The Vampire Diaries Holds Two Funerals and a Kidnapping

Finding a trustworthy babysitter can be a difficult task for any working parent, but especially when that parent is a literal monster. According to several trustworthy sources (TV shows), even nice vampires are magnets for trouble as they constantly attract the attention of centuries-old wizards and mythological creatures with grudges. This just makes protecting one's children that much harder. This week on The Vampire Diaries, Caroline (Candice King) learned the hard way that leaving your children with a secret flesh-eating immortal in order to attend a funeral is just begging for a bad time.

"Coming Home Was a Mistake" was not exactly the most world-changing episode, but it did push the story forward incrementally. Bonnie (Kat Graham) unflipped Enzo (Michael Malarkey), the gang properly mourned Tyler (Michael Trevino), and, you guessed it: Caroline's children were abducted by Seline (Kristen Gutoskie)! Let's talk about it.

We began with a gaggle of monsters attempting to have normal mornings.

That's when each of them was interrupted by the most foreboding caller ID of all... "MATT."

As we all know, Matt (Zach Roerig) does not ever call anybody on the phone (usually because he ran out of minutes), so in this case everyone knew something was up. And by "something was up" I mean someone was DEAD.

Aw, poor Tyler. While it was nice that this show brought him back to appear in its final season, what a weird way to bring him back! Just to kill him immediately? He just sort of got murdered for no reason! On the bright side, at least he got to be dead finally. That's probably a more chill situation than anyone else on this show's currently in. Rest in peace, wolf-jock-jerk!

Elsewhere, Bonnie was holed up in that weird cabin with Enzo, whose hands were bound with vervain-soaked ropes and whose humanity switch was as OFF as possible. Though Bonnie no longer had powers of her own, she did have some kind of dark magic candle that allowed her to trap vampires in a room (go with it). This meant that within seconds of guilting Bonnie into untying his ropes, Enzo threw himself at the invisible barrier like a frazzled sparrow. Where do you think YOU'RE going, guy?

I have never related to a TV character more than Sybil (Nathalie Kelley), who had decided to ignore her (still sheetless!) bed and just lie on the cold floor for a while. Been there! Actually still there! Can somebody please help me up? I'm very old and my bones are trash. Anyway, Sybil wasn't enjoying being locked up at the moment, and this was only made worse when Alaric (Matt Davis) insisted on clanging that Devil's Tuning Fork over and over. I'm not even a mythological creature and it got on MY nerves.

From the festive whistling we knew it must be time for another one of The Vampire Diaries' patented Friend Funerals! Obviously Tyler's entire family was murdered by vampires and most if not all of his ex-girlfriends died, so it was up to these four individuals to carry his casket and bury it in the Lockwood plot. But when they arrived, they discovered that FOUR graves had been dug by a local prankster! A prankster who wanted to murder them all.

Oh, Damon. Though I did appreciate when he pointed out what a miracle it had been for Matt to have remained human all these years. Even Alaric had a vampire stint at one point! And even though Damon (Ian Somerhalder) force-fed Matt his own blood and threatened to break his neck, I had a strong feeling it wasn't gonna happen. If this show hadn't seen fit to put Matt through that plot-line during its first 7 seasons, it wasn't going to do it now.

Damon went ahead and paid Sybil a visit, and even though she had brainwashed him into being her servant, he drew the line at actually releasing her from her cell or even treating her with a modicum of respect. It was fine, though, because honestly she seemed perfectly happy in that cell. The bed may not have had sheets on it, but there was a steady stream of hunks willing to listen to her life story, so that was nice. Except for Damon. He was OUTTA there.

Matt inherited a box of junk from Tyler, and it turned out that box was full of info about Seline, the second siren, and current babysitter of Caroline's children. But of course Matt hadn't actually met Seline yet, so he didn't recognize her. As far as he knew Tyler had taken to drawing sketches of Fiona Apple in his free time.

At this point Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Damon had a showdown at a local traveling carnival (after Damon brainwashed all the paying customers to leave) and they immediately got to brawling. Fortunately Stefan's fiancee arrived to break it up!

You get him, girl!

Stefan and Caroline had agreed that Damon was too much of a menace to allow him to roam free. So Stefan intended to take a page out of the Klaus Mikaelson handbook and simply trap his brother in a coffin indefinitely. It was a great plan and nothing could go wrong.

Meanwhile, Bonnie was in a real pickle. How was she going to get Enzo to flip back on his humanity switch?? She placed a phone call to one of the three vampires she knows who have also flipped their switches (in this case Caroline) and asked how she had done it. This gave Bonnie the idea to BURN DOWN THE HOUSE.

Reader, it worked. All Bonnie had to do was pour gasoline over everything, light the fire, and then breathe in smoke until she passed out, and then Enzo became human again in order to throw her out the door. At which point she came to, ran back in and deactivated the forcefield so that he could, in turn, pick her up and carry her outside to kiss in front of a burning cabin. Look, it was a lot. But credit where credit's due, Bonnie did the right thing. Love won out. Congrats, everyone.

Earlier, Seline had taken the twins to the carnival where she brainwashed a man into giving them a dead goldfish, and now she brought them to a warehouse to have a funeral pyre for it. But what the twins didn't know was, she got them to absorb some of her magic and then use it to activate the funeral pyre which had a human corpse hidden in it! (Rest in flames, Georgie!) This was a strange activity for children to partake in, but then again, this is Mystic Falls. But WHAT was Seline up to? Probably conjuring the Devil, but I'm not sure because my family does it differently.

See what I'm saying? Stefan had no choice but to lock Damon in chains and put him in a casket for a while. Frankly that looked very cozy and on some level Damon probably really appreciated the break from having to run errands. No harm no foul?

Matt continued hunkin' around with his hunkdad. The main thing was, he was probably going to have to continue Tyler's personal mission to nab that siren. But where the heck was she?

At this point Sybil had grown frustrated with the lack of hunks to listen to her life story, and one can only lie on cold concrete for so long before getting bored. So she broke out of her cell! Watch out, world.

Because Tyler's funeral had been interrupted earlier, Stefan summoned the gang to the now-empty amusement park for a make-up funeral. There he gave the requisite speech about how life is for the living, etc., and to really make his point, he turned on the power and everyone did bumper cars.

I truly couldn't think of a more elegant and poignant way to honor a dead friend.

Stefan and Caroline even used the carnival funeral as an excuse to make out, which was sweet. Here's to you, Tyler!

Obviously Sybil had to wake up Damon. It's not like she has tons of friends. So yeah, now Damon was on the loose again, but this time he was going to try a little harder to murder everybody. Wha-oh!

Our final tease arrived in the form of Matt Donovan, who saw a photograph of Caroline's babysitter and put two and two together! Next thing we knew, Caroline and Alaric rushed home only to find that their children were missing and had left behind an ominous drawing!

Caroline and Alaric couldn't do anything but gasp in shock.

Their daughters could not draw! But also they were missing. And they had possibly adopted the Devil as their new father! Nobody said parenting was easy.

"Coming Home Was a Mistake" was fine. Not great, not bad, just sort of a typical episode. I think we were supposed to be sadder about Tyler's death, but that didn't really happen for me. It was just too sudden and he hadn't been around in a while, and the characters barely talked about their relationships with him. Those bumper cars looked pretty fun though. I'll give it that. But now that there are TWO sirens doing the Devil's bidding, what exactly will happen next? Quite frankly I would like to know.

OK BYE

QUESTIONS

--What did burning Georgie's body accomplish?

--Did the goldfish go to Hell also?

--Have you ever been to a funeral at a carnival?

--Is Bonnie technically homeless now?

(Full disclosure: TVGuide.com is owned by CBS, one of The CW's parent companies.)