By Tegan O’Rourke,

The episode opens with Elena calling Stefan who sees her call but ignores it as he journals. Then she calls Damon for the eleventh time she will admit later! Eleven times, that’s telling.  Damon picks up, he can’t wait to be all snarky and sport a “I don’t care about you anymore attitude,” as he does every time someone hurts his feelings.  Elena tells him “If you’re mad at me Damon, you need to get over it,” he responds with “Oh, I’m over it,” as he rolls over to Rebekah.

When neither bro gives her enough phone time, she rushes over to Salvatore Manor just in time to see Damon sending Rebekah out on her walk of shame. Elena is clearly stunned and silent at first, then rushes in and tells the Salvatores that Esther plans on killing her own vampire brood.

She tells them she feels bad about killing Elijah, after all he did try to save her from Klaus.  But neither brother seems to care. An Original is just pure evil, in their judgemental vampire eyes.  As she leaves she gives Damon a dirty look and nearly knocks the drink out of his hand.  She is clearly hurt and Stefan sees it.

To Elena’s surprise Bonnie and Abby also are all in on killing the Originals. Bonnie lets Elena rant about Damon for some time before confessing “Oh by the way Esther asked us to help her kill her kids and we said yes.”

Rebekah heads home where Kol and Klaus make fun of her for being a vamp tramp. Then they rush off to get drunk at the Grill while Elijah tries to persuade Rebekah that Mommie Dearest is up to no good, but Rebekah doesn’t want to believe it.

Elijah knows something is up so he goes to Elena and takes her to a spot in the woods above the Lockwood caves. He tells her he know she lied, she admits it and he throws her down into caves where Rebekah is waiting to guard her while Elijah runs off to the Salvatores’ with an ultimatum of help me stop mama or Elena dies! As usual Elena is in danger, and no matter how mad Stefan and Damon are at her they run to her rescue, what a surprise.

Before he leaves, Elijah tells the brothers that they need to kill one or both of the Bennet Witches to sever the tie between their bloodline and Esther.  They try to find another way and have Caroline distract Klaus at the Grill so Ric can stake Kol with the White Oak dagger. They all arrive at the Grill and Klaus is smitten with Caroline’s fake rudeness toward him and follows her outside.

Meanwhile Kol hits on Hot  and Mysterious Dr. Fell which gives Ric the perfect opportunity to stake him in the back. All the Originals except Klaus drop like flies. Klaus being a Hybrid isn’t affected but feels something is wrong and runs to his brother and pulls the stake out of him knocking Ric in the head. The brothers are forced to tell the Originals where The Bennets are helping Esther.

In the caves Elena tries to have a heart to heart with Rebekah to no avail.  When Rebekah drops to the floor due to Kol being daggered Elena makes a run for it, but Rebekah is quickly awakened and chases her to the cavern where vampires cannot enter. Rebekah is hell-bent on revenge and runs around to another part of the entrance and tries to start a fire to smoke Elena out. But Elena has become savvy like Kitty Kat and tells Rebekah she knows her feelings were hurt when Elena literally stabbed her in the back. This calms Rebekah down a bit and reminds her of the fact that it will be much more fun to drag out Elena’s suffering over time.

Damon and Stefan contemplate what to do, neither one of them really wants to hurt the Bennet’s but it needs to be done. So they flip a coin to see who will kill Bonnie. Neither want to, they know how much it will hurt Elena, the girl they are both on the outs with, but they still need to save her as usual. Esther senses her children approaching and sends the Bennet’s inside the Witch House where they should be safe. Stefan confronts Bonnie inside, she knows her number is up and tries to reason with Stefan but luckily Damon snaps Abby’s neck instead, telling her this will just hurt for a minute so you know she’s coming back full on vamp! Good idea, didn’t see that coming.

Once Abby is vampified, she loses her witchy Bennet powers  and Esther’s spell is ruined allowing Kol, Elijah and Klaus to come after her and Finn. Rebekah is contacted on the evenings events and lets Elena go but reminds her she is going to drag out her revenge slowly.

Rebekah heads home to find Klaus burning drawings he did of Caroline. Don’t worry that painful romance is long from over. Rebekah informs him that when she was in the cave with Elena she noticed another drawing of a white oak tree that can kill Originals. I’m guessing it’s somewhere in Mystic Falls.

Stefan reminds Damon that he had lost the coin toss and should have killed Bonnie. Damon tells him that his bro has a better shot with Elena than he does so it was best he did the deed, plus he knows Stefan is back on animal blood and feeling like his broody old self again.

Elena rushes to see Bonnie, but Caroline won’t let her in. Vampire Barbie tells Elena she is not wanted. Bonnie needs time and Abby was turned in order to save her, things always happen to Bonnie in order to save her. Ouch! Remember Gramms? How many family members does Bonnie have to lose for this friendship? Elena returns home all dejected to find a note from Elijah on her bed apologizing for kidnapping her, how sweet. This girl gets a lot of vamps in that bedroom.

As for Ric he is chilling with Dr. Fell at her apartment and falls asleep, when he awakens he decides to snoop in her kitchen and finds a possible murder weapon. The Good Dr. greets him with a gun and pulls the trigger as the credits roll.

Predictions: We will see more of Koll, he’s a lot of fun. Ric will live,  even though he’s being shot by a human. Someone will give him vampire blood or he’ll be resurrected by Bonnie, just my thoughts.  Rebekah will eventually win Matt over and Klaus will eventually win Caroline over. Not sure if Elijah is crushing on Elena but why not everyone else is!

By Tegan O’Rourke

So happy to see Elijah back. He takes quick and appropriate action against Klaus and starts kicking his ass all over the newly renovated vampire mansion. Klaus tells him I just remodeled. But Elijah needs vengance and some doors will have to be reinstalled. Klaus finally calms him down with more family bonding talk, like all is well, I killed Daddy. Mikael’s death caught Elijah’s attention and saved Klaus a lot of money in redecorating costs. Now the new enemy is Stefan Salvatore. An enemy Klaus created but still a venerable opponent.

Meanwhile in Mystic Falls, a mysterious killer is on the loose and it’s just too obivous that its Dr. Meredith Fell, even though that’s the first thought Damon concludes. Sheriff Forbes shows up with the murder weapon of the medical examiner and tells Elena and Ric that it has Elena’s fingerprints all over it. Plus Elena knows its from her family’s vampire hunting arsenal. Ric tells Damon that the weapons are all over the place, in his car, the house, so anyone could have snatched a dagger. Damon suspects Dr. Fell right away afterall she bloodjacked him and he’s still bitter. But Elena holds out hope that Dr. Fell isn’t a pyschopath, “It’s not Meredith,” she says. “I refuse to  believe that your luck with women is that tragic,” she tells Ric.

Elena and Caroline go to the hospital to get a read on the mysterious doctor and pick up grumpy Bill.  Dr. Fell tells Caroline she knows her secret but will keep her mouth shut and she released Vampire Hunter Bill the night before, who by the way is still miffed about being saved by vampire blood. You just can’t make some people happy.

Caroline calls her dad and hears his cell phone ringing. Her and Elena find Bill stabbed to death in a supply room. Elena quickly reminds Caroline that he has vampire blood in his system so he will not die. He awakens even more pissed off than the night before.  Daddy Bill isn’t having it, he’d rather die than be a vampire. This guy is such a buzz kill, the only reason why I wanted him to live at all was because he’s Caroline’s dad and she’s the sweetest Barbie Vamp ever.

Caroline is heart broken, even though he’s a vampire hating zealot who tried to torture the vampire out of her, he’s still her Dad and she wants him to cross over to team vampire, so she takes him home thinking she can change his mind. Elena convinces her not to force him to transition and Matt shows up to give much needed hugs to the ladies of Mystic Falls. After a few hours at the Forbes House Bill tells her he accepts her as a vampire and she is the daughter he and Sheriff Forbes raised. This makes Caroline cry tears of joy and sadness as she lets her father die.

Where is Bonnie during all of this family drama, with her runaway mom Abby trying to open the fourth coffin with little regard for their own safety, after all no one knows what the hell is in that thing.  Damon hid the coffin in of all places the Originals’ Family Cave. Klaus would never think to look in his own family cave, its too obvious.

After an hour of chanting and making sure the whole cave had enough candles in case a romantic date showed up, Bonnie got annoyed with her runaway mom for not giving it a 110%. Abby tried to explain that the spirits were still pissed about her leaving and they will not help her. Then Bonnie threw the ultimate guilt at her by telling her that when she was a kid she used to pretend her mom was dead since she abandoned her anyway, it was believable. That stung so Abby dug deep and the candles flickered and wind blew through the cave and the coffin almost opened. Bonnie got excited and ran out to call Damon.

Who ever thought Bonnie would be excited to call him. Times sure are changing in Mystic Falls. There’s a rumor floating around that Damon may have a tryst with someone and wake up all Naked and smirky. I put my vote in for a Bonnie/Damon shameful encounter.

Damon tells Stefan they are going to Klaus’s for a dinner party and he better behave since they need to stall Klaus and make a truce until The Wicked Witches as he calls them, get the fourth coffin open.

To make his guests feel welcome  Klaus tells the Salvatores, “We can sit  and eat or I can reach down your throats and pull out your insides. The choice is yours.”  They decide to have some steak while Stefan tries to open up old wounds of Klaus killing his mom, and Damon reminds Stefan, hey remember when you killed our father, so lets dial it down. Luckily for Klaus he came clean to Elijah before the dinner party about killing mom.

Klaus tries to get the Brothers sympathy by telling them the story of Tattia, the beautiful Original Petrova that both he and Elijah fell in love with. But Mommie Dearest wasn’t having it and used Tattia’s blood to turn all her children into vampires. I was really entertained by this and wondered if Tattia was in the fourth coffin, I hoped she was. Then I thought would Nina Dobrev end up playing three characters on this show? That would be awesome and insane. Talk about job security. However, now that they gave the storyline of Tattia I want to see her inact all kinds of ruin upon Mystic Falls. Maybe they can get an actress that just looks like Nina to join in the carnage.

Back to dinner, Damon offers a deal the fourth coffin in return, Klaus and the Originals leave Mystic Falls forever. Klaus doesn’t bite, he tells them he will never leave without Elena. Klaus the voice of logic tells the Salvatore Brothers, “Gentlemen, the worst thing for Elena Gilbert is the two of you.”  And suggests sweet Matt Donavon should marry Elena and have lots of children so that he can make hybrids from for generations to come. Neither of the brothers like the idea of Matt and Elena. Matt better watch his back. Stefan makes a stupid move and attacks Klaus who  puts his arm in the fireplace. He tells Damon and Elijah to go get the fourth coffin or he’ll burn Stefan to death.

While Bonnie is out the coffin flies open and knocks Abby out. The fun is about to begin! Coffins are getting opened all over. Instead of going to the cave, Damon and Elijah undagger the remaining Originals at Klaus Manor. Klaus is shocked and awed by his unhappy sibblings crashing the dinner party. Elijah tells the Salvatores they are free to leave  since this is family business. Klaus tries to explain, but after centuries of lying dorment in coffins they aren’t interested. Then he pulls the, “I’m the hybrid. I can’t be killed! I  have nothing to fear from you,” ploy. Elijah responds “You will when we have that coffin!” Take that, Klaus.  Just as you think Klaus may get daggered and locked in a coffin, Mama Original shows up and forgives him for killing her! She wants them all to be a big happy blood sucking family. I was thrilled to see Mama Esther back, this just gets better and better.

Damon and Stefan head through the woods to the cave along the way Stefan asks Damon why he didn’t let him die, after all he could then have Elena all to himself. Self righteous broody Stefan still doesn’t know his brother after 145 years. Damon loves his little bro maybe even more than he loves Elena.  They both profess their love for Elena and move on to find Bonnie and Abby knocked out and notice the opened coffin.

Meanwhile Matt walks Elena home to a dark house, as they search for candles they notice a pool of blood in the kitchen and bloody hand prints all over the walls leading upstairs. They foolishly rush upstairs without knowing if there is a killer in the house and find Ric stabbed in the chest like Bill Forbes. Ric doesn’t know who stabbed him and he tells Elena she needs to kill him so he can live, since he has his magic ring on. Matt comments on how messed up that is. But Elena explains Ric can only live if he is killed by a supernatural being and she is a supernatural doppleganger so she pulls the knife out of his chest and shoves it though his heart. Damn has this girl grown a pair in the last two seasons.

This should get interesting now that Stefan is coming back to his normal self, the battle for Elena is on, but as on other shows this storyline normally gets old after three seasons, so Elena will most likely settle on one of them or end up with someone else entirely just as its starting to look like Sookie is doing on True Blood.  There are so many vamps on the show now that they actually should consider adding more human characters. Otherwise eventually there will be no main characters in jeopardy of death or being turned. I do like the mass of characters though, I think its a smart move the bigger the ensemble cast the more directions the show can take and the longer it can logically run in case some of the original leads leave the show. If they do it right they could have a ten year run like Smallville and the show can evolve into something way different from its beginnings of a small town girl and her love triangle with two vampire brothers.