This recap includes spoilers and if you have not viewed the episode, then please don’t read any further!
Damon and Elena wake up after their night of “vamp-sex” and are both very happy that they are together. Elena goes to school, and Stefan reveals to Damon that Elena might be sired to him. To test the theory, Stefan tells Damon that he must convince Elena to drink from a blood bag. (Remember: Elena thinks she can only drink from the vein, since that’s what Damon told her.) Damon went to school and took Elena “her lunch” and she successfully drank from the blood bag. This proved Stefan’s theory correct- the sire bond is real!
At the Salvatore mansion, Damon tells Stefan of a girl named Charlotte, who may have been sired to him in 1942. Damon finds the address of a witch who could possibly help with the sire bond and the brothers travel to New Orleans.
Damon finds Charlotte right where he left her in New Orleans. He left her to “count every brick in New Orleans,” and she did, literally. Charlotte is excited that Damon came back for her. She leads the brothers to Valarie, the witch.
Flashback: Damon is in a New Orleans bar, where Stefan appears and the brothers bury the hatchet. Lexi joins them, as Stefan’s sober sponsor. Stefan convinces the Damon to go the war with him, and Damon agrees. However, Lexi forbids Damon to leave with Stefan, convincing Damon that Stefan would be better off without him. Stefan had turned his life around since his Ripper days and Lexi did not want Damon to threaten his progress.
Back to present day New Orleans, Damon and Stefan confront the witch about the sire bond, asking for help. The witch claimed that she did not know what they were talking about and that she didn’t practice magic. Damon then realizes that the witch is Valerie’s daughter and that she does practice. The witch says that her mother practiced a darker and unnatural form of magic called “expression.” In 1942, Valerie said that 12 humans must be killed to break the bond, which Damon did in 1942. Obviously, that didn’t work because Charlotte is still sired to Damon.
Valerie’s daughter reveals that a vampire can be sired to another vampire if the human had feelings for the vampire before they were turned. The only way to “break” the sire bond is to let the sired vampire go, telling him/her to forget about the vampire and to continue their life without him and leave. Damon then did this with Charlotte, which worked. Damon and Stefan argued about the sire bond and how it would affect Elena’s feelings for Damon. Damon said that Stefan wanted to break the sire to “reset Elena’s Stefan settings.”
Meanwhile, with the Salvatores are in New Orleans, Elena decides to host a girls’ night at the Salvatore mansion. Elena, Caroline and Bonnie danced, laughed, drank and had a good time. Caroline promised to refrain from her “judgy” ways and not to bash Damon. However, when Elena reveals that she slept with Damon and that she was happy, Caroline blurted out that Elena was sired to Damon. Bonnie also mentioned in this episode that Shane (ooh first name basis now!) has been teaching Bonnie a new type of magic called expressions. By doing this type of magic, Bonnie does not have to access the spirits and further anger them.
Throughout the episode, Tyler and Hayley have been trying to break the last hybrid sire bond on a man named Adrian. Kim, an unsired hybrid, stopped Tyler and Hayley from breaking his sire, as it was too painful for him to keep turning. Shane told Hayley that he needed 12 unsired hybrids and she only had 11. Shane would only reveal information about Hayley’s biological parents to her once she had all 12 of his unsired hybrids.
Hayley then convinced Tyler to toughen up and take the Alpha position among the hybrids.
During girls’ night, Kim and Adrian burst in and take Caroline. At the farmhouse, Caroline is tortured, trying to send a message to Tyler to back off. Elena calls Tyler in for help, and he tells her that a sire bond affects your actions, not how you feel. Tyler comes to the rescue and Kim challenges him. Tyler grabs her heart, about to rip it from her chest and tells her to submit or die. Kim apologizes and Tyler lets her live. Then the other hybrids at the farmhouse bow down to Tyler, the new Alpha of the hybrid pack. Fans got to see a real dark side of Tyler, and began to wonder how dark Tyler may become in the future.
Hayley told Shane that she has 12 unsired hybrids. He then told her that her parents are dead. However he knew where they are buried, and told Hayley that she could see them again. “We are the beginning,” Shane said. What is Professor Creepy up to?!
**IDEA: Shane needs 12 unsired hybrids. There also happened to be 12 members of the Founder’s Council. Hmmmm…
Damon goes to see Elena and she tells him that she knows about the sire bond. Elena tells him that the sire bond doesn’t affect how you feel, and argues that her feeling haven’t changed. All Damon wants is to know that her feelings for him are real. She puts his hand on her heart, and touches his face while asking, “Does this feel real?”
Will Damon do the selfless thing and let Elena go? We will have to wait until next week to find out!
The mid-season finale of The Vampire Diaries airs Thursday December 14 at 8pm on the CW. This will be the show’s first holiday episode! You don’t want to miss it!
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