All My Children

The Vampire Diaries

Season 3, Episode 15 ()

Air date

February 16th 2012

Written by

Directed by

Episode Guide
(Transcript)
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All My Children is the fifteenth episode of the third season of The Vampire Diaries and the fifty-ninth episode of the series.

Summary

A FLIP OF THE COIN — After starting her day with a startling discovery of Damon’s latest indiscretion, Elena is frustrated to find that none of her friends agree with her on how they should react to the Original family's internal power struggle. Once again caught up in the destiny of the Bennett witches, Template:Bonnie and Abby find themselves playing a part in a ritual to appease the spirits of Nature. When Elijah gives Damon and Stefan a dangerous ultimatum that puts Elena in danger, they turn to Alaric and Meredith for help with a plan that leads them to a terrible choice.

Plot

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Cast

Main Cast

Nina Dobrev as Elena Gilbert
Paul Wesley as Stefan Salvatore
Ian Somerhalder as Damon Salvatore
Steven R. McQueen as Jeremy Gilbert (credit only)
Kat Graham as Bonnie Bennett
Zach Roerig as Matt Donovan (credit only)
Candice Accola as Caroline Forbes
Michael Trevino as Tyler Lockwood (credit only)
Matt Davis as Alaric Saltzman
Joseph Morgan as Niklaus Mikaelson

Recurring Cast

Trivia

Antagonists: The Originals.
This is the final episode of the second chapter of Season Three, The Originals Chapter.
Candice Accola makes her 50th appearance as Caroline Forbes in this episode.
Interestingly, if Esther's plan to turn the Originals back into humans had been successful, all of them would have become human except for Klaus. Being that Klaus never was human and has killed possibly an endless amount of people, if his vampirism was ever taken from him then he would be a Werewolf instead.
Esther's true motives were revealed in this episode.
This is the last episode before the spring hiatus.
Elijah has the most screen time in this episode.
- This is therefore the second episode when a recurring character has the most screen time in a single episode. The first was Rebekah.
It is revealed that another White Oak Tree (which can bring about the destruction of the originals) existed at least 300 years after they fled from Mystic Falls.
Esther mentions that Bonnie and Abby are descendants of the witch Ayana, who lived in Mystic Falls in the 10th century.

Cultural References

All My Children is an American soap opera that ran from January 5, 1970-September 23, 2011. The show stars Sterling Sulieman, the same actor that portrayed recurring character and tomb vampire Harper in Season One.
"Don't hold your breath " that you will wait for a long time for something.
The Giant Panda is a Chinese bear with striking black and white markings. They are strictly vegetarian, living mostly on bamboo shoots. They are greatly endangered, it is believed there are less than 2000 individuals living today, so shooting a panda bear is considered quite an offense!
"Strumpet " female prostitute, or woman who is sexually promiscuous.
"Gigolo " male prostitute, a man who is paid to escort or dance with women.
"Sweep her off her feet " to quickly and thoroughly make her like you, charm her.
Mystic Falls was build over an Indian Village - just like the house in Poltergeist, the 1982 movie.
Elijah mentioned a field with wild horses... Horses were not officially introduced to North America until the arrival of the Spanish people in the 1500s. However, Vikings did use horses since the 9th century, so it is possible that the Vikings that took the Original Family to the new world brought horses with them - but they would not be wild horses.
Elena's heartbeat accelerates when she lies - that is the working principle of the polygraph, but the polygraph is not an accurate way of telling if a person is lying or not, or even about what exactly is she lying. However it can be used to try and intimidate someone into admitting they have been lying.
"Be Careful what you wish for" is an idiom meaning that there could be unforeseen negative consequences if you do get our wish fulfilled.
"Let off some steam " idiom meaning to release pent up stress, often emotional.
"Pot, kettle, brother" refers to the idiom "The pot calling the kettle black " and means that the criticism one is making could apply to oneself.
"Put yourself in her shoes " means allow yourself to see or experience something from somebody else's point of view.

Behind the Scenes

This episode had about 2.90 million viewers in the USA.

Quotes

Elijah: "I admire you, Elena. You remind me of qualities I valued long before my mother turned us. It's not in your nature to be deceitful and yet, when I asked about your meeting with my mother the other night, you lied to my face."

Elena: "It's not true. I told you that all your mother wanted was a new start."

Elijah: "I can hear your heartbeat. It jumps when you're being dishonest with me."

Damon: "She's not gonna listen to anything I say."

Stefan: "Is it because of your little sleepover?"

Damon: "It's not my fault she decided to get jealous."

Elijah (to Damon and Stefan): "You help us now, or Elena dies screaming in agony. The choice is yours."

Elijah: "All my talk of virtue. When it suits my needs, I kill, maim and torment. Even today, I terrorized an innocent."

Rebekah: "Elena is hardly innocent."

Elijah: "And I used your hatred of her to get what I wanted. Wielded you like I would a sword. My sister."

Rebekah: "You did it to protect us, Elijah, and rightly so. We deserve to live. We are better than they are."

Elijah: "Are we? Mother made us vampires. She didn't make us monsters. We did that to ourselves."

Damon: "I'm better at being the bad guy anyway."

Damon: "Spend 146 years with someone, you sort of start to pick up on their tells."

Klaus: "End this now, mother. Or I'll send you back to hell."

Elena: "Are you insane?"

Rebekah: "I prefer spontaneous. That's probably why Damon likes me so much."

Stefan: "Awful lot of effort for someone who pretends not to care about her anymore."

Damon: "Pot, kettle, brother."

Caroline: "I'm too smart to be seduced by you."

Klaus: "That's why I like you."

Klaus: "Join us for a drink."

Caroline: "I'd rather die of thirst, but thanks!"

Rebekah: "You know, I don't know what I want more, to find out we're saved or to find out it's all right to kill you."

Elena: "This isn't my fault. I wanted to get rid of Klaus. At one point, so did you. I didn't know that your mom was planning on killing all of you."

Rebekah: "Do you think I wanna spend what could be the last few hours of my life having idle chitchat with the girl who literally stabbed me in the back? Of course not. But for some reason, everybody seems to want to bend over backwards to save your life. Which is incredibly annoying, but makes you the perfect hostage. So why don't you sit down and shut up before I ruin everything by ripping your head off."

Elena: "What are you doing here?"

Rebekah: "Not much. Unless you try to run, in which case I get to kill you."

Alaric: "I haven't seen Elena since this morning."

Damon: "Well, she's not answering her phone."

Alaric: "Well, I'm surprised you have time to call, what with all this Original sex you've been having."

Stefan: She's better off without me? She's sure as hell better off without you."

Damon: "Fine. Neither one of us gets her."

Rebekah: "This house has enough men rolling around in it."

Kol: "Just like you, 'Bekah."

Elena: "I wish there was something I could do to help."

Elijah: "You know, one thing I've learned in my time on this earth...be careful what you wish for."

Elena: "You should know that Esther's planning on killing her entire family. She's linked them all together with a spell. What happens to one, happens to all of them.

Damon: " That's great. Klaus will finally be dead. We win. Why do you look like someone just shot a panda bear?"

Elena: "Because to kill Klaus, she has to kill all of them. Including Elijah and he doesn't deserve this.

Damon: "I'm supposed to care about Elijah?"

Elena: "Shouldn't you at least care about Rebekah?"

Damon: "Two seconds ago you were pissed that she attacked you. It's a win-win. Don't do anything to screw this up, Elena."

Elena: "Why are you doing this?"

Stefan: "He's right, you know. Klaus has to die. They all do."

Damon: "See? It's democracy in action."

Elena: "If you're mad at me, Damon, you need to get over it."

Damon: "Oh, I'm over it."