Vampire Diaries - Heart of Darkness recap/review

What Happened - How are we going to keep this recap short? Oh lordy. This show is always the hardest to sum up. Klaus and Kol know where Jeremy is. Kol is actually posing as a student and friend of Jeremy’s in order to keep tabs on the Gilbert brother. Stefan sends Elena and Damon to go get him, because he thinks they should spend time together so that Elena can figure out how she feels about Damon. Esther comes to see Rebekah and tells her daughter that she is dying. Rebekah is still upset with Esther for trying to kill her, but they have a sort of a tender moment anyway. Esther then collapses. Klaus shows up and Rebekah tells him that their mother is dead.

Caroline gets Matt to distract Rebekah with preparations for the next high school dance. Rebekah has changed the decade theme from the 70s to the 20s, much to Caroline’s fake annoyance. Caroline is secretly spending the day with Tyler. He’s back and he thinks he might have broken the sirebond! They go to the Lockwood dungeon and have sex. Caroline breaks the news to Tyler that if they kill Klaus, Tyler will possibly die too. Caroline assures Tyler that she has no intention of losing him, but they end up fighting after Tyler sees Klaus’s drawing of Caroline and wonders why she didn’t throw it away.

Stefan spends the episode trying to get Alaric’s psycho alter ego to appear and tell him where to find the last White Oak stake. Klaus decides it’s taking too long and breaks Alaric’s neck. Alaric wakes up, still normal, hours later. Stefan then accesses his dark, ripper self and attacks Alaric (with Alaric’s permission), hoping that Alter Alaric will wake and defend himself. It works. Alter Alaric tells Stefan and Klaus that he hid the stake in the cave where no vampire can get in. Klaus and Rebekah hear this and Rebekah takes Alter Alaric to the cave. Klaus tells Stefan that the reason he hasn’t killed him yet is that he is still hoping his friend from the 20s is still in there, ready to come out and play.

Rebekah and Alter Alaric get to the cave. Rebekah waits at the entrance while Alter Alaric goes inside. He finds the stake and turns around like he is going to use it on Rebekah. But…twist! Rebekah tells Alter Alaric that they have a lot in common, then she steps into the cave. She can enter! She’s not a vampire! She’s a witch. She’s Esther, and she is using her daughter’s body like Klaus once used Alaric’s. So now Alter Alaric has a powerful ally AND a weapon that can kill Originals. !!!!!!!!!!!!

Damon and Elena find Jeremy and Kol. Damon beats Kol with a baseball bat and the three heroes go hide in a motel. Damon and Elena ask Jeremy to contact Ghost Rose and ask her if she knows which Original turned her and originated the Salvatore bloodline. Ghost Rose says she will ask around in the ghost world and also discloses that she is rooting for Damon and Elena. Jeremy is horrified by this. Elena finds out that Damon comforted Rose with a dream world as she was dying. Rose tells the group that she was turned by Mary Porter, not an original. Jeremy goes to sleep, leaving Elena and Damon awake and alone in the motel together. Elena watches Damon walk around and drink, shirtless. Damon lies down next to her in bed.

Elena comments on Damon’s comforting of Rose and asks him why he hides his good side. Damon confesses that he is afraid “people” will expect goodness from him all the time if he shows kindness at all. Damon grabs Elena’s hand and she starts breathing hard. She gets up and leaves the room. Damon follows her. Elena turns around and kisses him. They start making out against a wall. Stupid Jeremy catches them and stops the wonderful kissing! He says that Rose told him Mary Porter is in Kansas. They arrive at Porter’s house, but Kol is already there and has staked Mary. Kol tosses Elena across a room and beats up Damon as payback.

Damon wakes up and Elena tells him that this whole trip was Stefan’s idea in order to give Elena an opportunity to sort out her feelings. Damon asks Elena if she has feelings for him. Elena says she doesn’t know and that every time something goes down, Damon freaks and acts like a jerk. Damon basically says, “Well, what if I don’t do that? I’m going to show my good side and remain nice so that you have to make the hard decision. I’m not going to make it easy for you to reject me by giving you a reason to.” On the drive home, Ghost Rose sits in the backseat and tells Jeremy that even though Stefan’s love is pure and he is good for Elena, Damon challenges Elena and makes her question her beliefs. Rose says that Damon will either turn out to be the best thing for Elena, or the worst.

Comments - GREAT IDEA sending Elena and Damon out of town together, Stefan. One of us is annoyed, because Stefan should be fighting for Elena, not making it easy for Damon to steal her. How is Elena supposed to feel when she’s sees Stefan giving up and sadly, almost passive-aggressively pushing her toward his brother? Good call changing the decade of the dance, Rebekah. We’ve been wanting to see more adorable 20s flapper fashion since the flashback episodes earlier this season.

Why is the Lockwood dungeon Caroline and Tyler’s best option for a sex place? Even if they needed to keep it a secret, how about just in the woods? Caroline’s room? Someone’s roof? A motel? Because: gross. We don’t think Tyler was overreacting when he stormed off after seeing Klaus’s drawing. He has been torturing himself so that he can get back to Caroline and safely be with her, and she is flirting with the enemy. Tyler saw right through her attempts to paint Klaus as creepy. Caroline has a small crush, and that’s not okay. It’s a betrayal.

It’s taken Ern a long time to ship Caroline and Tyler, but Tyler doing this for Caroline has brought Ern around. Leeard has shipped them pretty much the whole time. Ern was rooting for Matt and Caroline but now thinks that Rebekah/Matt is cuter. Klaus/Caroline isn’t bad either. Who are we kidding? We love everyone on this show so ANYONE/ANYONE would be a match that would send us into a dither. We should have seen the Esther/Rebekah twist coming a mile away, but we didn’t. This show always gets us.

We are glad we got a reason as to why Klaus hasn’t killed the Salvatores yet. He’s had plenty of opportunity. But it makes no sense to us that Kol didn’t kill Damon in this episode. We understand that he would keep Elena alive for Klaus, but Damon is unnecessary and troublesome. Whatever. Onto more important things - THAT KISSING. We will be youtubing that scene over and over and over and over until the next episode.

Elena has a hard choice to make and we can’t wait to watch her make it. One brother is going to be heartbroken. Which one is endgame? We also like that Stefan is coming around to his dark side. He needs to learn how to use it in moderation and for the greater good, like he did here. At this point, it could be either. This episode was so good, you guys. We’re nearing the end of the season. Who wants to start making death predictions? Esther and Kol have to go, right? But will Klaus and Tyler?

Episode grade: A