This is one of those TVD episodes where I'm not sure if I'm supposed to not understand something yet, or if I just missed something/am dumb. Markos still needs Elena and Stefan's blood because it's what will allow the Travelers to band together in one place, where their power is strongest, and not have the witches be able to wipe them out with a plague or natural disaster? So they want to use their peak power to get rid of the witches on the Other Side? Or what's their ultimate goal? (Be kind if I'm missing something/dumb.) Let's dig in.
We opened with Elena journaling at a table outside the Grill. A page blew away, and Stefan stopped it before it went too far. After they had flirty banter over the quality of her writing, she introduced herself and then a car horn snapped them both out of the vision. In real life, Stefan was standing in the street, and Elena woke up in bed.
Enzo and Damon talked about their respective lady problems over a game of pool at Salvatore Mansion, and then we cut back to Elena, who had a vision of Stefan walking her home after a movie she couldn't concentrate on watching. It'd been their first date, and they wanted to see each other again. It was nice to see Elena's house one last time — and a surprise when Elena said that it was her father who'd turned on the porch lights to put an end to the perfectly-framed first kiss. Caroline's voice snapped Elena out of the vision, and then Miss Forbes used said voice to tell Elena that she was probably just fantasizing about Stefan because she'd broken up with Damon. But then Stefan called Caroline to tell her about his vision, and they realized something was really going on.
Bonnie still couldn't get Jeremy to call her back. She got distracted when a serious-looking Grams made an appearance. The word on the Other Side is that the witches think the Travelers did a number on Bonnie so someone could get through. Markos, of course. Grams said something was off on the Other Side (like this episode's dialogue? those industrial-sounding terror noises?). Bottom line: the witches are scared.
Liv had to make sure "the three stooges" had no passengers in them, so while Hunter Jeremy was immediately cleared, Tyler and Matt each had to stab themselves with the all-important Traveler knife. Liv enjoyed the pain a little too much. Damn you, director Paul Wesley, you missed a chance to have Matt take off his shirt and get that shoulder wound stitched up or at least bandaged. Liv's coven has been tracking Travelers for thousands of years. They're always on the move, but there have been a few times in history when they stop to gather. No one's ever noticed because one by one, they've taken over the town by putting passengers in the townsfolk. They're doing the same thing in Mystic Falls. Not Sheriff Forbes!
Back to the longest pool game known to man. (Damon lost, for those keeping score.) Elena tried to dial Damon, but he didn't answer. Damon: 1, Temptation: 0. Caroline tried Enzo, and temptation won that round. He put her on speaker, and she told them about the visions. Enzo called them sex dreams, but Caroline preferred to think of them as romance dreams. Not helpful for Damon. Stefan had gone to the Traveler camp to see if anyone was left to tell him what was happening. Also so Paul Wesley could concentrate on directing this episode, which marks his debut behind the camera. Damon wanted a witch brought to him to question.
Bonnie showed up at Tyler's house, where Jeremy blamed his lack of communication on moving. Once Bonnie saw Liv, she was even more pissed happy. Jeremy said Bonnie had to trust that they have whatever's going on with the Other Side and a possible escapee handled. (Jeremy watches Scandal?) Liv wouldn't let Jeremy tell anyone else about their plan to sneak up on the Travelers. Cut to Matt calling Tyler to tell him he'd gone to check up on Sheriff Forbes after she was late meeting Caroline and didn't respond to her texts. He could tell there'd been a struggle, so he told Tyler to get there quickly with the Traveler knife. The passenger-carrying Sheriff Forbes overheard Matt and stabbed him with a letter opener in the neck. 1.) Gross. 2.) That passenger needs to pay! Matt found Bonnie, told her he was dead (temporarily), asked her to tell Jeremy the sheriff was in trouble, and then apologized before crossing over through her. He awoke on the blue-tinted Other Side in a graveyard. Kol was there! Apparently the folks on the Other Side can't socialize. Did we know this? Or is that just everyone but the gossipy witches? Kol was happy to be seen, and for a second, I thought he was going to grab on to Matt so he might be brought back with him somehow when he returns. But no. Matt was busy thinking that if he can see Kol, he should be able to see Vicki.
Caroline and Elena showed up at Salvatore Mansion, and Caroline and Enzo quickly made their escape to drink in the library so they could avoid the awkward conversation between two former lovers trying desperately not to tear each other's clothes off. It had to be hard for Elena because Damon had clearly just done some bicep work off-camera — they were bulging. Elena wanted their stilted conversations to end — so did I at this point — and used "the F word." She just wants to be friends. Caroline used that opportunity to ask Enzo what his intentions were if he finds Maggie — isn't she old? He said 70 years in captivity, her face was what he clung to: He doesn't want to date her, he wants to thank her. Ah, Enzo, that made me like you. For a second.
Damon and Elena discussed her sex dreams about Stefan, and he reminded her that the prophecy says she and Stefan are fated to be together — that could be why alternate reality Stefan and Elena are so damn happy. Luke saved us all by showing up at that moment. Liv was too busy. Doing what exactly? Cut to Tyler comically lurking watching for a chance to approach Sheriff Forbes. She seemed normal — until Tyler told her that his mother says hi. "Send her my best, okay?" the passenger said. Tyler stabbed her with the knife, but someone appeared above him. He was about to be mounted. Ridden. Oh, you know what I mean. Passenger aboard!
Luke told Damon he couldn't stop the visions. And P.S. He was there to ask for their help: He said Markos, who's been dead for centuries, is back and in town. Elena needed a drink. Good call. The visions were drawing Stefan and Elena together because the Travelers need their blood for the prophecy, so it's also safe to assume the visions are drawing them to the Travelers. They needed more clues to read the map.
After Elena told a mopey Damon that the prophecy is bogus and the visions will end once they get rid of Markos, she had another one. This time, Stefan was cooking her dinner for their anniversary. She was looking for a bottle opener in a drawer when she found the little black box he didn't want her to see. I loved that she didn't even open it, she just said yes. It's nice to see a woman NOT freak out over the ring. It feels like the moment is about the love not the number of carats. This was the makeout session that Paul Wesley told me originally was scripted to have him shirtless. He wanted it to be more romantic than sexual, and I'm gonna go ahead and say I agree with him, actually. Though I could have used a little more foreplay before dream Elena knocked some mail off the counter, and real Elena broke the glass she was holding. Especially if we were supposed to think she'd said or moaned something slightly inappropriate while sitting there with Damon in real life. She'd seen the address on the envelope: 4620 Walnut Drive.
Back on the Other Side, Matt was running around calling out for Vicki. She found him and they hugged. Then he wanted to take her back with him. She said no, but he pulled her as they ran. The wind picked up. They were swept off their feet, holding hands, each being pulled in an opposite direction. She told him she was already dead. He had to let her go. She was sucked upward. Decent effects there. He did some crying, which should have made me more emotional than it did.
Damon and Enzo went to Markos' house. I laughed when Enzo decided Stefan and Elena's vision sex would've been in the bedroom because Stefan's so vanilla. Markos was waiting in a chair by a fire. He's the reason Stefan and Elena are having visions. Didn't we already guess that? The Doppelganger Law has been "misinterpreted" over the ages. The actual prophecy is that the doppelgänger blood can help the Travelers. They're being drawn together by a spell he cast 1,500 years ago. He had to get them together, and it turns out the best way to get people to go searching for each other is the promise of true love.
I'd prefer to have stayed there with Enzo. Lots of exposition was about to happen. Markos and Damon went for a stroll about town so Markos could fill Damon in: 2,000 years ago, Silas and Qetsiyah cast the immortality spell. It created a schism in the Traveler community and gave rise to the witches. They tried to keep the Travelers scattered to keep them from realizing their full power if they banded together. Every time they find each other, disaster strikes and wipes them out. The doppelgängers' blood can fix this. Markos said he'd stop Elena and Stefan's visions to prove he's not their enemy. Markos showed Damon that the town is full of passengers already, as they gathered and chanted to end the sweetest vision yet: Stefan and Elena had two kids, and they were still in love enough to playfully suggest they'd bite each other. When the vision abruptly ended, the real Stefan was home at Salvatore Mansion with Elena. He'd felt it, too. Such happiness, and then it was ripped away from them. Elena had tears in her eyes. Was it over? It's over, he said. Ouch.
They sat in front of the fire and came to terms with it: Just because the fantasy was gone doesn't mean the memory of their real relationship had been stripped from them. That had been beautiful and real with its ups and downs. He said he'd always love her, and she said she'd always love him. Then she asked if Stefan thought she and Damon would ever be able to talk like this, like friends. "I think you can either be friends with someone or in love with them. I don't think you can be both," he said. So that means he and Elena are no longer IN love, but Damon is still in love with Elena.
Matt was still grieving Vicki, wondering where she went when she was sucked away. Did she find peace? I don't think so either. Kol was the most tender we've ever seen him when he asked Matt to please get the hell back in his body and tell people what's happening there before they all go the way of Vicki. Matt said he wouldn't remember things when he returned. Kol told him he had to find a way.
Bonnie and Jeremy were waiting for Matt to come back to his body, and Jeremy made a joke that she was the only one in the sheriff's office not killed by her. Bonnie told Jeremy to not blow her off again, because she's choosing to trust him. And Matt came back to end that awkward conversation. Somehow he did remember this time. He told them about Vicki being sucked away.
Damon went up to his room and found Elena waiting for him. She wanted to thank him for making the visions stop, and to tell him that while they were paradise for her, they weren't real. What she'd had with him was real, too — messy, and complicated, and real. Did she forget that they were also really bad for each other? No. But she still needs him in her life. He can't be friends, he said. He doesn't want to see her anymore, period. I almost thought she was going to give in and kiss him — 'cause if he doesn't want to be friends, he's really in love with her. But she's always known that. It doesn't change anything. She left.
Caroline called Tyler and hung up once her mother came to. Welcome back, Sheriff Forbes. But then Tyler said, "We're in" — to Markos. "This body is incredible," passenger Tyler said. HA. So true. Once the town is theirs, it will be gone. NOOOO. Do not threaten that torso, you David Blaine-esque bastard. Markos took the last Traveler knife from "Tyler" and put it in the fire at the house. He chanted and it began to melt in the flame.
So what do the Travelers want again? You tell me. Please.
Your turn. What did you think of the episode? What are your theories for where we're headed?
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