The Vampire Diaries Season 6 Episode 3 Recap: Founding Families

This week’s episode of The Vampire Diaries, “Welcome to Paradise,” is all about revenge. It starts off with Stefan revealing what he is to his boss and compelling him to do whatever he says. He needs a couple days off from work because he’ll be taking a trip to Whitmore to visit some old friends. Before he leaves, Stefan makes sure to have his boss do his dirty work and burry his dare I say it, girlfriend’s body. I’m surprised Stefan didn’t do that himself but I guess he didn’t care about the girl enough and rage took over.

Elena wants Caroline to move back in with her at the college but Caroline isn’t ready to give up hope just yet. To take their mind off of things, the gang are throwing a party at the swimming hole near the Mystic Falls border. Elena takes it upon herself to try and introduce her fellow doctor student Liam, to Caroline. Right after Elena invites Liam to the party, Stefan pops up. Elena is shocked and happy to see him. She tells him that he can’t ever leave her for that long period of time again. Stefan assures her that this is exactly why he came to visit. That little sneaky Stefan Salvatore is keeping secrets from everyone!

We get to see how Damon and Bonnie are doing in the four months that have passed with them being stuck in the Twilight Zone. They’re grocery shopping while bickering on why Bonnie thinks she can get her powers back if she wasn’t able to while she was still alive. Damon doesn’t believe in Bonnie like he should and after constantly hearing it, she starts to get furious. She knows she can get her powers back because then that would mean her Grams helped stick them here for them to have a for sure way to get out. Looking around the store, Bonnie notices that the pork rinds that are always on the shelf are now missing after four months. All of a sudden a mini merry-go-round starts to go off right outside the store. Either someone else is with them or something spiritual is going on.

Damon tries to come up with a logical explanation because he knows that no one else could be with them for this amount of time and have gone undetected. Out in the parking lot, Bonnie notices something familiar and points it out to Damon. Damon is happier than a kid on Christmas day to see his old car sitting in the parking lot. He even gets inside to start it up and starts to make driving noises like the big kid he is. While they’re outside, they notice something run by them and go to investigate. At first, Damon doubts what they’ve seen was anything. He gets angry all over again like he usually does which ends up pushing Bonnie away. Inside the store by himself, Damon finds someone sitting in a chair grubbing on some pork rinds.

At the party, Stefan and Elena show up with Liam in hopes of introducing him to Caroline. I’m not exactly sure what sparked this idea in Elena’s head of having to set up Caroline with someone but it doesn’t look like she’s too interested. Elena goes into the water and awkwardly interrupts her little brother Jeremy’s make out session with Sarah, the girl Elena almost killed from feeding off her. Another awkward conversation goes on between Matt and his new friend Jay. Jay starts telling Matt how he doesn’t believe “dog bite girl” or Sarah’s story. He even tries to start a fight with Tyler because no one else will agree with him. He’s obviously hinting at the idea of vampires and I’m not sure why Matt and Tyler didn’t pick up on it.

Damon’s new grocery store friend seems to know who Damon is but Damon doesn’t have a clue who he is. He says his name is Kai and he’s enjoyed watching Damon and Bonnie bicker because it’s better than reality television. Kai offers for Damon to take a drink because he knows how much he loves his bourbon. Damon goes for it because he can’t resist a drink and that’s when Kai lets Damon in on his secret- he wants to kill Damon. He’s vervained all the bottles in the store to make sure Damon drank it and is now attacking Damon. He makes a wooden stake and is about to drive it into his heart when Bonnie shows up. He knows that Bonnie doesn’t have her powers and can’t do anything so he continues with his mission. However, Bonnie channels some major energy and is able to gain back her powers. She starts a fire which allows Damon to get up and knockout Kai. That’s the Bonnie Bennett I know and love!

Doesn’t look like the party was a good idea. Elena tried helping a friend by setting up Caroline with Liam and all he’s interested in is Elena. Jeez, what a classy guy! On top of all that, Stefan has been M.I.A. the whole night which really gets to Caroline. The little white lie that Stefan told Elena about wanting to go to the party in order to meet up with old friends now shows what he’s really there for. He tries to sneak up on Enzo in the woods and kill him but instead, Enzo throws back the wooden stake but misses Stefan and kills Matt’s friend Jay. Looks like Enzo just saved Stefan’s life too because Jay was a vampire hunter with a stake gun aimed at Stefan. I can’t keep up with all these hunters anymore.

Before leaving for good, Stefan has a somewhat heart-to-heart conversation with Caroline. He tells her that he only showed up because he wanted to get his revenge on Enzo. She doesn’t believe him and I’m with Caroline on this one. Stefan isn’t “the ripper” right now so he should still have emotions. Even when he was killing everyone in sight, he still felt regret for his actions and showed his emotions. The Stefan both Caroline and I fell in love with is known for expressing his emotions and that’s the one thing that sets him apart from his brother. He truly cares about others and I can’t see him wanting to just forget all his friends in Mystic Falls. Caroline tells him that he has the choice of leaving them behind because he truly doesn’t care about them and only is interested in revenge or he can stay because he still has a little bit of emotions left for them. Elena shows up to comfort Caroline as they both watch Stefan walk away. I don’t get why Elena seems emotionless and Caroline is beyond heartbroken. Stefan and Elena did date and she seemed happy to see him show up so why would she not care if he left?

Jeremy notices a girl at the party that Caroline had compelled to go get more ice. When he questions her where the ice was she says she was on her way to get it until she remembered how mean Caroline was. This starts to panic Jeremy because this girl was able to be uncompelled. Turns out she went into Mystic Falls, where magic including compulsion, isn’t allowed. Jeremy runs over to Elena and Caroline to ask if they’ve seen Sarah because if she makes it into Mystic Falls they’re done for. Of course, no one has seen her and now the mission of tracking her down begins. Great move on bringing the girl to the party Jeremy. Hopefully she doesn’t make it into Mystic Falls and remember everything that Elena did and Caroline compelled her to forget.

Damon and Bonnie have Kai tied up and want answers. He tells them that he was never going to hurt Damon because he knew Bonnie would eventually come in to save the day. He just wanted to push her enough so she would possibly be able to gain her powers back. Luckily for them, it worked. He also lets them know that he needed Bonnie to get her powers back because that’s their only ticket out of ghost town. I believe in you, Bonnie!

Some strange feelings are going on between Tyler and Liv. Just as Liv arrives to pick up the kegs she lent to Tyler, she keeps pushing his buttons as if she wants to see him crack and get aggressive. Tyler notices this and asks her why she’s acting that way. Her answer didn’t shock me that much because who could blame the girl? She says if she keeps seeing Tyler as this angry jerk it makes it a lot easier for her to not like him more than she already does. Whoops! I guess the cat’s out of the bag. Not sure how this relationship would work out.

Since Caroline is so upset and lonely, she decides she’ll stay at Whitmore with Elena. I think Elena start to question the same things I did about why Caroline was so upset about Stefan’s disappearing act. That’s when Elena asks her if she’s ever had feelings for Stefan. It doesn’t take long for Caroline to answer. She admits that she thinks she did have some feelings for him in the past. Looks like those feelings left once Stefan walked away.

Just as the episode was coming to a close, it ends with a bang leading into next week. Enzo sits down at a diner where Matt’s founding family buddy, Trip is sitting. Somehow he knows that Enzo is a vampire and injects him with vervain. Although Enzo isn’t your average vampire and is able to kill his victims before falling down. He would’ve accomplished this if it weren’t for the heroic vampire turned vampire hunter Stefan. He shoots Enzo with the gun Jay had on him and tells Trip that he’s also a founding family member. Right as Stefan is about to end Enzo Trip tells him that he has his own way of killing the vampires. Stefan doesn’t care how he does it but makes sure to tell Trip to make Enzo suffer. Yeah, this is a different Stefan.

In next week’s episode, it looks like I might finally be getting what I want: a Stelena wedding! Stefan is seen down on one knee proposing to Elena with ring and all. My face looked as shocked as Elena’s when Stefan asked for Elena to marry him in the preview clip. I’m hoping this is actually true and not another hallucination like in Season 5. It probably isn’t true but I’ll never give up hope! What do you think this scene means? Are they going to have a vampire wedding?

What were your thoughts on this episode? Do you think it’s okay for Stefan to be lying to everyone about caring and then leave? Do you think Caroline still has feelings for Stefan but doesn’t want to admit it? Or do you think she has feelings for Enzo now too? What are your feelings towards Kai? Do you think he’s lying about not wanting to kill Damon? How reliable is he in knowing that Bonnie can get them out of there with her magic? Where is Sarah and does she know all their secrets? What do you think will happen to Enzo now that Trip has him? Comment your thoughts below.

New episodes of The Vampire Diaries premiere Thursdays at 8pm ET on The CW

Photos: The CW/© 2013 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Credit: Justin Stephens