With any teen show comes sporadic and sometimes unhealthy parenting moments, and The Vampire Diaries is no exception. This week, we’re ranking the parents of Mystic Falls from best to worst. While choosing the best parent was easy, picking the worst is a challenge with so many contenders. We’ve got Abby, who abandoned Bonnie twice; Kelly, who made out with Tyler at a Founders Party; Bill, who tortured Caroline; and Mayor Lockwood, who encourages fights in parking lots. We also briefly discuss Giuseppe Salvatore and Mikael, but they’re so bad they didn’t even make the official list. Tune in to this week’s episode to find out who we crown as the Official Rippah Girls' Worst Parent.

Note: We are officially breaking for the holidays so this is our last episode this year. Stay tuned for 2025!

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Now that we’ve finished the finale, we of course have to recap everything that happened in Season 3! This week, we’re looking back at the main characters’s highs and lows of the season, all of the great villains, and what some of the side characters were up to. We’re also going to talk about some of our personal faves, like best performances, favorite episode, and favorite Delena and Stelena moments. We also talk about what we would do differently if we wrote Season 3, even though this was almost a perfect season of television. Finally, we wrap up Season 3 like we wrap up every episode and pick the best outfits, quotes, and songs and the most out of pocket moments from the whole season.

This week: The Vampire Diaries Season 3 Recap

Next Week: Ranking the Parents of Mystic Falls From Worst to Liz

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After losing all of her blood and hitting her head, Elena starts reminiscing about happier times when her parents and Aunt Jenna were still alive (which unfortunately is also when she was still dating Matt - at least some things have gotten better). While on the mission to dump Klaus's body in the Atlantic, Stefan gets called back to Mystic Falls to protect Elena after her injury. Meanwhile, Damon gets stuck hiding the body in a storage unit, where he of course runs into Evil-laric. Back in Mystic Falls, Caroline and Tyler prepare to leave town so the Council doesn't come for them. And to protect everyone she loves, Bonnie goes rogue with her magic but Rebekah has the same idea and does what she can to stop Alaric.

This week: Season 3 Episode 22 | The Departed

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With Evil-laric on the loose, Klaus is ready to leave town, but he won't go without his doppelgänger. And since no one will invite him into the Gilbert house to get her, he takes matters (and fence posts) into his own hands. When Damon and Stefan finally get him to focus on stopping Alaric instead, Bonnie turns to Abby for a lesson in dark magic. With that situation sort of under control, the Salvatore brothers finally have the hard talk about what they'll do when Elena chooses one of them.

This week: Season 3 Episode 21 | Before Sunset

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It's time for arguably the best school dance episode: the 20s decade dance. While everyone is prepping for the dance, Esther starts plotting with Evilaric and makes him the ultimate weapon: an indestructible white oak stake. Fortunately, Damon has figured out Alaric isn't taking any of Bonnie's herbs, so he and Meredith are trying to get that under control. But not before it's time for the dance, where Elena has invited Stefan to be her date, Bonnie has brought Jaime, and even Klaus has come to try to woo Caroline and show up Tyler. It would be a great night if it wasn't a Mystic Falls High School dance, where something terrible always happens. This time, the chaos is caused by Esther and Dark Alaric trapping everyone but Matt and Jeremy in the school and luring Elena away to get her blood to make Alaric an Original Vampire. When everyone finally makes it to the Salvatore crypt Alaric is refusing to transition into a vampire and it's time for a hard goodbye. 

This week: Season 3 Episode 20 | Do Not Go Gentle

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Now that they know what happens when you kill an Original, Elena and Damon take a trip to Denver to check in on Jeremy and to see if he can contact Rose on the Other Side to find out which Mikaelson sibling sired their bloodline. As soon as they arrive, Jeremy tries to meet up with a friend, but his friend turns out to be Kol who immediately starts beating Damon with a baseball bat. While they hide out and chat with Rose, Stefan gets stuck with Klaus supervising him as he tries to get Evilaric to tell him where the last white oak stake is. And while Matt and Rebekah decorate for the 1920s Decade Dance, Caroline spends the day with Tyler, who's finally back from breaking the sire bond. But of course, the Tyler-Caroline reunion is not the only romance plot of the episode. You already know what we're talking about: the ICONIC Delena motel scene.

This week: Season 3 Episode 19 | Heart of Darkness

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After turning the Wickery Bridge sign into 12 white oak stakes, Damon and Stefan enlist the teens into Salvatore Boot Camp to practice taking out one of the Originals. So Matt, Caroline, and Elena are now trained to stake any one of the Mikaelsons on sight, which will also take out Klaus since they're all still linked. But if you know Klaus, you know he's always one step ahead, which means he's holding Bonnie captive and threatening her loved ones until she unlinks him from his siblings. While Bonnie works on that, right in the next room, Rebekah is torturing Damon as revenge for his scheme with Sage. She's also getting in his head and giving him daydreams of Elena rescuing him—absolutely diabolical. But even more unrealistic than Damon's hallucinations is the fact that the teens actually get a shot at staking Finn and Matt of all people gets the kill shot. Later that evening, it's revealed that Matt didn't only kill Finn, but his entire bloodline.

This week: Season 3 Episode 18 | The Murder of One

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At the Wickery Bridge Restoration Kick-off, Damon runs into Sage, and despite not seeing her for 100 years, he decides to get her help in figuring out what Rebekah is up to. Sage’s plan of course relies on Rebekah coming over for a “party” and getting in her head once her guard is down. So while they take care of that, Elena has to deal with Alaric being basically a confirmed serial killer, which is only further confirmed when she and Stefan come back to the Gilbert house to find that he stabbed Meredith. And as usual, the only person having a worse time than Elena is Bonnie. Back at Abby’s house, Caroline and Bonnie try to deal with Abby’s vampire transition, which does not go well and ends with Abby leaving AGAIN.

This week: Season 3 Episode 17 | Break On Through

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Even though there's a murder every other day in Mystic Falls, the recent Founder's Council member deaths remind Damon of a similar crime spree 100 years ago. Despite Liz explicitly telling him to stay out of the investigation, Damon tries to figure out what might have happened back in 1912, which reminds him of the mysterious, old vampire, Sage, who taught him how to enjoy life as a vampire. He also remembers when he passed Sage's advice onto Stefan, which may or may not have caused him to become the Ripper of Monterey. Meanwhile, Rebekah starts to very unsubtly look for records on the last white oak tree to figure out if there are any more weapons that can be used against the Originals. Elsewhere, Elena and Matt try to prove that Meredith is the serial killer by breaking into her apartment to investigate.

This week: Season 3 Episode 16 | 1912

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After Elena tells everyone in town that Damon spent the night with Rebekah, she learns from Bonnie that Esther is planning a magic ritual to kill the Original siblings later that night. Unable to keep that a secret either, Elena tells Elijah about the ritual and that she wishes there was a way she could help save his life. But just like he tells her, be careful what you wish for: to help save his life, he traps her in the caves and sends Rebekah to keep her there and wait for the signal to kill her if Stefan and Damon don't find a way to stop Esther's spell. In a surprise to no one, the Salvatore Brothers go rogue and instead try to take down the Originals themselves. When that plan inevitably fails, they have to make a coin flip decision on who has to cut off Bonnie and Abby's magic.

This week: Season 3 Episode 15 | All My Children

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