"The Vampire Diaries" 313: "A Death in the Family"

You guys, I usually try to make these recaps light and snarky, but I'm not in a light and snarky mood. Caroline's dad dies in this episode, and it happens that I watched it on the anniversary of my father's death and it's rough.

We pick up just where we left off last time, with a stunned Klaus facing a revived Elijah. Elijah starts putting a beatdown on Klaus, who's more concerned about wrecking his newly-renovated house. He notes that he kept his promise to reunite Elijah with the family, although the “with a magic dagger through your heart” part of the promise was unspoken. Klaus pulls a dagger out of another immobilized relative and makes to impale Elijah with it until Elijah notes that the relative, Cole, will be a lot more pissed off.

Klaus informs Elijah of Mikael's death and Elijah demands to know why the family remains daggered. Klaus blames it on Stefan, because he still holds the mystery coffin. As he re-daggers Cole, Klaus reminds Elijah of the loyalty oath he swore. “Help me destroy Stefan and I promise you our family will be whole again.”

At the Gilbert place, Alaric is hung over again and admits with chagrin to Elena that he drunk-dialed Meredith Fell in the wee hours. The doorbell rings; it's Sheriff Liz Forbes, who has the weapon that killed Brian the medical examiner with her. Alaric recognizes it as part of a set of stakes she keeps at the lake house. The only prints on the stake are Elena's. Why are Elena's prints in the system, I wonder?

Elena and Alaric call Damon, who suggests that Meredith is the killer. Elena refuses to believe it, not for any rational reason but because she can't believe Alaric has that bad of luck with women. Damon then decides it's Klaus messing with them while Elena floats the idea that Stefan did it in his Beige Angel phase.

Damon hangs up because he's meeting with Elijah, for whom he'd left a mash note while undaggering him. He wants to enlist Elijah in the plot against Damon and asks Elijah what might be in the sealed coffin.

Stefan's wondering the same thing as he leads Bonnie down to the Owl Cave to try to open it. Bonnie's mom Abby is already there. She reminds Stefan that she has no powers. He notes that it's only a matter of time before Klaus recalls his hot hybrid minions to locate the coffin so she needs to scrape up her residual mojo and open the casket.

As he departs Elena is there to confront him over whether he killed the ME. He deflects the question without actually denying it.

Caroline's at the hospital to spring her dad. Meredith tells her that Bill's been threatening to have her medical license revoked for using vampire blood to heal him. And she commiserates with Caroline about having a father who “hates the one thing you can't change about yourself”, establishing that she knows Caroline is a vampire. Caroline wonders if she can take her dad home and Meredith tells her that she discharged him last night.

Caroline wanders back to where Elena is waiting for her and gives her initial impression of Meredith, which is pretty much “no a psycho”. She calls her dad and hears his phone ringing nearby with her vampionic hearing. She track the sound to a store room where she and Elena find Bill with a huge knife sticking out of his gut. Caroline pulls the knife out as Elena reminds her that Bill died with vampire blood in his system. Caroline doesn't immediately grasp the significance until Bill revives with a gasp.