This episode was…kind of a hot mess, actually.  I’m glad that quite a few people on Twitter agree that something weird is up with the pacing and plotting this season; some parts are working amazingly well (surprisingly so, like the Alaric storyline, which I wasn’t really on board with until this week), and others…I don’t know.

I mean, does anyone care about Sage?  Are we supposed to enjoy her character?  Because I don’t.  Between her sexist bullshit and the fact that she’s just not all that interesting, I’m ready for her to go.  Of course she’s in love with Finn – he’s the most boring Original.  I suppose that if we’d ever seen the two of them interact it might be easier to buy, but I find it hard to accept her motivations.

I think a big part of the problem is that there are too many people missing.  I want Tyler back.  I want Jeremy back.  And I sure as hell want Katherine back.  I feel like these extraneous characters – Bill Forbes, Abby Bennett and that kid (I can never remember his name), the other (non-Klaus or Elijah) Originals, even Meredith to some degree – are meant to fill the emotional holes left by everyone who’s run off or died.  The show’s thrown a lot of characters at us this season and most of them have missed.

That said, I do like Meredith and I hope she sticks around.  She’s certainly offering something different from the other characters.

Anyway, enough grousing.  Like I said, there were parts – large parts – of tonight’s ep that worked for me. It’s going to take way more than a handful of problematic episodes to put me off.  I’m just kind of worried how they’re going to bring all of this together for anything remotely like the gut punch of the last two end-of-seasons.  I’m choosing to have faith in our show…but I still worry.

Mystic Falls General

Alaric is getting the House treatment – he’d better watch it or they’ll do a lumbar puncture.  Meredith and Elena watch from the radiation-free room.

ELENA:  Is it lupus?

MEREDITH:  IT’S NOT LUPUS!

Inside the scanner, you can actually see Alaric Jekyll/Hyde-ing it just in his facial expressions, which is pretty badass.  He starts to freak out, though, which even a non-psychotic person would do in a giant magnetic coffin. 

MEREDITH:  Alaric, are you flailing?

EVILARIC:  Why no, my dear, I was simply twirling my mustache.

*TITLE CARD*

Still in the hospital, but in a private room, Alaric gets himself together.  Elena pops in.

ELENA:  Meredith said there’s nothing wrong with your brain.

ALARIC:  Of course there’s not.  I’m NORMAL.  And I didn’t kill a crap-ton of people…well, unless I did.  That would suck.

ELENA:  Hold up: I’m about to have an actual good idea.  I’ll call Bonnie and see if she can do something – a Witch in her family line made the ring, maybe they’ve got a magical un-psycho elixir or something.

Alaric slides the ring over to her. 

ALARIC:  Take it.

ELENA:  YOU CANNOT GIVE ME THIS RING.  DO NOT TEMPT ME, FRODO!

ALARIC:  Oh for fuck’s sake.

ELENA:  You don’t seriously think we could do this plotline without half the recappers making Tolkien jokes, do you?

Damon appears to take Ric home.  Elena gives him the stink-eye…why is she mad at him this week?  Oh, because he “forced” Stefan to chomp on a human.  Because all those other humans he’s killed aren’t nearly as important as the one that didn’t die, that might actually *help* him get over his bender. 

ELENA:  I can’t believe you were out there feeding on people!  And with my other Boo!

DAMON:  VAMPIRES. VAMPIRES VAMPIRES VAMPIRES.  We’re in season 3, Elena. Haven’t you got this yet?  VAMPIRES DRINK BLOOD.  And if you want Stefan to get through this he’s got to learn to control it, not just pretend it doesn’t exist.

ELENA:  Yeah, well…your momma.  *drives away*

Abby Bennett’s Farmhouse of Existential Angst

Caroline, who is the best, arrives with a cooler full of blood she swiped from a hospital blood drive.  She’s adorably chipper about it, though Bonnie just looks pained.

I love that B-Positive is Caroline’s favorite type. It’s totally her life slogan.

BONNIE:  I made Abby a daylight ring and now she’s wandering around the yard.

CAROLINE:  Hey, Abs, come in and B-Positive!

ABBY:  I can’t feel my garden anymore.

ME, SPEAKING AS AN ACTUAL WITCH:  …oh, damn.

As much as I don’t give a rat’s ass about Abby, I do feel kind of awful for her here – possibly for the first time since she came aboard.  I’ve spent most of my life talking to trees, after all, and the idea of just…not being able to feel the presence of Nature anymore is kind of horrifying. 

To help Caroline understand the idea of having a connection to the Earth, Bonnie Latins up a flower out of the ground, much like Willow did when she was going through magic rehab. 

Wickery Bridge

It appears to be official kickoff day on the restoration project, because Carol Lockwood has a hard hat and half the town is there.

Meredith, Alaric, and Damon saunter up onto the scene.  Damon sees Rebekah schmoozing up the Mayor and wonders again what she’s up to with all her pointed questions.  Ric wonders, quite rightly, why the hell they’ve come here.

DAMON (actual dialogue):  Ric, the world can’t stop just because you’re an accidental psycho killer.

MEREDITH:  God, you’re an asshole.

DAMON:  Are you new here…oh, wait, you are.  I’ll let that one pass.

CAROL LOCKWOOD:  Hi Alaric!  Did you bring the sign?  You know, the WICKERY BRIDGE SIGN YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO RESTORE, which will not in any way come up again later in a significant moment?

ALARIC:  Um…forgot.

He makes some lame excuse about being busy – you know, it would have sounded like much less of a lie if he’d said he was ill, having health problems, something like that.  He did, after all, spend the morning at a hospital, and someone probably saw him.  Stuff gets around quickly in small towns; Carol would know it was true by lunchtime.

Still, Carol’s not too upset; she says they can just unveil the sign when they finish the bridge.

ALARIC:  Get me out of here.

Damon, whose makeup looks genuinely godawful in broad daylight, sees a familiar and excruciatingly boring face across the crowd:  Sage. 

They really should lay off the foundation for daytime scenes – it’s way less pancakey looking in night shots and dark sets like the Den of Antiquities. 

SAGE:  Damon Salvatore…boy, has your hair improved over the decades.

DAMON:  So has your wardrobe.

REBEKAH: I’m here to make things uncomfortable.

The two snipe at each other about Finn before Rebekah stalks off.  I’m afraid Sage, who’s been pining for Finn all these years, is in for a pretty huge disappointment when she finds him, since he was the suicidal brother and all.  That whole “I’m perfectly fine with dying and taking the whole family with me” thing will likely put a damper on their sex life.

SAGE:  I hate her.

DAMON:  Of course you do.  We’re trying to appeal more to male viewers, so we need a nice catfight.

Den of Antiquities

Stefan is having a glass of blood, but apparently it’s not B-Positive.

Elena enters the house without knocking, and when she sees him she gets all awkward.

ELENA:  I’m just here to…um…borrow this book…because your family apparently write entire books about my family back in the day.

STEFAN:  I can tell you what’s in it.  Samantha Gilbert took an arrow to the knee…no, wait, that’s a knitting needle to the head.  So basically Alaric’s fucked, and don’t let him take up knitting.

ELENA:  Um…okay.  That was very encouraging, Stefan.  Bye.

Back in the Woods

Damon is as skeptical as we are that Sage’s “one true love” (yes, she uses that exact phrase) was Finn McBoringass. 

SAGE:  I hope you and Rebekah aren’t friends, because she and Klaus treated me like a trashy whore.

DAMON:  Well, if you weren’t a whore, maybe you shouldn’t have been wearing the uniform.  Besides, Rebekah just wants something from me.

SAGE:  We can find out what.  Because women are weak, and they only exist to screw and screw over.

DAMON:  Sounds fun!

They return to the Wickery Bridge groundbreaking and buffet, and Damon turns on the charm and grabby hands to convince Rebekah to come over and…

DAMON:  Threesome?

(He doesn’t actually say that outright, but the implication is there.)

REBEKAH:  With the bitchy woman I can’t stand?  AWESOME.  Go to hell.

By the time he leaves, however, he’s managed to murmur in her ear and brush hands over her hips enough that she actually looks a little girlishly rattled for a second before rolling her eyes.

Abby’s Farmhouse

Jamie – yeah, that’s his name! – is chopping wood to avoid dealing with Abby.

CAROLINE LECTURE #1:  Get over yourself, farm boy!  Abby needs you.

Her phone rings.

ELENA:  I know Bonnie’s not talking to me, but Ric’s kind of losing his shit in a stabbity sense, and we could really use her help.

Gilbert Breakfast Table and Crime Lab

Alaric is going through all the info Meredith has on him, but he has something important to tell Meredith that’s not in any report.

ALARIC:  Logan Fell, your douchey cousin…I kind of staked him all kinds of dead.

Despite this admission, Meredith is supportive (probably because she didn’t like Logan any more than anybody else did).  Meredith’s attitude toward the whole vampire situation is surprisingly hands-off; she prefers to stay out of it, use their blood for her patients, and spend her off hours researching sexy history teachers.

Den of Antiquities

Stefan is practically climbing in the blood fridge in the basement, and there’s a half dozen spent bags on the floor when Damon arrives. 

DAMON:  Stop being a self-loathing cliché and sack up, brother.

STEFAN:  Stop telling Elena about my blood habit!

DAMON:  …um, dude, I’m pretty sure she already knew.  Now, unless you want to join in the fun, or stay in your room and put your headphones on, you should probably go to a movie or something.

Abby’s Farmhouse

Bonnie and Jamie exchange flirty banter and he tells her that since Abby’s always been there for him, he needs to be there for her.  Mostly because Caroline will kick his ass if he doesn’t shape up.

Jamie apologizes to Abby, both for his behavior and for what’s happened to her.  You can tell by the length of the hug that something bad is about to happen, namely:

ABBY:  *JAMIECHOMP*

Den of Antiquities

Some random dude who I mistook for Finn plays the piano while Damon and Sage drink and wait for Rebekah to show up. 

DAMON:  You know, Finn’s gone.

SAGE: Nuh-uh.

DAMON:  He fucked you over.

SAGE:  …your momma.

Rebekah arrives with more booze!  Yay!  Sage, who is determined to exploit Rebekah’s fears of being alone and unloved, is really very sleazy.  I can see why the Original siblings didn’t like her hanging all over their brother.  Imagine how awkward Thanksgiving would have been.

So, there’s dancing, and a nice soundtrack by The Kills.  Rebekah looks bored, as she’s not the one Damon’s dancing with, and goes over to bite the random dude at the piano.  Seeing that their plan is going to falter if Rebekah doesn’t let her guard down, Damon joins her, and they do a tandem-biting thing that’s…well, pretty darn sexy, I gotta say.  Two-fer bites are always kind of hot, and I can’t remember the show ever having either Salvatore slurp on a guy, so they’re bringing in a lot of interesting sexy things in this episode.

For instance:  Damon deftly separates Rebekah from her good sense (and later her panties) with Sage watching from the couch.  Despite Sage’s claims to hate Rebekah, she actually looks a little turned on.

I think it says a lot about Rebekah as a character that I hated her so much when she first arrived and now I’m actually angry on her behalf that she’s being manipulated like this.  Not that she hasn’t done plenty of bad things herself, but the way she responds to Damon’s affections – emphasis on affect – she just seems so happy to be wanted. 

Abby’s Farmhouse

Abby is understandably upset about attacking Jamie and refuses the blood bag Bonnie brings her, saying she should just leave.

BONNIE:  Are you really going to talk about bailing again?

Caroline comes out to tell them that Jamie’s fine, but that now she needs a favor from Bonnie, presumably her help with the Alaric situation.

Gilbert House

Alaric gives Elena a sheet of paper where he’s written his bank account numbers, next of kin, et cetera – a really smart move given how things are going.  Elena pours herself a steaming mug of denial.

Caroline/Bonnie call and tell Elena that Bonnie’s pretty sure she can help, but she’ll need a personal effect of Alaric’s from before he wore the Ring of Not-Doom-Doom.  Ric recommends his wedding ring.

ALARIC:  I’ll go get it.

MEREDITH: The hell you say.

ELENA:  I’ve got this one, you guys hang.  And don’t do anything evil!

Den of Antiquities

Damon and Rebekah are snoozing poist-coitally when Sage comes in to crack open Rebekah’s brain and fish out what she’s up to.  She finds it and makes a “No, really?” face, then motions for Damon to join her for a nice shower – I guess so the noise will keep Rebekah from hearing them talk, but I’m sure Sage has ulterior motives, because…well, who wouldn’t? 

Kissing is the vampire version of the Vulcan mind-meld, so they make out and Sage shows Damon what she got out of Rebekah’s head:  that there’s another tree out there, the Salvatores probably chopped it down and turned it into a rocking chair they’ll have to steal from under some old lady, et cetera.

We are then treated to Damon in a towel fondling books.  I swear it’s like they’re reading my diary.

For some reason Damon thinks the record of the tree being milled and shipped will be in the 1912 business ledger…why, exactly?

Anyway, Damon finds what he’s looking for:  an entry labeled “Wickery Bridge,” describing several hundred board feet of white oak.

DAMON:  No way.

LEDGER:  Way.

Alaric’s Loft

Stefan pops up to scare Elena, because that’s what you do when you’re trying to convince someone you’re no longer creepy.

They do the whole “I can’t be who you want me to be” thing, leaving Elena to wonder why he’s there; he brought more good news about Samantha Gilbert.

STEFAN:  The last two people she killed – before herself, that is – were after she wasn’t wearing the ring.  Alaric’s fucked.

Gilbert House

…and we cut to Alaric waking up on the couch…or, rather, EVILARIC. 

Den of Antiquities

Still in his towel, Damon burns the milling ledger so there’s no record left of what happened to the tree.  He’s in an awfully vulnerable position for a guy in a towel in front of a fire.

SAGE:  So…after all of that…I’m afraid I can’t let you sport any wood.

DAMON:  But my wood is mighty!

SAGE:  You might use your wood on Finn, and that would make me unhappy.

DAMON:  Fine, let’s make a deal…I’ll leave Finn alive, you let me kill the others, everybody’s happy.

Alaric’s Loft

As Elena tries to get the various drawers in Alaric’s dresser open, she and Stefan have one of those conversations that’s about Alaric but totally about Stefan, that whole “not everyone can be saved” thing.  Elena calls him on it, thankfully.

ELENA:  Yeah, well, I’m not giving up on either of you, Mr. Sunshine.

After a long meaningful look, Stefan yanks the drawer open for her.

Elena immediately wishes he hadn’t.  The drawer is full of pictures of the people Alaric has killed.

Den of Antiquities

Damon is finally dressed…and Sage has split.  Quelle surprise.

EVILARIC’s Loft

The next thing they find in the drawer is an envelope labeled “Jeremy Gilbert.” Hoo boy.

Inside the envelope is a note to Jeremy saying he must “continue the work,” and that the “Council must be cleansed.”  There’s also a hit list with names highlighted.  

STEFAN and ELENA:  Oh shit.

Luckily Elena finds the wedding ring that hopefully can help Alaric before it’s too late.

Gilbert House

You guessed it.

Meredith makes coffee, and Evilaric gets hold of one of his favorite toys, a kitchen knife.

EVILARIC:  Do you ever feel remorse?

Meredith knows something’s wrong just from those words, because she’s a smart gal.

Evilaric proceeds to give her some “The Council has totally failed in their duty” shtick, which is pretty much true; if the Council’s job was to protect Mystic Falls from vampires, they’ve done a really craptastic job.  Not, you know, a murder-worthy job, but still, craptastic.

Meredith is also really good at evading psychopathic killers – as Evilaric lunges at her with the knife, she gets him with a shattering coffee mug, then books it for the living room, only to find he squeezed all the tranquilizers out of her hypodermics.  She takes off running upstairs…well, okay, not the brightest move ever, since the front door was RIGHT THERE…and kicks him off of her midway up, knocking the knife out of his hand.

She takes refuge in a bathroom that I’m pretty sure has multiple doors…but, then again, she said earlier she doesn’t know where anything is, so the house’s invasion-friendly layout probably hasn’t sunk in yet.

She gets all the doors locked, even the one Ric tries to shove in – by grabbing a pair of scissors from the sink and stabbing his hand with it.  GOOD GIRL.

It’s not until she’s “safe” that we see she’s bleeding, badly.

Wickery Bridge

Damon drives up to where Rebekah has built a very large bonfire out of all the white oak wood that was pulled from the old bridge.  He is, shall we say, un-thrilled.

Sage appears.  She calls him out on the fact that his promise to save Finn was a bald-faced lie:  if one Original goes down, they all do.  Damon was banking on her not knowing that.

Damon, however, has bad news for her.

DAMON:  Your one true love wants to die, Sage.  He volunteered to be the sacrifice to kill the whole family.  He doesn’t give a crap about you.

Sage has the good grace to look upset as he stalks off.

Gilbert House

Stefan and Elena arrive with the wedding ring.  Alaric, coming down the stairs, is cheerful as he bandages his hand.  They see the broken coffee cup and smell something off.

Elena can be a bit of a dumbass sometimes, but she’s onto him the second he says Meredith had to leave for an emergency surgery; you can see it in her eyes.  She lies right back at him that she didn’t find the ring and that she hasn’t seen Stefan.

Unfortunately for Ric, the bloody knife is still lying on the floor in plain sight.

Just as he starts to psycho out, Stefan pounces on him from behind.

STEFAN:  I CHOKE YOU OUT!

He drops an unconscious Ric on the floor.

Then, he seems to realize that the blood he smells isn’t Ric’s – something is very wrong upstairs.

STEFAN:  Come with me – I need you to keep me from licking an open wound.

They get to the bathroom to find Meredith on the floor, bloody handprints everywhere from her attempts to stop the bleeding.  Stefan, as you’d expect, is fighting with himself over how close to get to her, but the only thing that can save her is his blood, so he’s going to have to go in.

As soon as Meredith has got some of his blood down, Stefan stumbles back and out of the room – but the thing is, he did it.  He went vamp-face but brought himself back to save her, and didn’t lose control.  Hopefully later he’ll see that as a win.

The next morning, Ric wakes in bed, and Damon is sitting in the chair nearby.

RIC:  Hi, what’d I miss?

DAMON:  Bonnie did her thing while you were out, and you should enjoy the refreshing taste of sanity while you can.

RIC:  Wait…where’s Meredith?

Aw, poor Damon – he has no idea what to say, so he goes with

DAMON:  She’s going to be fine.

By the look on Ric’s face, he knows exactly what that means.

Downstairs, Bonnie brings Elena a jar of Anti-Killer herbs that Ric has to take twice a day.  Oh, boy, I can see 1,000 ways this can go wrong.

In a really sweet girlfriend moment, Elena chokes up apologizing to Bonnie about what happened to Abby, and Bonnie hugs her tightly, forgiving her.

Abby’s Farmhouse

Caroline and Jamie dig in the garden.  They talk about how Caroline’s been helping everyone, and she tells Jamie that she’s been through this before, with her dad, and it didn’t end well, so she wants to make sure things go better for Bonnie.

Then Caroline goes in the house, where Abby, packed and in a coat, is writing a Dear John letter to her kids.

Nice.

CAROLINE LECTURE #2:  God damn it, don’t you dare do this again!  You already ran out on Bonnie once, and now you have a chance to make it right – don’t screw this up too!

ABBY:  I suck.  Bye.

Gilbert House

We get a wide shot of Elena, all alone in the house, cleaning up the kitchen; the sheer emptiness of the place is really sad.

She goes upstairs and makes a phone call.

JEREMY:  Hey sis!  How’s tricks?

Turns out things are going well for Jer, just as she’d hoped: he’s doing okay in school, has friends, and even has a dog. 

ELENA:  You haven’t talked to Alaric about anything murderly lately, have you?

JEREMY: No, why?

ELENA:  No reason.

She ends up staring at her phone, pretty much trying not to break down sobbing.

Den of Antiquities

Turns out Stefan did realize that he did okay with Meredith; he’s actually almost smiling, but that might be the whiskey talking.

Damon comes in carrying a bit flat paper-wrapped thing.  He’s chipper.

He unwraps the Wickery Bridge sign that Alaric was supposed to take to Carol Lockwood but didn’t.  It’s made of the same wood as the bridge…which means they can use it as a weapon.

DAMON:  I think I deserve the MVP cookie for this episode, don’t you?

The two share a fierce, triumphant, somewhat smoldery look.

*TITLE CARD*

(Intro image found on Google, but I’m pretty sure it originally came from vampire-diaries.net.)