RECAP AND REVIEW – “THE VAMPIRE DIARIES” SEASON 3 EPISODE 3 – “THE END OF THE AFFAIR” – ORIGINAL AIR DATE 9/29/2011
By OBS Staff Member ifellhard
The episode opens with Damon pouring a drink and taking a call from Katherine who is calling from a pay phone in an undisclosed location. She taunts him about Stefan and Klaus’ whereabouts.
Klaus and Stefan arrive in Chicago and Klaus talks about Stefan’s days as “The Ripper”. The scene flashes back to Stefan’s days during Prohibition in Chicago in a speakeasy where Stefan meets a blonde vampire not long after he killed a woman in a car. Back in the present, Klaus tells him that they are going to see his “favorite witch” to help with the hybrid problem.
Elena wakes up to find Damon in her bed and freaks out. He taunts her and tells her he knows where Stefan is and tells her to start packing.
Caroline is still trapped in the basement and calls out for her dad. He enters and asks how she can walk in the sunlight. She tells him that it’s her ring. He removes the ring and tosses it away from her into the floor. He talks about how her ancestors built the place where she’s being held and how it has things like vervain in the ventilation. He holds a bag of blood out to tempt her and then opens a window and burns her with sunlight.
Damon and Elena head to Chicago and he makes a crack about her necklace that Stefan gave her. She tells him, “It’s an antigue – like you.” Damon gives her Stefan’s diary and tells her to read about Stefan’s “Ripper” days. She refuses to read it and Damon reads a passage aloud. Elena then takes the journal and starts reading. There is another flashback demonstrating Stefan’s crass behavior in those days.
Klaus takes Stefan to a bar – the location for the old speakeasy. We learn that the witch is Gloria – the jazz singer from the old days. She reveals that she can use spells to slow her aging. Klaus and Gloria talk about how the spell didn’t work. She tells him that she needs to contact the original witch and tells Klaus to bring “Rebecca” to her. Stefan finds a photo behind the bar of himself with Klaus back in the “Ripper” days.
While Sherrif Forbes is leaving a voice mail on Caroline’s phone, Tyler shows up at the door.
Caroline continues to burn and begs her dad to close the window. She swears that she doesn’t hurt anyone and he tells her he’s going to condition her to associate blood with pain and suppress her vampire instincts. He opens the window again.
Elena and Damon arrive at an old, run-down apartment building in Chicago – Stefan’s old apartment. Stefan breaks in and opens a hidden door to reveal where Stefan wrote the names of all of his victims on the wall. Damon leaves to go to the bar and tells Elena to stay at the apartment.
Stefan asks Klaus why he doesn’t remember him and the scene flashes back to Stefan and the blonde vampire sharing a human at the speakeasy. He takes note of her pendant and she tells him that a witch gave it to her for good luck. She quips that it must work because she “found love”. As they kiss, Klaus grabs the female vampire – “Rebecca” – and tells her that they are leaving. She refers to him as “Nick” and we learn that they are siblings. Back in the present, Stefan realizes that he knew another original vampire.
Klaus heads to a coffin in a storage facility and reveals Rebecca inside. Stefan tells him that he doesn’t recognize her. Klaus removes the stake from her and tells her it’s time to wake up. Stefan asks Klaus what he wants. Klaus tells him that he learned many tricks from him. The scene flashes back to Stefan, Klaus, and Rebecca in the speakeasy. A man (later revealed as “Liam Grant”) asks Stefan about his wife’s whereabouts and threatens to call the Chicago Police. Liam’s wife appears and they start to leave. Stefan compels them to sit at the table. Stefan slices the wife’s wrist and has her blood flow into a champagne goblet and he forces Liam to drink his wife’s blood.
As they leave the storage facility, Stefan asks Klaus why he should believe any of what he tells him. Klaus tells Stefan that they knew each other and he’s going to prove it by going to Stefan’s old apartment.
Damon heads into the bar and he and Gloria recognize each other. Gloria tells Damon that Klaus and Stefan will be back and that they have gone on an errand, which she refuses to disclose.
Elena is reading Stefan’s journal back at the apartment, reading passages about how Lexi helped him. Elena hears Klaus and Stefan approaching and hides in the secret closet. Klaus tells Stefan about his ritual of writing the names of the victims in the closet to relive the kill and the shot cuts to Elena looking at the names (including Liam Grant’s). Klaus opens the closet and asks if he believes him. Stefan goes into the closet and ends up seeing Elena, remaining silent and exchanging longing glances. Stefan exits the closet, producing a bottle of single malt whisky from 1918. They head out to drink the bottle.
Damon returns and tells Elena to get presentable beccause he knows where Stefan is going to be that night. Damon confesses to being upset about leaving Elena alone and tells her that he plans to distract Klaus so that she can deal with Stefan.
Back at Gloria’s, Stefan asks Klaus why he wants him for his wing-man and Klaus tells him that Stefan used to want him for his wing-man. The scene flashes back to them in the speakeasy all buddy-buddy. They talk about Rebecca and her feelings for Stefan. Stefan tells “Nick” that he’s a good friend and he’s glad that they met. Back in the present, Stefan starts to look as if he might remember and they toast “to friendship”.
Bill tells Caroline that he cried when Carol Lockwood called him. Caroline tells him that she’s OK and can’t be fixed. He refuses to believe that and she promises to try her best to resist. He tells her that he has to try to fix her so that he doesn’t have to kill her. The sun has gone down and he tells her that they will continue the next day. Bill leaves the room and as he is locking the door, there is the sound of a gun being cocked. Sherrif Forbes is there and has her gun pointed at him. They argue briefly about Caroline and then Tyler appears. Bill tells Tyler not to go in the room. Sherrif Forbes fires a shot near Bill and tells Tyler to go ahead. Tyler goes in, frees Caroline, gets her ring and carries her out of the room.
Stefan and Klaus continue drinking and talking. Stefan tells him that he’s confused as to why he only knows him “as a hybrid dick who sacrificed his girlfriend”. Klaus tells him that “all good things must come to an end.” The flashback reveals Stefan and Rebecca dancing when the Chicago Police raid the speakeasy. When Stefan notes that the bullets being fired are wooden, Rebecca says, “He’s here.” Klaus calls for Rebecca to go. In the scuffle to get out, Rebecca’s necklace falls to the floor. Klaus compels Stefan to forget them until he says otherwise. Back in the present, Stefan realizes that Klaus is running from someone.
Damon enters the bar as Stefan tells Klaus he needs a “real drink”. Damon exits and Stefan follows closely, attacking him. He tells Damon to get Elena out of Chicago and tells him about how the hybrids aren’t working because Elena is alive and Klaus can’t know. He tells Damon to tell Elena to go home and forget about him. Damon tells her to tell her himself and we see Elena standing off to the side.
Inside the bar, Damon sits down beside Klaus and Klaus talks about how he will kill Damon.
Stefan tells Elena that she shouldn’t be there and asks what she wants. She touches his face and tells him to, “Come home.” She hugs him and tries to inject him with vervain, but he stops her. He grabs her arm and angrily tells her, “I don’t want to come home.”
Klaus attacks Damon inside the bar, stabbing him repeatedly with a wooden toothpick before tossing him across the room, breaking a chair in the process. As he tries to stake Damon with a broken chair leg, it catches fire and we see Gloria behind them. She tells them, “Not in my bar – you take it outside.” Klaus tells Damon that he doesn’t need to negotiate Stefan’s freedom because when he’s done, Stefan won’t want to go back.
Stefan tells Elena why he’s protecting her. He tells her it will never be the same and mentions all of the innocents he killed from Florida to Tennessee. She appeals to him and points out how Lexi helped him back in the 1920’s. He tells her it took 30 years to pull himself together and that would be half of her life. Elena tells him she refuses to give up on him and he tells her that he she will and that they’re done. He tells her, “I just want you to go,” before walking away from her.
Damon and Elena get into the car and Elena holds onto her necklace, which is the same one Rebecca was wearing. Damon asks if she’s OK and she tells him to drive.
Sherrif Forbes is sitting on Caroline’s bed with her as she drinks a bag of blood. She tells Caroline about how they were raised to think of vampires. Tyler arrives and crawls in bed with her. She snuggles up to him and begins to cry, saying, “My dad hates me.”
Klaus returns to the warehouse and finds Rebecca no longer in her coffin. The security guard is dead. Rebecca stakes Klaus and tells him , “Go to hell, Nick.” The scene flashes back to “Nick” telling her that they need to go because they’ve been found. He tells her that Stefan isn’t going with them. She doesn’t take that news very well and Klaus tells her that she will have to choose between them. She tells “Nick” goodbye and then he stakes her. Back in the present, Klaus removes the stake and drops it to the floor. He tells Rebecca that he brought a peace offering and Stefan enters. Klaus then compels Stefan to remember and the memories flood back to him. Stefan goes to Rebecca and then he looks at Klaus as he remembers sitting at the bar and telling a photographer to, “Take a picture of my brother and me.” It was the photo that Stefan found behind the bar. Stefan remembers them being friends and then Klaus reveals the reason for being there. He tells Rebecca that Gloria needs to contact the original witch. Rebecca reaches for her necklace to find that it’s gone and she freaks out.
Damon and Katherine are on the phone again, exchanging their usual snarky banter and she won’t tell him where she is and then hangs up on him. A fire truck races by and Katherine recalls the day the speakeasy in Chicago was raided – she was there with a short bob hairdo. She sees Stefan pick up Rebecca’s necklace from the floor and sees him being questioned about Nick and Rebecca. He tells the man that he’s never seen either of them before. Back in the present, we see that Katherine is in Chicago as she climbs into a cab.
All in all, I really enjoyed this episode. I liked seeing the non-goody-goody version of Stefan and the tuxedo didn’t hurt either. I am glad to finally know why Klaus was so obsessed with Stefan and his days as “The Ripper”. It will be interesting to see how Stefan reconciles his long-lost feelings for Rebecca now that he remembers and she’s now there (especially since the memories are fresh for her).
What did you think of learning that the antique necklace that Stefan gave to Elena once belonged to another love of his life? Do you think that he will be forthcoming with information about it? I believe that the necklace will be much like the moonstone was in Season 2.
Any thoughts as to what Katherine was up to? Was it sheer coincidence for her to be at that speakeasy the night that it was raided?
Share your thoughts with us – here or in the forum. We’d love to hear from you!
