Trama

While in a small town in Pennsylvania with Rebekah (CLAIRE HOLT), Elena has a surprising encounter with Elijah (DANIEL GILLIES). Klaus receives Caroline's reluctant help.

Klaus panics as shape-shifter Silas stabbed him with a splinter of the white oak stake. Caroline reluctantly agrees to remove it, if he allows Tyler to return safely, but then Klaus realizes what trick was actually played on him. The Salvatore brothers and Rebekah capture Katehrine, who was to meet Elijah, hoping he would reconcile her with Klaus. They let Elena, who demonstrates murderously to have no interest in resuming her sweet human(e) persona, take her place, but Elijah quickly sees trough their ploy. Katherine escapes but is caught and Damon finds where she hid the cure, but she gets await again while Rebekah seizes it, only to be disappointed.—KGF Vissers

Elena pulls over her stolen Porsche in their third city in their Katherine search. Elena announces she's hungry and goes to feed on a woman on the street.

"Katherine, what are you doing?" the woman asks. She asked her to feed from her wrist, not her neck.

"Conniving little bitch compelled the whole town," Rebekah announces. They found Katherine's hideout.

The woman doesn't recognize Katherine's name when Rebekah says it. She compelled people to forget about her unless they were talking to her.

"You said we could all be friends with you, as long as we kept your secret," the woman says, but she doesn't know what it is.

Stefan and Damon collect Damon's abandoned car on the road. Sheriff Forbes has tracked the girls' stolen car to Willoughby, Penn. Damon is ready for the old Elena back. "Elena without humanity is a stone cold bitch," he says.

Back home, Klaus tries to get the stake tip out of his back. Caroline arrives -- but she's Silas. "Until you bring me the cure I will bring you nothing but misery," s/he says.

Elena checks on her mail and the mailman says he saw her two minutes ago. Katherine jumps Elena in the parking lot and Rebekah pulls her off.

They sit down for coffee in a diner, Rebekah keeps Katherine in place by jamming a fork through her hand. She's on vervane so Rebekah can't compel her to cough up the cure's location. She says she plans to give it to Klaus so he'll stop chasing her. "You poor victim, where the part in your plan where you screw us over and somebody dies?" Elena asks.

They check her phone and find an appointment to meet "em" at two.

Caroline shows up at Klaus' house. He thinks she's Silas, but she mentions prom and he believes it's her. He points out if she dies, they all die, too. He wants her to cut the stake out.

In Willoughby, the boys find the stolen car. Damon doesn't understand what Katherine is doing in the hick town. Stefan questions how they're supposed to go up against Rebekah the original as bodyguard. Damon is more determined than ever to get the old Elena back after having his neck snapped.

Elena tries to dress up at Katherine, doing her hair and demanding all her jewelry, her jacket and her shoes.

Elena as Katherine, waits to meet with "em."

The boys find Rebekah and Katherine in the diner.

"EM" shows up for his meeting with Katherine -- it's Elijah. He kisses her hello and asks if she has the cure with her. He sees her daylight ring and the jig is up -- he knows she's Elena.

At the diner, Katherine tells them who "EM" is and Rebekah tells them where she is. They realize she plans to use Elijah to broker her deal with Klaus.

Back in Mystic Falls, Caroline digs around in Klaus' back with a knife, trying to find the white oak stake tip. She jabs the knife around and hurts him then apologizes. She realizes what she's doing and takes it back then offers a bargain -- she'll help him if he allows Tyler to come back to town and promises not to hurt him.

Stefan calls Elijah from Katherine's phone. They trade threats. Elena tells him he's an idiot to fall for Katherine and believe her. He can tell her humanity is off. "My brother's dead, your girlfriend killed him," she says. He realizes Katherine lied to him.

Katherine leads Damon and Rebekah to her place and says the cure isn't where she left it. They're not buying it. Damon looks around the tries to figure where she hid it. He tries the fish tank with no fish in it and finds it full of vervane water.

She dunks his head in it and grabs it. Rebekah returns and stops her. Katherine tosses it and makes a break for it. Rebekah goes for the cure.

Damon is too wounded from his vervane dunking to stop her. She thinks he doesn't really want Elena to take the cure and go running back to Stefan. Stefan appears in the doorway just in time to see her down it. She collapses on the couch.

Back in Mystic Falls, Caroline waits out Klaus's screaming, trying to make him agree to release Tyler. They end up screaming at each other, with Caroline saying she should have turned her back on him ages ago.

Suddenly, Klaus realizes the pain is gone. It was never there, Silas was in his head. Caroline took his mind off it. "You brought me back, Caroline," he says. "If Silas can make you, of all people, believe that you're dying, what can he do to the rest of us?" Caroline wonders.

Back in Willoughby, Stefan yells at Damon, thinking that he let Rebekah take the cure on purpose. Rebekah wakes up.

Elijah offers his condolences to Elena for Jeremy's death. She can't believe he thinks that the Katherine he used to love is still in there somewhere.

"You boys are all the same. Damon and Stefan still think the girl they love is somewhere in here, too," she says.

"You can't blame them for having hope, Elena. It'd be a shame if the world lost a soul as compassionate as yours," Elijah says.

She remembers what he wrote to her once about her compassion being a gift, but it felt good to watch that letter burn, along with her old life and Jeremy's body. Suddenly, Katherine appears and snaps Elena's neck.

Rebekah wakes up feeling human. Damon points out it means he can kill her now and flings a letter opener at her head. Rebekah catches it instinctively with vampire speed. They watch as the cut on her hand heals quickly. She's still a vampire, the cure was a fake.

With Katherine, Elijah brings up the fact that she killed Jeremy. She says it was necessary. She tells Elijah she loves him, but he doesn't believe her.

He walks away, and with it her chance of a deal with Klaus.

Katherine shows up on the doorstep of the woman from the street. She came to retrieve her secret package; the cure.

Katherine stops Elijah on the street. She tells him he's right, that she's been on the run so long she's starting to believe her own lies. "I don't even remember who I was when we first met and I want to find out," she says.

She shows Elijah the cure, saying she could give it to Klaus and kill him, but she knows she'd lose Elijah and she doesn't want that. She gives him the cure, hoping he'll trust her, then lets him decide what comes next. She walks away.

Rebekah finds her brother and asks for the cure. She wants to live a simple life as a normal person. "You will always be my brother and I will never stop loving you, but now it's time for me to live and die the way that I choose, and not the way that you and Nic want me to. Please just give me the cure," Rebekah says.

Klaus calls her and she hands the phone to Elijah. He tells Klaus he's bringing the cure back to Mystic Falls, they'll settle it like family.

Klaus asks Caroline if they can be friends. She asks about Tyler. "You might have noticed I'm not exactly scouring the earth for him, am I?" Klaus says.

Damon admits to Stefan that he let Rebekah take the cure, but then immediately realized it was a mistake. "I had a moment of weakness, Stefan -- it's my thing. Like you and I falling for the same girl -- it's our thing," Damon says.

Stefan says them both loving Elena is like them both liking Katherine, they just keep repeating the same cycle. Once they get the cure for Elena, Stefan plans to go get a life of his own.

They find Elena back at the diner. She tells them she doesn't want to take the cure and wants them to accept it, or there will be consequences. Stefan reminds her about her rescuing him from the brink when his emotions were off.

The waitress comes to refill Elena's coffee and she rises up and snaps her neck, killing her -- the first consequence. She warns them if they keep at it, there will be more.