Rebekah is back and since she was lying In a coffin with a stake through her heart for the last few episodes, she needed to catch up; so she grabbed Elena, Caroline and Stefan, compelled them to do her bidding then sat them all down in the school library for a talk. After that it was like a strange vampire version of The Breakfast Club as one by one, they spilled their true feelings and gave up the lies. Stefan confronted his pain over losing Elena, Elena admitted that she slept with Damon not because she was sired but because he makes her feel alive, Stefan makes her feel like a science project, Damon is wild and unpredictable and its working for her.
Three is fun but not a party, so Rebekah brings on Tyler and her original brother Kol. He brings Professor Shane as his plus one and then they torture him to find out what he’s up to (the old fashioned way of course). Shane admits that it’s not really the cure that he’s after but the man with the cure, Silas. The very mention of Silas’s name enrages Kol, who impales Shane before explaining to Rebekah how dangerous Silas would be for everyone. What they don’t realize is that Bonnie is close by working a protection spell using the nifty bone necklace Shane gave her earlier in the episode. However, the spell works too well and links April to Shane, and she starts to bleed out when he’s impaled, keeping Shane alove. Bonnie and Stefan save her, after the group escape from Tyler, who was compelled to turn and hunt them.
Meanwhile, Klaus is on to Damon’s game. He knows that all this vampire hunter training is just a front to keep Jeremy from taking lives. So he decides to give Jeremy a push by turning the pizza girl, leaving Jeremy with no choice but to stake her. Finally, it’s big reveal time. Elena calls Damon and says that she loves him and its not the vampire blood talking. He says come to me baby and I melt into a puddle on the floor. Stefan calls Rebekah to his place to make a deal. I hate my brother, you hate yours, so lets be partners. Bonnie finds Shane, who says that he miscalculated and that Kol will be a problem (he should have calculated that originally, we all know what Kol was like – even Klaus was a little stand-offish about him at first), and that he needs to make adjustments. April informs the Sherif and new Mayor (Bonnie’s father) that it was Shane who killed the council.
Switch to a lonely bar outside of town and a half-dozen vampires in transition, thanks to Klaus. Now all Jeremy has to do is kill them all so the tattoo will grow. Damon tells jeremy that this is a better plan, and the episode ends with the vampires coming round.
It was a great first episode back, which acted as a nice recap, with some fun revelations. The best bits were definitely the continuation of sinister Klaus, the fun return of Rebekah, and the triumphant re-entry of Kol. I can’t wait for next week to see how the story unfolds.
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