The Vampire Diaries: The End of the Affair (Season 2, Episode 3)

Would you like another drink, my completely heterosexual friend?

And we begin with an ambiguous call from Katherine (!) to Damon. Katherine seems to know everything about Klaus and Stefan, even though she won’t give any answers. Is our dear Katherine hoping for Stefan’s safety? The audience discovers that Klaus has dragged Stefan to Chicago. Klaus thinks it a shame that Stefan doesn’t remember his time in Chicago due to blackouts.

Flashback to 1920s: Stefan is having sex with/killing a young lady in the back of the car. After, he wipes off his mouth, takes a flower out of her hair, and saunters away. Klaus lets us know that we will be following this ripper who moved to Chicago due to loneliness. Great music plays as a remarkably Damonesque Stefan walks through the back door of a nightclub. A blond vixen with a British accent approaches him and notes that he is still “wearing his date.” She later tells an arrogant Stefan to shut up so she can listen to the music.

Damon pulls a Katherine by slipping into Elena’s bed at 6 a.m. He makes a few entendres, pulls out sexy red underwear, and invites her to join him on a trip to Chicago to find Stefan. It’s funny that she asks if he really has nothing better to do so early in the morning, since clearly he’d rather protect her than do anything else. The two road trip it to Chicago. He wants her to read Stefan’s diaries, filled with entries describing black-outs, blood, and women. Damon snarks that he’s shocked Stefan’s not a virgin. Elena claims that she’s seen Stefan at his darkest. Um, no she hasn’t. She saw Stefan almost kill a girl, and Stefan pushed her into a wall. She hasn’t seen him rip bodies apart and massacre villages.

Isn't it weird that we're not drinking bodily fluids?

Stefan ignores Klaus’s descriptions of Chicago as magical and wonders why Klaus is still keeping him around. Klaus says they’re going to see a witch. They meet Gloria, who is mortal but aging slowly thanks to spells. Klaus makes a crack (“A hybrid walks into a bar…”) and orders Stefan to fix them a drink. Gloria says she needs Bex. Stefan finds a picture of him with Klaus! It appears Katherine wasn’t the only one aware of Stefan’s whereabouts at all times.

Meanwhile, Caroline’s absolutely psychotic father tortures her with vervain and sunlight, after taking off her ring. He thinks this will somehow fix her. Sheriff Liz Forbes calls an absent Caroline and Tyler knocks on her door, but Caroline’s dad is pulling a Clockwork Orange: he’s conditioning her to associate bloodlust with pain. Any struggles with acceptance he might have had as a gay man are clearly thrown out the window when it comes to accepting his daughter as she is. To be fair, being gay does not involve turning into a murderous predator, but these scenes are still repulsive.

Damon and Elena visit Stefan’s creepy old apartment which was near an all-girls school. Inside a secret closet, Stefan has written the names of his victims. Shiver. Damon admits that he himself wasn’t a saint, but Stefan was a “cocky ripper douche.” He leaves her to contemplate that while he checks out Stefan’s other stomping grounds. I guess they’re just hoping Stefan and Klaus don’t return to his apartment?

G-L-O-R-I-A, Gloooria.

Stefan is so frustrated that Klaus didn’t say anything about their first meeting he grabs Klaus, who removes his arm and says that he hated Stefan. Flashback: Stefan and the vampire girl Bex chomp on a babe and then make out. Klaus comes along and rips Bex, his sister, away from Stefan, apparently jealous. Klaus seems pretty incestuous, with both Elijah and Bex. She says Klaus isn’t her boyfriend, but he says he’s her brother and she has to do what he says. He also makes fun of Stefan’s hair.

Klaus proceeds to open a coffin and pull a dagger out of Bex. At first Stefan is confused, then he is frightened. Klaus says that Stefan has many useful talents and he learned some of his favorite tricks from him. Flashback: the elitist Klaus kicks back and states that he’s killed his family. Bex chose his side. Stefan isn’t fazed. When a man asks for his wife, Stefan compels him to sit down and orders her over. He then forces the horrified man to drink her blood out of a glass. Bex and Klaus think this is hilarious. You can just see Klaus thinking, “Drinking blood out of a glass. Sadistic fraternity games. Classy.”

Stefan doesn’t believe Klaus, but he says he will prove their friendship by going to his old apartment. Damon, what were you thinking? After the two leave, Damon visits Gloria’s bar. He puts the moves on her, but she declines because he’s a vampire, even though she prefers him to Stefan and thinks he’s cute. She also states that Stefan and Klaus are a bad combo.

Bros before real actual biological bros.

Elena reads Stefan’s diary, detailing Lexi’s continual attempts to rehabilitate him. Stefan and Klaus enter his apartment. Klaus knows there’s someone there, but Stefan attributes it to a break in. Elena hides in the closet. Luckily for her, Klaus opens the door for Stefan to look in. They share a moment, and Stefan says, “Look what I’ve found,” before grabbing a bottle of whisky to share with Klaus. They leave. Thank goodness that Stefan’s improved his poker face. At the same time, was his, “Look what I’ve found,” intended to scare Elena? Also, still creepy to know that Stefan wrote the names of his victims down so he could repeatedly relive their deaths.

Damon returns and is all business in spite of a shaken Elena. He says he realized what a bad idea it was to leave her there. He says he will distract Klaus for five minutes or until Klaus rips his heart out while she talks to Stefan. This is a bad plan. First, Stefan won’t go with her since Klaus will kill them all if he does. Second, does Damon expect to die then and there or somehow scoot away?

Stefan and Klaus are drinking (alcohol). Klaus admits that he liked Stefan both because of the way he tortured innocent people and because Stefan wanted to be his wingman. Flashback: Stefan and Klaus are laughing and drinking. Stefan says that his family is jealous of Klaus because he’s a king, not a freak. Klaus advises Stefan to watch out for his sister, who will quickly fall in love with and then leave him. Stefan says he’s glad he met Klaus because he’s a good friend. Can I just say: lol! Present day: Klaus toasts, “To friendship.”

Are you seriously running from someone? This AGAIN?

A tipsy Stefan asks why he only knows Klaus as a hybrid dick who sacrificed his girlfriend. Klaus says that all good things must come to an end. (They’re faces are really close at this point. Just saying.) Flashback:  some vampire hunting policeman riddles the bar with wooden bullets. Klaus finishes his drink, Bex drops her necklace, and Klaus compels Stefan to forget everything about them until he needs him to remember again. Like Katherine, Klaus appears to be running from someone. Damon slips into the bar, motions for Stefan to follow him, and leaves. Stefan makes an excuse that he needs a real drink and follows Damon without Klaus’s awareness.

Stefan fills Damon in a little: Elena being alive is preventing Klaus from making his werewolf army. Klaus is about to discover the truth, he thinks. Damon moves to distract Klaus while Stefan talks to Elena. Damon calls Klaus honey after Klaus refers to him as riff raff. Damon asks for his brother and calls himself a thrill seeker. Klaus admits that he saved Damon’s life for Stefan but wonders how many freebies he should get. He decides to torture Damon, who offers himself as a replacement for Stefan. Gloria uses magic to incinerate Klaus’s makeshift stake and is entirely badass: “Not in my bar. You take it outside.”

Elena asks Stefan to come home. As they embrace, she tries to vervain him. For her sake, he grabs her arm and says that he doesn’t want to come home. Stefan tells her that not only is she in imminent danger, but that things will never be the same between them. He’s killed dozens of innocents and would take decades to recover. Stefan says that he doesn’t want to see or be with her. The audience sees his tragic expression as he turns away, but Elena does not.

I am smiling, therefore something must be wrong.

I hardly want to describe these scenes because of the sheer stupidity of Caroline’s dad. Caroline’s father continues to torture her so he doesn’t have to kill her. He leaves for the night, but her mom the sheriff busts in, aims a gun at him, and ushers Tyler in. Tyler breaks her out and carries her away, after retrieving her ring. Liz nurses her daughter back to health with blood bags but defends Caroline’s father by saying that he’ll come around. Tyler comes in and comforts Caroline, who cries that her father hates her. Tyler + Caroline = EPIC.

Flashback: Klaus kills Bex because she wants to stay with Stefan. Flash forward: Bex awakens and stabs Klaus, who pulls the dagger out. Klaus compels Stefan to remember them. Stefan and Bex are emotionally reunited as are Stefan and Klaus. Then the other shoe drops. Stefan supposedly knows how to contact the original witch. The necklace is key, the necklace that Elena is wearing. Bex throws a fit because she doesn’t know where it is. Is it weird that I like her and her bad temper?

Katherine calls Damon and basically laughs at his failure. She is in Chicago. Flashback: she was also looking totally foxy back in the day as she watched Stefan pick up the necklace. Stefan meets the mysterious man who was hunting Klaus and Bex. The plot thickens.