'Prayer for the Dying' Recap 

has always been filled with death. Heck, the entire show started because a girl lost her parents, lost her way, and then fell in love with a (very dreamy) dead guy. So tonight, it wasn’t a real shocker that the episode once again dealt with the topic of death and how it can affect surrounding relationships. Let’s face it: Death is one of the things this show does best, and even though tonight’s death didn’t necessarily impact us the ways others have in the past—I’m looking at you, Ric—it still gave us a highly dramatic hour.

We kick things off in Liz’s room at home, when Caroline wakes up after hearing something downstairs—or rather someone. Suddenly, at her back door, a bloody Colin shows up. Don’t know who Colin is? Oh, just the guy she fed her blood last week and effectively killed. But really, she

him. When Stefan shows up, he figures out that her blood turned him into a vampire, which means that he had to have died after she gave him her blood. Yeah, it’s not good news for Liz.

I do have to say that this opening felt like a real throwback to me, and I liked it. I miss the days of

opening like a scary movie. It was all very season 1, in a way.

Back to the action: Elena, who’s apparently sleeping at Alaric’s—where is Alaric?—is on her way to class when Damon shows up with a sandwich and a proposal. He wants to take her out to dinner tonight. It involves something about eggplant. Elena is in… until she figures out that Damon is recreating a date they already had. Refusing to pick up where they left off, Elena shuts down the eggplant. But they’re still on for the date. She’ll see him at six!

Except not really, because pretty quickly, they all arrive at the hospital to see if Jo can figure out what happened to Colin. The verdict? Caroline’s blood sped up his cancer and killed him. In other words, he’s a stage 10 cancer patient, which doesn’t even exist. It’s

Nobody really knows what to do, but after Elena expresses her disappointment in Stefan for not knowing better and doing more research before Caroline gave Liz her blood, Jo has an idea: A full blood transfusion might get the vamp blood out of Liz’s system. At this point, anything is worth a shot.

Across town, Liv and Tyler are getting comfortable in a twin bed, planning their spring break, when Liv’s dad shows up and informs everyone that it’s Liv’s birthday. So basically, she and Luke have to convince their father/leader that they aren’t going to merge, like, now. And shockingly, he’s not a fan of the plan.

Back at the hospital, Damon tries to catch Elena up on his relationship with Liz: “As far as humans go, she’s tolerable.” Translation: He loves her the mostest, probably only second to Alaric at this point. And that kind of explains his behavior when he overhears poor Colin trying to kill himself in the other room.

While Caroline tries to talk Colin down, Damon does the guy a favor and rips his heart out. It’s not he craziest thing he’s done, however, he did not need to rip Caroline’s heart out with this Liz update: “Transfusion didn’t work, so you didn’t just kill

, blondie.” I know you’re emotional Damon, but that’s her

On that note, Caroline runs away, leaving Elena to break the bad news to Liz. The transfusion didn’t work. But Liz is less concerned about that, and more concerned about her daughter, who Stefan finds trying to pick the right flowers for her mother’s memorial. Ever the planner, Caroline has decided to spend her time doing something she’s good at before she screws up again.

But once Stefan tells her the story of his mother—the mysterious mother Salvatore!—we learn that Stefan kept himself occupied during his mother’s illness out of fear of seeing her that way, and before he knew it, his dad had sent his mom away and then she was dead. Long story short: He’d do anything to have another day with her.

After Caroline reaches for Stefan’s hand—this particular hand hold is kind of becoming their thing—she agrees to head back to the hospital. But could she be too late?

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