Welcome to The Vampire Diaries Recap here on Pop Goes the World!

Lots of travel tonight. Still mainly the time jump but we also had some geographic travelling too! We were able to get a lot of back story on the Gemini coven, allowing us to understand why all of these new characters are important. Don’t worry Liam, your time may still come. The whole Damon and Elena relationship is at a confusing crossroads right now. I don’t know whether or not Elena is doing things because she thinks she has to or because she wants to. It’s been an interesting story line and I hope that it gets cleaned up during the second leg of this season. I’m also just not quite grasping why everyone should care who the leader of the Gemini coven is. How does Kai coming back to present day affect our inhabitants of Mystic Falls (or wherever they’re all residing right now.) Well, let’s get to it!

The episode opens on May 9, 1994 and it becomes quickly clear that it’s the original May 9, 1994 – the night Kai murdered his family. What I thought was going to be a Thanksgiving episode quickly turned into a slasher Halloween flick. Jo pulls the knife out of her stomach and finds her two younger siblings, whom Kai is looking for.  They all hide under the bed and I was totally think he was going to pull the legs…they always pull the legs. He doesn’t, but lifts up the bed and we are brought to present day ’94. This timeline is so bizarre.

Kai has brought Bonnie back to his hometown of Portland. I had to wonder that if Kai could go anywhere in the US why was he in Mystic Falls? Did he know Bonnie and Damon were coming…I may have forgotten or missed something though.

Friendsgiving! I absolutely love Thanksgiving episodes on any show. It’s always a great reason to get all the characters together. However, Vampire Diaries chose a slightly different approach, but it still managed to work. Of course, Caroline has planned the perfect dinner party for all of their friends, minus the main men and Matt and Jeremy. Alaric, Damon, and Stefan are all in Portland (circa 2014) on a boy’s trip, which I loved. Having Alaric back in the group really feels right. Stefan soon realizes that he wasn’t invited to Friendsgiving and the guys riff on him about his relationship, or lack thereof, with Caroline. The girls find out from Damon that Bonnie is still alive for what I can assume is like the 5^th or 6^th time this entire series. If I were them, I would just assume that Bonnie is always still alive.

In Portland 2014, the boys look out over the vacant Gemini lot thinking they’ve hit a dead end. They naturally take this time to poke some more fun at Stefan and Caroline. I mean, these two can’t not get together. I think every character on this show has had something to say about the matter. Damon impersonating Miss Cuddles and heckling Stefan was a light hearted brother moment, until Stefan snatched the bear and kicked him towards the empty lot. Luckily, Bonnie’s magic inside Miss Cuddles broke the invisibility shield, making the ’94 murder house visible. Did anyone feel as silly reading that as I did writing it?  Everything relies on Bonnie’s stuffed bear…Save the bear. Save the world.

Liv and Luke arrive at Friendsgiving with Liv being more moody than normal. Liam and Jo show up too. As I watched, I remembered that really none of these kids have any family or parents anymore, aside from Caroline’s mom. It’s nice they all have each other but sad to think about all they’ve lost, mainly due to the supernatural nature of Mystic Falls. Liam is cute and could be a good fit for Elena, but I just don’t really feel any chemistry at all between them. Maybe I would have if  more time had been devoted to them before Damon’s return. We also find out that it’s the twins’ 22^nd birthday.

Back in 1994, Kai has a random pager (will probably be important later) and convinces Bonnie that if she stays for dinner he will let her go do her own thing with the car…right. Bonnie, don’t believe this guy. He is no good, you’re better than this girl! I have rather enjoyed these 90’s scenes. It’s fun to see the clothes that Kat Graham is perfectly pulling off on a weekly basis (most are back in style) and get a change in the tempo of music. Tonight we got some Counting Crows.

At Friendsgiving, Luke is watching an old childhood video when Jo’s voice can be heard on the recording.  Jo is Luke and Olivia’s older sister. They were the two kids that she saved from Kai in the beginning. Things are all starting to make sense, including the reason why Luke and Liv had been around for so long… I could not figure out their importance until now. I instantly felt stupid for not picking up on this reveal sooner, but I will blame it on my note taking for my first recap!

In Portland 2014, the guys meet Papa Gemini, Joshua Parker, the father to Kai, Jo, Liv, and Luke. He puts the invisibility cloak back up on the house along with himself and Damon and proceeds to give Damon a classic vampire headache. All witches love that move.

Back at Friendsgiving, we are finally getting some information about Kai, Jo, the twins and the Gemini Coven. Apparently, Jo and Kai are twins too, which I thought was a cool reveal since she has been aging in the real world and Kai has not. In the Gemini coven, twins are in line to be the leaders, and on their 22^nd birthday the twins must merge their magic. The stronger twin becomes the leader and the other one dies, which explained why Liv was so emotional during the evening. She gets a free moody pass tonight. Now, Kai’s parents saw that Kai did not have magic (he can only draw it from others) and kept having kids until they had another set of twins, both of whom had magic. When Kai figured it out he set out to kill Liv and Luke and brutally took out four other siblings too. Not cool, Kai.

Joshua Parker explains to Damon that if Bonnie is there and Kai saw Damon leave then Kai knows how to get out now too. If Kai got out, he would kill the twins, take Jo’s magic, and their coven would be run by a “madman.”

I think that it’s really cute how Stefan’s trying to not be upset about his lack of invite to Friendsgiving. I totally ship him and Caroline and am enjoying the writer’s taking their time to get us there. Elena also calls Stefan to see how he knew it was the right time to come clean to her about being a vampire, she’s thinking of telling Liam. Stefan said it was because he loved her and wanted her to know everything. There’s no way Elena is in love with Liam so I don’t foresee this going too far.

Meanwhile, with the boys in Portland 2014, Joshua is now trying to kill Jo so Kai could not steal her magic upon him imminent return. Naturally, Jo is trying to find a way to get Alaric and Stefan inside the house to stop it. This is the strangest Thanksgiving ever. Turns out, much like Bonnie put her magic in the teddy bear, Jo put her magic in the knife that Kai stabbed her with. The boys are able to use it to get the shield down again. Once they get in the house, Joshua makes himself invisible leaving Jo extremely close to dying. Liam is trying to diagnose her, which is hilarious, but Elena heals her with blood. Elena does tell Liam that she’s a vampire but then compels him to forget everything, including the fact they were together. Bye Liam! We hardly knew you but I’m sure you and your curious nature will pop up again. You’re hanging out with the least discreet supernatural bunch ever.

We flash back once more to the original 1994 when Jo has agreed to do the merge with Kai and surrender her powers; however we know that her magic is gone. Joshua appears, using the eclipse and Ascendant to send Kai to his prison world. Kai seems to have forgotten that he just killed 4 children in his family and for some reason thinks the coven is willing to give him the leadership role. Yea…you walked right into that one.

However, after seeing Bonnie put her magic in Miss Cuddles it made Kai realize that Jo probably did the same thing with the knife, which is why he brought them to Portland. He absorbs the knife’s magic, but Bonnie reminds him that he needs  a Bennett to do the spell. Kai, of course, has other plans. He knows the spell- he’s seen it done twice. He simply needs the blood of a Bennett. So, he stabs Bonnie and she dies for the 100^th time.

So, after the worst Thanksgiving ever, Jo has told everyone that she has the Ascendant. Damon wants it. However, Alaric wants to find another way because Kai will most likely find a way out with Bonnie and kill Jo-  a realistic request to make on behalf of one’s girlfriend. Plus on The Vampire Diaries, there is always another way!  Of course Damon compels him to get it from her anyway. Classic Damon.

Now onto our couples caught in lover’s limbo. Tyler convinces Liv to not do the merge. Her coven can’t do magic in Mystic Falls and if they come to find her they will have to go through him. I am finding these two interesting enough, but hope that Tyler has a little bit more to do in the second half of the season. Stefan shows up and he explained to Caroline why he pushed her away.

I feel like you can always tell when big couple is getting closer to being together. It’s all in the music. The song playing the background mimics previous ones we’ve heard in big Damon and Elena scenes. I’m very ready to see Steroline together, but have to admit I’m enjoying the wait. It’s refreshing to have a new couple to root for and also the fact that it involves Stefan. He deserves some love! So, Stefan tells Caroline that she would’ve been there for him. She would have let him just sit there and cry when he didn’t want to cry anymore. She understood but then abruptly left before he could say anything more.

We also get a pretty big Damon and Elena scene at the end. She wants to know about his time that he spent with Bonnie. They basically bickered and talked a lot…about Elena. He told her more about Bonnie’s sacrfice, which in a way didn’t hold the impact they’d hoped for as Elena erased her memories. Elena sees that she’s at a crossroads. She could live the happy life with success and safety, but there is something inside her that she can’t shake about Damon. This made me realize that even without her memories of Damon or everything that’s happened she is still that same girl. The same girl that never takes the safe way out and just being herself is what made her initially fall in love with Damon. So naturally that would happen again.

However, she wants Bonnie’s advice on the matter and they agree to do whatever they can to bring her back. Elena knows that Bonnie will tell her to be with Damon and I think that this was Elena’s way of giving Damon some hope. I liked it enough. I thought it worked, but also think that Elena should just give him a shot on her own, because she wants to. Not because everyone else is telling her to or she thinks she has to. I guess we will have to wait and see where they take this.

We close out the episode with a new day in 1994. Bonnie is alive again and hears Kai’s pager going off. I knew that pager would be back! It says 03171, I Lied when upside down (It was kind of like when you would type 07734 into your calculator and it would spell hello).  Of course he lied Bonnie, it’s Kai! He took the car and headed back to Mystic Falls, leaving Bonnie stranded.

I personally think it would be really interesting to see Kai come back to the real world. Obviously, he would have a little culture shock when he realizes that people don’t use pagers to send cryptic messages anymore, but he will certainly bring some welcome drama that Tripp managed to not bring. P.s. Matt and Jeremy were MIA this week, and I found myself missing them both. Mainly Matt though.

Favorite Quote of the week:

“Wait, did you just say coven?”- Liam, during the scene where everyone is talking supernatural and forgets that he is still in the room.

What did you think of last night’s episode? Do you want Kai to come back? Why does it matter if he does? How much longer do you think they will make us wait for Caroline and Stefan?

See you on December 4^th when new episodes return!