Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Katherine returns to Mystic Falls and sets the new season’s danger in motion, turning Caroline into a vampire so she can spy on Elena and the Salvatore brothers. Tyler’s uncle Mason reveals the Lockwood family’s werewolf curse, and Tyler begins confronting the violence and transformations tied to it. Katherine’s search for the moonstone draws Stefan and Damon into a shifting contest of bargains and betrayals; Elena learns that she is a Petrova doppelgänger and that ancient vampires called the Originals have been pursuing Katherine and now want Elena.
Elijah initially offers to protect Elena’s friends while using her as bait for his brother Klaus, but Klaus comes to Mystic Falls with a ritual designed to break his own curse and unlock his werewolf side. The ritual requires Elena, a vampire and a werewolf. The group tries to shield Elena and defeat Klaus, yet he turns Jenna into a vampire and kills her during the ceremony; Jules is also killed as the werewolf sacrifice. Elena dies, but Bonnie’s spell lets John die in her place, so Elena survives as a human. Klaus completes the ritual and unlocks his hybrid nature, and Elijah lets him live when Klaus promises to reveal where their daggered siblings are.
Damon is bitten by Tyler and begins to die, so Stefan seeks Klaus’s blood as the only cure. Stefan accepts Klaus’s demand that he leave with him and become his enforcer, trading his own freedom to save his brother. While the town holds a screening of Gone with the Wind, Elena stays with Damon and the two finally kiss. Sheriff Forbes accidentally shoots Jeremy during the chaos around Damon; Bonnie brings Jeremy back, but he begins seeing the ghosts of Anna and Vicki, a consequence of his resurrection.