“The Vampire Diaries” Season 4: Episode 17 “Because the Night” TV Recap
This week’s episode of “The Vampire Diaries” takes us out of Mystic Falls and into the big city, New York! Damon takes Elena to NYC to have her let loose a bit and give her some adventure, but also to search for clues about Katherine’s whereabouts. In addition, the Silas story moves significantly forward and we finally get a glimpse into how the writers might wrap up this season!
The episode begins with a flashback to 1977 where we find Damon lying on the street in New York City, pretending to be dead. A young couple finds him, and as the boyfriend approaches Damon’s body, Damon disappears and comes from behind the girlfriend and bites her. The boyfriend freaks out and assumes Damon is the serial killer, Son of Sam; Damon is amused by this and proceeds to feed on the boyfriend as well.
Back to 2013, Damon and Elena are in New York and Damon explains New York is the perfect place for a new vampire to feed where no one will notice or pay attention, hence his murdering people out in the open 36 years prior. Damon takes Elena to a bar called Billy’s and explains this is where he and his friend, Will, use to hang out in the 70’s. Will ran a business out of the bar in which he created new identities for vampires should they need one. Damon explains Billy’s was nondescript and people were oblivious to the vampire feeding and business that was occurring. Unbeknownst to Elena, Damon wants to see if Will, who was working for Katherine and died in last week’s episode, left any information that could lead to Katherine and the cure. Both Stefan and Damon want to keep Damon’s true motives for going to New York City from Elena because they know it will upset her since she loves her new vampire lifestyle. However, the Salvatore Brothers do not like this new Elena, and Stefan emphasizes to Damon that Elena is ruthless without her humanity, thus they need to find the cure to get her back to her old self as soon as possible.
Back in Mystic Falls, Stefan, Caroline, and Klaus decide they need to work together to find Silas. Caroline is upset with Klaus because Tyler is not coming back to Mystic Falls due to Klaus’ vendetta against Tyler. Caroline questions why Klaus needs to work with her and Stefan, and Stefan explains having a vampire-werewolf hybrid that can’t die would be useful against Silas. He also notes that if Silas completes his ritual, every supernatural creature Klaus ever killed will come back from the dead and likely go after Klaus, thus Klaus has reason to want to stop Silas. The three of them go searching in Professor Shane’s old office for clues as to what Silas’ plans might be. They find a book explaining “Expression Triangles,” that explains there needs to be three sacrifices of twelve to complete Silas’ ritual; they know two of the sacrifices were already completed, but they cannot figure out who needs to die in the third sacrifice. However, they discover the sacrifices need to be made in three locations that make up a triangle, so based on the first two sacrifices they figure out where the third sacrifice needs to be completed.
Flashback to 1977 NYC, and Damon feeds on a human at Billy’s in front of dozens of people. Suddenly Stefan’s best friend, Lexie, comes into the bar and stops Damon from feeding. She tells Damon that he is being careless and losing his touch; She and Stefan heard rumors about Damon’s feeding all the way in Mystic Falls. Lexie is in New York to help Damon turn his humanity back on and stop his reckless behavior. Damon insists he does not want Lexie’s help, but Lexie doesn’t listen to him and tells Damon she is not leaving.
While Damon tells this story to Elena, Rebecca shows up and tells Elena that Damon and she are working together to find the cure. Rebecca accuses Damon of coming to New York to search for clues about the cure without her, and Damon tries to deny this and claims he simply brought Elena to New York to get out of Mystic Falls; neither of the girls believe him. When Damon leaves to get a drink, Elena tells Rebecca she knows Damon is looking for the cure and that Damon and Stefan will force her to take it. She explains to Rebecca that she plans to find the cure first before she is forced to take it.
At Bonnie’s house, Silas, posing as Shane, explains the victims of the third sacrifice of twelve needs to be witches. Silas tells Bonnie these witches will work together to channel their energy to rid Bonnie of Expression, but Bonnie will need to fight them off and kill them. Bonnie is initially hesitant, but then she changes her mind and asks her dad to have her mom, who happens to be both a vampire and a witch, come to Mystical Falls claiming Bonnie needs her mom’s help with letting go of Expression.
Bonnie goes into the forest to meet her mom, but she finds her mom’s friend Asia instead. Asia explains she can help Bonnie get rid of Expression with the help of her eleven witch friends, all of whom have come with her. The witches perform the cleansing ritual with Bonnie tied to the ground, tossing and turning as they perform their magic. Stefan, Klaus, Caroline find the witches based off of the information they found at Shane’s office. Asia demands they leave, but Stefan explains to Asia that Bonnie lured the witches to Mystic Falls under false pretenses; Bonnie is using them so she can complete Silas’ spell. Once Asia learns Bonnie is working with Silas, she says Bonnie must die because the bond with Silas will never be broken. As Asia prepares to stab Bonnie, Caroline rushes in and kills Asia, which in turn kills all of the witches in the coven and thus completes Silas’ third sacrifice.
Lexie and Damon
Courtesy of The CW
At Billy’s, Elena, Rebecca, and Damon all feed on a girl in the club. As Elena and Rebecca continue to feed, Damon leaves to go look for clues about Katherine in Will’s office. He looks through Will’s records and finds a sheet of paper with Katherine’s previous addresses, with the latest address listed only two months ago. Elena and Rebecca go have a drink when Rebecca offers to help Elena find the cure. Elena says Rebecca is too emotional and she doesn’t need any help from her. Elena finds Damon in Will’s office and pretends not to notice the sheet of paper he takes from the files. Damon proceeds to tell Elena more about Lexie’s intervention; he explains Lexie tortured Damon every night by talking about his obsession with Katherine and all of the horrible things he has done in the past. Lexie wanted Damon to remember the feelings he had for Katherine so that he can have emotions again. Damon explained to Lexie he doesn’t care about Katherine anymore, but that he has feelings for Lexie. He tells Lexie the time they have spent together in New York made him fall for her, and they proceed to kiss and sleep together. In the morning, Lexie wakes up and finds herself trapped on the rooftop of the building. Damon has barracked the doors closed so she is trapped outside until the sun goes down. He tells Lexie he was lying to her about his feelings for her as revenge for the months of torment she put him through. Damon admits to Elena that he killed Lexie back in season one to continue his revenge on her because seeing Lexie brought back the memories of all the horrible things he has done.
After Damon finishes telling his story, Elena starts making out with Damon and tries to seduce him as she slips her hand into his pocket searching for the slip of paper. Damon stops her and says he will not fall for her games. He explains to Elena that when one’s emotions are turned off, you will do a lot of things you will regret once your feelings come back. He argues that this is why Elena needs to take the cure; so the old Elena can come back before she does anything she will eventually regret. As they argue, Rebecca comes from behind Damon and snaps his neck. Tired of Damon making all of the decisions, Elena decides to work with Rebecca and they take the slip of paper with Katherine’s addresses on it, steal Damon’s car, and leave New York City to find Katherine.
In Mystical Falls, Bonnie wakes up with Stefan in her room. She is confused as to how she got back from the island. Her last memory is of her and Jeremy in Silas’ tomb with Jeremy trying to get the cure from Silas’ hands. Stefan realizes Bonnie doesn’t remember anything about working with Silas or the witch sacrifice. He proceeds to tell her about Jeremy’s death.
The hour ends with Klaus and Caroline burying the dead witches in the forest. Caroline tries to make Klaus feel bad about letting Bonnie potentially die; Klaus counters that killing one witch would have had less consequences than killing twelve witches and letting all hell break loose. Caroline realizes what she has done by killing the twelve witches and turns to Klaus for comfort; he rejects her, and Caroline leaves Klaus alone in the forest. Soon after she leaves, Silas finds Klaus at the graves. Silas wants to know who has the cure, but Klaus will not tell him. Silas argues Klaus should help him find the cure so Silas can use it on himself, rather than someone try to use the cure on Klaus. Klaus tells Silas that he is not afraid of him and will not help him, but Silas threatens Klaus with the white oak dagger, the one weapon that can kill Klaus. Klaus tries to outrun Silas but Silas comes from behind Klaus and stabs him with the dagger right next to his heart, nearly killing him.
And with that dramatic ending, this week’s episode of “The Vampire Diaries” is over! We are glad the story with Silas is finally moving forward; this season has lacked a serious villain and it looks like Silas will fill that gap. It’s nice to have someone capable of challenging Klaus. Next week Katherine will be back and it will be so much fun to see Elena and Rebecca team up against her. Hopefully Elena will show us her badass self and stop talking about how she is glad she doesn’t feel anymore. Thus far we haven’t been too impressed with vampire Elena, but it looks like that will change soon. Enjoy your weekend and tune in next week for another recap!
