Infotainment

We open this, the third season finale, with Elena’s alarm clock sounding at the ungodly hour of 6:45. I try to acknowledge only one 6:45 a day and AM ain’t it. Seeing as how when we left Elena she was unconscious and bleeding, this is obviously yet another coma/dream sequence. She does look super cute in her Cheerio uniform, though.

She bops downstairs to breakfast and runs into Jenna in the kitchen. Hey Jenna! Girl, we’ve missed you. Elena reports that Jeremy has locked himself in the bathroom again. “Does he think we don’t know what he’s doing in there?” And before the mind can dwell too long on the idea of Steven R. McQueen doing things in a locked bathroom Jenna reminds us that in the coma dream Jeremy’s only 14 so all those thoughts are highly inappropriate.

Elena sneaks a sip of coffee just as her mother walks in and kisses her good morning. Then Elena wakes up, alone, in a hospital bed. Title card.

Three minutes in and my heart’s already torn out.

Outside Elena’s room that Meredith Fell person assures Jeremy that Elena’s is suffering from a slight concussion but is going to be fine. Jeremy apparently got his medical degree from a box of a more expensive brand of cereal, noting that bleeding from the nose is not generally a symptom of a mild concussion. Meredith insists that Elena will be OK and asks if there’s anyone Jeremy wants to call. Um, no, there’s pretty much no one left, Meredith, that’s kind of the point.

But he decides to call Damon and Stefan, who are driving through the night to dump Klaus in the drink. They’re furious that he took Elena out of the house, reminding him that any of the flock of vampires in Elena’s life could have slipped her a little juice. They tell him to get her home, stat, out of range of the remaining Originals.

The brothers want to return to Mystic Falls but recognize that one of them has to keep moving Klaus’s body (still half-expecting Klaus to sit up in the back seat). Stefan reminds us that Klaus has claimed that he’s the start of their blood line so they have to keep Klaus’s body away from VamPric to keep themselves alive. Damon replies, “Our life is one big proverbial coin-toss.” Not really, Damon, it’s more like a big proverbial four-sided D&D die roll.

Meredith enters her office and is startled to find VamPric there. He mockingly expresses his disappointment that as Elena’s guardian he didn’t get a call about her condition. Meredith wonders how he found out about it and VamPric smirks that he has eyes and ears everywhere.

VamPric opens Meredith’s fridge and takes out her supply of vampire blood. Calling it cheating, he dumps it out onto her files. I kind of hoped he’d drink it, the way Mikael only fed on other vampires. He informs her that the Council will be in touch with the medical board to have her license suspended. On what grounds? Saving too many patients? What is the Council going to do, tell the board that Meredith’s using vampire blood and oh by the way vampires are a thing? Whatever. He also says that Mayor Lockwood and Sheriff Forbes are being relieved of their duties. “I’m getting this town back under control, and you will be releasing Elena into my custody.” He strides to Elena’s room; she’s gone.

We pick up her trail back at the Gilbert place, where she arrives escorted by Tyler, Caroline and Jeremy. She insists she’s fine, just hungry, but the boys intend to reconnoiter the house to make sure there’s nothing “lurking in the closets”. Nothing’s been lurking in the closet since Bill Forbes left his wife. They head off and Caroline gets Elena settled on the couch. She suggests either tea or vodka for their sleep-inducing effects. First, Elena’s probably still good on the alcoholic front after downing that tequila immediately after having half her blood volume drained and number two, concussion plus sleep usually equals death.

Caroline senses she’s being a bit of a smother mother but Elena assures her it’s OK. Caroline scampers off to the kitchen to fetch tea with vodka, which gross. Elena spots a picture on the end table of her with her parents and we flash back again.

Elena’s walking with Matt and Bonnie and tells them that Caroline accused her ponytail of not having any zhuzh. Matt wonders what that even means. It means that Caroline’s been watching repeats of Queer Eye again. Bonnie reports that her psychic prediction that flare pants were coming back came true and Elena retorts that doesn’t mean she’s psychic; it means she’s watching too much Top Model. Any Top Model is too much Top Model. Bonnie’s also having bad vibes about the bonfire scheduled for that night and Elena says it doesn’t matter since she has to stay in for Family Night. Matt implores her to sneak out, gives her a kiss and says, “I love you” before heading off.

Bonnie notes that Elena didn’t say “I love you” back and suggests that Elena is stringing Matt along. If she’s not feeling it for Matt any more she needs to say goodbye.

Elena wakes up and sees Matt sitting by her. She apologizes for stringing him along back then and notes that she’s doing the same thing to Damon and Stefan. She has to let one of them go. Matt asks, “Which one?” but before she can answer Stefan enters.

Jeremy’s at the Grill picking up some food to go. He’s intercepted by VamPric. “We need to talk.”

Elena’s feeling “over-coddled” but Stefan insists that she’s on house arrest. Matt suggests getting the hell out of Dodge; Elena says that running for the rest of their lives is not a viable solution. She’s sick of the couch and so she heads to her room.

Matt challenges Stefan about letting Elena make the decisions, even if they may be the wrong ones. “Nothing wrong with free will, Matt. You don’t realize that until you lose it.” Matt and Stefan eye-bang each other for a moment but are interrupted by Elena. She’s at the front door, face to face with Elijah.

VamPric and Jeremy are still jawing at the Grill. VamPric asks where Klaus’s body is. Jeremy doesn’t know and wouldn’t tell VamPric if he did. VamPric points out that Elena almost died again tonight because she hangs around with vampires and that both she and Jeremy are too blind to see it. If Jeremy turns over Klaus’s bopy, VamPric will kill him and hunt down the rest of the Originals. Then when VamPric dies vampires will be over.

Jeremy responds that the only way for VamPric to die is for Elena to die. VamPric volunteers to be locked away or desiccated, then after Elena lives a long happy human life, she’ll die and he’ll die with her. Jeremy looks thoughtful. VamPric displays his super-stake (sadly, not a euphemism) and says he’s going to get Klaus regardless. “Be on the right side of this.”

At the Gilbert Summit, Elijah notes that if they can get the super-stake away from VamPric and retrieve Klaus’s body, he and his siblings will vanish. VamPric will follow them and leave Elena alone. Stefan is skeptical but Elijah points out that Klaus and Rebekah spent close to a thousand years evading Mikael; it will be no problem hiding for another “half-century” until Elena dies.

Elena objects; after all they’ve been through and finally succeeding in putting Klaus down she can’t just turn him over to be revived. Elijah swears that Klaus will not be revived even during her children’s lifetimes. “Perhaps that will teach him some manners.”

Matt’s not buying it, angrily retorting that Elijah and his family have done nothing to warrant being trusted. True, notes Elijah, but he could have killed Elena and ended VamPric the second he arrived and didn’t. Elijah puts it to Elena to decide whether to trust him or not. Damon, conferenced in by cell phone, immediately yells “Not!” He asserts that the Original siblings will kill Elena the instant they have what they want but Elijah swears that Rebekah and Kol will honor the agreement. Elijah: “Do we have a deal?” Damon: “No! No, no, no, no, no, and did I mention no?” Stefan: “Elena, it’s up to you.” Damon: “Oh come on!” Elena wants to know why they want Klaus’s body at all. “He’s my brother. We remain together.” That shuts Damon up. Elena agrees to the deal.

Tyler and Caroline arrive at the mayoral residence. Carol and Sheriff Liz are there and they explain that Tyler and Caroline have been outed to the Council. VamPric has the Council searching for Klaus and after Klaus Tyler and Caroline are next; they have to leave town.

Matt and Jeremy are conferencing on the Gilbert porch. Jeremy wants to go inside, pull Elena out and run but he knows there’s no way he could get past the room full of vampires. Besides, even if he wanted to help VamPric, he doesn’t know where Klaus’s body is. Matt says, “I do.” He does?

Jeremy calls VamPric at the Grill on his product-placed smart phone. He tells him Damon’s taking Klaus’s body to bury in the woods off Route 12. VamPric thanks him and tells him he’s doing the right thing. Jeremy, glancing around the room at Elena and company, says, “I know.”

Caroline paces in agitation and tells Tyler that they can’t leave town while their friends need them. Tyler says that their mothers need them to stay alive and that the Salvatores will do whatever it takes to protect themselves. “Let me protect you.” Caroline says that she will be with him always and run with him if need be but not until after she knows their friends are safe. Tyler relents, saying he’ll get some things together and meet her at the Lockwood family cell in two hours. He says they have to travel light so what does she need? “Just you,” she says, “maybe a curling iron.” That’s our girl! Caroline takes off.

Damon and Bonnie exit an elevator somewhere. Damon bitches about Elena “sell[ing] their souls” and Bonnie notes that it was Elena’s call. “You know what else is her call? Everything bad, ever!” Not up to his usual standard of snark but he’s under stress.

Bonnie asks where the body is, saying that as long as it’s “unspelled” VamPric is one witch away from finding it. They’re in a self-storage facility, by the way. Damon leads her to unit 1020. He was going to use unit 666 but that that was obvious. Anyone know if “1020” is significant? I’m sensing a season 4 crossover episode with Storage Wars.

Damon slides the door up and opens Klaus’s coffin. Klaus, desiccated and bound in chains, glares at them balefully. Bonnie says she needs a minute. Damon doesn’t think that’s such a swell idea. Bonnie: “Elena and Jeremy lost Jenna and Alaric because of him. Tyler’s a hybrid. My mother’s a vampire. Could you give me a minute to appreciate the sight of him like this?”

Damon wisely does not argue the point and backs out of the unit. Bonnie confronts Klaus, reciting again his litany of sins and saying he should burn in Hell for what he’s done. I do not disagree.

Back at Gilbert Central, Elena charges Stefan not to allow VamPric to lay a hand on Jeremy. Stefan tries to reassure her but sees she’s still distressed. She feels like every time people leave the house someone doesn’t come back. Stefan promises to do all he can to bring everyone home safely. He turns to go and Elena calls after him. He turns but she says they’ll talk later. He kisses her. “Just in case there’s no later.”

Damon and Stefan are on the phone, finalizing their plans. Damon’s pissed because Stefan let Elena make the decision. He would have done whatever was necessary to keep her from it. Stefan says that she would have hated Damon for doing it. But, Damon notes, at least Elena would be alive to hate him. Damon hears the elevator and says that Rebekah’s arrived and hangs up. He calls out for “Sexy Beks” which, ew, but it’s not Sexy Beks, it’s VamPric, who takes Damon from behind. VamPric asks where the body is and Damon suggests he start searching the thousand or so storage units for him. VamPric snaps Damon’s neck.

Matt brings Elena some tea. She takes a sip and grimaces; he apologizes for having “over-honeyed”. That sounds really dirty. They settle in for some girl talk.

Elena tells Matt that Stefan saved her life when her parents drove off Wickery Bridge. Matt asks if she feels like she owes Stefan (extremely valid question) but Elena says no. he says that after the accident she felt like she didn’t know how to live or want to live but that by being with Stefan she figured it out. “That’s what love should be. You should love the person that makes you glad that you’re alive.”

Matt asks then what’s the problem? Of course the answer is “Damon.” She feels like Damon “consumes” her and she launches again into how if she chooses one of them she’ll lose the other and that it’s “wrong” to love them both. And I want to tear my hair out and scream at her for putting that completely artificial limitation on herself and on love. There is nothing at all wrong with loving them both, Elena. Katherine told you that a season and a half ago and she was not wrong. Go ahead and love them both and be happy about it. Elena wishes her mom was there to give her advice.

And we’re in another flashback so Matt spiked the tea. Elena’s leaving the bonfire, calling home for a ride. She and Matt got into a fight about college and marriage and Elena couldn’t deal. Her mom says that he doesn’t really care about that stuff yet. He’s just feeling Elena out. Elena says she doesn’t know how she feels yet but Mom assures her that she does; she just isn’t ready to say it yet. Elena says she’s afraid to lose Matt but Mom says that she isn’t losing him. She’s setting him free. That is one damned convenient memory.

With that, Elena rouses in Matt’s truck. He’s taking her out of town.

VamPric’s busting open storage units when he hears the elevator. It’s Rebekah. She calls out for Damon and VamPric prepares to strike. Before he gets the chance Damon intercepts Rebekah. VamPric stalks the halls of the facility and stops in front of unit 1020, noticing the lock is broken off. Cut to Damon and Rebekah wheeling Klaus’s coffin to a waiting hearse. Before they can load it, VamPric intercepts them.

He slams Rebekah face-first into the hearse, knocking her cold. Damon launches himself at VamPric, who easily puts him down. VamPric opens the coffin and plunges the super-stake into Klaus’s heart. Rebekah screams as Klaus’s body bursts into flames.

VamPric retrieves the super-stake and goes for the double header. “Next.” Damon convinces a distraught Rebekah to run and attacks VamPric again to cover her escape. Poor tactics, VamPric. Shoulda staked Rebekah first; Klaus wasn’t exactly going anywhere.

Damon calls Stefan to report Klaus’s death. Neither of them detects any ill feeling, leading Damon to suggest that Klaus was lying about being the sire of their blood line. Stefan notes that Sage took about an hour to start showing symptoms so if they are Klaus’s line there isn’t time for Damon to get back to Mystic Falls. “For our epic goodbye?” Damon snarks. No, Stefan responds, for Damon to say goodbye to Elena. They hang up and Caroline arrives, realizing something is wrong.

Jeremy calls Matt in his truck. Elena demands that they go back. Matt tells her that Damon’s 100 miles out of town. He can drive her to Damon or back to Stefan.

Elena calls Damon. She tells him that Matt’s taking her home. It’s not just for Stefan, but for Caroline and Tyler too. Damon asks The Question. Elena replies, “I love him, Damon.” She fell for Stefan instantly and no matter what she feels for Damon she never “unfell” for Stefan. She tells him that she cares for him which is why she has to let him go. “Maybe if I’d met you first…”

He bids her goodbye and remarks to a suddenly appeared VamPric that he looks pissed what with Rebekah escaping. VamPric almost literally punches Damon’s head off.

At the Lockwood cell Caroline’s in tears as she rushes to Tyler. He says he was just with Bonnie. She tells him that Klaus is dead. Tyler tells her that she’s going to be fine. He’s a lost cause but she’s strong and has a beautiful future. He asks her to tell his mother that he left town like she wanted. They hold each other until Tyler is wracked with pain.

He tells her to leave; he doesn’t want her to watch him die. She refuses to leave him but he tells her he’ll make her leave. He begins to transform into a wolf and, in the face of a fatal bite, Caroline flees.

Elena receives word from Caroline about Tyler and she breaks it to Matt. Matt starts to lose it but Elena pulls him back from the edge. “This isn’t how our lives were supposed to be, Elena.”

Rebekah meets Elijah in the woods and tells him there was nothing she could do to save Klaus. He tells her that Tyler is dead but everyone else survived and he can;t make sense of that. He insists that neither he nor Kol are the head of the line and she says she isn’t either. They can’t understand how everyone is still alive.

At the cell, Bonnie says, “I know you’re there.” Tyler congratulates her on the spell and she tells “Klaus” that she did it to save her friends and her mother. Oh, hell. I hated this body switching nonsense the first time Klaus used it and I hate it now. Klaus notes that the spirits won’t be happy with her and she couldn’t care less. She’s tired of being pushed around.

Rebekah calls Stefan and congratulates him on being alive. He had thought they would be gone by now. She tells him that if they run VamPric will follow and she’s tired of running. Instead, she’s going to kill VamPric by taking out Elena. I am unclear as to exactly when or how she obtained this information. The only one who knew and who would be willing to tell her was Klaus and there didn’t appear to be time for him to contact her about it before he was dried up.

Cut to Elena and Matt. She needs to call Stefan but her phone’s dying. Matt takes his eyes off the road to dig up his phone and when he and Elena look up Rebekah’s in the middle of the road. Matt instinctively swerves (I’d have run the bitch down) and the truck goes off Wickery Bridge and plunges into the water below.

VamPric is beating the hide off of Damon and wondering why he’s not fighting back. “You’re kind of invincible, Ric.” VamPric tells him not to call him that, because they aren’t friends. Damon says they used to be and VamPric says that their friendship made him weak. He stirkes Damon aaina and Damon, hovering on the edge of consciousness, remembers.

He’s lying in the middle of a road. He hears Elena talking with Bonnie on her cell, telling her that she and Elena’s mother are both right but that she can’t make herself tell Matt how she really feels. Damon appears before her, calling her Katherine. He realizes she isn’t Katherine and introduces himself. She finds it creepy that he’s by himself in the middle of nowhere; he notes that she is similarly alone and in the middle of nowhere. She scoffs: “It’s Mystic Falls. Nothing bad ever happens here.” The irony, she burns.

So they yammer away through this completely artificial scene that would never happen because Damon is acting like season three Damon and not season one Damon and the upshot is, he did meet Elena first and compelled her to forget the encounter. Bleargh to the whole thing. Elena’s parents pick her up.

Back in the present VamPric makes to plunge his super-stake into Damon (sadly, not a euphemism) but Damon reaches deep down inside and finds the strength to fight back.

We intercut between the current crash and the crash that took the lives of Elena’s parents. In each instance, Stefan arrives to pull the people out of the car. In the flashback, Elena’s father directs him to rescue Elena first. In the present-day crash, Elena gestures to rescue Matt first. In the past, Elena’s parents drown. In the present, Elena does,

VamPric dies. Damon realizes the implications.

Jeremy calls Matt, frantic for information. Alaric quietly says, “Jeremy.” Jeremy can’t at first figure out how he got in the house. Ric tells Jeremy that he will always be there to look after him; he will never be alone. Jeremy suddenly understands that Alaric is a ghost. And that if he’s dead, so is Elena. There is not enough therapy in the world.

Cut to a shot of Elena. Dead.

At the hospital Damon demands that Meredith take him to Elena. She frantically tries to get him to pay attention. She tells him that when Jeremy brought her in earlier her injuries were more extensive than what Meredith led everyone to believe. Meredith administered vampire blood.

Elena comes to with a gasp.

This. Show. Is. Exhausting. Overall I felt this was agood season but I’m tired of the Originals. I realize that once you introduce the Originators Of All Vampires it’s kind of hard to increase the threat level but there has to be another approach. The Originals are played out and it’s time to move on; unfortunately if they do move on it means we lose Michael Trevino, which is unacceptable.

I am very interested to see if the creators decide to make Elena a vampire in season four. I have not read the books and I have no idea how closely the series is adhering to them, but it strikes me as a bad move. Although it would certainly distinguish the series other current vampire movies and TV shows where a good chunk of the central tension is the difficulties inherent in a love relationship between an immortal and a human. Still, I prefer human Elena.

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