The Vampire Diaries S01 E06 – Vampire Quarantine Edition

Previously: Elena found the bruises and bite marks on Caroline.
—

Lost Girls

Emmy: This episode begins by backtracking to how Elena got to where she FINALLY figured out that her boyfriend is a vampire and decides to confront him… alone. (M: lol, self-preservation makes for bad TV.)

As Stefan opens the door, though, old-timey Stefan walks through a mansion doorway in a laughable coat and a woman is helped out of a carriage. Seeing as this is Nina Dobrev, we can assume that she is Katherine.

She introduces herself and our deduction was correct, so I congratulate myself with a shot for no reason except this is the third time I’ve watched this episode, and I need a shot.

Marines: We like to call those “Good at TV” shots around here. You deserve it, girlfriend!

Emmy: I feel like I’m going to be doing a lot of those.

We cut directly from that scene to the title card and then to Elena saying “What are you?” to Stefan, who looks somehow shocked that she’s figured out his super-sneaky secret.

His response is “You know.”

They have the standard “no I don’t” “if you didn’t you wouldn’t be here” “it’s not possible” “the world is bigger than you know change what you know and believe” conversation that every supernatural SO has with their human partner at some point. There is no extra work done here to make it more interesting.

After like her fifteenth ask of “What are you?” Stefan says he’s a vampire and there’s a spooky bass. Elena stares and says that she shouldn’t have come, which made me laugh. Bitch, you knew he was a vampire. Wtf did you think he was going to say?

Elena runs away, and Stefan decides THIS is the time to fast-run in front of her. When she asks how he does that (she’s pretty but kinda stupid good lord), he asks her not to be afraid of him, but given that he’s blocking her escape and refusing to allow her to leave, I think that’s a lost cause.

Stefan sadly watches her leave, and we cut to Elena at home. She checks on Jeremy and when she goes back to her room, Stefan is there again because he’s trying not to scare her and this obviously won’t freak her out. When she tries to run, he slams the door closed and stands really close, breathing on her neck. She’s almost crying. Stefan is all “I won’t hurt you, you’re safe with me,” but she’s terrified and he’s now followed her home and appeared in her bedroom and refused to give her space, so. I dunno about all that.

Mari: I know this is basically what you just said, but what the HECK Stefan thinking?? It’s worth emphasizing because it Stefan is so bad at this!!!! Why would he CHASE HER and GET IN HER SPACE?

Emmy: When she asks about the dead bodies and animal attacks, he explains that it was all Damon. He says he’ll explain everything but she can’t tell anyone, which is fair, being that a large portion of the adults in this town apparently have a Vampire Hunting Club.

Elena says that she needs him to go right the hell now, and he does… but not before she turns her back on him. God, Elena. Show some self-preservation, please. Don’t play by the Horror Bimbo Rules.

Marines: We were so proud of her for figuring out the vampire thing. She needed to do a few stupid things to bring balance back.

Emmy: That’s true… it’s a fine line to walk, apparently.

We cut to the cemetery where Damon is draining people. He’s made a mess of his face and he wipes it off with a dead person’s sleeve which was, honestly, pretty funny. He starts pouring alcohol over people and lighting them on fire while he calls Stefan. Stefan asks where he is, and he says he’s at the Only Restaurant in Town and just had the buffet, then says he needs his ring back.

They snip at each other for a minute or two, Damon blaming Stefan for the people he’s killed, Stefan playing the disappointed brother, etc., etc. The theme of it is that Damon needs his ring back. If Stefan doesn’t give it back, Damon’s next stop is Elena’s. Blah blah, standard love-interest threats.

Stefan says something we’ll come back to- he says that he already wants Damon dead, and that Damon shouldn’t give him another reason to make it happen. More sniping at each other and Stefan actually outsmarts Damon and Damon is reduced to an annoyed face and “just get it” before he hangs up.

Damon tosses some alcohol on Vicki and she coughs. She’s almost dead but she’s not dead and he laughs and says “you just don’t want to die, do you?” and God, he’s going to make her a vampire, isn’t he?

Nic: Okay, but it’s been several months since we watched the last episode, I didn’t watch this one until now, and I was really excited because I 10/10 thought she was dead last episode. Hi, Vicki! You being a vampire doesn’t kill my dreams of you being a vampire hunter with Caroline, so I’m just going to nurse that dream of better things for you, gorgeous.

Emmy: We cut to Elena sitting with a pen and her journal, and then to her throwing her journal across the room. To be fair, if I suddenly discovered vampires were in fact real I’d also be a little put-out.

After the getting-ready montage, we cut to Elena sitting with Stefan at the One Bar and Grill. She says, “When you Google ‘vampire’ you get a world of fiction. What’s the reality?”

Which, why do people in these shows always Google ‘vampire?’ Don’t you just know, from cultural osmosis, everything you need to know? This isn’t Anne Rice, you’re not going to find a vampire spilling his/her soul to a journalist in every universe, you’ve gotta go ask one.

We have the standard “vampire and human checklist” conversation with all the contemporary things that most writers these days don’t keep. Garlic, crucifixes, holy water and mirrors have no effect, vampires can survive on animal blood (but it’s not really enough). Sunlight isn’t an issue because of the rings, which we knew.

Elena brings him to task for allowing Damon to assault Caroline. He assures her that Damon wiped Caroline’s memories, so cool, cool, it’s not a problem, right? Well, it is of course, and Elena does stand up for her friend and demand to know why that makes it okay. Stefan assures that it’s not okay and then they change the subject with no more discussion. Elena asks how many vampires there are here, and Stefan evades a little, saying that it’s really only him and Damon now, but back in the day, Mystic Falls was apparently a hotbed of vampire activity (though he never states exactly how many there were back then). He tells her that she can’t tell anyone about him.

She immediately says she can’t promise that, and I lol a lot because there’s a vampire and she’s like NOPE NOT GONNA PROMISE TO KEEP YOUR SECRET. He asks her to give him today. He’ll answer her questions and show her things, and then at the end of the day, he’ll let her choose what she wants to do. She agrees.

Mari: I get what Stefan means here, but I still cringed when he was all “it’s your choice.” Like DUH. Of course it’s her choice, which makes it so icky that Stefan thinks he’s giving her that choice.

Emmy: We cut to the cemetery where Sheriff Deserves-a-Better-Daughter and the reporter guy whose name I already forget are looking at a dead body and complaining about how badly it smells. They know, of course, that it’s a vampire kill because they’re both part of the Vampire Hunting Club. Her logic is that you only burn a corpse to hide cause of death, and there are no shell casings, so it absolutely has to be a vampire.

There are… just so many logical leaps there, but okay, sure.

Mari: I would’ve liked it better if she just said, “It’s Mystic Falls. All the deaths are vampire deaths.”

Emmy: Reporter Dude Logan Scum (the one who dates Jenna) asks what story he should run about the dead bodies and Sheriff Caroline’s Mom says just to say it was a bad drug deal. Logan says that he got the Gilbert watch, and a deputy interrupts to say they found something in the brush nearby. It’s a purse, and we can guess before they show us the ID that it’s Vicki’s. Sheriff Forbes is sad and hopes that none of the burned bodies are Vicki’s because she went to high school with her mother.

We cut to Damon calling Stefan way too much when he’s not getting a call back, still grumpy about his ring being missing. “I’m here, trapped at the house, getting really bored and really impatient and I don’t do bored and impatient. Bring me my ring!”

God, he’s so whiny.

Nic: I mean, it’s big quarantine energy, though.

Mari: With less murder, I hope.

Emmy: Not gonna lie- I moved in with my boyfriend right before quarantine started and since we both suddenly worked from home and were together 24/7, murder was almost on the menu for a while.

He turns and sees Vicki, who is laying deadlike on the couch, and asks her not to get blood on the couch. Vicki is definitely unconscious. He decides that she’s not going to be any fun, so he forces her to drink blood from his wrist. At first she’s not about it, but apparently it’s tasty or something? And so she gets into it. I dunno, guys, it’s a vampire show, I’m doing my best.

Cut to Stefan and Elena driving up a very tree-laden drive with ivy all over the place. There are crumbling ruins all around and Elena’s confused, but Stefan keeps going. He says he wants to show her something and she goes, “In the middle of nowhere?”

Okay Elena, but you knew he was directing you to drive to the middle of nowhere and you still took those turns and went alone.

Mari: Like girlfriend, you just don’t end up in the middle of nowhere!! You saw the beginning of nowhere!!!

Emmy: Like, she’s from here. She knows there’s nothing down this road, right? Surely.

He explains that this used to be his home. Elena’s freaked out that it’s all so old and broken. She realizes she hasn’t actually asked him how old he is, which was like… the second or first thing Bella asked, Elena. God.

Stefan reveals that he’s been seventeen (also Edward’s ostensible age- why seventeen, vampire authors?) (M: In order to date children with, my dear.) (E: vom) since 1864. This is kind of a lot for Elena to process, obvs. Stefan talks about how this was his family’s home before the place he lived. He says that he and Damon were both born there; the Salvatore brothers, best of friends!

Nic: Apparently the Salvatore brothers were born before ‘bros before hoes.’

Emmy: We cut to a slightly-sepia-toned scene of Damon and Stefan are playing football, a game that Damon learned while he was gone at war. There’s a little friendly tussling and what are the rules and Katherine coming out laughing and asking why anyone needs rules and I just don’t care because Stefan’s hair in these scenes is ridiculous and I hate it. Damon is still super hot and I love his hat, so he escapes my wrath at the moment. I still hate him for all the crap he’s done recently, but in 1864 who knows what he’d done? Maybe nothing.

Katherine asks if she can join them. Stefan swaggers up and says that she could get hurt because his brother likes to play rough. Damon sexts Katherine with his eyes, and Katherine laughs and says that somehow, she thinks Stefan plays rougher. (N: But like why would you think so? If Stefan was a Girl Scout cookie, he would be a shortbread.) (E: God, I love you. Best.) She grabs the ball and runs. Stefan watches her, and Damon asks why he’s just standing there. That is a girl who clearly wants to be chased. Stefan stares after her for a moment and Damon says if Stefan doesn’t do it he will and runs off after her.

We cut back to the present and there’s some chatter here about how Damon tried to make Elena jealous of Katherine and Stefan’s relationship but it was actually 145 years ago… but we’re right back into 1864 again after three lines of useless dialogue and Old-Timey Stefan is chasing Katherine through some hedges and I already think she’s going to irritate me because as the scene progresses, it’s so wildly obvious that she’s purposely pitting the Salvatore brothers against each other for funsies. Every single word out of her mouth is so weirdly fake and it’s giving me an ulcer.

Also, Damon’s a Confederate soldier so there’s the bad thing he did in 1864. He IS kind of deserting… still tho. Confederate soldier.

Mari: I’m so happy I can hate him in any era. A Confederate Soldier???? And he’s only deserting for a GIRL?? He is the WORST.

Emmy: It’s like in Twilight when Meyer made Jasper a Confederate soldier. (wtf is with that actually?? Why is this a copy?)

Stefan got the girl in the end and Damon was hurt, but Stefan didn’t actually care (lol “best of friends” until a hot piece of vampire ass shows up). Stefan says that the thing about Damon is he doesn’t get hurt, he just gets even.

We of course immediately cut to Damon and Vicki, the latter of whom is all healthy and bubbly again after a vigorous shower. She’s concerned about how her neck is no longer bloody or anything, and wants to know what’s up.

Nic: Okay, so she woke up, took a whole shower, got downstairs, and only now notices that her wound is gone. She didn’t wonder any of this while she was in the shower?

Emmy: Damon uses his rapey mind control and tells her that she was drunk, he attacked her and killed her friends, brought her back here, gave her some blood, she loved it and they’re gonna party ’til the sun comes down.

Vicki’s like cool, cool yeah can I have some more? They do the whole vampire you-bite-me-I-bite-you-it’s-super-sexy thing that vampire stuff always has in it, so there’s that for your bingo card if you’ve got a “bad vampire tropes” one going.

Oh my god we should make one of those.

Anyway, we’re back to Stefan and Elena. I suppose this cut means that the whole Vicki thing is supposed to be Damon getting back at Stefan? Unsure. Stefan reveals that Katherine was double-dipping with the Salvatore brothers- she was with Damon and Stefan both the night of the Founder’s Ball. We cut directly from that to Stefan and Katherine about to do the deed and Stefan makes the comment that he’ll love Katherine forever. There’s some thinly veiled comments from her on the theme of “I’m a vampire so you could literally love me forever” and then she bites him.

We cut to her getting her corset laced up the next morning by her maid. (M: Probably slave, tbh) (E: ugh gross yeah, this is the South so you’re right.) and Stefan’s freaked out. She’s all “why the attitude bro,” and Stefan tells her that she looked like a demon. Katherine starts her mind-compulsion and says that he still loves her, he won’t tell anyone, and they’re going to go on exactly as they have been for all this time. Stefan’s cool with it because mind-control.

Nic: I mean, at least there’s equal-opportunity assholes in this series. Up until now, all the women have just been relatively good people and the guys were the dicks/evil rapists.

Emmy: That’s true! There are so few representations of true female assholes in the series so far, just vague high-school level bitchiness. Looking at you Caroline! Wait. Where are you, Caroline? Didn’t you just go through a horrifically traumatic event last episode? Shouldn’t we deal with that?

*looks forward in the episode*

No? Cool. Alright. Maybe next time.

Katherine was apparently going for a brother-husbands kind of a thing- he says that he has “no idea the kind of future she has planned for the three of them.” Sigh. How many people are going to die and already have died because the Salvatore brothers couldn’t keep it in their pants and had a fight over some vampire chick?

Elena doesn’t seem weirded out, really, about all this information. Stefan picks up Damon’s ring from the rubble and Elena is understandably upset about giving this insane killer a ring that lets him walk in the daytime. Stefan informs her that if he doesn’t, Damon will hurt him in the only way Damon knows how- by hurting her.

Cue eyeroll.

We cut to Mayor Lockwood and Sheriff Forbes pulling stuff out of a safe in the floor and telling us stuff we already know about the cemetery crime scene. Logan hands over the watch and the mayor does something with it that turns it into a compass of some sort, from what I can tell. We will get no further information about this thing during this episode that centers around getting it back and using it. The Watch of Plot is unfortunately unexplained.

#nextepisode?

Now we’re back with Vicki who is having a manic episode, dancing and telling us stuff we already know about her romantic strifes. Damon snarks that being in love is boring and pointless and overrated, which is funny, because those describe him at this point in the episode.

Now, Damon tells her to dance with him at 21:53. Next follows a montage wherein they dance, destroy Stefan’s room (N: destroying his room was pretty funny and felt very sibling-during-quarantine energy), drink, and basically just show off how attractive both of them are and Damon dancing through sunlight until the plot needs him to burn a little. This montage does not stop until 23:54, which seems like a short amount of time looking at the numbers, but it is a full minute and a half longer than it needed to be.

Then we cut (N: very abruptly) to Damon and Vicki slow-dancing. Vicki is pouring out her heart to Damon, telling him all her sad life story. Damon sighs and tells her she is pathetic, and then he breaks her neck, which we all saw coming. Don’t play him off, music composer, he’s not that scary or evil. I’ll get back to this.

So the next scene is Vicki waking up and Damon repeatedly putting his hand in sunlight for some reason. Maybe he thinks that part of vampirism wears off? I don’t know.

Mari: He’s just bored! I feel like it’s the equivalent of playing with matches or a candle.

Emmy: Okay, I’ll buy that. I’ve got a fierce case of ADD and I once found myself ripping up a Very Important Document because I was bored and wasn’t really paying attention.

Vicki asked what happened and Damon tells her that he killed her. He goes on to explain that she fed on his blood and he killed her, so now she has to feed on a human to complete the “process.” I have a sinking feeling that this is something we will be seeing a lot; buying people time in this way.

Nic: One of my many predictions- it’s gonna be Elena and there’s going to be a whole thing about whether or not she dies or not, and then… mmm… let’s say she decides to die and gets force-fed blood anyway right before the time limit? That’s going to be my guess because it feels suitably dramatic for this show. We’ll see.

Emmy: It will 100% be Elena.

Damon teases her that she doesn’t feel good and she needs to eat blood. She blows him off, and Damon says she should go see Jeremy (he found out she likes Jeremy who is Elena’s brother) and that “If you see Stefan, tell him to call me.”

Is it me, or is Damon just… annoying in this episode? He was almost villain-cool in the first few, then actually legitimately awful, and now he’s just annoying me.

Nic: We all got pretty obnoxious there a few weeks into the quarantine. That said, he’s like the eight year-old brother who got aggressively obnoxious that you were trapped with.

Mari: I’m letting y’all have the actual reactions to Damon because I’m incapable of thinking of him as anything but hateful at this point. And he’s supposed to be! He’s the villain!! But the show doesn’t always think so. So I hate him extra for all the times the show is like “lol, isn’t his rape and murder kinda cute sometimes?”

No.

Emmy: Yeah, it weirds me out that they’re setting him up to be this heartless villain, and I have a sinking suspicion that later on in the series they’re going to try and justify this bull somehow and show that he’s really a good person, he just struggles with showing it because he’s emotionally scarred or some shit. Because in trash-lit, that’s an excuse for almost any behavior (50 Shades, Twilight, After, etc etc etc).

#SnarkLadyLifeAdvice: It’s not. There is no excuse for treating people the way Damon has treated people. Go to therapy if you have trauma that keeps you from connecting to people in a healthy way.

ANYWAY. We cut to Sheriff Forbes speaking to Logan. She says they’re blocking off entrances of things and to call her if “that thing” goes off, indicating the watch-compass whatever the hell it is. I don’t know what “going off” is, precisely. I’m not kidding guys, we have zero information about how this works.

Sheriff Forbes hands Skinny Reporter Dude Logan Scum a gun with wooden bullets and a stake, and there’s some snark about how neither of them have actually killed a vampire yet.

Nic: So apparently it doesn’t take much to earn admission into the Vampire Hunting Club. Caroline, Vicki, get in on that. I suspect there’s about to be an opening.

Emmy: We cut to Jeremy coming down the stairs in the Gilbert House. Vicki’s here and she’s hungry, so she starts taking everything out of the fridge. Jeremy says, very judgementally, “Vicki, are you high? It’s the middle of the day.”

Which. Just. Jeremy, we’ve seen you high at like 8:30am in that first episode when you were in the bathroom putting in eye drops to keep your teachers from seeing that your eyes were bloodshot. That was before the first bell of the first day of school.

Throughout this scene, Vicki makes comments about how everything is too bright, loud, the sun is burning, her head is killing her, she needs quiet, etc. Of course, this serves to show that she’s a half-vampire, but Jeremy just thinks she’s high.

We cut back to Elena and Stefan as they discuss the mind-control that Katherine used. Elena smartly asks if he’s ever used it on her. He says no, and explains that he gave her a necklace filled with vervain that keeps her from getting compelled by Damon. Which is sweet. And then he says he also gave it to her to protect her from him, because “No matter what happens after today, you’ll know that you were free to make your own choice.” Which is not sweet.

Uh. So… so would you be compulsing her to stay with you otherwise…? Did you know that if this situation were to happen you would indeed be sorely tempted to mind-control her and so you put that stop-gap there just in case? I don’t know, this line just read weird to me.

Nic: I had the same thought. Like, it’s nice that she can have confidence later that her choices were her own. However, the ‘also to protect you from me’ gave me the exact same line of thought that you just went through.

Emmy: Back at the Gilbert House, AirSupply Matt shows up, asking where his sister is because we can assume Jeremy called him. Matt does a pretty good job of big-brothering here; asks what she’s on, tries to provide comfort and understanding, etc. She starts screaming that they need to “turn it off” and when they’re confused about what “it” is, she storms into the living room and the TV set there is turned to Logan doing his damn job and talking about the “drug deal gone bad.” The sound is, as my closed-captions inform me, inaudible, so she obviously shouldn’t been able to hear it. Jeremy turns up the sound and Vicki starts crying. Both boys start questioning her about what happened and I honestly am so distracted by how pretty Vicki’s hair is after a night bleeding out, a shower at someone else’s house, a vampire dance party, being killed, stumbling to the Gilbert House, and then eating everything they own and laying on the floor.

Mari: Vampirism strengthens your follicles and adds shine.

Emmy: Jeremy tries to talk to her and she throws Jeremy into the couch with her Super-Vampire-Powers. He masculinities that he’s fine and Elena and Stefan walk in. Stefan starts with the wide eyes and furrowed brow that tell us he knows What’s Up, and he moves everyone away from his new vampire niece and tells her that everything’s okay and tells them to take her upstairs and shut the blinds, that she’s going to be okay.

Nic: And Air Supply Matt is 110% with this strange teenager he doesn’t really like touching his sister on the face and speaking to her in a commanding tone. Like- no. You don’t touch my siblings, you weirdo, especially if they’re sick. Keep your hands to yourself, Stranger Danger.

Emmy: Elena asks what’s going on and Stefan informs her that Vicki is turning into a vampire and goes over the Vampire Turning Rulebook. Elena asks what happens if Vicki doesn’t feed on human blood, and Stefan tells us that she will die. DrAmA.

Stefan tells Elena that she’s only got a few hours, saying that she doesn’t really know what’s happening yet. She will get her memories back as she gets deeper into the transition, and at that point, she will have to make a choice.

Elena turns and says, “The same choice you made?” all judgey. However, we have no indication that you have to kill someone to feed on them, only the opposite- Damon fed on Caroline for weeks and it was nbd. Most people don’t want to die, humans want to survive. So what’s with the attitude? You can’t blame a person for not wanting to die when they’re seventeen years old.

Nic: Or, alternatively, is she judging him for choosing to be a vampire in the first place. Which again, we have no indication that he actually made that choice and neither does she.

Emmy: Cut to Vicki and Jeremy, who Stefan is fine leaving alone??? Like, he knows Vicki will be hungry and bitey and he’s leaving her completely alone with his love-interest’s very human little brother? Okay, Stefan. Sure. Anyway, Jeremy is being sweet and supportive because he still likes Vicki, and Matt sees this and leaves, which is nice. Vicki turns her head and almost bites Jeremy, but she shoves him away and runs out of the house.

When Matt runs from the hallway to the front of the house, she’s gone like a ghost bc vampire powers. Stefan says he can track her and he runs off. We see the sun, and then it is FULL DARK WITH A GIANT MOON. Stefan. Buddy. Keep your day job because tracking is clearly not working out for you if a baby half-vampire can outrun you and hide from you. I’m not accepting that his animal-blood lifestyle is the problem either. How hard is it to smell a mostly-human person?

Anyway, we see Logan walking with the watch held out like a compass. It doesn’t explain how this works, but it seems to function like Jack Sparrow’s compass from Pirates of the Caribbean? Does it just find all vampires? A specific one? What if there are multiple? How does it decide?

Jeremy and Elena are cleaning up the hellacious mess that Vicki left and the doorbell rings. They go to answer it and it’s Damon! Took him long enough. Elena tries to close the door and Damon pushes it open again because vampire and Elena says Jeremy, go upstairs all tense and upset when she’s staring at a man who more or less just pushed himself inside their house.

And Jeremy just… goes? Okay.

Nic: God, the siblings in this show have no protective instinct. If someone shoved into my house and stared that intensely at my sister who clearly didn’t want him there, I’d be grabbing a lamp to swing at his head. Sure, that would have gotten Jeremy killed bc “evil” vampire, but Jeremy didn’t know that. Maybe he wants to be an only child.

Emmy: Lolololol I mean she did threaten to kill his buzz constantly in Ep. 1 so maybe?

Anyway, so Damon’s bad-boying all over the place and smarming that he has permission to come inside bc she let him like three episodes ago or whatever when they had the dinner party. Damon informs her that he’s not going to kill her and asks where Stefan is. Elena informs him that Stefan is out looking for Vicki and Damon is just like omg that girl was a hot mess, she’s going to like being a vampire so much better.

They have an intense moment about how Damon is certain that Stefan didn’t give Elena the full story of what happened with Katherine, and then he leaves, telling her to tell Stefan that he’s looking for him, and seriously, what’s with these vampires and their lack of ability to smell? Like, Stefan was here. Follow his trail or something, sniff him out. Bloodhounds can do it, you’re a damn vampire.

Is it just me or is Damon’s constant calling Stefan, being whiny about wanting to know where his brother is, and telling everyone he meets that they need to make Stefan call him back just… very “junior-high girl with her first boyfriend?” I don’t know. He’s really whiny and annoying this episode. He then opens the door again and tells her to be more careful about who she invites into the house in the future.

Nic: Now, in the book, there was a fascinating little intricacy here. Elena’s house was built upon an older house. She eventually found out that although she had invited vampires into her house, her bedroom was part of the older house and for some reason the Vampire Instinct Rules determined that they had to be invited into that ‘older house.’ Thus she was safe in her bedroom even though they could wander freely everywhere else. It was very interesting even if it didn’t totally make sense, and I wonder if it will show up here.

Emmy: No, that’s far too interesting, there’s no way. I do remember that little weirdness in the book. Very old-world-faerie-magic, I liked it a lot.

We cut to Vicki in the cemetery, crying. Stefan approaches her and she says that she’s remembering Damon’s controlling self, remembering that Stefan tried to help her a few times in the past, etc. She asks what happens if she doesn’t feed. Stefan explains that she will die, basically. Vicki’s crying, and Stefan tries to comfort her. She asks if it’s better, if she’ll be better, then starts sobbing that she wants to go home and begging him to take her home.

And I like this scene for Vicki’s acceptance of the situation, her fear of what she will become, Stefan showing what a good person he can be. She understands that she’s made mistakes but seems to be leaning more toward allowing herself to follow through with the consequences, rather than being a vampire. She just wants to go home and potentially die there.

Stefan gets shot (who didn’t see that coming) and starts bleeding all over. Reporter Dude clearly doesn’t realize that Vicki is a half-vampire and thought Stefan was going to hurt her, etc. Reporter Dude leans down to stake Stefan as Vicki screeches but does nothing and Damon bites him and mostly kills him, then starts digging around in Stefan’s chest to dig out the bullet.

I am mostly against anything that makes Damon happy, however, Logan was mean to our Jenna and dated her under false pretenses. So.

Damon says, “It’s wood. They know. If anyone’s going to kill you, it’s going to be me. My ring.”

And I roll my eyes.

Nic: I don’t think Damon actually hates Stefan. At all. I think it’s a very Loki-Thor brotherhood thing. Like, Damon enjoys playing with Stefan way too much to ever kill him.

I think that because Stefan hates Damon and wants to kill him, Damon’s like ‘yeah, totally, me too. Hate you too, bro.’ But if he wanted him dead, he would be dead. Immediately. There have been so many chances.

To Damon, I think this is an extremely dysfunctional transformation of the playing, teasing, mischievous relationship we’ve been shown in their flashbacks all along. I think Damon’s just having a good time, but he pretends to want to murder his brother just because Stefan genuinely does want him dead.

Emmy: Exactly. Damon just isn’t a believable threat in the way the show wants him to be. Not to Stefan, and I don’t think to Elena, either.

Anyway, Stefan gives Damon back his ring. We hear that crunch sound and Stefan looks around to see Vicki biting Logan, which is just rude.

Nic: STEFAN. You have a toddler. Fresh vampires are literally called ‘newborns.’ Babies put things in their mouths. How are you not watching your toddler?! Now look what she did. This is what happens when you take your eyes off a hungry toddler, they just eat random trash!

Mari: I mean, if as a parent, you get SHOT, probably there are gonna be some moments in there your toddler is going to eat trash. It can’t be helped.

Emmy: True, that would be very distracting.

But this is why the Vicki thing annoys me: Vicki has shown no character growth, no care for anyone else when it’s actually necessary. I’m not even slightly surprised, but I would have liked them to make her something more, to allow herself to die clean rather than just being an addict to something else. We have seen her be an addict and make bad choices, and it would have been very emotional and shown a ton of growth for her to let herself go rather than letting some other substance control her.

But no, the showrunners make her a vampire and ugh, I hate it. After all that vulnerability and the moment where she sort of accepted it, this happens.

Nic: It could be a commentary on how hard addiction is to break… but even so, that just didn’t seem like where her character arc was going in those last few seconds.

Emmy: Damon smarms and grabs the watch that fell on the ground, and we immediately cut to Sheriff Forbes and her deputy finding Logan’s body. It’s very obviously a vampire kill and she says they need to find the watch.

Stefan walks up to Elena’s house, where she’s sitting on the porch. Stefan apologizes and says that he found Vicki, but he couldn’t stop her from feeding. Elena’s upset and Stefan promises to find Vicki and show her how to live an animal-sucking lifestyle. Elena asks what she’s supposed to tell Jeremy and Matt, and Stefan says they’ll come up with a story. Elena says, “You mean we’ll come up with a lie.”

Uh yeah, girl. Lies. This isn’t new. You know that you had to keep this quiet, that was like the second thing he said about being a vampire.

Elena says that she gave him today like he asked. She promises to keep his secret but says that she can’t be with him even though she knows that he won’t hurt her. So they’re breaking up again and ugh so much drama when she closes the door and slides down against it crying.

Like, guys, how long have they been dating? A week?

I hope some of those tears are for Vicki and her brother and Matt, because good lord, girl, you and Stefan spend more time staring at each other and talking cryptically than you do actually talking. You’re going to be fine.

Annnnnd title card.

Guys. I don’t know if it was the introduction to Katherine, Damon’s whininess, the way they took Vicki’s character, or what but this was by far the least interesting episode yet.

Nic: Also- Bonnie and Caroline just didn’t exist in this episode?? Okay, then.

Next time on The Vampire Diaries: Damon terrorizes Vicki in S01 E07 – Haunted.