October 6 – The Salvatore brothers, who’ve been swapping good vampire/bad vampire roles lately, show a welcome return to form as we learn more about a plot Stefan is working on to stick it to Klaus and Damon runs amok in Mystic Falls after feeling pressured to assume his brother’s saintly mantle in his absence. While Stefan and Klaus take Rebecca shopping in Chicago for a contemporary – and slightly slutty – new wardrobe, Elena struggles to settle back into life in Mystic Falls after Stefan’s apparent rejection. Damon doesn’t make it easy for her with his teasing of her attachment to the necklace Stefan gave her. Caroline and Alaric are leery of the flirty new chemistry between Elena and Damon. They need to worry more about how Elena’s new necklace is bringing Gloria closer to learning the reason why Klaus can’t make new hybrids. Using Rebecca as a vessel to trace the necklace’s whereabouts, Gloria spooks Elena and Bonnie, who has just returned from a boring summer vacation. Her tracking spell makes the necklace burn Elena’s skin and shows Gloria visions of them talking about Stefan, making her suspicious of Klaus’s reluctant henchman. Sensing that Gloria is close to discovering Elena’s role in the hybrid curse, Stefan attacks her but she stops him cold with a mind zap that paralyzes him with searing pain. Gloria’s got her own agenda! She wants the necklace, a talisman of an Original Witch, for herself, and subjects Stefan to her “old school” voodoo torture techniques using vervane to unlock from his essence the images of Elena threatened by Klaus during his sacrificial ceremony back in Mystic Falls. Just as Gloria celebrates learning this juicy bombshell, Katherine shows up and kills her by stabbing her in the neck! She wants to team up with Stefan in his plan against Klaus but he says no deal. He only tells her that there’s a vampire hunter hot on Klaus’s trail who is enough of a threat to make the powerful hybrid worry. A dejected Kat will need to find another partner in crime. Back in Mystic Falls, Jeremy’s dead girlfriend #2, Anna, finally makes contact with him and warns him about dead girlfriend #1 Vicky’s spectral visits. She senses a dark presence in ghost Vicky. Mind you, that girl was always on the bad side of things when she was alive, which is why I miss her. A lonely Anna tells Jeremy that he can see her because he wants to, which can only mean that he still loves her. Jeremy, however, chooses to be with his current girlfriend Bonnie, leaving Anna brokenhearted in limbo. Somehow I doubt the visits from his ghostly girlfriends will end that easily. Sheriff Forbes enlists Damon’s help in getting rid of her ex-hubby Bill, but Damon’s attempt to compel him to leave town fails, we learn, when Bill shows up later at a Mystic Falls Council meeting. Bill threatens to make trouble and a steaming Damon attacks him. Caroline, whom Elena tears away from a frisky daytime encounter with Tyler, tears Damon off her dad and does an admirable job of kicking his vampire butt. Bill relents and hits the road, for now, anyway, and tells Caroline he can’t accept that she could ever be OK living as a vampire. He’s lucky Damon didn’t snap his neck like he did to Alaric, who was trying to keep him from attacking Caroline’s kill-joy pop. Damon knew Ric was wearing his protection ring when he “killed” him, but he’s raging at everyone’s attempt to rein him in. He’s not Stefan, Damon reminds a bothered Elena, who admits to Caroline that she’s drawn to the bad boy. “What does that say about me?,” she wonders. Caroline replies that it makes her human, as millions of fans on Team Damon stand up and cheer. Damon accepts Katherine’s invitation to join her on a mysterious road trip bound to be filled with mayhem and mischief. Will they find the vampire hunter after Klaus? When Ric recovers from his temporary “death,” he tells Sheriff Forbes, mother of a vampire, and Mayor Lockwood, mother of a werewolf, that he’s joining The Council as a representative of the relatively normal Gilbert family. Time will tell if Alaric ends up in bed with one of the two ladies, or both! In Chicago, Rebecca makes her play for Stefan and is incensed when he doesn’t respond to her kisses. She accuses him of being disloyal to Klaus, who clocks him. When Stefan comes to, he realizes that Klaus has returned him to Mystic Falls. Has Klaus discovered that Elena’s alive or is he just in town to find his sister a more modest wardrobe?
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