I'm so happy to have pretty vampires back on my screen, so I can stop thinking about the real world. Let's get right to it. Elena swipes Caroline's prom gown from the tailor's, and in the second biggest shocker of the series, lives to tell the tale. The shocker of them all is that Rebekah finally makes it to a school dance -- and it's the senior prom. The theme is "Pictures of You" and the set decorators, hair, makeup, and wardrobe crew members deserve class protector awards, for gifting us with such a feast for the eyes.
Stefan and Damon have stopped trying to retrieve the cure, so that Elena will stop murdering waitresses. They show up to accompany her to the prom. This is their Plan A, in action: look pretty, talk sweetly, dance well, and Elena is bound to start "feeling" again. She's feeling all right, she's feeling like it would be great fun to hurt their feelings, and relishes in doing so.
Bonnie wanders outside the prom and runs into "Jeremy" who is, of course, Silas. Still, he manages to lure her into the woods, dance with her, and make her cry all before Bonnie catches on. She tells Silas in no uncertain terms that she will not help him resurrect everyone on the Other Side. Silas is a busy boy. He also appears to Damon as Stefan and to Stefan as Damon, and stakes each of the real Salvatores in the gut. Maybe this Silas guy is all right after all.
Elena decides that since no one can deal with Silas, she'll do the best thing and take out his witch. The first time she tries to kill Bonnie, Bonnie hits her with an Expression migraine. The second time, Elena gets a mouthful of Bonnie blood, but can't keep it down. She then experiences something I'll call Expression anaphylactic shock. After the Salvatores rescue Elena from Bonnie, they kick off Plan B, which amounts to dosing her with vervain and locking her in the Salvatore dungeon until they come up with a Plan C. Later, they decide since Elena looked afraid of Bonnie, all they have to do it make her life a living hell is to get her to feel again. Oh boys, you've been doing that since the day you met her. Isn't it time to change things up?
Meanwhile, Elijah tells Klaus that he's not going to give him the cure, and subject the whole world to an invasion from the Other Side just to save Klaus from Silas. Instead, Elijah will give Rebekah the cure, provided she manages to live as a human for one day first. Rebekah does well, until Elena unleashes her wrath on April. With coaching from Matt, Rebekah opens a vein and heals April with her blood.
Although Matt promises to keep mum on Rebekah's use of her vampiric powers, Klaus has been spying, so he makes Rebekah call Elijah to confess. Before she can explain fully, she realizes Elijah has been duped by Silas (appearing as Rebekah) into giving away the cure. It's a shame someone couldn't come up with an excuse for Elijah to put on a tux. I love you Julie Plec, but what's up with that failure of imagination? Must the fanfic writers do everything?
Bonnie finds Silas in the old Lockwood cellar, and sees his real face which was messed up by Qetsiyah back in the day. He's no Monet. He's a Picasso. Bonnie seems ready to cooperate with him. Dun dun dun!
By episode's end, Klaus returns home to find a note from Katherine. She's disgusted he and Elijah couldn't come to terms on the cure, and is sick of wearing out her shoe collection running from him. She hopes to divert his attention by leaving him a tip about a witch in New Orleans, who is intent on taking on Klaus, which leaves us sitting pretty for week's backdoor pilot for The Originals.
In other news, Caroline decides the prom she broke her back planning, is a dud, and heads back to the Lockwood Mansion to set up the after-party. There, she is surprised by Tyler (we hope, at first I was worried he was Silas). They have their own private prom, but Tyler's on Cinderella's clock and has to disappear before word gets out that he's in town. He runs into Klaus on his way out, but Klaus gives him five seconds to speed away for Caroline's sake.
I'll be back with the full recap, ASAP. In the meantime, please grade the episode at the top of the page and then come on over to the forum, where we've been looking so long at these pictures of you, that we almost believe that they're real.