Previously, on The Vampire Diaries

Elena dances, seemingly with wild abandon, atop a bar while Jeremy and her friends look on.

Atta girl!

She offers a toast, but psych! Before she can down it a look of consternation crosses her face. She jumps down and demands to know whether she's really that easy to impersonate, wondering why no one questioned her dancing on a bar "half naked" and if they really believe she'd take her underage brother to a college bar for tequila shots. Well, yes, considering:

1) She was turned into a vampire only very recently;

2) Since turning she's been under the influence of her HEIGHTENED EMOTIONS, being sire-bonded, having her emotion chip pulled and Katherine; and

3) of all the times she's witnessed Jeremy drinking underage she's stopped him exactly twice, and

4) she's a college freshman. Acting out in new and unusual ways is part of the job description.

She starts trying to warn them that Katherine has taken over her body, but ultimately it means nothing because this entire bar scene is a fever dream/hallucination brought on by the one-two of the Ripper virus and the *sigh* "werewolf venom." She awakens in her Improbably Large Dorm Room and wanders into the deserted common area in search of someone, anyone. Why they took her from Casa Salvatore to her dorm room is a mystery that only plot service can explain.

She finds Stefan, who tells her the student body has cleared out for Spring Break. Wait, what? Six months have passed since the beginning of the season? That makes no sense. She moves toward him but runs into a mystical barrier. Stefan explains they had to seal her in. "You have a lot of catching up to do." Title card!

Elena fills Stefan in on the last thing she remembers and Stefan tells her that was three weeks ago. Timeline. Makes. No. Sense. Elena questions the need for the barrier. Stefan explains the necessity given an infected vampire's inability to resist the scent of vampire blood but assures her that Caroline is hard at work searching for an antidote. He also fills her in on the new witch in town, Liv, who set up the barrier. Elena asks to speak to Damon.

Who is still chained in the Salvatore family cell, where Jeremy kind of dickishly sets down his tiny blood ration just outside his reach before sliding it over to him. He downs it while Jeremy and Matt smirk at him and catalog some of his recent bad behavior, including ordering Jeremy's death and killing Aaron Whitmore. Elena doesn't know about that last one yet and Damon threatens to tear out their tongues if they tell her.

Damon's phone rings; it's Elena calling from the last working pay phone in America.

Jeremy passes him the phone and he and Matt head out to allow Damon and Elena to yammer at each other about stuff that is stupid and no one cares about. He promises to sex her up real good once they're cured. Elena wonders how that happens. The cure, not the sex. Although that also happens. SPOILER ALERT.

Cut to Caroline poking around Doctor Evil's storage lair. She lights upon his recorder, learning how he souped up the virus with *sigh* "werewolf venom." Enzo de-lurks behind her, commenting how he always thought werewolves were a joke.

Oh hai, Enzo!

Well on this show they kind of are. He introduces himself and assures her he wants and end to the Ripper virus as much as anyone. Caroline assumes it's because he wants his "killing buddy" back (Enzo's little smile does not deny it) and he fires back that Damon told him she could be "a little judgy". Caroline sort of half-smirks, which goes right off her face when Enzo says Damon also told him she has a thing for accents. Snerk. She tells him to stay out of it and heads out, only to stop short when Enzo drops that he has the antidote.

Elena and Damon are still talking and are still boring until the conversation turns to Aaron and Damon gets all er, um, what now, until Stefan arrives to give Elena a new and shockingly non-product placed cell phone. She hangs up with Damon and moves to take the phone, only to stumble and nearly collapse. She's starving. Stefan hands over four ounces of his blood in a disposable plastic bottle. If this infection lasts they will really need to invest in a canteen. She downs it and asks for more. When no more is forthcoming she asks to be let out, insisting she can handle it. Stefan responds by biting his wrist. Elena instantly vamps out and tries to come through the barrier at him.

Point, Stefan

After the break Elena has calmed down and has moved into hating herself for forgiving Katherine on her death bed. Caroline crashes the pity party, calling with news of the enhanced virus. Stefan exposits that this means the virus is now fatal. Which one, I didn't realize and second, what? Doctor Evil wants to use vampires to wipe out vampires so his Plan A is to set up infected vampires to make new vampires once every eight hours and his Plan B is to set up infected vampires to make new vampires once every eight hours until the infected vampires die. Worst. Supervillain. Ever.

Caroline tells Stefan there's an antidote but he has to come meet her to get it. He wants her to come to him and they back-and-forth about it for a minute until she tells him that the shitty Travelers have the antidote and they don't want "newbie emo witch types with bad attitudes" to know their plans.

Stefan agrees to go but before he can, Elena picks the very best time to wonder why Katherine didn't run. Stefan says she wanted it all which Elena correctly interprets to mean Stefan. She wonders how far Katherine got and Stefan confesses that they kissed but he pulled away and figured out that she wasn't Elena. Actually Caroline put that together, but Stefan was in the room, so OK. He leaves.

As she fills salt shakers at whatever waitress job she's working this week, Liv is pretty pumped about having been able to seal Elena up. Bonnie's all, don't brag so loud in public but Liv points out that the joint is deserted. Bonnie looks to check Liv's cocky attitude, pouring out some salt and challenging Liv to set it on fire. Liv chants some Latin but nothing happens and Bonnie gives her some noise for it.

Back in her room Elena leaves a message that Aaron will never return and then finds Katherine's diary. She reads about their hotel near-hookup and begins imagining how that must have gone.

It progresses further in her mind than it did in reality, until Elena pushes him away saying Katherine is trying to seduce him. She tries to bolt from the room but when she opens the door Damon is standing there. Not even Elena's imagination can accept the obvious throuple solution since Damon is only there to berate Stefan for falling for the old "grease on my shirt" trick. Stefan fires back but Elena breaks it up, saying this is just what Katherine would want. Stefan darkly hints that Elena has no idea how bad it really is.

Elena rouses from this fantasy/hallucination to discover blood dripping from her nose. It's the first symptom.

Stefan has met Caroline at a train yard and seriously, she can't just say "meet me at the train yard"? She has to "text the address"? She wonders when Damon is going to tell Elena he killed Aaron but Stefan insists that it's not a topic of casual conversation. Caroline replies that the killing wasn't casual but Damon managed that. Heh. Enzo de-lurks behind them and offers to tell since he was the bait lying in the road when it went down.

Oh hai, Enzo!

Caroline asks for the antidote and in response Sloan and her band of shitty Travelers emerge from the depths of the yard. They have the antidote and Enzo exposits that the price for getting to leave the farm house was to submit to more experimentation by Doctor Evil. Out of that the doctor created an antidote to the non-souped up virus, which, why would he? When he died the shitty Travelers took it. Sloan says they are using it as the basis for curing Elena's version since she's of interest to them. Stefan asks the price and Sloan replies, "Another one of you."

Elena fills Damon in on the *sigh* "werewolf venom" twist and asks him to distract her from her impending demise. After an abortive attempt at phone sex plies her with gossip, including Caroline and Klaus's horrifying hookup. Elena's scandalized gasp turns into a coughing jag that produces blood. She wonders why they don't track down Doctor Evil and force him to make an antidote. Damon's all, yeah about that I kind of killed him. Elena berates him for the effect on Aaron of killing the closest thing he had to a relative but before they can get any more into it Matt arrives with Damon's rations.

Stefan wonders what Sloan meant by another one of him because he has apparently forgotten that this show is premised on Doppelgangers recurring through history. Enzo reminds him and continues that according to shitty Traveler lore "the last remaining pair of Doppelgangers is special." Whatever that means, and Sloan refuses to elaborate. But it apparently has something to do with that blood the shitty travelers took from Stefan and Elena right before Katherine died. With another Doppelganger in existence mixing Stefan and Elena's blood doesn't do what the shitty Travelers want it to do.

I don't understand how the shitty Travelers could possibly know any blood magic relating to the Doppelgangers. Both Silas and Amara, the Original Doppelgangers, had been in continued existence for the last 2,000 years. There's no way the shitty Travelers could have had access to Silas's blood and any other time a Silas Doppelganger existed Silas's own existence should have prevented any magical effect. I know, I know, it's just a teenage vampire show.

Stefan asks if Sloan is going to use a locator spell. She replies that it's a linking spell and Stefan notes the last time his mind was linked to a Doppelganger it shorted out and he lost his memory. Sloan is not terribly concerned.

Elena texts a status report request to Stefan then collapses into the evening's next hallucination. She explains how she literally hasn't been herself for a while and Aaron says that would explain a lot. The hallucination jumps to Aaron's now empty dorm room and she realizes it's not real. A bloody wound appears on Aaron's neck and Elena begs him to tell her whether she killed him.

He does not respond.

Aaron fades out and a new guy fades in.

"Elena Gilbert, get up you lush!" I like him already. He further states that "David" dumped him at Señor Frog's so he caught a flight back from Cancun early, so he's officially our new gay. He introduces himself as Luke, saying they met at the Bitter Ball. Elena doesn't remember since she was busy being suppressed by Katherine at the time. He suggests getting reacquainted over rum runners but Elena counters with I need to feed so I have to turn you and then eat you. She compels him not to move then bites her wrist and forces blood on him. Before she can snap his neck she spots what looks like a vampire bite.

David thought it was hickeys, proof of cheating but Luke thinks it's a rash. Elena concludes that she-as-Katherine has been feeding on him and compels him to find Bonnie and a witch to set her free. Luke runs off.

Elena freaks on the phone to Damon, babbling that she killed Aaron. Damon tries to talk her down, saying he'll tell her everything when the time is right. Elena continues to freak, insisting everyone is lying to her and hurling her phone away.

Damon tosses his phone on the floor, telling Matt it needs to be charged. Matt has apparently never seen a police procedural in his life because instead of making Damon kick the phone over to him he moves in to grab it. Damon takes him by the neck and rips off his protecto-ring as Matt calls for Jeremy.

HE DID THE SAME THING TO TYLER LITERALLY YESTERDAY PAY ATTENTION MATT

Damon demands Jeremy release him so he can find Elena. Damon hilariously threatens to kill Matt in one breath while insisting in the next that he won't hurt Elena.

At the train yard Caroline suggests they take the shitty Travelers down rather than Stefan submit to the linking spell. They have a really nice scene in which Stefan says he'd take the same hit for Caroline and it's played as friends with none of the gross romantic overtones they've had the past few weeks. They rejoin Sloan and Enzo and Stefan demands the antidotes, one of which was apparently created within the hour in the middle of a train yard. Sloan refuses to hand them over and Stefan refuses to start the spell without them so Enzo acts as mediator and takes off to deliver them.

Stefan takes a seat and Sloan makes to draw some blood. Stefan protests that Tessa didn't need blood and Sloan snots "well good for Tessa" and slices him right up, bleeding him into what looks like a hubcap. Classy. She dips her fingers in it and moves behind Stefan, pressing her fingers into his temples. She and her shitty Travelers start to chant.

Elena continues to freak out as Bonnie and Liv arrive, burning everything that Katherine touched. Tooth brush, clothes, sheets. She zhoops over to them and introduces herself to Liv, asking her to drop the barrier under pain of death. Bonnie tries to calm her down and it seems to work, only for Elena to snap off a piece of sporting equipment and hurl it at Liv, impaling her.

Elena explains that without her blood Liv will die so unless she wants to bleed out she'll drop the seal.

Sloan penetrates Stefan's mind and uses the link to determine the Doppelganger is a paramedic in Atlanta.

She calls on her shitty Travelers to chant louder because this will apparently kill the paramedic long distance. Caroline, afraid of the effect on Stefan, snatches up Sloan's blade and threatens to kill her if they don't stop. She says there's a way for them both to get what they want.

An increasingly ill Elena, freed from the barrier, stumbles around campus. She hallucinates Aaron again but her joy at his apparently still being alive is short-lived when Aaron turns into Damon. He gives her some of Stefan's blood but she remains a wreck, ranting about wanting to kill her friends and almost killing that one gay guy and actually killing Aaron. Damon admits that he killed Aaron the night Katherine broke up with him to prove that she was right, that he was a cold-blooded killer who could never change. He asks her to say something. All she can come up with is, "Why is Enzo here?"

Don't ask why, just be glad of it

He offers them the antidote.

Stefan comes to at the train yard under the watchful eye of Caroline. He groggily says, "Rebekah, hi" and Caroline gawps in despair. Stefan busts out a grin. "Just kidding. Lexi, right?" It's funny, yet still somehow too soon. Enzo de-lurks behind them, calling on Caroline to get a move on. She explains to Stefan that Sloan was going to fry his brain to kill the Doppelganger so she agreed to work with Enzo to take care of it. By which she means murder the paramedic. Stefan's not having it for a minute but Caroline reminds him it's either him or the paramedic. Stefan insists on going with but Enzo reports that Sloan needs Stefan to track the paramedic. Stefan warns Caroline not to trust Enzo and she assures him she doesn't. They head out.

Bonnie escorts a recovered Liv to her room which may or may not be in the same dorm as hers, apologizing for getting her involved and offering her an out. Liv's in and she wants Bonnie to be her magic tutor. Liv enters her room and lights a bunch of candles with her brain.

Ruh-roh

She starts to pull off her shirt when a voice calls out, "Show off!" It's Luke. Liv upbraids him as a sneak, saying she was about to take her shirt off. Him: "I'm gay and your brother so technically you're the least attractive person in the world to me." He apologizes for dragging her into this, saying Elena thought she was compelling him and he couldn't give up the ruse. He next asks after Bonnie in the context of her being the Anchor. They have designs.

Damon and Elena, having taken the antidote off-screen, engage in a blame-off over Aaron's death. They figure out what the audience has known all along, that they're toxic together. They break up.

And then of course they bone.

Virus or no virus, Elena is a RIPPAH!

And so we have our gay. Not ready to declare him a stereotypical Evil Gay™ just yet, not until we learn a little more about his and Liv's agenda. It's good that they didn't waste any time establishing his sexuality but I'm afraid that his agenda coupled with his just having gotten out of a relationship (assuming that's true) means we won't see a lot of romantic entanglement in his future Although as soon as he meets Matty Blue Eyes he'll fall in love just like everybody else. And we already know Matt's up for a little experimentation in the sack...