The Rippah Diaries

Stefan, Elena, and Damon scheme to lure Klaus back to Mystic Falls, and there’s no better way than to tell him Mikael is dead. While they wait for Klaus to return, everyone decides to attend homecoming, but the dance is relocated at the last minute to the Lockwood mansion. The teens quickly realize the huge party with a live band was not pulled together by Tyler, it’s a wake for Mikael thrown by Klaus. Damon and Mikael decide to make their move against Klaus at the wake, which nearly works, but Stefan swoops in at the last moment to save Klaus. Stefan earns his freedom from Klaus then skips town with Katherine. On their way out of town, flashbacks reveal that Damon was going to die with Klaus, and Stefan only saved him to save Damon. In retaliation, Stefan reveals to Klaus that he stole his coffins full of siblings.This week: Season 3 Episode 9 | Homecoming

Down in the caves, Alaric works on deciphering the runes and figures out that the drawings tell the story of the Originals. Elena decides to go right to the source: Rebekah. After a mean girl power struggle, Rebekah invites Elena over for a fashion show, some snooping, and eventually a bit of storytelling. Through flashbacks, Rebekah tells Elena how their parents turned her, Klaus, Elijah, and their other siblings into vampires to protect them from the werewolves. Meanwhile, Damon checks in on Stefan in the Forbes torture cellar and decides to go rogue and break Stefan out to remind him what freedom is like. While the brothers day drink and feed on bartenders, Rebekah finishes the story of the Originals by telling Elena that Mikael killed Esther after finding out that Klaus was not his biological son. Once story time is over, Elena returns to the caves and figures out who actually killed Esther. Elena immediately goes back and tells Rebekah that it was really Klaus who killed her mother. At the bar, Mikael crashes the brothers’ bonding time to get their help in finding Klaus. After he threatens Damon’s life, Stefan eventually tells Mikael that he can lure Klaus back to Mystic Falls. So with Mikael as their weapon and Rebekah now turned against her brother, it’s time to set up a plan to take down Klaus.This week: Season 3 Episode 8 | Ordinary People

It’s the Night of Illumination and the ghosts are back to celebrate. Damon gets a visit from our absolute fave, Mason Lockwood, or so he assumes, even though the ghosts aren’t visible. So he immediately goes to Bonnie to get her to fix the problem, and her first step is to do a spell that reveals “veiled matter.” As the spell is cast, we see it really was Mason torturing Damon, Grams is there helping Bonnie, Elena can now see Anna making out with Jeremy, and Lexi is back putting Stefan in his place. Now that everyone can see the ghosts, they all get to work since there’s no telling how long this will last. So, Damon and Mason go to the Lockwood cellar to look for a weapon to kill Klaus while Lexi and Elena start Stefan’s ripper detox. Meanwhile, Grams, Bonnie, and Caroline try to find the Original Witch’s necklace to destroy it and send the ghosts away, even though Elena wants the ghosts to stay now that Lexi is helping Stefan. Unfortunately, the tomb vampires also came back and are killing Founding Family members in the town square, so the search for the necklace is now URGENT. Eventually, Anna reveals that she stole it because she didn’t want to be alone. So now that they have the necklace, Bonnie and Grams send everyone back, but not before an emotional family reunion between Anna and Pearl, a pep talk to save Stefan, and the possible key to understanding the Originals.This week: Season 3 Episode 7 | Ghost World

It’s the first day of senior year for the Mystic Falls teens, which means they finally have to go to class and Rebekah gets a chance to show off crazy stunts at cheerleading practice. While the girls are dealing with an assortment of boyfriend problems, Matt is talking to Vicki on the other side, and Tyler is enjoying his new hybrid lifestyle. It also wouldn’t be the first day without the annual bonfire, which Elena chooses as the perfect opportunity to vervain Stefan. While Elena works on that, Damon makes s’mores with his new roommate, Rebekah. Matt chooses to skip the bonfire to perform a seance to give Vicki a foothold in the living world. It works, but her deal with the Original Witch requires her to kill Elena. As usual Bonnie saves the day, stopping Vicki before she burns Stefan and Elena alive. Even though they’re safe, something has gone horribly wrong, because Mason Lockwood is now back and torturing Damon.This week: Season 3 Episode 6 | Smells Like Teen Spirit

To pretend like everything is normal, Caroline forces everyone to participate in senior prank night, but the night immediately takes a turn when Klaus arrives. Desperate to make a hybrid, Klaus feeds Tyler his blood, snaps his neck, gives Bonnie twenty minutes to figure out how to save him, and compels Stefan to feed on Elena when the clock runs out. Stefan fights the compulsion, but Klaus decides Stefan’s humanity is holding him back, and compels him to turn it off. While Stefan’s life is being ruined, Vicki tries to send Matt a message from the Other Side. Matt and Bonnie then realize they need Jeremy to talk to her. Unfortunately, Jeremy spent all day in the trunk of a car after being kidnapped by Katherine to figure out how to find Mikael. With Jeremy gone, Matt decides to take matters into his own hands and drowns himself to talk to his sister, who tells him the Original Witch said Elena has to die. Klaus instead decides to feed Elena’s blood to Tyler, creating his first successful hybrid.This week: Season 3 Episode 5 | The ReckoningNext Episode will be on July 11th!

While looking for the Original witch’s necklace for Klaus, Gloria gets glimpses of Elena, Caroline, and Bonnie getting ready for the Founder’s Cookout. She of course has no idea who the girls are, but unfortunately, the images are enough for her to realize that Stefan is hiding something, so she decides to use some “old school voodoo” (torture) to get the truth. Just as she realizes the doppelgänger is alive, Katherine stops Gloria’s spell and saves Stefan. Back in Mystic Falls, Bill Forbes causes problems for the Council and Alaric tells Damon not to start any sort of relationship with Elena, which Damon deals with by snapping Alaric’s neck. After that he leaves town with Katherine, just as Klaus arrives in Mystic Falls to uncover Stefan's secrets.This week: Season 3 Episode 4 | Disturbing Behavior

To get in touch with a witch that can help with the hybrid plan, Klaus brings Stefan to Chicago, which also happens to be where Stefan spent most of his ripper days. At the witch’s bar, Gloria’s, Stefan finds a photograph of him and his bestie from the 1920s. Through 20s flashbacks, we see why Klaus wanted Stefan to come along with him in the first place and we get our first glimpse of Rebekah. Katherine is of course not far behind, and she tips off Damon, who grabs Elena for a road trip to once again try to rescue Stefan. Meanwhile in Mystic Falls, Bill tortures Caroline until Liz frees her with the help of Tyler and a warning shot. Back in Chicago, Elena reads Stefan’s journals and begs him one last time to come home, but unfortunately Stefan doesn’t want to be saved.This week: Season 3 Episode 3 | The End of the Affair

With Klaus and his partner-in-crime off to the Smoky Mountains to create more hybrids, Elena, Alaric, and Damon go on a road trip to try to bring Stefan home. Meanwhile, in Mystic Falls, Jeremy asks Matt to help him with a seance to contact Vicki. Tyler spends his day looking for Caroline after she snuck out right after their hookup but eventually realizes that Carol knows Caroline is a vampire and he decides to reveal his secret to her. Back in Tennessee, Stefan saves Damon from one of the werewolves that Klaus was trying to turn, which gets Damon back on board with the plan to save his brother. Unfortunately, Klaus starts to wonder why none of his hybrid experiments are working if he did everything right, even killing the doppelgänger.This week: Season 3 Episode 2 | The Hybrid

Months have passed since Stefan went off with Klaus, and it’s now Elena’s 18th birthday. That of course means Caroline is going to throw her a party, even though all Elena wants is to know that Stefan is alive. And while Elena has spent all summer trying to figure out how to get Stefan to come home, Caroline and Tyler have become besties, Jeremy is still seeing the ghosts of girlfriends past, and Damon has been secretly tracking Stefan and Klaus’s trail of bodies. He finally gets a good lead when he and Alaric go to Tennessee where Stefan and Klaus are looking for a werewolf. Luckily, Damon makes it back from the trip to Tennessee just in time to give Elena back her necklace as her birthday gift. But while everyone in Mystic Falls enjoys the party, Stefan kills our fave, Andie Starr, in front of Damon, and Elena finds all of Damon’s research on Stefan. Unfortunately, Damon has to tell her to not get her hopes up because all of the bodies he’s been tracking were left by Stefan, not Klaus. Happy birthday, Elena - your boyfriend is a serial killer. That’s almost enough for Elena to give up all hope, but just as she’s about to go to bed, she gets a call from Stefan (queue A Drop in the Ocean), granting her wish that to know he’s alive.This week: Season 3 Episode 1 The Birthday