Ok let’s just get to it, Mayor Lockwood is dead! There I said it. Merry Christmas!  I myself had the surprise ruined by some tool on Twitter who just couldn’t wait to tell the world that Carol Lockwood bit it after four faithful seasons. But before all the mayhem ensued Klaus found time to paint snowflakes. He truly is a Renaissance Vampire.

I was still shocked, but the shock would have been more meaningful if I hadn’t seen it coming. I completely understand why Klaus did it. Killing Ty’s mom is worse than killing him.  I just hope Alpha Ty gets the point.

Klaus was rightfully pissed after Ty and the gang tried to have him killed. Hopefully no one will ever find out that Klaus is the killer so Caroline and the OV can have a chance. Yes, I am looking forward to a twisted Klaus/Caroline love affair. We need something to pine for now that Elena and Damon are finally kind of together.

Damon did try to send her away after they made a breakthrough with Jer not wanting to kill her anymore, but I don’t recall him telling her to stop loving him, so I have the feeling things will get heated again and hopefully soon.

The lake house scenes were innocent enough, Jer tries to kill Elena upon entering, but she counters with a sisterly head lock. Luckily Bonnie is there with the creepy cute Professor Shane, he’ll fix everything!

During  “The Jer loves Elena reprogramming,” Dr. Shane tells Damon and Elena that they do not need the sword to cure Elena. You see once upon a time there was witch of course who spelled someone with immortality. But there was some kind of love triangle involved and Silas got buried alive. But Dr. Shane somehow knows where to dig him up and if they do then he has the cure for vampirism or something like that, Damon and Elena seemed to believe it. I was like, eh, maybe. I was having a hard time following it.  And why didn’t Klaus know about this?

Back in town Haley and Ty are determined to go through with their crazy plan to kill Klaus, well at least Ty is. Stefan and Caroline want him to wait for Elena’s cure before killing Klaus and when Stefan tries to go all vamp on him, the wolf pack shows up and kidnaps them.  However, there is no plan to really kill Klaus because then half the cast of the show would be dead. They just need to put his soul into Tyler’s body and dagger him to keep him out of commission for a while.

Luckily Damon finds out in the nic of time that they do not need Klaus alive to find Elena’s cure.  He calls Stefan who was not tied up or de cell phoned during the kidnapping. These wolves are not pros at it yet. Stefan tells everyone the good news Klaus can be killed, yeah they are all on the same team again and the wolves let them go.

Caroline remembers that Rebekah has been daggered so why don’t they use her body instead of Tyler’s to stick Klaus in. Haley has bigger plans like knocking out Caroline in the ladies room at the Grille and sending the 12 hybrids off to their death at the hands of Klaus.

April finds Caroline in the ladies room dead from Haley’s neck snap. She awakens jumps on her cell phone and gives away all kinds of juicy vamp gossip right in front of shocked April.  She then tries to compel April, who walks out of the ladies room not compelled thanks to her vervain bracelet and heads  off to the tunnels to undagger her new BFF Rebekah.

However, the kill Klaus plan is still on, Klaus is lured from the town fundraiser to the woods where he catches on quick and starts ripping out hearts and tossing wolf heads.  Not even twelve hybrids could take on one Original.

Meanwhile Haley tells Ty the truth, that Klaus isn’t the target. She tells him to run, he decides to run right in to the battlefield where his pack has been slaughtered.

Caroline and Stefan are back at Salvatore Manor where Caroline spills the beans that Damon and Elena did the nasty all with her sad looks and silence. Stefan apparently reads sad looks and silence and starts throwing heirlooms around the room.

However, Damon is trying to do the right thing at the lake house and finally releases Elena. He tells her “You’re going to go home. I’m setting you free Elena. This is what I want. This is what will make me happy.”   Elena is clearly not happy and I do not think it worked since she had feelings for him before she was turned. Damon stays behind to help Jeremy with what I am unsure. It appears he will still be growing the mark, which makes no sense if Dr. Shane knows where Silas can be found.

Klaus arrives back at the Winter Wonderland Charity event all bloody and moody. Mayor Lockwood is there all by herself which was odd based on all this town has been through and how much she knows of it all.  Still with drink in head, she pleads with the Original, ”Klaus, please. Don’t hurt him. He’s my son. He’s all I have.” Klaus thinks for a bit then replies, “And you’re all he has. There’s a beautiful symmetry to that. Don’t you think?” Then he grabs Mrs. Lockwood by the throat and drowns her in the town fountain and just leaves her there, hanging in the fountain like a holiday decoration.

Then the Original stumbles off, he probably needed to finish painting his snowflake.

Lexi’s back, Tyler goes Alpha and Elena really is sired to Damon, kind of.  Even if it’s only in flashback we will take Lexi anyway we can get her and she looked fabulous in those 1940s duds. Lexi was once again the guiding light and voice of reason this time for Damon in this episode.

But before we get to the cool Bourbon Street flashbacks it turns out that after hot, hot vampire sex twice, Elena may be just a tad sired to Damon and Kim the hybrid that Haley and Tyler just unsired from Klaus  is taking her new freedom very seriously and starts going all Alpha on the wolf pack. She thinks Adrian has had enough of the unsiring for one day and against Tyler‘s wishes she takes him away.

And yes, these kids still have time for school.  Elena heads off to Mystic Falls High with her hair up which the girlfriends thought was odd. She apparently hadn’t showered after hours of sex with the evil Damon. Her best buds get over her bad hair day after she invites them to raid the Salvatore liquor cabinet. I did think it was odd that Vampire Caroline did not smell Damon all over Elena and puke in the hall.

Meanwhile Stefan comes back home to tell Damon the great news that Elena is sired to him and that’s the only reason she currently loves him which I‘m sure made Stefan feel better about the situation.

Damon denies it, because on the surface it’s ridiculous, Elena had feelings for Damon before she was turned. So Stefan being a vampire of facts, not just feelings tells him to convince Elena it’s okay for her to drink out of a blood bag. Damon isn’t buying it; he tells his little brother, “When her body rejects this blood, which it will, your apology had better be epic.”

So Damon heads off to Mystic Falls High, to convince Elena to drink out of the blood bag, she does, she likes it after he told her she would.  She remarks it tastes good as opposed to the hot garbage it tasted like the first time she tried it. Damon realizes it may be true and he rushes back home to find a cure which leads him and Stefan to a witch in New Orleans who helped him unsire a lady friend once before, and thus the cool 1940s Bourbon Street flashbacks ensue.

Stefan dressed in an American Service Uniform shows up in New Orleans with Lexi.  Damon and Stefan somehow pick the same bar in New Orleans and a mini reunion begins. Stefan is going to join the war effort because he thinks it will help him kick the blood habit by being surrounded by it constantly and normally sane Lexi seems to agree. The reunion is cut short by Damon’s crazy girlfriend Charlotte.

Unfortunately Damon turned her and because she had feelings for him prior to being turned she unintentionally became sired to him. He realized this after he told her to give no mercy to anyone who touched his drink while he stepped away. Being sired she took this literally and killed a guy for moving Damon’s drink at the bar. That’s when Damon looked up a powerful New Orleans witch to break the sire bond.

In modern day New Orleans the brothers try to find the same witch and along the way they realize that poor Charlotte may still be counting every brick in New Orleans as Damon told her when he left her in 1942. They go to the corner of Bourbon and Dumant where as luck would have Charlotte is there. It was hard to tell if she was really still sired after all she did count every brick and even loves the song “Counting Bricks.”

Back in Mystic Falls Hayley warns Tyler that he needs to assert his authority and be the Alpha. She is right. After Ty attempts to assert his authority, Kim decides to pick a fight.

Over at the Salvatore House, Elena, Caroline and Bonnie are having a party of alcohol and witchy tea, they dance, they laugh; they end up in Damon’s bathroom. Caroline makes a snarky comment about Damon being a man whore and Elena finally throws it down and tells them she and Damon had sex and she liked it.  Bonnie seems to take it better than Caroline.  And Bonnie is normally the acting president of the I hate Damon Club. I did like how Elena called Caroline on the fact that she once dated Damon. And Caroline did not have much of comeback. Elena gets more upset and kicks her best buds out. But before they leave Kim and Adrian bust in and kidnap Caroline.

Meanwhile Damon and Stefan find the witch shop in New Orleans, but she is long dead and her great granddaughter lies to them and says all of Grandma’s spells got washed away with Katrina and no one practices magic like that anymore, she’s not even a practicing witch.  It turns out she is lying she is not the witch’s great granddaughter she is her daughter and a practicing witch. The guys find this out when they pay her a second mildly violent visit.

She tells them the only way to break the sire bond is to tell the sire not to think about him anymore and set them free. She also tells them the spell that Damon helped her great grandma with by killing twelve vampires is part of a form of dark magic called Expression. Which just happens to be the form of magic Bonnie is learning from the mysterious Dr. Shane.

Back in Mystic Falls Elena and Tyler are looking for Caroline and have a chat about sires. Ty tells her that being sired doesn’t change how you feel about someone, it just affects how you act. So Elena’s feelings are real!

Poor Caroline is being tortured by Kim, when Tyler and Elena bust in. Elena tells Kim to take her instead since she means more to Klaus than Caroline. Well time will tell on that one. But Ty has had enough and he goes all Alpha and pushes his fist into Kim’s chest and threatens to rip out her heart unless she submits to him. She takes him seriously and submits her will to him. Ty is now the new Alpha of a fierce wolf pack.

Back on Bourbon Street Damon releases Charlotte from the sire bond, which she is not happy about. And I do not think it worked. We may see Charlotte again. Damon also promises to let Elena go. Stefan doesn’t believe him until he tells him how back in 1942 he also was ready to join the war effort to be with his little bro, but Lexi stepped him and talked him out of it, since he wasn’t the best influence at the time.

The girls make up as well. Caroline and Elena hug and all seems well in hot chick Vampireland. Stefan even tells Caroline that he believes Damon will do the right thing and release Elena, because he loves her as much as he does.

Damon comes home and tries his hardest to break the news to Elena that he has to unsire her but she will not hear it. He tells her he is not the good guy, but he has to do right by her. Elena moves forward and grabs his face and the credits roll.