Undeclared! The Vampire Diaries

Rebekah has arrived, and she does not disappoint. We flash back to the 1920's, where we learn about Stefan's Ripper days in Chicago, and how he was entangled with Klaus and Rebekah at the time. In the present day, Klaus undaggers his sister in order to get info from a very old, yet very young, witch named Gloria. That doesn't go so well since Katherine kills her. And everything leads back to Elena, as usual, because what they need is the necklace that Stefan gave her, which used to be Rebekah's.

Back in Mystic Falls, Caroline is being put through some form of conversion therapy by her vampire hating father, and that goes as well as other forms of conversion therapy do. Luckily, Tyler and Liz save her. Meanwhile, Jeremy spills the beans about his Ghosts of Girlfriends Past to Bonnie, and shuts Anna out in the process. And Alaric claims a spot on the Council in the place of the missing Gilbert quotient because someone has to protect the humans now that Liz and Carol are compromised by their children's new supernatural classifications.

Here we are in Season 3, and Stefan has gone off the rails it seems. He's massacring women, torturing a werewolf, and basically doing everything Klaus tells him to. Klaus isn't to blame for what Stefan does to Andie though. That's all Stefan.

Meanwhile, Jeremy is seeing ghosts, Tyler and Caroline finally hook up, and Carol Lockwood has been pretty busy figuring out that Caroline is a vampire. And now Caroline's vampire hating dad has his daughter shackled to a chair in a cell. Good times.

Everything is terrible. Jenna is a vampire. Klaus' ritual happens. Jenna dies. Elena dies, temporarily. John dies...well, we're not so upset about that in the long run, but it did make us a little sad in the moment. Jeremy dies, and is resurrected by Bonnie. Matt breaks up with Caroline. Elijah's betrayal was rewarded with a dagger to the heart. Stefan leaves with Klaus after getting the cure for Damon's werewolf bite, and is apparently back to being a ripper. At least we have Alaric to make us smile.

It's official: the worst thing has happened. Aunt Jenna, sweet, innocent Aunt Jenna, has been killed. Technically. She's in transition and it remains to be seen what choice she makes. And it's all so Klaus can break the curse that was put on him and him alone: that's right, kids, The Sun and the Moon Curse is just a big lie that Klaus has been telling for a thousand years as a way to make sure that werewolves were looking for the moonstone and vampires were on the lookout for the Doppelganger. And because of this, it looks like we're going to lose Jenna.

Oh. And as a way to keep Elena from dying, Damon forces her to drink his blood, so she has to make the vampire choice too. Great.

Isobel is back, and Katherine does exactly what we expected and moves on to what she thinks is the better option. She's wrong, because Isobel set her up and handed her over to Klaus, and then dies in front of Elena. And speaking of Klaus, he's apparently a body snatcher as well as the oldest vampire in existence, because he's taken up shop in Alaric's body. This leads to a showdown between him and Bonnie, where he thinks he gets the upper hand, but thanks to Damon's quick thinking, he's wrong.

So, a lot happens in these episodes. Elena learns a bit about Stefan's past, which gives us more Lexi; everyone learns that vampires can't use the white oak ash and dagger to kill an Original without dying themselves, but humans can wield it; Alaric does so, and Elijah is "dead" as long as the dagger stays in. This leads to Katherine being able to leave the tomb, and she swears she's actually helping the group, which is fine for now. Jonas gets Luca killed, which leads him to attempt to take revenge on the vampires. Matt is caught in the crossfire, so Caroline saves him and has to confess that she's a vampire. John has poisoned Jenna against Alaric, and Alaric can't tell her the truth until Elena gives the go-ahead. But then Isobel shows up at their door. All the hurt that Jenna is going to feel could have been avoided if Elena had just been honest with her.

It seems the show may feel the way we do and wanted to wrap up this werewolf nonsense quickly because by the end of these episodes most of them are missing their hearts. Before that happens, though, they torture both Caroline and Damon, try to kidnap Elena while she and Stefan are trying to have a weekend away from all of this mess, and try to turn Tyler against his friends. This doesn't go over well for them in the end, and it causes a huge rift for Caroline and Tyler.

Meanwhile, Uncle John is up to something. He almost seems like he's trying to help, but we don't trust him. Plus, he's messing with Jenna's head. You DON'T mess with Jenna!

Sorry this is going up a day late. I had a busy week and didn't have time to edit until this morning. Hopefully it's worth the wait! In these episodes, we learn a lot about what happens when a werewolf bites a vampire, and to our dismay it comes at the cost of losing Rose. We love Rose. We already miss Rose. Meanwhile, Stefan spends some time in the tomb with Katherine and is given a lead (of sorts) on finding Klaus; Elena makes a deal with Elijah; and Caroline helps Tyler through his first transformation.
 
 
But mainly: we lose Rose, and we are sad.

In these episodes we learn about how Katherine went from exiled Bulgarian Katerina to the Katherine Pierce that we know, and it entails an unwed teenage birth, banishment from her family, an aristocrat named Klaus, and her determination to not be used as a sacrifice for the breaking of a curse because she's The Petrova Doppelganger (version 1). The choice that Elena tries to make now that she's in the same position 500-plus years later is the opposite, however: where Katherine manipulated Rose and became a vampire via suicide, Elena tries to hand herself over to Klaus to save the people she cares about that would be used in the ritual. Elijah is having none of that though for some reason, and he makes sure she's protected.

Meanwhile, Tyler and Caroline learn what a werewolf transformation looks like by watching a video journal that Uncle Mason made of his first transformation, and it does NOT look fun. Bonnie learns a new trick from new-to-town warlock Luca, and then promptly uses that trick against him. Jeremy tries to be the hero by enacting his own plan to keep Bonnie from hurting herself, which leads to Stefan being stuck in the tomb with Katherine. But they got the moonstone back, so let's see where this all leads.

We came so close to not having an episode to post this week because of unexpected recording issues, but Krista saved the day, so here you go, guys! We see the gang orchestrate a near perfect plan that ended with Katherine in the tomb, despite her many contingencies. Unfortunately, one of those contingencies was Sarah, whose compulsion kicked in when Matt's didn't work (thanks to Caroline) and ended in Sarah's death, and the activation of Tyler's werewolf curse.
 
 
Then Elena gets kidnapped. By Rose and the not long for this series Trevor, who have been running from The Originals for 500 years. They bring one of those Originals, Elijah, to the Petrova Doppelganger, but he's staked through the chest with a coat rack by the Salvatores and Elena is saved, again. But little do they all know: Elijah isn't dead.