Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: C+ | 151 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Doppelgäng-o-rama
By Cindy McLennan | Season 5 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.17.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Silas orders Nadia to use Matt to find Katherine and then kill him. When she gets Matt alone, she grabs his face and summons Gregor. He's a little pissed that she killed his body, but she says Silas was already determined to kill him. It was the only way to salvage their plans. Just riddle me this, Show: While in his own body, Gregor seemed to have an American accent, so now that he's in Matt's, why does he sound vaguely Eastern European? Nadia promises Gregor-in-Matt that she loves him, so she'll find a way to permanently give him Matt's body. She'll do anything for him. Gregor asks where she buried his body. Nadia will tell him, provided he uses his Matt-ness to call Elena and find out where Katherine is.
Katherine and Elena share a distressing dream about Stefan attacking a bartender, so it's road trip time. On the ride, Katherine uses every opportunity to exacerbate the Stefan-related friction and guilt between Elena and Damon. When the unlikely trio gets to the bar that was in the shared doppel-dream, they find Jo whom Stefan bit (in the dream and in reality). She tells them he bit her, and then told her to run. When she looked back, he was on fire. A woman grabbed him and threw him in the truck of a guy who lives down the road behind the bar. This is all far too productive, of course, so things have to take a bad turn. The bartender pours Damon a vervain-laced shot. Nadia comes out of the back, armed and dangerous. Elena subdues Nadia and tells Katherine to run, which of course is what Katherine does best. Nadia breaks free from Elena's hold and runs after Katherine. Elena gets to Katherine first. They share a moment, but Nadia finds them and gives Elena a broken neck nap. Silas has been tracking Nadia (via GPS). By the time she gets Katherine to a (Matt's?) truck, Silas is waiting.
Stefan wakes to find Qetsiyah has engineered his release from the safe, and also saved him burning up in the sun. She gives him Silas's history, which begins in Greece, 2,000 years ago. The two of them were the most powerful members of a group of people called Travelers, from which the modern insurance company is descended. When they were engaged, they decided to find a way for their love to last forever. After he left her at the altar, Q discovered Silas was in love with someone else and had shared the immortality punch with his other woman, so she dumped him in a tomb hundreds of miles off the Nova Scotia coast. Don't think about it. It will make blood pour from your eyes.
Fun -- and not at all surprising -- fact, Silas's true love looks just like Nina Dobrev. To rub salt in the wound, the other woman is Qetsiyah's hand maiden, Amara. Q has come back from the Other Side -- for Stefan. I don't want to go way out on a limb, but raise your hand if you think, while the veil was down, Q harnessed Bonnie's life for her own and if in handling Q and Silas, the Fellowship of the Falls will find a way to resurrect Bonnie. Yeah, me too.
Anyhow, Qetsiyah decides her name is too old-fashioned and wants to be called Tessa. I haven't made up my mind about that, yet. Tessa is easier to remember than Qetsiyah, but it's no Q. What's-her-name is there to handle the task her hunters failed to accomplish: Kill Silas. Two thousand years ago, she managed to conjure up the cure. She gave it to Amara and killed her, so I'm not sure why nature kept creating doppelgängers of her since she died mortal, but there you go. Silas refused to take the cure. Q created the Other Side as a supernatural barrier between Silas and a peaceful afterlife with Amara. By the time Damon finds Stefan, Q is casting a spell on him that will neutralize Silas's mental powers.
Q's spell knocks out Stefan (and causes blood to stream from his eyes). The same thing happens to Silas, which gives Nadia and Katherine a chance to escape. Alone with Damon, Q tells him that all through the centuries, Silas's doppelgänger and Amara's have found one another. She says Damon is just the obstacle between true love, much as she was with Silas and Amara. She offers Damon a chance to leave Stefan with her. He can take off with Elena and no one will ever know. There's one problem: Damon would know and he loves Stefan too much. He throttles Q so she knocks him out. He wakes just as Elena arrives. Watching her fuss over Stefan worries him. Still, when they get Stefan home, Damon is honest with Elena about what Q told him. Elena and Damon decide they won't let the universe dictate their fate. Right now, it seems the universe is helping, because when Stefan wakes, he has no idea who either Damon or Elena are. Meanwhile, over at the Lockwood mansion, Matt wakes up with no memory of what he did while Gregor was actively possessing him. Elsewhere, Silas calls Nadia and demands that she turn over Katherine. When Katherine grabs the phone, Silas informs her of what already seemed patently obvious: Katherine's blood is now the cure.
I'll be back with my 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 blood is starting to trickle from our eyes.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Fun fact: I somehow convinced myself that I already wrote this recap. I think that's because covering all the exposition in the recaplet was so frigging exhausting. Don't worry. I remembered in time, but since I already feel like I wrote it, I'm having a hard time starting, so I'm just diving in. I'm forgoing the Previously business because so much of this episode is regurgitation of what has previously happened on The Vampire Diaries. You ready? Okay. Oh wait. I'm not. The dog just upchucked.
Stefan: Where's the recapper? I'm finally above water and able to say more than glug and she takes off for a sick dog?
Elena: Right? I'm having a dream about you doing exactly what you're doing. She ought to be covering the depths of our connection, which grew stronger once I dumped your ass, shacked up with your brother, found out I was sire bound to your brother, turned off my humanity, ditched the sire bond, killed a waitress, turned my humanity back on, chose your brother over you and haven't seen you in months. I mean...like this is important, Stefan!
Stefan: So is my attack on this blonde bartender. Mmm, mmm, good. I'd better tell her to RUN so I can feed on her again someday, er... I mean so I don't kill her. That's it. I'm going back outside. And in an homage to my love for Elena, I won't be wiping the blood off my face.
Sun: *sizzle*
Stefan: Do I really have to recap my own extreme pain due to burning up, because Silas stole my daylight ring?
Elena: No, I've got that, since I'm going to wake next to Damon with a huge gasp over what I've just seen in my dreams.
Damon: Let's go back to sleep in my covet-worthy bed, in my covet-worthy bedroom, which adjoins my covet-worthy bathroom, featuring a covet-worthy tub.
Elena: I had a dream about Stefan. It was OMGWTFPOLARBEARCLEOLINDATM real.
Damon: Did I ask?
Elena: Do I need to recap the whole bar scene? I mean, they just watched it.
Recapper: No, you're good. I've got this. Wait. My dog just threw up again. Are you kidding me?
Damon: Perhaps she's exposition intolerant?
Recapper: Good Lord. I hope not, because if she is, she'll be dead before this recap is over. Oh God, she's trying to eat it. I have to go.