You know, every week, I pretty much want to name the episode something like "OMG I CAN'T EVEN!" I generally don't, because it's stupid. But tonight, I'm succumbing to the stupidity, because the only thing more tense than this episode was the struggle to watch the darned thing. Here, let me show you...
8:00 PM: Turn on TV. CW affiliate stuck on single frame of an ad for Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts.
8:05 PM: Ditto. Send panicked e-mail to editor Angel, and start whining on Twitter.
8:10 PM: DITTO! Pour glass of wine while husband calls cable company. Leave Angel a note on Facebook.
8:12 PM: Cable company says that they've had over a thousand calls reporting the same issue.
8:17 PM: Start making stabby motions at stupid frozen face of Le Cordon Bleu spokeschef. E-mail boss-lady, again. Bitch some more on Twitter.
8:20 PM: FINALLY! Episode starts up, twenty minutes in, and mid-Twitter bitch.
8:20 - 9:00 PM: Watch remainder of episode and drink copious amounts of wine.
9:00 PM: Get lots of summaries of the first 20 minutes from fabulous people on the forums, including: Morrigan1575, Noir Mayhem, efh, cheese2000 and Belley. Huge love to you all, and to ponygirl76, Lizatlax and approximofnice on Twitter.
10:30 PM: New, timely, anonymous friend delivers a recording I can watch. Bless my friend. Pour more wine. Watch. E-mail Madame Editorix. Pour more wine.
11:15 PM: You ready? Yeah. Me fricking too. Okay. Katherine, pretending to be Elena, meets up with a Matt-stalking Caroline at the Grill. KaKa has a message for the Brothers Salvatore: Gimme the moonstone or else. Caroline relays the message. She and the Brothers Salvatore scheme, and pull Alaric, Bonnie and even the Germ in to play along. Meanwhile, Elena and compelled-Matt tend to a recuperating Jenna at home. Elena won't be going to the Masquerade Ball at the Lockwood's, but Matt will. Elena nearly leads us all in prayer by encouraging us to imagine Matt in a suit. Try it yourself. See what I mean?
Once Alaric has taught the New Scooby-Doo Revue (NSDR) how to use his nifty weapons, he gets his marching orders: head over to Gilbert Gables, tend to Jenna and keep a close eye on Elena, while the NSDR takes on Katherine at the Masquerade. You know Alaric's going to fail on one of those fronts, right? That's because he's still shilling the Ric thang.
Katherine straightens her hair, if not her 'tude, and brings her own African-American witch to the Masquerade Ball, because... black witches are the new black. Or perhaps because she has enough respect for our beautiful Brothers Salvatore that she knows they'll try something. At any rate, there's a new witch in town, and her name is Lucy, y'all.
Bonnie, with Germ as her lieutenant, casts a spell on an upper room at the Lockwood mansion, which (much like the tomb spell) seals vampires inside. And crap, if she can do that, can't she put a de-invite on Gilbert Gables? Stefan and Damon ambush Katherine. They even manage to stake her, but miss her heart, because it's even smaller than the pre-Christmas Grinch's. The problem is, everything they do to Katherine also happens to Elena -- who of course has snuck out of the house to spy on the goings-on at the Masquerade Ball. Once the NSDR realizes what's up, the boys stop attacking Katherine. Bonnie must set Katherine free, but she finds KaKa's witch first, who lo and behold is a distant Bennett cousin. Once Bonnie grabs Lucy's hand, she knows she can trust her and gives her the moonstone. Lucy brings it to Katherine but before she hands it over, she makes Katherine acknowledge that Lucy is no longer indebted to her. When Lucy gives her the stone KaKa learns the hard way that it's been cursed! She falls to the floor, lifeless.
Stefan finds Elena outside, and tells her Katherine is gone. They can be together. Elena's all, Not so fast, Bub -- did you see Pudding Pop in his suit? Okay, no, what she actually says is that she loves him, but she can't get back together with him until she feels safe. What? Instead, let's just decide that Elena's a smart cookie and must know there's no way KaKa is dead this early on, particularly not before the end of Sweeps.
And KaKa's not dead. Damon has delivered her to the tomb. Once she's sealed in, he leaves her there, ignoring her pleas and warnings that there's something coming and they're going to need her to protect Elena. Back at the ball, Elena walks off from Stefan, and is immediately grabbed by a spooky masked baddie. AieeeEEEEE!
And babies? That's only the half of it. Matt follows through on Katherine's compulsion command and does everything he can to enrage Tyler. Luckily, Caroline realizes what's going on and knocks him out, cold. But Aimee's friend, who has been partying with them, is under compulsion, too. She stabs Tyler with a letter opener. He throws her off in self-defense, but she strikes her head on the late Mayor's desk and breaks her neck for real this time. Tyler turns. Oh, and somewhere about 20 minutes into the episode, Katherine kills Aimee, right on the dance floor. And, finally, there's some Bonnie/Jeremy sparkage. Do you see what I mean when I say OMG I CAN'T EVEN! Yeah. I thought so.
"Masquerade" is, once again, A+ work from the cast, but I have a couple of things I'm mulling over, so I'm holding off on a grade until the full weecap, but don't let that stop you. Grade the episode at the top of the page, now. And grade it when you come back to read the weecap too, which I'll put up, ASAP. Until then, please join us on the boards, where we're trying to figure out why the heck the NSDR sealed the moonstone in the tomb with KaKa.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!
It's a busy weekend, and I had a trying time watching this episode (see recaplet for details) so I'm getting right to it. You ready? Okay. Katherine tells Caroline that if Damon and Stefan don't give her the moonstone tonight, at the Masquerade Ball, she will rip apart Mystic Falls until it rains blood. Katherine, "It's Raining Men" is a classic. Why deviate from the norm? Matt helps Elena and Jeremy bring Jenna (who thinks she walked into a knife) home from the hospital, and the subtlest of sparks fly between Matt and
Elena. Katherine enlists the help of African-American witch Lucy, who is indebted to her, because... um... black witches are the new black. Seriously, Show? In an attempt to thwart Katherine's moonstone-grabby plans, Caroline, Stefan, Damon, Alaric, Jeremy, Bonnie and her grimoire form a sort of New Scooby-Doo Revue (NSDR), and leave Elena totally in the dark. The NSDR sends Alaric to Gilbert Gables to watch Jenna and Elena, while they flit off to the ball
At said ball, Katherine shores up her compulsion of Matt. He'll beat down Tyler until Tyler kills him. Later, KaKa dances with Stefan as she bargains for the moonstone. Once he leaves his thrall-mistress, Matt works hard at getting himself, Tyler, Aimee Bradley and Sarah drunk.
Meanwhile, Bonnie and Jeremy make their way to an upper room, bust out the grimoire and set about casting a sealing spell. Bonnie confesses to Jeremy that she hasn't done too much magical research, because she doesn't want to know about any spells which accomplish other than good. She's only helping because she doesn't want anyone else getting hurt, and doesn't know how to stay out of it.
Meanwhile, at Gilbert Gables, Elena twigs to the fact that it's weird all of her friends are going to the Masquerade Ball without her, haven't contacted her all day, and have even managed to drag the anti-social Germ along. Alaric tries to play dumb but it neither suits him nor fools Elena. Over at the ball, Bonnie senses Lucy's presence and confronts her, but the witch plays herself off as a mere innocent Plus-1 at a swanky party. Back at Gilbert Gables, Elena sneaks out of the house.
At the ball, Katherine strong-arms Stefan into dancing with her. When he labors under the false impression that he's this week's Dungeon Master, Katherine sets him straight by killing poor, enthralled, slutting-it-up Aimee, right on the dance floor. No, I don't know how nobody saw that (or Stefan dragging her lifeless corpse off the dance floor), either.
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