The Vampire Diaries S5/E14 Recap “No Exit”
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
After a short break, our favorite vampires, hybrids, and travelers are back this week with another great episode! This week’s episode of “The Vampire Diaries” focused on Damon’s new ailment, Katherine’s quest to make Stefan fall in love with her, and Matt and Nadia’s journey and complex relationship. Fortunately, at the end of the episode, all three storylines converged and it looks like we have a trajectory for the remainder of the season.
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We begin the episode with Enzo and Damon in a farm house. Enzo gave his blood to the man living in the house and killed him, essentially turning him into a vampire entirely for the purpose of feeding Damon vampire blood. In the last episode, Wes gave Damon an injection that will make him feed on vampire blood, and Enzo is trying to prevent Damon from feeding on himself. When the man wakes up a vampire, Damon viciously feeds on the man and kills him while detaching his head.
At the Salvatore mansion, Katherine is with Stefan studying history. She has to pretend she doesn’t know her history in order to convince Stefan she is Elena. Caroline arrives with a file from her mom containing information about recent deaths around Mystic Falls. Stefan can tell, based off of the way the people died, Damon is killing these people. Tyler calls Caroline and lets her know Matt is being compelled by Nadia and is missing. Katherine overhears the phone conversation and offers her help, but Caroline insists on helping Tyler herself. Stefan decides to go find Damon and help him, and Katherine tells Stefan she is coming too. As she leaves to go pack her bags, Katherine calls Nadia and questions what is going on with Matt. Nadia tells Katherine that Matt knows Katherine is inside Elena’s body, but she plans to compel him once the vervain is out of his system. Katherine wants Nadia to kill Matt, but Nadia does not agree with that plan and fails to mention this to Katherine.
Back at the farmhouse, Damon and Enzo attempt to leave when they walk outside and find travelers surrounding the house chanting a spell. They realize the travelers put a spell on the house that will not allow any vampires from inside to leave. Max is with the travelers and explains he wants to see how long Damon can go without feeding on his friend. Enzo wants Damon to call his brother or friends for help, but Damon won’t call because he is afraid he will hurt them.
While coming to Damon’s aid, Katherine and Stefan stop at a gas station to fuel up Stefan’s car. When Stefan goes inside the station to get some food, Katherine breaks a hose from Stefan’s car so they can’t leave and are trapped in the middle of nowhere. When Stefan examines the car he hands Katherine the hose and tells her to be careful not to get grease on herself. Katherine purposely gets grease on herself and convinces Stefan to get a hotel room so they can clean up and wait for the car to be fixed. Stefan hesitantly agrees.
Meanwhile, Matt arrives home with Nadia to find Caroline and Tyler inside. They interrogate Matt about his whereabouts and his relationship with Nadia. At this point, Matt has not been compelled but lies to his friends anyway. Caroline gets fed up with the lies but Matt and Nadia leave before they can find out anymore information.
At the farmhouse, Enzo knows Damon will need to feed soon so he ties Damon up to prevent Damon from killing him. Once Damon is tied up, Enzo takes Damon’s phone and calls Stefan. Katherine picks up the phone inside the hotel room. She figures out that Wes infected Damon, and asks Enzo to text her the address of where they are on the pretenses that she and Stefan will go help them, and hangs up. Stefan comes out of the bathroom and asks Katherine if she was talking. She says no and doesn’t tell Stefan about Damon’s predicament.
After Stefan showers, Katherine takes a shower and comes out in her towel and asks Stefan to get her a shirt. She purposely leaves the door partially open when she gets dressed so Stefan can watch her dress. Stefan watches but turns away. Katherine comes out of the bathroom and kisses Stefan. He kisses her back but pulls away and tells her it is wrong because she just broke up with Damon. She saves face and agrees, even though she does not, and grows annoyed that Damon keeps getting in her way. Katherine calls Nadia and asks her opinion about who she thinks Stefan loves more, Damon or Elena. Katherine plans to help Stefan find Damon and have Damon attack her so Stefan will kill Damon to save Elena.
Back at the farmhouse, Wes shoots Enzo to tempt Damon with his blood, and Damon breaks loose from his chains and attacks Enzo. Enzo pleads with Damon to stop, and suddenly Damon chokes on Enzo’s blood. Enzo asks Wes what happened and Wes explains the travelers made his blood more acidic to stop Damon from killing Enzo. Wes tells Enzo he better leave before Damon heals, and Damon pleads with Enzo to go, thus Enzo leaves.
Meanwhile, Matt and Nadia talk about their mother issues, but once the vervain is out of Matt, Nadia does not compel him. Matt kisses Nadia and while in the moment he gets her phone and sends a text saying ,”Help. K” to Caroline. Nadia realizes Matt tricked her but he tries to convince her she is better than Katherine. She compels him and as she leaves she runs into Caroline, who just received Matt’s text. Caroline knows Nadia compelled Matt and she attacks Nadia. Nadia is stronger than Caroline and fights her off, but Tyler arrives and they manage to have an equal fight but Nadia escapes.
Katherine and Stefan arrive at the farmhouse but Damon wants them to leave. Katherine comes in and tries to get Damon to attack her. She cuts her hand and makes Damon smell her blood. Damon attacks Katherine and Stefan cannot stop him. Rather than killing Damon like Katherine wanted, he cuts his arm with glass to distract Damon and snaps his neck to knock him out
Damon wakes up in the Salvatore mansion. He tells Stefan he thinks Elena wanted Stefan to kill him. Stefan does not seem to completely believe Damon but it does make him question the entire scenario.
Katherine meets Nadia at a restaurant and tells her about her success with Stefan. She hints to Nadia that the Matt situation better be fixed but she notices Nadia is not in a good mood. Katherine tells Nadia she does not want Nadia to ruin her good mood, and Nadia explains Katherine won’t have to worry about Nadia much longer, and shows Katherine a bite mark on her arm from Tyler.
The episode ends with Caroline drinking at the Salvatore mansion and Stefan meets her. Caroline tells Stefan Matt is being compelled by Nadia and explains the text message she received from him. Stefan tells Caroline about his adventure with Elena and how she odd she was acting the entire trip; he also mentions that Damon thinks Elena wanted Stefan to kill Damon. The two of them put all the facts together and realize Katherine is inside Elena’s body.
And thank goodness they are not going to keep this Katherine-is-inside-Elena’s-body storyline a secret any longer! After three episodes it was getting boring seeing Katherine try to act like Elena. Katherine is a great character when she is Katherine, not being an Elena imposter. The writers give the characters a lot of credit for putting all of these facts together and realizing Elena is actually Katherine. Now the big question is, how will they save Elena? Bonnie has been missing from the last couple of episodes, but I do not doubt she will be back soon and will somehow garner magic to help Elena. We will have to wait and see!
