Flashbacks reveal what happened to the Necromancer after he teleported out of the cell. He woke up, fully human, on the sidewalk at a strip mall in Texas. Without his powers, he's forced to work at an ice cream shop as "Ted". After several months, he is able to show enough mastery of his power to reanimate a dead cockroach, impressing his coworker Chad, who agrees to become his acolyte. When the Necromancer fails to reliably reanimate a dead cat, he goes into a months-long funk until he learns about Malivore's defeat. He kills Chad as a sacrifice, carves a symbol into his own face, and eventually brings Chad back after he learns to reanimate humans again. Chad is initially okay with following the Necromancer, but the latter's desire to kill eventually disillusions him to the point where he tries to kill the Necromancer, only for the latter to reveal that he can't because his reanimated body is under the Necromancer's total control. The Necromancer turns Clarke's real body into a new portal to Malivore. When a new monster climbs out, he offers it a deal better than the one Malivore did. All the monster has to do is sneak into the school and retrieve the Mora Miserium artifact.
Meanwhile, Alaric is back to being the headmaster, while both his daughters are avoiding him. Josie is trying to get rid of evidence of her using dark magic, while Lizzie is avoiding talking about her and Sebastian. Alaric assigns Landon to evaluate Sebastian to see if the latter can fit in at the school with all three factions. Sebastian successfully handles the werewolves and the vampires, but comes to blows with the witches when Alyssa reads his feelings and exposes his fear of the modern world and of being expelled. After Sebastian opens up to him, Landon gives a glowing review of him to Alaric, although the headmasters still doesn't trust Sebastian and stops him from feeding on a jogger. Alaric tells Sebastian he's willing to give him a chance, but Sebastian tries to goad him into killing him. We're not shown what happens, but next we see Alaric, he's putting his crossbow back and is telling Lizzie that he expelled Sebastian.
Josie is avoiding Hope and Landon after Landon chose Hope over her. Eventually, though, Hope helps her out with a spell, and the two girls bond and make peace. Landon and Josie also try to get back to being friends. MG learns that Dorian hired Kaleb's sister Kym as his intern.
- The Apprentice: Chad becomes the Necromancer's acolyte after witnessing him bringing a dead cockroach back to life. Then the Necromancer kills him as a sacrifice and brings him back to life. After the Necromancer takes him to Mystic Falls and starts talking about all the kids at the school, Chad tries to kill him only for the Necromancer to reveal that he's in total control of Chad's reanimated body.
- Black Magic: Josie tries to depower the Mora Miserium, but keeps getting visions of doom and of her turning evil. Hope helps her put a protective spell over the artifact but warns her that eventually the artifact will break down and unleash all the stored dark magic.
- Brought Down to Normal: Flashbacks reveal that Malivore turned the Necromancer into a normal human, dumping him in a strip mall in Texas. Thus "Ted" is forced to work at an ice cream shop until he relearns his necromancy skills from scratch. The Necromancer thinks Malivore punished him by depowering him. Chad eventually figures out that "Ted" could have had peace, if only he gave normal life a chance.
- Dark and Troubled Past: When Sebastian was 8, his parents sold him to a merchant ship. He hated it and kept running away when the ship made port, but the crew kept finding him every time and devising increasingly worse punishments.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": The Necromancer angrily tells Chad not to call him Ted after regaining his power.
- Fur Against Fang: Annoyed at Sebastian for constantly pointing out how weak he is, Landon throws him into a game of dodgeball against the werewolves led by Jed. Sebastian's Super-Speed helps him dodge balls, but eventually the werewolves gang up on him and hit him in the face. After a tense moment, Sebastian laughs and shakes Jed's hand.
- He's Back!: The Necromancer spends months moping and sitting on a couch after failing to reanimate a dead cat permanently. Chad convinces him to visit Malivore, and seeing an empty pit tells the Necromancer that anything is possible, including him regaining his power.
- Hijacking Cthulhu: After using Simulandon's body to close the portal at the end of the last episode the Necormancer uses Clarke's discarded original body to create a new portal to Malivore and summons a monster from it to serve him instead.
- Hope Spot: Sebastian opening up to Landon about his Dark and Troubled Past and about his feelings for Lizzie feels like he's really trying to turn his life around. Then he attacks a jogger and nearly kills her, only for Alaric to stop him and reveal that he knows who he really is.
- How We Got Here: Flashbacks throughout the episode are used to explain what the Necromancer has been doing for the past year since returning one of the artifacts to Malivore and recontextualizing the various scenes with the hooded figure now that we know it is him.
- MacGuffin: The Mora Miserium that Josie has been storing the aftereffects of her black magic into becomes this in this episode. Not only is the threat of it breaking and releasing all of the built up negative magic inside a very real threat to Josie and the school the Necormancer decides that he wants the artifact to return him to full strength and summons a monster from Malivore to retrieve it for him.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Dorian gave Alaric a book about vampire pirates, one of whom was called "Sebastian the Merciless."
- Red Alert: "Code Red" means someone cut themselves at the school. A witch named Alyssa intentionally cuts herself during lunch in order to get Sebastian to react violently and get kicked out of the school. It has an immediate effect of attracting the attention of every vampire and werewolf in the room. The vampires and werewolves clear out, but MG nearly succumbs to his Ripper side and tries to go for the puddle of blood, only for Sebastian to stop him and talk him down.
- Resurrective Immortality: The reason Alaric assigns Landon to evaluate Sebastian. He's the only one who can't be permanently killed by the vampire. Sebastian keeps constantly making fun of Landon for only having the ability to come back to life without any other powers.
- The Reveal: It was initially assumed that the mysterious hooded figure was working for Malivore, but now it's revealed that the Necromancer is playing his own game.
- Self-Harm: The Necromancer carves the "mark of the underworld" on his face with a knife.
- Serious Business: MG gets mad at Lizzie for treating comic books (excuse me, graphic novels) as a "cold shower" of sorts, so she can avoid having more sex with Sebastian. As far as he's concerned, it's a "seminal work of fiction".
- Shout-Out:
- Lizzie is shown reading the Crisis on Infinite Earths comic book, which is a nod to the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event taking place on The CW at the same time.
- At the end of the episode, MG asks Dorian to give him something uplifting to read, and Dorian gives him The Sandman.
- Too Much Information: MG really doesn't want to hear the details of Lizzie having mad sex with Sebastian.
- Tracking Device: A magical version. Alaric had a witch place a locator spell on Sebastian, which is how he is able to stop him from feeding on a jogger.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If not for Chad convincing the Necromancer to go back to the Triad facility, "Ted" would have probably spent his years wasting away on a couch rather than be inspired to become the Necromancer again.'
- Villain Episode: A large portion of this episode is dedicated to showing what happened to the Necromancer after he returned the knife to Malivore and why he decided to return to Mystic Falls.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- It's left unclear whether Alaric kills Sebastian, puts him back into the coffin, or expels him.
- Averted with the real Rupert Vardemus, as Alaric would very much like to know what happened to him.
- It's also unclear what happened to Triad Industries after the disappearance of Malivore. Given that Chad and "Ted" are able to just walk in, it can be assumed that they packed up and left.
