Plugin throwing TypeError after Wordpress 4.5 update

I'm debugging a visual composer plugin that broke after I updated Wordpress to 4.5 and I can't figure out why it is throwing a TypeError.

The error message in the console:

Uncaught TypeError:     $template.get is not a function

The only occurrences of $template are found in the code below. I understand that this isn't very much context to go off of but, how can I resolve this error?

/**
 * Convert html into correct element
 * @param html
 */
html2element: function(html) {
  var attributes = {},
    $template;
  if (_.isString(html)) {
    this.template = _.template(html);
    $template = $(this.template(this.model.toJSON()).trim());
  } else {
    this.template = html;
    $template = html;
  }
  _.each($template.get(0).attributes, function(attr) { // **errors on this line**
    attributes[attr.name] = attr.value;
  });
  this.$el.attr(attributes).html($template.html());
  this.setContent();
  this.renderContent();
},

via Chebli Mohamed