but they’re doing everything they can to find her. The wolves are searching and the vampires have compelled the police to help out. If any students see her, they should keep their distance, since she’s under the influence of black magic and isn’t herself. Alaric promises that he’ll bring back the Josie they know and love.
Dark Josie flies (literally) down some stairs to make a grand entrance. She doesn’t think people should be surprised to see her – she wasn’t going to miss her and Lizzie’s birthday. She’s put together her own Super Squad, though this is the Super-Villain Squad. They have matching outfits! How fun! She sends them to start setting up for her birthday party while she talks to M.G.
He gives her a book of fairy tales to replace a copy he accidentally spilled root beer on. He thinks the day that happened was the day they became friends. “You’re never gonna give up on the good inside of me, are you?” Josie realizes. He says it’s not his style. She hugs him, then siphons from him until he starts to desiccate. Kaleb zooms in and gets M.G. out of her grasp. Hope watches as she tells him she has plenty of hugs to go around.
Alaric uses the conversation prism to talk to Vardemus about the therapy box, which he’s preparing for a new simulation. Hope and Kaleb come in and guess that he’s going to put Josie in it. It’s a dumb idea, since she can control what happens inside. Vardemus told Alaric that at this higher difficulty level, she won’t have that power. Plus, it’ll be a holding cell for her until Alaric and Caroline can figure out how to help her.
Kaleb worries that she’ll hurt someone before they can accomplish that. She already tried with M.G. Alaric thinks it’s good that Josie only tried to desiccate M.G., since she’s capable of doing worse. It means she can still be reached. Kaleb isn’t sure. He and Hope tell Alaric that the only way to protect everyone at the school is to treat Josie the way they would treat a Malivore monster. They’re not surprised when he doesn’t agree, and they’ve already discussed how to handle that. Hope puts Alaric in the therapy box to keep him out of the way while they come up with another plan.
Landon meets up with Rafael in a spot in the woods where he thinks something happened. Judging by all the blood there, he’s right. He has a flash of memory involving a knife and tells Landon that he thinks someone died there…because of him.
Hope and Lizzie meet up in the gym, where the Super-Villain Squad is putting up black decorations. Hope thinks Lizzie should be in hiding, but Lizzie figures that if Josie comes after her, the safest place for her right now is with Hope. She’s probably right.
Josie joins them, inviting them to ask any questions they might have. Hope asks where Normal Josie is, and Dark Josie says she’s gone. Lizzie promises that she’ll try to change from her selfish ways if Normal Josie comes back. Dark Josie knows that never sticks, so she’s not interested. Hope asks why she came back to the school when she must know that they can bring back her good side. Josie reveals her true motive with a banner that says, “Happy Merge Day.” Apparently the merge age of 22 is just a suggestion; Gemini twins can merge at any time. Tonight’s agenda is finger foods around 7:30, followed by the merge at 8:00.
Alaric’s therapy-box simulation has him playing an Indiana Jones-type character. He’s just found the lost Temple of Potest. Inside is an elixir of life that will save his daughters. He tosses up a grappling hook so he can scale the wall around the temple.
Now that she knows Josie wants to merge and absorb her, Lizzie’s decided to run away. M.G. asks her to hear Hope’s plan. They can’t save Josie without Lizzie’s help. Lizzie agrees to listen, as long as the plan involves a nuclear warhead. Because that’s what Josie needs right now – access to a weapon of mass destruction. Use your head, Lizzie!
Hope wants to use a potion that will “create a fortified locality” in Lizzie’s psyche when she and Josie merge. And yes, this plan requires them to merge. It also depends on Lizzie winning, absorbing Josie, and creating a space to divide the twins’ consciousnesses. Once they’ve removed all the dark magic from Josie, they can put her mind back in her body. What if Lizzie loses? Dunno. Everyone just has to be really optimistic that Lizzie will win.
To help her get there, M.G. puts her through a series of training exercises like they’re in an ’80s movie. Oh, wait – that’s just his imagination. He doesn’t seem to get that the merge is mental, not physical. Hope says they need to get a witch to help Lizzie. Lizzie has another idea, and she heads off to see a witch who can tell her if she’ll win.
The Necromancer watches her through the zombie eye, annoyed that the eye won’t follow her fast enough. He knows Hope is up to something. Chad, who’s eating popcorn, says she always has a great plan, and somehow also has time for a personal life. The Necromancer tells him that he’s missing the latest twist: Josie has found the eye. “It looks like our favorite show’s about to get canceled,” Chad comments. “More like getting a spin-off,” Josie replies, suddenly joining them in the crypt via astral projection. Meta!
The Necromancer introduces himself, using all those titles he thinks always make people quake. “I thought you’d be taller,” Josie comments. Chad’s like, “What up, I’m just Chad.” Josie can’t believe these two are the “masterminds” behind all the Malivore stuff.
Landon uses the conversation prism to contact Vardemus for help with a homework assignment (allegedly). He and Rafael want to use a plat en argent, which is basically a magical DNA test. When they place a drop of blood on the plate, it will show them the face of the person it belongs to. Landon finds Vardemus nice but gullible, and he gets why Clarke was able to trick him so easily.
Rafael wants to get on it and find out who he killed. Landon is sure he didn’t hurt anyone, and there’s no need to use the plate. Okay, but if someone lost that much blood, don’t you want to know who it was, in case they need help? Rafael says he wants to know one way or the other. He can’t believe in himself as much as Landon believes in him. Landon is sure they’ll be able to get answers from whoever’s face shows up on the plate.
Lizzie has Alyssa do an empathic trance to read her. She reveals that Lizzie isn’t afraid of Josie hurting her – she’s afraid of hurting Josie. Alyssa is sure even without her crystal ball that Josie is going to destroy Lizzie. Lizzie’s scared of both winning and losing, which means she’s going to die simply because she’s become a better person.
“Screw personal growth, okay?” Lizzie says. “I am going back to looking out for number one.” She won’t do the merge. Alyssa approves and tells Lizzie to live long and prosper. The door to Twin Turret flies open, revealing Josie in the hallway. “She won’t – and neither will you,” she says. With a twist of her wrist, she magically breaks Alyssa’s neck. She warns Lizzie that if she doesn’t come to the merge, her friends will die next.
Jed sadly carries Alyssa’s body to Alaric’s office and presses Hope to do her usual hero thing and stop this most recent monster. M.G. comes in and tells Hope that Lizzie took off. Hope laments that she knew Josie was dangerous but didn’t think she would go this far. M.G. blames himself, since he wasn’t able to get through to Josie. Kaleb tells him that there’s no getting through to her now.
Hope says firmly that they’re not giving up on Josie. The only way to protect everyone is to get her back. If they don’t, Alyssa will have died for nothing. They need to move forward with their plan. Hope tells M.G. to get Lizzie and bring her back. Lizzie needs M.G. – they all do.
Kaleb thinks it’s time for a new plan in case Hope is wrong. His plan involves weapons. Hope doesn’t want him to interfere, so she puts him in the therapy box with Alaric. Kaleb is Professor Hawkins, an archaeologist who wants to team up with Alaric to get to the elixir. He’s also British, for some reason.
Rafael examines his scar again as the plat de argent does its thing. The blood the guys placed there takes the form of the head of the person it belongs to. Rafael is shocked at what he sees. Meanwhile, M.G. finds Lizzie at a gas station, thanks to a locator spell (“witches gonna witch”). She guesses that he has a big speech prepared to convince her to go back to the school. She knows running is selfish, but she doesn’t want to die. M.G. tells her that Hope doesn’t want anyone to get hurt, including Lizzie. If she’s going to run, he wants to go with her.
Hope waits for Landon in his room, where he’s surprised to see that Rafael and the plate are both gone. Hope apologizes for being weird, but Landon already knows from Rafael that it’s because the therapy box made her think they’re not destined to be together. He promises that he’s not going anywhere – there’s nothing she can do to push him away. Plus, since he’s a phoenix who can resurrect every time he dies, she’s stuck with him forever.
Hope needs his help protecting both the school and Josie, though she’s not sure she can do both. Landon thinks she can, since she always does. Before she can tell him what she needs from him, the Necromancer’s voice blares over the school’s PA system. All the students need to report to the gym or else.
There, a boxing ring is set up for the merge. The Necromancer showboats as the ref while the students boo him. He introduces Josie as “the former queen of codependency, the reigning sultan of siphon.” She enters with a couple of hooded minions to a song whose lyrics say she plays to win. The minions take off their hoods, revealing Chad…and Alyssa. She blows Jed a kiss, then holds up the ropes around the ring so Josie can enter.
Josie praises the Necromancer for being “one hell of a hype man.” He introduces Lizzie as “the queen of mean, the blonde banshee, she who is about to be siphoned into oblivion.” Music plays but Lizzie doesn’t appear. Josie considers who her next murder victim should be, since Lizzie didn’t keep their deal. Should she kill a witch? A vampire? A werewolf? Hope enters, flipping over the top rope and landing in front of Josie in the ring. “Why not try all three?” she says.
Lizzie asks M.G. if he’s really sure about going on the run. He tells her he’s done being a hero. He wasn’t able to help Alyssa. Lizzie asks if Superman always saves the day. Yeah, pretty much, but as M.G. notes, this is real, not a comic book. He was dumb to think he could make a difference. Lizzie thinks a hero’s true test isn’t being strong when it’s easy but when it’s hard. But since she’s running, she’s not a hero, either. They’re selfless.
M.G. points out that they haven’t left yet, which means she’s not actually running. Lizzie kind of wishes she could go back to the way her life was when she only cared about herself. Also, she knows this was M.G.’s way of convincing her to go back to the school. He says he really would have gone with her if she’d run, but he trusted that she would make the right decision.
Alaric’s not having any luck with the grappling hook, and Kaleb suggests again that they work together. Alaric doesn’t think he can trust Kaleb. Kaleb says his colleagues are trusting him to bring back the elixir, too. If they work together, they can split it. Alaric worries that half won’t be enough for his daughters. Kaleb notes that going home with nothing definitely won’t save them. Alaric can work with Kaleb or shoot him.
Alaric fires his gun, but he’s just shooting a snake behind Kaleb. He hates snakes (because he’s Indiana Jones, see?) and hopes Kaleb won’t turn out to be one. He’ll try this working-together thing. But the vines on the side of the wall begin moving, and they form the word “sociis” (ally). Alaric’s game is over.
Landon finds Rafael at the dock, about to kill himself the way Landon did over and over during the summer. He promises that he’ll stand by Rafael no matter what he did or who he hurt. Rafael shows him the head on the plate – it’s his own. He’s the one who died in the woods.
Josie and Hope have a magic battle in the gym, but neither is really satisfied. Josie’s bored and Hope just wants the real Josie to come out. She refuses to accept that Dark Josie is the real one. Dark Josie may say that Normal Josie is weak, but it’s not true – no one could shoulder her burdens without strength. She’s always there for her friends, and they need her to be there now.
The Necromancer urges Josie to kill Hope. Josie’s overwhelmed by the noise in the room and yells for everyone to shut up. Normal Josie starts to take back control of her body, but Dark Josie pulls her back. She scoffs at Hope for thinking she would be the one to bring out Josie’s good side. “I don’t even think she likes you,” Josie says. She levitates Hope and asks if she has any last words for her tombstone. Hope just tells Normal Josie to fight to take back control.
Unimpressed, Josie starts to let Hope drop right over a huge piece of broken wood. Hope suddenly stops in midair – Lizzie has arrived in time to save her. She lets Josie know that black isn’t her color. Josie remarks that Lizzie’s late to her own funeral. “No, I am right on time to kick your a%$,” Lizzie replies. Everyone cheers.
She confirms that Hope’s potion will work (again, if she wins). Hope thanks her for coming back. Lizzie ribs her a little for sending “Jiminy Cricket” after her. M.G. is sure she would have done the right thing without him. He lets her siphon him for more power, and she does it by kissing him. She claims that was for him, not her, in case she loses.
Lizzie tells “sister Satan” that she’s ready for the merge, but not until everyone else is safe. Jed takes charge of getting everyone out of the gym. “For the record, this huge act of selflessness fully cancels out all of my previous misdeeds,” Lizzie calls out. “No, it doesn’t!” someone yells back off-screen. Ha! As everyone leaves, Jed spots the zombie eye.
The Necromancer hands Josie a knife, which she eagerly uses to cut open her hand. She’s been waiting a long time for this. Lizzie taunts that she should have used that waiting time to come up with something clever to say. Josie cuts Lizzie’s hand and they start the merge. M.G. asks if Hope really thinks Lizzie can win. Hope replies that if she can’t, they’ll have to pray that their plan B works. Things occur just like they did with Kai and Luke, and Hope and M.G. aren’t sure which twin is winning.
Rafael tells Landon that he couldn’t make sense of all the pieces he was trying to put together until he heard the Necromancer’s voice on the PA system. Suddenly he remembered everything. When he got off the bus after visiting Walt, Chad and the Necromancer attacked him. He fought them, then ran into the woods, where Chad stabbed him. Since Rafael didn’t stay dead, the Necromancer must have resurrected him and could use him to hurt Landon.
Landon doesn’t want to believe this, but Rafael puts Landon’s hand to his chest to prove that he doesn’t have a heartbeat. “I’m already gone,” he says. Landon won’t let him end his life again, but Rafael says he had plenty of time to do it earlier and couldn’t. He feels like the Necromancer won’t let him. He needs Landon to kill him instead. Landon refuses, of course, but Rafael notes that he doesn’t have free will anymore and doesn’t want to be someone’s puppet. Landon needs to use his own free will to do what Rafael’s asking.
The twins finish their part of the merge and both fall unconscious. Back at the dock, Landon starts to collapse. He complains about the bad timing. Rafael asks what’s happening, and Landon explains that it’s plan B.
Alaric and Kaleb go to the gym, shocked to see that Alyssa’s alive. Alaric thinks the Necromancer was behind the merge, but he says it was all Josie’s idea. Alaric rushes to Lizzie and cradles her in his arms. Across the ring, Josie gets up and tells him not to cry: “One less mouth to feed.”
Alaric calls another assembly and tells the students that he was wrong that morning when he said they’d be okay once they got Josie back. That Josie is gone, and now Lizzie is, too. In the Salvatore crypt, the Necromancer watches through the zombie eye and tells Josie that her sister’s dead. The birthday girl is very pleased to have gotten what she asked for.
“How’d I do?” Alaric asks Kaleb as they go to his office after the assembly. It was all for show, a trick for their now-discovered spy. Lizzie wakes up, to Alaric’s relief, and gets big hugs from her father and M.G. She thinks this means she won the merge and that Josie’s dead, but Alaric tells her that this was part of Hope’s plan B.
M.G. explains that the potion Lizzie took wasn’t just to separate her mind from Josie’s. It also temporarily linked Lizzie’s life to Landon (kind of like the linking spell between Elena and John in “The Sun Also Rises”, or maybe more like the one between Elena and Alaric in “The Departed”) (these people like to do linking spells). When Lizzie died, so did Landon, but since he’s immortal, they both came back.
Alaric tells her that Hope thinks they can get Josie back. M.G. helped her do a head-dive on Josie. That’s why Hope needed the merge to happen – she needed Josie to be vulnerable. Lizzie asks why no one told her the plan. Alaric notes that her and Josie’s minds were going to meld, so they couldn’t risk Josie figuring things out. M.G. praises Lizzie for being a hero.
She clarifies that Hope is in Josie’s mind, and Kaleb tells her there’s more. Hope is in a hidden compartment in the office, unconscious. Alaric tells Lizzie that no one can know she’s alive – the Necromancer is spying, and they need to “play to his camera.”
The students have fallen for it, and the Necromancer and Josie are watching them talk about Lizzie’s “death.” Now the Necromancer wants to use Josie’s dark magic to raise Malivore and control him. Josie notes that he could put himself in Landon’s body and become invincible. The Necromancer isn’t worried – he has plans for Landon.
Landon resurrects on the dock and assures Rafael that Hope, who found a plan B for Lizzie, will find one for him, too. Rafael says that the Necromancer wouldn’t let him leave. Landon promises that they won’t let him win. As usual, he’s all in to help his brother. But Rafael was right, and the Necromancer is using him. While he and Landon are hugging, he stabs Landon with the golden arrow. He stands there silently as Landon collapses and dies.
Etc.: How did they put out the fire from the end of the previous episode without any massive damage to the school? The doorway is blocked off with caution tape, but that’s pretty much it. The fire was big enough that it should have taken down a good chunk of the building.
“This is great – instead of killing M.G. for good, Josie only killed him a little!” Are you listening to yourself, Ric?
I’m not sure if this is significant like the escape words are, but “potest” is Latin for chance, power, and strength.
Fun with out-of-context quotes: “We’ve gotta get a faster eyeball.”
I love how Chad and the Necromancer treat the stuff they see through the zombie eye like it’s their favorite TV show. What trouble will the Super Squad find themselves in this week? Tune in and find out!
M.G. finally calls Lizzie out on something people should have realized long ago: She makes way too many Hobbit references to not secretly be a Tolkien fan.
Having Lizzie wear white while Josie’s in black at the merge is, as Lizzie would say, “a little on the nose, don’t you think?”
The exchange with Lizzie saying the merge makes up for her past and someone replying that it doesn’t is perfect.
The ending would be more compelling if someone had confirmed that Landon can be permanently killed with the golden arrow. Yeah, yeah, the prophecy – prophecies say a lot of things.
An Eternity of Misery 