The Vampire Diaries: Because Recap

Synopsis: Stefan succeeds in flipping Caroline’s humanity switch back on, but it looks like the couple might not survive the fallout. Mommy Salvatore presents Elena with the Cure in an attempt to ruin her son’s relationship. In the end, Damon offers to take the Cure with Elena to live their lives together as humans.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

I wasn’t too impressed with last week’s episode, but this episode was a little better, if only because Caroline got more screentime.

The Salvatore brothers have concocted a plan to torture Caroline until she’s vulnerable enough to turn her humanity back on. Stefan traps both him and Caroline in a vampire-proofed bed and breakfast Damon prepared. Damon bleeds Caroline dry and leaves Stefan and Caroline alone to chat.

Stefan convinces Caroline that he still has his humanity turned off, then tries to work on her emotions from inside the room. It doesn’t work super well.

Cue Elena, who brings Caroline a letter that Sheriff Forbes had delivered to Caroline after she died. Caroline sees right through Elena’s attempt to provoke an emotional reaction and forces Stefan to burn the letter. Caroline then proceeds to pick at Elena’s dream to become human again until Elena leaves the room to go cry in her boyfriend’s lying arms.

After a few more scenes together, Caroline figures out that Stefan has turned his humanity back on. She promptly snaps his neck and attempts to escape. Unfortunately, she’s too weak from blood loss, so she passes out. Stefan, ever the opportunist, starts planting visions of Sheriff Forbes in Caroline’s sleep. Our girl Caroline doesn’t like this blatant manipulation, so she stabs Stefan, who continues to show her visions. Finally, a vision of Liz talking about Staroline’s relationship causes Caroline to turn her humanity back on.

Poor Caroline spends the rest of the episode sobbing and poring over the police files of all the people she’s killed while Stefan stands in the background being about as useful at cleaning up her spilled emotions as a soggy paper towel.

In the other storyline, Bonners decides to steal the Ascendant back from Mommy Salvatore before Damon’s problem becomes her problem. After some bonding with Enzo and assurance that Lily never abandoned him after his transformation, the two head back to make sure no one double crossed them.

With the Ascendant missing, Lily calls Damon and threatens him – she says that if Damon can’t get her the Ascendant, then she’s going to tell Elena about the Cure.

Damon stops Bonnie right before she destroys the Ascendant, but then walks away when she offers him the choice of letting her destroy the Ascendant and his hopes of giving Elena what she most desires or letting them live a blissful eternity together. Damon picks option 2 and leaves Bonnie to her witchy pyrotechnics.

Back at the house, Elena stumbles on an elaborate, romantic table setting – topped off with the Cure in a velvet box. Mommy Salvatore decided it was a worse punishment for Elena to know about Damon’s betrayal than to destroy the Cure entirely. Momma Salvatore then proceeds to rip the head off a hapless driver and call Enzo to clean up the mess, so her self control and planning skills aren’t perfect.

At the end of the episode, Elena and Damon talk about what they want for each other, and Damon makes Elena an offer: they can become human together.