The Vampire Diaries

We love those moments on The Vampire Diaries that make us gasp, pause, and rewind — and the thirteenth episode of the third season, “Bringing Out The Dead,” was chock full of them. Here are the five scenes that left our jaws agape.

5. Caroline and her father reconcile.
It’s hard for any daughter to let her dad go. Even harder when you’re a young vamp who knows your father doesn’t have to die. “You are strong enough to handle being a vampire,” Caroline told her father Bill. Thanks to an emergency shot of vampire blood Doc Meredith had given him earlier in the day, Daddy Forbes survived the attempt on his life. Well, at least he came back from it. But Bill did not want to live forever, especially if it meant being one of the creatures he’d dedicated his life to hunting. So, during one of the last conversations he would have in his life, Bill praised the daughter he’d recently tortured. He told Caroline that she was strong, beautiful, good — “everything your mother and I hoped you’d grow up to be.” Then he laid down and died. “People are not supposed to cheat death,” he said. And he didn’t.

4. The Salvatores share a moment of peace.
Damon and Stefan have been fighting so much lately that it was odd to watch them walk peacefully through the woods of Mystic Falls. The brothers had turned down Klaus’s offering to protect Elena. Damon had just saved his Stefan’s life. They were headed to the cave to finally see who (or what) was in the fourth coffin when, as always, the topic turned to Elena. “I love her, Damon.” Stefan said. “So do I.” His big brother replied. It was a moment that could have easily turned volatile. But it didn’t. Apparently, knowing you’re both in love with the same woman is one thing. Sometimes it also helps to just say it.

3. The Original Family Reunion, Part 1
Apparently Klaus met his match in his resurrected brother Elijah. Unwilling to trust the man who stabbed him in the back, Elijah undaggered his sleeping siblings to confront the O.V. Finn stuck a knife through Klaus’s hand. Rebekah shoved another into his gut. Meanwhile Cole, who’d been “asleep” for 900 years, gave him a look that could kill. It was the lethal nightcap to a gruesome dinner with the Salvatores.

2. Elena kills Alaric.
Could you kill your friend to save his life? Our girl did. When Elena, accompanied by Matt, returned home after Caroline’s father died, she found a dark house and a pool of blood in the kitchen. She followed a trail of bloody hand and footprints upstairs to the hallway, where she spotted Alaric lying on the floor bleeding to death. The history teacher had been stabbed by a human. “You have to kill me,” he told E. Matt protested, saying, “Elena, no! This is messed up!” But the doppelganger knew what needed to be done. Elena removed the knife from Alaric’s stomach and stuck it into his heart, granting him a supernatural death from which he could rise.

1. The Original Family Reunion, Part 2
The brat side of Klaus truly showed when, outnumbered by his siblings he feebly cried, “I’m the hybrid. I can’t be killed! I have nothing to fear from you.” Clearly, he had everything to fear. Pissed that he’d killed their mother and daggered them for the better part of a millennia, the O.V.s had plans: Kill Elena and abandon Klaus. But lucky for him, their mother came home. Mama Klaus walked into the room, looked at her shocked children, then said, “I am here to forgive you. I want us to be a family again.” What?!

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