'Vampire Diaries' Recap: The Best and Worst of 'Prayer for the Dying'

Do not count Sheriff Forbes out just yet. It was another emotional hour of The Vampire Diaries as Caroline nearly lost her mother. Damon's plan to save her involved setting Kai free — and Luke paid the ultimate price after stepping in for Jo in the merge. Let's break it down.

Best Horror Shot: Caroline was awoken in the night by a noise and slowly walked to her front door... where Colin, the cancer patient she fed her blood to last episode, suddenly appeared. We all knew it'd be him, but that just added to the sense of dread. Stefan figured it out first: He'd died with Caroline's blood in his system and became a vampire — that's why her compulsion had worn off and he was able to remember her name (and apparently somehow get himself from Charlotte to Mystic Falls). Liz had secretly signed the house over to Caroline, so he didn't need an invite to come in.

At the hospital, Jo confirmed it: Caroline's blood had sped up the disease and killed him, and now Colin was a Stage 10 cancer vamp who couldn't die. Actually, he could. After Caroline and Stefan caught Colin trying to kill himself and heard him say the truly horrific line, "I'm in agony. I can hear my tumors growing," Damon ripped his heart out from behind. It was a mercy killing, really.

Best Shirtless Scene: As if we didn't have enough reason to dislike the patriarch of the Gemini coven, he showed up early to help Liv and Luke celebrate their 22nd birthday — which meant Tyler had to put on a tank top and hide.

Best Idea That Didn't Work: Jo's only hope to stop Liz's rapid deterioration was to give her a full blood transfusion. Once Caroline heard from ever-tactful Damon that it was a bust, she bolted. She couldn't imagine what she'd say to her mother now that she had essentially signed her death certificate. She thought she should focus on something she wouldn't screw up, like making the floral arrangements for her mother's memorial.

Stefan found her in the flower shop and told her the story of how he chose to do things for his mother rather than spend time with her when she was sick. Then he wasn't with her when she passed. If you've suffered a death of a loved one, you know how real that conversation was: Some people can't bring themselves to see a person they care for in that much pain (and be reminded of their own mortality), and so they do whatever they can to avoid them. For people who deal with illness that way: to not face a lifetime of regret, it's crucial that they be there in the final moment. That's what made Caroline (almost) missing it so brutal to watch.

Related: 'Vampire Diaries' Recap: The Best and Worst of 'Woke Up With a Monster'

Worst Idea That Did Work: Damon, who'd reminded Elena that he was close with Liz ("I mean, as far as humans go she's… tolerable."), caught Tyler trying to awaken and kidnap Kai so he'd merge with Jo. A lightbulb went off for Damon: He drugged Tyler, woke up Kai himself, and asked Kai to absorb the magic from Liz's bloodstream.

Best Line: Before Kai got to ciphering, he wanted to play doctor, which neither Elena nor Damon found funny. "I get what you two see in each other," he tells them as they gathered by Liz's bed. "It's very dys-FUN-ctional. See what I did? Stressing the fun in dysfunctional." Liz's killer quip: "Just get on with it, Kai. Listening to you talk makes me want to die."

Best Near Death: Maybe the joke was on Liz, however, because while Kai did remove the magic, the stress sent Liz into cardiac arrest and she flatlined. Elena started chest compressions because somehow no doctor or nurse came running immediately. But another realistic moment: While her heart was getting shocked, Liz dreamt that she was packing her suitcase. Often when people are in their final days, they'll start talking about traveling. That knowledge, gleaned from books I read when my father was terminally ill, had me in tears as Liz packed Caroline's baby shoes and photos. She went downstairs and saw Caroline facing away from her looking out the window. "Caroline, can you hear me, sweetheart? It's time for me to go," she says. "You don't want to say goodbye to your mom?" Caroline turned around, and her face was covered in blood.

It was Liz's realization that the guilt Caroline would feel over hastening her death and missing the chance to say her last goodbye would be so overwhelming that she'd lose her humanity and become a monster. And so Liz, who could feel Caroline now sobbing at her side, fought and breathed again. It would have been too much to take if Liz hadn't survived under those circumstances, but the writers don't want us to forget that even fighters lose in the end. When Liz was alone with Stefan, she made him promise that he'd be there for Caroline when she's gone, to help her move on and to laugh again. He said he would, and Caroline, standing outside the door with her super vamp hearing, heard him. The Forbes women do love to hold that man's hand.

Related: Ask the Fans: Julie Plec Wants Your Answers to These 10 Questions

Worst Romantic Trope:

Whether or not you're a Delena fan, you had to slightly roll your eyes over Elena — who'd been unfairly saddled with delivering bad news to Liz before being forced to resuscitate her — realizing that life is too short for her to insist Damon not plan dates he knows she will definitely enjoy because they've gone on them before. (The nerve of him!) She didn't want to start at the beginning after all; she just wanted to pick up in the now. Their backlit kiss in the hospital was the real cliché. It's the romance equivalent of an action movie having someone walk away from an explosion in slo-mo. It must be retired. (And I felt the same way during a certain backlit hospital kiss on Arrow.)

Worst Twist Because We Saw It Coming: How exactly did Damon see his Kai plan ending? He told the father that Kai was on the loose, so dad would force Liv and Luke to merge before Kai found Jo. (Tyler ultimately knocked out dad before he succeeded.) But Kai was always going to have the magic that he ciphered out of Liz, right? Of course he would use that to do his disappearing act, snap Damon's neck, and confront Jo — who said she was tired of running. Kai and Jo found a place outside where they could create a windstorm in private and began the merge, which involves holding bloody hands and chanting until you both pass out. Perhaps Jo's hatred of Kai and will to make him pay for everything he took from her would have made her victorious, but we'll never know.

Best Twist Even Though We Saw It Coming:

Luke arrived to break it up. After hearing his deceitful dad talk about sharing a bloodline and being family, Luke decided he'd try to merge with Kai because while they're not technically twins, they share a bloodline and are the same age thanks to Kai's exile. (That's pretty crafty. Was that always the writers' plan, or did someone come up with that loophole late in the game?)

Jo had said earlier that dealing with vampire blood was beyond most magic, so we can buy that Kai would have been stronger than Luke, I suppose. But truly, no one expected the show to kill off a villain who's proven so fun that we've almost forgotten about the misfire that was Professor Shane. So the writers used that: Jo had told Damon that whoever woke up was the winner. As she held Luke, his eyes opened... only to look lifeless.

Kai won, but the question is, will his personality be any different after the merge? Or will the writers decide that not being actual twins voids that thing dad said about absorbing traits and merging souls to become a new being in someone's same old body? Kai certainly sounded like the same dick.

Theories? Go!

The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.