Vampire Diaries Recap: “You Made a Choice to Be Good”

Only a handful of episodes remain before the series comes to an end. As of last week, Damon’s (Ian Somerhalder) humanity is back, the sirens are finally gone, and Cade (Wolé Parks) has managed to get out of hell.

Seems like an ordinary day as Bonnie (Kat Graham) gets her morning coffee. Only it’s not because the devil himself is standing in line right behind her, but Bonnie doesn’t realize it. Cade strikes up a seemingly harmless conversation. She thinks nothing of it and heads off. Cade goes to leave, but not before revealing some secrets that cause the barista and the owner to get into a bloody fight.

Back at the Salvatore mansion, Stefan (Paul Wesley) is still being held in the dungeon. Damon uses this time to irritate him through the door since it is his turn to keep watch. Stefan tells Damon that he should be out collecting souls for Cade since they are still bound to him. Damon scolds him, “dropping bodies is not part of a balanced humanity-on lifestyle.” His goal is to get Stefan’s humanity back, but Stefan sure isn’t going to make it easy for him.

Meanwhile, Caroline (Candice King) is at the Time Capsule Day event, which will eventually lead up to Founder’s Day. Matt (Zach Roerig) is now the Sheriff and presents the time capsule left behind by the first settlers in 1790, which hasn’t been open until now. While everyone goes through the items in the capsule, Caroline digs up a capsule that her, Elena (Nina Dobrev), and Bonnie buried when they were eleven years old. They go through the capsule and find some old pictures and letters. As they reminisce, Matt brings up Stefan. He finds that even though Stefan might not be himself, it’s still difficult to keep giving him a pass for all the things he has done to him and Mystic Falls.

While the others remain in Mystic Falls, Bonnie and Enzo (Michael Malarkey) have been tasked to secure the bell in a safe place. As the drive Peter’s truck, the bumps along the road cause the fork to reverberate, and as a result sends painful jolts through Bonnie. In the midst of their conversation, Caroline sends Bonnie a picture of her bucket list from their time capsule. This prompts Bonnie to ask Enzo about his bucket list. They decide to hit some of those items on their way to hiding the bell, so Enzo can take advantage of his immortality.

When Damon goes back to the dungeon with food, he finds that his brother has escaped and Cade is waiting for him. Cade explains that when the bell rang for the eleventh time, he was able to get through the veil. He released Stefan so he could go back to work. He then presents Damon with his next assignment; by sundown, Damon must kill 100 evil strangers or Stefan’s love, Caroline. Talk about a tough decision!

Back at the Time Capsule celebration, Matt calls Dorian (Demetrius Bridges) and immediately starts to ask about an artifact he found in the time capsule. It turns out its some sort of cipher device for code breaking. At the same time, Damon finds Caroline and tells her that Cade let Stefan go. He also shares with her the choice Cade gave him. He instructs her to get everyone to safety while he figures a way out of this. Naturally he has a Plan B, which he won’t share with her since they are up against a mind reading pyromaniac.

With the impending danger of Cade’s latest orders, Caroline gets everyone to Mystic Grill, to help protect them. She informs Matt of the latest update from Damon. She worries for Matt’s safety and tries to convince him to drink a special concoction of a cocktail that contains a special ingredient, her blood. Drinking this would allow Matt to survive a deadly attack, however, it would turn him into a vampire. Matt appreciates her concern, but he would much rather go down fighting with his townspeople, than turn into a vampire.

While everyone has retreated to the local bar, Damon stays behind. Cade finds him and essentially threatens him. Even as Damon attempts to renegotiate, Cade reads his mind, and knows that he is really trying to figure out a way to stop him. He menacingly grabs him in order remind him what the pain of hell feels like. Cade then goes through each possible way that Damon could be thinking of to destroy him – fire or ripping out his heart; it doesn’t matter what he tries since Cade is pretty much indestructible.

Stefan, meanwhile, has been searching for a very specific woman. He starts up a conversation with her at a gas station. Whatever he is up to cannot be good!

Back at the bar, Matt and Dorian try to figure out how the cipher device works by using it on Harvey’s (the skeleton from the cave) journal. Caroline let’s Dorian in on the fact that Cade is in Mystic Falls. Caroline brings up the topic of the cocktail that she had tried to convince Matt to drink earlier. Dorian then asks her what it feels like to be vampire. As she notes some of the positive benefits, he snaps back that it also brings pain, violence and murder. Something tells me that these two won’t quite see eye to eye on this subject anytime soon.

In upstate New York, Bonnie and Enzo end up at a house in a secluded area, a perfect place for them to stash the bell. Bonnie reveals that she bought the place recently so no one knows about it.

Damon meets Caroline at the Grill and informs her that they need a Plan C since Cade is immortal. Caroline, in her wisdom, comes up with an alternative plan. There is one thing that can change an immortal, the cure. It would make Cade mortal and then they could kill him. If you recall, Elena took the cure before she was put to sleep. Damon isn’t too thrilled by the idea since it could jeopardize his chances with being with Elena in the future. However, Caroline seems to have figured it out. They give the cure to Cade, Enzo then takes it from Cade, and later Damon can take it from Enzo. Anyone else a tad confused? Even through Caroline is sure that this would work, Damon isn’t and he knows that Bonnie is not going to like this at all. He’s also a bit surprised to find out that Bonnie was going to take the cure for Enzo without even consulting him.

Damon calls Bonnie and discloses their plan, and sure enough, she’s not thrilled. They argue a bit over who kept whom in the dark about their plans, but in the end, Bonnie reluctantly agrees.

At the Grill, Cade abruptly appears and immediately begins selecting sinners and killing them one by one. He sets the third victim on fire and Matt rushes to put out the flames. He then gets everyone in the bar to safety. Cade tells Damon and Caroline that he wants her dead because of Stefan. Apparently, both brothers were given the same task. They could choose to kill 100 strangers or the love of each other’s lives. Stefan easily chose to kill Elena. In a panic and shock over what Cade just told him, Damon kills a poor soul that was hiding behind one of the seats, but that’s clearly not enough for Cade. As Damon turns his attention to Dorian, Caroline rushes him out of the bar.

Knowing that Stefan is after Elena, Damon hurries to get to her. Caroline tries calling Stefan one more time, and this time he picks up. He’s very cryptic of where he is and what he is doing which is beyond frustrating for her. Now it’s a race to save Elena!

Back at Bonnie’s new house, she discloses to Enzo that Elena is no longer in Brooklyn. She had her moved after Enzo and Damon went missing in order to keep her safe. Good job Bonnie! Bonnie has a bit of a pity party since they are so close to having what they want. Enzo, being the awesome boyfriend he is, puts her at ease telling her he doesn’t need the cure to be happy, he just needs her. Awwwww! Unfortunately for them, Stefan’s plan is just about to hit the fan. The woman he has compelled to complete all this paper work is mere seconds from signing a document that will give her ownership of Bonnie’s house. In the split moment that she lays down her final signature, Enzo is pulled from Bonnie and thrown out of the house. Bonnie is no longer the owner! Instead this realtor woman is, and Stefan clearly has his way into the house. Remember how Cade conveniently bumped into Bonnie at the start of the episode? That brief interaction allowed him to find out where Elena was kept. Bonnie and Enzo really do seem to always get the shaft!

In the aftermath of Cade’s killing spree, Caroline and Matt are cleaning up the mess – Caroline has compelled everyone to forget and Matt is mopping up the blood. He is clearly upset at the innocent lives that were lost and finds Caroline’s attitude irritating. He declares that this isn’t the same town that they grew up in, however Caroline fires back that it is the same town, but they were just too young to know what was going on. All this time, Dorian has been attempting to decipher the book with the code piece. He discovers that the last clue is in a different language. Earlier Caroline had also offered him her special cocktails, but he like Matt, has chosen to remain human. Before he heads off to the library to do more research on the language in the code, he hands over another Maxwell heirloom (a necklace) that was found in the capsule and hands it to Matt.

As Damon drives like a maniac to reach Elena in Brooklyn, he calls Stefan and pleads with him to not kill her. Stefan breaks the news that Elena is not in Brooklyn and instead is in upstate New York thanks to Bonnie. To Damon’s amazement, he also divulges that he chose to kill Elena because it is the only way to get Damon to stop trying to save him. While they argue over the phone, Bonnie and Enzo try to figure out what just happened, she then decides to take the syringe and get Elena’s blood herself since something is clearly not right. Stefan without his humanity is worse than Damon!

As Bonnie is taking Elena’s blood, Enzo waits in the doorway. When she comes out, she sees Enzo in distress, and then she sees Stefan behind him with Enzo’s heart in his hand. Stefan heads towards her and in order to save herself, she knows the only choice she has now is to stab him with the cure. Once Stefan goes down, she rushes to Enzo and let’s out a gut-wrenching cry. Did anyone else catch that release of energy? Something definitely was let go as she screamed in agony over losing the love of her life. I was rooting for these two, and the fact that he is dead puts a dent in their happily ever after. This being a world of the supernatural, I’m really hoping they figure out a way to bring him back!

Next episode “What are you?” Preview:

Bonnie is reeling from losing Enzo and Stefan is coming to terms with what he has done. How can the Salvatore brothers make up for everything they have done?

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