Ghost Stories

If you thought the live (and undead) people on The Vampire Diaries couldn't get any better looking, you were wrong. Five previously deceased characters showed up last week in ghost form looking even more scorching than they did before they were unceremoniously bumped off.  One ghost showed up looking...like she was played by an entirely different actress. There are obviously plastic surgeons in the afterlife. 

The Mystic Falls Event O' The Week is some kind of festival that celebrates something founder-related by turning out the lights and hanging lanterns everywhere.  There is literally no reason for this "annual" event that we didn't see at the same time "last year," except that the lanterns make the second half of the episode really pretty.  There are worse reasons to have a festival.

In the interest of finishing this "recap" before the next episode airs, here's the deal: remember when Vicki duped her adorable, lonely brother into a little hocus pocus so she could rejoin the land of the living in corporeal form? Well she basically opened a door that every ghost with "unfinished business" was then able to waltz through, no questions asked.  Which ghosts have business you wonder? I'm so glad you asked: Anna has that pesky love of Jeremy and terminal loneliness; Lexi has a BFF who's off the wagon and off the rails; Uncle Mason has an idea about how to kill Klaus, thereby saving Tyler which is all he ever wanted to do in the first place; Freddy and the tomb vamps are holding the mother of all grudges as they STILL have their sights set on killing the founding families; and Grams has a whole ghosty mess to clean up for Bonnie. Let's see what kind of closure these ghosts can find, shall we?

Before the ghosts showed up, Elena was all "Lexi was the only person who could fix Stefan. Jeremy, please make a person-to-person through the veil of death and ask her how she did it. Thanks!"  Jeremy protested because he said that peeping ghosts was a whole complicated process where you have to be thinking of them just as they're trying to talk to you and since he and Lexi never even met, he's not sure that'll work.  But since he just didn't know about the open door, it was a moot point anyway. 

Anyway, Elena is all about getting Stefan better at any cost until Lexi shows up, knocks Stefan unconscious and locks him up in the dungeony vamp torture cell under the jail. That's when Elena started to waffle. 

Lexi might have somehow compelled Stefan to feel like he'd been off of human blood for a couple of months and then started trying to hurt him physically and emotionally trying to get his humanity to break through.  Lexi is a total badass and I love her the most of all the dead ghosts.  Yeah, even Uncle Mason.  Also, Lexi looks AMAZING.

Anyway, Lexi was showing Elena the technique she has used to put Stefan back together after his numerous tumbles off the crazy wagon over the years and Elena was like "um...well...poor Stefan. Don't hurt him!" and then she ran away.  Sometimes Elena wants to be a kick-ass, take care of shit girl and other times she just wants everything to be easy and manageable with no effort at all.  That's the kind of thing you come to expect from life when your hair is that shiny.

Uncle Mason spends a little time taking the piss at Damon's expense by chaining him to a chair and running him through with a hot poker and stuff.  When Damon realizes who is behind this, he goes to ask his ex-BFF for some help but Alaric literally says "we're not friends. I don't like you anymore!"  Alaric might have swallowed a third grader.  Eventually Uncle Mason materializes and saunters up to the bar for a drink with the boys.  If I could make this scene last forever, I would.  Uncle Mason wants to help Damon with a thing but first, he'd like Damon to apologize for ripping his heart out.  Damon confuses "apologize" with "flirt" when he says, "sometimes I do things I don't HAVE to do" while his eyebrows wiggle wildly.  I know Damon wants Alaric back but this new tactic of trying to make Alaric Jealous by flirting with the even-hotter-than-when-he-was-alive ghost of Hot Uncle Mason right in front of him is not the way to do it.  Maybe try flowers, Damon.  Everyone likes to be wooed.

Mason laughs off the non-apology and is ready to get down to business so off the two of them head to the Lockwood Dungeon of Werewolves, Slaves and Conveniently Located Powerful Weapons.  They break through a wall and have a heart-to-heart and generally bond over how very screwed everyone is with Klaus around.  Damon is impaled by a couple of large stakes that shoot out of the walls and pin him in place so I think it's fair to say that the people who hid the powerful weapon here weren't huge fans of vampires.  Mason rescues him and then finds something amazing while Damon remains trapped behind a mystical barrier.  Either someone still alive lives in that cave at the end of a long creepy tunnel, behind a brick wall, off of a werewolf dungeon; or there is some witchy juju afoot. 

Jeremy is having a hard time choosing between his women.  On the one hand, he loved Anna and he lost her without closure and she looks completely gorgeous since she died.  On the other hand, Bonnie is beautiful and risked everything to bring him back from the dead and is alive.  Decisions, decisions.  When he worries that this corporeal ghost business may not last forever, he decides to make out with Anna.  In the women's restroom at The Grill.  Jeremy's application for "The Brains of the Operation" just hit the recycle bin.

Elena happens into the bathroom and finds her brother with his tongue in a dead girl's mouth.  If I had a dime for every time I wrote that sentence....  Elena has a much stronger reaction to this development than I expected. She's really just pissed at herself for not being able to let go of Stefan even after Klaus broke him.  Elena takes this opportunity to tattle on her little brother the way all big sisters do (believe me, I'm a big sister, I know) when she gets on the phone with Caroline and is all "Jeremy kissed Anna! And other stuff that somehow makes this relevant to the conversation we're having about ridding the town of ghosts." 

Jeremy isn't ready to hear arguments in favor of sending Anna back from whence she came but he also isn't ready to hear arguments about how he has a live girlfriend that is not going to be into this particularly creepy threesome.  Basically, he's dealing with this by plugging his ears and yelling "LALALALALALA! I can't hear you!"

Bonnie is having a bit of a day herself.  She's figured out that the shit that went down with Matt and Vicki has caused the barrier between the living and the dead to spring a leak.  She tries to talk to Matt about it but Matt already forgot how great it was to have something to fucking do on this show and is like, "not my fault! Not my fault!" and runs away.  My love for Matt is permanent and unconditional but on the real, he needs to get his shit together immediately. Since Matt isn't in the mood to help fix this problem he totally helped create, Bonnie and Caroline go back to the House of A Hundred Dead Witches to conjure up Grams. 

For a full 3 minutes after Grams arrives I was PISSED that they were trying to pull one over on us by recasting Grams.  I honestly said "what is this SHIT? If Jasmine Guy isn't available, Grams stays dead. PERIOD!"  Then I realized that I was looking at Jasmine Guy who has just had some work done since season one.  Don't get me wrong, she looked great (even if 2/3 of her face didn't move) but she didn't look the same, like, AT ALL. 

So a newly refreshed Grams lays it out: door open, foothold, unfinished business, ghosts, boom.  Turns out that the ghost of a the original Klaus-spelling witch helped Vicki so that she could...no, I totally don't get it.  Whatever, she helped and now the answer to sending the ghosts back to the dead side and cleaning up the mess in Mystic Falls is Elena's necklace which of course we know originally belonged to the witch.  Caroline delivers this message to Elena while Elena's on the phone in the bathroom bitching about her brother and all the dead people he kisses.  Anna hears and seems interested. 

Caroline is off to Salvatore Acres to get the necklace which is not where Elena said it would be.  She tosses the place in a non-destructive kind of way, making sure to look extra hard in the soap bowl, obvs.  When it doesn't turn up, Caroline calls Jeremy and is like "your dead girlfriend took the necklace, make her give it back."  Jeremy is sure that couldn't possibly be true but...it is.  Don't ever question Caroline, Jeremy.

Caroline and Bonnie are out trying to track down the necklace and get it back to Spell Central when they run into Freddy and the Tomb Dwellers who've just finished off another Fell and are well on their way to making a meal of Mrs. Lockwood.  She dispatches Bonnie and stays to beat the shit out of Freddie and his lackeys because Caroline is awesome.  

Anna confesses to Jeremy that she swiped the necklace because she doesn't want to go back to the land of nothingness where she's all alone.  She just really misses her mommy and in lieu of seeing Pearl again, she'd like to stay with Jeremy forever.  I'd like to be mad at her for this but you guys, Pearl was awesome, and Jeremy is really good looking. I see where she's comin' from.  Anna hands the necklace over and they have a moment and then Jeremy saunters (seriously, he takes his fucking time walking that bauble over to the House of a Hundred Dead Witches while Freddy and his peeps kill off founding family members and try (futilely) to best Caroline). 

Once Bonnie has the necklace back, she tosses it in the fire and then she and Grams do a thing.  The necklace melts and one by one all the ghosts disappear.  Mason pops out of the cave before he has the chance to tell Damon what it is he's found that somehow holds the key to everything.  That old adage is so true: you can lead a vamp to the answer but you can't show him what it is. Freddy and his lackeys take a poof just as Caroline is kicking their asses in the street while Mama Lockwood looks on all "fuck YEAH my son is dating this BAMF!"  Or possibly more like "oh...so now I feel like an asshole for that time I had her kidnapped, tortured and almost killed. My bad."  Lexi goes bye-bye in the midst of trying to break through to Stefan just before she gives Elena the final "get your shit together and FIX HIM!" pep talk.  This one seems to take.  Anna's walking alone down the middle of a street when she spies Pearl walking toward her.  They hug. I cry. They disappear. Grams looks at Bonnie and has emotions her face is no longer able to convey to the rest of us.  Bonnie is sad. Grams vanishes. 

Now that all of the ghosts are gone, Jeremy wants to take this opportunity to explain to his girlfriend why he experimented with necrophilia.  Bonnie is not in the mood right now and doesn't plan to be in the mood ever again.  She sends him away and then the necklace explodes in the fire and unmelts itself.  Never trust magic jewelry, that's what I always say.

Elena gives Stefan a tender ultimatum and then leaves. I'm not entirely sure she got what Lexi was trying to tell her but I do hope this tactic works, for her sake.

Damon called Alaric who came running to the Lockwood Dungeon of Crazy Shit to yell at Damon for calling him and expecting him to come running. Alaric wants to know why Damon called him and Damon's like "this is a job for a human." Whatever, the point is, he's been looking for an excuse to need Ric's help and this was it. So Alaric wants an apology and Damon recycles the one he just used with Mason and then Ric's like "really? Really?" Damon flirts and says that he only really meant it with Ric and then Ric totally takes him back.  Look, you all know that I want this couple together more than anything ever, but when you write it out like that, Alaric is kind of a battered wife and then I feel gross for encouraging their reunion. This show is always putting me in these moral quandaries. I'd feel a lot better if they made out.

So Alaric prances on into the Cave Of Convenient Discoveries located behind the Lockwood Dungeon of Crazy Shit and gazes upon the amazing thing that Mason gazed upon earlier.  Damon is like a 6 year old on Christmas waiting to find out what they've found and then we see that it's cave drawings.  One of those drawings appears to be Elena's necklace and it's incorporated into something that is either a rocket ship or a little girl in a dress tugging on her own pig tails. And now you know why I am not an anthropologist.

Next time: Flashback wigs. ACK!