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"The Vampire Diaries is one of those shows that can make me audibly gasp as I watch it, so knowing that we&amp;#039;re not going to get another new episode until next year hurts. What&amp;#039;s worse is that &amp;#039;Homecoming&amp;#039; was another spectacular, action-packed, emotional ride that means it&amp;#039;s difficult to wait half an hour for another instalment, let alone until 2012. Anyway, let&amp;#039;s focus on &amp;#039;Homecoming&amp;#039;. We start with Stefan calling Klaus in an attempt to get him back to Mystic Falls (Klaus is in Portland, enjoying the werewolf breeding ground but annoyed by &amp;quot;whiny music and healthy-looking people&amp;quot;). Stefan&amp;#039;s got a good incentive for Klaus to return, though - Mikael is lying dead beside him, daggered up. We have a quick flash back to one hour earlier, as Stefan, Elena and Damon try to figure out a plan. They agree to say that Mikael tried to attack Elena, so she used a dagger on him. But they agree that Klaus will want proof of Mikael&amp;#039;s death, so Mikael agrees to let Elena stab him with the dagger to lure him to Mystic Falls. It turns out that Mikael has a stake from the original tree (you know, the one that produced those Original-killing ashes), which he can use to get rid of Klaus once and for all. So Elena stabs Mikael, making sure that Stefan sees it - so when Klaus questions Stefan, he can say that he saw Mikael get killed with his own eyes, despite his compulsion.  Of course, Klaus is the paranoid type so he asks to speak to Rebekah - unaware that she now knows he was responsible for their mother&amp;#039;s death and has switched teams. Rebekah reports that Mikael is dead and persuades Klaus to return. Sorted! All that remains is for Elena to pull the dagger from Mikael. When Mikael finally wakes up, he&amp;#039;s surprised to see Rebekah waiting for him. She&amp;#039;s still furious with her father, of course, even when he points out that Klaus is the one who killed their mom. Rebekah says she knows that - but Klaus wasn&amp;#039;t born a killer. No, Mikael&amp;#039;s the one who turned them into vampires and destroyed their family. Claire Holt has been a revelation in the last couple of episodes - she&amp;#039;s made Rebekah so hurt. Elena&amp;#039;s trying to find something to wear to Homecoming, but Bonnie&amp;#039;s still upset about her break-up with Jeremy. What&amp;#039;s more, she can&amp;#039;t speak to Elena about it because Jeremy is Elena&amp;#039;s brother, and she&amp;#039;ll never be truly mad at him. This sets Elena thinking and she goes to see Damon, concerned that they can&amp;#039;t trust Rebekah completely.   She&amp;#039;s worried that too many things can go wrong with their plan but Damon promises he has a backup as he prepares some vampire and werewolf-slaying weapons. But he&amp;#039;s keeping it a secret. Meanwhile, Stefan arrives and urges them to successfully complete the plan - his freedom from Klaus rests on it. And from past experience, it&amp;#039;s their humanity that has caused the problems. I&amp;#039;m still enjoying nasty-Stefan - Paul Wesley is wonderfully smirky. Elsewhere, Caroline and Tyler are decorating a van for Homecoming, but Tyler&amp;#039;s more interested in going for a feed - Rebekah told him about some people who like to be bitten. Caroline&amp;#039;s not impressed he&amp;#039;s hanging out with that &amp;quot;evil blood slut&amp;quot; (amazing) and is shocked when Tyler reveals that Rebekah&amp;#039;s going to the dance with Matt. Tyler defends her, and Caroline begins to worry that this is all because of his sire bond to Klaus. Speaking of Rebekah, she&amp;#039;s getting dressed for Homecoming and feeling emotional - she&amp;#039;s never been to a high school dance before because she&amp;#039;s always been running. As she speaks to Elena, she tears up - she&amp;#039;s always loved or hated her brother, but never thought she&amp;#039;d help to kill him.  It&amp;#039;s a nice little bonding moment for the duo - I&amp;#039;ve really warmed to Rebekah, who&amp;#039;s grieving for her mother and realising her beloved brother has lied to her. So when Elena hands her over the necklace, it&amp;#039;s very sweet. Until Elena stabs her in the back with the dagger - &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t leave anything to chance,&amp;quot; she explains. Shocker! When Damon comes over to help clean up, Elena&amp;#039;s feeling very guilty (even though Rebekah&amp;#039;s not technically dead). What&amp;#039;s more, she&amp;#039;s worried she&amp;#039;s going to screw up the whole plan because of her humanity, like Stefan warned.  Damon - who says he doesn&amp;#039;t trust Mikael or Stefan - says he has a backup plan, though Elena won&amp;#039;t like it. &amp;quot;Because when this all goes down, I don&amp;#039;t want you having any part of it,&amp;quot; he says. He asks if Elena trusts him and when she says yes, he replies: &amp;quot;Then you have nothing to worry about.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s thrilling.  There&amp;#039;s a hitch already, though - the gym&amp;#039;s been flooded, so Tyler&amp;#039;s moved Homecoming to his house. Bizarrely, a stage has already been set up and My Morning Jacket are performing. How did Tyler organise all that so quickly? Never doubt The Vampire Diaries. Some teen shows would just pretend that&amp;#039;s possible - in this case, though, it&amp;#039;s all down to Klaus. This ain&amp;#039;t Homecoming any more, Tyler tells Stefan. It&amp;#039;s a wake. With Rebekah daggered, Elena and Matt go to Homecoming together - but agree not to tell Caroline anything (though she already knows that Klaus is there). Meanwhile, Klaus wants to know where Rebekah is but Stefan genuinely has no idea, and can say that, compelled or not.  He offers to take Klaus to Mikael&amp;#039;s body, but there&amp;#039;s a hitch - Klaus wants Mikael brought to him. Stefan agrees, in exchange for his freedom from compulsion. Klaus promises that if Mikael is dead and the weapon destroyed, he will give Stefan his liberty.  Elsewhere, Mikael shows Damon that he has the stake. Damon wants to know why Mikael feeds on vampires - turns out that he never intended vampires to have bloodlust, so he&amp;#039;s doing the honourable thing of feeding on the predator, not innocent people. Anyway, Stefan arrives to warn that Klaus wants Mikael brought to him. Damon insists that they have a plan - but it doesn&amp;#039;t involve Stefan. And then Mikael rushes over to feed from Stefan, much to Damon&amp;#039;s shock - &amp;quot;Couldn&amp;#039;t you have just broken his neck?&amp;quot; Bizarre line, if you think about it. Back at the party, Klaus is telling Tyler all about his master plan. In fact, he&amp;#039;s invited a few friends of his own - Mindy, Tony and lots more. Yup, hybrids, who have all been sired by him and will do whatever they can to protect him. That&amp;#039;s right, Klaus knows something&amp;#039;s up. Tyler goes to find Caroline to confront her, though of course Caroline knows nothing. She&amp;#039;s annoyed with Tyler for being loyal to Klaus, but as she heads back to the party he injects her with vervain. Yikes. Meanwhile, Klaus walks over to Elena to do his threatening smirk (which I have grown to love). He thinks she&amp;#039;s nervous - but Elena replies that actually, she just doesn&amp;#039;t like him. Brilliant. Anyway, Klaus warns that people have been after him for over 1,000 years and he&amp;#039;s always one step ahead... She can give it her best shot, but she won&amp;#039;t succeed. Damon arrives at the party and rips out the heart of a guard to get in. Eek. Meanwhile, Tyler brings Matt to see Caroline and begs him to get her out of the house as fast as possible - he was protecting her by injecting her. He tells Matt to get everyone out - he won&amp;#039;t be able to stop himself from protecting Klaus, if it comes to it.  Damon finds Tyler and grabs him, as Tyler warns that Klaus is ready to kill anyone. But it soon descends into a fight, which only stops when Bonnie arrives doing her witchy thing and making them clutch their heads. She&amp;#039;s surprised when she sees Damon has the dagger, but he&amp;#039;s the only one who can get into the Lockwood house. Klaus&amp;#039;s hybrid Mindy comes to see him and reveals that Mikael is here to speak to him. Klaus tells Tony: &amp;quot;You know what to do&amp;quot;, then goes to see daddy. Of course, Mikael can&amp;#039;t come inside, so Klaus lords it over him a bit. In fact, he&amp;#039;s gathered his hybrids together, who will pounce on Mikael when he gives the signal (it won&amp;#039;t kill him, but it&amp;#039;ll hurt). But Mikael reminds Klaus that he can still compel the hybrids - and then Mindy appears, dragging Elena with her. Mikael threatens to kill Elena unless Klaus comes outside to face him - and then there&amp;#039;ll be no more hybrids. He taunts Klaus about how he has no-one - Klaus even ends up in tears (turns out there&amp;#039;s nothing like a horrible dad to make you cry). But Klaus is still Klaus, so he calls Mikael&amp;#039;s bluff - kill Elena. See if he cares. If he does, he won&amp;#039;t have any more leverage. Mikael murmurs that Klaus&amp;#039;s impulse is what keeps him from being truly great - and stabs Elena in the back as Klaus looks on, shocked. But then Damon rushes behind him and stakes Klaus, as Elena stands up. It&amp;#039;s not Elena, of course, it&amp;#039;s Katherine!   She throws wolfsbane grenades at the hybrids (brilliantly yelling: &amp;quot;Kaboom!&amp;quot; as she does), but it&amp;#039;s all going awry - Stefan pulls Damon off Klaus, so Klaus can escape and push the stake into Mikael. Mikael bursts into flames, and it&amp;#039;s not long before he&amp;#039;s dead. &amp;quot;What did you do?&amp;quot; asks Damon, devastated, but Klaus is impressed - and grants Stefan his freedom. Meanwhile, Caroline wakes up after the vervain to find Tyler, who explains that he was just protecting her (he knew she would have stayed to help the others if she knew what was going on). But Caroline&amp;#039;s still devastated that Tyler is sired to Klaus - how can they be together now? Tyler says he&amp;#039;s glad he&amp;#039;s a hybrid - he never has to turn or go through that pain again. And if being sired to Klaus is the price he has to pay, well, fine. Anyway, what&amp;#039;s the difference? He used to be controlled by the moon, and now it&amp;#039;s by Klaus. After everything they&amp;#039;ve been through, he asks Caroline not to turn her back on him - but this is too much for Caroline. All it takes is a few words: &amp;quot;Tyler...&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Right.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I just...&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Got it.&amp;quot; So effective - and now I know what everyone was talking about when they said Caroline and Tyler would be like Romeo &amp;amp; Juliet this season. Elsewhere, Elena is furious that the plan didn&amp;#039;t work and Klaus isn&amp;#039;t dead. Damon is angry, too - he&amp;#039;d thought of everything. Elena&amp;#039;s confused - Stefan wanted Klaus dead. What happened? Katherine&amp;#039;s gone, too, and Damon throws his glass into the fire in fury. But Elena promises him they&amp;#039;ll survive. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re never getting Stefan back,&amp;quot; Damon says, forcing Elena to suggest that they just let him go, finally. It is so, so sad. Then Katherine calls to say goodbye - she&amp;#039;s got to run from Klaus. Of course, Katherine isn&amp;#039;t alone at all - she&amp;#039;s with Stefan, and she pulls over to let him out. In flashbacks, we see how everything really went down. It wasn&amp;#039;t Elena that Klaus was threatening - it was Katherine. And we didn&amp;#039;t see the whole conversation, either - Klaus revealed that he has ordered his hybrids to kill Damon in the event of his death.  So Katherine goes to see Stefan to warn him, but refuses to pull the plug on the plan. She tells Stefan to care enough to save Damon&amp;#039;s life, because she&amp;#039;s seeing the plan through. She will kill Klaus and they&amp;#039;ll have their freedom, but Damon will be dead... unless Stefan cares enough to do something. Back in the present, Katherine explains she wasn&amp;#039;t just trying to save Damon - she wanted to save Stefan&amp;#039;s humanity. She actually likes the old him better, surprisingly. And yes, she does occasionally let herself care about people. Stefan refuses to let all of his humanity in - not after everything he&amp;#039;s done. But Katherine tells him he needs to feel to be able to do what she needs him to - &amp;quot;GET BAD.&amp;quot; Klaus still doesn&amp;#039;t know where Rebekah is, but he leaves her a message - time for a family reunion! But then Stefan calls, to thank Klaus for his freedom - and complain that Klaus took everything from him. Klaus smirks that resentment gets old... but Stefan says revenge never does. And at that point, Klaus opens up his moving truck, and discovers that all of his family&amp;#039;s coffins have gone. Yes, Stefan&amp;#039;s got them, and he&amp;#039;s walking around them smugly. &amp;quot;I will kill you and everyone you&amp;#039;ve ever met,&amp;quot; Klaus growls. But Stefan replies, brilliantly: &amp;quot;You do that and you will never see your family again. I wonder, Klaus - as someone who&amp;#039;s been one step ahead for 1000 years, were you prepared for this?&amp;quot; So it was another fantastic episode of The Vampire Diaries this week, and it&amp;#039;s going to be horrendous waiting for the next instalment. We might just go back and rewatch. Like, now... What did you think of the episode? Leave your comments below! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/vampire-diaries/review/a350358/the-vampire-diaries-homecoming-recap/>