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| 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.
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| 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?
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| 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.
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| 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.”
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| 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.
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| 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.
