Vampire Diaries – S04E15 – Stand by Me

previously, on The Vampire Diaries…

Stefan Salvatore: Hi Damon! Nice of you to join us! While you were off pulling splinters out of Rebekah’s paws, Katherine Pierce made her glorious return, ate Jeremy, and gave the scraps to Silas! Now Jeremy’s dead, Silas is alive, Katherine has the only thing that can kill him, Bonnie is off making googley eyes at her hallucinations, and Elena is sitting on the ground, rocking back and forth, singing Single Ladies to herself.

Damon Salvatore: Okay, well we just have to – wait, what? Single Ladies?

Stefan Salvatore: You know, if you like it you shoulda put a Magic Ring of Sometimes Not Dying on it?

Damon Salvatore: But Jeremy was one of the Five. The ring won’t work on him.

Stefan Salvatore: And therein lies the hook for the rest of the season.

Damon Salvatore: Okay! This calls for some decisive action. So you grab Elena and take her home, and I’ll be over here ignoring this whole damn thing. Later! Zoom!

Caroline Forbes: Hi guys! I decided to clean your house while you were gone! I got most of the blood from the time Klaus stabbed me with your coat rack off the floor, but there’s a burn mark where you guys made Kol explode slash committed genocide!

Elena Gilbert: Hi Caroline! The only remaining family member I have left is dead! But it’s all right, the Magic Ring of Sometimes Not Dying will bring him back for sure!

Caroline Forbes: Um, isn’t the ring supposed to not work on supernaturals, like for instance your bro-

Elena Gilbert: For sure!

Damon Salvatore: Dear whoever is lurking in the shadows: unless you’re one of the three things on this island with a chance in hell of kicking my ass, I suggest you start running in the opposite direction right about now.

Rebekah: Hi Damon! I assume our clever plans and intricate machinations have all worked flawlessly, and I will soon be on my way to the joys associated with mortality, such as getting old, fat, and wrinkly, having a bunch of babies that never stop pooping, and probably dying within the first week because I’ve been invulnerable for centuries and literally have no idea how to care for myself?

Damon Salvatore: Close. Jeremy’s dead, Bonnie’s missing, and Katherine ran off with the cure. BT Dubs, the zombie apocalypse starts in an hour. Wear comfortable clothes.

Professor Shane: Good morning Bonnie! I stopped up that gaping stab wound with some leaves and berries, but you might want to take it easy for a while! Also I … er, Silas kind of murdered your boyfriend! But it’s okay! I have a foolproof plan to bring him back! It involves a dozen murders, a zomie god, and the End of Days. You’re cool with that, right?

Caroline Forbes: Hi Stefan! So I can’t help but notice that Elena’s sitting next to her brother’s corpse, rocking back and forth, stroking his hair, and singing Don’t Fear the Reaper over and over again.

Stefan Salvatore: Yeah, she’s been doing that since Nova Scotia.

Caroline Forbes: But that’s like twelve hundred miles away! How did you put up with it for the entire fifteen minute journey?

Stefan Salvatore: I’m more worried about what she’s going to do once she realizes the ing-ray won’t or-way on aunter-hay.

Caroline Forbes: If only Damon was here to force her accept reality! And then bottle it up tight and bury it down deep inside where no one will ever see it again!

Stefan Salvatore: Exactly! If my career as the nation’s most prolific serial killer has taught me anything, it’s that denial is always a bad idea! Repression is where it’s really at!

Elena Gilbert: I’m not in denial! I just refuse to accept reality! Pout!

The Lady of the Manor: Elena, honey? You need to buy a dictionary. And maybe a copy of the DSM IV.

Caroline Forbes: Hi Tyler! I know that we said we could never even speak again, because my psycho kinda-boyfriend is hunting you down so he can slowly, cruelly murder you, but there’s an Elena-mergency, so – hold that thought, the other other guy I want to do the sex with is here! Hi Stefan! I can’t believe that 1. there’s only one dose of the cure, and 2. it’s gone anyway! So many hopes and dreams have been crushed by this realization!

Stefan Salvatore: I know! I was really hoping Elena would become human again too!

Caroline Forbes: Yes, that is what I am talking about. That exactly. Anyway, we need a cover story for why Jeremy’s dead. Fortunately the town Sheriff is both my mom and the most corrupt public servant in history!

The Lady of the Manor: I literally forgot the Sheriff was still alive.

Stefan Salvatore: Great! You go talk to your mom and I’ll go tell Matt he has to cover Jeremy’s shift at the Grill tonight!

Caroline Forbes: Okay! Hey, what’s that smell?

The Lady of the Manor: It’s probably the dead body laying in the bedroom.

Stefan Salvatore: It’s the dead body laying in the bedroom.

The Lady of the Manor: Holy shit I was just kidding!

Rebekah: I don’t like being out in the open like this!

Damon Salvatore: What, are you afraid of one little immortal necromancer zombie god vampire hybrid thing?

Rebekah: Yes, I’m clearly the stupid one here. Speaking of afraid, isn’t it your week to be the one who comforts Elena when another loved one is murdered my an unkillable hell beast?

Damon Salvatore: Yes, because “emotional availability” is one of my strong points. My plan: let Stefan deal with the ugly cries, then swoop in and when it’s time for comfort sex. Hey, would you mind taking two steps to your left?

Rebekah: Okay, but why?

Damon Salvatore: Because that evil leprechaun is hiding in the bushes over there, and I’d much rather he shoot you in the heart than me.

Professor Shane: How’s it going Bonnie?

Bonnie Bennett: Oh you know, just getting ready to unleash a torrent of telekinetic destruction as a means of dealing with my grief.

Professor Shane: Bonnie, no! You can’t lose control of you powers until it’s convenient for me!

Elena Gilbert: Hi Dr. Fell! I know what this looks like, but I’m only briefly hiding a corpse in my house! Sure he has no vital signs, or any blood, and his neck is kind of shattered, and sure maybe his muscles are all stiff, and okay he’s starting to stink a bit, but all of that was true of Alaric, too, and he came back to life! Sure it drove him so crazy that he let the ghost of a thousand year old Jewish Viking witch turn him into a self-loathing vampire who committed suicide and ironically joined a TV show about a TV show with a violently passionate fanbase, but we’ve all done things we regret!

Stefan Salvatore: It’s true. I was on Smallville

Matt Donovan: Hi guys! I just got a voice mail that said I had to pick up Jeremy’s shift at the Grill tonight? That guy better be dead, or I’m gonna kick his ass! LOL! …What?

Matt Donovan: Hi Elena! The Big Bang Theory has taught me to offer a warm beverage to a friend suffering emotional distress, so I made you some tea!

Elena Gilbert: You didn’t put roofies in it this time, did you?

Matt Donovan: Come on, I only did that once! Anyway, where’s Damon and Bonnie?

Elena Gilbert: Well, Bonnie is probably off gathering Shane’s twigs and berries, and Damon is trying to find her!

Matt Donovan: But doesn’t Damon hate her?

Elena Gilbert: What? No! He’s only horrible to her because he loves her!

Matt Donovan: …You’ve been reading Fifty Shades of Gray again, haven’t you?

Elena Gilbert: Don’t be silly Matt! I can’t read!

Damon Salvatore: Hi Vaughn! I’ve been thinking: here we are, remote island populated only by the ghosts of those sacrificed to the Black Pope of Hell that lies buried in the caverns at the heart of the atoll, searching for an item which will unlock Elena’s vampire chastity belt and take down a guy who has even more contractual immunity than me, when suddenly Katherine and someone with a penis show up! And I say to myself “Damon, there’s no way that that’s a coincidence!”

Galen Vaughn: Ye can blow a rainbow out yer arse if ye think I’m talkin’ to you, laddie! Ye cannot kill me lest ye be haunted by the Ghosts of St. Patrick’s Day Past!

Rebekah: No, but we can slowly strip the skin from your flesh, leaving your raw nerves agonizingly exposed to the air and the salt, driving you ever closer to the edges of insanity and death, and then, just when it seems that sweet release is within reach, give you our blood, wait for you to stitch yourself back together, and start all over again.

Damon Salvatore: I am so turned on right now.

Galen Vaughn: All right, all right! I’ll talk! Indeed, wee Katherine offered to let me play in her clover patch if I helped her kill Silas! And since killing Silas and buggering ladies are my two favorite things, I quickly agreed!

Damon Salvatore: And how did she know about this season’s plot? She’s only shown up as a hallucination until last week!

Galen Vaughn: Aye, but she has inside information! Some werewolf girl named Hayley, from New Orleans! But that story is far too complex to tell here and now! Why, you’d almost need an entirely separate TV show to explore the subject properly!

Professor Shane: Okay, so it’s agreed! You’ll just kill a dozen people real quick, thereby tapping into the primordial forces of creation and destruction, and bring your boyfriend back to life! And unleash an army of the undead on an unsuspecting world that can’t possibly be prepared to cope. But at least you’ll get to have sex!

The Lady of the Manor: Oh just make his face explode and be done with it.

Bonnie Bennett: Deal!

The Lady of the Manor: Or that could work, too.

Stefan Salvatore: You know, I’ve seen a lot of death in my two hundred years, but it never gets any easier.

Meredith Fell: I know what you mean! I lose patients on a weekly basis, but I still go home and –

Stefan Salvatore: I mean, every time I rip a sorority sister into pieces, I’m just standing there like “what did I just do,” and then there’s all the blood, all the delicious, delicious blood, but it’s all over the floor! And I don’t want to lick it off the floor like some kind of a feral dog, but I’m so hungry and it’s so delicious and then I’m just down on my hands and knees, lapping it up! But then I look over at the head I tore off with my bare hands, and it’s staring at me with beautiful, glassy eyes, and I feel so bad that I have to put the body back together again, even though I know the slightest bump will literally make her fall to pieces!

Meredith Fell: Hey I think my beeper just went off I have to be going got an doctor thing to do like repairing the cleft pallet on an orphaned guinnie pig or something but it was nice chatting with you Jesus Christ I hope I never see you again what nothing nothing at all tee hee lol bye bye!

Damon Salvatore (on the phone): Hi Stefan! I still haven’t found Bonnie, but I did learn that I have to murder a werewolf soon!

Stefan Salvatore: Eh, she’ll probably be leaving Mystic Falls soon anyway! Hey, Elena’s kind of taking this whole “my last remaining relative just died” thing really hard … any chance you could swing by the old Gilbert home and take away her free will real quick?

Damon Salvatore: I’m on my way!

Bonnie Bennett: Hi Damon! Shane told me how to bring Jeremy back! And then he led me to you! And then he disappeared!

Damon Salvatore: That’s not suspicious at all!

Elena Gilbert: Matt, where are you taking me? I’ve never seen this strange place before!

Matt Donovan: I just wanted to show you some graffiti your brother did to express his love for my sister before he was retconned and she was horribly killed!

Elena Gilbert: Aw, Matt, this is the sweetest attempt to get my mind off the fact that literally everyone I love is dead that anyone’s made in the last ten minutes!

Matt Donovan: Wait, there’s more! Remember how they found my sister’s body, and it was a horrible withered husk with fangs, and then the Sheriff was like “fangs, those aren’t fangs! Hey look over there it’s Bigfoot!” And then everyone forgot about my sister again? Well I knew she wasn’t gone for real, and sure enough, she totally came back from the dead! Yeah, maybe I had to strap a bunch of weights to myself and jump into a pool to see her, and okay she was kind of hell-bent on your destruction, but at least I got closure! So there’s always hope!

Stefan Salvatore (on the phone): Hi Elena! Damon and Bonnie are back! And Bonnie’s got her “I have a plan” face on!

Matt Donovan: Okay, you know what I said about hope? Nevermind.

Galen Vaughn: Now I know ye have your wee heart set on leaving me here to die and all, but I was thinkin’ it might be a splendid idea to join forces and slay the fell creature unleashed by your relentless need to get knocked up!

Rebekah: That’s interesting and all, but I think I’d rather never, ever get anywhere near Silas ever.

Galen Vaughn: Aye lassie, tis a fine plan! There be only one problem: how do you hide from the devil when ye donna know what he looks like?

Rebekah: I was just going to keep my eyes open for the shambling hordes of the undead, then head the other way.

Caroline Forbes (on the phone): Hi Tyler! I know that even suggesting that you play a role in our lives any more brings you one step closer to certain, terrible doom, but I just wanted to say that my last message blew things way out of proportion! It turns out Bonnie has a plan and everything is going to be okay!

Damon Salvatore: Yeah, about that …

Bonnie Bennett: Okay, let’s drop some exposition! So Silas figured out how to become immortal, but he was going to give that gift to his tramp instead of his wife! So his wife cursed Silas to rot in that cave in Nova Scotia for all eternity! But she also created a cure for immortality so that Silas could one day shuffle off this immortal coil! But he was dessicated from lack of blood, so there was no way he could take the cure himself! But she also created the Five so they could find his body, give him the cure, and kill him! But, Qetsiyah didn’t want Silas to get off that easy, so she created the Other Side, which is like a Limbo for supernatural creatures! But, the veil between our world and theirs can be torn asunder with the power of Expression! And all I have to do is murder twelve people to gather enough energy to do it! And then we’ll have Jeremy back! And, you know, every single monster that has ever walked the face of the earth. But Prom is coming up and I don’t have time to find another date, so all in all I still think this is our best option.

Caroline Forbes: …

Matt Donovan: …

Damon Salvatore: …

Stefan Salvatore: …

April Young (on the phone): Hi Elena! I stopped by Denny’s to get a Grand Slam and instead got attacked by a gang of motorcycle vampires! I was hoping Jeremy could come on down and murder them a ton!

Elena Gilbert: Hello, you’ve reached Magic HooHa Enterprises. We can’t come to the phone right now because we’ve gone to our happy place. If you’re one of the dozens of family members and loved ones who have died right in front of me, press one. If you’re a vampire looking to bury his stake in my graveyard (if you know what I mean), press two. If you’re the other vampire looking to bury his stake in my graveyard, press three. If you’re an immortal necromancer zombie vampire god-king, press four. If you’re the crazy bitch planning to help the immortal necromancer zombie vampire god-king, press five. All other inquiries press six.

Professor Shane: 4

Elena Gilbert: God Jeremy, I told you to clean your room! It smells like someone died in here!

Elena Gilbert: Okay, I’ve come to grips with reality while simultaneously shedding the bounds of sanity! Let’s go ahead and cover up my brother’s death!

Caroline Forbes: Um, my mother’s the Sheriff and Stefan is literally married to the Medical Examiner in real life. This “cover up” is going to be about as hard as convincing Bonnie to murder twelve random people because the ghost of Professor Badtouch told her to.

Stefan Salvatore: I know! We can say a rabid squirrel crashed through the window and tore open Jeremy’s throat, which caused him to fall down the stairs and break his neck!

Elena Gilbert: …Or we could just burn the house down. Look, I’ve got two cans of gasoline and a package of marshmallows already.

The Lady of the Manor: No! Not that beautiful kitchen! Elena, you monster!

Damon Salvatore: Come on Elena! Don’t you know how much a new set’s going to cost?

Elena Gilbert: Let’s have a burn the house party! Bring your own arson! I don’t need an X-Box anymore! My brother’s dead!

Matt Donovan: I could use –

Elena Gilbert: I don’t need this whiskey anymore! Alaric’s dead!

Damon Salvatore: Hey, let’s not –

Elena Gilbert: Unless you want to let Bonnie commit another mass murder in order to unleash every evil creature that ever lived. I’m not willing to do that just to get Jeremy back. Are you willing to do that to see Alaric again?

Damon Salvatore: Well, let’s wait until we see how Cult does before we make any hasty decisions.

Elena Gilbert: My father is dead. My mother is dead. Also, my fake father is dead. And my fake mother is dead. And my aunt slash legal guardian is dead. And my history teacher, who was banging my aunt and sleeping on my couch and way too willing to talk about my sex life and who kinda pretended to be my daddy but how the hell did anyone actually let that happen, well he’s dead, too. And now my brother’s dead! Everybody’s dead! Here’s a fun fact: there’s no more room in the Gilbert family cemetery, because so many fucking people have fucking died in this fucking town in the last six fucking months, and from here on out it’s arson and Jelly beans because I am officially out of shits to give. Look out world, I’ve got a pack of matches and some gas soaked rags! Wheee this is fun! I should have burned this house down ages ago! Let’s burn the high school down next! It’s not like anyone ever goes there anyway! And then we can do Lockwood Estates, where the only thing creepier than the slave cells are the incestuous looks Carol Lockwood gave her son! Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha! Hahahaha –

Stefan Salvatore: Um, Damon? Any time now.

Damon Salvatore: Don’t worry folks, I can handle this! Elena! Elena, listen to me. Look, I know this is hard and all, and you make some compelling arguments as to why everyone should run like a crazed cheetah whenever they see you coming, but all of this is getting us nowhere.

Elena Gilbert: :-(= :-(= :-(=

Caroline Forbes: Thank God, I thought she was going to go to a really dark place for a minute!

Damon Salvatore: So I need you to go ahead and turn off your humanity, okay?

Elena Gilbert: :-)= :-)= :-)=

Caroline Forbes: Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.

Stefan Salvatore: facepalm

Caroline Forbes: Hi Tyler! Sorry I keep putting you in incredible danger with these phone calls, but I just wanted to give you an update! You know how I said Bonnie had a great plan that would fix everything? Well it turns out that kind of fell apart due to the mass murder it required. But at least Damon tuned Elena into a remorseless hell beast. Hope you’re having fun!

Bonnie Bennett: Thanks for the ride home, Matt! I’m going to go scheme about becoming Mystic Forbes’ latest serial killer!

Matt Donovan: No problem! I’m going to go park behind the Dairy Queen and grief-puke!

Professor Shane: Say, he’d make a great sacrifice, wouldn’t he? Good hair, strong cheekbones, lots of blood … It’s just something to consider, is all I’m saying.

Rebekah: That’s funny, I could have sworn Bonnie said Shane was helping her bring about the end of the world, not laying on the ground rotting!

Professor Shane: Boo!

Rebekah: …Asshole.

The Lady of the Manor: Um, why does Rebekah need a flashlight?

Thomas: So we can see what she sees, of course.

Stefan Salvatore: Really? That was your great plan? Not “hold it together Elena,” or “it’s gonna be all right Elena,” but “why don’t you go ahead and become a soulless murder machine hell bent on causing carnage just for the sake of it and becoming head cheerleader just because it will put her in a position to ruin the lives of the other girls in Mystic Falls”?

Damon Salvatore: Eh, I improvised. I mean really, how bad can she get? It’s Elena we’re talking about.

Elena Gilbert: Hey guys? We should probably get out of here, because I burned the house down. And the neighbor’s. And, well, the entire block. And I kind of set fire to the orphanage. And the puppy shelter. And I might have accidentally murdered a bunch of nuns on the way back home. And left their corpses carefully arranged on the lawn of City Hall. Nude. Tastefully, of course.

Stefan Salvatore: You were saying?

Damon Salvatore: Okay, so maybe mistakes were made …

The Lady of the Manor: Wait! They showed Elena’s diary burning! Does that mean this show is just The Vampires now?

The Plot: Thickens.

Ho. Ly. Shit.

I frequently dislike Elena, but goddamn is Nina Dobrev a fantastic actor. Every single moment of this episode was pitch-perfect. The denial, the panic, the anger, the bargaining, the hope … this girl deserves an Emmy. But since they don’t give Emmy’s to shows people actually watch, she’s probably going to have to settle for a fifteenth People’s Choice Award.

This is the second time we’ve seen someone flip the switch, and the second time it’s been absolutely chilling. When Klaus ordered Stefan to “turn it off,” Stefan’s panic, fear, and grief just melted away, replaced with a cold, cruel smile. We saw that Stefan wanted to be evil, and that his humanity was getting in the way of that.

But when Elena flipped the switch, all of that pain, the gut-wrenching sobs, the ugly, mascara-ruining tears, were replaced with chilly, empty nothing. She’s not happy to be free of her humanity, but she is relieved to be free of the pain. And the fact that she doesn’t want to be a monster is going to make her return to humanity that much more painful.

Updated to add: I think it might be Stefan who ends up bringing back Elena’s boring personality humanity. I think we may see Stefan play the same role that Lexi played for him. That might actually be at Damon’s invitation, since he doesn’t think he’s “enough” for Elena, and that might be what rekindles Stelena.

Also interesting to note: both times we’ve seen a vampire flip the switch, it’s because someone else told them to.

This episode gave us a crash course in Damon’s psychology. He never learned to deal with emotions, and that leads him to just avoid them altogether. When Elena was back in Mystic Falls grieving for her murdered brother, Damon was tromping through the woods, searching for a girl he doesn’t even like. He doesn’t know how to deal with stuff like this, so just hides. And when he’s finally forced to step in, he makes Elena hide, too. That’s the only choice he can make, because he believes, like he told Stefan, that he “isn’t enough”. He doesn’t think he can help Elena, so he just makes the problem vanish.

And while that’s complete violation of her agency, it’s also going to be fucking awesome. Evil Cheerleader Elena and the School Bus Murders FTW.

One of the rules of writing: don’t give the audience what they want, at least not too soon. We’ve all been complaining about how Vampire!Elena has been squandered, how there’s so much potential for her to be so wonderfully bad, but they just refuse to go there. We’ve seen hints of it when Damon took her to the frat house, but for the most part, the only way Vampire!Elena differs from Human!Elena is that she can super-speed into bad plans.

And all of that waiting, all of that building, made this moment so much better. The writers have teased us with what Vampire!Elena could be, but now they’re ready to actually show us.

Julie Plec deserves a ton of credit for this episode. She had a high bar to jump over, and she made it look easy. This was one of the best episodes of the series, hands down.

This episode did raise a few questions for me. First, will Elena’s switch break the Sire bond? We know that Sire bond is based on preexisting emotions towards the vampire that made you, but what happens when those emotions go away? Tyler was able to break his sire bond by breaking that feeling of gratitude towards Klaus … what will happen now that Elena no longer has human feelings for Damon? Has Damon created a monster he won’t be able to control?

Also, Bonnie is still riding the Kool Aide train to Murder Town, but I have to wonder if it might be Elena that actually does the killing that completes the Expression triangle. Shane never killed anyone himself, he manipulated others into doing it for him. I think there’s a strong possibility that Bonnie will follow in his footsteps.

Speaking of Shane, we have learned that Silas is a vampire, and because he’s a vampire he’s no longer a witch. So those rules are consistent. That does make me wonder, though, what the hell is going on with Not Shane. I originally thought Shane was dead and communicating to Bonnie from the Other Side, but nope, Shane is still alive. Did Silas just steal his face? If so, how? If not, what the fuck?

Not Shane also told us that the Watcher’s Council won’t be coming back. The Other Side is only for supers, and they were civilians. But he also said that they “moved on” and “found peace”, which is what they and Silas wanted. My take on that: Silas wants to tear down the veil, bring all of the monsters back, and replace humanity with supernatural creatures. A necrozombiepire final solution.

And then, of course, we have Qetsiyah, who is a badass to the degree that she single handedly created the Other Side. Chances that she’s going to end up being the Real Big Bad, and that Team Gilbert Elena will have to make frenemies with Silas to put her down? Pretty close to 100%.

Finally, who has the Magic Ring of Sometimes Not Dying? I would suggest giving it to Matt, but he’d probably just pawn it to pay for groceries. Also: why doesn’t everyone in this town just wander around with vampire blood in their system? This whole thing could have been avoided if Rebekah had given Jeremy a little sip before they went spelunking for evil undead god-kings.

Fantastic episode. Well done to everyone involved.