'The Vampire Diaries' recap: In your eyes

Elena puts her plan to kill Kol in motion, while Stefan wrestles with a decision about Rebekah

In Mystic Falls, the ends always justify the means.

As Damon tells Klaus, if you do bad things for good reasons, people will find a way to forgive you.

But even reason can't triumph over the ties of blood. So when Elena and Jeremy carry out their plan to kill Kol, Klaus is murderously furious. Even though he needs Jeremy alive to find the cure, he wasn't willing to sacrifice his brother.

Klaus does not forgive. Or forget.

Bad to the bone

Preparations are under way for an '80s-themed dance at school, and while Elena chats on the phone to Bonnie about it and her "Kill Kol" campaign," she scalds herself with water from the sink. WTF?! It turns out Mayor Rudy Hopkins put vervain in the water supply. Not only that, he's canceling the dance for safety reasons! Booo!

[Related: Ian Somerhalder on Elena's sire bond, Damon's angst about the Cure and more]

Elena calls Stefan to let him in on everything -- adding that he should dagger Rebekah. (Well, Matt will have to do it, as Originals can't be daggered by other vampires.) Still, that would be the harshest postsex brushoff ever! Stefan reluctantly agrees.

Damon wakes up to find a new baby sitter: Klaus. They snipe at each other about Jeremy's training plan ("Do you know how hard it is to get these Xbox brains to focus?" Damon complains), and then Klaus questions him about why Elena keeps forgiving him for all his trespasses. It can't just be the sire bond, right?

Arching an eyebrow, Damon muses that Klaus's question revolves around Caroline, because she'll never forgive him for killing Carol Lockwood. Well, Klaus killed the mayor "just to be a d---."

"If you're going to be bad, be bad with purpose," Damon says. "Otherwise you're just not worth forgiving."

Say anything

Elena's plan involves trapping Kol, siccing Bonnie on him, and then staking him. So she calls him and dangles the bait of info about Silas. He instantly shows up, and Elena draws him into conversation. But after some stalling, he gets impatient: What does she have to say about Silas?

When she asks why he thinks Silas exists, Kol reveals he used to run with witches back in the day and they all knew Silas should remain buried. A seemingly bored Kol then leaves, telling Elena he'll think about her request for a truce.

Meanwhile, Jeremy is searching for Bonnie because they need her for the plan. When he shows up at her house, her father tries to stop her from leaving. Angry, she breaks a bulb and turns to go -- only to come face-to-face with her mother!

At that point, Jeremy leaves and Abby demands to know what is going on with this Professor Shane guy and Bonnie using dark magic. Her daughter argues that it isn't dark magic, it's expression -- and the only means of getting the cure for vampirism. Just when Bonnie is about to leave again, Abby and Rudy manage to render her unconscious!

[Related: 'Vampire Diaries'' Graham: Bonnie and Kol's run-in is one of her most intense scenes yet]

As a means of getting her out of the house so Matt can look for her dagger, Stefan takes Rebekah to the canceled dance. They debate the merits of the '80s -- he was a big fan of "Say Anything's" Lloyd Dobler and "The Princess Bride." What a romantic, but Rebekah sniffs: It's all sentimental drivel to her.

Then, she reveals what's hidden in her boot: the dagger! Stefan texts Matt to stop searching and come to the school.

He suggests they do the "Breakfast Club" slide, but Rebekah sees through it. Here, this is what you want, she says and hands over the dagger!

Rebekah admits she does care -- she wants stupid corsages, kids, and someone to stand outside her window holding a boom box. She wants a normal, human existence.

Stefan eyes Matt standing around the corner. But instead of trapping her as they planned, Stefan takes her home. He was once an officer; he'll always be a gentleman.

Risky business

As Bonnie sleeps, Abby mixes more of what put her under. But whatever it was, it wasn't enough -- Bonnie wakes up, mad as hell. "I don't belong to the spirits anymore, I belong to myself," she says, crippling her mother and breezing out to find her friends.

Back at Elena's house: Ding-dong! It's Kol -- and there will be no truce. He bashes his way in, as Elena and Jeremy run. They can't hide from an Original for very long, though, and Kol stabs Elena in the stomach with piece of the railing. She gasps as he grabs Jeremy and drags him to the kitchen to cut off his tattooed arm.

Just as Kol is about to start whacking, Elena manages to pull the railing out and attack Kol. Then, Jeremy grabs the sink's spray faucet and douses Kol with the vervain-laced water.

"Now!" Elena screams, and Jeremy drives a stake through the Original's heart. Just as Kol bursts into flames, they turn to see a very upset Klaus at the door.

"What have you done?" he snarls. He's going to burn their house down and then kill them when they flee. Cure, schmure.

But before he can act, he's suddenly crippled -- it's Bonnie! She has Jeremy invite him inside, and then she traps him with invisible walls. The barriers will last only three days, but it's enough to escape.

At Klaus's, Rebekah cries over Kol and accuses Stefan of being in on it. He tells her he won't let anyone he cares about get hurt -- including her. And he wants the cure not just for Elena, but also for Rebekah to get the human life she's always wanted. Why should she trust him? Stefan urges her to take a leap of faith.

Everyone gathers at the Salvatore mansion waiting for Jeremy's mark to complete. Damon's finally free of the compulsion, and as he and Elena embrace, Stefan walks in. He admits he didn't dagger Rebekah, because she's on their side -- and he has Silas's headstone to prove it.

Damon snarks that Stefan trusts Rebekah only because they're sleeping together. He just had to say that in front of Elena, Stefan growls. Damon punches him, and they're about to go at it when Jeremy screams.

The mark is growing at a rapid rate. It finally reaches its end at his heart.

"Here we go," Damon says.

The race for the cure is on!

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"The Vampire Diaries" airs Thursdays at 8 PM on The CW.