By Tegan O’Rourke

Let’s just get to the best part first, the kiss! Fans have been waiting for this since the first season, I know I have. It was long and Elena didn’t push Damon away. Hopefully Elena is finally over broody Stefan and can now carry on a nasty affair with evil Damon. I’m crossing my fingers!

My second favorite part of this episode was the slap heard throughout Mystic Falls. Elena finally got it that Stefan doesn’t give a hoot about anyone especially her little brother Jeremy. The slap was well deserved and long-awaited.

The show opened with Bonnie having a spooky dream about Klaus’s family coffins. It’s about time Bonnie got a good storyline this season. Meanwhile Elena takes a casual jog that turns into a pound pulsing run for your life psychological horror fest. It was well done. I wasn’t sure if Elena was just paranoid or if she really was being chased by that guy in the hoodie who eventually apologized for running into her and looked really dateable.

Bonnie and Elena exchange notes at the Grill about their crazy lives. Elena wonders if she is just paranoid until Klaus shows up with the jogger, who is one of his Hybrids, Tony. Oddly Klaus tries to play nice guy and says he’s decided to stay in Mystic Falls and will leave them alone if they get Stefan to return his dead relatives to him.  Elena tells him that sounds like a Stefan and Damon problem. Quite ballsy!

After Klaus leaves Elena and Alaric get back to more domestic issues like Jeremy going off the rails since Bonnie left him for having an affair with his dead ex girlfriend. He’s got an F on a paper and he got fired from the Grill.  While Elena and Ric make dinner, Jeremy comes home and lands another newsflash on them, he’s hanging out with Hybrid, Tyler Lockwood.

Elena isn’t happy. Jeremy gets spiteful and invites Tyler into the house, a real dick move that seems completely out of character and irresponsible even for Jeremy. After Tyler sits through an interrogation of admitting he probably would jump off a bridge if Klaus asked him to since Klaus relieved his suffering as a werewolf, he leaves.

Back at Salvatore Manor Klaus shows up to have a vervain laced drink with Damon and try to convince him once again to get on his team after all they both now have a mutually loathing for Stefan. Damon refuses, he may be evil but he can’t stop loving his brooding brother. Klaus gets all villianous and says “You people seem to respond best to violence.” Which is so true of these Mystic Falls peeps. So he makes a phone call and the next thing ya know all hell breaks loose at the Gilbert House.  Jeremy takes off his, “I can never die ring” and stands in the middle of the street so a big black SUV driven by Tony can hit him. Elena and Ric run out after him and Ric pushes Jeremy out-of-the-way and takes the hit, since he had on his, “I can never die ring.”

While all of this is going on Bonnie treks to the Old Witch House, which is almost a character itself. She runs into Stefan there, who asks her to help hide Klaus’s coffins. Without much resistance she obliges. Which I thought was kind of odd, she could have kicked his ass especially at the Witch House.

Jeremy confronts Tyler about his suicide attempt and tries to shoot an arrow at him. Tyler who feels bad, tells him that a simple arrow can’t kill  a hybrid, their head needs to be chopped off.  Good job giving away the family secrets, Ty.  Tyler who isn’t really evil just a pawn in Klaus’s game starts to realize maybe he shouldn’t do everything Klaus says especially after he confronts the Orignal himself and Klaus tells him that basically people are just a means to their ends, so he needs to get over his lingering human feelings. Ouch!

Ric isn’t healing like he normally does and starts vomiting blood all over the hardwood, so Elena calls an ambulance. The EMTs arrive, but so does Hybrid Minion Tony who compels them to leave. He tells Elena he can save Ric with his blood if she invites him in. Elena mulls it over. Afterall she can’t lose Ric.

Luckily Jeremy shows up in the nic of time and shoots Tony in the back with an arrow then runs into the house to grab a big knife to chop his head off with. Well done Jeremy! I thought it was humorous, that with all of this chaos going on, the neighbors of Mystic Falls didn’t notice a thing. Maybe due to all of the other drama in this town, beheadings just aren’t a big deal.

Ric gets to the hospital and his doctor just happens to be really hot and the real life wife of Stefan (Paul Wesley). Torrey Devitto has finally joined the cast as Dr. Meredith Fell. She is interested in Alaric’s ability to heal so quickly.  Thanks to Damon’s blood of course. She asks Ric if he has a guardian angel or if he sold his soul to the devil. He responds with “A little bit of both.”

It should be fun to watch Ric fall in love again with a woman who is a total innocent that he needs to hide everything from until she gets abducted by Klaus or Stefan. Or maybe she will not be an innocent at all.  It will be interesting to see how the writers use her. I hope she is secretly working for Klaus.

Jeremy tells Elena they should just get out-of-town. A totally logical idea that Elena doesn’t go for. After all why leave a town where vampires want to kill you all the time? I think she doesn’t want to miss her senior prom.

Once Bonnie finds out what happened to Jeremy she tells Elena that Stefan is at the Witch House.  Damon and her head over there to reason with him. Stefan tells Elena that helping Jeremy is not his problem and that’s when the “Slap” happens. Elena leaves and Damon goes back inside even though the witches deactivated his daylight ring, they aren’t his biggest fan. He makes it down to the basement and Stefan shows him the coffins that are magically invisible to Klaus thanks to the magic of Bonnie and the dead witches. Damon wants to know why Stefan ruined their attack on Klaus. Stefan confesses it was to save him. Damon is so ungrateful that he stakes Stefan in the chest.

Elena creates a little drama of her own and invites Klaus back to Salvatore Manor where she gives him a daggered Rebekah. They undagger her and Elena makes Klaus promise not to hurt Jeremy again and not to let Rebekah come after her since she’s the one who got the drop on her.  After Klaus agrees, she then tells him oh by the way Rebekah knows you were the one who killed your mom so watch your back! Ballsy.  Klaus looked like a deer caught in the headlights but he tried to play it cool. However, once he got back to his new mansion which is being remodeled, it should be sweet when it’s done, he puts the dagger back in Rebekah before she can wake up and physically and emotionally kick his ass.

Elena allows Damon to compel Jeremy to leave Mystic Falls and not to return he will go to Denver and stay with family friends and never think twice about why he left Mystic Falls.  The show isn’t saying whether or not he is gone for good. It’s doubtful that he is gone for good, after all they didn’t kill him and even if they did no one stays dead on this show anyway. He’ll probably be gone for a few episodes or return as part of a climatic plotline in the last three episodes of the season. That’s just my guess.

After all of this heartfelt drama Damon tells Elena that Stefan didn’t betray them. Then he gets all emotional about his guilty feelings for wanting what he wants, his brother’s girl. He walks away then stops himself and says he should have a reason to feel guilty. He comes back and finally does the deed. Lips lock, fans all over America scream, cry, yell YES really loud and it goes on for a lot longer than I thought it would and Elena was into it. She liked kissing an evil vampire. What a naughty girl.

While Damon is finally taking what he wants, Stefan and Bonnie are pondering over how to open one of Klaus’s coffins. Stefan just can’t get the darn thing open. My guess is next week Bonnie will do a spell then it will open and a new big bad friend or foe will have entered the drama of Mystic Falls. After all Caspar Zafer and Nathaniel Buzolic have been cast to play Klaus’s brothers. I’m sure one of them will be awakened soon. And since Jeremy is now out of the picture, it would be a good time for Bonnie to start dating a vamp, An Original Vamp, now that would be hot.