As Stefan (Paul Wesley) plans his final night with Caroline (Candice King) his final Christmas party with her, we get a flashback to Monteray 1917 where Stefan as the Ripper enters the tents of a small community and wrecs havoc. As the girl says, "that's not Santa - not it's his evil twin: Satan. Or even Satan sent!) Obviously this was going to be the main moment in his life which was meant to be a pivotal turning point and set him along his future path. Stefan also writing in Elena's diary for which he believes will be the last time for a very long time and as he said that my mind went off back to The Sound of Music and the line where Captain Von Trapp says this will be the last time they will hear the family sing together for a long time! Funny that! Well it's the same here Caroline ad Stefan won't be together for a year at least or more. No one in this show is together anymore, not even as friends.
Alaric (Matt Davis) arrives with the twins as he's leaving with them later on and tells Caroline of how he killed Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and she's surprised he did that. Just when everyone thought things couldn't or wouldn't get any worse, in walks Damon along with that siren Sybil (Nathalie Kelley). To mar everyone's merriment and of course he was uninvited. Caroline tells Bonnie (Kat Graham) and Enzo )Michael Malarkey) not to turn up cos she's here and says they need the weapon to use against her cos it can work wonders on her. But they don't know where it is and she couldn't exactly keep it in the car. No she wouldn't since she's travelling with Damon, who's about as helpful as a tuning fork right about now!
Caroline says she'll find out where it is after plying Sybil with booze and being overly nice to her, which the dummy appreciates and falls for the friendship angle. For someone who doesn't trust anyone and has been around an awfully long time she just doesn't get people! Damon says he's here to do something but before he spills he says he and Stefan should get out the old decorations. Once they get upstairs he tells him about Alaric and he also kills Stefan by staking him with the wooden Christmas star decoration. Was that meant to be some sort of poetic justice? ha, It's about time he met Cade (Wole Parks) he tells him. Caroline gives more drink to Sybil as she tells her to move over cos she can carve the turkey even better than her after that same experience gouging and tearing apart human flesh. Actually I take that back, the poetic justice part is to follow and it concerns Sybil.
She finally gets her to reveal where she's staying as she's into swimming pools and water. There's ponds around but not real ponds and Caroline relays this to Bonnie. Whilst she has to find another gift. Bonnie is just relieved that Elena isn't around to see this and Caroline gets an idea as she needs another gift box. She hands out presents to everyone and strangely she didn't call Matt (Zach Roerig) and tell him not to turn up, as he arrives with his father, Peter (Joel Gretsch). Another pivotal turning point in Matt's life too by the end of the episode. She even gives a present to Sybil as she says her mother always taught her to be prepared. Maybe the turkey and food was enough for her as she was the only one stuffing her face again (last supper??) as Damon knifes the bread. She even gives Damon a gift which is apparent has something to do with Elena. Most everything does in the show even when she's not around.
Damon reveals the reason for him being here; he's going to kill one of them by the end of the night. The one who's got the darkest secret and he says it won't be Matty cos he's been through so much. Matt saying he's not a killer and Damon brings up Penny, Matt saying he didn't kill her. Damon then turns to Peter and asks him what the most bad thing is he's ever done and he scoffs when he mentions he didn't pay his taxes. Finally holding a knife to his throat and threatening him to open up. He says he couldn't say in this town any longer and "be a toilet scrubber." Cos there was going to be another child on the way. That being Matt. (No it was life on the high seas for him as he joined NCIS - sorry! couldn't resist that!)
By now everyone's getting really fed up of the frivolity and Alaric reads to the twins who constantly ask about Seline (Kristen Gutoskie). Who just happens to be in the family house where Bonnie and Enzo arrive, as she gets the owner to invite him in. She's looking for redemption and writing the list of her Vics, the last one being Georgie. (So if Georgie was always marked for hell where exactly is she?) She will give them the tuning fork but she needs to speak with Alaric first telling him she has to see the twins cos they're psychically linked to her and she has to make it up so they forget her. He refuses to see her but she gives them the tuning fork. As she recalls her time in Monteray.
As does Stefan since this is where Cade takes him back to and I'm afraid people must really have been out of it not to notice that this was the show's version of A Christmas Carol, with Cade being the ghost of Christmas past, present and future (aka the evil in their lives.) He reminds Stefan of what he did here but Stefan doesn't recall any of it and even how he killed everyone cos he wouldn't do that and especially not at Christmas. But he did it as the Ripper and we get to see small world, Selina was also there with Cade. She sees the anguished man when she reads his mind but doesn't see any evil in him, removing his memories, which he eventually forget by himself Cade says. There's one more place for them to go and that's the school. The first time he met Elena and he tells Stefan he should've left her alone after what she'd been through. She was vulnerable and he went right for her. Also she was innocent. He wants Stefan to bring people back who are on the verge of reaching the pearly gates and he wants the good ones to be made bad. Stefan strikes a bargain with him that he will switch off his humanity and he will do this for a year. Cade accepts cos he thinks after a year the Ripper won't want to stop the massacres and killings, like before. Cade's best line: "if death is your canvas, then this is your masterpiece." As well as Cade deciding his soul would be his from then on.
As Damon leaves with Sybil after Enzo and Bonnie use the fork on her, she thinks he's growing closer to her, yeah dream on siren! As she finds a gift in his pocket, duh Caroline gave it to him when she was there so why would it be for her. She opens it and he sees it's Elena's necklace. The one she lost and he gave back to her on her birthday. As he puts it around her neck, Damon appears to have a turn around and doesn't switch off his humanity though (or does he) as he rips out her heart! Way to go Sybil! Yay Damon! Sorry but she was always irritating. Now maybe if he hand't left her heart next to her, that'd be more fitting. But he does take the necklace. So even after all that does it mean he still wants Elena even after switching off his humanity which is a puzzling thing in many ways. Though I did say last episode he didn't appear to be under Sybil's influence nay longer. Oh and the thing she wanted from Peter, didn't Damon find that already in the garage, as Peter plays dumb and says he doesn't know what that is.
Oh and the fork had an effect on Bonnie too, thinking it's cos they're all physically connected as her Grams told her that. She believed she was psychic before finding out she was a witch and had magic. Which is why Seline wanted to remove her connection from the twins. Bonnie adding he's taking her to Paris and she only bought him T-shirts, so she wouldn't keep taking his. So Enzo during his immortal life has collected the sum total of T-shirts to his name and nothing more! Well fine time to leave Caroline in the lurch as she'll be all alone without Stefan. Matt will be around though, as he drops off his father and has no words for him. Matt always gets the short end of the stick in this and is the one who gets hurts the most, especially by the ones he trusts.
Stefan wakes and he takes Caroline to the mistletoe where he kisses her. He needed to get one thing right that he planned. Hey look a plan works out in Mystic Falls. He tells her what he agreed to with Cade, but not the part about being the Ripper again. Stefan walks the road and Damon drives up telling him to hop in and there's no Sybil as "three's a crowd." Hmm well you didn't say that when you wanted Elena and she was with Stefan did ya! ha. Damon tells him he needs to turn off his humanity as it'll make it easier and they need some proper Christmas music. "The Salvatore brothers on a road trip." Yeah calling it: Winchester road trip here and didn't that scene so remind you of Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) in Supernatural! We so need a cross-over episode before Ian and Paul go on to do other things!! Off goes the humanity switch and there it is: evil Stefan with that glint in his eyes and death in his heart!! Hurry up next year!! 2017 and a hundred years since Stefan was in Monteray!! Yay, well it rhymed.
One thing though let's be clear Stefan had absolutely no influence on Elena's life or the direction she was headed. It was already decided for her and having Katherine as a doppelganger didn't make things any easier. Yet she was also a grown woman capable of making her own decisions and choices. She always had a choice and besides who can change kismet and what is already written. Truth be told I loved that scene when Damon drove up, could watch it over and over!! Of course when Damon gave her the necklace back in season 3 it was her pivotal moment (yes love using that word now) when she realized she loved Damon. So how can Stefan be solely to blame for Elena.
Once again the title of this episode is a quote from Stefan to Elena from 1.20 Blood Brothers - highly appropriate again, as here that's what both Damon and Stefan both turn into at the stroke of midnight. No glass slippers or pumpkin carriages, but cold hard killing once more.
Stefan: "It hurts me knowing what I've done...and that pain is with me all the time...and everyday I think that if I just give myself over to the blood...I can make that pain stop...It would be that easy. And everyday I fight that... and I am so terrified that one day I am not going to want to fight that anymore...and the next time I hurt somebody it could be you..."
Here you get the complete reversal cos he saved the twins, he now has to feel that pain but not for switching off his humanity and he gave himself over selflessly and now comes the blood.
But I also like the line Damon said to Stefan in this season 1 ep as it contradicts and turns around everything Cade said to Stefan about Elena: You brood too much. Everything on this planet's not your fault. My actions, what I do, it's not your fault, I own them. They belong to me, you're not allowed to feel my guilt." There Cade for everything you say, it's not true. As I said Elena made her own choices and Stefan wasn't to blame for them so he shouldn't have guilted Stefan into believing they were just cos he wanted the Ripper back for himself.
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