Thanksgiving is a time for family, right? Everyone gathered around the table, sharing memories from the past, passing the stuffing and gravy, the matriarch tied up in vervain-soaked ropes...

Oh. Wait. That's The Vampire Diaries Season 7 Episode 7 I'm talking about and not your average Thanksgiving celebration. My bad.

The Vampire Diaries Photos from "Mommie Dearest"

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Is it a holiday function if at least two members of the same family don't team up to take down another member of the same family? Have we ever seen a dinner party on The Vampire Diaries where no one died/almost died/sort of died? My memory, which is probably faulty and also slightly dulled by red wine, says no. We haven't.

Dinner parties in this universe mean death, attempted death, dismembering, or daggering. Maybe even a combination of those options, which is what we got tonight, with a side of cigar burns for good measure.

Lily Salvatore is an absolutely terrible judge of character when it comes to the men she decides to let into her life. Not that I want her dating Enzo (because I am LOVING Bonnie and Enzo's budding romance right now) but geez. At least he's not a sociopath.

Stefan and Damon endeavored to make Lily see the error of her ways when it comes to picking men, and for a while there it looked like they were failing miserably. But they weren't. Stefan's plan to make her confront her past worked well to force Lily to realize that she has a pattern when it comes to the men she falls in love with.

Not unlike Stefan and Damon's penchant for falling in love with the same exact woman TWICE, but I digress...

Why Stefan was shocked that Damon was willing to kill their mother in order to kill Julian is anyone's guess. He knows what kind of guy his brother is. He knows that Damon is never going to change. None of that is new information. Plus, given all the times Damon took a beating at the hands of their father, a man their mother left them with when she abandoned them, is it any wonder he'd want to kill her?

The real question is whether or not he believes that she's turned over a new leaf and is now willing to help her sons kill Julian. We as the audience know she drew the parallel between Julian and Giuseppe, but does Damon know that? Will he believe her?

My money's on yes, reluctantly, that he'll go along with her plan, and part of the reason he'll go along with it is because he knows how much Stefan still wants to forgive their mother and see the good in her. It's admirable and in keeping with the character that Stefan still sees something worth saving in Lily. He has a Hero Complex for days.

But the trouble with Lily's plan is that somehow it's going to end with Stefan being marked by the mysterious hunter from three years in the future.

The blade Enzo and Bonnie found in the back of Oscar's car was X-shaped. It's purely speculation, but I'm guessing that the tip of that blade, probably when combined with the Phoenix Stone, marks the souls which end up inside the stone. We know Stefan is getting marked with it at some point, and that Julian bears the mark now and just came out of the stone. Plus Beau has the mark too.

Interesting, right? Right.

Elsewhere, Matt was busy rescuing innocent people from being human blood bags, or something, from the Grill, the high school, and the court house. The Heretics have been busy stockpiling people instead of breaking into blood banks like normal vampires. Caroline called her new bestie Valerie for backup in freeing them and just as she finished, Beau appeared to mind whammy them both.

The set-up of that was only so that Valerie 1) would tell Caroline about how she was pregnant with Stefan's child once upon a time and 2) would have an opportunity to discover that the reason Caroline couldn't definitively learn that she's pregnant is because the Gemini coven cloaked the babies. (Seriously. Valerie cast that spell and BAM! She figured it out!)

This explains: why Caroline hasn't been showing, either with an enlarged midsection or other pregnancy symptoms, why her pregnancy tests were negative, and why the babies couldn't be seen on an ultrasound. Those dying witches thought of EVERYTHING.

I guarantee that the next time we see Caroline, she'll be sporting a baby bump. Again, just like I said last week, I'm totally okay with this and willing to see it through to the end, especially since the end is some point three years in the future where Caroline is broadcasting a PSA to Stefan Salvatore on the airwaves while covered in her own blood.

Imagine explaining that one to the network.

What did you think of "Mommie Dearest"? Can Stefan and Damon trust that their mother is now on their side? Are you glad Enzo has given up on his quest to win Lily's heart?

The Vampire Diaries Season 7 Episode 8 returns December 3, but until then you can watch The Vampire Diaries online right here at TV Fanatic.