The Vampire Diaries: “O Come, All Ye Faithful” 

I am the first to admit when I don’t know something, and y’all, I’m seriously in the dark about a lot that happened, and why it happened, in last night’s episode.

It’s Christmas in Mystic Falls (a holiday first for the show) and we pick up again with Damon and Elena in bed (but this time, still dressed), commiserating that they’re together when they shouldn’t be, and Damon promised Stefan that they wouldn’t. They don’t really come to any sort of agreement when Bonnie calls and Elena goes to the Gilbert family cabin, with Damon in tow, to begin trying to rewire Jeremy not to kill her.

Stefan goes to see Klaus and asks for proof that he really has the sword and Klaus shows him. Then they chat about Stefan’s current state of affairs, which makes Stefan really uncomfortable. Over in hybridville, Tyler has decided it’s time to wipe out Klaus, and part of that will involve Klaus jumping into him again and then encasing himself in concrete. Caroline’s absolutely not down with that. She goes to Stefan and then they both end up held captive by the hybrids.

At the cabin, Jeremy is hypnotized by Shane and reveals that yes, he really does want Elena dead because she already is dead to him. That’s not where they wanted that to go, so Damon comes up with the idea that Jeremy should focus on Bonnie as a guiding point, and that works to defuse his rage. Damon then calls out Shane that he’s got to have a play in all of this, Shane tells him and Elena they don’t need the sword to find the cure. If he’ll help them, he’ll show them where to dig up Silas from his story a few weeks back.

Damon shares this with Stefan, and then he and Caroline hatch an alternative plan involving Rebekah. Hayley torpedoes that and leaves Caroline broken-necked on the floor while she initiates her double cross, which Shane seems to be running via text message. Somewhere in there Tyler tells his mother what he’s up to, and they say a sweet goodbye after she worries he’ll miss graduation, and then they can’t find each other again for the rest of the episode.

So, while Caroline’s out cold, Hayley goes to talk to Klaus, which Stefan sees, and then he and Klaus have another existential chat about being lonely killers before Klaus follows one of his hybrids out into the woods, ostensibly where the rest of the pack is at the ready to take him down.

In what should be a surprise to absolutely nobody who watches this show, the pack aren’t going to get to deliver a blow to Klaus. They’re about to be delivered to him as the sacrifice. For those keeping count, with Tyler away, getting the skinny from Hayley herself about what she’s done, the count only stands at 11. That’s important in a minute.

Caroline is discovered on the floor by April and then she revives and scares the crap out of her. Caroline’s not as detail-oriented as she should be so she doesn’t realize her attempt at compelling April didn’t happen because of Jeremy’s bracelet. Matt clues her in and then Caroline spends the rest of the episode looking or, but not finding April.

Out in the woods, Klaus is killing everybody, and he chases Kim into the cellar where he kills her, too, after she tells him she doesn’t know where Tyler is, and poor April, hiding in the shadows, watches all this go down. Then she finds Rebekah in her coffin. We get to the end of the episode without knowing where Tyler is.

His mom is back at the latest party, three sheets gone and trying to reach him for her ride home when a blood-soaked Klaus walks up and she’s sober enough to realize he’s in a dangerous way. He talks to her about what she and Tyler mean to each other, and she begs him not to kill Tyler, and he obliges, in the near term, by forcing her head into the fountain and holding her there until she drowns.

At the cabin, Elena tries to invite Damon into the reconciliation/Christmas party with her, Bonnie, and Jeremy but he abstains, telling her that he skipped Christmas after he and Stefan broke up all those years ago (not sure which time). He finally does what he said he would do, and tells her to stay away from him, that it would make him happy, that he will stay with Jeremy to train him and she should go home with Bonnie. He walks her to the car and she tells him she didn’t want it but she feels like she has to go now, and then she kisses him anyway.

Back at the Salvatores, an unaware Caroline and Stefan talk about his chat with Klaus, and feel bad about what they think they set him up for, and their conversation turns to trust. Caroline’s face wrinkles and she starts to ask Stefan how much he knows about Damon and Elena and then she wordlessly tells him everything he shouldn’t know, and he responds in a rage.

Here’s where I got very confused. I’d get Caroline doing this if she were making a play for Stefan, but if she’s truly just his friend at this point, and desperately in love with Tyler, there’s nothing to be gained by annihilating any hope Stefan had, and essentially burning his relationship with his brother to the ground. If anyone has insights on this, please comment me. I really do want somebody to tell me why she did that.

Also confusing—why Shane had Klaus do his sacrifice for him.

We go into our hiatus with quite the body count, Klaus on a rage bender, and Stefan close to following him, Tyler MIA, April in need of major therapy, Damon and Elena unsired but now in Stefan’s crosshairs, and Shane seeming to hold all the cards. Happy holidays!

The Vampire Diaries returns January 17^th at 8 pm/7c on The CW.