Tonight on the CW The Vampire Diaries starring Nina Dobrev, Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley premieres with an all new Friday, October 21 season 8 premiere called “Hello, Brother,” and we have your weekly recap below. On tonight’s episode Season 8 begins with Stefan (Paul Wesley) searching for Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Enzo (Michael Malarkey) after they mysteriously vanished months ago from the Armory vault.
Did you watch the Vampire Diaries season 7 finale where Bonnie’s friends took drastic measures to save her, including Stefan who told Caroline that her and Alaric’s twin daughters may be needed to rescue Bonnie? If you missed it we have a full and detailed The Vampire Diaries recap, right here!
On tonight’s The Vampire Diaries episode as per the CW synopsis, “Months after Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Enzo (Michael Malarkey) mysteriously vanished from the Armory vault, Stefan (Paul Wesley) tirelessly pushes forward with their search, while Bonnie (Kat Graham) struggles holding onto hope that they will be found. Meanwhile, a dangerous encounter with an unexpected visitor leaves Caroline (Candice King) and Alaric (Matt Davis) fearing that someone – or something – may be targeting their family.
So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back between 8PM – 9PM ET for our The Vampire Diaries recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our The Vampire Diaries recaps, news, spoilers & more, right here!
The Vampire Diaries Season 8 Ep 1 ‘Hello, Brother’ Recap Right Here!
The Vampire Diaries begins season 8 with a couple driving down the street going to a superhero movie. The man says he is just happy the ‘Vampire craze’ movies are over with; his girlfriend screams as he slams on his brakes to avoid hitting someone. After they stop, Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) claps his hands and congratulates the guy on his quick reflexes, by missing him and hitting Enzo.
Enzo St. John (Michael Malarkey) gets off the road and say they should just let this one go, as he snaps all his bones back into place. Enzo and Damon bring the couple to their factory of horrors, where Damon explains they are the unwilling employees/lackeys who are forced to bring the worst of humanity there. Damon asks them which one of them is worse, and when they don’t answer, Damon asks them what is the worst thing they have done in their life.
The girl admits that she stole make-up from a drug store. Damon tells her to try harder and compels her to tell him the worst thing she has done; she says she slept with her best friend’s boyfriend, 8 times. The boyfriend admits that he stole his Nana’s pain pills and sold them, while she was dying of cancer.
Damon says they have a winner and tell the boy he gets to die the most painful excruciating death imaginable. The girl learns she will die quick and Enzo rips her throat open while Damon takes the boy to the factory where all the other bodies are hanging high and bleeding out. Damon puts him on a meat hook and sends him down into the water below, after Damon tells him he has no idea what is in the water. Enzo asks Damon when he is done if he wants to watch TV and Damon tells him he is going to read for a while instead.
Caroline Forbes (Candice King) and Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley) are in a cabin in bed together, while Bonnie Bennett (Kat Graham) continues to write to Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) about their failed search for Damon and Enzo. Bonnie is heartbroken about Damon and Enzo and says this is the hardest thing she has ever had to do. She has flashbacks to the good times with Enzo, and remembers how much she loves him.
Caroline is complaining to Stefan about the nanny who is raising her twins. Stefan points out that it sounds like she doesn’t like the nanny getting close to Alaric “Ric” Saltzman (Matthew Davis), and she admits it’s true. She hates that Ric is staying at the armory most of the time, and is susceptible to the nanny’s charm.
Stefan says he will continue to look through the missing persons reports and Caroline leaves to see what she can learn from her affiliates. Before she can get out the door, Caroline gets a message that a body has been found. Ric is on the phone with his twins who want to come to his work, but he said not until they are 18, and asks for the nanny.
Ric’s associate comes running to him with exciting news. They blindfold Ric and tell him to let his fingers do the walking, as they cover his ears too. Alaric goes around the room and finds a portal he vanishes through.
Enzo asks Damon how long this bad guy slaughter is going to last, but Damon is too busy reading Fifty Shades of Grey. Enzo screams into the bloody water, asking when this is going to end. Damon shoves him in the water, where boney hands come out looking like they are crushing his skull, and then he gets shoved back out of the water.
Stefan and Bonnie follow the lead of the dead body dump. Bonnie says every time she gets excited or a little hope, her heart gets crushed again, and she doesn’t have much left to feel. Stefan tells her not to give up because if she gives up he has nothing good left to hold onto. Bonnie tells him of course, but she doesn’t have hope because she didn’t want to feel anymore.
Alaric’s associates come through the portal too, and they investigate the tunnel together. At the end of the tunnel, behind some rocks, Alaric finds a door. He knocks it down and they find a secret room. Caroline is at work and gets to see her twins. Caroline has the twins while she is watching a video of Enzo visiting a woman.
Stefan and Bonnie arrive at the car crash site, where a compelled detective tells them they found blood on the grill that doesn’t match the girl and blood on the road that doesn’t match her type either. The girl is strapped to the car with guitar string, Bonnie says. She knows it was Enzo and Damon.
Stefan calls Caroline, who says the area is only a bunch of land, but there was a news story about the area a couple months earlier, when locals claimed it was a miracle when a nearby creek ran red with blood. It turns out there was a slaughterhouse with a drainage issue that was shut down. It is exactly 3 miles from the crash, which was the only mileage on the car. Stefan tells her he is going to check it out.
Celine, the nanny calls Caroline when she hasn’t heard from Alaric and his phone is going straight to voicemail all afternoon, and she calls his office to see if he is around. Celine says it is okay and he is home now, but when she walks to the hall, the front door is wide open, but no Alaric.
Celine asks if it’s possible the girls would go out of the house, but before Caroline can answer she comes back into the kitchen and sees her knife and bowl of food gone and tells her someone is in the house. The same woman Enzo was visiting in the video, slits Celine’s throat and Caroline rushes home.
The Vampire Diaries (TVD) continues with Sybil (Nathalie Kelley), the mysterious woman in the video with Enzo, walking through Alaric’s house looking for the twins. Caroline arrives in time to save the twins from Sybil. Caroline drags her out of the kid’s room, and feeds Seline (Kristen Gutoskie) her blood to revive her.
Alaric is in the secret room, where he says the room is wild, and anything subterranean should have signs of erosion or moisture from the earth, but everything is perfectly preserved, except for a skeleton in the room. Alaric tells his associates to not touch anything.
His associate Georgie (Allison Scagliotti) tells Alaric he is hot, and he tells her he is closed for business. It’s just him and his kids, and no distractions. Alaric is told that Caroline has called and it is an emergency and he runs out of the secret room.
Stefan is wandering through the slaughterhouse, but on the phone with Bonnie. At the accident site, one of the police officers finds candle wax in the girl’s ear. Bonnie seems shaken at the findings. Stefan calls out Damon’s name as he walks, and Damon says, “Hello, Brother!”
Stefan confronts Damon on what is going on. He asks Damon what was in the vault, and what has a hold on him. When Stefan asks where Enzo is, Damon tells him to go home and they are all good there. Damon rambles on about how they are death and are surrounded by death. Stefan realizes Damon has flipped his switch and no longer has any humanity left in him.
Stefan says he can help Damon get his humanity back and he refuses, saying he has seen how this ends. Stefan asks him what he is talking about and he says he is talking about hell! Not the kind of hell that traps you in a stone, but the fire and brimstone kind of hell. Damon admits he has seen it and tasted it.
Whoever has a hold on Damon informs him that it doesn’t want Stefan yet so Damon tells him to go, and it isn’t his time yet. Stefan says he isn’t leaving without Damon.
Caroline compels the nanny and tells her she won’t remember what happened and to take the twins out for dinner and ice cream afterwards, but to stay away for at least 2 hours. Caroline returns to the house and wakes up Sybil, telling her she has 30 seconds to explain why she came after her kids and another 30 seconds to tell her about the vault.
Sybil says she has warn them about the vault, and they should have never opened the vault. What was inside will come for them. Before Caroline can ask any more questions, Sybil bites her own tongue off. Bonnie arrives at the slaughterhouse to hear Damon and Stefan talking.
Damon continues to tell Stefan there is no longer a switch because there is no hope left, and every bad decision he has made has sealed his fate, him and Elena are on different paths; Elena’s great beyond is much happier than his.
Stefan incapacitates Damon and says they need to get him in the car but Bonnie says she isn’t leaving without Enzo. Before they blink their eyes, Damon has Bonnie in a choke-hold and Enzo is punching Stefan. Enzo tells Stefan he needs to leave before Damon is forced to do something he’ll regret.
Stefan agrees and Damon says, “Until we meet again, Bonnie!” Bonnie calls for Enzo and Damon tells them they don’t get it, that his life has been over for a century and a half, since Stefan took it from him.
Alaric comes home and is paranoid that they are divided, and it’s too dangerous for them to be living separate. Caroline says she wants to be a family and a team, but they can’t live together. Alaric tells her she needs to be the one to go. He wants her to be happy, the girls to be happy and even he wants to be happy one day.
Bonnie and Stefan drive home without speaking a word. She admits that it was hard, but she knows that wasn’t really Enzo; that neither of them are in control. All the hints at the car accident was Enzo leaving them for Bonnie, and she knows that they can get them back.
She says Stefan was right, that they do need hope. Stefan tells her that Damon has said it many times before, but this time it was different, Damon was right, maybe there really isn’t any hope.
Bonnie goes back inside the cabin, and flashes back to when Enzo is reading the Odessey to her. He tells her this book is the greatest love story of all time. He tells Bonnie that when it comes to her, he will never stop fighting, he would brave the oceans and sail past the sirens to find his way back to her. Bonnie realizes all the signs Enzo left behind were from the book.
Damon and Enzo continue on their spree, citing there is no such thing as redemption. No matter what you do in your life, when the devil comes calling, you’re done! They are at an art gallery, where Damon tells the stranger that they have a keen sense of smell and that all the red he uses in his art has an all too familiar scent.
Damon asks why he is painting with human blood, and what the hell did he do with the person he got it from. Damon taunts him to, “Go ahead, whisper it in his ear!” The stranger tells Enzo and he asks, “what is it about middle America and evil?”
Enzo is escorting the artist out of the building when Damon stops him, asking him how did Bonnie and Stefan find them if they were covering their tracks? Enzo pretends to be ignorant. Damon advises him that if he cares for something “It” will know, but if he has flipped his switch, and not care for anything, that it can see nothing. Damon leads him out.
Stefan writes Elena about Damon. He says it’s not his turn to write, but he hopes there is some way they can reach Damon’s humanity before it is completely gone. Damon goes back to the road, and has a vision of who he thought was Katherine, but she tells him she is Elena. He tells her he needs her and he doesn’t know how much longer her can fight.
Stefan writes he will not give up on Damon, but hope hurts and says maybe tomorrow will be better. Caroline comes home and hugs him, asking if he had a bad day. She tells him she would like to live with him. Stefan kisses her and they both smile.
Bonnie calls Alaric about the book “Odessey” and he explains that Sirens are in all the old legends, but basically the same thing. They use mind control to lure their victims to their death. He says some say they are messengers of the devil. Bonnie asks if Sirens could be real and Alaric says it’s possible, every story has to start somewhere.
Damon and Enzo bring the artist in and hang him on a meat hook, as Bonnie reads from the book. Alaric says it’s very poetic, but Bonnie insists that Enzo left those signs so they could know what was happening and who was coming. At the end, a woman rises out of the bloody water, and Damon and Enzo hear singing, they turn around and Damon says, “It looks like she finally had enough to eat!”