The Vampire Diaries S06E03 ‘Welcome to Paradise’

What’s Elena like post-compulsion? Who’s with Damon and Bonnie wherever they are? Is there hope for Stefan and Caroline? Will Stefan kill Enzo like he sets out to do when he takes a few days off work? Questions like that (and more) are answered in the Thursday, Oct. 16 episode of “The Vampire Diaries,” S06E03, “Welcome to Paradise,” as everyone finds out that they have a couple of serious problems regarding Mystic Falls.

First of all, Elena is “happy,” as Matt puts it when Caroline comments that she doesn’t seem like her old self. That means doing things that normal college girls would do, like going to parties at swimming holes, catching her younger brother kissing the girl she almost killed, getting kissed by the guy she tried to set Caroline up with and finding out that her best friend has feelings for her ex-boyfriend. There’s something about Liam that just seems off, especially when Elena says kissing a girl who’s trying to set him up with her best friend is a red flag and he says that he has a sneaking suspicion that’s her type. It’s so easy to be suspicious of everyone on “The Vampire Diaries.”

Stefan takes a few days off (and covers all the bases when he compels his boss to bury Ivy, forget this happened and give him a raise when he returns) to hunt down Enzo in Mystic Falls, and his first stop is to see Elena, catch up and notice when she only mentions missing Bonnie. She tries to get him to agree to come to the swimming hole, and once he hears that Enzo will be there, he’s practically ready to throw the party himself.

Caroline’s not exactly jumping for joy that Stefan’s back in town since he doesn’t really care about apologizing to her, and it doesn’t help that the person she considers one of the most stable people in her life is Enzo, who makes a pit stop to eat a waitress on his way to eat pie with her. She also has to make sure not to clue Elena in on Alaric’s compulsion, so those conversations end up being awkward, with Caroline commenting that not everyone is okay with pretending. Caroline does eventually confront Stefan and tells him that she doesn’t believe he’s just there to kill Enzo. She thinks part of him still cares about them, about her, and if that’s even the slightest bit true, she wants him to stay. He walks away, and Elena is there to comfort her.

Meanwhile, Jeremy discovers a new problem that no one thought could be a problem. Not only does the spell keep vampires out of Mystic Falls, but at the border, their compulsion wears off. That means Sarah knows what Elena is, and he returns to the Salvatore house to find she trashed it.

Elsewhere, there’s a spark between Liv and Tyler, one that Luke seems to have fun teasing his twin about since he’s seen her act like a bitch when she likes someone. Liv has some fun with him, her magic and the kegs, explaining that it’s easier for her if he’s “an aggressive, unlikeable dick,” so she doesn’t have to worry about falling for him. They have an “almost kiss” moment, but then she moves away.

Finally in the present, Matt finds out that there’s a lot more to Tripp and his squad than he thought. Maybe he should have been more suspicious when he caught him washing out blood from his van. There’s no way that was red mulch. Has Matt forgotten everything that has happened to him in the past few years? Tripp sends Jay, Matt’s friend since childhood, with him to the party, and Enzo ends up killing him to save Stefan. (That raises the question: Could Jay (via Tripp) have known about Tyler’s curse and been provoking him? It would be stupid, but anything’s possible.) Sorry, Matt, normal lives don’t exist in Mystic Falls, even when it’s vampire-free.

Enzo also gets a first-hand look at how Tripp deals with vampires – this is why killing waitresses is bad – but he can fight off the vervain long enough to get his hand around his throat. That’s when Stefan shows up to finish what he came back to do, but Tripp wants to finish Enzo off in his own way. Stefan just wants it to be painful, but given what Tripp knows, it’s hard not to wonder if he knows Stefan’s a vampire too. (Anyone else always just assume that these new characters know everything and have come to town just to kill everyone?)

As for Damon and Bonnie’s time loop past, they bicker their way through grocery shopping, and while she has hope that there’s someone else there, especially after finding pork rinds missing and the carousel turning on, he’s Mr. Pessimist and goes so far as to suggest she sleep-crosswords, which is apparently a thing in 1994? He even manages to find a way to explain away his car being parked outside, but after Bonnie storms off after their latest fight, he goes inside to get a drink, only to find Kai sitting in the patio furniture department, munching on pork rinds.

Kai has been spending his days spying on Damon and Bonnie since he can’t entertain himself watching TV – oh, and spiking all the bottles with vervain because he wants to kill Damon. Ouch. “The useless one is here,” he greets Bonnie when she shows up, but she’s not so useless anymore, as she proves by first lighting a candle and then setting the area around Kai on fire. They take him back to the house to get some answers, and he tells them that he wasn’t really going to kill Damon. He just needed to give Bonnie the proper motivation to access her magic because that’s the key to getting out of there.