BWW Recap: THE VAMPIRE DIARIES Uncloaks its Midseason Premiere

Did everyone have a good holiday? I hope it was spent singing carols with your family and drinking spiked eggnog. Or maybe you all went to see INTO THE WOODS and got extremely mad when your aunt Marge started singing along with the opening credits. Either way, if you spent it enjoying yourself and not getting kidnapped by an angry, powerful witch then you were one step ahead of Elena Gilbert. THE VAMPIRE DIARIES returned this week and as the title suggests, Elena literally "Woke Up With a Monster."

Elena had awoken, tied to a chair, and forced to endure a first date with Kai. He decided that the best place to take her would be the Mystic Grill since it was the only restaurant in town. He had also murdered the manager of the place (who knew the place had another employee besides Matt!) and showed the ravaged body off to Elena as a token of appreciation. He had meant to make the death more diplomatic, less agonizing, but the magic he had sucked out of the Mystic Falls border was exploding inside him and he was aching to suppress it.

Because it was now a House of Hunks, Stefan and Damon were now living with Jeremy, who pranced around sans clothes on the regular. Not only was Jeremy hanging around shirtless as a courtesy to all of us, Jo and Liv were using the living room as a magical practicing ground, aka Hogwarts, and destroying Smithsonian relics.

Caroline was still certain they could try and use vampire blood to save Liz, but Damon calmly reminded them that there was no proven facts on the matter and even attempting it would be similar to using Sheriff Forbes as a guinea pig. Caroline brought her mom home from the hospital and forced her to binge-watch FRIENDS while she traveled to Duke to find a cure. In turn, Stefan wanted in on the road trip to check up on his great-great-great-great-grandniece that no one knew was still alive.

Kai decided to continue his and Elena's "Kainapped" date at the high school, because holding vampire's hostage in the high school was now a season requirement. Elena was having horrible memories of the times Klaus, Rebekah, Kol, Stefan, Liv, etc. held her hostage at the school as she escaped from Kai and his magic.

Stefan and Caroline weren't the only ones who had traveled to Duke as Enzo had tracked them down in order to learn Stefan's secret and appreciate beautiful photography. Caroline compelled an expert doctor for her best advice and the doctor confessed they had a patient at their hospital with a similar diagnosis. Conveniently, the patient had no next-of-kin, so human guinea pig experiments were a go.

Damon and Liv had shown up to the school to save the day, but Luke appeared just in time to cloak Liv from Damon and remind her that their birthright of murdering each other in the name of their crazy family was way more important. She was scared and certain that Luke would win against her in the merge and was still convinced Jo could beat Kai given the chance.

Jo had replaced her services with Liv and cloaked her and Damon so they could enter the school and save Elena. Unfortunately, Kai had burned Elena's daylight ring, but lucky for them Mystic Falls High School had those ancient and not-so-secret tunnels running underneath the town. Jo's magic wasn't as strong and the uncloaking spell had worn off just in time for Kai to catch them. Damon battled Kai, but part of his newfound, powerful magic included illusions and when Damon sent a stake through Kai, it was Elena who received the deadly weapon through her abdomen. Thankfully, Alaric popped in to save the day.

While Liv and Tyler forehead touched, Luke called off their travel arrangements back home, finally showing some humanity in the merge situation.

Caroline was excited when her experiment had proven successful, the cancer patient she had fed her blood to went from unconscious to eating every unhealthy snack from the hospital vending machine. Meanwhile at the school, Damon was fingering splinters from Elena's heart, which she found hilarious.

Enzo had decided to stick around Duke where he blurted out his creepy revenge plans to an unsuspecting art dealer. His revenge would start with procuring all of Sarah's photography. Elsewhere, Elena and Damon discussed a date and Damon and Alaric had one of their own over drinks where they discussed Jo's abilities.

Caroline shared a heartbreaking conversation with her mother and pointblank told her she was dying. She jumped to conclusions too quickly and revealed to her mother that her blood had cured a cancer patient. At the same time Liz accepted Caroline's blood, the cancer patient at Duke had started coughing up blood and crawling along the hospital floor, dying in agony.

Things we need to discuss:

- I can't get enough of Kai. There, I said it. His story about his favorite memory being of him playing games with his brother and then murdering him was the perfect psychopathic moment TVD has lacked in the past.

- I will never understand "loud whispering." In fact, it really grates on my ears. If you're in a dangerous situation and need to keep yourselves from being seen or found then don't even talk! (Looking at you, Damon and Jo.)

- No Bonnie update?

- With the number of vampire supposedly out there and the years of modern medicine, I'm surprised there isn't some secret Vampire Weekly newsletter going out about advancements and experiments within their community.

How do you feel about Kai? Are you also missing Bonnie? Are Enzo and Sarah Salvatore the next ship to set sail? Comment below or tweet me @enr702 or find me live-tweeting @erinrlivetweets.

Below, check out a promo for next week's all-new episode "Paryer For the Dying":

Photo Credit: The CW

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