The Vampire Diaries recap: 'I Would for You' 

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Throughout season 7 we’ve seen that three years into the future, the Mystic Falls gang isn’t doing so hot. Yeah, there’s the whole “the huntress is hunting them” part, but the bigger issue is most of them aren’t friends anymore. Tonight we saw the cause for

of that division is because of a decision Damon made. Although, Matt takes a fair share of the blame, too.

But before the flashbacks made full sense, we started back in the past (present?). Fresh off her

crossover, Rayna emerges from the ashes again. She makes a quick trip to Mystic Falls… just in time to save Matt and Penny’s lives. They’ve been flirting and ridding the town of vampires for the past three days, and Julian’s crew finally caught on to them. But Rayna handily takes out the pack of vamps trying to kill them, so the two cops owe her.

They pay her back by helping her torture vampires at Mystic Grill. She’s trying to find out where Stefan is, but no one knows. Damon walks in and says he can help. Based on last week’s ending, I thought he might have come there for Rayna to just take him out. But instead he takes her out. (Matt had texted to let him know where Rayna was.) Matt shoots her, Damon rips out her heart, and Penny stands by confused.

She thought all vampires were bad, but Matt explains that some are his friends. She clearly doesn’t understand the good vamp/bad vamp equation, and instead tells Matt that it’s

fault that Mystic Falls is in ruins. She says he has to stop standing by. Which I guess isn’t

Meanwhile, after leaving New Orleans, Stefan is still on the run with Valerie. They’re headed to a witch garden where they’ll find herbs to make more of Freya’s paste, which conceals his huntress mark. Only problem is the herbs are all gone, a lady with a very burned face tells them. Someone came before them and took them all. Because the herbs are dangerous to witches (hence the burns), they had been eradicated from the earth a century ago except for this stash. Now that it’s gone, there’s no hope of Stefan getting any more magic paste. (I hope we get to see the garden witch lady again. Her creepy “night night” as she knocked out Stefan and Valerie was perfection.)

So Stefan and Valerie go back on the run. He calls Caroline to see if she wants to “tag in” for Valerie, but she says Alaric still needs her in Dallas. There are two babies who need to be fed, burped, changed, and put to sleep over and over again. She asks him about moving to Texas, and Stefan doesn’t seem too into the idea. So for now, he jumps back in the car with Valerie to avoid Rayna.

the run. After ripping out Rayna’s heart, he hacked her into pieces, bagged the pieces, and threw those bags down a well. He’s sitting near the well with a bloody apron on (I love Damon so much) when she phoenix rebirths herself again. He makes yet another joke about how much she looks like Elena; she makes a

 joke back. I kind of like their banter, but he’s not keeping her in the well to make a new friend. He thinks maybe he can help her change her huntress nature (it’s not

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