I totally paused!

When we last saw these wacky vampires and the Gilberts, Damon was all hurt cuz Elena betrayed him and helped Stefan.  You know, her boyfriend.  And then Annoying Vampire Girl stole Elena, which naturally upset Stefan.

We pick back up on this one with Elena laying in a bed in a hotel room, all stolen and such.  She tries to escape, but is unable to, and I had forgotten that AVG had a magic daylight ring too.

Anyway, we likewise find out that Bonnie is entrapped, unconscious in the bathtub.  Cuz see, they need a witch to open the tomb.  Because now all the dots connect and we know that AVG’s mom is also in the tomb, so she just wants to get her out.

In the meantime, you’ll be shocked to learn that there is yet another party.  Again, I say this is Sweet Valley on the east coast, a party in every episode!  The party is conveniently by the cemetery, the one by the church where the vampires are all sealed up.

Damon agrees with AVG to help get the vamps out, and Stefan goes and breaks the girls out of their trouble.  Bonnie’s Gram was able to locate them, then told Stefan, who freed them.  And through some discussion, Gram agrees to help free Katherine, because she’s strong enough to actually do it.

I’ll just cut through all the boring stuff that happens in the meantime and we’ll get to the part where the vampires are freed.  Turns out, Gram and Bonnie are able to open the tomb, but not break the seal.  Any vampires that go in can’t come out.  So conveniently, both Damon and Stefan go in, which means the witches have to work harder to get the seal down so the Salvatore’s can get out.  And that means AVG and her mom can get out too.

But there’s a surprise…Katherine isn’t in the tomb!  Damon is naturally pissed, throws a blood bag against the wall in his rage, and storms out.  He later confronts AVG, who’s mom explains that Katherine convinced the guard to let her go, all those years ago when the vampires were being entombed.  It also turns out that AVG knew all along that Katherine wasn’t in the tomb, she’s sly!  Apparently, she last saw Katherine in Chicago in 1983…and Katherine has never come for Damon after all this time, which really did make me sad for him.

Back at Gram’s house, everyone is wicked tired, so Gram lays down.  When Bonnie goes to check on her, it turns out she’s died.  It’s a pretty sad scene, because I like Jasmine Guy and because Bonnie is pretty adorable, the cutest little witch to come along since Willow Rosenberg.

The even bigger twist is that there was a vamp right under the blood bag Damon threw, and he gets just enough blood to wake back up.  The spell, apparently, did not reseal the tomb after all, and this formerly stuck vampire is able to get out.  My guess is he’s gonna bring back some people to help revive his friends, and we’re gonna have us a big vampire showdown!

Finally – a background episode!  There’s a ton in here about the Salvatore brothers, the founding families, and the vampires they hope to defeat.  Including Katherine!

For the record, I’m just not impressed by Nina Dobrev as an actor.  She’s about as boring as Katherine as she is as Elena.  Which I do believe I’ve mentioned before.  But you know, in case you didn’t know before.

Stefan and Elena are in bed together, and of course Damon walks in.  Because there are no locks on any of these doors.  Both of them want Damon to leave, but he won’t, and he does of course have the best line of the episode:

If I see something I haven’t seen before, I’ll throw a dollar at it

Basically, everyone is just trying to get the Gilbert journal to find where the grimoire is.  And as mentioned, we have a lot of flashbacks to when Stefan and Damon were still human with Katherine, so we can learn about what drives the initial rift between them.  If you were wondering, it’s that Stefan basically ratted Katherine out.  Even though it wasn’t his fault, but part of Damon’s charm is not the rational thinking thing in him, so I forgive him.

Along the way, Damon realizes that annoying vampire girl who is stalking Jeremy for his family heritage is actually a vampire from waaaaaaay back in the day.  We already knew this because she said before that she wanted to get Katherine and the other vampires out of the tomb, but this is a bit of a revelation for Damon.  Turns out her name is Annie or something along those lines, but I’m sticking with annoying vampire girl because, internets, she is annoying!

Stefan also discovers that Alaric knows who he, and Damon, are.  He promises not to tell anyone, but also says Alaric shouldn’t tell Damon who he really is.  But really, once it comes out that Alaric’s dead wife Isabelle is actually Elena’s birth mother (and Alaric himself is potentially the birth father), Damon is going to be seriously depressed that he killed a descendant of Katherine’s.  Alaric also mentions that Isabelle disappeared, no one ever found her body, so I have this new theory that she’s going to come back to torment Alaric as a vampire.  Honestly, as long as he doesn’t end up killing Damon, I don’t care much.

Annoying vampire girl ends up getting the journal, but Stefan steals Alaric’s copy of the journal and figures out exactly where the grimoire is.  It’s in their father’s grave, aka Dexter’s dad too, so Stefan and Elena go on a grave robbing exhibition.  What I want to know is – why can’t Stefan just dig super fast?  He’s a vampire, after all!

Damon comes upon the two of them, Stefan isn’t going to give him the grimoire, but then Damon forces Elena to drink some of his blood and threatens to kill her right then and there, which would turn her into an almost vampire.  Since Stefan doesn’t want that to happen, he gives up the book and gets Elena back.  Damon is truly sad that Elena tricked him, apparently he thought she felt some loyalty to him over Stefan?

Stefan and Elena go back to the Gilbert house, only to find that annoying vampire girl is there and she kidnaps Elena!

So the next episode will undoubtedly be about getting Elena back.  I’m not entirely sure why annoying vampire girl stole her, but I also wonder why Stefan doesn’t just give in and have Elena turned.  I know Elena hasn’t mentioned that at this point, but y’all know as well as I do that she’s going to want it eventually.  I’ve read enough Twilight and seen enough True Blood to know that it’s going to come up eventually!

The episode opens with the Gilbert house having a pizza delivered, by a guy who is obviously a vampire.  Okay, maybe it’s not obvious, I just think everyone is a vampire.  But this show totally teaches you to not invite strangers into your house.  Cuz they might be vampires!

Is it pathetic that I can’t exactly remember what happened in this episode?  It wasn’t super productive, it really just showed us that there are other vampires in town, which we already knew.

Anyway, since Damon learned that Emily’s grimiore will allow him to free Katherine, he’s trying to be friendly with Bonnie again, who is having none of it!  She says to Damon, “You tried to kill me!”  And Damon quite aptly points out, “But I didn’t.  And if I wanted to, I would have.  Does that not count for anything?”

Meanwhile, Elena and Stefan are talking about the vampire in town, and he gives her the vampire compass, as well as some more jewelry with vervane in it.  He also explains to Elena that the Gilberts were one of the founding families, so they knew about the vampires in Mystic Falls and were part of the group of people who were eradicating the vamps.

Also, as a side note, Elena is now driving Jenna’s car.  I have no idea what Jenna is driving, but doesn’t it seem like kids in these shows end up with cars really fast?  I mean, how many times on Smallville has a car been totaled and whoever was driving it gets a brand new one right away, with no explanation!

So mystery pizza boy vampire comes back to the Gilbert house to try killing Elena again, but Stefan gets there just in time to save her, natch.  They all figure out how the dude managed to get inside, but also point out that they’re going to have to find and kill him cuz otherwise, he can just come inside whenever he wants a snack.  Aka the thing that vampires who can enter houses would do.  Unless they are Twilight vampires who sparkle in the sun.  Those vampires aren’t hungry enough to just go into houses and eat people.

Everyone decides the best option is to try and draw the vampire out, and conveniently there is *another* dance at the high school.  I’m serious, y’all, this place is like Sweet Valley High without Wakefields – they have a dance or gathering of some kind every week!  To make it even more fun, this dance is a 50’s theme.  I think the only thing I hate worse than high school dances are theme dances.

Elena goes to the dance with Stefan and Damon, and it’s really boring for awhile because pizza boy vampire hasn’t shown up yet.  But don’t you fret, Elena takes the opportunity to point out that Stefan was alive in the 50’s and tries to get him to show her authentic moves.  Which is a little weird because she is totally not being discreet about the whole thing, someone might hear!

Jeremy is manning the punch bowl for extra credit in English class, and annoying home school girl from the library shows up.  But we find out pretty soon that she’s a vampire!  Who is in league with pizza boy vampire!  Three guesses as to what they are really trying to do.  If you guessed free Katherine, you’d be right.  In the flashback episodes, Katherine didn’t seem all that interesting, so when we get to see her again, she better be pretty convincingly awesome.  Otherwise, I’m so going to kick whoever decided she needs to come back.

Pizza boy vampire calls Elena and threatens Jeremy, so she runs out of the dance and gets cornered in the cafeteria…where there are conveniently several pencils.  As we learned in season 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even a pencil can be used to stake a vampire!  But unfortunately for Elena, she is neither a slayer nor a witch, so all she does is piss the guy off.

Luckily, the Salvatores show up just in time!  They question PBV, who tells them he’s trying to free Katherine, but won’t say who he’s working with.  So they slay him.  But annoying vampire girl is watching…who, btw, is displeased that Jeremy lent his great grandfathers journal to Alaric.  Apparently the Gilbert journal is the one that says where Emily’s grimiore is, so everyone wants it!

We also learn along the way that Alaric was once married to a woman called Isabelle, who died, and it turns out she was killed by Damon.  Alaric recognizes Damon, but doesn’t let on, so ruh roh!  And conveniently, Elena’s missing birth mother was also named Isabelle.

I’m sure y’all can see what’s going to happen – Isabelle will turn out to be Elena’s birth mother, who is also a descendant of Katherine, and Damon killed her.  Elena may or may not react well, but I’m more curious to see how Damon feels when he realizes he killed someone related to Katherine.

I’m kind of embarrassed to say this, but I sort of missed this show.  Obviously not enough to actually really watch it starting in January when it started up again, but I did kind of miss it.  It’s not my fault that Damon is so interesting!

We pick back up right where the last episode ended – Elena is all crashed on the street and a vampire is gonna get her!  But, as predicted, Damon comes to the rescue just in time.  Then he decides to take her to Georgia while she’s passed out.  They meet up with an old girlfriend of his, Bree (played by Gina Torres, aka Zoe on Firefly), and while Bree greets Damon pretty excitedly, she quickly jumps to the point and asks what he wants with her.

Damon, as usual, just wants to know how he can free Katherine.  I guess his love for her is like, the real deal?  He certainly is persistent with trying to get her out of the tomb.  Maybe he’s just bored.

Everyone back in Mystic Falls wants to know where the hell Elena is.  She won’t talk to Stefan, but does tell Jenna she’s alright.  She’s still super mad at Stefan for the whole Katherine thing, and I still don’t know why he thought she wouldn’t figure that out eventually.  But whatever.

In the meantime, Jeremy meets some girl at the library who is all about helping him research the vampire stories, er I mean, local folklore.  She’s kind of cute, but also kind of annoying.  Jeremy is worried she thinks they’re gonna date, so he tells her straight up that it’s not going to really work for him cuz of Vicki.

Bonnie seems to have lost her magic, and has to go confront the thing that’s scaring her into not being all witchy.  She heads out to the church where the vampires are entombed, crashes through the ground, and gets stuck.  Luckily, Stefan is able to save her before she, I dunno, dies or something.

Back in Georgia, Bree has called Lexi’s still alive boyfriend to come take revenge on Damon.  Cept Elena talks him out of killing Damon, who then figures out Bree is the one who did it, and he rips her heart out.  That guy is merciless!  But before he does it, Bree tells him that if he can get Emily’s grimoire, he can reverse the spell that has Katherine trapped and you know, free her.

Elena finally gets back to Mystic Falls, and Stefan reveals that he saved her life when her parents got in their car crash, and that she must be adopted.  Mystery solved!  Elena is pissed that Jenna didn’t tell her, and I’d be pissed too!

So on the whole, not a huge amount of stuff happens and it was kind of a boring episode.

Things pick up right where they left off.  Logan is at the front door, begging to be invited in, and Jenna is all “Oh no you di’nt!”  He’s frustrated, leaves, and kills a jogger.  Not a smart move, dude, killing someone right out in the open.  Aren’t vampires about stealth?

Meanwhile, Stefan and Damon are talking about where they’re going to go, because if you remember from last time, they are leaving Mystic Falls.  But Stefan wants to be as far away from Damon as possible, so they’re having this banter about the whole thing.  Damon points out that Stefan is basically his only friend in the world, so he wants to go where Stefan goes, and says “We could try out for the Amazing Race.”

I think that would be an awesome subplot of the series – Elena’s all brooding in Mystic Falls about the loss of Stefan, while the Salvatore brothers are cheating on the Amazing Race.  I say cheating because they’re vampires so none of it is going to be hard for them.  Although I honestly have no idea what they do on that show, aside from race, because I’ve never seen it.

Jeremy has been reading the journal of one of his Gilbert ancestors, and it talks about all kinds of scary things that go bump in the night.  He thinks it’s for reals, but Jenna tells him that particular Gilbert was an author, so it was probably just notes or something for a story.  Jeremy is bummed about this, and decides to start sketching a vampire.

Sheriff Lady shows up at the Salvatore house because they found the body Logan ate – cept they don’t know who ate it at this point.  Damon is all worried cuz dude, there’s another vampire in town!  Stefan thinks it’s Damon, who mentions he would not be that sloppy, and Stefan gets all broody again because no way can he leave now that Elena won’t be safe.  Cept he thinks she isn’t safe with him around either, so I say he’s in a bit of a pickle.

Damon has Caroline help to track the new vampire, and then he finds out it’s Logan.  He asks Logan the same question I asked at the end of the last episode – who turned him?  Logan claims he doesn’t know, but wants to know why Damon and Stefan can walk in the daylight.  Oh, and he shoots Damon about 10 times with wood bullets.  In asking about the daylight thing, he says how clever that is because then no one will suspect them as vampires…because he is Captain Obvious.  He also mentions the Founding Fathers Journals, where the town founders lay out the whole vampire thing, then pass the journals down through their family.  Little does Jeremy know, he *is* reading truth!

As a side note, unless Logan planned to leave Mystic Falls after acquiring the ability to walk in daylight, how did he think he was really going to pull this off?  Everyone in town who knows about vampires would know that he was one, because they all know he was bitten and killed.  And I’m guessing he wouldn’t be leaving town, because he’s totally obsessed with Jenna and wants to bite her and stuff.

The school is having career night, which is funny because there are only about five adults in the community – Mayor Lockwood and his wife, Sheriff Lady, Jenna, Alaric the new teacher/vampire, and Logan.  Mrs. Mayor doesn’t appear to have a job, Jenna seems to have something to do with psychology but I’m not sure what her job is, and Logan is a former broadcast journalist turned vampire.  I think this is just another excuse to have a party, all Sweet Valley style.

Stefan shows up to watch over Elena, but to his credit doesn’t hide out like he’s Edward Cullen, he’s obviously watching her.  He figures out on his own that Logan is the new vampire, because he watched Logan get attacked by Damon, so he goes into high alert mode and tells Elena to get Jenna the hell out of there.  Elena picks up on the clues, grills Jenna about what Logan said when he came over the night before, and tells Jenna to stay the f away from Logan – he is bad news!

Logan and Stefan are having this discussion, in which Logan really just wants to know how to walk in the daylight.  This guy has a one track mind!  He threatens to expose the Salvatore brothers as vampires, but Stefan is having none of that and tells him he better not ever threaten him again.  I was kind of surprised that Stefan was legitimately menacing with this statement, he’s usually such a pacifist.

Question: Since Logan has been eating people, and Stefan doesn’t, does that make up for the age difference?  Would Logan be as strong as Stefan?  Obvs Damon could whip both their asses when he’s not all shot up, both physically and with his witty banter.

A side plot is that Jeremy and Tyler are still at odds, even though Vicky is long gone.  Jeremy discovers that Tyler is a decent artist, so he wants to be friends now and Tyler is having none of it.  They’re gonna fight, but Tyler’s dad the Mayor breaks it up and takes them outside, where he encourages them to fight for reals.  He sounds like Trinity over on Dexter, if you ask me.  This entire thing is basically so we can learn that Alaric the Vampire is not afraid of Mayor Trinity, and he doesn’t appreciate the way Mayor is treating the kids!

Anyway, Caroline runs into Logan, who gives her a ride home, but is only out to freak Sheriff Lady’s freak because Caroline is her daughter and Sheriff Lady knows at this point that Logan is a vamp.  Logan knocks Caroline out, which I liked cuz she’s kind of annoying.  I’ve said it before, she’s the Cordelia Chase of this show, but she’s missing something that Cordy had – maybe it’s caring at all once she learns there are vampires.

Damon is called to go take care of Logan, cuz it turns out he’s the only one who’s ever staked a vampire.  Which is totally funny.  Anyway, the Salvatore’s go out there and Stefan leaves Damon to deal with Logan, who reveals that he is also trying to get into Katherine’s tomb and can toooooootally help Damon with that.  Damon is convinced and lets Logan run off so they can meet in the woods later.

In the meantime, Elena gives Stefan a ride home from the career fair at the school, tells him she is in love with him, and they have the ses.  Since we’ve seen this show, we know that they are going to be at odds again by the end of the episode, because they never stay reconciled for too long.  But we’ll get back to that.

Logan decided to go back to his hideout before meeting Damon in the woods, which I don’t get because what could he really be doing there?  Anyway, Alaric shows up and totally slays him!  Whoa!  Now, I know I’ve been saying he’s a vampire, and maybe he isn’t, but *maybe* he’s a vampire with a soul.  Or he could just be a vampire slayer with a ring that looks strangely like Katherine’s.  Either way, dude has a creepy name and a hidden agenda.

Cut back to the Salvatore house, where Stefan is going to get Elena a drink of water and leaves her alone in his room.  What could possibly go wrong there?  Oh, snap!  Stefan leaves Katherine’s picture laying around on his desk every episode!  No way will Elena find that, freak out, and leave his house in tears.  I’m guessing she is driving in her underwear, because I don’t see her getting dressed and I like to pretend that people are crazy enough to wander around Virginia in November in their underwear.

Now, the show is on break for at least a few weeks, so we’ve gotta leave this one as a cliffhanger.  While all upset and driving, Elena hits someone in the road.  Cept before they even get up, you know it’s a vampire because who just stands in the middle of the road?  Plus we know there’s at least one unknown vampire in town, since someone turned Logan and he also mentions a “we” when it comes to opening Katherine’s tomb.

I wish I could say I was fearing for Elena’s life, but we know two things – she left Stefan’s all upset, so he’s probably going to run after her; and Damon is wandering around the woods, probably pretty close to where Elena hit this vampire because the town is the size of my house.  One or the other of them is going to save her and probably find out who this new vampire is in the meantime.  And it’ll probably be Damon because he’s more capable in this department.

Before I say anything about this episode in particular, I am going to say that this show has really grown on me.  I don’t view it as throw away TV anymore, it’s actually kind of interesting.  The writing has gotten better, and while I still don’t like the casting for Elena, it’s good overall.  I don’t really know when I started to like the show, if it happened between Damon saving Stefan and turning Vicky, or if it just started the last couple of weeks, but there you have it.

In this episode, Bonnie is being haunted by her ancestor Emily, who keeps taking her in her dreams to where the old church used to be.  Although at the time I thought it was the old Salvatore house, it was later explained it was the church.  Anyway, I assumed from pretty much the start that Emily had a connection to the Salvatore’s, and she did – she was Katherine’s maid back in the day.  And a witch.

Damon seems to have turned a slightly new leaf, he feels somewhat bad about killing Lexi, and disappointed that Stefan wants to leave Mystic Falls.  He tries to apologize with

I’m not going to feed on a human for…at least a…week

I really like Damon quite a bit, he is hilarious.  And Stefan pretends a little bit to be Damon, trying to get Damon’s evil scheme out of him.  I like Stefan much better when he’s pretending to be Damon too.  But honestly, Stefan isn’t quite as bad as he used to be either.  And he’s way less annoying than Edward Cullen.

There’s also a new teacher in town, and did any of you notice the ring he’s wearing?  If memory serves me correctly, it looks an awful lot like the ring Katherine wore so she could stay out in the day.  Basically from the moment I saw him and heard his name was Alaric, I was wondering if he was a vampire.  And since seeing the whole episode, I suspect he may be, since he sure acted like he couldn’t get into the Gilbert house.  Did y’all notice that?

The big reveal is Damon finally saying why he’s back in town, and how Bonnie’s crystal fits into it.  See, it turns out Emily gave the crystal to Katherine the night she died, and it has the power to bring Katherine back.  Emily possesses Bonnie and goes to destroy the crystal rather than fulfill her promise to Damon about Katherine.  Apparently, the spell worked that to save Katherine, Emily had to put all the vampires in a mystic prison thingie, so getting Katherine out would mean getting them all out.  She’s not willing to do it, so she destroys the crystal and therefore the way to get them back.

Damon is pissed about this, natch, so he bites Bonnie and the only way to save her is to have her drink vamp blood.  In this vampire world, she would have to die with Stefan’s blood in her system, so she is apparently safe as long as she doesn’t die.  I was going to give the show big props if they did kill Bonnie off, but they didn’t.  Which I’m kind of glad about honestly, cuz I like her.

At the end of the episode, Logan shows back up.  My question: Who turned him?

Stefan’s oldest friend Lexi shows up to celebrate his birthday!  She’s a half vegetarian vampire, she gets human blood supplied to her by some guy she dated, but doesn’t feed from actual people.  So Stefan is okay with her.

I think that the only reason Lexi really had a part in this episode was to provide a bit of reconciliation between Stefan and Elena.  Which is of course unreconciled again at the end of the episode.  Because what would possess these two to get along for more than five minutes anyway.

Lexi is not a fan of Damon, he accuses her of being mean to him, to which she says “Uh, have you met you?“  It’s pretty funny.

Damon continues to be sneaky with the townsfolk, getting close to the council of people who know about vampires and pretending to be a liaison between the council and Zack who is “out of town”, aka dead cuz Damon killed him.  He brings some vervane to the sheriff, and I am curious as to why no one apparently seems to wonder why the Salvatore family are the only people in town that have vervane.  Why didn’t Zack give some seeds or whatever to all the people on the council?  And isn’t it suspicious that they’re the only ones with it?  Whatevs.

As the viewers, we know that Elena looks just like Katherine, but I guess I forget that Elena herself doesn’t know this.  So she meets Lexi, who is totally confused because she didn’t know they looked alike either.  Lexi kind of gets mad at Stefan for this, saying he’s trying to link Elena to Katherine and stuff.  I dunno why he doesn’t just tell Elena “Oh, btw, you look like Katherine, just fyi.”  She’s gonna get mad when she finds out he never told her before, and Damon is probably the one who will tell her, and then she’s going to tell Stefan she can’t trust him again.

Also, Caroline tries to get the crystal back from Bonnie, but it shocks her like how it did Damon, and she says “Are you wearing polyester?“  If you had any doubts before, Caroline is totally the Cordelia Chase of this series.  Cept not as funny.  She also reminds me of Lisa Turtle.

Everyone in town goes to a party, again.  Is this Sweet Valley on the east coast?  These people are at parties every single episode I swear!  Anyway, while the party is going on, Damon eats some dude and glamours his girlfriend into thinking it was Lexi – it’s all part of his plan to make the council and everyone think the vampire threat is contained.

The authorities burst into the party, girl identifies Lexi, they shoot her up with vervane.  Cept I guess Lexi is so old it doesn’t *really* affect her, or maybe Damon gave them stale stuff, because as soon as they’re outside she vamps out and is totally going to eat the police lady, but then Damon stakes her!  Which is also part of the plan to make them all think he’s human.

Stefan is pissed, stakes Damon in the stomach, and the council assumes the vampire nightmare is over.  My question is: How does Damon plan to get away with his mayhem now?  He should really super speed run off to another town to feed, since he doesn’t appear to want Stefan to have to take the blame for it all, and obviously doesn’t want the blame himself.

At the end of the episode, Bonnie has this dream where she’s running and she sees Kendra the Vampire Slayer in the woods!  Cept it’s not actually Kendra, it’s just Bianca Lawson, playing Bonnie’s ancestor witch who used to own the crystal Bonnie now has.  As soon as I saw Bianca Lawson in the credits, I was hoping for some slayer action!  Alas, it is not…and Kendra is dead anyway.

The episode opens with Vicky attacking Tyler, and the Salvatore brothers manage to get there just in time to save him.  I am confused by Damon’s participation, because he is all about Vicky drinking human blood so I totally don’t get why he helps Stephan stop her this time.  And then glamour’s the memory away for Tyler.  Who calls him dude, so Damon says “Dude?  Come on!  Dude?”

Elena goes to visit Stefan, who leaves her alone with Vicky.  This just seems like a terribly bad idea, he keeps saying how Vicky is volatile right now, yet he leaves the girl he loves alone with her?  Naturally, it doesn’t go well, but Vicky doesn’t kill her so I guess that’s something.

Vicky is also upset that she can’t go out in the daytime, I’m not sure why she didn’t think about this before she decided to transition, but whatever.  Damon takes her outside and tells Stefan, “I’m not taking her to Disneyland, we’re going in the front yard.“  Cept Vicky uses her super speed to take off, ends up going home, and I think almost eating her brother.  Basically, the whole episode is about what a mess she still is.

Damon spends some time with the mayor’s wife, talking about vampires and stuff, and we find out that although the council knows there are vampires in Mystic Falls, they don’t know who the vampires are.  Which I find really bizarre because they also know Zack Salvatore, but don’t know his ancestors are vampires?  It just seems weird.  Mayor’s wife is also wearing a bracelet with vervane in it, so Damon learns they are trying to get more vervane from Zack to protect a bunch of people.

The school is having a Halloween party, which is pretty much where the entire town ends up, natch!  We learn the crystal that Damon took from the box at the Founder’s Party actually originally belonged to Bonnie’s ancestors, and it burns Damon when he tries to take it from her.  This crystal is possibly the most interesting thing on the show, aside from Damon himself.

So at the party, Vicky meets up with Jeremy, and kind of starts to feed on him cuz she bites his lip and he bleeds.  She can’t control herself!  Elena comes to save the day, but by this point Vicky is super mad and doesn’t really have feelings for Elena, so she essentially goes on this mini quest to kill her – Elena gets a wound in her side, and Vicky bites her shoulder.  Stefan rushes in and stakes Vicky, fulfilling my dreams to get rid of her, cuz she was annoying.

All the while, Jeremy was watching and of course is freaked out, so Damon glamour’s him into thinking Vicky left town and isn’t coming back.  Thus, the vampire secret is safe as Elena is the only one who knows.  She also reveals she wishes she could forget it all, but she doesn’t want to lose the way she feels about Stefan, so chooses to keep all the knowledge.

Personally, Elena is starting to bug too, cuz I want some consistency.  I either want to know that it’s been weeks since the end of the last episode, or that Elena has done more soul searching or whatever to determine she wants to be with Stefan after all.

I recently read that there will be a vampire slayer visiting Mystic Falls, so I am obviously curious about that.  Maybe it will be Buffy!

This is the episode I have been waiting for, the one where Stefan tells Elena the truth.  She’s half freaked out, but also wants to know more, and who could blame her.  Unless you’re The Chosen One, vampires aren’t exactly the status quo.

It’s also a bit of a history episode, which as you may remember, I kind of like.  I want to know the history of individual vampires, I find it more fun to see what they were like as humans and how they’ve changed over the however many hundreds of years they’ve been alive.  In the flash backs, Damon seemed happier, Stefan is not quite so broody, and Nina Dobrev isn’t really any better as Katherine than she is as Elena.  What’s that you say?  You think she’s doing a good job?  Sorry, she bores me, she’s like Bella Swan but with a reason to be depressed.

Elena is all afraid of Stefan, but I ask this question: do the girls in these kinds of shows/books never read anything about vampires?  If Stefan wanted to kill or bite Elena, he probably would have by now.  Or rather, if that was his only goal, he would have.  Same with Damon.

Also, what is wrong with Stefan, waiting on the front porch for Elena rather than watching her sleep?  Oh wait, he’s not Edward Cullen, I forgot for a second.

We also learned that Vicky did not in fact die at the end of the last episode when Damon bit her.  He seemed a little surprised as well, but took her home for entertainment during the daylight, as he still does not have his gem of amara.  For the record, I have no idea what is in the Salvatore’s rings (or Katherine’s, for that matter) that makes it so they can be out in the sun.  But on Buffy, they had a ring called the Gem of Amara, so that’s what I’m calling these rings until I get an explanation.  Also, does every vampire in this universe have one?  I’m only asking because every vampire we’ve met so far has…

Okay, so Vicky is back at the Salvatore house, Damon is bored cuz she is all drained of blood and tired, so he lets her drink his blood.  It seems each becoming a vampire process is a little different, so in this one basically the vampire drinks the humans blood, the human drinks the vampires blood, human dies, then wakes up and has to feed on a human or else dies all the way.  So I’m sure you see where this is going…pretty much as soon as I saw Vicky drinking Damon’s blood I thought “aw, shucks” since I have mentioned my dislike of her.  My hope is she becomes more interesting once she transitions.

At the end of the last episode, the reporter dude managed to get the pocket watch from Jeremy’s room, which is apparently a magic vampire hunting compass.  What I would like to know is if this is the case, how did it end up in the hands of the Gilbert family who seem to know nothing about it?  Or were the Gilbert parents supposed to tell the kids about the baddies who sometimes visit Mystic Falls, but then the died before they ever could?

I also mention again…don’t any of these vampire hunter people recognize the Salvatore’s?  Remember the Founders Party, where both Salvatore brothers were wandering around?  You would think someone who knows they are vampires would have seen them.  Plus, they still have a house in town, or at least their descendants do.  Maybe check there first?

Back to the magic compass.  Reporter dude uses it and it guides him to Stefan, who is trying to help Vicky because she’s all confused.  He shoots Stefan with a wood bullet, and is gonna stake him, but hesitates just long enough for Damon to swoop in and bite him.  I’ll presume he died.  As Damon is digging the wood bullet out of Stefan and remarking that the townsfolk know, Vicky feeds on dead reporter dude, thus completing the necessary steps.  Ruh roh!

We are left with Stefan being all broody cuz Elena has decided she can’t be a part of his life, and Elena is crying because I guess she loves him.  But we all know that they are going to end up spending time together, because there are only two places to hang out in Mystic Falls.

Damon is still locked up in the basement, and we learn that Stefan took his ring so he can’t go in the sun.  Stefan explains that the idea is to starve Damon to…well, not death, but to the point where he is not a threat to anyone because he’ll be like a mummified vampire or something.  I can’t help but think that in all likelihood, Stefan would save himself a whole lot of trouble if he’d just toss Damon into the sun at this point.

Mind you, as much as I talk about how Stefan should use this opportunity to destroy Damon, I don’t actually want him to.  Damon is what makes this show remotely worth watching.  Stefan is boring, like Edward Cullen, while Damon is exciting…like Angelus.  And witty, he has the best dialog on the show!

Damon is obviously going to try to escape, so I don’t get why there’s no lock on the door to the room he’s in.  There’s a little slot thingie to keep it shut, and in Damon’s weakened state I guess he can’t break it, but you would think that Stefan would lock the damn door and keep the key on his person.  If he were smart.  Because Zack gets tricked into going down there because Damon is coughing, and the only thing that saves Zack from dying is Stefan’s timely intervention.  It’s so good his vampire instincts kick in!

I don’t know if it’s just that Stefan has forgotten what it’s like to eat people, or if he never mastered his powers, but before too long, Damon goes all calling to Caroline to help him escape.  And it’s like Stefan didn’t see this coming, because there are no precautions against her letting him out.  Stefan isn’t even paying close attention to her!

So Damon gets out, kills Zack, and goes to chase after Caroline but because Stefan has the gem of amara ring, Damon is stuck in the house.  But since there are only so many hours of daylight, Damon gets out eventually and we can assume kills Vicky this time.  Which is fine by me because she’s annoying.  Hopefully Jeremy will flip out and either become a bad ass vampire slayer (without all his current whining), or just goes away.  He bugs me.

Bonnie continues to light things on fire with her mind, this time a car instead of a harmless candle.  Fortunately, Stefan is there to break her out of the trance.  I actually like her powers, I think it’s interesting to have a witch on the show, cuz I think if you’re going to go vampires, go all out and make it totally paranormal.

In the meantime, Elena goes all investigative journalist on Stefan’s ass and figures out that he’s wicked old.  Doesn’t seem like she actually figures out he’s a vampire, it’s more like a Bella Swan “I think he is but I’m not totally positive without his confirmation” kind of vampire thought process.  Anyway, the episode ends with her confronting Stefan as he’s got a stake in his hand, ready to go chase after Damon.

If Stefan doesn’t just flat out tell her at this point, he is insane.  With Damon back on the loose, and presumably really angry, Elena is going to have to find a way to uninvite him.  Also the town watch people are still on the hunt for the Salvatore’s, so hopefully we see more of that too.