SGRoA: Vampire Diaries, S3 E9: Homecoming

There’s definitely some sort of a Spiderman joke to be made here, but I got Marvel Fatigue after all those Avengers movies ended so stupidly, so I don’t know what happened in that one. Sorry. Let’s get started!

We open on Stefan calling Klaus to lie to him about Mikael being dead. To lure him back to Mystic Falls, if you remember our last episode. (Which I did not: I read my recap to refresh the memory.) He says Mikael has been daggered, and he looks over at what seems to be Mikael’s actual stabbed body?

Klaus demands to know how we got here, and thankfully, Stefan obliges with a little near-history Flashback Time (tm). And it is indeed Mikael’s daggered body - because that was the plan. Mikael says he knows Klaus will demand to see his body, and so, he will be a body. But as we remember (and the writers can remember this shit, but not the bit about ELENA OWNING THE HOUSE), they can take the daggers out and be fine again, so, like, what use even are they, really.

Stefan asks what Mikael is going to use to kill Klaus, because the daggers don’t work on him (or, again, on anyone….). Mikael has a stake made from the Singular White Oak Tree We Are All Referring To Instead of it Being a Species for Some Reason. He won’t tell them where it is, of course, to guarantee that they’ll take the dagger out of him. Fair.

So Elena stabs Mikael and now everyone’s standing around as Stefan talks to Klaus, and then Klaus wants to talk to Rebecca, and then they pass the phone to Gramma and BeBop and then Aunt Linda and then Klaus accidentally ends the FaceTime and Christmas is ruined.

Elena unstabs Mikael and we get our opener.

It’s been a thousand years - a literal THOUSAND years - and Rebecca wants to yell at Mikael about turning them all into vampires. Girl. Deal with your shit on someone else’s time, my god. Eternal life is wasted on these people.

Elena and Bonnie are at Elena’s, getting ready for Homecoming. Well, Elena is trying to, but she has nothing to wear, and Bonnie suggests they stay home and pore over the pictoglyphs - pictographs - whatever they ares, instead. Elena points out that Caroline will kill them - remember all her “best senior year ever” energy? Yeah. We still have to go to high school, because that’s what vampires did in the aughts.

Oh, wait, no, they were just going through Elena’s closet? Because now she’s back at Castel Salvatore, counting stakes or something, telling Damon they can’t trust Rebecca. He says he knows, he has a secret contingency plan.

But then Stefan asks to borrow a tie, because he’s going to Homecoming?

Oh, they’re filling wolfsbane grenades. Sure. Why not.

Caroline and Tyler are decorating for the dance, which appears to consist solely of painting an already-painted classic VW bus. Tyler asks if they can take a break for a bite, but Caro says she brought her thermos, because these vampires do not keep a curated and climate-controlled wine cellar full of bottles. Bloodbags and thermoses, I like it. Modern.

Tyler says that Rebecca knows people who like to be fed on, “we don’t even have to compel them!” Caro points out that she just got Carol to stop openly hating her; she’s not going to jeopardize that by getting caught in a vampire threesome. Besides, Tyler needs to stop hanging out with Rebecca, who is very much not on their side!

Tyler’s gonna end up dead, isn’t he. No redemption arc, no change through love - nope, I can see this writing on the wall. Boo!

Back at the castel, Elena and Rebecca have what I’m sure is supposed to be a touching bonding moment over Rebecca never having gone to a high school dance. This fact shocks Elena, though she is aware that Rebecca is ONE THOUSAND YEARS OLD. “I never had time for high school,” she says, as if anyone should want to do all of that bullshit even once, let alone several times, LET ALONE when one is already an adult and an immortal eldritch horror!

The - I hate to call it a convention, but it was, wasn’t it? for this kind of fiction? - The convention of vampires going to fucking HIGH SCHOOL drives me absolutely insane. Even when I was writing teen characters in my vampire fiction, the goal was to get as far away from school and parents and other children as possible! The point was to speedrun adulthood! The point was never to dick around pretending to be 16 while people whose necks you could snap with a thought order you to do stupid shit!

Rebecca is feeling some sort of way about helping to kill Klaus, but I don’t really care, sorry. Elena gives her the witch necklace, and then stabs Rebecca in the back with the dagger!

Too bad now she’s gonna stand Matt up, but hopefully I won’t have to hear Caroline call her a “bloodslut” again.

Welp, no Homecoming because the gym flooded, but everyone’s moving to Tyler’s house to party instead. Matt shows up at the castel for Rebecca and ends up going with Elena instead, so at least he’s not stood up!

Caro and Bonnie show up at Tyler’s, where there’s already a band? on a stage?? in the backyard??? Bonnie is suspicious, but Tyler explains it to Stefan: Klaus set it all up as a wake. Ah. No wonder Tyler was able to “plan a better party than” Caroline “so fast”. Also I’m guessing he flooded the gym, and I would have loved to just watch everyone’s machinations without the constant emotional convos everyone’s always having.

The band looks entirely too stoned and too stonery for a party, but people are doing their best to dance. I think maybe we’re supposed to know the band, as well? Like, it’s obviously real music, not the weird corporate crap they usually use in these kinds of scenes, but it’s also - not dancey? nothing has a beat!

Anyway. Klaus tells Stefan he’s “reuniting [his] family tonight”. “Oh, you mean those people you cart around in caskets?” and I have to say, at least this version of Stefan is funny.

God, I hate Klaus’s stupid face so much.

Klaus tells Stefan to bring Mikael’s body over to the Lockwood place. Too bad Mikael is up walking and talking to Damon, showing off his white oak stake - “this is the only weapon that can kill an Original,” he says.

Every season we just get a new weapon that is the “only” thing to kill an Original. This is like our third go at this, isn’t it? Three seasons in? What’s season 4’s weapon? I assume season 8 we get, like, Oppenheimer for Originals.

Stefan shows up to get Mikael, and Mikael eats him instead, and then he and Damon head out.

Klaus has populated the party with his own hybrids as a form of security, which he points out to Tyler so Tyler can go warn his friends. Not that that’ll do anything: the plot is already in motion, Klaus is the villain, and we all know that it’ll be a stalemate because we’re only 9 episodes into the season.

Tyler runs to Caroline and asks her what everyone is planning for Klaus. When she doesn’t tell him - because she doesn’t know - he vervains her with a syringe to the neck. Oh, and then goes to get Matt, so Matt can take her home and keep her safe from the hybrids. “Just get her out safely. Get everyone out.”

Tyler goes back downstairs only to be waylaid by Damon. They fight a little, Tyler says that all the hybrids are incapable of letting anything happen to Klaus because of the sire-magic-thing. Tyler tries to bite Damon, Damon almost uses the Oak Stake on him, but Bonnie witches them both. Tyler’s passed out, but Damon tells her he has the stake because he’s the only one who can get in the house.

But - Klaus is outside. On the lawn. Does the invitation thing extend to the property lines? How does it know where they are? Thresholds are easy, there’s a door, there’s a step, it’s a boundary, it makes sense, but like - the yard? He needs an invitation for THE YARD?

Mikael is at the door, and Klaus goes to greet him. They posture, and Klaus talks about all his hybrids, but Mikael points out that they’re still part vampire, and therefore he can compel them. Like he already has! One of the hybrids hands over Elena so Mikael can threaten to kill her, eliminating the whole concept of hybrids or whatever the fuck is going on with her blood. (I forgot that bit, lol. Been a hot minute since I recapped.)

And Mikael fucking does it. Stabs her in the kidney so that Damon can use the Oak Stake on Klaus.

But it was Katherine, not Elena, so she’s fine, and throws wolfsbane grenades at the hybrids outside. Too bad Stefan was still in play, and he pulls the Stake from Klaus, attacks Damon, and allows Klaus to use the Stake on Mikael, who promptly bursts into flame.

This does, however, free Stefan from Klaus’s compulsion, because Klaus promised it earlier in the episode. I didn’t cover it because why the fuck would Klaus keep his end of that deal?

Of course, before we can deal with any of that fallout, we have to check in with Tyler and Caroline, who are fine. Well, physically. Tyler tells her he’s okay with being sired, because it means he never has to turn involuntarily. She can’t understand why he wouldn’t want control over himself, and he says that he never has had. He thought she would understand, but she can’t stop seeing him as one of the bad guys. Tyler leaves.

Damon and Elena get together for a post-mortem of the plan, which all came down to Stefan. Katharine calls to say goodbye, she’s going back into hiding, only for the call to reveal Stefan in her car. She wants to drop him the fuck off and fuck off herself, but not before we get a little Flashback to Klaus telling her, at the party, that if he dies, Damon will die too. So she went back to Castel Salvatore, revived Stefan, and made him care about Damon enough for him to save Damon’s life, and thereby his own and his humanity.

Because she loves them.

There’s some more nonsense about “turning off humanity”, which I still do not understand at all. And then Stefan calls Klaus to vow revenge, just as Klaus goes to get all his family - all those caskets he carts around, all those caskets he left in a Uhaul, just so Stefan could steal them.

What a cliffhanger! See y’all next time!