The Vampire Diaries: The Downward Spiral Recap

Synopsis: Caroline’s friends have a conniption about her flipping her humanity switch, but it seems like she’s doing just fine until Stefan provokes her and Caroline retaliates. Damon learns why his mother is trapped in the prison world.

Rating: ★★★★★

Caroline has her humanity turned off, and I swear on all that is sociopathically delightful that this is the best thing that’s happened to this show since Elena burned down her house and dyed her hair pink.

Seriously though. Caroline is my absolute favorite character for precisely this reason. When Elena and Stefan and literally everyone else on this show decides to turn it off and shut it down, they go absolutely insane.

We’re talking bat-shit crazy.

Stefan tears throats up and down the Eastern seaboard, Elena decides to get fancy with the matches, and what does Caroline decide to do?

She decides to get a fresh start.

She makes out with Liam (two for you, Liam) before she grabs a quick snack from his neck, heals him, compels him, and sends him on his merry way. Caroline then proceeds to buy all new things (sheets, clothes, etc.) for her room and restock the blood bags in the fridge.

Elena’s shocked that Caroline is functioning intelligently, but in Caroline’s words, “I shut off my humanity. I didn’t turn into an idiot.”

To be fair, someone really did need tell Stefan and Elena that a vampire can turn off their humanity and not be a complete, careless moron.

Anyway, Caroline says all the things we as the audience want to hear – her lack of enthusiasm at Bonnie’s return was nothing less than cathartic – before she makes a deal with Elena. If Elena and the others don’t try to get Caroline to turn her humanity back on for an entire year, Caroline will be good. If not, she’ll retaliate.

Stefan, feeling guilty for not telling Caroline that he has feelings for her, makes it his mission to completely ruin a good thing as always by triggering Caroline’s emotions. At a party, Stefan tells Caroline that he’s into her and he’s sorry that he didn’t tell her sooner. Our girl Care isn’t having it. She tells him to leave her alone and promises retaliation.

In the meantime, Damon’s playing around with Kai this week. Ever since Bonnie saw Damon’s mother in the prison world, Damon’s been trying to figure out if it’s really her, and if it is, why she’s there. Turns out Kai has the information, but he wants to apologize to Bonnie before he’ll hand it over to Damon.

Side note: speaking of Damon/Ian, it’s Ian Somerhalder’s directorial debut, and I think he did a great job with the episode. Granted, I may just be saying that out of my eternal love for Candice Accola.

Bonnie’s been having a tough time adjusting to life on This Side. She finally calls Jeremy to tell him she’s back at the end of the episode, but her homecoming doesn’t really register with any of the characters. Now that she has her magic back, she’s been using it to protect herself and hurt others. She’s been getting these PTSD flashbacks with Kai, which is probably not an awesome combination.

Anyway, Damon arranges a meeting with Bonnie and Kai against Bonnie’s will and it goes about as well as you would expect a meeting to go with someone who has repeatedly tried to kill her. After that, Bonnie shuts Damon out, but Damon gets his information. His mother was sealed in the prison world because she turned into a ripper vampire.

Doubtless, Operation #SaveSalvatoreMommy will probably commence soon.

Back in Caroline’s storyline, she’s decided to kidnap Sarah Salvatore and compel Liam to perform surgery on her. Elena and Stefan rush to stop her, but Caroline will only stop if Stefan turns his humanity off as well. This way, an emotionless Stefan won’t play off Caroline’s emotions to get her to turn her humanity back on.

After a few incisions and some screaming, Stefan finally caves and turns it off, but not before getting Elena to promise to get him to turn it back on. The final shot of the episode is Caroline and Stefan hanging nonchalantly by the bar, sipping margaritas.

A downward spiral never looked this good.