Right away, Alex catches Matt and Penny killing vampires and almost kills them — until they’re saved by who else, Rayna. So, they made her think they were leading her to Stefan (Paul Wesley), but instead led her to Damon (Ian Somerhalder) so he could kill her. He literally cuts up her body; when she comes alive, he had clothes for her to put on that were Elena’s — since he calls out the fact they look the same (nice, Julie). Damon tried talking her out of hunting down Stefan but she had her own family ties: her father had “envisioned” a vamp-free world, so that’s why she was doing it.
Little did we know, Rayna actually has eight lives, and he just took her seventh. Damon at first thought this was great, so he went to kill her again. However, Bonnie then informed him that in her final death, it wouldn’t only kill her, but kill everyone that she had marked. Namely, Stefan. So with that, he frantically dug her up, and she tried killing him. Luckily for him, she was shot and captured by the armory.
While Stefan and Valerie were on the run to find herbs for his marking, it was much tougher than he thought — and he found out those herbs don’t exist anymore. So, he called Caroline to see if she wanted to come along and they could run away together. But she said Alaric needed her… and asked him what his feelings were about Dallas. He didn’t answer. However, he was later forced out of Mystic Falls by Matt (we’ll get to that), and he went to see her. However, when he looked in at how happy she was with Alaric and the babies, he didn’t go in. Instead, he continued running. With that, it was goodbye to Caroline.
As for Matt, he got so close to Penny this week that she actually didn’t understand why he was friends with any vampires, including Stefan; she actually convinced him to finally stand up and take them out of the town. With that, he apparently grew a pair, went to Stefan’s house and demanded all the vampires leave town. So how would he make them leave? Well he had “footage” of Damon and Stefan doing non-human things, and he was ready to expose them to save his home. (PS, Matt’s kinda hot when he’s strong!)
Bonnie’s Last Straw
However, he wouldn’t have to tell Damon to leave: he wrote his goodbye letters so he wouldn’t have to deal with anyone’s reaction and headed to Brooklyn to crawl in a coffin next to Elena’s, where he wanted to desiccate until she woke up. Bonnie (Kat Graham) didn’t let that easy goodbye happen though. Enzo told her his plan and she was livid that her best friend would hurt him like that — so she told him how pissed she was, and with that, he went to sleep. (Bon Bon literally loses everyone!)
We then got a look at all the flash-forwards we’ve seen over the past few weeks — yes, we can assume next week will pick up then. In it, Stefan wakes up Damon from his coffin and lets him know that Rayna is back; Matt poisons Stefan with werewolf blood; and one more new part: Bonnie is now in some sort of institution (but where’s Enzo?!). The flash-forward continues this week when Rayna ties up Stefan and reveals to him that there is another option — she could transfer the mark to the person it was meant for, Damon, and kill him instead. And it was Damon’s idea all along.
So, will Damon let himself die for Stefan? Let us know your thoughts!