In This Episode...
It is day 14 of Jesse’s “treatments.” Wes gives him some blood via transfusion and he roars to life, breaking through his shackles (“physical strength is an unforeseen side effect”) and sucking the bag of blood dry. Then he turns on Wes.
Bonnie is stoked to be alive again. She gets a kicky new ‘do and Caroline and Elena are throwing a welcome to college / back to life party for her. Elena wants Damon to come and bring Stefan, but Stefan opts out - he is still having nightmarish panic attacks and wants to be alone. Caroline is interrupted from the party planning by a panicked call from Jesse. She arrives just in time to save his roommate from his fangs. Oh, and Jesse’s roommate is Aaron. Elena shows up with their “stash” and the girls give him a quick tutorial on being a vampire. He starts to settle into his new lifestyle.
As the party gets underway, Damon is busy interrogating Wes. He is strapped down to the exam chair and Damon is going through his collection of dangerous diseases. Damon proposes a game: he injects Wes with one disease at a time. If Wes answers his questions correctly, he will give him a sip of his healing vampire blood. If he doesn’t, well, let the diseases ravage him. After lots of “playful” banter, Wes reveals that he has turned Jesse into a new kind of vampire: one that feeds on vampire blood. Monsters feeding on monsters. And once a vampire starts to feed on his own kind, he can’t stop. So it is really, really bad when Jesse and Caroline start making out and he bites her lip.
Jesse leaves the party suddenly and seeks out Wes, still bound in the lab. Damon, having promised Elena to keep Wes alive (Aaron finally opened up and told her his parents died when he was sick, on a camping trip, during which they were “mauled by bears,” - though most likely vampires - and after bouncing around for a number of years, Wes became his legal guardian and is the closest thing to family he has), had just opened up a vein for him. When Jesse gets a sniff, he goes for it, But Damon catches him quickly. “I’m a lot older and a lot stronger,” Damon brags. “Actually, that’s not 100% accurate,” Wes informs him - before Jesse tackles Damon to the floor. The boys fight, and Jesse sinks his fangs into Damon’s neck. Elena appears and tries to talk Jesse down, but that clearly isn’t working so she stakes him - as Caroline comes around the corner. She holds Jesse as he dies, then snidely tells Elena that the old Elena would have given Jesse a chance. Damon is left to clean up the Wes mess. As he puts vials of disease back in the fridge, he sees a pack of Jesse’s blood, identified only by his code number. Damon asks about it; Wes wants to know why he cares. “Because I was 21051.” Wes is surprised: “You were an Augustine vampire?” “I haven’t heard that name in decades. I thought you shut down 60 years ago.” Despite his promise to Elena, Damon decides he is going to kill Wes. Wes has been working on his binds with a hidden scalpel, and he is free now. Damon rushes to him, but Wes is faster - to the emergency button. Atomized vervain pours from what in normal labs would be fire sprinklers, and Damon passes. “When working with vampires, you can never be too careful.” He wakes in a tiny dungeon-like prison cell... a cell he had been in before, marked with his initials.
Back in Mystic Falls, Stefan is getting drunk at the Grill. Katherine is doing the same, but she has half a bottle of bourbon on him. (Matt agreed to keep serving her when she translated the possession video of him.) Stefan doesn’t really want to talk when Katherine sits with him, but he eventually does. She diagnoses him with PTSD and offers to help, but Stefan is instantly wary and wants to know what she wants in return. Katherine is hurt - she knows a little something about PTSD and for once she was trying to be selfless. Stefan apologizes, but is interrupted by Nadia. Katherine begrudgingly introduce her as her daughter.