Naughty or Nice? – A Recap of The Vampire Diaries’ “Fifty Shades of Grayson”

A Very Merry Christmas from your friends at Augustine!

Seasons Greetings, Fangbangers!  In this month of fat men slithering down small chimneys and giving you presents, while stealing your cookies and milk . . . a time when elves (I believe the appropriate term now is “little people”), work tirelessly, without the benefit of vacation time or a health care plan, to build Little Janey her iPad or Kindle Fire, much discussion will inevitably be had over the concept of “Naughty or Nice.”

Were you a good girl or boy, this year?

How exactly is something like that measured?  Does “Santa” take an average of all of our deeds, and draw up some complex mathematical computation, where the difference between good or evil is merely a hundredth of a decimal point?  Is it merely enough that you’ve been well behaved, this week?   This month?  That even if you’ve been naughty in the past, you promised to do better next time, and really meant it?

Or are there actions in this world that are considered to be so evil, that they will land us irredeemably on the Naughty List for life, no matter how hard we try to repent?

Vampire series (and, really, shows starring antiheroes as the main protagonist, in general) grapple with this issue all the time.  How far can a writer push the misdeeds of her main character, before fans find themselves simply unable to empathize with him or her?  Let’s see, over the course of TVD’s five season history, we’ve seen . . .

Damon murder Jeremy, because Elena rejected his romantic advances . . .

Katherine feed Jeremy to Silas, just so that she could steal the cure to immortality and use it as a bargaining tool with Klaus.  (Poor Jeremy, are we noticing a pattern here?)

We’ve seen Klaus murder an entire line of hybrids he, himself, sired, stake his siblings countless times just because they were kind of mean to him, kill Useless Aunt Jenna, Tyler’s mom, and that annoying female werewolf whose name I no longer remember . . .

And we’ve watched Stefan eat his own father and murder thousands of innocent humans as the Ripper of Monterrey.

And yet, season after season, we forgive these monstrous vampires.  We invite them into our homes.  (A very bad idea, as vampire lore will tell you.)  We root for them to fall in love, get the girl, vanquish their enemies, and live Happily Ever After.

But if these were our real family and friends, could we be so forgiving?  If those were our relatives who they bludgeoned?  Our lovers who they remorselessly slew?

Maybe . . . but probably not.

“Fifty Shades of Grayson” delves into that concept wholeheartedly . . . the idea of being completely and utterly beyond redemption.  And by the end of the episode, some of our favorite characters find themselves stuck on the much-despised Naughty List (Do not Pass Go.  Do not collect a MacBook Air.) possibly for . . .  ALL ETERNITY.

Let’s review, shall we?

Damon . . . SMASH!

True story.  When I was about 9 years old, I was cast as the Wicked Queen in my day camp production of Snow White.  During the scene where (SPOILER ALERT), the Queen learns from her Magic Mirror that the Huntsman didn’t really kill Snow White, and her Highness is still not the prettiest girl at the party, I had to say the line, “I’ve been cheated!”

In our first rehearsal, I lent all my energy to this single line.  I stamped my foot.  I clenched my fist.  I scrunched up my face like I was constipated.  I jumped up and down like a raving loony.

The whole cast cracked up laughing.  The problem, of course, was that it wasn’t supposed to be a funny scene.  “The Wicked Queen wouldn’t act like that,” my Drama Teacher lectured me.  “She’s mature, dignified, and cunning.  She’s . . .”

Well . . . she’s Regina from Once Upon a Time, basically.

But try as I might, I just couldn’t say the line “I’ve been cheated,” without sounding like a nine-year old who just had her Barbie doll taken away from her, because that’s what I was!  Eventually, the Drama Teacher gave up on me entirely.  So, on the day of the performance, I huffed, and I puffed, and I stamped, and I screamed, and I gave the temper tantrumiest “I”VE BEEN CHEATED,” of my VERY, VERY short-lived acting career.

(The next summer, in our camp production of Grease, I was given the role of the school custodian.  I stood in the back of two scenes with a mop.  I had no lines.  Not sure why . . . )

So, why am I telling you this?  Because that’s what Damon reminds me of, whenever he gets angry and starts taking out his aggression on harmless pieces of furniture . . . You guys all remember the Soap Dish Incident, right?

“I’VE BEEN CHEATED!”

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not denigrating Ian Somerhalder’s acting in any way.  Crazy Temper Tantrum Damon is super hot, while still being kind of hilarious!  And my Drama Teacher was totally off base about my interpretation of the Wicked Queen .  . . just saying.

And that’s precisely where we find Damon in the cold open of “Fifty Shades of Grayson,” hulking out on his poor defenseless Augustine Vampire cage . . .

Eventually, he manages to break a piece of rock off the wall.  He uses that rock to “chisel,” Aaron’s forgotten vampire bullet from the previous episode into the lock on his cage door, busting it open . . .

The idea is so clever in its simplicity that it kind of makes you wonder why neither Damon nor Enzo bothered to think of it at any time during the many, many, many nights they sat together in their cell with nothing to do but await their daily dose of torture and STARE AT WALLS.  I mean, think about it, we saw two Escape from Alcatraz Augustine plans in action here.  The first one involved HANGING OUT FOR A YEAR, and then being faced with hundreds of party people, any of whom could possibly kill you dead (or light you on fire), as you tried to escape.  The second one involved, five minutes of wall punching that might hurt your fingers a little bit . . .

Which would YOU choose?

Anywhoo . . . Damon escapes Chez Augustine with both his humanity and his pretty face still refreshingly intact.  Huzzah!

The Morning After Bitter Pill

I’m not going to lie.  Katherine’s post coital wake up scene may very well have been my favorite one of the entire episode, which is odd considering it was also probably the least tangential to the ongoing plot.

Source

There’s a scene in Bridget Jones Diary where Bridget wakes up after a night of earth shatteringly brilliant sex with Darcy, only to be faced with the harsh reality, that being in a real relationship means that your boyfriend will eventually have to see what you look like in the morning naked . . . There she is staring at herself in the mirror, as she really is . . . without all the makeup, the hair product, the perfume, the cute clothes, and the spanx to hide her “wobbly bits” . . . without the benefit of a liquor-induced haze, or the moonlight, or the passion that drives us human animals to screw first, and think later.   She sees her image, and is terrified that when Darcy sees the Real Her, he’ll fall instantly out of love.

We’ve all experienced this type of insecurity at one time or another.  But Katherine Pierce never had.  She always had the perfect figure, was disarmingly sexy, perpetually youthful, in stellar shape, and the object of every man’s desire.  And on the rare occasion when a man she coveted didn’t willingly throw himself into her bed, Katherine had the power to snatch his free will and make him do it, anyway.

For the first time in 500-some odd years, Katherine is finding herself in the rest of our shoes.  She wakes up in the morning next to Stefan Salvatore and is positively thrilled with her good fortune, that someone like him, a vampire, young, strong, hard in every sense of the word, would want HER, a mere human.  But all that happiness comes crashing down, when she finds a grey hair on her pillow.  Suddenly, she’s Bridget Jones . . . petrified that Stefan will see her in her grey-haired vulnerability, and discard her, not because she’s selfish, manipulative, and kind of evil (That, she could handle.), but because she’s OLD!

Source

Cue the usually graceful Katherine merely falling over herself, as she drapes herself in a comforter, and tumbles out of the room, like a child dressed up as a ghost for Halloween . . .

It’s little moments like these that remind me why I first fell in love with this show . . .

At the door, Damon runs into the fleeing Katherine, and feigns nausea over the fact that she just boned his brother.  But we all know Damon would (and has) totally hit that . . .

The Bride of Damon-stein

Speaking of girls who look like Nina Dobrev, Elena’s morning after is far more bitter and far less sweet than Katherine’s.   She awakens strapped to a gurney to find Dr. Death, draining all the blood out of her body while babbling on about it into that annoying dictaphone of his.

Source

You know as Big Bads, the Augustine Folks were pretty decent . . . locking up vampires . . . torturing them  . . . turning them on one another as weapons of mass destruction?  Scary.

But as Mad Scientists?  These guys kind of suck . . .

Before Elena passes out again, Dr. Death proudly informs her that he’s been performing the exact same experiments on her that her father performed on vampires, back when she was a little girl, and that Dr. Whitmore performed on Damon back in the 50’s.  70 years of experimentation . . . and they are still repeating the exact same experiments over and over and over again.

Take blood from a vampire, see how long it takes for them to pass out . . . OOOH!

Electrocute a vampire, see how loud he screams . . . AAAH!

Cut a vampire, watch that vampire heal . . . YAY!

And all of this to discover what teenyboppers who read Twilight figured out on page 10.  Vampire blood can heal human ailments . . . pretty much all of them.

In other words, Augustine is basically the scientific equivalent of a cat chasing its tail, and a hamster running on that infernal wheel . . . mental midgets with mean streaks, wearing lab coats.

No wonder Damon wanted to fry all their asses . . .

But poor Elena!  Her gene pool just keeps getting murkier and murkier, doesn’t it?  Now, it seems like her Adoptive Father (actual Uncle?) may have sucked as a human being just as badly as her actual father did . . . torturing vampires in a basement for years, all in the name of pseudo science.  At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if, by Season 8, we learned that Elena is somehow related to Hitler too . . .

In which Katherine Pierce endures the HORRORS of exercise . . .

Speaking of mean people distantly related to Elena, Katherine has decided that the cure to sickness and inevitable death is not medicine or science, but drinking Kale and exercising!  (Since when did Katherine Pierce become a Scientologist?)

Source

Once again, Katherine’s mortality brings a refreshing dose of comedy to the hour, as Personal Trainer Matt wryly (but politely, as always) gets personal pleasure out of Katherine’s workout pain and general lack of physical fitness.  To add insult to injury, Matt even calls Katherine’s “long lost” daughter, i.e. the person responsible for getting Matt temporarily possessed by the dude who sounded like the bad guy from Rocky and Bullwinkle to slap Mommy Dearest around a bit for trying to kill herself, without even bothering to send her baby vampire girl a Hallmark card.

But fear not, Doppelganger Lovers!  Mini-Katherine has a plan!  If Katherine’s own body is dying, why not simply “borrow” someone else’s?  It worked for Rocky and Bullwinkle Villain guy, right?  I mean, he lasted an entire two extra episodes before someone killed him again, didn’t he?

This sounds like a truly excellent, fail safe plan, right?

Katherine’s not quite buying into the possession idea, either.  She likes looking like Nina Dobrev, dammit!   Even if it’s “old” Nina Dobrev with a bit of grey food coloring in her hair!  And if the choice is between (1) dying a horrible painful death, and (2) living, but looking slightly less attractive while doing it, we all know which option Katherine’s going to choose.

 . . . but only if survival = looking pretty and f*&king Stefan . . .

Besides, Katherine just started boning Stefan again!  She’s not going to let a little thing like her impending demise keep her from getting a few more rides on that Wild Stallion .  . . No sir.

“Nice knowing you, Mini-Me,” Katherine says,  more or less.  “See you in Hell!”

Hostage Aaron Hangs with Hungry Vampires . . . Hilarity Ensues

Having left baby bro Stefan in the dark for 70 years about the whole “Augustine” thing, Damon is forced to be a bit cagey with his brother regarding the missing Elena’s whereabouts.  Fortunately for Damon, Stefan and his hero hair are always suckers for a damsel in distress, and are willing to come along for the ride with pretty much no questions asked.

You know how I know Aaron is going to fit in just fine on this show?  Because literally a few hours ago, the character learned that he (1) comes from a long line of vampire torturing mad scientists; (2) that a vampire has been systematically killing everyone related to him; and (3) that pretty much all the friends he met at college are either vampires or were murdered by vampires (sometimes both).  He also just shot a vampire, who he presumed to be dead.  That’s a lot of information for any normal human being to absorb.  And yet, when Damon and Stefan find Aaron he’s . . . chilling out listening to some tunes and reading his Chemistry textbook, like its just another boring day on campus.

“Um, do you think you could wait about two minutes before you kill me?  I was listening to a really good song.”

Even when it becomes pretty clear that Salvatore Squared are holding him hostage, so that Dr. Death will turn over Elena.  And they will very likely kill him whether Dr. Death complies with this request or not, Aaron just takes it all in stride.  “I thought I killed you.  Why aren’t you dead?”  Aaron asks boredly of the murderous vampire who he shot in the head with a bullet.

“You shot me in the head.  You should have aimed for the heart.  Aim for the heart, next time,” Damon scolds, playfully wacking his would-be murderer on the noggin.

Aaron just shrugs off his botched attempted murder of the guy who brutally savaged both his parents.  “Oops.”

I want to learn what kind of anti-anxiety / anti-depressant medication this kid is on . . . and I want a prescription.

Dr. Death agrees to make a trade of Aaron for Elena in some abandoned classroom.  But when the threesome arrive there, they find no Dr. Death, and no Elena. (The trouble with having no personality and being emotionally vacant, Aaron, is that it makes people who supposedly love you kind of ambivalent about saving your life . . .)

The rendezvous is not a total bust, though.  At least it gives Damon the opportunity to “reconnect” with blast from the past, Enzo.

Enzo’s Ill-Conceived and Ultimately Ineffective Revenge

Source

Good ole, Enzo!  When we last met him in flashback land, he was jolly, hopeful, and downright bromantic.  He loved Damon in the way a dude loves the only other dude he gets to speak to in 70 plus years, who isn’t repeatedly cutting him open on an operating table and electrocuting him for sh*ts and giggles.  He was also pretty darn easy on the eyes, as is the requirement of every male with a speaking part on this show . . .

Personally, I liked that the Enzo we met in present day, was a bit less charming, and a bit more unhinged.  Unlike his fellow guest star, Aaron, this guy is seriously PISSED OFF at the sucky hand he’s been dealt.  And it’s totally understandable.  I mean, who wouldn’t be a little wackadoodle after spending almost a century as a mad scientists life-sized version of the game Operation?

They have pretty much the same haircut.  But Enzo has much better abs . .  .

It’s Enzo who finally fills in both Stefan and Aaron into the specifics of Damon’s betrayal at the Augustine compound, while standing at the podium of the otherwise abandoned classroom, like a frustrated professor whose students just don’t give two craps about his lecture.   Poor Enzo!  He doesn’t realize he’s rehashing the exact same flashback we all saw last week on The Vampire Diaries.  Dr. Death should really considering getting ole Enzie a cable hookup in his cell.  Problems like this could be avoided.

“This class sucks.  I’m totally dropping it next semester.”

Having given up on educating his “students,” Enzo dismisses both Stefan and Aaron to go back to Aaron’s dorm room in search of information that might be helpful in locating Elena.  Damon, however, is given detention!  No Save Elena Games for him!  Not today.  It’s time for the Elder Salvatore to accept his punishment for being such a sh*tty friend to a fellow hot person . . .

You see, when Dr. Death set Enzo free, it was with a pretty significant catch.  He injected the vampire with a dessication agent.  So, Enzo was dying and could only get healthy if he returned to the compound to get the antidote.  And he could only get the antidote if he killed Damon.

Ruh-roh!

Sucks for you, Enzo!  Damon’s the main character on this show!  It looks like you’ve been set up for failure.  (See, a little TV viewing would have gone a long way in this instance.  Damon has just enough time to kindly inform Enzo he’s “just not that into him,” before the sexy broody vamp goes all stiff and veiny.

Elsewhere on Campus . . .

Aaron is having slightly better luck at weaseling his way into the heart of a Salvatore Brother.  When Stefan gets the idea, that Aaron has dishonestly lured the younger Salvatore Bro back to his dorm room, just to break free from his clutches, Stefan pulls the ole homoerotic Slam the Other Hot Boy Against the Wall trick that all the teen shows are trying these days.

“Just kill me,” Aaron challenges.  “I’m basically already dead.  Damon has been murdering my whole family.  And, assuming I don’t have another long lost relative out there somewhere to carry on the Whitmore name, he’s probably going to kill me too.  So, do it first, and don’t give him the satisfaction.”

Clever boy, that Emotionally Empty Aaron!  He somehow intuited that Stefan Salvatore is a sucker for the pathetic and suicidal.  And that little piece of psychoanalytics ended up saving his life.  “We aren’t all like my brother,” Vampire Civil Rights Activist Stefan explained before removing his hands from around Aaron’s neck.

How very Season 1 of True Blood, Bill Compton, of him!

As it turns out, Aaron wasn’t lying about having information in his “diaries” that will save Elena.  And so Savior Stefan runs off to the evil lab to rescue his princess.

And just in time too (maybe).  You see, Dr. Death had just stabbed Elena with an elixir that would basically turn her into a Ripper for Vampire Blood, rendering her an instant danger to pretty much her entire Scooby Gang.  Elena then knocks Dr. Death unconscious, moments before Stefan saves her.  But as she leaves, she stupidly grabs her father’s medical diaries instead of the syringe itself, so we have no way of knowing whether she ingested enough of the vampire eating drug for it to have an impact on her.

To add further insult to injury Enzo too, may or may not have been turned into a Ripper for Vamp Blood when Damon “rescued” him by stabbing him with every syringe in Dr. Death’s office, until one of them woke him up.  (You would think an anal retentive guy like Dr. Death would have a better labeling system for his vampire pharmaceuticals.

Source

Life saved or no life saved, Enzo is still not quite ready to forgive and forget Damon’s humanity free abandonment of his ass back in the 50’s.  “You will always be a monster,” says the vampire who killed Elena’s adorable guest star roommate with glasses.

Well, ain’t that the pot calling the kettle a fanger?

In which Damon once again decides Elena is “too pure” for him (Shower, Rinse, Repeat) . . .

Here we go again . . . back at La Casa de Rich and Awesome, Elena excitedly tells Damon that, even though her father was a sadistic vampire torturer, he wasn’t so bad because, at least according to his diaries, he used vampire blood to save Elena’s roommate from immediate death, as a result of congenital heart failure.  (Instead, she suffered horrifically painful, eaten alive, and subsequently tossed out window death, by Enzo the Hungry Vampire, eight years later.  HOORAY!)

(I kind of see a resemblance?  Same name too . . .)

Damon thinks Elena is being a pain in the ass Pollyanna, because she consistently sees the good in all people, even when they do things that make them irredeemably sh*tty.   And so for the 85,000 time since the series started, Damon dumps Elena “for her own good,” because “he’s a bad person, who is incapable of redemption,” and “he’s tired of her having to make excuses for him,” and “fate says she should be with Saint Stefan, blah de blah blah.”

OK, OK . . . now, I know I sound like I’m just being sour grapes, because I’m a Delena fan, and I’m pissed that the writers went and sank my ship.  But that’s not it, really!  You see, the thing is, I loved Damon’s “you’re too good for me” speech, back when he said it in Season 2, and compelled Elena to forget it shortly thereafter . . .

And when he said it again, at the end of Season 2, when he was dying and Elena was caring for him in what she truly believed would be his final hours on Earth. . .

Or in Season 4, where Elena FINALLY chooses Damon, not because of some creepy sire bond, but because she loves HIM, in spite of all the crappy things he said about himself just moments before she excitedly and romantically raped his face with her tongue . . .

I loved all of these scenes.  And I suspect I would have loved this one too, in spite its inherent sadness, in spite of it spelling the death knell for my ship, if I hadn’t seen it in its different (arguably better) iterations, at least three times before.

Yes, we get it, Damon is a “Bad Guy.”  He’s done “Bad Things.”  He believes himself to be “Bad for Elena,” despite the fact that he loves her wholeheartedly, and has, pretty much, since the middle of Season 1 of this series.  We know this.

What I don’t understand is what is it about Damon’s recalling that he screwed over Enzo, of all the millions of bad things he’s done (and Stefan has done too, mind you) that made him decide to break things off with Elena, despite the fact that the plot dictated that it was “Stefan’s turn” to have her.  What did the season finale change fundamentally about Damon’s relationship with Elena?

Nothing!  There’s no longer any sire bond.  Damon and Elena both currently have their humanity in tact.  Neither of them is dying, or racing for the cure, or running from Klaus.  So, basically, Damon dumped Elena because  . . . what?  He is tired of her justifying his bad behavior . . . just like she justified the bad behavior of her father . . . just like she justifies the bad behavior of Stefan and everyone else on this show . . . just like all the fans of this show (myself especially) do, every week?

It just seems like a pretty crappy reason to break up with someone you supposedly love more than life itself.  But that’s just me . . .

But hey, maybe I’m being too harsh.  Maybe I should trust that the writers know what’s right for this ship . . . for these characters . . . for this show . . . in the long run . . .

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Why the Dying Should NEVER Wear High Heels on Steep Staircases . . .

In other rejection news, despite her fantasies to the contrary, Katherine’s impending Date with Death is not enough to make Stefan forgive her for breaking his heart, pretty much ruining his relationship with his brother for 100 plus years, and being the series’ Big Bad for a Season and a half.  “I’m sorry you’re dying,” Stefan tells an increasingly grey-haired Katherine, as he holds her hand like it’s a consolation prize.

Source

Yikes.  Talk about “He’s just not that into you.”

When not even  IMPENDING DEATH garners you an ounce of sympathy from your crush, you just know wedding bells are out of the question.  And so Katherine decides that a little body swapping might not be such a bad idea . . .  She calls her Mini-Me to tell her the good news.

Annnnnnnnnnd then she has a heart attack (?) and tumbles down the steps . . .

Source

Here’s hoping her next body owns at least one pair of sensible shoes.

Until next time, Fangbangers!

[My website] [My store] [My Fanfiction]

Jailbait – A Recap of The Vampire Diaries’ “The Cell”

Cannibalism never looked this good  . . .

Greetings Fangbangers!  This week’s installment of The Vampire Diaries explored the many ways in which humans (and vampires) can be prisoners . . .

“Is it Friday yet?”

They can be literal prisoners, locked in jail cells and deprived of freedom, like Damon, Sexy New Latin Lover Enzo (played by newcomer Michael Malarkey . . . mama like . . . . A LOT), and later Elena, were to those wackjob sadists fondly referred to as “Augustine” . . .

Source

“On the bright side, conjugal visits just became much more convenient.”

They could be prisoners of their own bodies and mortality, like the supposedly-rapidly-decaying-and-dying-but-still-looks-frustratingly-stunning-sexy-and-wrinkle-free Katherine Pierce . . .

Wait until she learns that humans actually gain weight  . . .

They could be prisoners of their sorry fate and unfortunately evil legacy, like that eternal sad sack, who makes Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh,  look downright cheery,  Aaron Whitmore . . .

Source

“It’s not like my day could get any worse.”

And they could be prisoners of their own minds, like good ole “my girlfriend dumped me for my brother, and my face twin, locked me in a safe at the bottom of a river, hence all the screaming, hyperventilating and crying I’ve been doing lately,” Stefan . . .

“Dear WebMD, does Aspirin work on Vampires?”

Whatever your personal prison, you didn’t need to have vampire blood running through your brains to relate to at least one of the storylines of “The Cell,” which, as a refreshing change from the uber complex mythology and whiplash fast repeated plot twists of “the Silas Storyline” actually worked pretty well as a standalone episode, with a focus on character motivation and basic interpersonal relationships that we haven’t really seen since the series’ heyday back in Season 2.

So break out your favorite trusty old safe (hopefully, you’ve sanitized it first), choke down your daily blood rations, and turn up the radio on that old classic 50’s tune,  because it’s time to “go a-walking after midnight” with this latest TVD recap . . .

La Casa de Rich and Slimy

No wonder, Damon never had any qualms about offing his ancestor Zach Salvatore back in Season 1 of TVD!  It seems these Salvatores have a pretty long history of familial betrayal . . . one that dates back at least as far as the early 50’s, when Some Random Salvatore used the now infamous Boarding House (where Damon and Stefan have been drinking, sexing up numerous women who look like Nina Dobrev, and brooding for the past five seasons) to lure a very James Dean-y version of Damon into a life of captivity and torture, all for “the good of science” and a bit of cash, of course.

When Damon found out about this betrayal (upon receiving a neck full of vervain for his trouble) he was less than pleased.

And so, he found a rather creative way to seek vengeance on his less-than-trustworthy relative: death-by-whiskey-glass.  Granted, this form of death is not quite as visually appealing, as a good old-fashioned heart-extraction-from-chest-and-subsequent-tossing-of-heart-on-floor-like-it’s-a-piece-of-lint-on-your-shirt, but it will do in a pinch.

“This whiskey tastes funny.  Perhaps, it has something to do with the rim of the glass having just been inside my great, great, great grandson’s carotid artery . . .”

Enter Dr. Whitmore . . .

Psycho sadist by day, douchebag who wears a pocket square by night . . .

He’s thrilled that Death-By-Whiskey resulted in a surprise discount on his Vampire Pin Cushion purchase, but bummed that his test subject is still awake.  Fortunately, a bit more vervain will fix that right up .  . .

Back in  the present day, Damon finds himself once again, a P.O.W. (Prisoner of Whitmore).  Only this time, fashions have changed (he’s wearing a black shirt instead of a white one), and vampire jail is much lonelier without a super sexy guest star in the next cell with which to shoot the breeze.  Fortunately for Damon, company is on the way . . .

“Black is the new black.”

“Sorry all your friends and family died.  But let’s talk about me for a change . . .”

It appears that one of the unfortunate side effects of being on a show where everybody’s sole point of interest and topic of conversation is you, is that you tend to become a wee bit self-absorbed . . .

“But enough about me, let’s talk about me.”

And because she is a victim of her own circumstances, I guess we have to cut Elena a bit of slack for KILLING JESSE one night, and popping up at his MASSIVELY DEPRESSED TO THE POINT OF BEING SUICIDAL former roommate’s dorm room the next morning, and asking him to come frolicking with her in search of her errant boyfriend.

Source

Someone needs to get her priorities in order.

Fortunately, for Elena, Sad Aaron is so desperate for non-brutally murdered people to befriend, that if he spotted a cockroach on his window sill, he’d probably invite it out for beers, and offer to be its wingman while it tried to pick up chicks . . .

And so he gallantly invites the only person on the show who is a bigger Grim Reaper than he is, over to his family mansion where, unbeknownst to him, his “guardian” is using Elena’s boyfriend to play a live action version of the beloved childhood game “Operation.”  (Just don’t remove his funny bone, Mmm-kay, Doctor Death.  We like our Elder Salvatore Brother sexy AND snarky.)

If you recall, the last time Elena was here, she had to hang out outside, because the owner of the house wasn’t around to invite her in.  This time, she dances around awkwardly, waiting for Aaron to do the polite thing, and let the female bloodsucker cross his threshold.

It’s at this point in the story that we learn (1) Aaron is a Whitmore, which means his dead family like TOTALLY owns the college; (2) Elena’s dad may or may not have been in league with the nefarious Augustines; and (3) Doctor Death became Aaron’s legal guardian, after the death of his last living relative Useless Aunt Jenna Aunt Sarah.

We interrupt this trip down Plot Twist lane, so that Elena can get stabbed in the neck with a vervain syringe . . .

(Personally, I prefer the good old fashioned neck snap for characters who need a “temporary time out,” but I guess this will do, in a pinch.)

Another Fail “Safe” Plan

Back at La Casa de Rich and Awesome, Stefan thinks writing about her problems in a diary will make Katherine want to kill herself less.

(Yeah, Stefan, because that worked SO WELL for you!)

Source

But Katherine has never really been much of a writer (or a reader) for that matter.   So, she tells Stefan he should stop focusing on Katherine’s suicidal tendencies and start trying to figure out why the same guy who ate his own father without flinching, now goes into girly hysterics every time he pictures an itty bitty box .  . .

I mean, I thought vampires were supposed to like coffins?

Katherine invites her new bestie Caroline over to shock Stefan out of his PTSD, by locking him in a safe, until he’s not afraid of  being there anymore.

She even brought her own trusty safe to use in Stefan’s treatment.  “But don’t worry,” she tells the seriously freaked out younger Salvatore brother.  “I sanitized it.”

Yes, Caroline, because germs have always been a vampire’s worst enemy . .  .

Stefan’s first run-in with the safe doesn’t exactly go well, in the sense that he’s throwing a full-on temper tantrum within minutes of getting inside.  (Can you imagine this guy in a tanning bed?  It would not be pretty.)

Katherine wonders out loud whether Stefan’s problem is not the safe at all, but rather, his pen*s.  This logic inspires in her a rather brilliant idea.  (Katherine not be particularly literary.  And she may never have enrolled in Psych 101, like Caroline.  But if she’s an expert in anything it’s Vampire Pen*s . . .)

“This one time .  . . in Augustine Vampire Jail . . .”

Finding themselves reunited in Vampire Jail with a sturdy wall of bars between them, Elena and Damon find themselves with a bit of time to kill.

And so, Damon decides to regale Elena about his zany prison adventures with a hot European soldier Vamp named Enzo.   You see, this isn’t Damon’s first time at the rodeo.  He’s been a vampire test subject once before.

(By the way, over 50 some-odd years of experimentation with the undead, and these guys are still doing things like testing vampire light sensitivity, and their ability to regenerate limbs?  Any teenager who has read Twilight  could tell you that.  Worst Medical Researchers EVER!)

Damon discusses how Enzo and him developed a friendship through the bars of their personal vampire prison, while chugging down a single shot glass of blood each day to keep themselves from desiccation.  While they took turns being brutally tortured by that icy cyborg Dr. Whitmore (charm cleary runs in this family), the two bonded over lost lady loves (Enzo’s was a benevolent researcher named Maggie), music (“I go a-walking . . . after midnight . . . out in the moonlight . . .lalala”), and their mutual hatred for all things Whitmore.  Time passed, until finally, after one New Years, the vampire bromantics finally devised a plan for their inevitable escape from Torture Town.

The plan involved Damon drinking both his and Enzo’s rations, and secretly growing stronger, over the course of a year, so that when the two were let out for the annual New Year’s party, Damon would be strong enough to free Enzo from the pokey, and the pair could live happily ever after . . .  literally . . . you know . . . because they are immortal and stuff . . .

A whole year, comprised of doing nothing but regularly submitting to torture and drinking shots of red stuff . . . talk about a LOOOOOOOONNNG CON.  (Though, honestly, it seems strange that Enzo wouldn’t have desiccated during that time, seeing as he was drinking nothing for an entire year, and the whole point of the rations was to keep both vampires alive and weak.)

Because Katherine Pierce is just kinky like that . . .

When this box is a rocking, don’t come a-knocking  . . .

Stefan opens his eyes in the Evil Box to find Katherine right next to him, sweating it out with him.  (Geez!  It’s a good thing Stefan isn’t claustrophobic.)  He freaks out, of course, threatens to kill her, gently chokes her, makes a big show of breathing heavily on her neck.  It’s supposed to be scary, but it’s kind of hot, and you can tell both parties are totally turned on by it . . .

Katherine explains to Stefan that his fear of safes is really just a sublimation of the feelings of abandonment he experienced when Elena dumped him for Stefan.  It’s some pretty high brow talk for a girl who’s used to speaking almost entirely in sexual innuendos!  Then, in a voice that’s oddly Elena like, Katherine gently reminds Stefan that she’s there for him.

This has the impact of giving Stefan a major boner, and making him temporarily forget that he’s locked in a death trap of a safe with a dying human blood bag.

 “Wakey, wakey!”

Caroline pops open the safe,  unfortunately cock blocking the hundred plus year-old flames before they have a chance to let the REAL healing begin.  But Stefan isn’t mad at his gal pal.  His PTSD is cured!

Source

Now if he could just find a remedy for these . . .

A little while later, Katherine confronts Stefan in the study, and lightly teases him about an ugly chair he broke, while in the throes of PTSD.  Stefan admits that he finally has to make a point to move on from Elena.  Katherine is uncharacteristically demure when she admits that sometimes she isn’t quite sure what she’s doing.   They move closer to one another slowly,  like boxers circling each  other, eyes locked, wondering whose going to be the one to make the first jab.  “My Superman” by Santigold plays in the background, reminding both characters that they’ve “got to live.”

Annnnd the, next thing you know they’re sucking face .  . .

Source

Part of me wishes we actually got to see a bit of the good stuff, rather than merely implying that the two characters were boning, by zooming in on Caroline’s horrified and disgusted face, as her vampire hearing picked up the sound of their sex moans,  while she was leaving a telephone message for the kidnapped Elena.  And yet, I guess there is something to be said for leaving a bit to the imagination.

After all, this “coming together” of Stefan and Katherine was actually much less about sexual tension (though they have it in spades, for sure), and more about them both being precisely what one another needed in that moment.  Stefan needed to recognize that his pain over Elena’s abandonment of him was keeping him metaphorically trapped, emotionally suffocated, and afraid of moving on with his life.  Katherine’s willingness to be there for him, when he needed it most, literally allowed Stefan to breathe inside that safe, and, subsequently feel freer than he had in a long time.

As for Katherine, her mortality and impending death were making her feel weak, old, and frail, sapping her of her usual survival instincts and will to live.   Seeing how much Stefan needed and wanted her, brought Katherine back to herself.  It made her feel, strong, sexy, and virile.  It gave her the desire to fight for her own survival.

Also, let’s face it, these are two people who REALLY like sex,  and haven’t been laid in a few episodes . . . so there’s that . . .

New Year’s Cleave

Back in flashback land, it’s New Year’s Eve and Damon and Enzo are prepped and ready for their great escape.  Everything starts off as planned.  Damon, emboldened by his extra shot of blood each day, breaks his own bones upon minutes of being let out of the cage, heals them, and then proceeds to pop out Dr. Whitmore’s eyeballs, just as Dr. Whitmore did to him early on in the episode.

You know, because no one gets between Damon and his darling baby blues . . . NO ONE.

Then he, takes the keys to the cages from Dr. Whitmore’s pants, frees hot Enzo and dashes off into the sunset.

Just kidding.  That would be the SMART thing to do.  Instead, Damon proceeds to kill all the party guests, knock over a candelabra, and set the entire place on fire.  Then, the bars are all hot, and Damon can’t save Enzo without becoming fried chicken in the process.  So, Damon does what any self-respecting antihero would do, he turns off his emotions, and walks out, leaving his buddy to chargrill.  Catch you later, Hot Enzo . . . who is now literally hot . . . as in BURNING TO DEATH HOT.

Source

“Cool guys never look back at explosions.”

And so yet another clueless human learns about the existence of vampires is and changed forever . . .

Back in the present day, Doctor Death gives Aaron an impromptu lesson in vampires . . . explains that vampires killed his parents  . . . and gives him a vervain watch and some lame vampire research journals as a belated birthday present.  Traumatized Aaron travels down to vampire jail to find out which member of the Scooby Gang killed his parents and possibly Megan.  He accuses Elena, at first.  WRONG!  (Though Elena DID kill Jesse, Aaron never quite gets around to asking her about that.)

“Et tu, human version of Eeyore?”

Damon admits that while he didn’t kill any of Aaron’s roommates, he did kill Aaron’s parents, and pretty much all of his ancestors, along with a boatload of Augustines.  In a brief flashback, we learn that Damon’s plan for vengeance against the Whitmores had been to kill everyone in their family but one, in each generation, to ensure that he would continue having Whitmore’s to kill for all eternity.  He better hope Aaron’s not sterile, because he just killed his last living relative Sarah, a few months back . . . when Damon and Elena had just started dating.

Ruh-roh . .  . it looks like, while love heals all wounds, it may not be strong enough to satisfy one’s thirst for vengeance . . . just ask Amanda Clark from Revenge.

What’s worse, many fans are speculating that Damon might very well have been the one to cause Elena’s parent’s accident, seeing as he was present moments before the accident occurred, and Elena’s father is currently presumed to have been a member of the Vampire Torture Fraternity.  Is there a Hallmark card out there that reads, “Sorry for maybe killing your parents, and for going on killing spree road trips, when you and I were supposed to be at home having mind blowing sex?  If so, Damon better start shopping for it now . . .

Aaron thanks Damon for his confession, by shooting him in the head.  Nighty night, Damon.

Source

He wakes up a few moments later to find his girlfriend missing from her cell . . .

Someone needs to get more music on his iPod . . .

When you think about it, it’s a bit ironic that the haunting oldies tune “Walking After Midnight,” of all tunes, was the one that played in the background throughout most of “The Cell,” especially when you consider how little walking our Scooby Gang did during this episode.  I mean, seriously, this might very well have been the least ambulatory episode of TVD of all time!  Everyone seemed to be either, locked up in jail cells, or lying down in safes, strapped down to examination tables, or dumbfoundedly watching others lay around, sit around, or lie around in those places.

How does that old saying go?  Something about idle hands being the devil’s playthings?

Well, the same thing could possibly be said about idles minds and mouths, if Enzo (Welcome back, Enzo!  We just knew you were too damn good looking and charismatic to be a one-off flashback character on this show.) and his creepy crooning of what may very well be the ONLY song he’s been listening to nonstop since 1953, while strapped down next to Poor!Elena on an examination table, waiting to get his weiner chopped off or some such nonsense in the name of pseudo-science-as-an-excuse-for torture.  Let’s all invest in an iTunes gift card for this guy for Christmas, what do you say?

That said,  it does appear that Doctor Death at least took the time to get Enzo a modern day haircut, and update his wardrobe.  (Though, to be honest, I was kind of partial to his greaser duds.  They were sexy.)  This, of course, begs the question: why bother to play dress up with a guy you only let out once a year to be your dancing monkey at parties?  Could Enzo be THE Augustine Vampire to which Doctor Death has been referring all this time?  The one who has become allegiant to the same society that tortured him for over half a century?   The one that killed sweet Megan and her adorable glasses?

Source

Only time will tell . . .

Next week, on The Vampire Diaries mid-season finale, Sad Sack Aaron learns that it’s hard out there for a relatively wimpy human on a show full of vampires.  Just ask Matt . . .

Also, next week, Katherine dabbles in some cardio . . .

See ya then, Fangbangers!

[My website] [My store] [My fanfiction]

Somebody That I Used To Know . . . – A Recap of The Vampire Diaries’ “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

Source

Greetings, Fangbangers!  It’s Remembrance Day over in Mystic Falls, which is convenient, considering that most of our Scooby Gang begin the episode empty-headed, clueless, and in need of some serious shots of Ginkgo-Baloba . . .

Let’s see we’ve got Stefan, who has “mysteriously” lost his memory, and suddenly finds himself under the delusion that he is the “fun brother,” who “gets the girl.”  WRONG and WRONG-ER . . .

Source

Matt sets up cameras all around the house, because he can’t, for the life of him, figure out why he loses time daily, and has developed a sudden fascination for ancient weapons, Russian vodka, and speaking in the voice of a cartoon super villain . . .

Elena truly believes that the best way to bring Stefan’s memory back is to remind him what a noble minded doormat he used to be, and how much his life currently sucks . . .

Bonnie very nearly succeeds in hiding her death by using the very same excuse my parents told me when I was two and my cat died, “She’s just on a really, REALLY, REALLY long vacation.”  (Then, she gets hypnotized by Jeremy’s abdominals into coming out of the closet as The Dead Chick.)

New guy, Jesse thinks there’s absolutely nothing weird about his professor instructing him to disrobe for a routine medical examination during “office hours.”  (Not that any of us are complaining . . .)

In short, 99.99% of the characters on this show are kind of dumb.

But that’s why we love them.

Let’s review, shall we?

Highway to Hell-o

Nothing says epic eternal bromance like an emo diary reading followed immediately by a massive car crash, while driving down a highway at midnight at 120 miles per hour . . .

Source

“Don’t worry about the car.  You can always compel yourself another one.”

I’d like to think that Damon’s decision to literally kill himself and Stefan was a slightly misguided scientific experiment based on the hypothesis that throwing his brother from a flaming automobile and banging his head into the pavement would physically snap the sense back into him . . .

Source

But if we’re being completely honest, I just think Damon was getting back at Stefan for referring to him as “the safe brother,” as opposed to “the fun one.”

Apparently, the elder (clearly more fun) Salvatore brother has never heard the age old saying, “kerosene and hot metal may incinerate my bones, but names will never hurt me . . .

Ultimately, the two blood-sucking-brothers walk away from their fatal car accident with nary a scratch on either of their delicately chiseled faces.  Unfortunately, Stefan remains as forgetful as ever  .  . .

Body of Evidence

Well, hello there, Steve McQueen’s abs!  We haven’t seen YOU in a few episodes . . .

I’ve never in my life been so jealous of an Oriental Rug . . .

“Well, don’t stop on my account,” demures Dead Bonnie, as she leers appreciatively at the unique bulge in her boyfriend’s pants that only seems to appear when he humps the floor mats of La Casa de Rich and Awesome.  (Hey, when you’re girlfriend’s a ghost who can’t touch you, you gotta get your kicks where you can, am I right?)

Jer Bear thinks that it’s high time the World’s Laziest Poltergeist (Seriously, girl is a “Powerful Witch,” whose been dead for months, and she hasn’t moved so much as a salt shaker!) come clean to her pals about the whole “dying thing.”  Bonnie concedes that the fact that she hasn’t answered any of the three-hundred e-mails Matt has sent her does make her seem like kind of a b*tch.  It also makes Matt seem like a major loser.  Get a hobby, Man!  Maybe that freaky dude that inhabits your body sometimes can help you out in that regard.  And death would at least give her a decent excuse for being such a crap friend . . .

Plus, TVD hasn’t had a funeral since last week.  They are LONG overdue!

Hex, Lies and Videotape

I suspect that Matt always dreamed that the first time he rigged video cameras up all around his house it would be to film a hot sex tape with Rebekah . . . or Caroline . . . or Elena, or any of the other girls who have unceremoniously dumped him before he got the chance to make YouTube history . . .

Instead, he’s doing it to catch in the act the foreign dude who occasionally hijacks his face to make out with hot chicks, dig up dead bodies, and generally just have a lot more fun than Real Matt ever gets to have on this show . . .

Source

And the cheese stands alone . . .

I have to admit, this one surprised me.  I was totally expecting Igor Von Bad Guy or whatever Matt’s “passenger’s” name is to cut the feeds on the video cameras, so Matt would be kept in the dark about his identity for at least a few more weeks.  Instead, he cavalierly sneers at the camera, and chats with Matt, while cutting the hand they both occasionally share.  More importantly, he warns him to protect that honestly-sort-of-lame looking pocket knife with the ridiculously dull blade that Matt always seems to find on hand whenever he wakes up from a vacation in Eastern European Supervillanea . . .

“Say hello to my little hand . . .”

Hey Igor Von Bad Guy, if you really want to protect your weapon, you might want to try putting it in a safe deposit box or something.  Because hiding it with the lamebrained bartender who regularly forgets where he parked his motor vehicle in the five-car parking lot of the Only Bar / Social Establishment in Mystic Falls is a surefire recipe for disaster . . .

Fight for your right to potty . . .

Speaking of the Only Bar / Social Establishment in Mystic Falls, that’s where Damon has taken Stefan on the next stop of his Misty Water-colored Memory Tour . . .

I guess I’d need a few of tequila shots in my system too, after I’d just been reminded about “that one time when I ate my dad,” and “those 5,462 times I ate other people.”

Since we are on the subject of nameless, faceless, human blood bags, whose hungry for some Tasty Waitress?

After slyly telling a recently-arrived Elena that he doesn’t remember her name, Stefan deftly excuses himself to follow Nameless Waitress into the restroom.  Come on, Stefan!  Hasn’t anyone told you you should poop where you eat . . . or eat where other people poop . . . or . . . well, you get the idea.

Source

Stefan’s Sexy Murder Monologue to the Compelled Waitress, made moments before he started chomping down on her neck like it was a piece of beef jerky reminded me of that OTHER time Stefan patiently psychoanalyzed himself before sinking his teeth into a damsel in distress.  Remember Miss Mystic Falls, ladies and gents?

Amnesia!Stefan may not remember his history right now, but he sure does seem doomed to repeat it . . .

Let’s face it.   No one really wants to meet their demise in a dingy public restroom.  And so Nameless Waitress has Damon Salvatore to thank for swooping in and preventing his little bro from finishing his Happy Meal.

The Salvatores wisely decide its time for a location change . . .

. . . and then stupidly decide to go to the cemetery, where an entire town of human blood bags just so happens to be camped out for the night . . .

It’s like bringing an obese man to Baskin Robbins, and thinking it will help him stay on his diet . . .

Thanks for the Memories, (B*tch)!

Having never exactly considered myself to be a small-town girl, I’ve always thought the majority of Mystic Falls’ “town social events” kind of lame.  I mean, Founder’s Day . . . snooze, Gone with the Wind screening . . . boring, Wickery Bridge Restoration Fundraiser . . . zzzzz.

It’s a good thing massive amounts of people always tend to die during these events, otherwise they’d be a total waste of time . . .

“Yay, senseless death!”

That said, I must admit that I could 100 percent get behind the idea of Remembrance Day . . . tying corpses hands to strings with bells on them, just in case they happen to have been mistakenly buried alive?  Staying up all night getting drunk in a cemetery, while reminiscing about the past?  AWESOME!

Unfortunately, Stefan’s on a diet.  So, he has to spend the evening locked away in a tomb with his countless dead relatives and former friends, most of whom, either he or his brother killed . . .

Source

While watching Damon and Stefan compare notes and rack up points for each family member they’ve eaten was amusing, a night of Amnesia Stefan sitting by himself in a tomb full of corpses would have been a lame way to spend Remembrance Day.  Fortunately, Elena pops up just in time to cocktease Amnesia!Stefan right back into Ripperdom . .  .  You go,  girl!

Things start out innocently enough. Elena takes Stefan back to Mystic Falls High School (You know that place they pretended to attend for four years, but only actually entered about once a year for those inevitably fatal Decade Dances?), where she forces him to recreate the moment when they first met by drowning in a river, and letting him save her, while systematically allowing both of her parents to die painful watery deaths bumping into her repeatedly outside the restroom.  (There were a suspicious amount of bathroom references in this episode . . .).

Source

Then, she takes him to the rooftop of the school, which actually has no past plot significance that I can remember, but I guess is a good a place as any to stare demurely into her formerly lovers eyes long enough for him to fall in love with her again, only so that she can inevitably rip his heart out, when she tells him (a) she’s just not that into him anymore; and (b) she’s boning his bro on a regular basis . . . AND LOVING IT.

“Look at me, pretending to be a bird.  Aren’t I adorable?”

Source

That revelation comes at the third stop of the Stelena Memory Lane Tour, which, not surprisingly, is the top of Wickery Bridge.  After casually explaining to Stefan how he once saved her life on Wickory Bridge, and once let her die, thereby causing her to become a vampire, Elena leans her face just a bit too closely into Stefan’s face and waits patiently to drop a bomb on his ass  . . .

Source

Now, Stefan may be amnesiatic, but he’s still a dude.  And dudes know a sexual overture, when they see one.  This time, he’s going to get to bite the girl, and she’s going to like it, dammit . . .

 . . . for sex . . . even though I don’t remember ever having any . . .”

Suave Stefan sweet talks his ex girlfriend a bit, telling her how her sex appeal seems to have miraculously sated his hunger . . . at least the hunger in his mouth . . .  Then, he goes in for a taste of his cure.

“I’m with Damon,” Elena warns preemptively . . .

Do not pass Go.  Do not collect $200.  Because Stefan Salvatore, you have just been DE-NIED . . . again . . .

Apparently, the fact that Stefan woke up to the sight of Damon and Elena making out, and they slept in the same bed together, wasn’t a big enough tip to Stefan that these two were boning on a regular basis.  Does having amnesia take away IQ points?

Feeling betrayed all over again by his brother and former lover, and hoodwinked by Elena’s ill-advised, poorly timed flirt fest, Amnesia!Stefan does what most of us do, when we’ve just been dumped and are feeling unattractive and unloved . . . he turns to food . . .

“Eating my feelings.”

Happy Hunting, Amnesia!Sort-of RipperStefan!

Because Caroline’s Dates Make for the Best Chew Toys!

The best way to get over someone, is to get under someone else . . .

This is predominately Caroline’s reasoning, when she invites new college coed Sex G-d Jesse to “study biology and one another’s body parts” at Mystic Falls Weekly Human Murder Party, where unimportant characters are mercilessly offed to up the series’ body count Remembrance Day Festivities.

Source

As an added bonus, Jesse is “very close” with this season’s Creepy, But Vaguely Attractive Professor, Who is Possibly/Probably Up to No Good Alaric Saltzman . . . Professor Shane . . . Severus Snape . . . Professor Maxfield.  This means that, if Jesse is lucky enough to live past five episodes of this series, Caroline can ply the stud for important information, WHILE getting under him / over Tyler . .

Things get off to a pretty decent start, in that regard, with Caroline and Hunky Pawn sharing a chaste kiss in the forest, while quizzing one another on biology terms.

Then, comes Stefan, a.k.a Mr. Can’t Eat Just One, and things start to go to crap pretty quickly . . .

Source

At first Amnesia!Stefan is cordial, if a bit sexually aggressive, telling Caroline that she looks hotter in person than in her pictures.  (Notice how he immediately remembers Caroline’s name, but not Elena’s . . .interesting.)

Then, Stefan introduces Jesse to Mystic Falls by offering to treat his neck like a chicken wing.  Caroline, who has always been the group’s Miss Fix It, deftly compels her boy toy into hiding, and politely offers Stefan access to her secret blood bag stash.  But by the time she turns around to show him the way, Sir Sucks A lot is already gone . . .

Poor Jesse.  It turns out, while the college scholar is an expert at cracking biological equations, and kissing blondes, his Hide and Go Seek skills leave much to be desired.  Stefan has magically appeared and begun sucking him dry before the “special guest star” can say “Olly, olly oxen free.”

Fortunately, Caroline arrives just in time to save the day.  (For the writers to kill off a character that looks like Jesse, before fans ever get the chance to see him without his shirt would truly be a travesty of justice.)  With a chomp on her wrist, and a few carefully placed words to Stefan, Caroline manages to rescue her prospective boyfriend from death, and talk her likely future friend-with-benefits off the ledge of Ripperdom, in a matter of mere seconds.

After returning to La Casa de Rich and Awesome, and burning all of his lame-ass journals (it’s about time!) . . .

. . . Stefan decides to leave the Haven of Personal Misery in favor of greener pastures.  However, he agrees to check in with Caroline regularly as his unofficial sponsor for Bloodaholics anonymous, because SHE’S the only person he now truly trusts . . .

As for Jesse, he gets to live at least long enough to probably strip for us in a future episode . . . HOORAY!

Loom Awkwardly Over Your Castmates in Peace, Bonnie Bennett . . .

Source

In other news, Jeremy finally delivered to the Scooby Gang the Newsflash of Bonnie’s death . . .

(In other late breaking news . . . this just in . . . Barak Obama was re-elected President of the United States!)

Responses among the group were understandably sad, and possibly a bit guilty.  Because I think most of us would like to think that if our supposed best friend croaked, it would take us less than a half a year to figure it out .  . .

When Jeremy told Damon the news, he begged his unofficial bro-in-law to take it back, under the assumption that if it was never talked about it wouldn’t be true.  (Funny, that’s kind of the logic Bonnie used for keeping this  need-to-know information from her friends in the first place.)

Source

Then, Jeremy and Damon emotionally hugged it out.  And I forgot how weird and awkward the beginning of the scene was, because the end was so poignantly beautiful.

Source

Matt’s reaction was a bit more muted, but equally devastating.  And Elena, well . . . she was just upset that she burned all her funeral clothes when she torched her house, and wouldn’t be able to “Peace Out,” Bonnie in style . . .

Source

Just kidding . . . Elena was inconsolable for the obvious reasons, of course.  And also because it is becoming more and more obvious that having a familial or friendship relationship with Elena Gilbert is basically the equivalent to being diagnosed with in inoperable brain tumor.  You know, eventually, you are going to go.  It’s only a matter of time . . .

We didn’t get to see the moment when Caroline found out about Bonnie’s death.  But her quiet moment of saddened reflection, coupled with amnesia Stefan’s comforting her and offering being there for her in the best way he could, despite currently having no memory at all of the deceased, was fitting for her character, who began the show as the character who required the most coddling, and has slowly but surely evolved into its emotional rock . . .

Source

I’ll admit I got a bit teary at Bonnie’s funeral, despite the fact that Bonnie Bennett has always been the most problematically written character on the show, and perhaps, a bit because of it . .  .

Funerals have always been more about the survivors grieving, obtaining peace, and ultimately moving on from the loss, to whatever extent possible, than about the decedents themselves.  And, in that sense, Bonnie’s funeral was oddly touching.  It was sweet and humane to see Bonnie offering through Jeremy words of encouragement to each of her surviving friends, even if the words themselves were kind of trite and mundane.  (“I wasn’t really mad at you.”  “Things will get better.”  “Have fun at college.”)  It’s the way I think most of us would like to treat our loved ones, if we got the chance to comfort them after our deaths, and vice versa.

Source

On the other hand, as a memorial for Bonnie’s “life,” the Bennett funeral left a bit to be desired.  Pom-poms?  A Whistle (because her and Matt were lifeguards for one episode)?, Feathers (in honor of the super lame trick Bonnie did for Elena to prove that she was a witch)? And a Spell Book?

Source

These were the talismans of a life lived on screen for nearly five seasons?  Couple that with the fact that not one surviving character was seen giving an emotional eulogy in Bonnie’s honor, apart from Jeremy himself (and even he needed Bonnie’s help to get out the words), and you’ve got yourself a pretty sorry goodbye party for a character that’s kind of already been forgotten, and yet isn’t entirely gone . . .

Compare this to one of the most beautiful, touching, heart-wrenching, aptly-tributary-to-the-life-of-the-character, not-quite-funerals in TVD history, and you’ll see a clear difference . . .

Heck, even ne’er-do-well, Worst-Dad-Ever, Uncle Father John got a better send off than Bonnie!

And then there was the part where everyone kind of ditched the funeral to celebrate Tyler finally coming back.

Life goes on, indeed.  Nice knowing ya, Bon-Bon!

Because that’s what this show needs . . . MORE vampires . . .

If Caroline’s romantic reunion with Tyler had you worried that boy toy Jesse wouldn’t be long for this world,  you were both right and wrong . . .

We find him on his Professor’s examination table in the final scene of the hour, almost, but not quite, shirtless . . . we’re getting closer . . .

It turns out, Jesse’s having “blacked out” the night before has him concerned about his health.  Having quickly surmised that Jesse had vampire blood in his system, Professor Severus Snape Maxfield instructs Jesse not to worry about his health.  He’ll be just fine! . . . Annnnnd then he kills him.

You gotta love college . . .

Next week on TVD, the gang remembers that pesky Silas problem they’ve been dealing with the past few episodes . . .

Until then, Fangbangers!

[my website] [my tumblr] [my fanfic] [my store]

The Women Scorned – A Recap of The Vampire Diaries’ “Original Sin”

Source

Greetings, Fangbangers!  It’s no secret that everyone’s favorite teen vampire show has always been a bit of a sausage factory . . .

 . . . at least metaphorically speaking . . .

For four seasons, the series has been almost exclusively dominated, both in the hero and in the villain column, by eternally youthful and modelesque men with uncommonly large . . .

 . . . muscles . . .

. . . super human strength, razor-sharp teeth . . .

tortured souls, and hearts of only slightly tarnished gold who, despite being instantly desired by everyone they meet, seem to only have eyes for the daintiest, most delicate, of damsels of distress, who just so happen to live right next door . . .

OK .  .  . so maybe they aren’t always all that dainty.  But I think you get my point . . .  Mystic Falls has almost always been a man’s world, where the women may be the prizes, but the men are typically the fighters.

And that’s always been OK with me .  .  . because . . . I like sausage . . . A LOT!

That said, this week’s female-dominated hour felt like a refreshing change of pace.  It was an hour dominated by women heroines (and anti-heroines) joining forces to protect the men they cared about most . . .

Source

 . . . sassy foreign chicks with strange unidentifiable accents, who consistently outsmarted every single man with whom they came in contact . . .

 . . . and Quetzalcotal  Q*bert  Catsoup QUETSIYAH . . . a wacked-out, bad-ass witch who takes the concept of post-breakup brooding to an entirely new level .  . .

Source

(I mean, most of us just buy a pint of Baskin Robbins, break out the sweatpants, cry a bit on the couch and call it a day.)

Now, THIS is a Big Bad I can get behind!

Let’s review, shall we?

Because Hipsters Taste Like Chicken . . .

The episode opens with Stefan, fresh from his summer-long stint hanging out underwater with the cast of Finding Nemo . . .

. . . stumbling down a deserted street at near-dawn, looking less like a hungry vampire and more like one of the dancers in the music video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller . . .

Source

He’s doing that dazed, sort of shuffle step thing you do when you’ve just gotten out of a REALLY long movie, and realize that at some point during the second half of Lord of the Rings you’ve forgotten how to walk . . .

Let’s not forget, Stefan has just been on a summer-long, starvation diet, which means he’ll look great in his new swim trunks.  But . . .

Stefan’s first order of business as a free vamp is to get some breakfast to go.  He stops at the generically named Joe’s Bar, where the only thing on the menu is a hipstery looking bartender who somewhat resembles Lindsay Lohan’s ex girlfriend, Samantha Ronson . .  .

Source

It’s far from the gourmet meal he was hoping for in that it probably tastes a lot like cigarette ash, overpriced hashish, and music by Bon Iver, but it will have to do in a pinch . . .  Seconds after chowing down on the little lady, Stefan suffers a crisis of conscious, or maybe just a bad case of indigestion.  Either way, he allows Not-Sam-Ronson escape with her life . .  .

Source

Then, Stefan rushes out into the sunlight, and falls to his knees in agony, while he waits patiently for his face to burn off . . .

Source

Silly Stefan!  Who goes on a tropical adventure and forgets to pack their sunscreen . . . ring?

I Dream of Steffy

Meanwhile, over at La Casa de Rich and Awesome, Elena Gilbert wakes up in bed in cold sweat, wondering why she had a dream about Sam Ronson, and thinking it might be because she’s been watching too many episodes of TMZ, circa 2008.  Damon is lying in bed next to Elena, wondering how anyone could manage to sleep in La Casa de Rich and Awesome and have a dream about anyone other than him!

Source

Then Katherine stumbles into the room and announces that she had the same dream.  Damn that pesky, Sam Ronson!  She ruins everything, including Damon’s beauty sleep.

Of course, everyone remembers that Stefan was in the dream too.  So, they all head off on a road trip to Random Bar, USA to find Stefan, and literally “put a ring on it,” before his finely chiseled face starts to look like a sundried tomato . . .

Shortly thereafter, we are treated to a scene in which Nina Dobrev (Elena), other Nina Dobrev (Katherine), and Ian Somerhalder (Damon) drive to an undisclosed location, while other Nina Dobrev (Katherine) teases Nina Dobrev (Elena) about not really loving Ian Somerhalder (Damon) as much as she claims that she does, seeing as she continues to have mysterious dreams about Sam Ronson Stefan . . .

Source

Take into consideration the fact that Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev broke up in real life shortly before filming this scene, and you can imagine what’s going through Ian’s head right about now.

Talk about life imitating art!  This scene is officially Ian’s worst nightmare come to life!  And Damon doesn’t really like it much either . . .

But at least the vampire could take solace in the fact that he still has the girl, something his human counterpart can’t . . .

Invasion of the Pothead Snatchers

Back in Mystic Falls, exotic foreign chick, Nadia, gets a call from Silas, who thinks that Nadia’s last minute decision to kill her boyfriend in a convenient store was a crappy way of her to show her loyalty to the evil villain’s cause.  He wants her to do something more profound.  Clearly, Silas is being short-sighted.  I mean, here is a guy who only drinks human blood out of styrofoam cups, because he finds taking it directly from the skin too tacky and classless.  And here, Nadia killed her boyfriend in a place where STYROFOAM CUPS ARE SOLD!  It doesn’t get much more meaningful than that . . .

Anywhoo, Silas wants Nadia to steal Bar-Boy Matt’s immortality ring (So much ring theft on this show, this week!) and kill him too.  Nadia agrees, but you can tell she’s up to something . . .

She corners Matt in the back of the Only Bar / Social Establishment in Mystic Falls.  Matt is understandably concerned, seeing as the last time these two met, some random dude massaged his face, forced him to wear black colored contacts, and then made him take a nap on the floor.

Sure enough Nadia is massaging his face, and forcing him to wear black colored contacts too!  Except this time, Matt doesn’t take a nap on the floor.  Instead, he starts talking like the villain from every action movie I’ve ever seen.  He’s yelling at Nadia for killing him, one minute, and sucking her face the next.  And it . . . is . . . AWESOME!

Truth be told, I thought Nadia’s beau Gregor was kind of boring.  And Matt can be kind of boring too, at least when he’s not high on pot, then he’s HILARIOUS . . .

But Matt-as-Gregor?  NOW THAT GUY is SEXY with a capital S!  Who knew Zach Roerig had this in him?

Source

I’m really digging this storyline.

Anywhoo, Nadia tells “Gregor” to call Elena using Matt’s phone.  And though we don’t actually get to hear their conversation, we can imagine it goes something like this . . .

“Hey, Matt are you feeling OK?”

“Ahhh . . . ya . . .why?”

“Because you sound like the bad guy from that cartoon we used to watch back when we were kids . . . the one with the talking moose.”

Fortunately, for Nadia and Gregor, Elena is much too self-absorbed to pay any attention to  sudden personality transplants exhibited by any character on this show whose name isn’t “Stefan” or “Damon.”  And so, she willingly gives Matt/Gregor all the information he needs to find Katherine.

The last we hear of Matt/Gregor he’s asking Nadia to bring him to wherever it is she buried his body (Possibly in the dumpster behind the 7-Eleven where she took his life?).  Later that night, Matt wakes up on the floor of his home with mud on his shoes, and no memory of the last six to eight hours.

Just another day in the life of Mystic Falls’ favorite pothead waiter . . .

Speaking of Strange Trips . . .

Stefan awakens in an abandoned cabin, having been rescued by a mysterious woman who looks suspiciously like Sam’s dead girlfriend Luna from True Blood. 

At first, Mystery Woman seems like a pretty gracious host.  She closes the shades to block out the sun.  She offers him a hot beverage . . .

She tells him about how she rescued him, and kindly fed him the owner of the cabin in which they are staying, following his emergence for the sea . . .

Nevertheless, Stefan is understandably leery of his host’s courtesies.  After all, this a woman who willingly admits to being in love with SILAS, a guy whose willingly tried on more different faces than a Mr. Potato Head doll . . .

A guy who threw Stefan’s body into the sea, and then nearly Single White Femaled him out of existence . . .

. . . a guy with more personalities than a game of Guess Who . . .

Clearly, a woman who loves Silas has TERRIBLE taste in men, and is generally not to be trusted.

Source

Stefan, ever the gentleman, politely asks his gracious host why she doesn’t find Silas and go jump in a lake with him, never to be seen again.  That decision might be good for Stefan, but it would be very bad for the storyline.

Besides, Silas doesn’t want to jump into a lake with Stefan’s host because, the truth of the matter is . . .

Source

You see, Stefan’s host is not Amara, it’s QUETSIYAHHHHHHH!

Eat your heart out, Silas!

Though I’m generally not a fan of heavy flashback episodes, I do like when villains get to tell their side of the story in a way that’s more subtle and emotionally evocative than the typical last-minute, pre-death, desire for World Domination monologue we typically get in shows like these.

Yes, Quetsiyah (or “Tess” as she now likes to be called) is clearly a wackadoodle, bunny-burning baddie of the Fatal Attraction mold, who simply can’t get over the fact that the man she loved didn’t love her back .  . .

But she’s also smart, savvy, and has a pretty legitimate beef against her old beau, Si . . .

I mean dumping your girlfriend, because you fell in love with her minion?  Understandable.

But jilting your girlfriend at the altar, stealing her immortality cure, and using it on her minion?  That’s just AWFUL!

Torture away, Quetsiyah!  You’ve earned it!

Did I mention that Silas’ “True Love” looks like this?

Source

I’m officially convinced that in about two seasons, the entire cast of this series will be played by either Nina Dobrev or Paul Wesley.  It’s like Orphan Black for vampires . . .

Long story, short.  According to Quetsiyah, she finds Amara, forces the cure for immortality down her throat, kills her, rips out her heart and offers it Silas, along with another vial of the cure, so he can die too.  You know, like Romeo and Juliet . . . only really, really gross .  . .

The problem is that Quetsiyah never planned on letting Silas and Amara be together in the afterlife.  Instead, he created this weird walled off purgatory place where Quetsiyah and Silas would be stuck together, hating one another for all eternity.  Ahhh, now we are back in familiar villain territory . . .

But then Bonnie dropped the veil, releasing all supernatural beings from purgatory, thus making it possible for “true loves” Silas and Amara to be together again . . . assuming Amara is actually dead, and doesn’t pop up alive and ready to wreak havoc in the season finale . . .

So, now Silas REALLLLY wants to die . . . which means taking The Cure . . . which means killing Katherine and draining it from her body.  Got it?

So, now we know what Silas wants with Katherine.  And we know that Quetsiyah wants to somehow kill Silas, before he gets the cure, so he can end up back in purgatory with her . . .

We just aren’t sure what Nadia wants with Katherine . . . or why the Scooby Gang seems so intent to keep Katherine from Silas, even if that potentially means Silas staying alive longer than necessary and continuing to torture and mind hump Mystic Falls.  I mean, are we sure Silas needs ALL of Katherine’s blood to get the cure?  Maybe he just needs enough to fill an 8 oz. styrofoam cup?

To further complicate matters, apparently throughout history, in response to either Silas and Amara becoming immortal though Amara was arguably only immortal for about five minutes or them not being able to be together, “The Universe” has created throughout history about 85,000 people who look like Paul Wesley and Nina Dobrev just so they can fall in love and live happily ever after . . .

It sounds to me like “The Universe” needs to find a more productive use of its time . . . Maybe it could take up blogging . . .

The Clone Wars

Back at the generically named Joe’s Bar . . .

Source

Damon and Elena question Not-Sam Ronson about her new neck hickey.  And Not Sam Ronson rudely poisons Damon with a shot of vervain.  But hey, at least it’s free booze, right?  That stuff’s hard to come by, these days  . . .

Then, Nadia pops in and asks which one of the Nina Dobrevites in the bar is Katherine, so that she can shoot her.  Katherine “gallantly” points to Elena, but Nadia the body-snatching, threesome-having, boyfriend-murdering sexpot wasn’t born yesterday.  She knows a curly haired, saucy, villain-not-quite redeemed Nina Dobrev when she sees one . . .

Source

Nadia chases Kat into the woods, and, in an odd turn of events, Elena, the same woman who was so intent on murdering Katherine last season that she nearly lost her humanity for good over it, rushes to her rescue . . .

Unfortunately, Elena has never been all that good at rescuing people, and ends up getting her neck snapped by Nadia in the process.

This is your brain on Quetsiyah . . .

Meanwhile, back at the cabin, Damon has finally found Stefan,  who Quetsiyah has helpfully tied to a chair and covered with plant life.  So much for hospitality!  She explains to Damon that she wants to link Stefan’s mind to Silas’ and then fry both of their brains, so Silas can no longer mind control people anymore.  Possible side effects?  Stefan might be forced to spend the rest of his life as a brain dead moron . . .

Well, at least it’s for a worthy cause.  Let’s do this!

I can already tell I like Quetsiyah more than I ever liked Bonnie, because I found the former’s Latin mumblings amidst fire and candles riveting, while whenever the latter does spells, I have this inexplicable desire to throw things at my TV screen . . .

Stefan is bleeding out of his eyeballs, and Damon looks mildly frightened . . .

Just kidding, I’m sure Big Salvatore was genuinely concerned for Little Salvatore’s well being . . .

Meanwhile, back in the woods, Silas has located Nadia and Katherine.  He is about to mind control Good Ole Nads (that’s my new nickname for her, I just decided) to shoot herself in the heart with a gun.  (I wrote a fanfiction like this once.  Do you think Julie Plec stole my idea?)

. . . when suddenly he starts eyeball bleeding too.  This gives Nads and Kat a chance to escape to a hotel, where hopefully they will have the lesbionic love affair fanfiction writers have been dreaming about for five seasons. I mean, come on!  We already know Nads swings both ways . . . and Kat’s always struck me as being a bit “loose” sexually,  if you catch my drift.

You know who’s totally not getting laid though?  Stefan!  He’s all bloody faced and passed out in a chair.  This gives Quetsiyah the opportunity to tell Damon why he should leave his little bro behind to be the wacky witch’s human voodoo doll / love slave . . .

“Fire hazard, shmire hazard, Steffy . . . I thought you liked candlelight dinners?  (Hint: If you don’t, I’ll make your eyes bleed and chargrill your brain again.)”

According to Quetsiyah, “the Universe” will make sure Stelena is endgame, despite the personal feelings of this particular TV Recapper . . .

Damon considers this for a moment, before ultimately deciding to do the “honorable” thing by strangling Quetsiyah, and taking his brain-fried brother home to recover on the couch . . .

“I’m Stefan Salvatore.  Who the f*&k are you?”

Source

Back at La Casa de Rich and Awesome, Elena and Damon watch over a still snoozing Stefan, while they jointly agree that they don’t need no stinking Universe’s blessing to bone each other on a regular basis . . .

Source

It’s a refreshing show of maturity for Damon’s character – who in the past has shown a tendency toward massively self destructive behavior – that he is refusing to let his own insecurities, or the words of witchy naysayers, get in the way of his relationship with the woman he loves more than life itself. Of all the characters in this show, I would argue that it’s the 175+ year old vampire whose grown the most since the series began . . .

We interrupt this heartfelt Delena moment, to bring you the last five minutes of every episode of a daytime soap opera I have ever watched . . .

That’s right, boys and girls.  Stefan has amnesia!  SURPRISE!

See ya next time, Fangbangers!

[My website] [My tumblr] [My fanfiction] [My store]

Death Takes a Holiday – A Recap of The Vampire Diaries’ “The Walking Dead.”

Source

Impending Apocalypse notwithstanding, our Mystic Falls Scooby Gang seemed to be having a pretty good day, in this week’s “The Walking Dead.”  Old friends were reunited . . .

Source

Old scores were settled . . .

Source

And lots of liquor was imbibed . . .

Source

Not for Bonnie, though.  Her day kind of sucked.  Apparently, all dark magic expression and no play, make Bonnie one dead witch . . .

Source

And let’s not forget Silas.  In the course of a single hour, the guy  went from being Caroline to Stefan to Alaric to a statue of Alaric, stolen from Madame Tussaud’s museum of frozen celebrities . . .

Source

He kind of looks like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle . . .

Let’s review, shall we?

The Homicidal Maniac Workout Plan

Personally, I’ve always really admired Elena Gilbert’s dedication to fitness . . .

I mean, here is a girl, who, as a human, took down a supernaturally strong, ridiculously buff, vampire hunter, just because she was REALLY PISSED OFF.

This is one scrappy special snowflake!  Throughout the course of the series, quite a few episodes have been dedicated to Elena’s take-no-prisoners workout regimen.  I smell an exercise video in the works!

This week, Elena begins the episode in workout mode once again.  She’s breaking cement blocks with her feet, and doing chin-ups on the ceiling.

Source

Stefan hopes all this exercise will make Elena forget she wants to murder Katherine . . .

Yeah . . . not so much . . .

Caroline is on Distract Elena Duty too.  But instead of fitness, she opts to involve Elena the Orphan in Graduation Invitation Stamping?

Source

Great idea, Caroline.  Reminding Elena that her family members are dead, and can’t attend her graduation, when some of those family members are dead because of Katherine, is DEFINITELY going to keep Elena from wanting to kill Katherine.

The Scooby Gang really should have considered putting Damon on distract Elena duty . . .

Just saying . . .

Meanwhile over in the Forest Where Bad Things Always Happen . . .

Stuck on You

Source

Foreshadow much?

Bonnie and Katherine each have something one another want.  Katherine has a big ugly rock from Silas’ grave.  Bonnie has the power to make Katherine invincible.  (Sounds like a fair trade to me!)

Not trusting that Katherine will give up her precious Big Ugly Rock, on her own volition, Bonnie does a spell that physically links Katherine and Bonnie together.  This means neither can go more than 25 feet from the other, without being shocked, like a dog running up against one of those electric fences.  It’s kind of like a Restraining Order in Reverse.

Now, personally, if I was Katherine, I would have used this to my advantage . . . and told Bonnie I hid the big ugly rock at a five-star hotel in Aruba.

This way, at least I’d get a good vacation out of the deal . . . even if it meant having to share a hotel bed with someone who probably mutters in Latin, and suffers from bloody noses, in her sleep .  . .

“Can you ask room service to bring up some extra tissues?”

Instead, Katherine just gives up the Big Ugly Rock.  Lame!  You’re going soft on us, Kitty Kat . . .

Silly Rabbit, Blood Bags are for Vampires . . .

When I was a kid, I always assumed that the real reason you left cookies and milk for the fat guy in the red suit, on Christmas Eve, was so that, after he broke into your home through your chimney, he’d be full and happy enough not to make off with your valuables and eat the family pet.  Pretty morbid huh?

For the same reason, I always thought that taking the blood bags out of Mystic Falls Hospital was a terrible idea.    You’re not protecting the hospital from hungry vampires, you’re just taking away their cookies.  And when Silas doesn’t have his cookies (particularly when he needs them to Bring About the Apocalypse in 24 hours), he’s just going to change his face into the pretty nurse from the reception desk, and eat all your patients.

Now, you’ve got this whole stockpile of blood bags, and no one to use it on, except the population of vampires you were hiding it from in the first place.

Let that be a lesson to you about leaving Santa his cookies, Lizard Forbes . . .

You Can’t Get Blood from a Stone . . . or Can You?

It’s getting mighty windy at the Only Bar / Social Establishment in Mystic Falls . . .

Source

This couldn’t have something to do with the whole Drop the Veil / Apocalypse thingy, would it?

Nahhhhhh!

Elena may have her humanity back, but she’s still being a heinous b*tch.  She tells Rebekah that she’s not her friend.  And she refuses to apologize to Caroline for calling her repulsive last week.  At least Humanity Free Elena liked to party . . .

Homicidal Elena just plays darts, and pretends the board is Katherine’s face . . .

Someone get this girl a Midol please, because this Vampire Period has gone on way too long . . .

When the power goes out in Mystic Falls, starting from the three points where all those people died, the Scooby Gang figures out that Bonnie is triggering the “Expression Triangle” and dropping the veil, BEFORE the Full Moon.  They race to the center of the triangle to find her, which, of course happens to be right in that magical place they never go . . . SCHOOL.

Elena can give two craps about Bonnie and her Apocalypse Schmocalypse.

She just wants to kill Katherine.  But then she finds out Bonnie is WITH Katherine.  And she’s ready to go in, all guns blazing.

Warrior Princess Mode Activated . . .

She even provides the Gang with a key piece of information, which helps them to get underground where the spell is occurring.  Who knew Elena had such an intimate knowledge of the school’s underground passageways?  It looks like someone’s been spending science class making out in the boiler room . . . You go, Elena!

Underground, Bonnie’s hugging a rock and making it bleed.

Personally, I prefer my magic tricks to be of the Cute Fluffy Rabbit Pulled Out of a Hat variety.  But that’s just me.  Anywhoo, I guess the veil is down now.  At least around Mystic Falls . . .

Back upstairs, Damon tells Elena that she isn’t allowed to play in the Stop Bonnie / Potentially Kill Katherine games.

Source

So, she stakes his ass.

This is becoming a highly abusive relationship . . .

Fortunately, Damon gets a helping hand from a surprising source . . .

They’re BAAAAAAACCKKKK!

Source

Whether you are Team Delena, Team Stelena, or Team Klaroline chances are you are still on Team Badass . . .

This bromance knows no bounds.  And the fact that Matt Davis’s “other” show has recently been canceled, means that this relationship just might live to see another season . . .

How sweet of Alaric to keep a watch over his errant vampire buddy from the Great Beyond!

Source

Alaric helpfully explains that, at this point, the “Veil” to the “Other Side” is only down around Mystic Falls.  This means that while, theoretically speaking, every supernatural dead creature CAN cross over to the Land of the Living, only those still on contract with the CW actually do it . . .

Sorry Megan Fox.  That doesn’t include you.

And while Damon is thrilled to see his long lost buddy, he can’t help but be a wee bit skeptical.  After all, Silas has been wandering around impersonating literally everybody by Damon’s mother.  So, why wouldn’t he impersonate Alaric too?

Alaric is a bit hurt that Damon would accuse him of being Silas.  But he’s more than ready to prove he’s the Real Deal.  Would Silas know about the duo’s Secret Alcoholic’s liquor stash at the high school?

“It’s really YOUUUUU!”

Actually, I hate to break it to you Damon.  But . . . yeah . . . Silas would totally know about Locker 42.  That’s what he does!  He gets into people’s heads, and uses their inner most thoughts against them.

So, while I’m totally with Damon in wanting Alaric to be real.  There are some things that happened later in the episode, which made me question the veracity of this reunion.  Let’s just leave it at that.

Meanwhile, over at the Only Bar / Social Establishment in Mystic Falls, Matt and Rebekah are trying to have a Romantic Candlelight Apocalypse Dinner, when they get cockblocked into engaging in an Undead Family Reunion of their own . . .

That Kol.  He really is one perpetually pissed off dude, isn’t he?  He makes Big Brother Santa Klaus look downright congenial . . .

“Thanks for making me look good, Kol.”

Theoretically speaking, the untimely death of Jer Bear, should have rendered Kol free of that pesky “Unfinished Business” that seems to plague so many miserable ghosts these days.  But nooooo!  Kol has to get greedy and kill Elena.  He even makes a shiv out of a liquor bottle and stabs Matt just for sh*ts and giggles . . .

“Why is everybody always making me bleed?”

Rebekah quickly jumps to offer Matt some of her vampire blood.  But Matt politely declines.  “My position as the sole human character left on this show, makes me so much less likely to get killed off.  So, I’m going to stay away from the Big Bad Vampire Juice, if you don’t mind,” he explains.

Beks heads off in search of a first aid kit . . . a HUMAN one.

Doppelganger Hijinx Etcetera

Katherine asks for slack on her Bonnie leash to investigate a noise she hears in the basement.  Surprise!  It’s Elena.  So, are these two kicking the sh*t out of one another going to become like a weekly thing?

Meanwhile, Bonnie’s down the hall, screaming and moaning, because Elena is hurting her “feelings twin.”  That’s what you get for linking yourself to someone who everyone wants dead, Bon-Bon.  It’s the reason she wanted invincibility in the first, place, HELLO!

Plus, since Bonnie already used that Big Ugly Rock to bring down the veil.  She doesn’t really need to be linked to Death Trap Kat, anymore, now does she?

While “Caroline” convinces Bonnie to break the link, Stefan heads off to intervene on yet another fight between his two ex girlfriends that has absolutely nothing to do with him . . .

“When did everybody stop loving me?”

Homicidal Maniac Elena is not the least bit amused with Stefan for ruining her murder games.  And the fact that he did it to prevent Elena from inadvertently killing Bonnie does little to diminish girlfriend’s rage.  “Dead Bonnie, meh,” Elena shrugs the idea off.  “Here, Stefan.  Have a date with my fist.”

Now, Elena, if you keep beating up your boyfriends they won’t worship the ground you walk on, anymore!  (Who am I kidding?  It’s your show.  They will ALWAYS worship the ground you walk on . . .)

Meanwhile, back at the Only Bar / Social Establishment in Mystic Falls, Rebekah finds Caroline in a bit of a psychological pickle . . .

Source

But wait . . . isn’t Caroline with Bonnie?

SILAS, YOU RAT BASTARD!  You’ve done it again!

So, while Beks is gently breaking Real Caroline out of her Silas-induced Mind-Mush . . .

Source

Bonnie is being taunted by FAKE CAROLINE / REAL SILAS.  Who dances around her in a circle, turning into a different face, every five seconds.  Silas helpfully explains to Bonnie that the ugly Uncle Fester / Voldemort mug was nothing more than just a ruse, to make Bonnie believe he couldn’t get into her head anymore.  You know what that means, don’t you Fangbangers?  Silas is hot.  Just like everybody else on this show.  SURPRISE!

Just once I’d like for there to be a villain on this show whose truly hideously deformed.  It might make for a nice change of pace, you know?

I hear this guy is available . . .

Silas also throws in a piece of mythology we all might have forgotten about . . . The Hunters Curse.  Theoretically, Silas should have been suffering from it, after he drained Jer Bear of Blood.

And yet, it makes sense that the Beautiful Mind Guy, who gets into people’s brains and impersonates others, like it’s his job, would be able to easily defeat a curse that involves . . . someone getting into your brain and impersonating someone else .  . .

So, much for that useless piece of mythology . . .  Silas hears Damon in the distance.  So, he decides to turn into Alaric, and make Bonnie believe she’s suffocating.  Like I said, it’s a bad day for Bon-Bon . . .

Meanwhile, over at the Special Snowflake Cemetery for dead Gilberts . . .

Welcome back, Jer Bear!

Unable to murder Katherine, Elena is stuck with dealing with those pesky emotions, she’s been trying to bury for a third of the season .  . .

Source

Uhhh . . . Elena?  Not to be insensitive or anything, but haven’t you only been feeling like “this” for the past two minutes?  Before that you were all . . .

Fortunately, for Elena, yet another distraction is conveniently heading her way . . .

Source

Yes, that’s the nice thing about impending death, it prevents you from being depressed about the deaths of others.  And Suicidal Elena seems more than ready to meet her Maker.  After all, most of her friends and family are already on the “Other Side.”  At least they were, until that whole “veil dropping thing” that happened about five minutes ago . . .

Source

Hey, remember back last season, when Kol and Jer Bear were batting cage buddies?

Those were the days, huh?  Now, Kol is in a murderous rage all the time, and Jer Bear is . . . well .  . . doing this . . .

Source

Except, it actually ends up being Stefan, who breaks Kol’s neck just when he’s about to finish his oh-so-cliched villain line:  “Kill me once, shame on me.  Kill me twice. . .”

DAMMIT STEFAN!  I wanted to hear the end!

Cue the Gilbert Family reunion . . .

No, not that one!  More like this one . . .

Source

Back underground .  . .

Be Calm . . . Kill . . . SILAS?

Bonnie thinks she’s suffocating.

But Grams pops by to tell her  . . .

“Just kidding!”

This episode actually contains within it a surprisingly inspirational message about mind over matter.  All these big strong supernatural characters are repeatedly being undermined by the limitations of their own brains.  In other words, ending the World’s Apocalypse really comes down to nothing more than good old fashioned “positive thinking.”

And positive thinking is exactly what Bonnie does, when she sees “Alaric” and makes believe he’s turning to stone.  And then, that’s precisely what he does . . .

“Kind of feeling a bit stiff here!”

Did I say Alaric?  I meant Silas . . .

At least we are meant to assume that it’s Silas.  But I’m still skeptical . . . more on why in just a bit . . .

Happy Happy, Joy Joy?

Source

I actually really hope this scene is real, because it was one of my favorites in the episode.  Alaric and Damon spend Alaric’s final moments, pre veil re-lift hoisting “Silas'” cemented body into a trunk, and getting toasted on cheap liquor.  “I thought you were cutting back,” Damon chides.

“I thought you were going to protect the children,” Alaric retorts.

Touche, Alaric!  And when Alaric gives Damon the cure he found in Silas’ pocket, and tells him to “get the girl.”  I’m cheering!  How sweet!  How fitting!  How perfect!  Especially when you consider how long it took protective pseudo dad Alaric/ Chunky Monkey to come around to the idea of a Delena Courtship .  . .

But then I thought:  “How do you get something out of the pocket of a person who is encased in cement?”

And then, I started to wonder if the thing encased in cement was really Silas, or just poor Alaric, who can’t seem to catch a break, even on his Dead Guy Holiday?

And if Silas is skulking around Mystic Falls, maybe that thing he gave Damon wasn’t the cure at all, but something else entirely. OR . .  . maybe it is the cure.  And he’s planning to pretend to be Elena or Stefan, so that when Damon gives the cure to them, he can take it for himself.

But that doesn’t matter, right?  Because in order for Silas to do what he plans to do, the veil needs to be COMPLETELY down, not just partially down like it is now .  . .

Cue Bonnie’s descent into magic fueled Dark Willow Madness . . .

Down goes the veil.  And Bonnie goes tumbling right after it . . .

Source

I wonder if ghosts still get nosebleeds . . .

In happier news, Damon wasn’t the only Salvatore who got to make nice with his Bestie, this week . . .

Source

Good ole, Lexie!  Always telling it like it is, and clearly shipping Delena from the great beyond.

Speaking of ships, it makes sense that Lexi would stamp her seal of approval on the Staroline relationship, be it platonic (like Stefan’s and Lexi’s, or otherwise) . . .

Source

Not only are they both blonde, perky, vampire barbie types . . .

Both Lexi and Caroline seem to bring out a surprisingly light-hearted humorous side of Stefan, we don’t often get to see on the show.  In short, he actually SMILES when he’s with these two.  And even broody Stefan deserves a laugh every once in a while . . .

Source

Now, whether that spells a romantic future for these two in Season 5, remains to be seen.  It also depends largely on This Guy . . .

And This Guy. . .

Speaking of romances up for grabs, Beks and Matt get yet another romantic romance cockblocked.  This time the culprit is Rebekah’s ancient ex with the distractingly long Fabio hair . . .

“Why do I suddenly feel like I’m on the cover of a bad romance novel?”

And his sexy vampire hunter friends . . .

Oh these three probably had quite the Hot Gay Dance Party over on the other side . . . Kind of wish I was there to see it . . .

But now, it’s all about the VENGEANCE!

Ruh-roh, Scooby Gang!  It looks like your graduation party just got a lot more crowded . . .

Until next time, Fangbangers!

[www.juliekushner.com][Fangirls Forever] [ my tumblr]

This Girl is on Fire! – A Recap of The Vampire Diaries’ “She’s Come Undone”

Well . . . that’s one way to get guys to think you are hot . . .

Hey there Fangbangers!  This week on TVD, Elena Gilbert felt the burn, figuratively and literally.

Source

Also this week, literally EVERYONE in Caroline’s life became Silas  .  . .

Source

So, keep your fire extinguisher handy, Fangbangers, because this one is going to be a scorcher . . .

This is your brain on Damon Salvatore . . .

“I’m actually at school?  What is this?  Some alternate universe where my character is still on Degrassi: The Next Generation?”

We begin our episode on a lovely sunny school day.  The sun in shining.  The birds are singing.  Caroline is bragging about being named valedictorian.  Bonnie is smiling . . . wait . . . Bonnie is smiling?  This HAS to be fake.

Source

“Dammit!  Why did I have to make Bonnie smile?”

Yes, it appears that Damon has been Inception-ing Elena, in an attempt to convince her to come back to Team Humanity.

Source

But to no avail . . .

Source

I love the goofy moment, where we pan back from Elena’s “dream,” to see Damon standing around with his eyes closed . . .

It reminded me why they don’t usually show the “manipulation” part of Dream Manipulation on these shows.  I mean, compulsion from a vampire’s perspective always looks cool.  There’s no doubt about that . . .

But Dream Manipulation from a vampire perspective looks like  . . . well . . . a nap.

It’s kind of like that move Avatar.  If taken from the human perspective, all that running around in the forest, riding on giant dragon-birds, using your blue tails to have sex, and saving the world from that Evil Army Dude, would just look like some guy sleeping in a coffin-like object, while getting powdered donuts fed to him intravenously through a tube . . .

Source

Anywhoo, since Damon gets a big fat F in the gradebooks for his attempts to Inception Elena back into a “good little girl,” he reverts to something that he KNOWS will earn him an A+ . . . Torture.

That’s right, Fangbangers!  Damon and Torture go together like Damon and Showering . . .

How to Lose Friends and Alienate Vampire Barbies . . .

Peace-loving Caroline, who cured herself of her vampire anger issues, a mere two days after being turned . . .

 . . . doesn’t believe the best way to Elena’s heart is through ripping out her stomach.  She’s convinced good old fashioned talking will do the trick.  And so the perky blonde flounces her way into the Salvatore Correctional Institute for Wayward Vampires, bearing her heart on her sleeve, and a peace offering . . . blood for the starving and dessicated Elena.  Hmmm . . . I wonder if it’s B positive?

Source

After Elena gorges greedily on the blood, she pointedly asks Caroline why she’s being so nice to Elena, after Elena has pretty much been the sh*ttiest friend ever to her . . .

Caroline admits to Elena that . . . yeah . . . people who try to eat her don’t typically make it to the top of her best friend list . . .

(Actually it kind of seems like most of Caroline’s friends have tried to eat her at one point or another . . .)

But Caroline doesn’t love Elena for the heinous b*tch she’s been these past few episodes.  She loves her for the Special Snowflake she’s been throughout all these other episodes!

(Loving Elena is a prerequisite for being a character on this show!)

Source

So, of course, Evilena does what she always does when confronted with kindness.  First she insults the Kind Person . . .

Source

Then she tries to rip off the kind person’s face with her teeth . . .

Source

So, Caroline does what any rational girl would do in such a situation.  She breaks Elena’s neck . . .

Source

And so, after a brief dalliance with Peacekeeping, it’s back to TORTURE TIME!

Rendezvous with Mean Girls

Meanwhile, over at the Only Bar / Social Establishment in Mystic Falls, Rebekah is drinking her feelings, when she comes upon the only male character left on the show, with whom she hasn’t had sex (yet) . . . Matt.

“Hey hot stuff.  Have you ever seen a 1,000-year old girl naked?”

“Shouldn’t you be hanging out on that New Spinoff with the rest of your ancient relatives?”

“Stop ripping out my heart with your continuous rejection of me!”

Matt casually lets it slip that he’s going to probably be stuck in Mystic Falls, cleaning vomit off bartops, forever.  This is because he’s been too busy running from werewolves and ghosts, and evading inevitable apocalypses to actually do homework, or study for any of his classes.  This gives Rebekah an idea . . .

Over at another diner/ bar type place . . . (one that can’t be in Mystic Falls, since we know there is only one Bar / Social Establishment in Mystic Falls) Bonnie has a secret meeting with Elena’s Doppelganger Katherine Pierce.  It turns out that Katherine still has Silas’ headstone, and Bonnie wants it BAD . . .

For a girl who doesn’t need to eat, Katherine sure spends a lot of time in diners .  . .

It has something to do with Silas, and the veil, and the apocalypse, and blah, blah, blah.  All this mythology talk gives me a headache.

Just bring back my Alaric, Kol, and Jer Bear mmm-kay?

The rest of it, I could care less about, honestly . . .

Back at the Salvatore Correctional Institute for Wayward Vampires . . .

Bad Girls Don’t Get Nice Jewelry

“Do you realize that torturing Elena together is the closest you and I will probably ever get to that threesome we always dreamed about?”

Damon and Stefan have Elena tied to a chair in front of a window.  Also, Damon has stolen Elena’s sunscreen ring.  Now, that’s gotta hurt . . .

Source

Actually, Damon, I think bad girls steal nice jewelry . . .

Damon and Stefan kind of have the whole good cop / bad cop dynamic a bit messed up here.  Stefan is clearly trying to play good cop.  He keeps Dr. Phil-ing Elena into talking about her “feelings” . . .

 . . . while Damon is throwing out the one liners, like it’s his job (which, lets face it, it pretty much always has been).

Source

The only problem, of course, is that Stefan is the one who keeps ripping back the curtain to burn Elena  .  . .

“The good news is that all this face burning, is making my teeth look super white!”

 . . . and this pretty much makes him the Worst Good Cop Ever . . .

Stefan and Damon decide to take a break from burning Elena’s boobies off to let her insult them both.  She reminds Stefan she dumped him, and Damon that she was sire bonded to him.  And blah, blah, blah . . .

But just when I’m about to get bored, Elena turns around and does something REALLY interesting . . .

“I am vampire hear me ROARRRRR!”

“I imagined this going a bit differently in my head . . .”

Because the last Sunshine Shock Treatment Elena received enabled her to burn through the ropes on her wrists, she breaks free from her spot on the chair, and actually FULL ON SETS HERSELF ON FIRE!  (Katniss Everdeen a.k.a. The Other Girl on Fire is not impressed . . .)

Source

Damon jumps into action and “extinguishes Elena,” reminding Damon fans everywhere what a sexy firefighter Damon would make (and what a long hose he probably has) . .  .

Firefighter fantasies notwithstanding, this is not a proud moment for our Sexy Salvatore Duo.  Elena is lying on the floor laughing in their faces.  After all, she’s just proved that, try as they might to be mean and menacing, these two could never truly hurt their Special Snowflake.  So, no matter how many times they put her in the proverbial hot seat, she really has nothing to fear.  Alas, this appears to be another Moonstone in the Soapdish Moment for poor Damon . . .

Source

It’s time for the brothers to call in The Reserves . . .

Study Buddies and Burgers

“Someone once told me that the way to a man’s heart was through his clogged arteries.”

Source

“Awesome, now I won’t have to eat my dinner out of the Mystic Grill trash compactor.”

Caroline is crazy jealous and hurt, when Beks crashes her and Matt’s Let’s B*tch About Evil Elena Session to feed him, and help him pass all those classes he’s been failing.  It turns out, Caroline didn’t even know Matt was flunking out!

Caroline has always been portrayed as the fashion conscious social butterfly of the show . . . The Joiner.  But it makes sense that she would be a TOTAL Rachel Berry, when it comes to academics, just like she is in every other aspect of her life . . .

For Caroline, her ex-boyfriend’s failure at school is simply not an option (nor is leaving him alone to study with that vixen, Rebekah).  And so, off Vampire Barbie dashes to grab her arsenal of adorable pink flash cards, fantastic array of multi-colored highlighters, and sugar free energy bars.  “You dated That?”  Beks jokes.  (Watch out, Beks.  Your brother might just end up dating That too . . .)

While Caroline’s away (more on that in a bit), Beks kindly offers to compel Matt some passing grades, and a college scholarship, so that he can FINALLY get out of this godforsaken town.   It’s a sweet offer from the girl who once ran Matt’s car off a road, and almost killed him.  (Oops.)

Umm . . . check the bottom of the lake.

The Original Vampire kind of DOES owe the Bar Boy a favor or twenty.  And while giving Mr. Blue Collar a ticket into the Lower Middle Class wouldn’t entirely erase the whole Attempted Murder Thing from these two’s history together, it sure would be a nice start.  But NOOOOOO, Matt has to be all “honorable” and pass his classes the “old fashioned way” . . . by using his smart phone to teach him Italian.

Sometimes people are too good for their own good.   You know what I mean?

The Doppel-BANGER!

Source

At first Stefan’s “Genius Plan” to get Katherine to scare Elena’s humanity seems to be going swimmingly well . . .

The two insult one another.  They rough each other up a little bit . . .

Source

Well, would you look at that?  Nina Dobrev is beating the sh*t out of herself.   How very Fight Club of her!

Of course, you would think that after 170 some odd years, Stefan would have finally learned that Katherine will never EVER do what the Salvatore Brothers want her to do.  And this time is no exception . . . Katherine sets the captive Elena free!

Silly Stefan.  One day, you’ll learn that whenever you play with fire, you inevitably will end up getting burned . . .

Speaking of getting burned . . .

Silas, Silas Everywhere . . .

Source

It is like something out of fanfiction.  Klaus leaving his Baby Mama Drama in New Orleans to return to his lady love in Mystic Falls.  He begs her to escape her humdrum apocalyptic vampire life to come live with him in the Treme.  He forces her to admit that her hatred of him has morphed into something else entirely.  And, for the first time, she doesn’t exactly deny it . . .

Source

He invades her personal space, so she’s up against a tree . . .  his breath hot against her ear.  And then, he has to go and ruin it all, by making an offhand comment about feathers . . .

Source

So, wait.  Now, I’m confused.  Since when did Klaus become Elena?

Just kidding.  It’s that MIND RAPIST, whose real face looks like a cross between Lord Voldemort and the Sith from those Star Wars movies . . .

SILASSSSSSS!

He wants to send a message to Bonnie that she should come out of hiding OR ELSE.  And apparently that “message” involves staking Caroline.

“Why is everybody always temporarily killing me?”

Later that night, Caroline wakes up from her little death nap.

“I just had the most awful nightmare.”

Fortunately, Matt is there to comfort her . . .

I’m sorry.  Did I say “Matt,” I meant SILAS . . .

Source

Seriously?

Then Klaus pops up again, and he’s Silas too!

“I’m getting too old for this sh*t.”

Worried that Silas will kill her mother, Caroline rushes home.  Then Bonnie appears at the window, out of no where, to tell Caroline that her MOM IS SILAS TOO!

“I haven’t been this villainous, since that time I tried to have my daughter killed, because I found out she was a bloodsucker.”

Feeling trapped, Bonnie eventually walks off with Silas and his Real Ugly face, leaving Caroline to tend to her maybe-dead mother, in the back room.  What a b*tch!

As much as I’ve never been a big fan of the Lizard, I must admit, I got a little teary, when Caroline huddled over her and wished her back to life, a la Simba and Mufasa at the beginning of the Lion King.

Source

Actually, I Ugly Cried . . .

But then Lizard Forbes came back to life!  And all was right in the world!

Well, almost . . .

Attempt to Return Elena’s Humanity #562 (Spoiler Alert: This one actually works.)

After laying it into Katherine a bit for being just as crappy at helping Elena get back her humanity as everyone else on the show has been . . .

Source

 . . . Damon comes up with another idea . . .

This one involves Matt . . .

Source

At first this Plan #562 seems pretty darn similar to the 561 before it.  Matt finds Elena in the woods.  And he tells her she’s his oldest friend, and blah, blah blah . . .

Source

So, she eats him . . .

He passes out .  . . and wakes up.  So, she tries to eat him again.  But Damon gets there first.  And Damon .  . . KILLS MATT?

What’s this?  Is Elena actually SAD that Matt is dead?

Source

Source

But wait.  JUST KIDDING!  He’s wearing that Jamaican Me Crazy Immortality Ring!  Hooray!

Matt’s ALIIIIIIIVE!  Elena’s humanity is BACK!  I think there’s just something about Matt that always represented a sort of youth and innocence she shared with him, before her parents died.  When Elena was with Matt she was perky, untarnished, and pure.  And that’s ultimately why I think it was his potential death that ended up effecting her enough to trigger her to put her humanity switch back into the “ON” position.

In short, the 562nd time was, in fact, the charm.  Damon Salvatore (and Matt) for all the awards . . .

But, of course, now, Elena is SUPER DUPER SAD about Jer Bear being dead, and about what a piece of sh*t she’s been these past few weeks.  I mean, girlfriend KILLED A WAITRESS!  And worse.  .  . she dyed her hair pink!  Oh the humanity . . . literally.

Stefan instantly reverts back to Dr. Phil mode . . .

Source

Source

A few weeks back, we all harped a bit on Damon for using the sire bond to get Elena to turn ALL of her emotions off, when he could have just as easily just gotten her to lose ONE emotion . . . like say “sadness.”  This week, Stefan gets into a similar semantic kerfuffle with the extremely LITERAL Elena.

Source

Silly Stefan!  He thought his advice to Elena would turn her emotions into hearts, teddy bears and roses.  Maybe he even thought it would help him get laid.  Instead, it made Elena dead set on murdering the woman who killed Jer Bear, turned Caroline into a vampire,  brought Klaus to Mystic Falls, and stole the cure . . . her evil twin from the past . . . her doppelganger . . . Katherine Piece . . .

Katherine . . . the very same girl, who just entered into an alliance with Bonnie Bennett for the destruction of Silas, in exchange for her own shot at indestructibility.   Oh hell yes!  I think of all the Elena’s we’ve met this season, I’m going to like Homicidal Maniac Elena best of all . . .

Next week on The Vampire Diaries . . . The Apocalypse . . . and Kol . . . though not necessarily in that order . . .

Until next time, Fangbangers!

[www.juliekushner.com] My New Tumblr (Just getting my feet wet.)  Fangirls Forever

Don’t Eat the Prom Queen! – A Recap of The Vampire Diaries’ “Pictures of You”

Source

OMG, Fangbangers!  It’s Senior PROM TIME!  Can you believe it?  It seems like a really, really LOOONNNNG time ago only yesterday, that our scrappy Mystic Fall-ians were just innocent sophomores trying to make it through history class, without getting eaten by the broody new kid . . .

 

. . . or his hot older brother . . .

 

. . . or those 50 or so random people that all seemed to move into the town at the same time, even though no one had ever seen them before.  (Where were they living, all this time?  In an underground tomb?)

TV Prom episodes  are a lot prom itself, in the sense that people tend to have REALLY high expectations for them.  They are meant to encapsulate the series’ high school experience in a way that is nostalgic, romantic . . . EPIC . . .

“Pictures of You” wasn’t really that type of TV prom.  I mean, sure . . . the broad strokes were there . . . the pretty dresses . . .

. . . the cast mate who got crowned prom queen . . .

. . . a few sexually charged slow dances. . .

 

They had those past pictures of the cast appear on screen throughout the hour, which seemed designed to evoke nostalgia in the most literal sense possible . . .

Source

Yet, I wouldn’t really describe this as a typical High School Prom Episode.  And I think that has something to do with the fact that TVD isn’t actually a high school show.

Yes, yes, I recognize that it is technically a high school show, in the sense that the characters are supposedly of high school age.  But Mystic Falls High isn’t really a character on TVD, in the way that Capeside High, Degrassi, Constance Prep, or Neptune High were characters in their respective shows.  I suspect this has something to do with the fact that the students of Mystic Falls High never actually attend school, apart from the occasional decade dance, football game, or random gymnasium Klaus-mauling . . .

And this made it difficult for me, as a viewer, to care which lucky female won the title of Prom Queen Caroline was totally robbed, by the way. , which couple shared its last romantic slow dance together, and which heretofore virginal young couple would be checking in to the hotel upstairs, for a little cherry popping action.

In essence, I experienced the Mystic Falls High Prom much as Evilena did . . . which is to say, more or less, emotion-free, apart from a strong inexplicable desire to murder Bonnie Bennett . . .

Now, don’t get me wrong, Fangbangers.  This is not to say that I thought “Pictures of You” was a bad episode of TVD.  It just wasn’t . . . you know . . . EPIC.

Let’s review, shall we?

Burning Up for Your Love

“I thought these sorts of dreams were supposed to be wet.”

In the episode’s cold open, Bonnie travels to the cemetery, inexplicably dressed in an intensely ugly Bill Cosby sweater . . .

WHY, WARDROBE DEPARTMENT, WHY????

At this point in the series, Elena Gilbert has so many dead family members and friends, that the town has thoughtfully gone and dedicated an entire cemetery just to them . .  .

“I’m trying to Rest in Peace, but that loud sweater keeps waking me up!”

Usually it takes about a year to get a headstone on your grave.  But Jer Bear got his in about two weeks! Niiiiiiice!

Bonnie is tearfully paying her respects, when, who should pop up, but the Man, the Myth, the Legend . . . Mini Gilbert himself!

OK, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what Jeremy was wearing  when he died . . . 

Now, the hoodie I vaguely remember.  But where did he get that  jacket, Dead Guys R’ Us?

Strange Fact about Dead Jer . . . he has an accent now?  Is that, like, something that happens to you in Heaven . . . you suddenly become British?  Now, I get that this isn’t really Jeremy, but, rather, Silas’ incarnation of the dead teen.  But no one else who Silas impersonated had an accent before.  So, I’m kind of confused.   Is Steven R. McQueen preparing for an upcoming role in Season 4 of Downton Abbey that I didn’t know about?

The Grantham Estate sure could use another wood chopper . . .

Anywhoo . . . JerBear tells Bonnie to “wake up.”  At first, she assumes he’s being metaphorical.  But it turns out the request is literal, as she opens her eyes to find her couch on fire.   Stop smoking in bed, Bonnie!

Trust me, you don’t want to die on this show.  You’re not a Gilbert, so you probably won’t get your own gravesite.  They’ll likely end up just shoving your ashes in some old shoebox, like poor Grams . . .

Dress You Up in My Love

It’s PROM DAY!  And everybody is getting ready.  Actually, just Caroline and Bonnie are getting ready.  Stefan and Damon are playing with their balls, while bitching about Evilena . . .

Source

And Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah are having a family meeting . . .

“Hey, do you think they will let us take this house set with us to our Spinoff Series?”

As we all know from last week, Elijah now has The Cure.  So, being the Good and Honorable Original Vamp he is, the Most Gentlemanly Mikaelson allows Rebekah and Klaus an opportunity to explain why each deserves it over the other.  This makes Elijah kind of like King Solomon .  . . you know, apart from the whole “cut the baby in half” thing . . .

“I once ate a baby.  Does that count?”

Though both Originals make strong cases, ultimately Rebekah wins!

So Klaus, who has never been known for being a particularly gracious winner, tells Beks that when she dies, he will watch her suffer, and then compel her to forget him.  How precious!  I think I read that on a Hallmark card once . . .

I know this shouldn’t be hot, because they are related and all . . . but it kind of is . . .

However, Elijah’s offer of The Cure to Rebekah is not without strings.  In a plot conceit that reminded me a bit of the kind of thing Rumpelstiltskin would do to his bevy of gullible Disney Princesses on Once Upon a Time  . . .

 . . . Elijah tells Beks that, in order to win The Cure, she has to prove that she can survive her entire Prom, without the use of any sort of vampire magic, whatsoever.  You know, kind of like the rest of us saps had to endure our proms .  . .

Fortunately for Beks, her new roommate and erstwhile Fairy Godmother Evilena is there to make sure she doesn’t f*&k things up, and lose her opportunity at humanity.  Because, as we’ve all been told about 80 times this season, a human Rebekah means NO chance for a human Elena.   And that’s precisely what Evilena wants . . .

There ain’t no party like a Humanity-Free Vampire Party!

In Prom Episodes, there’s always that awkward moment where Frenemies run into one another, while dress shopping.  And “Pictures of You” is no exception . . .

Source

Trying to eat your best friend will inevitably put a damper on any relationship . . .

It’s becoming a bit of a running joke on this show, that, whenever Evilena covets an item of clothing of someone else’s, she will inevitably end up wearing that item of clothing . . .

It happened with that random cheerleader’s ugly blue hair ribbon, and Katherine’s heels.  So, now, of course,  it’s going to happen with Caroline’s much beloved red prom dress . . .

Source

Even if that means the writers have to conveniently remove the vervain from the town water supply, in order to make it happen . . .  (Someone care to explain that one to me?  Was it Silas?)

Of course, Caroline’s loss ends up being Klaus’ gain, because it forces Vampire Barbie to come to him, seeking fashion expertise . . .

Source

Of course, Klaus always finds Caroline’s anger adorable, during the rare moments, when it’s not directed at him. And though it is a bit disturbing that Klaus seems to have a closet filled with women’s wear, cultivated solely for the purpose of lavishing a high schooler with gifts . . .

I couldn’t help but be touched by the fact that the Big Bad Original Vamp was willing to take time out from his busy day of World Domination and Silas Screwing to help Caroline cope with her Fashion Crisis.  Also, that dress? SUPER HOT . . .

Source

As another recapper mentioned, had this been a Typical Prom Episode, we would likely have been treated to a montage, during which Caroline tried on dresses for a bemused Klaus, possibly to the tune of Pretty Woman . . .

Instead, we got a sort-of montage of Silas trying on the faces of the entire cast.  But more on that in just a bit . . .

Love the way you lie . . .

Source

I don’t know about your prom, but mine was characterized  by a lot of false niceness.  People who had hated one another for four years, suddenly hugged and told one another they looked fabulous.  Everybody smiled for the camera, and took pictures with people they would never have spoken to, let alone touched, otherwise.

 Conversely, the Mystic Falls prom was pretty much characterized by everyone being an A$$HOLE . . .

Source

April told Rebekah she didn’t get any votes for Prom Queen . . . NOT ONE!

Matt and Elena both told Rebekah she was a terrible person, who never did anything nice, and, therefore, would make a hideous human . . .

Elena told Damon she never really loved him . . .

She then admitted to Stefan that she felt nothing, while dancing with him, because she lacked any sort of heart capable of such feelings . . .

Elena told Matt he should have turned his emotions off, back when Vicki died . . .

She told Bonnie that she was just a Brainwashed Crazy Person, who couldn’t bring Jeremy back, and was pretty much a reminder of everything bad that ever happened to Elena . . .

(OK, that part was kind of true.)

Back at the Klaus House, Klaus told Elijah that — even though Elijah gave Klaus the one stake that could kill him, thereby ensuring he would NEVER DIE at least not while his spinoff remained on the air and even though he is  now his Only Living Brother . . .

 . . . Klaus would still kill Elijah’s lover Katherine, pretty much just to be a dick . . .

Source

In return, Elijah basically told Klaus he was a pathetic being with no life . . .

Source

Personally, I think honesty is overrated.  If  any of you out there are about to hurt my feelings, because you feel that I “have a right to know the truth,” know that I’d prefer Sweet Little Lies, any day, and twice on Saturday.  Thank you very much . . .

Speaking of blissful ignorance . . .

I’m Just a Killer for Your Love . . .

Source

While Damon is drinking away the sorrows of (temporarily) lost love . . .

And Stefan and Caroline are reassuring one another that they will learn to love again, Bonnie is outside dancing with Faux Dead Jeremy, Who Now Inexplicably Has a British Accent . . .

Source

By the way, what’s the deal with Silas always rubbing up on Bonnie?  He did it as Shane.  He’s doing it as Jeremy.  He even talks about doing it, when he’s Stefan  . . .

Source

I get that Silas needs Bonnie to do his Apocalypse Spell or whatever (which, for the record, I thought was already done, after they killed those twelve witches).  But this kind of seems like more than that.  This seems like Evil Villain Puppy Love.

I thought Silas was all about that other chick . . . you know . . . the one he’s apparently trying to die for.  But something tells me, that, when this is all over, Silas and Bonnie will have become the new Caroline and Klaus . . . just in time for Klaus to get his own show.  Just my prediction . . .

Anywhoo, Bonnie gets all pissed at JerBearSilas for tricking her for the umpteenth time, and starts making all the car alarms go off in the parking lot.  This, I suspect, was supposed to make her appear “dangerous,” but actually seemed like a rather helpful trick.   I HATE when I’m in a large parking lot, and I can’t find my car, because I’m too far away from it to use that clicker thingy.  With Bonnie around, that wouldn’t be a problem . . .

In other Lost-Lovers-Sort-of-But-Not-Really United News, Klaus gave Tyler a ten-minute reprieve from his Eternity on the Run to share a single slow dance with Caroline on Prom Night . . .

Source

OK, OK . . . now, I don’t want to sound like an old stick in the mud.  I’m first and foremost a Forwood Fan. So, of course, I think Caroline’s and  Tyler’s Slow Dance Reunion in her living room was lovely.  All I’m saying is that, if I only had ten minutes to spend with the Love of My Life, before he went back to an Eternity on the Run, I wouldn’t spend it wearing so many layers of clothes, if you catch my drift . . .

Am I wrong?  Speaking of wrong . . .

Love Hurts . . .

After Rebekah’s adorable dance with Matt . . .

 . . . during which she tells the male bar wench that he’s “beautifully human” (which is sweet, in a sort of backhanded way, like being told you’re “refreshingly normal” or “not bad looking”)

 . . . her chance to be human starts to gradually slip from her fingers.  It all starts when Matt and Bonnie get crowned Prom King and Queen . . .

OK.  Let me pause for a moment.  Matt and Bonnie?  What the WHAT?

OK, Matt as Prom King, I get.  Everybody likes Matt.  That appears to be his sole defining characteristic on this show, apart from his talent for cleaning tables, and asking people if they want fries with that .  . .

But Bonnie?  Since when did Bonnie become the most popular girl in school?  Now, I’m not saying she was unpopular, per say.  It just always seemed like Caroline was the girl involved in student council, Miss Mystic Falls, cheerleading, dance committee, and all other school activities . . .

 . . . while Bonnie sat home and . . . lit candles with her mind.

When Bonnie was standing up there on that platform, part of me was expecting the pigs blood to fall down on her head, a la Stephen King’s Carrie . . .

But, instead Bonnie just almost got eaten by Elena, and proceeded to Mind Rape her . . .

Things start to get interesting, when Bonnie, after fighting with Elena, actually does start to do a little Stephen King Carrie homage, by making STRONG WINDS (flatulence?) blow around the dance hall.  Unfortunately, she leaves, before she can do any real damage . . .

My favorite part of the episode happens next . . .

Source

Evilena may have no soul.  But no one can say she’s not loyal.  Think about it.  How many friends of yours would be willing to eat a chick, just because she let you down . . .

Also,  let’s face it.  Annoying April had it coming . . . and not just because she didn’t let Rebekah be Prom Queen, despite the fact that girlfriend has been waiting 1,000 YEARS to go to a prom!

April just sucks . . . plain and simple.  And she deserved to be Elena’s snack, because of it . . .

So, of course, Rebekah has to be all “good” and save her. even if it means breaking her Human for a Day pact with Elijah . . .  just because Matt told her it was the “right thing to do”. . .

Things start to get a little crazy at this point.  This is because for pretty much the last ten minutes of the episode, the writers decide to have SILAS PLAY EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER ON THE SHOW . . . It’s like a one-man production of Hamlet . . . if Hamlet was evil . . . and had magical powers.

Silas is Damon . . .

 . . . leading Stefan into the woods, before promptly staking his ass.

Silas is Stefan . . . taunting Damon about the veracity of Elena’s feelings for him, before staking his ass . . .

Source

Silas is Jeremy, for the 87th time this episode  (Jeremy seems to have more lines as a dead fake British guy, than he did when he was alive), telling Bonnie to “control her anger, and “dangerous” tendency to make wind and  set off car alarms.

But most importantly, Silas is Rebekah, when he tells Elijah she “passed his test,” and promptly steals the cure from his hot little hands . . .

Oh Elijah . . . you really aren’t the smart brother, are you?

“That’s me!  That’s me!”

Out in the parking lot, Elena tries to kill Bonnie again.  And this time, Bonnie gets REALLY pissed off about it . . . as opposed to the slightly pissed off she was, the first time . . .

Elena (naturally) calls to Damon for help . . .

Once the pain threatening to blow apart her skull finally stops, Elena looks at her erstwhile lover. And there’s a brief moment between them that alludes to genuine feeling between them, not just on Damon’s side, but on Elena’s as well . . .

Upon seeing this, Damon and Stefan decide that the true route toward recapturing Elena’s humanity lies not in bombarding her with love, but in sex with DAMON!!! cultivating her fear of death.  I smell some hot torture scenes in our future . . .

We all know how much TVD enjoys those . . .

In the final scenes of the episode, Klaus obtains a cryptic message from Katherine, which sends him to his spinoff New Orleans . . .

 . . . while Bonnie encounters the REAL face of Silas, which is apparently disfigured, but probably only in that Sexy Ugly Way CW Stars are “disfigured.”

Next week on TVD, the much-awaited backdoor pilot of The Original makes its TV debut . . .

Source

Are you psyched or skeptical, my dear Fangbangers?

See you next time!

[www.juliekushner.com][Fangirls Forever]