The Vampire Diaries Season 3 Episode 2 recap
Previously on the Vampire Diaries, I laughed hysterically at all of your emails about the season premiere. Thank you for reminding me that it was Stefan’s room Damon trashed, I never found out what made Caroline’s purse burn her, and finally, THANK YOU to the person who told me on twitter that SIMON CAMDEN is playing the tortured werewolf! Who knew?
Damon’s ripping down Stefan articles, and he criticizes Elena for ‘not staying away’ from him. I really do have to address the point that these two are doing a bad job of not dipping into a place of comfort and hanging out all the time. You’d think that without the barrier of Stefan, they’d feel less comfortable around each other –but apparently you’d be wrong. As they debate the intricacies of what ‘Stefan’s Gone’ could mean, I wonder which one is less upset about it: Elena storms out first, but Damon burns all the tracking articles. Does that make it a draw?
In a dark room, Alaric sleeps, shirtless. And is awakened by Elena banging on the door, repeatedly. He acts awkward, and NO KIDDING. Either turn into her uncle, fast, or make an awkward play for her romantically. But please stop letting us know that you feel like your relationship with her is uncomfortable. She demands that he tell her what he knows about where Stefan might be…
Suddenly we’re in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, and Klaus is being falsely solicitous (though he does get points for calling Stefan ‘brooding’). On the other hand, Stefan is still himself enough to ask if they can not ‘talk’ when it’s unnecessary. They come among a werewolf pack, and everyone in the pack immediately knows there’s something afoot. Klaus announces his arrival, but the pack has already heard of the ‘Hybrid’….
Genteel Southern Mansion, or Lockwood home for wayward girls? Mrs. L finds a tranq dart on the floor and pours the contents into some coffee as Tyler comes down in the morning. She tells Tyler she isn’t impressed with Caroline ‘sneaking out like a prostitute’, and Tyler takes the casual road, pretending the cream’s bad in the coffee and saying Caroline isn’t a prostitute. It’s nice how boys still want to protect their mothers, right?
Poor, poor Jeremy. He goes to Matt to discuss that he’s seeing dead people, and Matt asks what we all do – why doesn’t he tell his girlfriend, the witch? The answer, other than ‘Kat Graham is clearly finishing a movie shoot’, is that he thinks she wouldn’t like it. Jeremy has apparently decided the right thing to do in this situation is to ask Matt to do a séance with him, because Vicki asked for help. Matt is, naturally, way out of his depth – and I wonder what this character does for us? Yes, he’s the only human, but on the other hand, all of us feel smarter than him, don’t we? Honestly?
Tyler fills Elena in on werewolf 102 (yes, packs, yes, Tennessee) and points out that he knows Stefan is in this mess because Tyler bit Damon. I’d say there’s a little more than a bit of martyrdom in that, but since we so rarely get that from Tyler, I’ll take it. In other news, neither he and Elena have spoken to Caroline today, and only Elena’s self-focus makes that unremarkable. I love this girl, but I’m not sure why she deserves her friends sometimes. She’s moved on to Alaric, telling him she’s hunting werewolves, and taunts him to come with her, with the old ‘You’re the one who said I could handle myself’. He agrees and says she’s driving…
At the pack, Stefan and Klaus tell the pack what’s going on, as Ray comes back to life, hungry for human blood. The werewolves don’t seem to be selling anyone else, but Klaus grabs a guy so that Ray can feed, and become a vampire, while Klaus force-feeds a woman some of his blood. It’s less gory than you might think, actually.
Tyler is not so concerned about Caroline that he can’t play pool. But he does ask if Matt knows where she is, and here comes the awkward non-pology where nobody admits to anything, and so nobody has the upper hand. Matt does, however, ask if Tyler needs help locking himself up for tonight’s full moon, and then reveals that the Grill’s coffee is laced with vervaine from time to time. Tyler gets that look of realization on his face…
Back at Mrs. L’s, she lets in a guy who, I swear, has to moonlight as a Travolta impersonator. Anyway, she calls him Bill, and references the rest of the council, so perhaps we’ve met him before. Forgive me. Carol Lockwood remembers when Caroline was born, and she’s been putting this plan together for months – to what degree, mama? But low-rent John Travolta says, of course, that they have to do what they have to do. As if he were going to say anything else.
Woods. Elena and Rick hiking. I’ve said all I can say about this pairing, but please, please, don’t write her flirty lines for him. Or maybe there are all kinds of Rick/Elena shippers out there (I’m so happy that portmeanteau have fallen out of favor) and I should shut up. He’s brought all manner of weaponry and they debate about who should wear John Gilbert’s ring to protect each other, and just as Elena’s about to get back to flirting with the only father figure she has left (while stripping off her top, I might add – who wears a bathing suit on a werewolf finding mission?) she gets thrown into a nearby lake by Damon, and I further think that if it’s shallow enough that she can stand up that tall, should he have pushed her? Anyway, blah-blah bros tell each other what’s going on.
Klaus has desecrated the rest of the pack as Ray shudders, realizing what’s happened. Klaus and Stefan discuss war strategy, and Klaus’ lips are effectively, beautifully blood coloured. Stefan’s attitude doesn’t make Klaus happy, but they’re distracted because Ray is crying blood tears…
Back at the river, Damon is demanding Elena get out of the water so he can send her home. She refuses, so he storms into the water, livid that she’s making herself unsafe by proving she’s not dead. I’m trying to see what movie they’re paying homage to here, and I can’t put my finger on it. Man In The Moon? Damon swears they have to get out of there before the full moon, and invokes the kissing they did…
Back at the pack, Klaus wants the human man to feed his newly-awake girlfriend, and Ray takes off. Which is fantastic, because Stefan gets to go after them, and get bitten by Ray, AND then gets to hear that Elena, Damon and Klaus aren’t far at all…he tries to distract Klaus…but the entire pack is crying blood tears…
Tyler, who is not much for tact, wants to know exactly why his mother fed him vervaine, and what follows is a not-very-veiled conversation of ‘you can’t be with her, she’s a monster’, which I’m sorry to say has probably been spoken by other southern mothers in this house before now. Tyler says ‘you don’t even know what I am, do you, Mom?’
The merry travelers (Elena: defiant. Damon: Protective. Alaric: irrelevant) run into the Hybrid along the road, and Elena takes him out with a dart, which is the first useful thing she’s done all episode. They’re pretty wry when they realize it’s a hybrid, and I do wonder what they think they’re getting into. They could be a little more terrified…
Jeremy’s at Matt’s, trying to get things for the séance collected. Matt gets cold feet when he sees a pretty picture of him and Vickie when they were young. WhenElena and Damon try to wake the hybrid but he’s turning into a werewolf while tied up, and it’s pretty creepy, and it’s worth noting that our girl is the one who gets them out of the woods, or at least starts the mission.
Klaus seems to have raised an entire pack of zombies who are mad at him.
As Elena and the others tear through the woods, she, in shorts and a tank, falls face-first into a werewolf. Damon, of course, of COURSE, acts as wolf bait, whereas Alaric turns into a father figure finally (what, did Elena have to BEG?) and demands that she keep moving.
Tyler brings his mother downstairs to show her how and why he is a werewolf, and how she can’t be biased about ‘monsters’. She’s all ‘What curse’ and, I mean, really? Also, how many downstairs chambers do they have, and where’s Caroline?
Damon is avoiding the wolf, long enough to run into Ray, the original hybrid (and, maybe the wolf Elena saw? I dunno.) They tussle, and even though I want to say neither’s heart is in it, it’s pretty graphic. It ends as Stefan tears Ray’s heart out. Damon, dry as a bone, tells Stefan they’d stop following him if he would stop calling Elena and crying down the phone. Stefan tries his best to deny it, and then – “see if you can keep her at home this time” - issues both challenge and dis to his brother at the same time. Which is talented.
Alaric keeps Elena in the car as she flirty-flirts that she thought he didn’t help people anymore, but she and Jeremy are lost, and they need someone, and he doesn’t have anyone either, and I am honestly, honestly you guys, the least “SUFFER THE CHILDREN” person you will ever meet but I can’t shake the “Petals-On-The-Wind” of this May-December thing. Meanwhile, as Damon comes back, and manhandles Elena into the car, she accuses him of being a ‘caveman’. It’s not until she sees Stefan, hiding in the trees, that she maybe, a little bit, unconc realizes why he pushed her…
Matt and Jere are still on the world’s most awkward double-date, and Matt stammers out that he realized nobody knew Vicki except Jere. He hands him a bagful of stuff, and the first thing that emerges isn’t the picture. Jere laments that he doesn’t have his memory of Vicki dying, because Elena had it taken from him. That’s a wound that was still fresh. And as Matt says he doesn’t remember either, Vicki comes in and says “Matty” and I get all emotional. Matt gets the idea that she’s there, but when she tells Jere she can come back, Anna appears. “Jeremy. Don’t. Trust. Vicki.”
The way they’re toting Sam’s body around, you’d think he was still good for something. But Stefan brings it back to Klaus, who confesses that all the hybrids are dead, because they went rabid? Klaus has a right-old temper tantrum, as he screams that he did everything right, he killed a werewolf, vampire, and doppelganger….and then he realizes…as Stefan’s bite comes up. He apologizes for failing Klaus and invites him to kill him. Klaus threatens Stefan via ‘It should have worked’, before slicing his hand open to make Stefan a bloodbeer. Stefan, terrified, drinks up, knowing Elena’s OK. Annoying and possibly sleeping with his brother, but OK.
Speaking of whom, she comes into her room to find Damon in her bedroom. He says he was wrong. He thought Stefan was gone, but in fact he can be saved. And he and Elena are going to bring him back together. But he needs her to answer a question. Why did she leave the mountain? What made her quit? HE makes her say that she didn’t want to see him get hurt, and, taking the tiny pleasure in the pain of that being the most she can feel for him. Then, he twists the knife that much more: “When I deliver my brother back to you, I want you to remember what you felt while he was gone”. She gets the I-want-to-kiss look on her face, and Damon blows out, past newly Dad-Rick who, as Damon leaves, wants to know if Elena’s sure she knows what she’s doing? Elena says she doesn’t, DAD.
Carole weeps in front of her newly-human-again son. She says she’ll take care of Caroline, won’t let her get hurt –
but on the phone with “Bill”, a second later, he says there’s no way they can go back. He knows what his obligations are…
In a weird chamber, Caroline finally comes to, begging for “Mrs Lockwood”? But of course, when Bill walks in, she looks up – and what does she say, but “Daddy”?
Oh MAN. Caroline having Daddy issues explains way, way more than Tyler being entitled because of his Daddy issues. Actually, in a pattern that is true for many many shows, not just Williamson ones, there are a lot of absent (or, you know, dead) dads on this show….
Only two episodes. There are 20 more deliciousnesses en route. Now do you see why I love TV so much?
