The episode was written by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain and directed by John Behring.
The episode starts with the scenes switching between Elena (Nina Dobrev) with Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Katherine with Mason (Taylor Kinney) waking up together.
Everyone is at the preparations for the Masquerade Ball and Elena gets the chance to fill Bonnie (Kat Graham) in on everything around Katherine and what she was doing all this time with Caroline (Candice Accola) and her fake fights with Stefan.
Stefan and Damon ask for Bonnie's help so they can "kidnap" Mason and make him tell them Katherine's plan and where the moonstone is.
Caroline believes her but she knows that Liz will never trust Damon and Stefan, so she compels her to forget everything and think that she has been sick with the flu for the past couple of days.
In the meantime, Stefan gets to the well with Elena and he jumps in to search for the moonstone, but the water is full of vervain and he starts screaming for help.
He texts Carol (Susan Walters) from Mason's phone to tell her that he left town and then calls Katherine despite Stefan's warning not to.
Katherine is surprised and when Damon reveals to her that Mason is dead and they have the moonstone, she reassures him that she has a Plan B. Alaric and Jenna (Sara Canning) are having dinner when Elena get home.
Shades of this vampire's humanity appeared to be coming out after he realized Mason was just like him (only less dashing and intelligent), seduced by Katherine's charms and being manipulated.
While this week has the very sad (and real) breakup of Stefan and Elena, it is Caroline's time spent with her mother that is the most heartbreaking.
[...] The journey Accola is taking Caroline through this season continues to be one of the more compelling storylines on the show.
"Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain have worked on some great shows, but I never loved their episodes on Angel or Dollhouse.
"[6] Reagan from The TV Chick gave a B+ rate to the episode saying that it was another great one with a lot of information and several touching moments.
[...] The torture scenes that follow are out of character for Damon and extreme enough to make even Dick Cheney uncomfortable.