The Vampire Diaries “Catch Me If You Can” 

Oh boy. That sound you heard Thursday was the Internet falling down when Stefan got into bed with someone who wasn’t Elena. We’ll get to that. Aside from that little tidbit, the episode was mostly a by-the-numbers outing in the run up to finally revealing Silas. Disclosures: No Caroline, Tyler, Hayley, or April in the episode.

So, we pick back up at the bar full of turning vampires and Damon finally comes to his senses and fakes out Klaus by sending Jeremy and Matt outside to partake of the chase before speeding up and sending them back to the house (but not before Matt gets nibbled). Elena arrives just in time to get inside the cabin with them and Damon makes it back, too, and they all decide to hide out until morning. Elena is not happy at this latest turn that “teaching Jeremy to fight” evolved into “baiting Jeremy and Matt in a bar full of vampires” so there’s no follow-on reunion to the “I love you” scene from last week.

Elena takes Matt back to Mystic Falls and Jeremy and Damon return to the bar to ambush the newbies but find that Kol’s already eaten everybody. He taunts Jeremy a bit until Damon moves against him, giving Jeremy a chance to flee, and then he and Damon get down to the business of bantering about Silas. Elena goes to see Klaus and ask him to call off Kol, and he does, but Kol works around his promise not to hurt Jeremy by compelling Damon to do it for him—so Damon’s now programmed to kill Jeremy every time he sees him. Whoops.

Over at the college, Bonnie is still pissed, but she’s in Shane’s office with Shane, telling him that she’s pissed, so she hasn’t completely snapped to yet. Then Liz busts in and arrests him. When the interrogation gets nowhere, Bonnie asks for a shot at him, and Liz thinks nothing of handing that off to a minor so Bonnie sits down with Shane and he tells her very plainly that, yes, he orchestrated the council deaths but it’s OK because Silas will bring them back and Bonnie finally pronounces him, rightfully, to be completely off his nut. Then he dangles Grams’s fate in front of her and she has a show and tell witch off in front of her dad that Shane talks her down from, and when her dad suggests counseling she says she’s fine.

Back at the Salvatores, Rebekah’s making herself un-useful reading Stefan’s diary and taunting him further about Elena and she suggests a field trip to the college since she orchestrated Shane’s arrest. They go to Shane’s office looking for Silas’s headstone and are interrupted by someone doing the same but he suicides himself before he tells then why. But the net/net is that they have the headstone, and in a haze of Shane’s “herbs” realize there’s no good reason they can’t pick up their 1920s enemies with benefits relationship.

Elena calls Stefan when she realizes Damon’s been compelled and he takes a while but he comes to help and then he bleeds Damon and locks him up. Elena goes to see him and Stefan won’t let her down into the basement because he doesn’t trust her not to let Damon go. She still wants to talk everything out and he says no and she pushes it and he tells her he’s fine, she just doesn’t know what he looks like when he’s not in love with her. That pretty much levels her and she leaves. She goes home to Jeremy and decides they can get around all of this if he just kills Kol—thousands of vamps = full tattoo and dead Kol = broken compulsion. Win win. If only it were that easy.

Rebekah has it out with Kol, who threatens to stake her, and then Klaus, who is amused that she’s so wound up about the cure. Then Stefan comes calling and they level set that whatever they’re going to do, it’s just sex (for now, I’m thinking) and then they get down to it.

And that’s where we leave everyone. So, we have the headstone and a plan for the tattoo and rearranged loyalties. That sounds about right with 11 episodes to go and a potential spin off to spin. Rest up!

The Vampire Diaries airs at 8 pm/7 c on Thursday on The CW. You can catch this episode online at CWTV.com.