Big changes on every Vampire Diaries front, the validation of Valerie as a major player, and side adventures for Bonnie and Matt (including a surprise return from an unexpected quarter) make this a lively, fast-paced episode that starts to tie together all the threads needed for the final big arc of the season.
Damon thinks he’s done the worst thing, in burning Elena’s body to ashes. I still don’t quite buy it, or that he’s killed Tyler (though we get no real information on either front). Instead he’s wallowing in his misery, and the best way to get there faster is to bait Julian at the center of his own vampire Fight Club in Mystic Falls. It gets ugly before it gets better, with lots of pulping of bloody vampire hearts.
Meanwhile, Caroline finds that her little heretic babies are sucking the magic out of her body, which, since she’s a vampire, means she’s desiccating rapidly. They won’t like it when surro-mom is a dry husk, little do their greedy witch hearts know at this point. Valerie shows up to try and help, and comes up with some seeming solutions, but will they work?
The heretics have been receiving red X-marks in the mail, which means an ancient huntress named Rayna is after them. They decide to deal with this threat directly, or at least Nora and Mary Louise do; Bonnie goes along for the ride, as it’s likely she’ll come after Stefan and Damon, too, and Bonnie always protects her friends. Bonnie, you’re really too kind.
Damon finds a surprise ally in the fight, and then really gets his butt rescued when Valerie and Stefan use stealth coven tricks to whisk him away. Stefan deals poorly with news of Elena’s supposed demise, though, and decides to end it all. With Mary Louise and Nora away on their road trip, he rather bereft of helpful witches, and so Valerie and Stefan kill him dead, without witnesses. You really were quite the asshole, Julian, so up yours with a wooden stake.
Bonnie and the girls find a senile gray-haired woman in a mental institution, who seems far from threatening. She fools the vamps, but not Bonnie, who still needs rescuing soon by, of all people, Enzo. Who finally has a nice haircut, praise be to the gods! We don’t know what his agenda is, but there’s still some weird sparks between the witch and the vamp, until he helps Rayna escape. What’s that all about?
Meanwhile, in the future, a rejuvenated Rayna is torturing Damon in order to lure Stefan, while Matt has been her unwilling accomplice long enough to rescue Caroline. Don’t know what any of these messes are quite about, but Julian’s demise means Rayna is the Big Bad we’ve been waiting for. Oh, and she sort of looks like Elena.