The Vampire Diaries Season 3 Episode 3 Recap

Start with Damon who, as in every day during every year ever, is pouring booze in the sunshine.   I love his consistency.   And when his phone rings, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, I love when the phone rings, and we wonder why Elena’s so flirty before realizing, with a smile – oh….the hair.   It’s Katherine… she’s ‘homesick’ and wants updates.    Damon, smirking, tells her nobody’s thought about her since she left, but Katherine baits him, saying she knows exactly where Klaus and Stefan are.   I’m momentarily distracted by Katherine’s ring, but she and Damon continue to tell each other that neither of them cares where Stefan is.   Because Lord knows for these guys, vulnerability really is the last taboo…

Klaus brings Stefan back to Chicago and while Stefan says he’s blocked most of ‘it’ out, Klaus is only too happy to narrate for us, and you know what’s coming – it’s the 1920’s flashback episode!  We see a jalopy and from the sounds of the woman gasping inside, it’s a ‘Titanic’ homage…yes?  

Yep, there it is, complete with Stefan slaking his thirst.     He strolls out of the car all Clooney styles, and I’m amused.

Stefan, in a speakeasy.  Just slightly less elaborate than Nucky Thompson’s, huh?   Anyway,  Stefan gets a shout-out from ‘Gloria’, the lounge singer,  and then a passing blonde vampire tells Stefan he still reeks of car girl.  He’s intrigued by her and she takes off.

Back in the present,  Stefan wants to know what they’re still doing together.   Just because Klaus’ scheme didn’t work, do they have to keep spending time together?  Klaus is pretty sure they do and in fact is ready to go see his favourite witch…

Elena on pretty sheets! Not awake though, does that count for my tally?  She curls up on Damon’s clothed chest and then startles when she realizes she’s doing it.  She’s momentarily furious, but of course once Damon drops that he knows where Stefan is, “He came to me in a dream…he was naked…you would have loved it…” she jumps up, ready to go.   Damon makes Elena “furious” by poking around in her underwear drawer, and it’s one of the nice things about this show that, vampire romances aside, they still let Elena be bothered by a boy’s hands in her underwear drawer.  She’s still just 18.  

Caroline’s still tied up and we notice her ring.  She calls out for ‘Daddy’ and of course it’s heartbreaking – more so when some gas flows into the chamber where she’s being kept.   Her father comes in and wants to know how Caroline can walk in the sunshine.   When she looks, against her own will, at her ring, he pulls it off.  And then he explains to his little girl that he built this vampire torture chamber and that he’s going to ‘fix’ her reliance on blood.   As he opens the shades, Caroline screams in pain…

Damon drives Elena and hands her Stefan’s diary from the 20s.   She is an utter little priss and says she won’t read it, so Damon reads it to her.  While driving.   I love him.   He reads a choice passage about how Stefan enjoyed the company of women (context says these are women who lived to tell the tale) and though he’s joking, he continues his streak of hitting Elena exactly where she lives; she grabs the diary and starts to read –

- And we’re back in the 20s, singer, champers, etc.   Stefan’s vampire friend is looking at her prey, and if  you didn’t know any better, she’d be seen as a certain type of woman, you know what I mean?   She’s furious with Stefan and his cohorts for ruining the party so she can’t hear the singing.   Poor her.  

Present day, Stefan and Klaus walk into the bar where it was – and look who’s still there!  It’s Gloria, a powerful witch, who was the singer back in the day!  Anyway, Stefan is dispatched to make some drinks, and Gloria tells him his reputation precedes him, she knows that he’s trying to make other hybrids.   As they discuss, Gloria says she’ll need a witch’s help to contact a third witch: Gloria needs Rebecca.   Meanwhile, behind the bar, a picture of goofy looking Stefan and Klaus – why is this unusual?

Caroline’s house.   The sherriff is calling her daughter, but Tyler turns up, looking grave…

Meanwhile, Caroline begs her father to stop burning her.   He says he can’t – not until blood doesn’t make her vamp out.   He’s conditioning her, he says,  and Caroline’s “you can’t change who I am” tells us we’re in pray-out-the-gay territory, which should prove interesting.    

The poutiest Elena who ever did pout is shocked that Stefan lived in the grotty Chicago apartment Damon is showing her.   What does Elena eat on all these road trips?  Nothing, right?   We never even see her with a coffee.  Damon breaks into the old apartment which looks as Spartan and spare as you’d think a man who hated himself sometimes’ place would be.   Then of course, Damon reveals Stefan’s secret booze cupboard which has a full-size wall filled with names.   Elena recoils, and I don’t really understand what’s going on here.  There’s bad boy, and then there’s very very bad, but the fact that she’s acting like all this is new to her – like she’s never had to confront who he was, exactly – seems just so childish.

As do her cutoffs.  I’m sorry, but when is girl going to wear pants on a vamp hunting mission?    Anyway, in some mix of sympathy and torture, Damon says she’s to stay at the apartment and come up with a plan.   He’s going to bring Stefan back.   And honestly, when Damon’s getting more reasonable by the second, what can you do?

Stefan doesn’t understand why he can’t remember meeting  Klaus before, and after a little pressing,  Klaus says it’s because he hated Stefan…

20’s.   A girl reaches ecstasy as Stefan and the blonde eat either side of her neck…then, as Stefan admires her necklace, Rebecca tells Klaus to leave her alone.   Oh, but – there it is.   Rebecca is Klaus’ sister…and Stefan’s only catching up.  “I knew another original vampire?”  Klaus throws open a casket where Rebecca is ashen but as Klaus pulls the silver dagger out of her heart, Stefan interrupts.   What about me?  What do I prove?

And we’re back in the 20’s,  Klaus, being ‘Nick’, wants to know why Stefan thinks he’s good enough for an original, and Rebecca exposits for us that she chose Klaus’ side and was therefore allowed to live.   Fun and vampire games as a guy arrives, looking for his wife.   Stefan fetches her for him, then compels the guy and the wife to sit down, and then, in short order, makes the guy drink the wife’s blood.      He has a lot of fun compelling the guy to drink the blood, and Klaus and Rebecca laugh, gleeful.

Back in the present, Klaus rather amusingly tells a guard to let Rebecca feed off him until he dies.    Then announces they’re going to Stefan’s old apartment…

Damon finds Gloria, who swears she always liked Damon best.  Smart lady.   Anyway, she tells Damon Stefan’s still running with ‘a bad crowd’, and that he and Klaus together are a bad idea.   Damon flirts , hoping Gloria will tell him the truth, but apparently not.

Elena, in the apartment, morals aside, since she’s tearing through Stefan’s journal like there’s no tomorrow.   She’s reading about Lexie, who was around while Stefan kicked his cravings….as she hears someone outside the door.   Elena, somehow, knows it’s bad news, and lucky for us, she’s hiding in the liquor cabinet.   

But oh, sh*t, the name of the husband Stefan tortured.  That’s what Klaus is looking for in the house, and as he throws open the liquor cabinet, and Elena holds her breath, Stefan sees her there.   She adores him – and there’s a little Anne Frankness in the way this is lit – and then Stefan grabs a bottle of scotch and high-tails it out of there.

Night – Elena’s not hiding anymore and has turned on all the lights as Damon bursts in, calls her “roadtrippy and gross” and hands her clothes to change into, and announces they’re going to tagteam Stefan and Klaus.   

Speaking of whom, at the bar, Klaus doesn’t understand why Stefan is mopey, and exposits that Stefan used to want to be just like him…back in the 20s; we’re hearing how Rebecca is fickle, but that Stefan shouldn’t let it bother him…

…and back in the oughts (or the tens, now? Geez) Stefan’s starting to get something like a memory coming back…

Dungeon.  Caroline’s father says he cried and cried when he heard about her.   She says she’s okay and, encouraged, her father shoves the blood under her nose again.  Caroline doesn’t vamp out and he’s so happy, even though she cries that she’s starving.   But he’s so encouraging – she’s getting closer and closer, and he knows she’ll do even better tomorrow.   Trust this show to make me feel empathy for the dad who says he’s trying to ‘fix’ her so he doesn’t have to kill her.    Again, this is a pretty straightforward metaphor for the whole “reassignment” thing that isn’t all that unusual, but what we forget is that the people involved usually think they’rre doing exactly the right thing, and that they think this is how they’re showing love.   People aren’t always right but they’re usually not acting out of intentional malice…you know?

Anyway, ‘Bill’ heads outside the chamber and sees the sherriff, who has cocked a gun at him.  Hooray!  Parents who have accepted their kids rule!   Bill tries to convince the sherriff that he should be allowed to help fix his daughter but she shoots at him and beckons Tyler downstairs instead.   Ty bursts into Caroline’s chamber, unshackling her and grabbing her sunlight ring.    She winces when he lifts her, and looks a little rueful – this is not the romance she would have wanted – but they leave.

Stefan wants to know why, if he and Klaus (then Nick) were such good friends, why every memory is gone.   Why he had to watch his girlfriend be sacrificed on a pyre (and nice job, Stefan, for pointing that out).   

One more 20s flashback – all the same set, in case you were wondering – and all of a sudden, Klaus seems infuriated that he’s alone just as straight-up machine gun fire rips up the place.   Stefan pulls Rebecca beneath the bar as we see they’re using wooden bullets.   Rebecca freaks out and leaves  and Klaus compels Stefan to forget all about them.   The only thing left was Rebecca’s necklace…

Stefan puts it together  - who was Klaus running from?  - just as Damon shows up, beckoning Stefan with an eyebrow raise…

Outside,  Stefan and Damon and the who-is-more-virtuous game, which, sing it with me, you guys, always means “Who is taking care of Elena more” and, hence, “Who loves her in the right way, more”.    Stefan reminds Damon that Klaus thinks Elena’s dead.   And the fact that Klaus’ witch is about to figure it all out means he has to take Elena home but Damon shrugs, gesturing to Elena who’s standing there, in the dress Damon brought her, but flats.   OK then.

Inside the bar, Damon goes to keep Klaus company, and when Klaus calls him riffraff, Damon gives us all a little tingle as he replies “Oh, honey, I’ve been called worse”.   Hee!   Anyway, Klaus is getting pretty tired of keeping Damon alive, like, how much sparing of people did he really sign up for? Damon just wants Stefan back, natch , but Klaus thinks he has a death wish…at which point Klaus grabs Damon’s throat…

Outside the bar, Elena begs Stefan to come home.   She holds him and breathes, and behind his back, raises a hypodermic needle to his back and Stefan catches her, and swears up and down.   He doesn’t want to come home!

Inside, I’m sorry, I know I need to hate Klaus, and I do find his pretentious thing kind of pretentious sometimes, but he is trying to KILL DAMON WITH A COCKTAIL UMBRELLA and those are not works that mean what they’re supposed to mean every time.  I love him so so so much.   Damon looks actually more incredulous than annoyed, which you could understand, then, croaking, says “I’m so much more fun [than Stefan]” .   He raises a stake to take out Damon, but Gloria burns it in his hands, no staking in her bar.   

Outside, Stefan yells at Elena.  It’s never going to be the same.  He left a trail of bodies.   Elena talks about how Lexie selflessly pulled him out of his addiction, and he’s all “yeah, and it took me 30 years to get back on my feet, which is HALF your LIFE, you nubile little temptress”.    Stefan doesn’t want to see her, be with her, and even though you know it’s all “Go on, you stupid dog”, even though he’s trying to hurt her to save her, it does, of course, hurt.

Car.  Elena’s holding her necklace which, of course, is Rebecca’s, like you haven’t guessed.  Damon asks if she’s OK, and she wants him just to drive…

Caroline’s in bed, as her mother watches her drink blood.   The Sherriff – who may have had a slightly better acting coach this hiatus – reminds her that the family beliefs are really old, and that her dad will come around someday.   Tyler smiles in at her and Caroline thanks her mother before she leaves.   Then, of course, Tyler makes her laugh by telling her this all could have been avoided had she not snuck out on him and he strokes her hair as Caroline sobs that her dad hates her…

Klaus, at Rebecca’s now empty casket.    He can see she’s alive, and he can see she ate the guard, as she was supposed to and like lightening, she comes over and stabs him in the chest.

20’s.   Rebecca is tired of running and is waiting for Stefan to come with them.  But Nick/Klaus compelled him, remember?  Forced to choose between going with Nick/Klaus and Stefan, Rebecca chooses Stefan which is about when Klaus stabs her.   So she’s waking up in her same flapper dress; Klaus says he’s brought a peace offering, Stefan sees her – and we watch him fall in love again…

…also, when Stefan posed for the picture with Klaus, he called him his brother.  Stefan realizes the bonds go back…as Klaus says he needs Rebecca to contact the first witch, and Rebecca goes crazy looking for her missing necklace.   Which is, of course, what she needs…

Sunshine, Damon, scotch, Katherine.   Phone booth, blue dress.   He says she was right.   We all miss Katherine, don’t we?  As a firetruck goes by, she has a memory of her own: striding into the bar in a hot short bob, and watching Stefan pick up the memento of one of his many loves…and the Chicago PD asks him whether he’s seen Klaus and Rebecca, and Stefan can safely say no…

Katherine, in Chicago, looking hot, throws herself in a cab…

Go. Go. Go.  All of you.