In Mystic Falls, Caroline finds the hunter's sword in Klaus's attic. Did no one check the attic before now? Ugh. A cryptex is built into the grip. The drawback is that it's in Aramaic. Fortunately the Viking Original Hybrid is fluent in Aramaic. Hey, he's been around for a thousand years; Klaus has had plenty of time on his hands. Anyhow, when he realizes there is only one dose of the cure, he gets word to Rebekah. More on her later.

The rest of our time in the Falls is spent on Caroline persuading Klaus not to kill Tyler, once he (Klaus) is free from Bonnie's mystical prison. Caroline manages, of course, because she's Caroline. The downside is, Tyler must leave town. Again! He and Caroline have a heart-rending farewell. Candice Accola and Michael Trevino are this episode's MVPs.

Meanwhile, on Craphole Down East, Shane breaks his leg on the way to the cure. That's fine by Bonnie, who maybe gets the line of the night. When Shane begs for her assistance with his injury, she tells him to stay off it. Bonnie and Jeremy make it to Silas's desiccated corpse. The box containing the cure has fossilized in his hands. Bonnie realizes the only way to release it is to feed their blood to Silas, but neither she nor Jeremy are too keen on that idea.

Then it gets a thousand times better. See, once Rebekah learns from Klaus that the cure only comes in a single serving, she snaps Stefan's neck and takes off on her own. Stefan and Elena have a heart to heart about his desire to be human. They both decide the cure probably isn't in the cards for them, but they know they have to go after it in order to use it against Klaus so he isn't able to kill them all.

Meanwhile Vaughn (Twilight's Charlie Bewley), the new hunter, leads Damon toward the cure. Vaughn has anti-vampire weapons that would make Alaric weep for joy. He uses them against both Damon and Rebekah, so they're pretty well sidelined. I still don't understand why he doesn't kill Damon, but I have my suspicions.

Elena nearly catches up with Bonnie and Jeremy, but then she is attacked by an unseen assailant who, THANK GOODNESS, is Katherine. Welcome back, Kiki. Katherine gets to Bonnie and Jeremy shortly thereafter and pretends she is Elena. When Vaughn stabs Bonnie, Jeremy wants "Elena" to heal her, but since she's Katherine and dead set on getting the cure, she instead makes Jeremy feed his blood to Silas. During the feed, it appears that Silas snaps Jeremy's neck. Our Germy little boy falls lifeless to the crypt's floor.

Is Jeremy too supernatural now for the ring to save his life? Will Silas resurrect those who died to raise him? I suspect Jeremy is truly and permanently dead, but it's hard to care. Don't get me wrong, I love the Germ. It's the manner of his death that bugs. Because there are enough reasons to suspect his death is only temporary, I'm having a hard time feeling the loss in my gut, even though my brain says this is it.

I will return with the full recap, ASAP. In the meantime, please grade the episode at the top of the page and then come on over to the forum, where we're Expressing our denial.

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