‘Vampire Diaries’ Season 6 Spoilers: Sarah Salvatore Introduced In Episode 11; Midseason Premiere Recap

Crazy Kai (Chris Wood) is back at it! “The Vampire Diaries” returned to The CW on Thursday for its Season 6 midseason premiere. On hiatus since early December, fans left off with Elena (Nina Dobrev) on the verge of reuniting with Damon (Ian Somerhalder) … until Kai cast a cloaking spell on her.

Episode 11, “Woke Up with a Monster,” found Kai experimenting on Elena in some of her old haunts like the Mystic Grill and Mystic Falls High School. Shaky with his new magic, Kai needed to gain control in order to merge with Jo (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe). Unfortunately for Elena that involved some brain hemorrhaging, spine snapping and ring melting – that’s right, Kai melted Elena’s daylight ring. On top of it being totally inconvenient, the ring also had sentimental value to Elena because it was created by Bonnie (Kat Graham).

Elena managed to escape Kai for a hot second to place a call to Damon (thank god for land lines). Damon initially thought that Elena was blowing him off, but immediately went into super boyfriend mode to save her. Enlisting Liv’s (Penelope Mitchell) help, Damon headed over to the high school with the plan to get his own cloaking spell in order to get Elena out. Liv’s twin brother Luke (Chris Brochu) had other plans though. He was unhappy that his sister was acting as their “dancing witch monkey” and helping train Jo to fight Kai. On his father’s orders Luke whisked Liv away, leaving Damon with no witch to perform the spell.

Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) was willing to go to battle with his crossbow, but Damon needed magic on his side. Although Jo was only in training, she stepped up to the plate. Jo managed to sneak a cloaked Damon into the building to get to Elena, however she couldn’t get them out. The cloaking spell dropped, and the three of them had to face Kai. With the Traveler’s magic pumping though him, Kai easily out powered all of them. Fortunately they had the element of surprise on their side … and Jeremy’s crossbow.

Damon accidentally stabbed Elena with half a broomstick, but Alaric (Matt Davis) was able to drug Kai to knock him out. They tied him up at the Salvatore mansion to give Jo more time to train, but Damon warned Alaric that Jo wouldn’t be able to successfully fight Kai no matter how hard she trained. Alaric had hope for Jo, just like Damon had hope for Elena. The pair scheduled a long overdue date.

While all the drama went down in Mystic Falls, Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Caroline (Candice Accola) took a road trip to Duke University. Caroline was heading over to speak to a doctor who could potentially treat her mother’s stage 4 brain tumor. Stefan followed to “visit a friend” and act as a support system, however he had ulterior motives – to see Sarah Salvatore (Tristin Mays), his relative.

Caroline met with the doctor and discovered that there was no feasible medical solution for her mother. But the doctor was treating a patient who was in the same situation as her mom, and Caroline decided to perform an “experiment” on him. Sneaking into his room, Caroline slipped the patient her blood to see how he would react to vampire blood.

While Caroline played God, Stefan watched Sarah at a school photography exhibit. And he wasn’t the only one watching. Enzo (Michael Malarkey) had followed Stefan and Caroline, determined to find out what Stefan was hiding. Stefan’s secret wasn’t as juicy as Enzo had hoped for, but he was still intrigued. After Stefan left the exhibit, Enzo had all of Sarah’s photographs packed up for him.

When Stefan caught up with Caroline she was watching the brain tumor patient, who appeared to have miraculously been cured. His appetite returned and he was up and out of bed. Stefan warned Caroline not to get her hopes up, but Caroline didn’t want to hear it. They left the patient to head back to Sheriff Forbes (Marguerite MacIntyre) in Mystic Falls.

Caroline told her mom about curing the patient and gave her a cup of her blood. What Caroline didn’t know though was that she didn’t cure the patient. He later coughed up blood and collapsed on the floor, screaming for help.