‘The Vampire Diaries’ Recap: ‘Original Sin’

So many things happening in one episode! Where do we start! With whom to begin! The twists, turns and reveals of this episode, titled 'Original Sin,' seemed more the stuff of a season finale than just the mere third ep of the season. 

The season (so far) has been full of "shadow selves," making it difficult to decipher who is who. Wait, is it Stefan? No, it’s Silas, his doppelganger. No wait, Stefan is Silas’ doppelganger? Ahhhh! [Head explodes]

At least in this episode we get a backstory that clarifies well, some things. Apparently, about 2,000 years ago, there was this whole traveler love triangle thing going on between Silas, Amara and Tessa (aka Qetsiyah), where Silas and Tessa were hooking up, but Amara (who is BTW the one and only Petrova doppelganger) and Silas were actually in love and Silas was only using Tessa so he could be with Amara. Suffice to say, Tessa found out, and was rightfully pissed. She used a spell to kill Amara in a very, umm... enthusiastic manner and then made it her mission in life (and the afterlife) to make Silas’ life/ unlife a living hell -- which is why she now needs Stefan.

Stefan agreed to be used for a spell since he wanted to neutralize Silas — except that meant that he's brain would be fried. So when Stefan woke up, he had no idea who Elena and Damon were.

Oh yeah, and at the beginning of the episode both Elena and Katherine had a dream that Stefan was feeding off a waitress (note: He did not kill her) but was caught in the sunlight without his ring. Uh-oh. Both Elena and Katherine convinced Damon to help them in their quest to find Stefan. They found him, unconscious and tied up by Tessa who was trying to use Stefan to weaken Silas so she can eventually kill him with her immortality cure spell-thing.

And BTW, all of this is bad news for Damon; Elena is the doppelganger for Amara and Stefan is the dolppelganger for Silas, which means the two will always be drawn to each other and basically, anyone who gets in their way will be love roadkill.

See? A whole ton of information and backstory.

Meanwhile, in equally complicated land, Matt is not really Matt. Turns out Nadia did not kill the traveller Gregor last week -- instead, she put his spirit inside Matt’s body. The reason why Nadia showed up was to gain Silas’ trust by "killing” Gregor. Except she is in love with Gregor. Now, Nadia and Gregor plan on eventually kicking Matt out of his own self and letting Gregor take over. Matt had a problem with that (obvi), but for now, he’s fighting the good fight and only blacks out when Gregor takes over.

Phew. That’s a lot of plot, twists, ad turns in one episode. So what will happen next week? Will Stefan get his memory back? Will Matt finally get taken over by the traveler that is inhabiting his body? Will Damon stop being a good person and just kidnap Elena and take her far, far, away?

No idea, but it seems this season is going to be a kicker with all these doppelgangers running around!