As a Vampire Diaries fan you get used to surprise deaths, departures, and cameos. “Down the Rabbit Hole” had all those things — sometimes in the same act. But three and a half years of watching still doesn’t prepare you for those HOLY S**T moments like the one that happened at the end of the episode (that’s not counting the three to four OMG! moments that happened before the last one). They could’ve at least warned us to wear waterproof mascara this morning.
Let’s start with the most horrible thing first: JEREMY. OH GOD. If you haven’t been stress eating since the episode ended, then you’re definitely stronger than I (or you wisely went straight for the Xanax). As Silas chugged Jeremy’s blood (thanks to Katherine, but we’ll get to that later), the ancient immortal got stronger and eventually snapped Jeremy’s neck. He had his ring on, but will it even work now that he’s a member of the Five?! Is Jeremy really, truly, actually dead?! (It just hurt to type those words. Someone pass the leftover Valentine’s candy.)
Here’s the second-most horrible thing, which is really saying something because it’s also really, really horrible: Tyler is gone. And not “five episodes to find Uncle Mason in Florida” gone, like gone gone. For an indeterminate amount of time. Klaus gave him a head start, but essentially Tyler is a less evil Katherine, doomed to be on the run from the most ruthless Original until something more interesting catches Klaus’ attention. Hopefully that’s whatever takes Klaus and his siblings to New Orleans for the TVD spinoff and Tyler can live safely in some small little town and forget about Caroline. (But really, he’ll obviously think about her every day. Forever.)
Can we talk about how his last words to her were gorgeous and romantic and said in a joking way, but were actually super depressing? It’s like the song you hear on the radio with the really peppy tune, but once you listen to the lyrics you realize it’s actually incredibly sad.
The third most horrible thing, I guess: Bonnie’s really, seriously injured. Not quite dead, judging from the stills from next week’s episode, but girlfriend is certainly in trouble. And that’s not even considering the insane (but completely unfounded) guilt she’ll feel if J-Dawg is actually dead. (UGH, PLEASE NO.) Or maybe she’ll go the other way and blame Damon, even though it wouldn’t be his fault either. Wouldn’t it be fun, though, if Bonnie stayed in that weird well and Grams came back to Mystic Falls instead? I just really miss Grams. What a fun surprise to see her!
The fourth most horrible thing, but also the first most awesome thing: Katherine’s back! It’s terrible because she nabbed the cure from Silas’ hands (and chomped a chunk out of Jeremy’s neck to do so). She’s the reason our poor Lil’ Gilbert (and his incredible torso) are possibly gone for good. But it’s also awesome because Katherine is simultaneously the worst and the best. Man, I missed that bad bitch. If she’s back in town to be our villain once Klaus leaves for N’awlins, I will not complain. Well, probably I’ll complain because she’ll do ridiculous things, but it’ll be the loving type of complaint, like when people try to sing “happy birthday” to you in public and it’s the worst but you’re kind of okay with it because it means you get free cake. I think I just said that Katherine is like birthday cake, and I’m okay with that comparison.
The second most awesome thing: Klaus has maybe, sorta struck the fine balance between hated villain and slight hint of humanity: We believe that he’s become a better person thanks to his love for Caroline, but he’s also fearsome enough that Tyler knew he’d be dead if he didn’t get the hell out of Mystic Falls immediately. I like that he’s in that ambiguous moral zone where we’re not quite sure what we should feel about him.
The third most awesome thing: Grams! As happy as Bonnie was to see her, don’t you think she could’ve realized something was terribly wrong when Grams encouraged her to resurrect Silas? Real-life Grams would’ve had none of that bulls**t. Also, for a hot second I thought that maybe Jenna had come back to haunt Elena, but then I remembered that the “visions of loved ones” thing didn’t happen for vampires and I got sad again.
A couple of final notes:
—How much does it suck that Jeremy and Bonnie did basically all the hard work to open the crypt, then they were both (almost/probably/possibly) murdered?
— The other member of the Five, Vaughan, had a Scottish accent, so Damon made a Shrek joke. That made me LOL.
— Klaus knows Aramaic. For some reason this made me picture him and Mel Gibson broing out at Moonshadows in Malibu and talking about ancient dead languages, then Klaus peacing out before bad stuff went down. (Klaus is evil but he doesn’t hate Jews; he just hates all humans.)
— The headstone was made of calcified witch blood. That’s gross.
— Speaking of Shane, he’s still around, meanwhile JEREMY IS PROBABLY DEAD. Gross.
What did you think of the episode (if you’ve recovered enough to form sentences)? Is Jeremy really dead? Are you mad the Jeremy sitch overshadowed Tyler’s departure? Have you actually stopped crying and/or stress eating since the episode ended? What will Katherine do with the cure?
Follow Jean on Twitter @hijean
[PHOTO CREDIT: The CW]
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