You’ve got to hand it to Elena, when she comes up with a plan, she pursues it fully. While she still loves the people she loved as a human, her morality is changed. She hates those she hates with equal passion, and damn the consequences if they get in her way. Last week she decided to kill Kol (who was threatening to rip off her brother’s arms to hide the tattoo map that was growing there whenever he killed a vampire); this week Kol is dead. Consequences be damned, he’s deserved death for a long time now, no less for stalking Jeremy when he was supposed to be safe and now for trying to kill Bonnie and Rebekah if it will only prevent everyone from reviving Silas. Who is interred with the treasure the map leads to, the cure for vampirism that everyone wants or wants to destroy.
The cancelled big event of the week is the Eighties Decade Dance, giving the producers license to procure snippets of several songs (call the movies sentimental pap if you will, Rebekah, but the music was pretty great!), including of course a Cure track for Stefan’s iPod when he takes Rebekah dancing among the leftover 89 luftballons (Bonnie didn’t finish blowing them up). She’s actually feeling pretty close to Stefan again, and admits she wants to be human, and a mom, and have a family after all. Just like the real girl she’s never been.
He’s trying to get the dagger so they can put Kol on ice, not really having bought into Elena’s whole scorched earth plan, but he melts when Rebekah just hands it to him; this is probably the most fun she’s ever had in any high school hallway, what with all the Breakfast Club sliding and Say Anything flirting.
Bonnie is a force to be reckoned with this week, defending herself when Kol tries to kill her (and he claims to respect witches? He should fear them), recovering quickly when her absentee parents try some much too-late tough love, and locking Stefan in the living room New Moon mojo (he is a hybrid, after all) when he witnesses Kol’s demise in Elena’s kitchen.
Elena stalls and drinks with Kol, but he’s figured out their execution plan and things get ugly. Elena vamps out admirably to defend herself and Jeremy, using crossbows and bullets and stakes and whatever she can think of (the butcher knife helps especially) when he keeps fixating on the Armless Jeremy idea. And the two of them do succeed, so that we see what happened to Mikael (who they all feared) and Finn (whom none of them really liked) finally happen to Kol, who was one of the cool kids with Rebekah and Klaus. Awesome stunt flames rolling on the linoleum, guys!
Then the scream team reunites at Casa Salvatore, with Damon free of his compulsion to kill Jeremy (since Kol’s dead) and Elena uneasily forced to work alongside Rebekah (whom she’d kill in second if she could, and vice versa), whom Damon outs as Stefan’s new date. They’re all going to need to get along, because next stop is Silas Island or wherever the map leads, which probably means we’ll be seeing Shane and April and Caroline and Tyler again soon, too. Boat trip!