The episode was titled welcome to paradise, but I didn’t see anything heavenly, exotic, or relaxing about this episode. Instead, I saw a bunch of vampire teens who weren’t even able to enjoy jello shots in the woods, because too much crazy stuff was going down. The only one who seemed to enjoy her time at the swimming hole was Elena, who gathered all of her friends together for a night of drinking and bonding. It seems that ever since she erased her memories of Damon, all she wants to do is drink and party. This is definitely not the Elena were used to.

Caroline is struggling to accept that Elena took the easy way out and erased her memories. She’s also really upset about everything that went down at Stefan’s house. She turns to Enzo, whose her only real stable friend nowadays…. and that’s really saying a lot! The two have really great chemistry together, and I think if it wasn’t for Stefan, her and Enzo could really be happy together. During breakfast, she sets some ground rules for the party:  No one is allowed to mention Damon around Elena. Doesn’t seem to hard right? Well, Enzo is able to follow the rules merely by not interacting with Elena at all. Caroline on the other hand, lets her frustrations get her to and almost slips up after telling her friend that she feels like no one is on the same page anymore. 

Ivy’s death brought Stefan back to his old ways. He’s finally stepping up to his dick head boss, telling him he needs some time off to take care of business, ahem kill Enzo, and compels him to bury Ivy’s body. His first stop… Whitmore College to check up on Elena. After 4-months, mind you. Elena is super happy to see him. Anyone else think she’s taking happy pills? Her happiness throws Stefan off a little. I guess he didn’t get the memo that she’s erased her memories. Thankfully, he doesn’t bring Damon up.  He agrees to go to the party, only when he finds out Enzo will be there. Elena’s thrilled, not realizing Stefan isn’t in it for the bonding good times, but only for revenge. All he wants is to kill Enzo, so that he doesn’t have to see him again, or be reminded of his brother. Then, he can finally move on and forget about everything that happened.

Caroline won’t let that happen without a fight. She’s got feelings for him, which she finally admits out loud and to Elena. Important to note that she refers to them in the past tense. Elena’s a little taken a back by it, but only because she doesn’t remember that she had another great love after Stefan. After Caroline finds out Stefan is only there to kill Enzo, she confronts him and tells him that if any part of why he is back here is because he missed Alaric, Elena or her, than he needs to stay. He walks away from her, leaving her in tears. Thankfully, Elena is right around the corner, waiting to comfort her. At least she’s still around, despite being completely different. It kind of sucks. Elena is happy and all, but at the cost of some really great and intimate memories and her best friend cannot connect to her on a deep and truthful level. 

Elena brought her new friend from med-school along for the ride, thinking maybe he’s be a good match for Caroline. She talked her best friend up in the car, only to find out that he wasn’t even interested in meeting Caroline. He kissed Elena in the forest, and she actually smiled about the unexpected turn of events.  I’m not exactly enjoying Elena “flirting” with other men and considering this new relationship because Damon is still stuck god knows where, constantly missing her. It’s not her fault granted she doesn’t remember him, but come on! Someone needs to snap her out of this funk and a witch needs to be found in order to help rescue these guys. Has everyone really just given up?

Matt comes to the party with one of his police academy partners, who also turns out to be a vampire hunter.We know this kid was working for Tripp, whose also a vampire hunter, but Matt’s totally oblivious. Although after seeing him clean out a truck full of blood, he should have caught on that something wasn’t right. His friend was trying to kill Stefan, but thankfully Enzo saved his life. Stefan isn’t one bit thankful, knowing that the vampire only did it to make the rest of his life living hell.  At the end of the episode, Enzo walks into a bar, where Tripp is also at. He injects Enzo with vervain, hoping to bring him down, failing to realize that Enzo can actually withstand vervain in his system. Stefan comes bolting in, shooting Enzo with two wooden bullets and leaving him for Tripp to finish off. How rude. I understand this was his revenge and paybacks a bitch, but you can’t be a vampire hunter, when your a vampire Stefan. Isn’t that like a rule? Well, it should be. Unless your Michael Mikhealson… than I guess you get a pass. But I swear, if Enzo dies, I’ll be super pissed. I doubt it though. He survived being a lab rat for a ton of vampire experiments. I think he’s going to outsmart Tripp and escape. Or Caroline will come to save him and that will be the start of their relationship, cause after she finds out what Stefan did, she will forever resent him. At least one vampire still has her morals. 

Finally, in Mystic Falls circa 1994, Damon and Bonnie realize their not alone. During a trip to the grocery store, the continue to quibble and fight about whose right. Bonnie says that someone was in her house, ate the pork-rhinds that have been on the shelf day-in-and-day-out for the past 4 months, turned on the little carousel outside and brought Damon’s car to the parking lot. Damon refuses to believe someone else could be there with him because he doesn’t want to get his hopes up only to be let down that there isn’t a way out of this “hell.” Bonnie finally gets fed up and tells Damon that if he’s having such a shitty time being stuck with her here and if he’s going to be Peter pessimist, he should just take his ring off and kill himself. This confused me a bit because aren’t they already dead? How can you die if your already dead? Well, I guess that just proves that they aren’t actually dead. Their in some safe-haven created by Grams (we’re assuming) which preserved them in some kind of alternate universe by magic. Therefore, magic is the only thing that could get them out of here. Once Bonnie leaves, Damon goes back to the grocery store and hears someone crunching on chips. And low and behold, there is another person. He’s a stuck up prick named Kai, who spiked all the bourbon in the store with vervain. When Damon takes a drink, he drops to the floor. Kai teases that he’s going to kill him, but before he can, Bonnie comes back to save Damon. Kai calls her useless, which really pisses her off and does the trick. The anger and need to save her friend motivate Bonnie to get her magic back! She starts a fire around Kai, while Damon knocks him out. Back at the Salvatore house, Kai admits he set the whole thing up, knowing that the right motivation would help Bonnie, who is the key to getting them all out of here. Thank god Damon didn’t kill Kai because he apparently knows A LOT about wherever the hell they are.

I really wonder why they’re stuck on May 10, 1994. There must be some significance to that day. Maybe the “solar eclipse” that happens every morning, is something Bonnie needs to get them out of there. It would make sense right? And thinking ahead, what happens when they finally do get out of there and make it back to the present? Will Elena remember Damon when she sees him? Is there a way to reverse the mind-change that Alaric did on her? How will Damon react knowing his girlfriend completely forgot about him?

I really wonder why they’re stuck on May 10, 1994. There must be some significance to that day. Maybe the “solar eclipse” that happens every morning, is something Bonnie needs to get them out of there. It would make sense right? And thinking ahead, what happens when they finally do get out of there and make it back to the present? Will Elena remember Damon when she sees him? Is there a way to reverse the mind-change that Alaric did on her? How will Damon react knowing his girlfriend completely forgot about him?

Other Thoughts

• Does anyone else think the reason Damon and Bonnie are always at each others throats because their in love. I kind of find myself wishing that they would kiss already! What is wrong with me?
• Tyler and Liv= gross. She’s definitely not his type and the fact that their all attracted to each other kind of bothers me. Her attitude sucks! 
• The fact that Caroline told Elena she’s into Stefan is definitely going to push Elena to Stefan… and it’s going to be awkward and cause a huge drift between the bffs.
• After Jeremy’s temporary girlfriend ran back into Mystic Falls, apparently the compulsion stopped working on her again. This means that she remembered that Elena fed on her and Caroline compelled her and she’ll probably go tell Tripp everything. Oops. I’m surprised that they weren’t concerned about finding her and stopping her. No one even went after her.